Stan's List

Macword, tests Apple claim that the MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (Merom) notebooks are up to 39% faster than the Core Duo MBP it replaces. Using the Speedmark bench test, the Merom MBP is exactly 10% faster, when one compares the equivalent old and new MBP 2.16GHz models. But it is about 24% faster with the non-native Photoshop. It’s significantly faster with MPEG-2 encoding (around 30%). More …

Also, while the CPU is 64 bit, the supporting chip set is only 32 bit. Intel will soon release a 64 bit chip set

On Halloween Day, IGM reported that Universal Music had decided to cut prices on over 1,500 back-catalog albums. Today, sharp-eyed iTunes Store patrons will note a new icon on the site’s homepage—Great Albums, Great Price, Classic Rock—advertising reduced prices on a three dozen titles from $7.92.

DailyTech has benchmarks of the new GeForce 8800GTX , a NVIDIA video card due next week, which is to replace GeForce 7900. This latest has no problem embarrassing the former top of the line Radeon X1950 XTX. According to the article, ‘The GeForce 8800GTX used for testing is equipped with 768MB of GDDR3 video memory on a 384-bit memory bus as previously reported. Core and memory clocks are set at 575 MHz and 900 MHz respectively. More …

Will it be available for the Mac? The Intel marriage created hope that cheaper and faster PC video cards would be plug and play.