October 14 - 10:30am EDT   The increasingly widening scope of NVIDIA graphics failures now includes certain Apple and HP desktop systems, according to a pair of reports. Officially, HP now says that several variants of its Pavilion Slimline mini-tower using certain GeForce video chipsets have had their warranties partly extended to address the same symptoms suffered by notebooks with the defective parts, including a loss of video output and occasionally a refusal to start up altogether. The PC maker is extending the warranties on these problems for an extra year or up until December 31st, 2009 and will replace the mainboards for free under the plan. [full story]

October 14 - 8:05am EDT   Samsung this morning stepped up competition by jumping into the American notebook market with several models, including some of its most recent systems previously reserved only for Europe and Korea. The 13.3-inch X360 and 14.1-inch X460 headline the launch as Samsung's thinnest and lightest systems. As with the original version, the X360 is positioned against the MacBook Air with a 13.3-inch display and a slightly thicker (0.6 to 1.2 inches) body in exchange for a lighter 2.8-pound weight; it carries either a 1.2GHz or 1.4GHz ultra-low voltage Core 2 Duo, either a 120GB hard drive or 128GB solid-state drive, and full expansion that includes three USB ports, Ethernet, ... [full story]

October 10 - 2:30pm EDT   eMachines has chosen an unusual mid-Friday launch for the EL 1200, the company's first small form factor PC. The system's case is about 40 percent smaller than eMachines' normal mini-towers and consumes less power as well; all models carry a 1.5GHz Athlon 64 chip that demands just 15W of power by itself. The range potentially serves as a budget home theater PC with HDMI-out and more recent integrated GeForce video as an option. [full story]

October 8 - 2:50pm EDT   Joining with Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba, ASUS on Wednesday became the latest to unveil its first notebooks specifically capable of using Sprint's new Xohm service. The 14.1-inch F8Va-C2WM is billed as the true mobile WiMAX system of the collection but carries a comparatively high-end 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive that amount to a $1,599 price point. [full story]

October 7 - 1:45pm EDT   According to an analyst with the Pacific Crest Securities, chipset manufacturer NVIDIA will stop making media and communications chipsets in 2009, representing 21 percent of the company‘s current revenue. While the Tuesday report notes that NVIDIA had flat-out denied similar rumors back in August, its partners AMD and Intel are both are breaking into the mainboard chipset business themselves, Intel with in-house efforts and AMD with the recent purchase of chipmaker ATI. [full story]

October 7 - 8:50am EDT   ASUS on Tuesday set out to claim a first for notebooks by launching the 17-inch G71 notebook. The system is the first gaming-oriented notebook to have the option a true mobile quad-core processor rather than using a large, hot-running desktop part. The shift not only lets ASUS produce a reasonably-sized system but also removes some of the barriers on performance; although the stock Core 2 Extreme chip runs at 2.53GHz, the lack of hardware restrictions lets owners overclock the processor to levels that more closely match desktops. [full story]

October 7 - 8:00am EDT   AMD this morning took a radical step to improve its fortunes by launching into its promised split into two separate companies. The plan will see AMD break off its semiconductor manufacturing business into a separate company, for now known as the The Foundry Company, and will result in the new company both assuming about $1.2 billion of AMD's debt and the Abu Dhabi-based firm Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) supplying about $2.1 billion to both start up the new company as well as to help earn a majority stake in the project, which will also give it 55.6 percent of shares. [full story]

October 2 - 11:30am EDT   Along with its new displays, Acer today marked the US release of the Aspire Predator, the company's first dedicated gaming PC. The copper orange tower is designed for access with a sliding front bay cover, front ports and a tool-free hard drive cage accessible from the outside; it also comes with built-in liquid cooling and three PCI Express X16 slots (plus one X8) to support multi-card graphics. [full story]

October 1 - 8:50am EDT   HP on Wednesday rolled out its first 13.3-inch home user's notebook and its first more direct challenge to the same-sized MacBook and to Sony's VAIO SR. The dv3500t is one of HP's first systems outside of special editions to focus on style and comes in a unique bronze pattern that extends through to the keyboard. The company also gives it features that have either been off-limits or uncommon to the dv4t, including a dedicated 512MB GeForce 9300M GS graphics chipset as standard, a backlit keyboard and the option of an LED-backlit display for longer battery life and dropping the weight to as little as 4.1 pounds. [full story]

September 26 - 2:10pm EDT   A set of presentation slides have leaked today at VR-Zone that indicate AMD is developing a new video chipset to outperform NVIDIA's mid-range offerings at a budget price. The Radeon HD 4830 would sit just below the 4850 by keeping the 256-bit memory bus but carrying 640 stream (effect and geometry) processors versus the 800 of faster Radeon HD cards. It would also carry slightly slower GDDR3 graphics memory in place of GDDR4 or GDDR5. [full story]

September 25 - 4:30pm EDT   NVIDIA today is said to be planning a substantial upgrade to its hardware at the start of 2009 that will also significantly overhaul its years-old naming scheme. A series of video chipsets built on a smaller, 45 nanometer manufacturing process should run faster and cooler than existing 55 nanometer and larger parts. As hinted by the launch of the GTX 200, however, the company will reportedly drop its increasingly complex scheme used for the 8- and 9-series cards to more clearly reflect the intended performance level of each card. [full story]

September 19 - 4:40pm EDT   NVIDIA on Thursday announced that it would cut 360 jobs across its worldwide operations, which accounts for nearly 6.5 percent of its entire workforce. The company officially announced the cuts are being made to let it invest in key areas of growth, though they are likely related to the company’s recent financial trouble stemming from faulty graphics chips, the resulting lawsuit, and increased competition from the Radeon HD 4000-series graphics card. The job cuts are expected to take effect by October 26, with employees receiving severance packages, counseling and job placement services. [full story]

September 16 - 12:00am EDT   HP tonight updated its TouchSmart all-in-one PCs to push them into high-end home theater territory not covered by earlier models or rivals such as the iMac. The IQ800 series carries a 25.5-inch, 1920x1200 display that converts the touchscreen PC into a near home theater; accordingly, the system comes with a Blu-ray combo drive in one model while all of them have 1080p-capable video and ATSC/NTSC TV tuners. To match the HTPC focus, either system also has new ambient lighting on their chins that either illuminates the wireless keyboard on a desktop or just sets the mood. [full story]

September 16 - 12:00am EDT   After a brief absence of large notebooks, HP on Tuesday revived the HDX line with two systems that turn the focus from gaming to movies. Both the 16-inch HDX16 and 18.4-inch HDX18 are HP's first systems to use a 16:9 aspect ratio display better-suited to movies and have a built-in subwoofer, a remote and HDMI video out. Their performance is also friendly to full HD with a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo and a GeForce 9600M GT to offload the decoding work. [full story]

September 15 - 8:30am EDT   NVIDIA is quietly releasing an upgraded version of the GTX 260 to fend off advances made by the Radeon HD 4870, according to a claim from those in the industry. On top of price cuts earlier in the year, the California graphics maker is said to be bumping the number of stream (geometry and effects) processors from the original 192 up to 216, bringing the performance much closer to the GTX 280's 240 processors. Clock speeds would still be one of the key differentiators with the 576MHz core and 1.24GHz memory the same as for the version launched in the spring. [full story]