Processor

Sure, Dell's not the first company to get smacked with a bit of sharp interrogation regarding shady accounting practices, and it's definitely not the first to have allegedly collaborated with another outfit to benefit the group, but the Texas powerhouse is facing a lawsuit that accuses it of illegally accepted quite a bit of coinage it didn't (legally) deserve. The class-action suit claims that the firm "artificially inflated profits by secretly receiving approximately \$250 million a quarter in likely illegal rebate kickbacks payments from Intel in return for an exclusive deal to purchase Intel's microprocessors," which in a nutshell, doesn't bode well for either company if proven accurate.

Intel is sticking with the Core 2 Duo "Merom" processor for the time being, but is releasing new, faster versions that take advantage of Santa Rosa's faster front-side bus, which is up at 800MHz, compared to 667MHz of prior versions. The new processors are odd-numbered to set them apart, and include the 1.

The 17-inch A7S-7S006C runs a 2GHz T7300 Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1440 x 900 screen and perhaps most excitingly, the new NVIDIA GeForce 8400G mobile graphics card with 896MB of RAM. For sheer power, the ASUS F3SV (pictured) is teh win, with T7100 to T7700 procs at its disposal, up to 2GB of RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce 8600M graphics with up to 1GB of RAM.

.. aptops. The Asus G1S and G2S are updates on the G1 and G2, and will come with Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo processors up to 2.2GHz. Both models get bumps in screen resolution, with the 15.4-inch widescreen G1S moving ..

inch D531 Latitude, available with your choice of Turion 64 or Sempron processors, but lacking the SSD and hybrid storage options of the Intel-based Latitudes. From the looks of it, all three are available now, with the D630 and D830 starting at \$1,189 and \$1,249, respectively, and the D531 coming in at \$839 for the base configuration

Taking things up a notch, the C535SR packs the same display but upgrades the processor to a T7500, adds NVIDIA 8600 graphics (as opposed to the standard Intel business on the C515SR), ups the RAM to 2GB, and increases the hard drive to 120GB. Both can also be customized further to suit your liking.

inch WXGA display, your choice of T7100 or T7300 Core 2 Duo processors, Intel GMA X3100 graphics, up to 2GB of RAM, a max 200GB hard drive, a dual-layer DVD burner, and a welcome ExpressCard slot to let you take advantage of the growing amount of gear out there. Unfortunately, as is the case with many of the other Santa Rosa-based laptops we've seen, there's still no word on what it'll cost or exactly when it'll be available.

.. eup, the E8410/8490 should tout a 15.4-inch WUXGA or WSXGA display, Intel's 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 processor, and a WM3945ABG Mini-PCI WLAN module that completely shuns 802.11n. The LifeBook A6030 looks to po ..

The NX gets some updated Core 2 Duos (non Santa Rosa editions) to accompany some serious AV expansion-works while the LOOX T welcomes a bump to an ULV Core Duo processor. All available in April for prices ranging from ¥420,000 (about \$3,521) for the NX on down to about ¥150,000 (\$1,257) for a bare-bones NF model.

.. nd a 15.4-inch one on the latter model. Otherwise, each laptop will give you a choice of Core 2 Duo processors, either ATI Radeon HD X2300 or Intel GMA X3100 graphics and, perhaps most notably, a promised 10 1 ..

.. h, and 17-inch widescreen displays, respectively, and each come loaded with a variety of Core 2 Duo processors, Nvidia GeForce 8400M graphics, built-in webcams (optional in some models), and integrated WiFi (i ..

In particular, they found it to out perform all but HP's massive Pavilion HDX in their tests, aided by its top-end T7700 Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M graphics, which should even be enough for business-types to get in a bit of gaming. About the only fault they could find with it was the included 56-Wh battery, which could only eek out an hour and 57 minutes during their DVD rundown test (higher capacity batteries are available).

.. 2.1-inches (R200) to 15.4-inches (R500 and E500), these new units all come equipped with Core 2 Duo processors, between 1GB and 2GB of RAM, pleasantly non-integrated graphics from either NVIDIA or ATI, between ..

.. ce a widescreen XBRITE display, a bevy of multimedia controls atop the keyboard, Intel's Core 2 Duo processors, NVIDIA's GeForce 8400M graphics card, support for 802.11n, HDMI out, audio in / out, USB 2.0, VGA ..

.. smio G40. There's the "usual" 17-inch 1920 x 1200 screen, dual 200GB hard drives, T7300P Core 2 Duo processor (Santa Rosa), 2GB of RAM and other basic necessities like that, but things get extra interesting wi ..

.. those Santa Rosa-related upgrades, including Intel's 965 Express chipset, an unspecified Core 2 Duo processor, integrated 802.11n WiFi, and Intel's Turbo Memory cache card. The CF-52, on the other hand, takes ..

Don't get me wrong, we love Intel, combined with our OS, we've really tuned them well together. Everyone knows we use Intel processors, we'd rather tell them about the product inside the box.

The rather bulky scanner works with a number of different Rockman Star Force titles (Rockman is Megaman's original Japanese name), and allows players to swipe special cards for influencing gameplay. We're not really sure why this ¥4,200 (\$35) add-on needs to be so big and thus hinder the whole portability thing that the DS has going for it, but who knows, maybe it takes a Cell processor and some serious RAM to process those complicated bar codes.

.. ut a new setup devised by Thales UK weds an advanced GPS module, a digital magnetic compass, a microprocessor, and a "fully ruggedized display" to provide near-real time situational awareness information. Dubb ..

If you spent all those transistors trying to make a single-CPU core go faster, you would quickly reach a point of diminishing returns and processors would get twice as big but only 20% faster every couple of years. Everyone knows that multiple cores is the way to get more performance per transistor, per watt, per wafer…whatever metric you want to use.