intel

For future of enterprise computing, watch consumers

The enterprise computing industry seems like it's turning into one big utility company.

It's a good thing the accountants didn't have to sit through the keynote speeches during the first two days of Oracle OpenWorld, because no one would be allowed to attend next year. Hector Ruiz of Advanced Micro Devices showed video clips of Star Wars and the World Series. Mark Hurd of Hewlett-Packard discussed whether or not he thought Oracle's Larry Ellison could beat him at tennis. At least Intel's Paul Otellini tailored his Tuesday morning address to the actual attendees of the … Read more

New PCs available with Intel's new quad-core chips

Our review of Intel's new Core 2 Extreme quad-core chip went up last week, and our findings, along with the general consensus around the Web, were that the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 is the new king of the CPU hill. Today you'll find these new chips available from various system vendors in their high-end gaming rigs, although it's interesting to see who has the chips and who doesn't. Here's a rundown of the big names:

The haves: Alienware's Area-51 ALX CF Falcon Northwest's Mach V Maingear's F131 SLI Velocity Micro's Gamer'… Read more

The secret history of the sub-$1,000 computer

Once upon a time there were no iPods, iPhones, Xboxes, Blackberrys, or Tivos. Really, I'm not kidding. There were PCs, though. And they were really expensive. But we didn't have anything else to spend our money on, so that was OK. We paid $2,000 for our PCs and liked it.

Back in those days, there were three microprocessor companies--Intel, AMD, and a little Texas (it's an oxymoron, I know) company named Cyrix. If you don't recognize the name, that's because Intel had such a lock on PC makers back then that Cyrix's processors were sold primarily through the third-party reseller channel.

It's a popular misconception that Cyrix "cloned" Intel's processors. Cyrix's processors were actually all original designs. In fact, Cyrix's manufacturing partners--initially Texas Instruments, later IBM and ST Microelectronics--licensed Cyrix's designs for their own branded processors. … Read more

Intel ready for 2008 with Penryn

The planned launch of Intel's Penryn processors on Monday is the first blow in a one-two punch that might stagger AMD heading into 2008.

Just a few months after the launch of AMD's quad-core Barcelona chips, Intel is hitting back with Penryn, now known as the Xeon 5400 family of processors. A total of 15 server chips are set to launch Monday as well as a new Core 2 Extreme desktop processor, with Penryn chips for mainstream desktops and notebooks scheduled to launch in the first quarter of next year.

Penryn is essentially a shrink of the Core architecture … Read more

The Gizmo Report: an Eee PC in the house

I recently mentioned my plan to get the new Eee PC laptop from Asus in spite of a price hike just before the product was introduced. The Eee PC is basically a low-cost subnotebook intended for developing markets, like the One Laptop Per Child project's XO, which I've also written about here--but unlike the OLPC, the Eee PC will be regularly available in commercial channels.

Well, earlier this week, I found the gizmo for sale over on Newegg.com and placed my order. A mere $458.45 later, including California sales tax and two-day shipping, it was … Read more

Intel invests $10 million in security company

Intel Capital announced Thursday a $10 million investment in security company Iovation, which targets online fraud and abuse based on the identification and "reputation" of Net-enabled devices.

Device reputation tracks whether a particular machine has a history of negative online behavior attached to it.

Intel, which led the $15 million round, is increasingly tapping into the security market. And the chip giant is not alone. Other hardware vendors from networking giant Cisco Systems, which already has a large footprint in the security market, to storage titan EMC, which acquired RSA in a $2.1 billion deal last year, … Read more

Intel considered buying graphics heavyweights Nvidia, ATI

As rival AMD was preparing to snap up graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies, Intel was considering topping AMD's offer or going after Nvidia, according to one of the company's top executives.

In an interview with The Inquirer, Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group, said Intel looked "pretty closely" at making a play for Nvidia or ATI, the two largest graphics chip companies in the world. Obviously, that never happened, as AMD closed its acquisition of ATI last year and Nvidia continues on as a standalone company.

Intel had some … Read more

Intel going mobile with Android?

Phone makers aren't the only ones interested in Google's Android software.

Of the 34 companies that agreed to join Google's Open Handset Alliance, Intel's decision to participate is yet another sign that the chipmaker is looking for alternative software to run on its Mobile Internet Device (MID) project. Most of the attention around Android focused on the mobile-phone market, and with good reason, as that area will be the first to get a sense of whether Google and its partners can actually make headway in this area.

But the world's largest chipmaker would still like … Read more

More Gphone chatter

I co-hosted the Buzz Out Loud podcast with Molly Wood today. Topic (suprise): Gphone. What else? Also covered: Why the Asus eee PC rocks and why the Foleo was killed too early.