The PC Report

The Shuttle Barebone XS35 is a new slimline nettop/HTPC from Shuttle that’s just 3.3cm thick – perfect for chucking behind your TV as a media PC. It will come loaded with a 1.66GHz Intel Atom D510 dual-core processor, Intel MN10 Express chipset and a Nvidia GT218 (aka ION2) graphics card perfect for 1080p video playback through HDMI. It also comes with a 2.5″ hard drive and slimline optical drive.

The whole system can be VESA mounted behind a flat-panel display and is passively cooled for a practically silent setup. The XS35 will ship sometime in the second half of the year, and a price has yet to be unveiled. More of this machine will be seen at CeBIT in March.

Like Linux and also want a small desktop PC? Try out the Open-PC Atom powered nettop designed specifically for those of you who use and love Linux. It comes with hardware that requires only completely free drivers and no proprietary software at all – an Atom N330 dual-core CPU at 1.6GHz, an ASrock motherboard, 3GB of RAM, Intel GMA950 graphics, a 160GB hard drive all in a mini-ITX case with 250W PSU. It also comes preloaded with a KDE-based Linux distro configured for the computer’s hardware.

The Open-PC will be available at the end of February for €359.

The latest rumour out of the Apple camp is that of a new 22-inch touchscreen iMac to join the ranks of the other current-gen 21.5″ and 27″ non-touch systems. The new Mac is rumoured to be shipping sometime in 2010, with Quanta producing the model and Sintek Photronic supplying the panels. Like most Apple rumours these days, any actual info from Apple could be months (even years) away.

It isn’t surprising to see rumours for a touchscreen desktop iMac with loads of rumours surrounding the unconfirmed Apple Tablet with a modified Mac touchscreen interface. They could (and probably will) port some aspects of the Tablet interface to the new iMac. It will also be interesting to see the design of the new iMac; whether they choose to keep the same design as the 21.5″ one or go for a whole new design.

If you’re currently browsing for a cheap, compact secondary web-browsing PC then maybe the NorhTec Gecko Surfboard is right for you. The “surfboard” pretty much explains what the keyboard PC should be used for – surfing the net – as it only packs a 1GHz processor coupled with 512MB of RAM and should boot from either an SD card or 2.5″ drive.

Luckily though the PC is rated at using only 5W of power thanks to a fanless design and contains both a VGA port and composite cables for TV hook-up. Oh, and WiFi b/g too. Overall the keyboard PC (which is similar to the Eee Keyboard minus the screen) should set you back just US$99 if you can put up with Linux; if you can’t you can add Windows XP for an extra US$50. You’ll be seeing more of this keyboard PC at CES 2010 in January.

Here is some serious graphics computing power: the University of Antwerp (in Belgium, if you didn’t know) has made a new supercomputer, named the FASTRA II, that packs an incredible 13 GPUs for a total of twelve teraFLOPS. They achieved this feat thanks to six dual-GPU Nvidia GTX 295s and one single-GPU Nvidia GTX 275, flexible PCIe cables and some custom BIOS made for them thanks to Asus.

To fit all these graphics cards (and the 4 power supplies required to run them) they had to have a case specially made for them with a graphics card cage. Of course, with so many graphics cards you would have to expect issues, and according to the FASTRA II team they are having difficulties with the drivers and software stability. However, once all the kinks have been ironed out, this system for €6,000 is quite cheap considering the power.

It appears as though HP has leaked a huge heap of info about some upcoming products they are releasing, including info about new Intel processors and ATI graphics cards, along with the new HP software suite. All of the leaked info looks current and details the new North American Spring 2010 line-up from HP, which by the looks of it is going to be a good line-up.

In the new HP Pavillion desktop computers it appears as though we will be seeing the latest from Intel’s Clarkdale range. The new Core i5-6xx processors will be included, featuring Intel’s Turbo Boost technology that can speed up certain cores depending on the workload at hand. Core i3-5xx processors are also going to be used, however these will feature a lowered L3 cache and no Turbo Boost technology. It is also speculated that the HP TouchSmart will be getting an upgrade to the Arrandale Core i5 and i7s.

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One of the coolest cases I’ve ever seen, the BMW-designed Thermaltake Level 10, is getting a nice fit out from iBUYPOWER. The OEM will chuck into the case an Asus P6T motherboard loaded with a Core i7-920 and 6GB of DDR3-1333 RAM along with a 2GB Nvidia GTX 285. You also get a 128GB Kingston SSD for boot and 1TB HDD for storage and a DVD drive which is upgradeable to a Blu-ray drive. All of that, plus the awesome Level 10 case, starts at US$2,499 from iBUYPOWER right now.

The most expensive of the Mac desktop computers, the Mac Pro, has got an upgrade, if you choose so. If you feel that the 2.93Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor isn’t enough for you, you can upgrade that to a 3.33GHz Xeon for only US$1,200 on top of the base price. Also, if you feel like upping your storage, you can upgrade the 1TB hard drive to a 2TB for just US$350. Also, you can fill the other four hard drive bays with 2TB HDDs for US$550 a hard drive.

Unfortunately these options are rather expensive, considering the base price for the Mac Pro is US$2,499 for a 2.66GHz Xeon, 3GB of DDR3, a 640GB hard drive and a single GeForce GT 120 graphics card. Chuck in the 3.33Ghz Xeon and one 2TB hard drive and the price goes up to US$4,049, or you can buy the best Mac Pro available with all the upgrades and extras for just US$16,845.90

The fit-PC2i is the most feature-filled mini desktop to come from CompuLab yet. The fit-PC2i measures just 10.1cm x 11.4cm x 2.7cm and weighs just 369 grams and still manages to pack impressive specifications. Inside the box is an Atom Z5xx CPU, (up to) 2GB of DDR2 RAM, WiFi and audio, four USB 2.0 ports and a slot for your 2.5″ hard drive. The whole computer sucks 8W of power in full load, and runs Windows 7 if you choose so. It’ll be available next month for your consuming.

If you’re looking for a tough and small computer, I suggest you look no further than the Stealth LPC-395F Mini PC. It’s basically a tiny nettop in a rugged cage that measures 16.6cm x 15.7cm x 4.8cm. The case features nice front loading bays for your flash media and 2.5″ hard drives, and it also looks like it carries mounting holes in case you want to screw the PC to any surfaces.

Under the hood the LPC-395F Mini PC packs the standard nettop 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 in a fanless configuration, as well as up to 2GB of RAM. Connectivity wise the PC comes with four USB 2.0 ports, two gigabit Ethernet ports, a DVI port and two RS232 serial ports and built-in WiFi. You also have a variety of operating systems to choose from, including Windows XP and Vista (unfortunately no Windows 7) as well as Ubuntu 9.04. The rugged PC is available now and starts from US$795.