Advanced Micro Devices plans to release processors with 12 cores, which changes its product road map and kills earlier plans to release 8-core chips.

>> AMD jumps to 12-core chip, skips 8-core chip plans

PC Perspective has posted a major update to their hardware leaderboard today that reconfigures all four system build categories from Dream to Budget.

"The High End system also saw a price increase going from $1245 to $1399 - a modest increase I think considering the changes I implemented. First we moved to a new Yorkfield, 45nm Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 processor but kept the 780i SLI chipset motherboard. I also upgraded graphics card in this system as well with the new 9800 GTX card - a great single-GPU board that offers 8800 Ultra-like performance at a lower price."

>> PCPer Hardware Leaderboard

The Inquirer reports that 3DMark Vantage will be out on April 28

"Vantage is 100 per cent Vista only, incorporating as it does a swathe of DX10 routines. Look out for the collective hardware press to go absolutely mental for it next week."

>> New 3DMark is incoming

TechwareLabs has published an editorial on sucessful IT project management titled "Beyond Just Do It".

"Michelle walks us through project management in a world at light speed. She shows us how we can manage those IT implementations and projects that seems impossible. This guide will work for you for any project you need done which seems overwhealming. "

>> Beyond Just Do It

>Asustek plans to launch a new version of the Eee PC armed with Intel's Atom microprocessor at the
>> Asus to launch Eee PC with Intel's Atom in June

TechwareLabs has published an editorial on Creative Alchemy Drivers and Vista Support.

"Today, Michael Bosse and Ben Brindle take a look at Creative drivers for Vista. Some people report problems with their sound cards, and TechwareLabs decides to investigate."

>> Creative Alchemy Drivers and Vista Support

Dream not of day reports that the Eve Online Source Code has been leaked recently via BitTorrent on The Pirate Bay

"Full source code for the client for popular MMORPG Eve Online was made available recently via BitTorrent on The Pirate Bay. Along with the torrent, the user posts a chat transcript with a representative identified as IAMorpheus from Eve's developer and publisher CCP. In the lengthy and scatological exchange, the poster of the source code attempts to get some answers about CCPs much maligned security practices, particularly concerning the rife issue of bots and scripting in their flagship game.."

>> Eve Online Source Code Leaked

bit-tech published an early look at the Asus Eee PC 900 with lots of pictures and some early thoughts

"Another cool feature is the Macbook Air-esque (I just died inside) multi-touch trackpad, so you can use two fingers to zoom and scroll. While the scroll works in everything, the zoom function is currently limited to Works, StarSuite 8 and Adobe Reader.

There's also a new OS option: Windows XP Home. That will make the extra memory and storage evaporate, although it is now open to a wealth of other software and more immediately familiar to non-Linux users. Included in the package are Microsoft Works, Intervideo DVD XPack and Sun StarSuite (databases, spreadsheet, presentation, illustration and word processing basically a� Microsoft Office). The problem with the XP version is that despite the larger screen resolution, you still have to scroll up and down the desktop - that's not ideal.

The 20GB Linux model pictured below should retail for £329 in the UK, which is only a modest increase in price considering the advantages. Our resident games expert, Joe, recently spent £250 on an Eee PC and is now regretting it the extra screen room makes a huge difference and the added storage is a definite boon. The Windows XP version will only ship with 12GB of hard drive space but will retail for the same price. Because of this, we'd absolutely suggest buying the Linux version and then shoehorning XP into the 20GB model."

>> Unboxing the Asus Eee PC 900

Bit-Tech published their analysis of what was said during Nvidia's Financial Analyst's Day in an article titled Nvidia Analyst's Day: Biting Back at Intel

"Gelsinger believes that the industry needs a programmable, ubiquitous and unified architecture... like Larrabee. This is of course convenient, but he seems to forget that we've had very programmable and unified architectures ever since the launch of the GeForce 8800 GTX in November 2006.

DirectX 10 was an inflection point for graphics cards, because it is the first time that shader units have become fully generalised processing 'cores'. Although it's worth remembering that they're not quite as flexible as a CPU core in their current design.

"/ /Here's somebody who's new to our industry and he's basically telling us that 3D graphics as we know it is dead," said Huang. "//This is the most inspirational quote I can imagine giving to our employees. Nothing fires us up more than that. I'm sure that's what he intended -- getting the most intensively competitive company in technology fired up. We're pretty fired up anyway, as we're pretty passionate about what we do. The fact that the statement is just plain wrong means it's pointless to argue about it.""

>> Nvidia Analyst's Day: Biting Back at Intel

VR-Zone has learned that the first desktop graphics card to be based on 55nm G92b core will be GeForce 9800 GT and it will be launched in July along with GeForce 9900 series.

"Apparently, GeForce 9800 GTS will be OEM only, not for channel"

>> Nvidia First 55nm Desktop Graphics; GeForce 9800 GT

HotHardware.com posted an article on NVIDIA's Financial Analyst Day

"NVIDIA held a Financial Analyst Day yesterday, where representatives spoke about the company's strengths, market share, technology, and direction. There was a lot of discussion regarding current products and competition, which seemed to get NVIDIA's CEO Jen-Sun Huang fired up in a way that's not often seen publicly.

The always outspoken Jen-Sun really went on the offensive and essentially dismissed CPU-GPU fusion and Intel's upcoming discreet graphics product (codenamed Larrabee). He also downplayed the erosion of NVIDIA's market share in the mobile segment and promoted the APX 2500 "system on a chip", CUDA, and other NVIDIA initiatives. We've got more notes from NVIDIA's Financial Analyst Day available here"

>> NVIDIA Gets Aggressive, Dismisses CPU-GPU Fusion

Bit-Tech published news that Lian Li is to release ten new cases before Computex in June - these include the PC-A20, PC-A7110, PC-A7010, PC-C36, PC-C37, X2000, V2020, V1010 and more.

"Of the cases we saw during our visit to the company's offices in Keelung City in the North East of Taiwan, there were a few that really caught our eyes.

First of all, the company's new home theatre cases---the PC-C36 and PC-C37---look promising with some interesting new ideas. One complaint that Lian Li said it had from its previous HTPC cases was the support bar across the middle -- it was fixed in place.

With these two new designs, the bar is removable, which will definitely make the installation process a lot easier. There are other enhancements too -- both feature a small PCB at the front that apparently allows you to boot into a Linux distro to search for (and presumably playback) media files."

>> Lian Li to release ten cases before Computex

TechwareLabs has published its first rant titled "What we hope the future holds".

"When the power goes out and you can't get on XBox Live what do you do? Rant. . .Thats what! Let's start with wheres my Jetcar and my Teleporter and we don't stop there. Can you say DDR8? We speculate. "

>> Where's my Teleporter?

AMD announced on Wednesday it was shipping the quad-core Opteron chip in volume after fixing a bug, but concerns are being raised about AMD's abilities to stick to its product roadmap, analysts said.

>> AMD finally ships quad-core Opterons

Hardware Secrets posted a comparison table of nVidia Chips

"If you don't follow almost daily the video card market it is really complicated to understand the differences between the several different nVidia graphics chips available on the market today. To facilitate knowing and understanding the difference among these chips, we have compiled the following table"

>> nVidia Chips Comparison Table

TechwareLabs has published an editorial titled Anatomy of an E-mail Scam

"Everyone hates spam, well what's worse than spam is a scam. These days scam e-mails occur almost as often as regular junk mail appearing in your inbox. We take a look at three sample scam e-mails and take them apart, look at the pieces, and give you a guide for what to look for to avoid getting caught and losing your money. This is the Anatomy of an E-mail Scam. "

>> Anatomy of an E-mail Scam

VR-Zone posted a list of the upcoming GeForce 9M series

"Nvidia way of branding their mobile GPUs is pretty confusing due to re-branding of older generation GPUs and such. Nevertheless, we tried our best to compile a list of their upcoming GeForce 9M series. GeForce 9800M GTX is the only mobile GPU which is G92 based among the entire GeForce 9M line-up while GeForce 9800M GTS, 9700M GTS are G94 based."

>> Nvidia GeForce 9M Series Line-Up Unveiled

Hardware Secrets is questioning: Made in China, a security risk?

"Recent reports of counterfeit computer hardware from China have once again sparked the discussion on whether this poses a security risk."

>> Made in China, a security risk?

bit-tech published a feature about Ten minute modding

"Not everyone has days upon days of time to pour into a case mod. However, that doesn't mean that the quick builds need to look like a wire explosion on the inside and boring black on the outside! Years of modding have made companies develop some great products that make formerly huge projects into ten minute mods."

>> Ten minute modding

VR-Zone posted the roadmap for Intel UMPC

"Intel has emphasized on Menlow 2008 platform during IDF and unveiled 5 Atom "Silverthorne" processors along with Poulsbo chipset. Silverthorne is 45nm based and has 512KB of L2 cache. Intel called Poulsbo chipset as a System Controller Hub (SCH) that basically combines the MCH and ICH into a single chip. VR-Zone learned that there will be 3 SKUs; US11L supporting 400FSB Silverthorne, 512MB DDR2, 100MHz graphics core clock, SD Video only and up to 800x480 resolution, US15L supporting 400FSB Silverthorne, 1GB DDR2, 200MHz graphics core clock HD Video Decode and up to 1366x768 resolution and US15W that has similar features set as US15L but supporting 533FSB Silverthorne. The 3D graphics core is powered by PowerVR SGX Series5 instead of Intel integrated graphics cores like GMA 3000, X3100 etc."

>> Intel UMPC & MID Roadmap Unveiled