The Everex gPC2 and Cloudbook will only be avaiable online, due to lackluster brick-and-mortar sales

While consumer-oriented Linux has been on a rise of late due to healthy sales of the ASUS Eee PC, and Dell which offers a range of notebooks and desktops preloaded with Ubuntu on their website, the store shelves don’t quite seem ready for the March of the Penguins to reach their desktops.

Wal-Mart, the sole brick-and-mortar retailer of Everex’s $199 gPC, has effectively pulled the Linux-based machine off its store shelves, citing a lack of demand. Oddly enough, the in-store supplies of the gPC were sold out across the approximately 600 stores that received shipments — but Wal-Mart spokesperson Melissa O’Brien stated that “This really wasn’t what our customers were looking for.”

Online buyers didn’t appear to share these feelings, and the Wal-Mart.com site is now offering the second-generation gPC2 for sale, in addition to Everex’s CloudBook, an ultraportable Linux laptop aiming to cut into the Eee PC’s market.

With competition in the low-budget PC market heating up in 2008, the lack of licensing fees could mean that Linux will be found on many more desktops and laptops — but if the sales of the gPC are any indication, it may still be some time before it gains a serious foothold in the mainstream retail market.

According to Net Applications, Linux held on to only 0.67% market share in January 2008. This figure pales in comparison to OS X which commanded 7.57% of the market and Windows which continues to outshine all with 91.46% of the OS market.

As we expected, Apple just loosed the iPhone into Ireland and Austria. €399 nabs the 8GB model while €499 takes the 16GB unit home. T-Mobile has the honors for Austria as it does in Germany while O2 carries the flag in Ireland as it does in the UK. Interestingly, Irish subscribers are not entitled to Visual Voicemail or free WiFi even though you get both on O2 UK — neither country offers an unlimited data plan. Tsk tsk. Regardless, early adopters from those countries already had their unlocked iPhones months ago which makes the launch just a formality at this point.

[Via MacRumors]

Read — Austria
Read — Ireland

You know how we love the electric cars around here, but internal combustion sure does sound sexy — a big V-8 literally brings the noise in a way the nearly-silent whir of an electric motor can’t hope to match. Well, it looks like the mad geniuses behind the $80,000 Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid have hit upon an appropriately high-tech solution: speakers placed inside and out that allow drivers to give their rides any sound they want, including one described as “like something between a Formula One car and a jet plane.” Interesting, to be sure — but seeing as the Karma can hit 125mph and go from 0-60 in six seconds, we’d be happier if that rig just screamed at people to get out of the left lane.

[Via Autoblog]

AMD plans to launch two Phenom X4 and three X2 models within the next three quarters

AMD’s latest roadmap reveals the company’s model numbers for the performance and mainstream Phenom X4 and X2 processors. Despite AMD issuing model numbers, the clock speeds are still ballpark figures and not yet set in stone. AMD has two Phenom X4 and three X2 models planned. Three of the models are set for a Q4’2007 launch.

The Agena-based Phenom X4 processors carry the GP-7xxx model number. There will be two Phenom X4 GP-7xxx processors at launch – the GP-7100 and the GP-7000. AMD plans to clock the Phenom X4 GP-7100 from 2.2-to-2.4 GHz. The Phenom X4 GP-7100 has a 3600 MHz HyperTransport 3.0, or HT3, bus speed. The lesser Phenom X4 GP-7000 has a targeted clock speed between 2.0-to-2.2 GHz and a lesser HT3 bus speed in excess of 3200 MHz. The two quad-core processors will have 89-watt thermal ratings.

AMD plans to launch one Phenom X2 GP-6xxx model by the end of the year. The Phenom X2 GP-6550 joins the Phenom line up next quarter clocked somewhere between 2.0-to-2.4 GHz. The first Phenom X2 to launch has a 3600 MHz HT3 bus speed. This model has a TDP of 65 watts.

Two more Phenom X2 GP-6xxx models will join the lineup in Q1’2008. The Phenom X2 GP-6650 will launch first between 2.2-to-2.6 GHz with a 3600 MHz HT3 bus speed. This model has a 65-watt TDP, similar to the GP-6550. The next Phenom X2 GP-6xxx model to launch is the GP-6800. This model has a higher 89-watt TDP, but still a dual-core processor. AMD aims for a 2.4-to-2.8 GHz clock speed with a 4000 MHz HT3 bus speed.

In Q2’2008, AMD plans to launch one more Stars processor based on the Rana core. This model does not carry the Phenom name because it’s a lower end mainstream processor without L3 cache. The Athlon X2 LS-2350 aims to clock in at 2.0-to-2.2 GHz with a 3200 MHz HT3 bus speed.

The 3.0 GHz Phenom processor that AMD demonstrated last week during its Analyst Day does not appear anywhere in the most recent desktop roadmap.

AMD’s latest guidance explains that sample availability for AM2 Phenom will begin in the “September/October” window, with box stock during “November/December.”

Years ago, when the first primitive heat spreaders started gracing memory modules, the response from enthusiasts about the scene was varied – some felt that they helped to uniquely identify sticks and dissipate heat, while others felt that the utilization of thermal tape was providing more of an insulator than a medium to transfer the heat. To this degree, some users slipped the spreaders off, while others added them on – often with little difference. As time rolled on, heat spreaders become commonplace, with manufacturers adding their own flair to sticks with unique spreaders around. While some manufacturers took to adding other bits onto their sticks – like the Pro and Xpert lines from Corsair, many of us still felt these additions to be frivolous. In that spirit, we look at Corsair’s Dominator line today. With a promise of better overclocking through greater heat dissipation, it’ll be up to us to determine if the DHX technology contained within can become overclocking fact, or passed off as simple frivolous fiction. Let’s get started

The Modules

Packed in a custom formed PVC package, these thin modules stand out for their bold ridged looks, which clearly draw inspiration from their past two lines listed off in the introduction. Looking at them from the front, you’ll either see the dominator logo, or an extended ratings sticker gracing the front – depending which way your vendor’s packed them into the sleeve before shipping them down your way. Extending from those spreaders are myriad thin black columns, each helping to carry away the heat generated by the faces of each module, and looking to the sides of the forward spreader, a small hint of gold plating adorns the customized black PCB, printed and developed specifically by Corsair to carry heat away from the modules via the ground plane.

Its through this custom PC and design to dump heat into the ground plane that the DHX technology is derived. Termed as DHX – an acronym for Dual path Heat eXchange, this technology is intended to help alleviate the stresses generated on the modules. By pushing a portion of each stick’s heat into the ground plane, and the rest into the anodized silver fins between the black fins attached to the faces of the module, these sticks are capable of handling much higher voltages with lower temperatures – to a degree that I was able to operate them at their rated voltage (2.4V), frequency (1,142MHz), and latencies (5-5-5-15) passively, with only mild heat generated by the modules in a case with moderate airflow. This will definitely come in handy when users are pushing the sticks further and further on 680i motherboards, especially with the high voltages certain motherboards (see DFI) will soon be able to provide. Granted, these custom heat spreaders and PCBs do come with a price premium, but considering the entry level modules aren’t all too much more than standard sticks, I’d wager the efforts are worth it.

On a side note, these sticks have been built and bred for NVIDIA’s brand new 680i platform, utilizing EPP to help the new users come to the high clocks required by the sticks – some time s without even boosting the FSB with the ability to un-link the memory and front side bus frequencies. Moving back to the packaging, the inset pamphlet does a rather good job of explaining what’s been outlined above, advertising these modules as perfect for “A system built to exceed standard expectations” – in short, boasting their high frequencies as being the perfect companion for casual overclockers. Rather then spend time splattering the packaging in awards from all across the web and print worlds, Corsair’s made a bit of an effort for the casual user – by flipping the pamphlet open, you can see a simple, 3 step process to installing each module – something that every enthusiast is usually able to do without seeing the target area. Then again, considering its pitch toward the common user, it’s nice to see the simple effort made to allow them to get the job done out of the gate, rather than asking friends for help on it. With this brief tour of the packaging done, it’s good and time to do an evaluation of the overclocking potential, and giving them a performance test.
Overclocking / Performance

The Test Bed
E6400, @ 3200MHz (8*400), 1.55V
Asus P5B-Deluxe, Stock. FSB Wall at 450MHz
2x 1024 Corsair PC2-9136 “Dominator” Modules
ATI X1600Pro 512 Advantage, Stock @ 635/355.5
Corsair HX620 Modular PSU, Stock.

For the time being, testing is being done on 3 fronts – theoretical (SiSoft Sandra), practical (Super-Pi), and theoretical gaming (3DMark 2001). Over time, other tests will be added (Doom 3, F.E.A.R, G.R.A.W and other time demos) in order to represent practical gaming. Along with that, Everest will also eventually be added to the loop to measure memory latencies.

Alright, you guys know the drill on how it’s done – since testing is being done with the P965 based ASUS P5B-Deluxe, all clocks will be locked to the FSB in one way or another, and while I would definitely love to be hitting 1,142MHz at 1:1, this board has a habit of hard limiting before 500MHz, which is somewhat disappointing; then again, it may be a processor wall. To the point, though. Before scaling the clocks up sky high, it’s usually nice to crank down the latencies, and see what sort of timings the sticks can hold at common speeds. For me, the prime of those speeds would be 800MHz – which is a nice 1:1 step with the FSB my E6400 oh-so-adores. As to the scores, just crack the screenshots open.

It’s actually rather unfortunate that modules rated for CAS5 at 1142 are unable (on this motherboard, at least) to boot and stay stable at CAS 3. I found that the lowest stable latencies I could muster at 800MHz (whether dropping the ratio at 266 FSB, or setting it to 1:1 at 400) would be 4-4-4-4 @ 2.4v. Boosting the voltage here didn’t help much, possibly due to the known weakness of the P5B on v-dimm. Based on the results of others with these very sticks, I’m fairly sure that booting CAS3 on the 680i would be possible, though asking for CAS2 would be a definite stretch.

Still, booting with the 4 pack of 4 latencies wasn’t all too bad, and they managed to carry their numbers to 1,000MHz, a figure which many out there would be rather enjoying at either 400MHz FSB (my 4:5 divider is wonky, so no dice there for you), or 500MHz. The modules were able to carry these figures up to 1,066 MHz (2:1 at 266), though not with much more stability than suicide runs. Raising the latencies to CAS5 helped here.

In order to reach the rated frequency, I unfortunately had to loosen timings out to what’s been listed on the box – the aforementioned 5-5-5-15. Beyond this point of 1,142MHz, there was actually NO headroom to be found on this motherboard, a limit not imposed by the FSB, which sat at 286Mhz (2:1 ratio). It’s disappointing that there was no headroom beyond this point, granted users picking up the sticks now won’t have any worry about holding onto them until a future upgrade. The article – will – be updated in future when a 680i board is in the house, but for the time being, just pop on over to the performance section of this article to see how these sticks dart about the benchmarks at the collection of frequencies listed above.
Conclusion
Though expensive, these sticks do give you a nice amount of headroom – especially if you can nail high FSBs on your P965 board. Along with that, they stay nice and cool, and considering the reports of some sets passing 1,300MHz around the web, I’d wager they have some promise for users who want to hold onto them. Along with that, the bold stylings and good builds of these modules ensure that they’ll look good in systems for a time to come now – along with having a nice, high resale value if you want to upgrade at the next speed hop along the way. For taking the first step toward this innovation, and offering a nice, fast path to your system future, these sticks are well worth the bronze award

AMD puts its processor lineup back on track

Hark! The long awaited B3 stepping of AMD’s Opteron and Phenom finally made its way to system integrators this week.

AMD made it virtually impossible to obtain any K10-based Opteron processors after the TLB bug caught the world’s attention last December. Desktop Phenom processors continued to ship, though the BIOS workaround for the TLB race condition severely hampered performance on some benchmarks.

The vendor who obtained the B3 sample photographed (right) couldn’t be more ecstatic. “There’s been no Opterons since November. We’ve even been shipping Socket F Opterons to fill AMD orders. This is a big deal,” he tells DailyTech.

“Pre-production” Opterons sent to Torrent search engine IsoHunt last February were later revealed as gray-market B2 stepped processors, which AMD tracked to October 2007 samples.

In addition to fixing the TLB race condition, AMD will finally increase the core frequency of the Opteron series on the B3 stepping. After the initial OEM orders are filled, channel vendors like Newegg and TigerDirect will carry the new Opterons in frequencies ranging from 1.8 GHz to 2.4 GHz. Vendor estimates put this e-tailer ship date in early April.

AMD roadmaps also indicate the Phenom and Opteron lines will reach 2.6 GHz before this Fall on the new B3 stepping. In 2009 both lines will transition from the 65nm to the 45nm process node, codenamed Shanghai, with additional SKUs at higher clock frequencies.

B3 Opterons can be easily identified by the “GH” as opposed to “GD” at the end of the product number. With the exception of Phenom and Opteron SE processors, AMD emphasizes to DailyTech that no vendor should be selling or distributing “GD,” and customers who obtain these older B2 steppings should contact their local AMD distributor.

Remember the rumor we saw floating about a few weeks ago about a Nokia N810 refresh? Well, the lads at The Boy Genius Report are reporting — on a rumor mind you — that Nokia is set to launch its N810 refresh with WiMAX at CTIA in April this year. Interestingly, the name will remain the same, and not be labeled the Nokia N830 as we’d first thought. Yeah, it’s only a rumor at this point, but we’re thinking that giving this radio-less internet appliance a bit more reach is nothing but a good thing.

Check it high-enders. DigiTimes has been milking their Taiwanese motherboard sources for information about Intel’s laptop-class, Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor. They’ve come away with a Q3 ship date and price of $1,038 when purchasing the quad-core proc in bulk. Digitimes’ own sources had originally pegged the QX9300 for a May release. But such is the life of the muckraker.

Check it high-enders. DigiTimes has been milking their Taiwanese motherboard sources for information about Intel’s laptop-class, Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor. They’ve come away with a Q3 ship date and price of $1,038 when purchasing the quad-core proc in bulk. Digitimes’ own sources had originally pegged the QX9300 for a May release. But such is the life of the muckraker.

Recently there has been a lot of talk about how piracy affects PC gaming. And if you listen to game developers, it apparently is a foregone conclusion – if a high quality PC game doesn’t sell as many copies as it should, it must be because of piracy.

Now, I don’t like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales. But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well made games? I don’t think so.
Is it about business or glory?

Most people who know of Stardock in the gaming world think of it as a tiny indie shop. And we certainly are tiny in terms of game development. But in the desktop enhancement market, Stardock owns that market and it’s a market with many millions of users. According to CNET, 6 of the top 10 most popular desktop enhancements are developed by Stardock. Our most popular desktop enhancement, WindowBlinds, has almost 14 million downloads just on Download.com. We have over a million registered users.

If you want to talk about piracy, talk about desktop enhancements. The piracy on that is huge. But the question isn’t about piracy. It’s about sales.

So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don’t go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That’s what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they’re developing for. But not PC game developers.

PC game developers seem to focus more on the “cool” factor. What game can they make that will get them glory with the game magazines and gaming websites and hard core gamers? These days, it seems like game developers want to be like rock stars more than businessmen. I’ve never considered myself a real game developer. I’m a gamer who happens to know how to code and also happens to be reasonably good at business.

So when I make a game, I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable. As a gamer, I like most games. I love Bioshock. I think the Orange Box is one of the best gaming deals ever. I love Company of Heroes and Oblivion was captivating. My two favorite games of all time are Civilization (I, II, III, and IV) and Total Annihilation. And I won’t even get into the hours lost in WoW. Heck, I even like The Sims.

So when it comes time to make a game, I don’t have a hard time thinking of a game I’d like to play. The hard part is coming up with a game that we can actually make that will be profitable. And that means looking at the market as a business not about trying to be “cool”.
Making games for customers versus making games for users

So even though Galactic Civilizations II sold 300,000 copies making 8 digits in revenue on a budget of less than $1 million, it’s still largely off the radar. I practically have to agree to mow editors lawns to get coverage. And you should see Jeff Green’s (Games for Windows) yard. I still can’t find my hedge trimmers.

Another game that has been off the radar until recently was Sins of a Solar Empire. With a small budget, it has already sold about 200,000 copies in the first month of release. It’s the highest rated PC game of 2008 and probably the best selling 2008 PC title. Neither of these titles have CD copy protection.

And yet we don’t get nearly the attention of other PC games. Lack of marketing on our part? We bang on the doors for coverage as next as the next shop. Lack of advertising? Open up your favorite PC game publication for the past few months and take note of all the 2 page spreads for Sins of a Solar Empire. So we certainly try.

But we still don’t get the editorial buzz that some of the big name titles do because our genre isn’t considered as “cool” as other genres. Imagine what our sales would be if our games had gotten game magazine covers and just massive editorial coverage like some of the big name games get. I don’t want to suggest we get treated poorly by game magazine and web sites (not just because I fear them — which I do), we got good preview coverage on Sins, just not the same level as one of the “mega” titles would get. Hard core gamers have different tastes in games than the mainstream PC gaming market of game buyers. Remember Roller Coaster Tycoon? Heck, how much buzz does The Sims get in terms of editorial when compared to its popularity. Those things just aren’t that cool to the hard core gaming crowd that everything seems geared toward despite the fact that they’re not the ones buying most of the games.

I won’t even mention some of the big name PC titles that GalCiv and Sins have outsold. There’s plenty of PC games that have gotten dedicated covers that haven’t sold as well. So why is that?

Our games sell well for three reasons. First, they’re good games which is a pre-requisite. But there’s lots of great games that don’t sell well.

The other two reasons are:
Our games work on a very wide variety of hardware configurations.
Our games target genres with the largest customer bases per cost to produce for.

We also don’t make games targeting the Chinese market

When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they’re not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn’t likely to pay for the game?

If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won’t buy your game, then why support them? That’s one of the things I have a hard time understanding. It’s irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you’re in the business of selling games that is). It’s only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.

Stardock doesn’t make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think “Duh.”

You need a machine how fast?

Anyone who keeps track of how many PCs the “Gamer PC” vendors sell each year could tell you that it’s insane to develop a game explicitly for hard core gamers. Insane. I think people would be shocked to find out how few hard core gamers there really are out there. This data is available. The number of high end graphics cards sold each year isn’t a trade secret (in some cases you may have to get an NDA but if you’re a partner you can find out). So why are companies making games that require them to sell to 15% of a given market to be profitable? In what other market do companies do that? In other software markets, getting 1% of the target market is considered good. If you need to sell 500,000 of your game to break even and your game requires Pixel Shader 3 to not look like crap or play like crap, do you you really think that there are 50 MILLION PC users with Pixel Shader 3 capable machines who a) play games and b) will actually buy your game if a pirated version is available?

In our case, we make games that target the widest possible audience as long as as we can still deliver the gaming experience we set out to. Anyone who’s looked at the graphics in Sins of a Solar Empire would, I think, agree that the graphics are pretty phenomenal (particularly space battles). But could they be even fancier? Sure. But only if we degraded the gaming experience for the largest chunk of people who buy games.

The problem with blaming piracy

I don’t want anyone to walk away from this article thinking I am poo-pooing the effect of piracy. I’m not. I definitely feel for game developers who want to make kick ass PC games who see their efforts diminished by a bunch of greedy pirates. I just don’t count pirates in the first place. If you’re a pirate, you don’t get a vote on what gets made — or you shouldn’t if the company in question is trying to make a profit.

The reason why we don’t put copy protection on our games isn’t because we’re nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don’t like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don’t count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor – we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry.

One of the jokes I’ve seen in the desktop enhancement market is how “ugly” WindowBlinds skins are (though there are plenty of awesome ones too). But the thing is, the people who buy WindowBlinds tend to like a different style of skin than the people who would never buy it in the first place. Natural selection, so to speak, over many years has created a number of styles that seem to be unique to people who actually buy WindowBlinds. That’s the problem with piracy. What gets made targets people who buy it, not the people who would never buy it in the first place. When someone complains about “fat borders” on some popular WindowBlinds skin my question is always “Would you buy WindowBlinds even if there was a perfect skin for you?” and the answer is inevitably “Probably not”. That’s how it works in every market — the people who buy stuff call the shots. Only in the PC game market are the people who pirate stuff still getting the overwhelming percentage of development resources and editorial support.

When you blame piracy for disappointing sales, you tend to tar the entire market with a broad brush. Piracy isn’t evenly distributed in the PC gaming market.

Blaming piracy is easy. But it hides other underlying causes. When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue.

In the end, the pirates hurt themselves. PC game developers will either slowly migrate to making games that cater to the people who buy PC games or they’ll move to platforms where people are more inclined to buy games.

In the meantime, if you want to make profitable PC games, I’d recommend focusing more effort on satisfying the people willing to spend money on your product and less effort on making what others perceive as hot. But then again, I don’t romanticize PC game development. I just want to play cool games and make a profit on games that I work on.