ITWorld

Five insane upgrades that you should never do

Just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should. That old truism goes double for computers. But some PC geeks are so fanatical about performance, so doggedly determined to push their hardware to extremes, that they'll go to ridiculous lengths to wring a few more clock cycles out of their components or add a little more cool factor to their rig.

Asustek turns to Celerons amid Atom shortage

Asustek Computer has turned back the clock to use Intel microprocessors first launched in 2004 in its latest Eee PC netbooks, in part due to a shortage of Intel's Atom chips.

Asustek also turned to Intel's older Celeron M 353 chip because it costs less than the Atom, and Asustek's new Eee PCs are being aimed at price-sensitive developing nations, an Asustek executive said.

More cores, bigger cache give boost to Dunnington

Intel plans to launch its six-core Xeon server processor next month, with the extra cores and a larger cache giving the chip a performance advantage over the company's existing quad-core chips.

Code-named Dunnington, the six-core Xeon processor is designed for servers that have four or more processors. Manufactured using a 45-nanometer production process, the chip should be the last new model based on Intel's Penryn processor design before the release of the company's first Nehalem chips in a few months' time.

Intel confirms OQO to use Atom in handheld PC

Intel on Wednesday confirmed that its Atom chips will be used in an upcoming handheld computer from OQO, a significant design win for the chip maker.