AMD to Launch Dragon at CES 2009

Advanced Micro Devices is known to plan on launching its 45nm Phenom II processors at CES 2009, which is set to take place between January 8th and January 11th in Las Vegas. At about the same time the chip manufacturer is reported to also launch its entire Dragon platform. According to news on the web, the Sunnyvale company will launch the AM3 platform with DDR3 support for Dragon at a later date window.As already reported, Dragon will include AMD's 790GX/FX chipset and Radeon HD 4800 series cards. It seems that this will not be the only platform AMD is planning to introduce next year. The company will also unveil its Leo platform by the end of 2009, which is also said to be based on the 45nm Deneb core. According to the news, the platform will get upgraded chipsets, namely RD890, RS880D with SB800, and will also feature a new graphics core.

There are not many details on the graphics solution the company will include with the platform, yet there are some voices that say it should be something more than a new 40nm card, one that would feature DirectX11 support. It seems that Leo (Lion) is the platform AMD will have on display throughout 2010, and also the one that would go with the upcoming Windows 7.

As for AMD's plans in the 40nm area with its next-generation graphics cards, we already learned that it managed to tape out the RV740, which would come as its first graphics solution under the new fabrication process. While this is a mainstream part, AMD's graphics division ATI is also rumored to plan a new RV770, which would come after RV740.

At this moment, ATI's Radeon HD 4870 has lost the performance crown in favor of NVIDIA, which re-launched the GTX 260 and also came up with a better driver release. Since the RV740 is reported to come as mainstream card, until the RV770, a performance board, makes its appearance, NVIDIA might remain on the leading position.

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EVGA Updates GeForce GTX 260 Cards with 55nm GPU

EVGA is certainly known as one of NVIDIA's largest board partners, which is why it comes as no surprise that this graphics card vendor has recently updated its range of new GT200-based products. Users and fans are now able to upgrade to one of the newest graphics cards on the market, the 55nm-based GeForce GTX 260, which EVGA has provided in three different flavors, coming to deliver the support required by even the most enthusiast game player.

As some of you already know, the GeForce GTX 260 has suffered a series of modifications, since it was initially released, alongside the higher-performance GTX 280. At first, the card was featured with just 196 shader cores, which were later maxed out to a total of 216, consequently increasing the level of performance achieved by the card. With the new GPU, NVIDIA has transitioned the technology to the new 55nm manufacturing process, thus allowing more room for the overclocking capabilities of the card, so we might see an even higher performance increase from this GT200-equipped GeForce card.


Regarding EVGA's updated line of GeForce GTX 260 graphics cards, users can now acquire a standard and two factory overclocked versions of the aforementioned card. The standard model boasts a 576MHz core speed, 1998MHz memory clock speed and 1242MHz shader core clock. The Superclocked and the SSC (SuperSuper Clocked) models boast speeds of 626Mhz/2106MHz/1350MHz and 675MHz/2304MHz/1458MHz, respectively.

If the performance specifications aren't enough for you, take into consideration that EVGA can't provide you with a lifetime warranty for each of the cards, once you have registered them. Price wise, these cards will cost you $259.99, $269.99 and $289.99, for the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 (55nm), GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked and GTX 260 Core 216 SSC, respectively.

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Microsoft issues emergency IE patch

Microsoft Corp. last week issued an emergency patch to plug a critical hole in Internet Explorer that attackers have been increasingly exploiting from hacked Web sites.

The update was the second emergency patch issued by Microsoft in the past three months.

The latest patch fixes a flaw in the data-binding function in all versions of the company's popular browser. Microsoft labeled the bug "critical," the most serious ranking in its four-level threat-scoring system.

Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security Inc., said Microsoft executed the emergency release well. "This was a classic case of what we would like to happen," Storms said. "Microsoft acknowledged the fault, issued work-arounds, gave us advance notice that it would patch and then released the patch."

Microsoft first acknowledged the vulnerability on Dec. 10, a day after it unleashed its biggest set of scheduled security updates in more than five years.

According to Microsoft and several security firms, attacks on IE increased quickly after the disclosure, as hackers hijacked legitimate Web sites and launched exploits against unwary visitors. Microsoft said it observed a "huge increase" in attacks on Dec. 13.

Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer at Qualys Inc., suggested that users apply the patch immediately. Corporate users "should be able to roll it out with your normal patch process," said Kandek. "Fixes for Word, PowerPoint and especially IE, you should be able to [deploy] quickly without much testing."

The patch is available for users of Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 and can be downloaded and installed via the Microsoft Update and Windows Update services, as well as through Windows Server Update Services.

This version of the story originally appeared in Computerworld's print edition.

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Vista SP2 Compcln.exe and Other Notable Changes in Service Pack 2

According to Microsoft, Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista delivers an evolution in terms of compatibility, reliability, and performance, as compared with Service Pack 1. This albeit, the Redmond company did characterize Vista SP2 as nothing more than a standard service pack with no major changes under-the-hood or on the surface. Still, there are new components, such as Hyper-V (for Windows Server 2008) and Compcln.exe, as detailed in the Notable Changes in Windows Server 2008 SP2 Beta and Windows Vista SP2 Beta resource.

“SP2 also includes a Service Pack Clean-up tool (Compcln.exe), which helps restore the hard disk space by permanently deleting the previous versions of the files (RTM and SP1) that are being serviced by SP2. The Pack Clean up tool can also be run offline while creating slipstream images to reduce the size of the image,” Microsoft informed.


In this context, Vista SP2 offers an evolved form of the Vsp1cln.exe tool, which was integrated into SP1, but is no longer a part of the second service pack for the operating system. However, the basic functionality has been successfully preserved. Namely, compcln.exe is designed to perform the same task as Vsp1cln.exe, that is making the installation of the Service Pack permanent, by deleting all components associated with previous releases, and in this manner removing the possibility of restoring a past state.

The common standalone SP2 installer for Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 RTM/SP1 has also been tweaked in order to be able to identify drivers and subsequently block the deployment of the service pack. Microsoft is also promising a more secure installation experience, as well as a superior level of error handling, complemented by descriptive error messages. To top it all off, the software giant indicated that the installer would accept servicing even after the release.

According to Microsoft, Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 RTM/SP1:

- adds support for the 64-bit central processing unit (CPU) from VIA Technologies, which adds the ID and vendor strings for the new VIA 64-bit CPU;
- integrates the Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless, which contains support for Bluetooth v2.1. Bluetooth v2.1 is the most recent specification for Bluetooth wireless technology and Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration;
- improves performance for Wi-Fi connection after resuming from sleep mode;
- adds new capabilities to Direct X Graphic display reliability. The graphics experience has been greatly improved for users, such as gamers, running applications that require a lot of graphics processing;
- includes updates to the RSS feeds sidebar with improved performance and responsiveness;
- improves audio and video performance for streaming high definition content;
- includes ability to record data to Blu-Ray media;
- includes Windows Search 4.0;
- improves Windows Media Center (WMC) in Content protection for TV;
- Hyper-V is now integrated into Windows Server 2008;
- delivers up to 10% boosted efficiency via improved power management policy configurations;
- improves backwards compatibility for Terminal server license keys.

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) Beta Standalone is available for download here.

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta - Five
Language Standalone DVD ISO are available for download via this link.

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Beta is available for download here.
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