Troubles don't seem to end for AMD's Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card, with sources indicating that AMD has no new product launches till late-August. Sections of the press reported that the HD 7990 could be released some time this month. A couple of factors could be behind the delay. For starters, there have been reports of shortage of PEX8747 PCIe bridge chips by PLX, which is at the heart of dual-GPU graphics cards, including the GeForce GTX 690. Another factor could relate to how AMD plans to achieve competitive price-performance and performance-Watt ratios for the HD 7990. Meanwhile, launches of NVIDIA's mid-range GeForce GTX 660 Ti and GTS 650 are reportedly closing in.
Shacknews is reporting BioShock Infinite has been delayed. BioShock Infinite is going through some "tweaks and improvements," according to Irrational's Ken Levine, forcing the company's upcoming shooter into a Q1 2013 release. Oh, and don't plan on reading about it from E3 or GamesCom, either. In a note to fans on the Irrational site, Levine said the size and scope of the game forced them to delay the game until Feb. 26 of next year: "We had a similar experience with the original BioShock, which was delayed several months as our original ship date drew near.
Why? Because the Big Daddies weren't the Big Daddies you've since come to know and love. Because Andrew Ryan's golf club didn't have exactly the right swing. Because Rapture needed one more coat of grimy Art Deco." Levine said they plan to use the time they would normally be preparing for upcoming conventions to refine the game so the next time it is shown, it will be "essentially the product we intend to put in the box." We already knew that Irrational was staying focused on the main game and trying to avoid distractions, but if delaying it a few months will make it play like the originals, then the added wait will be forgotten quickly.
In what could come as a disappointment to some, Intel has reportedly put off mass-shipments of its third-generation Core processors (codenamed "Ivy Bridge") to June. The company, however, will go ahead with its April launch schedule, and will issue small shipments of these chips. This information comes from sources among notebook manufacturers.
This delay, however, doesn't appear to be linked to Intel's ability to ship the new 22 nm chips. Sources say that most notebooks vendors are having a very hard time digesting inventories of current-generation "Sandy Bridge" Core processors, and so the delay is merely to help them ship the last of their notebooks running current-generation chips, and to minimize the impact of the onset of new chips. Notebook vendors are currently seeing lukewarm demand.
Market release of Razer's Tiamat 7.1 channel gaming headset has been delayed yet again. Originally slated for Q4 2011, Tiamat has been a troubled product launch for the otherwise consistent Razer. In December, Razer apologetically
announced that they were facing development setbacks and had to delay market launch till end of January, 2012. Well, we're now at the fag-end of the month, with no Tiamat launch, yet. Instead what we got is another announcement by Razer, saying that the product launch is further delayed to some time in February, 2012.
Originally slated for March 22, NVIDIA has reportedly delayed the launch of its new high-end GeForce GTX 590 graphics card to March 24, sources told Expreview.com. The reason for this delay is not known, and NVIDIA isn't confirming this delay. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 is a dual-GPU high-end graphics card that uses two GF110 GPUs in an SLI on a stick solution.
Originally slated for a November 22 launch, AMD's next-generation enthusiast-grade GPU, the Radeon HD 6970 may face some launch delays, according to industry sources. Apparently the company is yet to finalize a launch driver and BIOS for the HD 6970, and that could push back launch by a little. Meanwhile, a Zol.com.cn contributor let out some juicy pictures of the HD 6970 reference design accelerator.
Intel's Core i5 series marks the consumer mainstream entry of the Nehalem architecture, in a bid to propagate quad-core processors, at the same time letting the market digest existing inventories of dual-core processors, and making sure its foundries are well-oiled to cater to the 32 nm process, Intel is giving its "Lynnfield" quad-core processor a quarter's head-start. Taiwanese industry observer DigiTimes notes that the platform' debut may have been delayed by a little over a month.
Originally slated for July, the industry debut of Lynnfield and its launch companion, Intel P55 chipset, have been pushed to early September. Stocks of the processors and compatible motherboards however, will be in time for the launch. The processors may be available to retailers about a week ahead, in late August itself, while compatible motherboards even earlier, in mid-August.
Intel plans to start the lineup with three models (yet to be named), clocked at 2.66 GHz, 2.80 GHz, and 2.93 GHz, and priced at US $194, $284, and $562 respectively (in 1000-unit tray quantities). Major motherboard vendors such as ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI have already displayed some of their first compatible motherboards. The P55 chipset itself is expected to be priced at $40.
Just under an hour after the public release of the Windows 7 beta was expected to launch, there has been an update on the Windows 7 Blog, as to why the beta has not been made available yet:
Due to very heavy traffic we're seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to the Microsoft.com properties before we post the public beta. We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and I'll be posting here again soon once the beta goes live. Stay tuned! We are excited that you are excited!
So far as we know, the beta was scheduled to be released to the public at 12pm PST (Pacific Standard Time) on the official Windows 7 website. For now though, we wait.
Micron on Monday said to CNET that it would start mass-production of its long-awaited RealSSD C200 256GB solid state drives early next year. More specificaly, a Micron representative said that the company will start volume production in March 2009, and although both Micron and Intel have just unveiled 34nm memory technology, the 256GB SSDs won't utilize it. Using the new 34nm process will allow both companies to deliver drives with over 300GB of storage space, but that's another story plus these drives won't come out until the end of 2009. According to some information given before, the 2.5-inch Micron RealSSD C200 256GB SSDs will read data at 250MB/s and write at 100MB/s. The new SSDs will have a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface and will make use of MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash chips. Previously, Micron said the drives were to enter mass production in Q4 2008, but the chipmaker is slightly behind schedule and won't make it until next year.
The AM3 socket finally gives AMD Processors access to DDR3 memory. The only complication is that processors must feature DDR3 integrated memory controllers (IMC). Earlier roadmap slides had shown that the RD890 and RS880 along with SB800 would be the first platform with AM3 compliance. However, sources tell Expreview that AMD would not be ready with the chipsets by the time AM3 processors come out. Hence, AMD would be using the existing high-end duo of 790 FX and SB750 which would be re-launched in H1 2009 that support AM3 sockets. It is known that 790 FX supports HyperTransport 3.1 links that would offer processors system interconnect bandwidths of up to 6400 MT/s.
Another chipset that has been pushed to H1 2009 is the AMD 760G, which is a mainstream chipset with integrated graphics. It was expected that this would come out sometime in Q4 2008.
While Microsoft was getting very excited at the prospect of having a product ready to deliver, some people from QA had other thoughts. Apparently, Vista SP1 is not ready for prime time, and Microsoft does not think it will be ready until roughly March. Ironically, the thing that made QA think twice about unleashing Vista SP1 was a report declaring that Vista might have quite a few driver incompatibilities with current machines. And so, instead of finding themselves in the contempt of hundreds of thousands of gamers, hardware enthusiasts, and system integrators everywhere, Microsoft is working hard to make Vista SP1 a very competent product.
