HP LP3065 30-inch Flat Panel Monitor

For the average business-class user, extra RAM, a faster processor or a more powerful video card won't necessarily increase work efficiency or productivity. One of the best ways to boost your productivity is to add more inches, of screen real estate that is. If you simply add another monitor or get a bigger one, you can quickly realize the benefits of extra desktop space, like less Alt-Tabbing and more windows open at once.

Although the work efficiency / productivity argument is an important one in the business world, most of us enthusiasts find it somewhat unexciting to think about. We just love having bigger and bigger monitors, especially for PC gaming and watching movies on our computer. We've had the pleasure of reviewing a couple of large LCDs in the HotHardware labs, and today we're going to spend some time with HP's new flagship flat panel monitor, the LP3065.

The LP3065 sports an awe-inspiring display size of 30 inches. A big monitor means a high resolution, and in this case, that resolution is 2560x1600, which is a 16:10 ratio. This monitor is undoubtedly impressive at first glance, but how does it perform? Read through the following pages to find out.

Autumnwave OnAir USB HDTV Creator

When you work with computer hardware virtually everyday for years on end, it's easy to become desensitized as to how much technology really has changed. Take my history here at Hothardware.com as an example. It was October of 2000 when I submitted my first article and since that day, my artilce tally has reach triple digit status. Back then, Intel was getting ready for a November release of their Pentium 4 , ATI rolled out their first Radeon , and NVIDIA was pushing the GeForce 2 . Microsoft's Windows ME and 2000 were the Operating Systems of the day and when it came to TV on the PC, choices were limited with ATI's All-In-Wonder Pro 128 being the hottest hardware of it's kind.

Back then, there were no Multimedia Center PCs or Digital Video Recorders and HDTV was still in its infancy. Fortunately for us, times have surely changed. Today, PCs can be the centerpiece of our digital media experience, DVRs are common offerings from cable companies and TV tuners for PCs have been delivering terrific image quality as of late, as seen with NVIDIA's DualTV and ATI's Theater 650 Pro . When it comes to HDTV, however, both offerings from the big two graphics giants are lacking. With NVIDIA's DualTV, HDTV is not an option and the Theater 650 Pro only supports OTA signals, leaving those in remote areas, where it's nearly impossible to pick up a signal, out in the cold. Factor in laptop users and the idea of TV on the PC gets even more limited.

Today, we're going to review a TV-Tuner that addresses several areas where options have historically been limited. The OnAir USB HDTV Creator is a USB 2.0 based TV-Tuner solution from AutumnWave that supports analog and digital TV signals and is one of the few model available that can deliver HDTV over a cable connection rather that just OTA sources. As USB based product, the unit is compatible with any PC available, from the smallest laptop to a full-fledged gaming PC or workstation. Matched with an LG tuner and NVIDIA's PureVideo Silver decoder, the OnAir USB HDTV Creator brings a host of features that look impressive from the outset.

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Performance Preview

Thirty million transistors on the head of a pin. Think about that for a minute. Where on earth can you fit 30 million of anything in that amount of space? It used to be that 30 million transistors was a good-sized chip. These days, in a 45nm Hafnium-based High-K process, it almost seems like we (OK, OK, Intel...) can defy the laws of physics. We're talking rocket science here people. Actually, it's probably a bit more complex than rocket science. Titanium (Ti), Zirconium (Zr), Gallium (Ga), heck we've even heard of Rubidium (Rb), but Hafnium? Is someone at Intel just making this stuff up?


Processors using Intel 45nm Hafnium-based High-k Metal Gate transistor technology - 30 Million such transistors fit on the head of a pin. - Source Intel Corp.

Whether you fancy yourself a scientist that can appreciate naturally occurring isotopes utilized in leading-edge manufacturing processes, or maybe you're a gear-head that knows four cores running at 3.2GHz is just "freakin' fast" - there is no denying that Intel is completely unstoppable currently, when it comes to semiconductor process and manufacturing R&D. No other semiconductor company in the world is shipping anything in high volume at 45nm. That's 45 nanometers or .045 micron if you prefer. Sure, 45nm has been "demonstrated" by the likes of IBM, TSMC, and Charter Semiconductor but getting to volume is a completely different ball of wax altogether. Few companies have the resources and capital that Intel has to bring the technology to market first. And when it comes to processors comprised of 800 million plus transistors, every tenth of a micron counts.

Let's do some quick math, since we're feeling all smart and scientific. The new 45nm Intel Yorkfield processor that we'll be showing you today has a die size that measures about 214mm square and is comprised of about 820 million transistors. Comparatively, AMD's Athlon 64 X2 6000+, that is built on a 90nm process, is comprised of some 227 million transistors and has a die size of 218mm square. So we have a 45nm-built processor with four times as many transistors and 2X the number of cores on board, that is actually slightly smaller than the other with one quarter the number of transistors and half as many CPU cores. Not to mention both of these processors have comparable power consumption and thermal profiles.

To coin a John Madden-ism, "speed kills". And with processors, smaller die geometries simply bring lower cost and lower power consumption along with killer speed. In the world of semiconductors and high-end desktop CPUs, it can be said that "process kills". Today Intel is previewing the world's first 3.2GHz quad-core X86 processor. Why? Because they can. Though the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 will not be available for sale until Q1 2008, we've had the chip in-house at HotHardware for the better part of a month. In the pages ahead we'll show you how a 45nm quad-core processor can stretch its legs. Scientists, Physicists and Gear-Heads take note, Intel is jacked up on Hafnium and is breaking out past the 40, heading for the end-zone.

PNY's Latest Attache Optima USB Flash Drive: 8 GB, Capless Versatility

Although it's best-known as a manufacturer of various computer memory modules, the PNY company has also launched quite a comprehensive line-up of USB flash drives over time, rounded up under the Attache brand. And while most of these products sport a rather classic design (with a removable cap),
that's not at all the case with the latest model coming from PNY, the Optima, which features a swiveling module, hidden within a tough external case.

However, the swiveling design is not necessarily the most important selling point this device has to offer, as the Optima provides relatively large storage capacities, of 4 GB and 8 GB, as well as some pretty good internal features. Thus, the flash drive provides read speeds of up to 25 MB/s and write speeds of up to 10 MB/s, as well as data transfer rates of up to 480 Mbps (it connects to a host computer via an USB 2.0 connection, after all).

As most other modern flash-based portable storage solutions available on the market, the Attache Optima comes pre-loaded with quite an interesting security system, namely an encrypted virtual disk. Thus, the Carry It Easy software will encrypt (128 bit AES encryption) and hide all the files in special, invisible partition. Whenever the user activates the program and keys-in the right password, the protected block will be activated as a disk shown on the Windows File Explorer that can be used as a normal physical disk.

Moreover, in the tradition of PNY Attache drives, the new Optima is also Vista ReadyBoost compatible, which means that it can help boost a computer's performances without forcing the user to purchase new and expensive hardware.

Attache Optima security software

The 4GB drive is available at several retailers for around 29 pounds sterling (60 US dollars), while the 8GB drive sell for around 58 pounds sterling (120 US dollars), which are not exactly very small prices, but they're relatively normal, compared to other similar devices available on the market.

MSI P6N Diamond - NV680i with X-Fi Audio

Not too far back, there was a time when it was inconceivable that a motherboard had anything other than a green or mustard colored PCB that had a few sockets for the CPU and DIMMs, maybe a hard drive connector or two, and a floppy drive connection. Keyboards and mice were typically PS/2 based, although a COM port sufficed for those still attached to their serial mice, and the list of input/output options were quite few. The late 90's brought about the rise of the Universal Serial Bus, a new standard for interfacing with devices intended to retire legacy serial and parallel ports (although that still has yet to fully come about). Integrated LAN options as well as limited IGPs also began to expand the options of a motherboard, essentially making motherboards almost completely integrated, while taking sales away from third-party AIB vendors.

One final piece of the puzzle came about by adding audio to the mainboard, most often by the way of an audio CODEC chip. Up until now, a few companies had tried their hand at producing audio cards with mixed success. The king of add-in audio solutions, Creative Labs, held court by either outperforming or simply outpurchasing the competition, until they were left as the de-facto standard. The onrush of integrated components, however, lowered the demand for many of Creative's higher-end (and higher priced) audio cards. It's estimated that the retail sales of their discrete audio cards only accounted for 10% of their total sales number for 2006. Logically, to stay competitive and keep the Sound Blaster legacy alive, there was really only one direction to turn to; to get "creative" in the motherboard field as well.

On-board solutions from Creative Technology, as they are now known, are not necessarily new. Onboard versions of their Live! chipset have been around mostly on OEM boards for years, and the 24-bit Sound Blaster Live! has been promoted on some of the upper level boards in the last couple of years as a suitable replacement for gamers with support for 24 bit, 96 kHz surround audio and EAX Advanced HD. MSI was one of the first manufacturers to adopt it in the K8N SLI Platinum and it is MSI that again pushes the envelope by including an integrated solution based on the Creative X-Fi audio processor.

10 Reasons to Upgrade to Visual Studio 2008

At the beginning of this week, Microsoft made one more definitive step towards the Global Launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 on February 27, 2008, with the release to manufacturing of its latest version of the Visual Studio development suite. Although the final product is not scheduled to become available until the end of February of the coming year, MSDN subscribers can already grab it in tandem with the .NET Framework 3.5. Visual Studio 2008 is tailored on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, formerly codenamed Longhorn, and Microsoft even provided a list of incentives designed to convince developers to jump on the
latest edition of VS.

"We put together a great document called the Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Visual Studio 2008, which I’d encourage developers to take a look at – and that’s really just the beginning of what this release offers. Visual Studio 2008 delivers over 250 new features, makes improvements to existing features including performance work on many areas, and we’ve made significant enhancements to every version of Visual Studio 2008, from the Express Editions to Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)," revealed S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft.

The "Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade" resource is available for download via this link and offers developers Microsoft's own perspective over the relevance of Visual Studio 2008. According to the Redmond company, Visual Studio 2008 will enable developers to: "work with data in a unified and integrated way; work with user interface designers, employ the latest web user interface techniques, build stunning applications for Windows Vista, build higher quality applications with integrated unit testing, enjoy great support for designing web applications, build applications that run on multiple versions of the .net Framework, build Office-based applications, use workflow and communication tools, and benefit from performance and stability across the board."

Blu-ray Beats the Crap Out of HD DVD

Yes, folks, the ongoing battle between the two competing next-gen DVD formats is far from over and it seems that the scales are slowly tipping in favor of Sony's little Blu-rayed baby, as the latest figures released by the Blu-ray Disc Association show a huge gap between the two formats,
although just in a specific domain, that of recorders.

Thus, according to the figures provided by market research firm GfK, it seems the Blu-ray has really KO'd HD DVD, at least as far as DVRs are concerned. Thus, in the week ending on November 11th, just 2.8 per cent of them were HD DVD units. The remaining 97.2 percent were, as expected, Blu-ray devices (while the previous weeks were not exactly a lot better, Blu-ray reaching a percentage of around 98.7 at some point).

Although these figures might seem to be pretty unfavorable to the HD DVD side, the truth of the matter is that there a few reasons why this situation was to be expected. First of all, the number of Blu-ray based DVRs is a lot larger than that of their HD DVD-powered counterparts. Then, the research was carried out in Japan, where Sony's format is a lot more popular than Toshiba's, partly due to the increasingly higher popularity of the PS3 (although this is quite a strange situation, especially since both next-gen DVD formats are of Japanese origin).

Will these figures affect the future of the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray war? Well, it's not very likely, especially since, the "old" DVD is still going pretty strong (it still accounts for around 80.2 of the sales of recording units, compared to just around 19.8 for the next-gen devices) and it will take quite a lot of time for these two new competitors to dethrone it.