By leveraging modern miniaturization, the Octane III can handle up to 80 CPU cores, yes that’s EIGHT-ZERO CPU cores, along with up to 1TB, yes that’s ONE TERABYTE of RAM. If that’s not enough, the top-of-the line config has room for ten 2.5″ SATA II hard drives. And it all fits in a box that’s not much bigger than your average workstation tower (a 1-foot by 2-foot footprint).

The Octane III workstation can be purchased in a variety of insanely powerful configurations, including:

• Ten dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based nodes.
• One dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based workstation with advanced NVIDIA graphics and/or GP-GPU card support.
• Nineteen single-socket, Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 3400 series-based nodes.
• Nineteen single-socket, Dual-Core Intel Atom processor-based nodes.

Prices for the Octane III start at $7999 (USD) and go up from there. While that might sound like a lot for a desktop PC, this thing is in a league all by itself.

I can’t wait to play some CRYSIS on this bad boy.

[via SlipperyBrick]

I wish Nokia would add HSDPA connectivity as well. Portable USB modems – the ones as small as a flash drive – are becoming popular here in the Philippines, but the 3G speeds suck donkey dong, with a very theoretical maximum speed of 384 Kbps. Good thing the Booklet 3G also has WiFi. What I find most interesting about this netbook is the 12-hour battery life. 12 hours! If that is indeed true, then we should thank Intel for coming up with the Atom. Unless of course it turns out that the netbook only lasts an hour when it’s playing HD content.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Please let it be below $400 please please please. With that kind of battery life plus an HD-capable processor I’ll gladly take back all my netbook-bashing and buy one for myself.

[via Ars Technica]

Amazingly enough, PC enthusiast Hackerman1 got his old 266 MHz Pentium II machine loaded up with Windows 7 Ultimate. The machine has a paltry 96MB of RAM, and a lowly 4MB graphic card, and it still managed to work. He tried dialing it down all the way to 64MB, but eventually ran out of memory. Sure, the Windows Experience Index is only 1.0 on this system, but isn’t that what you’ve come to expect from Windows anyhow?  At least with Windows 98 and Vista, that was the consensus.

Next up, Hackerman1 plans on dusting off his old 166MHz Pentium I machine and seeing if he can make the Windows 7 OS work on that one. However, I’m not easily impressed, so until he gets it running on an old IBM PCJr, I won’t be truly in awe.

[The Windows Club via Maximum PC]

The Inquirer’s Charlie Demerjian says sources have confirmed to him that Intel paid to get a new chip, code-named Larrabee, into Sony’s next console. Also per Demerjian’s sources, AMD will be handling Nintendo and Microsoft’s next-next gen systems under the ATI label. We’re gonna have to start working on a name for this round, because next-next gen is going to get difficult after a while.

Seems sudden, doesn’t it? There’s a bright side, however, and it’s that all this is rumor as yet, with nothing confirmed and no official statements made. In fact, Sony has already issued a denial about their purported switch to Intel, so this particular story may be a complete bust.  But one thing is pretty likely: these decisions are being made, and the reliability (or lack thereof) of Demerjian’s intel doesn’t change that. The future of gaming is just around the corner.

[The Inquirer via VentureBeat]

Each of the Pros features a beautiful 1-inch thick aluminum case and is powered by a workhorse Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. The 15.4-inch model comes in either 2.2GHz or 2.4GHz variants, while the 17-inch model only comes with the faster processor. They all run on Intel’s Santa Rosa platform, which has a speedy 800MHz front side bus, but automatically switches speeds to conserve power as needed.

Both displays are widescreen, with the 15.4-inch display running at a 1440 x 900 resolution and the 17-inch featuring a whopping 1680 x 1050 pixels. If that’s not enough detail for you, Apple offers a $100 upgrade to full 1080p resolution. As an added bonus, these are the first Macs to feature LED backlights in their displays. You’ll also get your choice of a glossy or anti-glare surface for your screen.

All of the new models start with 2GB of RAM, expandable to 4GB and feature NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT video processing. The two more expensive models get 256MB of video RAM vs. the 128MB in the cheapest model. The new MacBook Pros also pack in Airport Extreme 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth for fast and flexible wireless connectivity.

If you’ve been holding out for a powerful portable Mac, now is as good a time as ever to pick one up.

Fully maxed out, the systems can have two Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.0GHz processors, up to 3TB of hard disk storage and up to 16 GB of RAM. Designed with graphics, video and multimedia professionals in mind, the new Mac is one serious machine. Some serious graphic card options are also available, supporting massive display configurations such as dual 30-inch monitors and more.

Eight-core Mac Pro systems start at about $4,000, but can go all the way up to $11,000 when you max out RAM and disk storage. If that’s too rich for your blood, you can always pick up a basic version of the system with dual 2.0GHz Dual-Core Xeons for just $2,200.

The machine is the new bad boy on Sony’s block, featuring a quad core 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU. Fully outfitted, the machine sports 3GB of DDR2-667 RAM, 3TB of SATA hard disk storag, an nVidia Quadro FX 1500 graphics card, and a 24-inch widescreen LCD. In this configuration, the system should have no problem handling the most graphically and processor intensive tasks out there.

Now the bad news… in this configuration, the system will run

Gateway’s DX420 series starts at as little as $599.99, including a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor. The systems also include Windows XP Media Center Edition and run on Intel’s well respected P965 chipset, which supports up to 4GB of Dual Channel DDR 667MHz memory. The $599.99 DX420B model includes a 16x Double-Layer Multi-Format DVD Writer (DVD

The new model features a substantial widescreen display running at 1900×1200 resolution, a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a 250 GB hard drive, and 1 GB of RAM for $1999.00.

The system also features an 8x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL, DVD