Posted 03/12/10 at 09:00:43 AM by Paul Lilly

Citing sources from motherboard makers, news and rumor site DigiTimes says there's a shortage of mobo components, including multilayered ceramic chips (MLCCs), solid capacitors, LAN connectors, and other odds and ends. The reason, sources say, is because of recent labor shortages.

In response to the shortages, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ECS have all begun "aggressively placing orders" in an attempt to avoid having the component shortages affect overall shipments.

The good news is that the labor situation is expected to improve after April, by which time the mobo market will have entered the slow season. The tight supply of components will also improve, but component makers fear that their performance will be affected in the second quarter as top-tier mobo makers halt any new orders to avoid a surplus in inventory.

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Posted 03/11/10 at 10:47:39 AM by Paul Lilly

We're not the least bit surprised that OCZ has come out with yet another solid state drive (SSD), but here's something you probably weren't expecting: It costs less than $100.

OCZ's new Onyx SATA II 2.5-inch SSD series looks to tackle the mainstream market by putting more focus on price than it does with raw performance or high capacity. Available initially only in 32GB form, the Onxy drive offers up to 125MB/s read and up to 70MB/s write speeds, so it's not going to knock out the competition. But it will make a solid argument for a netbook or boot drive.

"As new technologies become available, OCZ continues to expand both our enterprise and consumer SSD lines, and one of our goals is to make SSDs more affordable to end-users. Our new Onyx series SSD does exactly that and is a perfect solution for netbooks, laptops, or home desktop PCs," commented Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. "Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the new OCZ Onyx SSD delivers the speed and reliability of solid state storage to mainstream consumers at an aggressive price point that makes the technology more accessible to customers who want to take advantage of all the benefits of the SSDs without incurring the high cost normally associated with the solution."

Few other details are available, such as which controller the Onyx uses, though we do know it comes with 64MB of cache and serves up TRIM support.

No word yet on when this one will make it to market.

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Posted 03/11/10 at 10:32:58 AM by Paul Lilly

During CeBIT, Mushkin was spotted showing off a new line of memory modules. Dubbed "Ridgeback," the upcoming memory kits will sport a redesigned heastpreader with ridges along the back (imagine that).

News and rumor site Fudzilla says the Ridgeback heatsink will be available in gaming and enthusiast grade memory kits in both DDR3 and DDR2 trim. These will include:

• 4GB DDR3-1600, 6-8-6-24, 1.65V
• 6GB DDR3-1600, 6-8-6-24, 1.65V
• 6GB DDR3-1600, 8-8-8-24, 1.65V
• 4GB DDR2-1066, 5-5-5-15, 2.1V

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Posted 03/11/10 at 08:19:24 AM by Paul Lilly

Remember when you could pick up a respectable memory kit for not much more than a handful of pocket lint? If you didn't pony up for a RAM upgrade back then, you might be kicking yourself now. RAM has gone up in price, and rather than spend $50 on a quality 4GB kit, you're now looking at around $100 or more.

That's still pretty cheap compared to the days of yore, but with awesome hardware on the horizon, we'd rather not blow our budget on RAM. Unfortunately, memory prices don't look to be dropping any time soon. According to DRAMeXchange, contract quotes for 1Gb (gigabit) DDR3 inched upwards in the first half of March from $2.41 to $2.69. This has pushed the price of 2GB DDR3 modules to around $41.50 to $43 (supplier pricing).

It doesn't get a whole lot better for DDR2 modules, says DRAMeXchange, who noted that early March contract prices remained high at $38 to $40. DDR2 memory might soon spike, as memory makers continue to transition capacity to DDR3.

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Posted 03/11/10 at 07:29:48 AM by Paul Lilly

Entry level motherboard makers are hoping February is nothing more than anomaly, because if it isn't, it's going to be a long year. This especially applies to ECS and ASRock, both of which noted over 20 percent on-month drops in revenue, which they attribute to a combination of fewer working days and labor shortages in China.

ASRock was hit the hardest out of the two, noting a 25 percent on-month drop. On the year, however, ASRock is up 16 percent. ECS, meanwhile, posted consolidated revenues of about $112 million, a drop of 20.34 percent on month, but down 35.51 percent on year.

Compared to the top-tier motherboard makers, only Gigabyte saw declines as sharp as ASRock and ECS, noting a 23.84 percent on-month drop. Asus' revenue fell by 10 percent, while MSI's fell by just 6.48 percent. Out of all the mobo makers, only ECS noted a year-on-year decline, while almost every other vendor saw double-digit growth.

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Posted 03/10/10 at 10:00:58 AM by Paul Lilly

Not everything being shown off at CeBIT will actually make it to retail, so we may never actually see Lian Li's PC-T1R chassis. Judging by the pictures, that might not be a bad thing.

Lian Li certainly found itself thinking outside the box on this one, perhaps a bit too far. At first glance, the PC-T1R looks like a gigantic metal spider, but that's not even the quirkiest part. What we can't wrap our heads around is why the oversized contraption only accommodates micro-ATX motherboards. The whole point of building a mATX system is to save space, but good luck stuffing the PC-T1R into your home theater cabinet or any other tight squeezes.

Misgivings aside, the PC-T1R also makes room for a hard drive, optical drive, and power supply. There's an on/off switch, and according to news and rumor site Fudzilla, should this make it past CeBIT, you'll be able to buy it in red or black for about $225.

More pictures here.

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Posted 03/05/10 at 08:42:26 AM by Paul Lilly

Citing sources from hard drive makers, news and rumor site DigiTimes says that Apple's iPad could end up slowing SSD growth in the market place. Say what?

The reason, sources say, is because the iPad might create a shortage of NAND flash chips. Apple already consumes about one-third of the total NAND flash output because of the company's immensely popular iPod and iPhone devices, and if the iPad proves to be just as hot, NAND flash supply could tighten.

The news gets even worse for SSD fans. The cost of NAND flash has been the biggest roadblock in pushing SSDs into the mainstream, and the sources noted that prices are continuing to increase. That should change once the NAND flash industry transitions to a 20nm process technology, however that isn't expected to happen until at least the second half of 2011. Bummer.

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Posted 03/05/10 at 08:17:55 AM by Paul Lilly

The hottest rumor on the Web right now is that BFG might go play for the red team and start producing ATI Radeon videocards. Could this possibly be true?

"The rumor we are hearing today is that BFG is going RED!," HardOCP.com founder Kyle Bennett posted on Thursday. "Totally unconfirmed, but given the history heard over the last few years...yes years...this does not sound implausible. I am waiting for a response from BFG's CEO, but none is forthcoming."

If this turns out to be true, it would be quite the score for AMD, who in late 2008 managed to pry XFX from Nvidia's exclusivity grip. Like XFX, BFG is one of just a small handful of GPU vendors who offer lifetime warranties on their parts, EVGA being the other.

While this wouldn't be the end of the world for Nvidia, it does seem as though the GPU maker can't catch a break. Everything from failed parts to losing the performance crown have been thorns in Nvidia's side, and it remains to be seen what kind of cure-all Fermi can provide.

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