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Posts Tagged ‘Intel’

When you think business-class PCs, you think functional. Durable. Powerful. Boring. Dell, however, wants you to think “beautiful”. That’s the vision behind the strikingly thin, surprisingly gorgeous Dell Vostro v130. Part of Dell’s “Vostro” small business lineup of PCs, the Vostro v130 is powerful (Core i5 ULV processor, 4GB RAM, Intel HD graphics, 500GB 7200rpm drive), light (only 3.5lbs) and beautiful (just look at it!)…and starts at an amazing $429. Mine, configured with the specs above, runs about $900.

It’s an impressive little PC that stands out from the business PC crowd like a red dress at a black tie … [Read More...]

Thunderbolt to compete with USB 4.0 rather than USB 3.0

A Thunderbolt chip inside Apple’s newest Mac Book Pro (image courtesy ifixit.com)

If Intel thought that launching Light Peak would help tamp down the nervousness over its new I/O technology, it certainly isn’t playing out that way.

Light Peak, now dubbed Thunderbolt, was never without controversy but now that it’s finally here, the critics aren’t ready to put away the slings. After its launch, the New York Times opined: Is Thunderbolt Really a Thunderbolt? and questioned its consumer value. Slate wondered if it was a worthless grasp at the past? … [Read More...]

Ultralights aren’t for everyone, but with the ThinkPad X220, Lenovo sure is doing its best to make the case that they can be.

This latest version of its super-slim executive standby is ThinkPad doing everything it does best. Still impossibly portable — at 3.3 pounds despite the bumped-up 12.1-inch, 1366 x 768-pixel display — Lenovo packs in everything a traveling professional (or just about anyone else) is likely to need.

The centerpiece is a new Core i5 “Sandy Bridge” processor, which upends the middling performance usually expected from an ultralight. Benchmarks trounce just about everything we’ve tested of late — … [Read More...]

Sony lifted the curtain on a pretty sweet new laptop, the high-end VAIO S Series. The new 13.3” PCs boast some pretty impressive specs, like new “Sandybridge” i5 and i7 processors, solid state drives, backlit keyboards, Blu-Ray and hybrid AMD Radeon HD 6630 graphics that auto-switch between discrete and integrated GPUs. They also feature Intel Wireless Display 2.0 (i.e., “WiDi), which is the newer, faster, smoother version of WiDi 1.0, which I shot a video on last year.

As always, Sony built a really beautiful PC. The new S is available in black or white and is built from magnesium … [Read More...]

Stream HD video without wires—for real

Many have promised wireless HD video streaming; Netgear is the first to actually deliver it. The 3DHD Wireless Home Theater Networking Kit, which consists of a pair of Netgear WNHD3004s, delivers amazing performance. On the other hand, it’s so expensive ($230 street) that you could almost hire an electrician to string Ethernet cable.

The kit contains two devices that look much like Netgear’s old routers: One functions as an 802.11n wireless access point that you hard-wire to your router, and the other functions as an 802.11n wireless bridge that you hard-wire to your home-theater … [Read More...]

It may not feel like it when you step outside, but we’re only a few weeks away from the start of Spring.  To celebrate the end of 6-daylight hour days, freezing temperatures and permanently grey skies (here in the Northwest, at least), Ryan and I wanted to share some of our favorite Spring PCs.  Everything that we’re covering in the video – the Toshiba Satellite L635 Kids PC, ASUS U36Jc, HP Pavilion dm1z, Acer TimelineX 1830, Dell XPS 14, Sony VAIO Z, Samsung SF 510, and Lenovo U260 – is stylish, lightweight, and has plenty of power to get you … [Read More...]

You don’t need to spend a fortune to take advantage of Intel’s newest platform

Previous builds in this section have tended toward the expensive side, whether they’ve been the $8,600 photo studio or our $1,800 mini-ITX gaming build. While we stand by those choices (this is Maximum PC), we’ve also heard your cries for more affordable options. Often, a budget build means buying parts that are a little past their prime—and don’t get us wrong, you can find great deals there. But for this month’s build, I knew I wanted to explore Intel’s hot new Sandy Bridge architecture—and, if I … [Read More...]

Last Sunday, AT&T kicked off a special offer where you can buy an Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T and a Windows Phone (either a Samsung Focus or LG Quantum) for just $199.99 with new 2-year service agreement. It’s a pretty sweet deal for a Windows 7 PC and a new Windows Phone 7 device!

The AS1830T comes with some pretty nice specs: an Intel Core i3 Processor (1.2 GHz), an 11.6” backlit LED screen, and up to 9 hours of battery life. You can explore the capabilities of this PC from AT&T’s website here.

So if you’re looking at picking up … [Read More...]

A new generation of GPUs from Nvidia and AMD has hit the streets. Both camps are offering incredible performance and the widest array of features ever before seen in graphics cards. But, inevitably, each side brings its own unique strengths and weaknesses. What better way to determine the performance champ than by letting this season’s new crop of cards duke it out in the various price categories?

On one side is AMD, the self-proclaimed master of efficiency, looking to hold onto the glory it grabbed when it shipped the original Radeon HD 5870—a surprise contender that knocked former champ Nvidia … [Read More...]

The brave new world of LGA1155

There’s good news and bad news for Intel lovers. The bad news is for folks who just bought a motherboard using the LGA1156 socket: Yup, it’s obsolete already. The good news: The LGA1155 motherboards using Intel’s performance P67 chipset are swimming with improvements such as native SATA 6Gb/s support, front-panel USB 3.0 headers, and UEFI. The biggest change, of course, is support for Intel’s new line of Sandy Bridge CPUs. These second-generation Core ix processors are not only fast, they’re cheap and overclock like hell. To find a suitable home for your new Sandy … [Read More...]

AMD vs. Intel? Feh. For power users, it’s all about quad-core Sandy Bridge vs. hexa-core Gulftown (or if you’re not up with the brevity thing Core i7-2600K versus Core i7-980X). Maximum PC’s Gordon Mah Ung highlights the kinds of sacrifices you might have to make if you decide to go with the hexa-core when configuring your next machine. And, surprisingly, a high-clocked Sandy Bridge system will give its older sibling a shockingly good competition.

You can find Gordon’s official reviews of both machines here and here.

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This article was written by MaximumPC (Source)… [Read More...]

Sandy Bridge and GeForce GTX 580 appear

Who came up with the concept of a vertically oriented motherboard that positions the graphics cards upright so the tremendous heat they generate vents straight up?

It’s hard to say who first had the idea—we’ve seen cases that feature this design, and the Main-Gear Shift PC that we reviewed in June 2010 took the same approach. But Falcon Northwest claims it had a stake in the original idea and has even provided time-stamped images of its prototypes of the inverted design from 2002. That certainly predates the aforementioned examples, as well as Voodoo’s … [Read More...]

Can we build a PC that’s quiet and cool without sacrificing performance—or spending a fortune?

Anyone can build a gaming PC. Seriously, it’s easy. Minus a few technological bits of know-how here and there, there’s really nothing that tough about buying the fastest components you can afford and slapping them in whatever chassis you happen to have on hand. Done, right?

Maximum PC never shies away from a challenge, however, and Sr. Associate Editor Nathan Edwards has upped the ante for this month’s build-it. One of the key problems of building a tricked-out rig is that you’re sure to increase … [Read More...]