Acer Korea [ site here ] has launched its new netbook ‘Ferrari One’ based on AMD’s second generation ultra-thin platform, Congo.

Adopting a 11.6-inch CrystalBrite LED-backlit LCD monitor at 16:9 aspect ratio, the Ferrari One is powered by AMD Athlon 64×2 L310 Dual Core processor, 2GB DDR2 800MHz memory, M780G chipset, ATi Radeon HD 3200 graphics, 320GB HDD and Windows 7 OS.

It comes with a Ferrari inspired design now available in the Korea. Sorta a oxymoron though… netbook and Ferrari. One is fast, the other… you get it.

Link to the original article…

The good guys over at Tweaktown have reviewed the Athlon II X4 620 processor, a quad-core cpu for the masses. It’s not as hardcore as the AMD Phenom or Intel Quad Cores… but it’s a quad core cpu for under $100 bucks.

AMD’s own marketing strategy for Phenom II is for high-end market, and it leaves a gap for the mainstream segment, but not anymore we see.

Today AMD has its newest addition to the K10 family out using the Athlon naming, which gave them such a good hit all those years ago. Introducing the first quad-core mainstream CPU from AMD, which is dubbed the Athlon II X4.

(Caches) This is where Athlon II makes its distinction from the Phenom II line. Athlon II has had a cache cut done in order to save money on production as well as to reduce its overall performance.

Read the entire [ article ] over at Tweaktown.

They even have the VIA Nano, which looks to be a killer low-watt CPU, they have the Pico-ITX platform which can essentially put an x86 based in the palm of your hand.

However, it seems like VIA is exiting the motherboard business to concentrate on building better processors:

Previously one of the best chipset makers for enthusiasts looking for high performance on a budget, VIA has told Custom PC that it now sees no future in making chipsets for third parties such as Intel and AMD.

Speaking to Custom PC, VIA’s vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan, Richard Brown, explained that: ‘One of the main reasons we originally moved into the x86 processor business was because we believed that ultimately the third party chipset market would disappear, and we would need to have the capability to provide a complete platform.’

‘That has indeed come to pass,’ said Brown. He also added that ‘Intel provides the vast majority of chipsets for its processors and, following its purchase of ATI, AMD is also moving very quickly in the same direction.’

I know that right now, in my Chaintech motherboard, I have a VIA 4-n-1 chipset for audio, video, memory and USB2 controllers. And I know that VIA has supplied drivers and hardware for pretty much the last three or so builds of machines that I’ve had around here in the last few years.

Regardless… guess it’s a tough business to be in. Can’t wait to see what else VIA pulls out next.

Link to the original article…

It doesn’t really add any new features that I can immediately tell. It doesn’t reduce the memory usage. It doesn’t even make my Vista experience on an AMD 6400+ Black edition processor with SATAII drives, 2GB of Corsair memory and an ATi HD 2600XT with 512mb GDDR3 memory seem any faster.

In fact, it really didn’t make anything break, slower or worse.

And that’s a good thing. Microsoft didn’t break anything. My anti-virus software still works. As does my NetLimiter Pro firewall. As does my MagicJack, Skype, Pidgin, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. I still have to clean up crap with CCleaner occasionally, and above all it didn’t stop VLC from working…

It didn’t make anything seem faster, but it didn’t make anything seem slower. So… job well done Microsoft. You had the chance to make Vista seem better… and you didn’t capitalize.

If it makes you feel better, I feel like Leopard, before Apple OS X 10.5.2 that is, had slowed down on superior software. Running Windows XP on this same machine is like moving at mach speed. Running OS X 10.4.11 on the same hardware seems to make 10.5/10.5.1 seem slow as well. At least 10.5.2 made things better, at least on the machines that I use.

Here’s to hoping that SP2 make Vista better; SP1 did not.