Eric Garay

While at the Portland Winter LAN, I happened to have my Patriot demo systems sitting between Patriot’s and Intel’s own booth tables. The Intel demo systems were thought to have regular current hardware inside. Even the inconspicuous, very sexy, Zalman GT-1000 aluminum chassis didn’t elude to its contents because it housed an Intel DX58SO system with unbuffered 8GB of Kingston Triple Channel memory, plus one more 2GB module. Obviously, this system is capable of acting as a server on more than just a basic level.

Upon closer look, I discovered it was in fact a 45nm Xeon W35800 processor. The major differences between this chip and the I7 965 are some code and silicone. The chip is a little faster and the equivalent of a I7 975. Some chips have been sporting a 200 CPU Bus, operating at 3.8 GHz with only 1.15 Volts. I’d like to get my hands on one.

Originally, I thought Intel was going to pass up 45nm Xeons and go straight to 32nm Westmere architecture. Apple’s next generation desktop machines are obviously going to be offering something similar. It won’t be offering anything with nVidia based chipsets due to the current lack of a licensing agreement. You have to admit they have offered some very powerful systems in the past. I doubt this will affect Apple’s performance standards. If I spot any Apple Xeons, you’ll see them on www.Futurelooks.com with some more info.

If you’re in to attending some decent LAN parties, you might want to hit Infernalan. Check out http://lanfest.intel.com/ for the forum and to register. It’s a healthy 300 seat charity LAN event!

Before you go off thinking it’s another LAN, they do give away about a dozen of their best processors and motherboards in random raffle drawings. They’ll raffle off any major component a PC can use as well. And if your PC is “teh suck” all together, they have been known to raffle off a couple complete game systems from IBuyPower and Alienware.

And there’s a $1500 computer case mod contest at the upcoming March 27-29 LAN sponsored by CPU Magazine. As long as it’s recognizable as a computer, you should be just fine. Plus it’ll show up in the next CPU Magazine issue. Can you Dremel up something by the end of next month?

Here are just a few of the sponsors. All proceeds from the event are matched by Intel and donated to the United Way. So, in a sense, while you’re having some fun playing video games, someone somewhere in the immediate future will receive a helping hand thanks to everyone.