The PC Report

Windows default dual-monitor management is pretty shocking at the best of times. This is where Realtime Soft’s UltraMon comes in and saves the day with a much need improvement over the default method for dealing with multiple monitors, giving you some handy shortcuts and an extended taskbar to help you manage windows over two monitors more efficiently. You get all this for a reasonable price of US$39.95 for a single license, or if you’re not sure about purchasing you can always download a free 30-day trial.

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In the emerging netbook market, Google decided it would announce a new-style Linux-based OS that would be perfect for netbook owners, set for release in Q4 2010. Recently, Google has also showed off a new application market for Chrome and Chrome OS. We at The PC Report have used Chrome OS briefly when it was first released, but today we’ve taken an in-depth look at the OS and how it will affect the OS and netbook markets.

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As we saw with the Asus Eee Pad, Microsoft has announced a new operating system designed for tablet PCs. With a ridiculously long name, Windows Embedded Compact 7 is designed for tablets that may not be using a desktop-style processor architecture that can be embedded at a hardware level. The OS is also designed to be much more touch friendly than the standard editions of Windows 7 but will seamlessly integrate with the normal version of Windows 7.

The new OS will be made for multi-touch capable panels, which is again another death for the resistive single-touch panel. Multi-touch gestures will be available throughout Windows Embedded Compact 7 including pinch zooming in the browser and panning. There will also be better support for media throughout the OS, including a new Media Library, HD media support and a flexible plugin architecture. Syncing your personal details and other items between Embedded Compact 7 and Windows 7 will also be improved.

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At Computex 2010, Asus has launched a new tablet-style PC that will be running Windows 7; the Eee Pad. Using the same naming scheme seen with their netbook line (Eee PC), the tablet will be first available in two models: the EP121 and the EP101TC. Both models will feature a capacitive touchscreen, hopefully with multi-touch support and a long battery life. The devices are said to be coming in early 2011 and will be priced between US$399 and US$499

The 12-inch EP121 will come with an Intel Core 2 Duo CULV processor, full Windows 7 on the inside and a reported 10-hour battery life. A webcam and USB port will be present, however not much else is known about the device other than it will support a hybrid docking/keyboard station for when you need some non-touchscreen typing. Even less is known about the EP101TC – we know it has a 10.1 inch display and that it will be running Windows Embedded Compact 7 but that’s about it.

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Just like we expected, Nvidia has released a card to fill out the lower-end of the Fermi enthusiast card section; one that will directly compete with the ATI Radeon HD 5850. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 465 is essentially the same card as the higher powered GTX 470, just with a few bits of the core disabled here and there to bring down the price point but also the power. In fact the card looks almost exactly the same as the GTX 470 – same length and same coolers.

The GeForce GTX 465 packs a 40 nm Nvidia Fermi GF-100 core on the inside, just dumbed down from the higher-end Fermi cards. The GTX 465 comes loaded with a core clocked at 607 MHz along with a shader of 1215 MHz (same as the GTX 470), 352 stream processors (down from the GTX 470′s 448) and 32 ROPS (compared to 40). Memory-wise the card comes loaded with 1 GB of GDDR5 video RAM clocked at 802 MHz on a 256-bit memory bus, which gives it a data rate of 3028 MHz.

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Intel today has released some fairly mainstream processors with unlocked core multipliers, a first for the company who mainly reserve fully unlocked processors for their “Extreme Edition” line. The Intel “Clarkdale” Core i5-655K and Intel “Lynnfield” Core i7-875K are these new processors, both of which come with a fairly reasonable price of US$216 and US$342 respectively. The i7-875K is a particularly good deal as the processor is cheaper than the i7-870, which is essentially the same chip just without the unlocked multiplier.

The Core i5-655K is essentially the same as the US$175 Core i5-650 – it packs a clockspeed of 3.20 GHz, a Turbo Boost clockspeed of up to 3.46 GHZ, support for dual-channel DDR3 memory up to 1,333 MHz, two cores with four threads thanks to HyperThreading and 4 MB of L3 cache with a 73W TDP. The only thing different from the i5-650 is the unlocked core multiplier and unlocked power.

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A few days ago Fedora pushed out a new version of their popular Linux operating system. Version 13, codenamed “Goddard” adds a new feature called PackageKit which identifies when printers are plugged in and automatically downloads and installs the drivers for the device – very handy. The installation process using Anaconda has been streamlined, and the network manager has been improved for mobile broadband users along with a new GUI. The open-source ATI and Nvidia drivers have also been improved.

If you’re interested in downloading Fedora 13, check out this page here. If you;re unsure on whether to upgrade to this version, you may find more new features that you like in the extensive release notes.

ATI Catalyst is back this month with another driver release for May: 10.5. Apart from the usual bug fixes, ATI has added support for 120 Hz monitors for Radeon 3000 and 4000 series cards. Numerous games have also received updates including Alien vs. Predator, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Mass Effect 2, Resident Evil 5, Splinter Cell Conviction and more. To download the drivers, head to the Catalyst website here or you can just view the release notes below.

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Shipping out in June is the new Fermi mobile iteration of the powerful Nvidia desktop graphics cards – the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480M. The new mobile GPU comes loaded with 352 CUDA cores, a 256-bit memory bus running up to 2 GB of GDDR5 memory at 1,200 MHz, and the graphics core runs at 425 MHz (around half the speed of the desktop GTX 480). Despite the low clockspeeds, the graphics card manages to pump out 897 gigaFLOPS from inside your laptop.

Alongside the release of this new chip are some new laptops from Eurocom. We’re seeing the Eurocom D900F Panther Mobile Workstation getting an upgrade to a single GTX 480M with 2GB of memory as well as the X8100 Leopard which is getting either GTX 480M SLI or HD 5870 CrossFireX in its 18.4″ display-packing body. The Eurocom Panther 2.0 should be getting a release in August and it’ll come packed with an Intel Core i7 processor up to 3.33 GHz, up to 24 GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 4 TB of storage over 4 drives, a 17.3″ 1080p display and the option of the new GTX 480M in SLI.

Full press release after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Google Chrome has been updated to stable version 5, and it marks the first stable version for Chrome for Mac and Linux (of course there is a Windows version available too). One of the main features added in Chrome 5 is syncing of almost every setting in Chrome including themes, web settings, startup settings and more across multiple computers.

Other features included in Chrome 5 are more HTML5 features, extensions in incognito mode and a better bookmark manager. If you haven’t been auto-updated to Chrome 5 you can download a copy from here