In Technology Bytes Windows 7 Benchmarked, outperforms predecessors
After Windows 7 beta 1 leaked, many bloggers caught hold of it very soon and started testing/using Windows 7. We saw Ed Bott from ZDnet reporting about the changes in the Windows 7 beta 1 license agreement. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from ZDnet has benchmarked Windows 7 with its predecessors Windows Vista and Windows XP. The Windows 7 build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400 was considered for testing. Since its 32bit, it was tested against 32bit versions of Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.

In Technology Bytes XFX is ready with ATI

XFX is now ready with its initial lineup of ATI Cards. Pictured below are its first two models based on the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 graphics processors. Something interesting that both use black coloured PCB, neither are 100% reference ATI design, and in fact, XFX designed its own cooler for the Radeon HD 4850 512 MB (model: XFX HD485X-YDFC). The Radeon HD 4870 in the picture is the 1 GB variant (model: HD487A-ZDFC). Both accelerators use AMD reference clock speeds. These cards will be released within the first two weeks of this month. More information as we come across.

Sources: techPowerUp!

In Technology Bytes GTX 285 Hits Stores in Honk Kong, no Official annoucement

NVidia hasn't made any official annoucement about GTX 285 but is expected to be released next week. GTX 285 have already started to reach stores as found Hong Kong and codenamed GV-N285-1GH-B, the Gigabyte-made card has 1GB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 2484 MHz, 240 Processing Cores @ 1476 MHz and a core frequency of 648 MHz.

The GTX 285 has a 512-bit memory interface, triple SLI support, dual-DVI connectivity, two 6-pin PCIe power connectors and CUDA, PhysX capabilities. Price wise, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 285 has been found with tags as low as $412.8 / 296.3 Euro.

Source: techPowerUp!, TechConnect , HKEPC

In Technology Bytes Seagate Ups Storage Density With Single Platter 500GB HDD
Seagate, a vetran with fixed data storage solutions, already holds the reputation of making the conventional HDD with the highest unformatted capacity, 1.5TB. The company now looks to step-up the per-platter storage density with the introduction of high-capcity HDDs with single platters.

Hard drives with single platters are not only economical to manufacture and sell, but also could actually have lower access times since data is read and written on only two surfaces (either sides of a platter). The first in line will be the 500GB Seagate Barracuda (model: ST3500410AS) under the new 7200.12 series which is yet to be announced. As the name suggests the drive will have spindle speeds of 7,200 rpm. The drive will have a 16 MB cache and will use the standard SATA II interface. These drives will be available in the first week of January, priced under 50€.

Source: techPowerUp!

In Hardware Intel Introduces New Mobile Dual-core and Quad-core Processors
Intel has released a total of five new mobile processors over the holidays, including one quad-core CPU and four dual-core models:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 - 2.0 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 6MB of L2 cache, TDP 45W - $348
• Intel Core 2 Duo T9800 - 2.93 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 6MB of L2 cache, TDP of 35W - $530
• Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 - 2.66 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 6MB of L2 cache, TDP of 35W - $348
• Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 - 2.66 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 6MB of L2 cache, TDP of 25W - $316
• Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 - 2.53 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 6MB of L2 cache, TDP of 25W - $241

Source: techPowerUp!, TechConnect Magazine