In terms of performance, it seems AMD's current Sempron processors are what Intel's Celerons were a few years ago, but they can be pretty useful in mobile devices, multimedia centers and other devices that don't need an impressive amount of processing power, especially if pricing is right. The only problem is that everyone, especially programmers, is aiming to have applications optimized to work with multiple cores, so AMD decided to launch dual core Semprons.


After a few delays, AMD quietly revealed the first dual core Sempron processor. For now, it's only available in China, but it won't take long until it becomes available all over the world. Now, we should see how well is this thing going to sell, because it won't break any performance barrier, that's for sure.

The first dual core Sempron has a clock speed of 1.8GHz, and was manufactured using the 65nm process technology. This processor has a retail price of about $55, cheaper than the AMD Sempron LE 1300, but for only $13 more, you could get an AMD Athlon X2 4000+, and the big question is - does the dual-core really have a place in the market?

Well, since Intel released dual-core Celerons last month, I guess there should be a market for such low-end dual core processors too, after all. We just need to wait and see what happens next...

Once upon a time, when talking about high-end sound cards, the only answer one would get was "Creative". Obviously, other producers, like Yamaha, were also producing sound cards for professionals, but Creative always had the largest part of the market, and managed to bring together decent prices and excellent quality. Now, they are facing a serious challenge from Asus, as they just announced new products to arrive in the Xonar family...


In short, the story goes like this - Asus plans to introduce soundcards that can both input and output HDMI, as well as a card with no less than 3 HDMI ports.

One of the first cards to arrive in the near future is the Xonar DX, basically a Xonar D2X cut in half. This card is designed to fit into home entertainment center PCs using the PCIE X1 interface, and it doesn't have the aluminum EM shielding that was practically the D2 and D2X's trademark. Leaving the above aside, Asus will provide gold-plated brackets, as well as a full set of features, including the 4-pin floppy power connector.

A product currently between the hammer and the anvil is the Xonar AV1, a card developed to be the foundation for future Xonar-based products, with capabilities well ahead most consumer and prosumer-level card currently on the market. The Xonar AV1 will come together with a HDAV-DB1 daughterboard, having more than 10 different inferfaces, including two external and one internal HDMI port.

These being said, I am not getting into any additional details for now, because I am sure we'll hear a lot about these products in the future, but one thing is certain: as Sony feels threatened by the Eee PC, Creative may soon feel Asus' breath down its neck...

If you didn't buy an Asus Eee PC, you probably know someone that owns one, and if that's not true either, I am sure you heard of the thing, at least that! When I saw it for the first time, I was quite surprised, and didn't expect to see it sell so well. I usually don't believe what the local press says, not "official" reports from local retailers either, but I have friends working in the field, and I know for sure that the Asus Eee PC had really strong sales. I see no problem with that, but Sony seems to have nightmares about the Eee PC leeping it up...


According to Mike Abary, “If Asus [Eee PC] starts to do well, we are all in trouble. That’s just a race to the bottom.”. Mr. Abary is Sony's information technology products division senior vice president, so he must know what he says.

In fact, there's no surprise with the Asus Eee PC, since the device delivers its users only what they need, leaving the extra features nobody is using aside. While Sony goes for high priced laptops and desktop computers, Asus just reminded everyone about what they really need.

“Traditional PCs are too powerful, no matter in the home or office; we are seeing quad-core rising with octo-core coming in the near future, and the more cores in a CPU, the more memory the system needs. Is all this really necessary? With the Eee PC we decided to go back to basics, to bring the focus to just functions and reasonable price levels.", said Jonney Shih, Asustek's CEO, and that's completely true. Unfortunately, this truth hurts Sony, and may hurt some other big boys in the future...

It seems these days you can't go away for more than a day or two far from any contact with the news sites without missing some merger, takeover or new formal alliance in the IT world, and I am not thinking about rumors here! Today, it's about three companies with a pretty long history - Acer, Packard Bell and Gateway. I know the title only reveals one part of the entire deal, so let's uncover the secrets...


Not so long ago, Acer acquired Gateway, which had about 1.6 percent of the global PC market, while Acer had 6 times that amount. With Gateway under tis wings, Acer controlled almost 9 percent of the market, but the European Comission just approved the acquisition of the Dutch company Packard Bell, thus adding an extra 2 percent market share to Acer, the part previously controlled by them before being purchased, of course.

While Acer is a global supplier, established in Taiwan, Packard Bell has a stonger position in the European market, so this move may even help Acer increase its market share even more. The reason is that Packard Bell only suppied desktops, notebooks and various digital entertainment solutions, while Acer also produces servers and advanced storage solutions, LCD monitors and HD TVs.

At this time, no details about the deal are public, so this is all we got for now about the Acer-Packard Bell problem.

Intel's Itanium brand name is used for their processors implementing the Intel Itanium architecture, formerly known as IA-64. Using this brand, Intel released two families - the original Itanium, followed by the Itanium 2, as you probably know already. The first Itanium was released in 2001, with clock speeds starting at 733MHz, and the newset one, codenamed Montvale, was launched in November 2007. While all Itanium processors after 2002 were known to belong to the Itanium 2 family, Intel just announced a return to the roots...


Vendors were informed by Intel that the Itanium 2 brand is being dropped, and they are going to get back to the roots, replacing it with the old "Itanium". This is going to happen starting on the 2nd of March, 2008, and is a part of Intel's new branding strategy (pretty weird strategy, if you ask me!).

"In order to comply with our new branding strategy, [Itanium 2 parts] will undergo a part mark change. The part will no longer be marked with Intel Itanium 2 but will now be marked Intel Itanium.", said Intel.

This branding change affects the entire Montvale family, which includes 11 dual core processors, and two single-core ones. The next Itanium generation will still be called "Itanium", but that's something we'll discuss about some other time...