March 30 - 4:30pm EDT   Intel this afternoon finally made its Nehalem-based Xeon processors available to a wider audience. First introduced in the Mac Pro, the single-socket Xeon 3500 (not used by Apple) and the dual-socket Xeon 5500 share the same roots as Core i7 and drop the old northbridge system controller and system bus in favor of a point-to-point architecture known as the QuickPath Interface that talks directly to memory and peripherals. The memory controller is now built-in and can talk to three memory channels, improving bandwidth even as it drops lag. [full story]

September 24 - 8:10am EDT   Dell on Wednesday acted on its early tease and launched the Precision M6400, the company's new flagship notebook for professionals. The 17-inch notebook is Dell's fastest ever by using both the Centrino 2 platform and the size to its advantage: the system is Dell's first to use Intel's quad-core 2.53GHz Core 2 Extreme processor and carries four DDR3 memory slots that can each support 4GB of memory, pushing the system up to a desktop-like 16GB in the most extreme configurations. [full story]

August 12 - 4:35pm EDT   Dell today launched its all-new line of Latitude laptops, comprised of the 12-inch E4200, 13.3-inch E4300, 14-inch E6400, 15.4-inch E6500, as well as the 14-inch E5400 and 15-inch E5500. All of the business systems feature a new instant-boot function that allows users to access email the Internet without waiting for Windows to load. Likewise, all have wide-area wireless and a fingerprint scanner for security, with 3G, GPS and WiMAX optional extras. One of the highlight features of the new Latitudes is their claimed 19-hour battery life, which is unprecedented in the laptop world. Check out our photo gallery from Tuesday's Dell Latitude introduction event, including ... [full story]

August 12 - 12:50pm EDT   Dell today launched the new Latitude line, ushering in a significant refresh of its business systems. The new models have a new streamlined design with the choice of multiple shell colors and take cues both from recent PC designs like the Studio as well as the MacBook Pro; the new systems now have backlit keyboards, a magnesium shell designed to be strong, and an extra-thin design. The mainstream models are the thinnest ever in the mid-size class, the Texas-based company claims, while its ultraportable E4200 model weighs as little as 2.2 pounds. [full story]

August 8 - 4:30pm EDT   Dell today quietly expanded the list of its notebook PCs affected by NVIDIA's mobile GPU failures to include several extra systems. The chart now includes the Latitude D620, D820, and D830 business notebooks as well as the Precision M4300 and M65 portable workstations. All of these run either a GeForce 8400M, 8600M, or its Quadro equivalent. [full story]

July 25 - 4:10pm EDT   Dell this afternoon provided a list of its notebooks affected by a chronic graphics chip flaw as well as a firmware fix that should reduce the risk of the problem. The company is the first known PC vendor to do so and says that its new updates modify the fan behavior on each of the notebooks to make sure they remain cooler than normal and thus prevent the heat problems that trigger the failures. [full story]

April 21 - 2:25pm EDT   Dell will keep using Windows XP until as late as 2012, a company representative has reportedly told users. Although Microsoft has said it would discontinue the option for XP this year in all but very low-cost notebooks, the claimed Dell message says the PC creator will continue offering XP Professional until 2012 on all its higher-end business offerings, including the Latitude, Optiplex, and Precision lineups. [full story]