Processors

It is possible to characterize May with a single word - "mobility". Therefore, contrary to usual, we shall begin not with AMD and Intel, but with VIA and Transmeta.

The first of them has quickened just right at the end of the month, having presented a new variant of it´s C3 with E suffix in EBGA package with little better ergonomic parameters. And it has improved the speed of the whole product line - 0.15 micron 750 MHZ processor with 128 KBytes L1 and 64 KBytes L2 cache with cost price of $49. Moreover, 800 MHZ variant of the processor is expected on June, 5, on Computex - C3 promptly catches up Celeron and Duron.

Monthly 3D Digest is the project of iXBT.com devoted to release of new drivers for popular videocards (released since 20 April till 20 May ). As usual, there will be many diagrams containing the information on changes in operation of videocards at change to last version drivers, and also summary diagrams of popular modern videocards perfomance.

Hard discs and controllers

Our lab not so long ago managed to fetch a new disc model Western Digital with a record density equal to 30 GBytes per platter. As soon as I test it, I will give you the results. But already now I can speculate that it will take the lead among 5400 rpm discs, and in some parameters (e.g. in the linear reading speed) it will nearly catch up with 7200 rpm devices.