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According to a recent article at The Inquirer, chip firm Intel was getting ready to do some very noticeable price cuts on the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad lines, some up to 40%.

According to a few sources, the new prices are already in the wild, so if you are looking to buy a new Intel CPU, now would be a good time.

For a full price quote of Intel’s server and desktop princing for April 2007, visit the folks at digitimes, but here are some of the big cuts:
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Envy is an application for Ubuntu Linux written in Python and PyGTK which will:

1. detect the model of your graphic card (ATI and Nvidia cards are supported). However “Manual installation” is also available
2. download the right version of the proprietary driver for your ATI or Nvidia card from ATI or Nvidia’s websites
3. handle the dependencies (compilers, OpenGL, etc.) (according to your OS version and kernel) required to build the module
4. install/uninstall the driver
5. set up your xorg.conf (i.e. the configuration file of the Xserver) for you (according to your system specifications)
6. restart the Xserver for you (if you wish so) (this feature is available only in the textual interface)

Interested? Visit Alberto Milone’s blog (the author) for the latest news about envy, or head on to the project’s page to grab it. (packages available for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 and Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10)

The Inquirer just put out another quality review/benchmark, this time the contenders are 4 Nvidia 8600 graphics cards:

• Sparkle 8600GT (€149.00)
• EVGA 8600GTS (€199.00)
• Gainward 8600GTS Golden Sample(€199.00)
• Sparkle 8600GTS (€199.00)

According to the benchmarks performed, both the Sparkle and Gainward cards are top-notch implementations of the Nvidia 8600GTS model , not to mention the very competitive prices.

Here are the full benchmark scores, and here is the resume:

In Short
In short, Nvidia did a brilliant job and replaced its 7600GT and 7600GS with rock-solid performing, DX10-compliant parts. These parts are more far apart from the high-end of the past, but give surprisingly good value for money.
The 8600GT comes a bit short on expectations, so we would advise you to bite the bullet and opt for a higher performing part. If you are considering multi-GPU configuration, just go straight for glory and get a high-end part. µ

The Good
+ DirectX 10 for 149/199 price brackets
+ 8600GTS: Performance in games
+ 8600GTS: Beats 7800/7900/X1800/X1950Pro cards easily

The Bad
- 8600GT: visible performance difference
- 8600GTS: SLI is not worth it
- 8600GTS: difference between high-end and mainstream is now greater than in the past

Dear AMD, in light of you losing $600M for Q4, I am still left wondering how you can ignore quality Linux drivers.

I would have to agree on this. though linux users might be a very small minority, ATI (and now AMD) really could and should do a lot more to have decent graphic card drivers in linux.

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LEGIT REVIEWS TESTED AMD’s answer to Intel’s Conroe offensive. With the latest price cuts of AMD CPUs, it was interesting to see whether an X2 5600+, a sub-$200 CPU fare with Intel’s own E6300, which fits nicely into the same category. When testing in real world games, a surprise happened in S.T.A.L.K.E.R., where Intel took a beating. AMD took the lead in Doom 3 as well, while Quake 4 returned point for Intel. However, AMD demolished Intel in Serious Sam 2. Head over there and read a highly surprising review. But to see almost 50% faster frame rate in Serious Sam… even worse than Athlon 64 vs. Intel Pentium 4 in Unreal Tournament 2k4.

Thanks to The Inquirer.