[01/31/2002]
More Giga G4 reports
eWeek and Forbes both report on the new Gigahertz PowerMacs, both with positive response even. eWeek even throws up some mroe G5 speculation, but nothing the rumor boards haven't been talking about for months.

[01/31/2002]
Tech specs continued
This Apple .pdf file has some interesting new details about the innards of the new PowerMacs G4. It becomes quite clear that the motherboard of the new machines and the older machines from 2001 are identical. It also explains why we still have ATA-66 interfaces and no other new stuff. Simply because it's the old chipset, and aparently Apple didn't want to introduce the new UMA 2.0 spec yet. I guess we won't see that before summer then. (MWNY)
Another interesting point is that many, among those G-News, thinks that the L3 cache in the current systems is not DDR-SDRAM, as stated, but rather the static, faster and more expensive DDR-SRAM, that's also been used in the last generation of PowerMacs, just that nobody hyped it so much. This link to xlr8yourmac discusses the old CPU module, and it's quite clear that this one used SRAM (SRAM has been used in most caches so far). It is thus likely that the guy who wrote the PowerMac page at Apple, didn't know the - important - difference.

[01/31/2002]
The reader feedback you've been waiting for
xlr8yourmac.com our favorite tech-guru site has some more, very interesting new findings about the new PowerMacs: -the develoer docs note 128MB graphics cards (another confirmation for the soon to come GeForce4 BTO option)
-the fans on the new machine are louder than usual aparently. (This can be helped with some HQ fans of course) -judging from the Motorola docs (linked yesterday) the new 7455 has a much higher IPC rate than the previous version. Aparently over 2.2 instructions per cycle average, compared ti just above 1.8.

[01/31/2002]
ATI now on OpenGL board
MacCentral reports that ATI has been voted a permanent member of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board, a group of companies interested in the development of the standard. Among them SGI (the creators) and, ironically, Microsoft (the killers). Let's hope ATI gives some positive input into the standard we all learned to love.

[01/31/2002]
More rumors
MOSR has news on Mac OS X 10.1.3, notes that iBooks are likely to hit 1GHz G3, before moving to G4, that CPU upgrades at 550MHz and up are going to appear soon, maybe even hitting 1GHz in summer (that would require a release of the G5 though, I'm quite sure) and notes that aparently the 15.1" screen of the TiBook is being revamped to 1600x1024 resolution.
As always, take that info with a spoon of salt. (and some tequila)

[01/31/2002]
Gaming news
MG notes that TacOps (a popular UT mod) will now soon ship as a standalone version for the PC (with the other platforms getting the compatible free mod).
They also note that NOLF (No One Lives Forever) is likely going to have cross-platform multiplay.
FiringSquad has an indepth review of the new hit PC game "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault" (which we all hope to get for Mac some day). They end up giving it a whopping 91%!.
IMG has various news, among them that the Torque game engine from Garage Games (formerly knows as V12 engine (the one used in Tribes 2)) has been released for Mac OS X. You can license the engine for only 100$ and start coding away on your very own superior 3D game. The engine is very powerful and has some nice developmental features built-in already.