We’ve had some Intel Core 2 Duo news today, starting with the bit about Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme shipping!

Then there’s our hands-on with a custom version of the Dell Precision Workstation 390. The machine was pumped so full of goods it was almost four times the price of the basic $1,050 configuration. The result? Fast and quiet.

Then there’s the latest Alienware Area-51 PC, which will run you $5,000. If you’re a little thriftier, there’s the $2,400 Dell XPS 410 with a Core 2 Duo E6600. – Jason Chen

The XPS 410, with Intel’s Core 2 Duo E6600 inside, is one speedy entertainment machine. Although not thrifty by any means at $2,405, this unit comes with a 20-inch widescreen LCD and lots of gamer and power-user components inside.

The GeForce7900 graphics card, dual TV Tuner, dual-port Firewire Card, and dual 320GB Serial ATA hard drives (configured in RAID0 or 1) gets you a boat-load of performance. Again, the two and a half grand price tag may put this out of range for bargain hunters, but for people who love the bleeding edge Core 2 Duo CPUs, Dell’s got a juicy unit with your name on it. – Jason Chen

Dell XPS 410 (Core 2 Duo E6600) [CNET]

This morning Intel officially announced its Core 2 Duo processors, and Dell has provided Gizmodo with a blazing fast Dell Precision Workstation 390 just in time for a Day Zero hands-on review. At first glance, the machine doesn’t look much different from previous Dell Precision Workstations, but inside is a completely different story.

Our test machine ($3893) arrived equipped far beyond its basic $1050 configuration, powered by the fastest Core 2 Duo processor, a dual core 2.66GHz “Conroe” chip that’s the next-to-the-fastest in the group of today’s Core releases, the fastest of which is the Core 2 Extreme 2.93GHz chip.

Along for the ride is 2GB of DDR2 533MHz RAM, a workstation-class NVIDIA PCIe Quadro FX 3500 graphics card, and an 80GB SATAII 7200RPM system drive. Then there’s a little high-tech jewel, a Raid-0 array with two tiny one-inch 146GB SAS hard drives spinning at 15,000RPM, a brand new piece of technology which gave us remarkable speed test results.

How fast was this monster workstation from Dell? Find out after the jump.

Don’t be fooled by that 2.66GHz clock speed, because this is the fastest processor we’ve ever seen here at the Midwest Test Facility. That’s because these Conroe processors have an extra speedy front-side bus design, a 4MB L2 cache and a 64-bit dual core architecture. They’re just more efficient all around, and Intel’s blather about how they’re faster by 50% or more is not really blather, it’s all true.

Along with that efficiency comes serene quietude. Dell has always been expert at hushing even its most powerful workstations, and this Precision Workstation 390 is no exception. Of the dozens of workstations we’ve tested here, this one is the quietest, and a few times we wondered if it was even running, only confirming such by observing its backlit power button on the front. Yes, this speedster is quiet enough to be in “church mouse” territory.

Exactly how fast is it? Let’s start with that pair of 146GB SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) hard disk drives. This is the next generation of hard disk drives, and these 15,000RPM babies lashed together in a RAID-0 array added $1000 to the price this configuration, but showed us astonishing speed, tipping our disk speed benchmarks at 160MB per second writing and an even faster read speed of 178MB per second.

The main event? Since this is the workstation-class machine, we ran a suite of benchmarks concentrating on Adobe After Effects compositions, and the Dell Precision Workstation 390 blew the doors off every machine we’ve ever tested using our suite of After Effects benchmarks. It lags slightly behind an HP dual core dual Opteron machine we tested a few months back on CineBench rendering tests, which determine 3-D graphics performance, but then that dual core dual Opteron machine costs $1500 more than this one.

Overall, the Dell Precision Workstation 390 performs as advertised, with its Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz processor delivering speed on some benchmarks that were nearly twice as fast as a dual-core dual-processor Opteron 280 machine. If you’re looking for speed, efficiency, and quietude, look no further. – Charlie White

Full review [Digital Video Editing]

When we’re testing out a PC in these parts, one of the most important considerations is how noisy is it? The Silentmaxx ST11-PRO quiet PC case is packed with acoustical material covering all of its insides, hushing any racket that might emanate from within. With plenty of room to install your own ultra-quiet fans, the Silentmaxx also has a ventilation grille atop the case, giving you plenty of ventilation if you want to install a fanless power supply.

This fine-looking case, along with some carefully-chosen fans and processors, might result in the quietest PC ever. We like that. Available in beige, black, silver or red, the Silentmaxx ST11-PRO case is $158. – Charlie White

Product page [QuietPC, via TRFJ]

Mobility Today found a picture from an anonymous Korean tipster that seems to show a corner of a UMPC-like device. Is it an UMPC? Why does the picture say Windows XP? What’s the deal with “Pocket PC Vega” too? Weird.

It’s going to be running an AMD Geode LX800 and have 256MB of RAM. August 10, the date on the picture, should be when this thing is revealed to the world. And, because it’s from a Korean site, it’s probably doubtful this thing will make it to the States, even if the possible $700 price tag makes it much more affordable than current UMPCs. – Jason Chen

Is this the first UMPC under $700?? [Mobility Today]

The silver aluminum Psile 10a with the white cover is arguably more fashionable than even the Mac Mini. Hard to believe, but the combination of the curved corners and the tongue-like CD jutting out of the front has us enamored than Katie Holmes when she saw Tom Cruise’s money.

The Psile has a white LED on the front to indicate whether the PC is on, a sole 80mm case fan to keep the unit cool, and “HDTV” connections in the back. The inside houses a mini-itx form-factor motherboard, a 3.5″ hard disk, one standard PCI slot, slot loading Dual Layer DVD burner and nothing else. The top is all one large plate, which makes it easy to remove if you feel the need to dive in and fondle some components. – Jason Chen

psile 10a [psile - Thanks Dan!]

Daewoo Lucoms apparently decided to get into the ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) game, shipping its handsomely-styled Solo M1 which has a 7-inch touchscreen, 1.3-megapixel video camera and a DMB TV tuner for those Asians fortunate enough to have access to such signals. It’s powered by an Intel Celeron 900 processor.

It looks like the Korean company has attempted to make the small Microsoft Tablet PC a little more versatile by adding a cradle station to its bag of tricks. But if it’s anything like its Korean competitor, the Samsung Q1, it’s just another pretty face which is awkward to use and doesn’t do much of anything very well. We are quite fond of its red trim, however. But red trim and style over substance is not going to get work (or play) done. – Charlie White

Solo M1 the new Made in Korea UMPC [Akihabara News, via Mobility Site]

This year we’ve been hearing lots of the Core Duo, especially when it comes to the media and their loads of Apple laptop news. But now the reviews of the Core 2 Duos are in, and they’ve supplanted the Athlon 64 FX as the top pocessor out now.

The results also show a significant advantage for Intel over AMD by pretty much every metric that counts to power users: price, performance, power consumption, and all the combinations of those three.

We’ll spare you the extreme details that you need a degree in EE to understand—we have one and we still don’t—but suffice it to say that the Core 2’s performance on everything was excellent. The $316 Core 2 Duo E6600 is a great deal for the power it’s got, and if you’re after the most amount of power, there’s the Core 2 Extreme X6800 at $999.

If you’re into the nitty gritty like charts and performance comparisons, check out the links below. – Jason Chen

Intel’s Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors
Conroe at last [Tech Report via Ars Technica]

Transferring data between systems can be a real pain in the behind, especially if you have data on one and need it on the other. Scythe’s Kama Connect is a device that make this transition a little easier. It connects two different drives, including IDE/ATA and SATA hard drives as well as optical drives, to facilitate the data transfer. When hooked up to IDE/ATA drives, the Kama connect doesn’t need an external power supply, but when connected to power-hungry SATA drives, you’ll need to use the supplied AC adapter. Additionally, it can be connected to a USB port for transfer data to another drive, if you swing that way.

It’s pretty clear that something like this would make a great addition to any PC repair center, where customers often come in saying that their “computer is broke.” Alternatively, for people who enjoy building their own PCs, it could be a bit of a time saver. At only $29.90, it’s probably worth looking into if you do a lot of transferring between drives. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [Scythe via Fareastgizmos.comm]

Case mods get more and more sophisticated, and here’s a skyscraper of a PC created by Ediejo, which started out as a mild-mannered Lian Li aluminum PC case and now it’s been taken to the extreme. Take a look at the worklog that describes the progression of techniques to put together this monster.

It’s a liquid-cooled tour de force, with its top and bottom floors stuffed with liquid-cooling paraphernalia, with two cooling loops, one for graphics and one for the CPU chip set. The guy has obviously spent thousands of hours putting together this highly-detailed machine. It’s hotrodding for the 00’s. – Charlie White

The Extreme Lian Li by Ediejo [bit-tech]

 
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Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

When reviewing a computer from Alienware (or any other “boutique” electronics manufacturer, for that matter) it’s difficult to compare to other systems on the market, mainly because these machines will offer a lot more power than your typical white box PC but also cost a good deal more than a similarly-equipped rig that you’ve built yourself. Therefore, setups like the ~$3,000 Aurora 7500 tower will never lead the pack in value, but XYZ Computing gives this particular model a thumbs up when it comes to performance, build quality, and upgradability — and those benefits don’t come cheap. As you’d expect, the 7500’s dual-core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ processor and dual nVidia GeForce 7900GT cards in SLI configuration make short work of even the toughest benchmarks, delivering more-than-acceptable framerates for high-end games even at a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200. Besides the steep price (though again, if you want this kind of power on the cheap, you’re gonna have to spend hours building your own box), there’s not much to criticize about this model, although XYZ laments the lack of dedicated fans for the dual hard drives and the fact that the toasty GPUs don’t receive the same kind of liquid-cooling love as the CPU. Still, if you’ve got some extra dough laying around, but not a lot of extra time, it sounds like you can rest assured that the Aurora 7500 will deliver the top-notch fragging capabilities you desire.

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AOpen improves on their mini pc with the MP945-VXR. Fans of small computing will enjoy the Intel 945GM chipset which provides Gigabit Ethernet, DVI, Firewire and USB support. There’s a single slot for DDR2 memory up to 667Mhz, and no PCI express slots—only a miniPC connector used for WiFi.

The brains consist of a Core Duo processor that has support for Intel ViiV. Available for $955, which is a little bit more than the Mac Mini. This’ll be good for quiet home theatre systems or people who like to keep their work area nice and tidy. – Jason Chen

AOpen re-styles second-generation MiniPC [Reg Hardware]

 
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Okay, so this isn’t actually a “Media Center,” Sony likes to call it a Digital Living System featuring MCE. But that is just fancy talk for a media center. This machine packs quite a punch. It is powered by a Viiv-compatible dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, GeForce 6600GT, wireless keyboard w/ touchpad, wireless networking, 200 disc changer, optical burner, HD tuner and—gasp!—an HDMI port! The price on this machine starts at a hefty $2,500.

PCMag took a hands-on look of the XL2 and they seem to be thoroughly impressed. The XL2 is described as another step to media center nirvana by Sony. It surpasses its competitors in power and features and with the addition of a HDMI port this one of the better media centers out there, as long as you can afford it and your TV supports HDMI. Oh, and did we mention that it looks pretty? Oooooo, so shiny. – Travis Hudson

Sony Vaio XL2 Digital Living System [PCMag]

 
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AppleInsider is reporting that the line of educational-use eMacs may be resurrected with a new look and better parts. Straight from the horse's mouth:

Based on a series of proprietary checks, it's believed that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is aligning component suppliers for a manufacturing ramp of the computers that it plans to initiate around the September timeframe.

Apple developing new Mac for education [AppleInsider]

This is one badass PC tower, the VHPextreme that was just unveiled by Sonica Audio Labs. It's configured for pro audio but would work on just about anything you throw at it, with its two dual-core 64-bit 3.7GHz Pentium D965 Extreme processors, 2GB of RAM, 680GB of SATA II storage, quad-monitor (two DVI ports) graphics and a whole lot more. Since it's configured for audio production, we especially like its ultra-quietude, using a heat pipe cooling mechanism to keep the noise down to a barely-noticeable 28db.

Take a good look at this machine—we're thinking this configuration might be similar to the next-generation Mac Pro desktops due to arrive at the end of this year, but then they'll probably cost a whole lot more than this VHPextreme workstation's paltry $3750. – Charlie White

Product Page [Sonica Audio Labs, via Create Digital Music]

While the the argument posited by this piece is pretty flimsy, it's important to realize that the blogosphere is pretty much down on Vista. Essentially, this piece says that Vista's apparent failures will send folks flocking to Linux and that folks with low-end machines who can't make Vista purdy will also be willing to contend with Tux for a bit until MS gets its act together.

This is quite a specious argument. Unless Linux software vendors start advertising during So You Think You Can Dance and Sing and Sleep With the Director?, there is no chance in hell of this happening. Linux is an attendant lord, not a desktop player. However, this also means that MS better make Vista the all-singingest-all-dancingest operating system in its history. Anything less might convince the folks at home that BootCamp might be a good idea.

However, as XYZComputing points out, if Linux vendors make a push to create specialized versions of the OS for folks with gimpy computers, the possibility is very real that we could see a minor or even major push onto the desktop. Will it happen? Probably not, but a kid can dream.John Biggs

Future for Vista Looks Bleak, but Where's Linux? [XYZComputing]

We present you with the Sony UX ultra-portable PC. Here are the facts known so far. It has a 7-inch touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Core Solo processor, Wi-Fi, biometric sensor, two cameras, Windows XP Pro, 3G and Bluetooth. Whew, that was a lot. These details and specs are from an anonymous tipster over at Mobility Today, so be warned it could still be a fake. It is still pretty sexy, and more competitors can knock down prices—so hooray!

Sony UX pics surface in our mailbox [Mobility Today]

We present you with the Sony UX ultra-portable PC. Here are the facts known so far. It has a 7-inch touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Core Solo processor, Wi-Fi, biometric sensor, two cameras, Windows XP Pro, 3G and Bluetooth. Whew, that was a lot. These details and specs are from an anonymous tipster over at Mobility Today, so be warned it could still be a fake. It is still pretty sexy, and more competitors can knock down prices—so hooray!

Sony UX pics surface in our mailbox [Mobility Today]

 
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Related: FastMac Painted Mac Minis
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Like the painted harlots that once danced for David, these Mac minis bring shame unto the house of Jobs. For it is said that when a mini colors itself or lengthens its neck to be more beautiful, it is a harlot and drives men to lust after her. FastMac even includes a special putty knife to remove your old cover.

Starting at $69.95—more lust!—FastMac can paint up the top of your mini in a few days and there’s even a beige model with rainbox Apple logo for that retro feel.

Product Page [FastMac]

 
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Something good has gotten into Dell. At E3 it gave us a sneak peek at its next-generation XPS gaming desktop, with an aluminum case that comes with either red or black accents, and leans forward as if it's encountering a stiff wind. Gone is the stodgy fogey-ish design of previous Dell cases, replaced with a post-industrial gridlike design with user-controllable lighting in your choice of seven colors. Dell has always been expert at thermal engineering, and it credibly touts the quietude of this upcoming workstation as well.

Nice. It's about time Dell hired a designer or two. Looks like some friendly "co-opetition" with its new purchase, Alienware. This we gotta see. Check out the sneak peek site with its eerie music and spooky graphics.

Dell XPS Sneak Peek Site

Not exactly like the 32 GB Flash drive that Samsung rolled out in March, the hybrid hard drive (HHD) is a combination flash and standard hard disk that’s going to be used to cut down boot times of laptops and PCs.

Microsoft’s new Windows ReadyDrive will be reintroduced May 24th to take advantage of these new types of drives at the annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference—they were announced last WinHEC as a project code-named “Piton”. The drives and the software should be out around the time Vista is launched, since they’ve been tailoring the drives for use in the new OS.

What does this means to you? Well, if you have one of these drives with Vista, expect to boot really, really fast. Great for the living room Media Center machines that are going to be built on Vista.

Instant Booting Comes Close to a Reality [The Korea Times]

 
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Gateway, like Dell, wants to make itself a contendor in the high profit margin area of gaming computers. But instead of buying Alienware, Gateway's released the FX510XL, which got a score of 4 out of 5 from PC mag.

The FX510XL comes with a 21" LCD widescreen monitor, Logitech Z-5300e 5.1 speakers, 3.73 GHz Pentium EE 965, 2 GB of ram, 1 TB of hard disk, a dual layer DVD burner, ATI X1900 Crossfire video card, and a TV tuner. All these parts together combine to make the total price $4,781.00, which is prohibitively expensive to the average PC gamer. But compared to similar offerings from other high end gaming PC makers, it's actually a value.

Gateway FX510XL [PC Magazine]

A group of Chinese hardware pirates have created a group of factories, a sales force, and even a line of products all under the NEC moniker. Not only did their representatives carry NEC business cards, they:

n the name of NEC, the pirates copied NEC products, and went as far as developing their own range of consumer electronic products - everything from home entertainment centers to MP3 players. They also coordinated manufacturing and distribution, collecting all the proceeds.

If you really think about it, was really the perfect scam. Microsoft has a number of physical anti-piracy measures in place and the current stature of NEC in the market makes it a great patsy.

Next step in pirating: Faking a company [IHT via TechDirt]

 
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When Steve Jobs says: "The new products in the pipeline are the best I've ever seen in my life," he means it. And think of some of the products he has seen in his life: sliced bread, the steam locomotive, and penicillin.

J_bs then told investors to potentially expect an Apple DVR as well as but he kind of said it in this sly, annoying way that made us think this thing will come out in 2078 alongside the touchscreen iPod and the 40-inch MacBook Pro++. When one shareholder asked for the DVR, Jobs said: "We hear you loud and clear." Tool.

Jobs touts product pipeline to Apple shareholders [MacWorld]

In this Gizmodo Clip, our own loving editor, John, builds a DreamArcades.com Head-to-head Arcade Cabinet. It’s long, so watch this only during lunch.

Product Page [DreamArcades]

 
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