Fuel Cells: Just another appeasement to the oil companies.
Step 1: Fuel Cells are 40% efficient on a good day. Plus, you need to get hydrogen. This is either done by BURNING FOSSIL FUELS or by electrolysis using electricity that, in this nuclear paranoid country, comes from BURNING FOSSIL FUELS.
Step 2: Then you need to store the hydrogen, generally by cooling and massive compression into tanks. This requires tons of energy -- see Step 1.
Step 3: Then you need to transport it. You can't pipe it like regular fuel, so you have to truck it. This requires trucks that generally burn FOSSIL FUELS. Oh, and each truck of hydrogen generally only has enough fuel for 1/10 of the number of cars as it would if it was carrying gasoline.
I don't know which polymer Sony is going to use, but I've been using LiPoly batteries in my robots for years, and if anything they are far MORE unstable than anything I have seen from LiIon. I have watched a pack get taken out of a robot and placed on a charger and within 10 minutes burst into flames. Maybe Sony has figured something new out but...I'd be happier with LiIon than LiPoly.
"So 4x4 is a poor excuse for Core 2 Quad competition?"
It is an interesting approach to the same issue. AMD is using the fact that they have memory controllers onboard their chips to give each processor independent memory access and has increased the speed of interprocessor communication.
All that said, many few operating systems support dual socket implementations and dual socket chips (seeing how you need 2) and motherboards are far more expensive than single versions.
All this piled on top of the fact that Intel's dual core chips handily wipe the floor with AMD's chips means AMD is going to have to really sell this setup.
"Of course, given those Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro benchmarks that that only brought a 10 percent increase over the previous Core Duo chips"
Do you come up with stupid statements on the fly or do you practice them first? MANY benchmarks have shown 75-100% increase in performance (that's called core scaling) in applications that support more than two threads. Ironically, iTunes does not, but Photoshop CS2 and many video rendering programs do. Also, most server loads are inherently multi threaded.
So why don't you contain your negativity until you do a little research.
The game is fantastic! I'm loving it. The plotline is good, the NPCs are witty.
The biggest problem is it is CHUGGING on my machine. Granted, I don't have the best computer out there by a long shot, but its running slower than Oblivion did, and I haven't been able to NOT play a game I wanted.
P4D 805 @2.83Ghz (sucks but was $90) GeForce 6200TC 256MB 1Gig Ram
By reading the forums, it looks like people with even more powerful machines are having problems. I'm hoping for a performance patch a la Civ4
Whee! Look at our pretty pictures! No, wait, don't look at the benchmarks Intel has already posted that wipe the floor with everything we produce! No, no. Look at the pretty pictures...
AAAAAAAH! What is wrong with you people?!?! Why in the world would you title the article "Core Duo sacrifices battery life" when there is NO evidence to support that?!? Even historically Intel-haters Tomshardware said it wasn't the Core Duo that is sucking the battery life." Tom's found that the fault doesn't lie in the Core Duo processor itself, which the site says "is definitely one of the most efficient and energy saving (mobile) processors we've ever seen." Although they ALSO named the article something absolutely stupid as well. Of course the graphics card is sucking all the energy. The graphics card and the display can EASILY account for over half of the power used by a laptop.
Futhermore, the processor has a defined power envelope. It WILL NOT USE MORE POWER THAN THIS.
*rolls eyes* More unsubstantiated Intel bashing...engadget, you disapoint.
"No kidding about 64 bit. What where they thinking? IMHO, the reason they went with Intel instead of AMD is for supplier strength, but if this rumor is true, then that fell through, didn't? They SOOO should have went with an Athlon64."
Two reasons probably. 1)AMD doesn't have the mobile chips that Intel does. When I see an OC'ed (with factory cooling) Intel MOBILE chip near AMD X2 performance, it scares me. 2)AMD doesn't make its own chipsets anymore. Intel can design and produce chipsets directly for Apple meaning they don't have to do it anymore freeing up a lot of R&D money for them.
Plus, by this summer Intel will release their new desktop chips which will be 64bit and by the fall their new mobile chips which will also be 64bit.
You do realise that in only a few applications does the transition to 64bit actually equal performance improvements yet....
Wow, lots of "why would I bother installing crappy old windows on this" comments.
Why? Because some of us need or want programs that for whatever reason aren't availible for OSX. I routinely use SolidWorks and Matlab amoung others, and I enjoy a good game from time to time. None of these things runs on OSX. Sad for me. But being able to use OSX for word processing/internet etc (ie: probably most of my time spent on the computer) and then being able to switch to a MS OS for other things on the same machine would rock! Ease up fanboys and realize that there are legit applications for MS despite its shortcommings.
GM prepping Chevy Sequel fuel cell vehicle for 2010
Feb 13th 2007 12:12PM (Engadget)Step 1: Fuel Cells are 40% efficient on a good day. Plus, you need to get hydrogen. This is either done by BURNING FOSSIL FUELS or by electrolysis using electricity that, in this nuclear paranoid country, comes from BURNING FOSSIL FUELS.
Step 2: Then you need to store the hydrogen, generally by cooling and massive compression into tanks. This requires tons of energy -- see Step 1.
Step 3: Then you need to transport it. You can't pipe it like regular fuel, so you have to truck it. This requires trucks that generally burn FOSSIL FUELS. Oh, and each truck of hydrogen generally only has enough fuel for 1/10 of the number of cars as it would if it was carrying gasoline.
This is all ridiculous.
FUEL CELLS == TEH SUCK!
Sony says non-exploding lithium polymer laptop batteries coming soon
Dec 9th 2006 1:15PM (Engadget)AMD's 4x4 setup to start at "about $1000"
Nov 10th 2006 9:17PM (Engadget)It is an interesting approach to the same issue. AMD is using the fact that they have memory controllers onboard their chips to give each processor independent memory access and has increased the speed of interprocessor communication.
All that said, many few operating systems support dual socket implementations and dual socket chips (seeing how you need 2) and motherboards are far more expensive than single versions.
All this piled on top of the fact that Intel's dual core chips handily wipe the floor with AMD's chips means AMD is going to have to really sell this setup.
Dell to launch quad-core servers and desktops
Nov 9th 2006 1:41PM (Engadget)Do you come up with stupid statements on the fly or do you practice them first? MANY benchmarks have shown 75-100% increase in performance (that's called core scaling) in applications that support more than two threads. Ironically, iTunes does not, but Photoshop CS2 and many video rendering programs do. Also, most server loads are inherently multi threaded.
So why don't you contain your negativity until you do a little research.
Metareview - Neverwinter Nights 2 [Update 1]
Nov 3rd 2006 12:43PM (Joystiq)The biggest problem is it is CHUGGING on my machine. Granted, I don't have the best computer out there by a long shot, but its running slower than Oblivion did, and I haven't been able to NOT play a game I wanted.
P4D 805 @2.83Ghz (sucks but was $90)
GeForce 6200TC 256MB
1Gig Ram
By reading the forums, it looks like people with even more powerful machines are having problems. I'm hoping for a performance patch a la Civ4
AMD shows off their "Barcelona" quad-core chip designs
Oct 12th 2006 2:13AM (Engadget)VH1 spoofs "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" ads
Jul 13th 2006 11:23AM (Engadget)Mac user: Uhh, I can play breakout, super breakout... warcraft II....
Does Core Duo sacrifice battery life for performance?
Jan 17th 2006 8:34PM (Engadget)What is wrong with you people?!?! Why in the world would you title the article "Core Duo sacrifices battery life" when there is NO evidence to support that?!?
Even historically Intel-haters Tomshardware said it wasn't the Core Duo that is sucking the battery life."
Tom's found that the fault doesn't lie in the Core Duo processor itself, which the site says "is definitely one of the most efficient and energy saving (mobile) processors we've ever seen."
Although they ALSO named the article something absolutely stupid as well.
Of course the graphics card is sucking all the energy. The graphics card and the display can EASILY account for over half of the power used by a laptop.
Futhermore, the processor has a defined power envelope. It WILL NOT USE MORE POWER THAN THIS.
*rolls eyes* More unsubstantiated Intel bashing...engadget, you disapoint.
Did shortages force Apple to skip other Intel models?
Jan 12th 2006 3:25PM (Engadget)Two reasons probably. 1)AMD doesn't have the mobile chips that Intel does. When I see an OC'ed (with factory cooling) Intel MOBILE chip near AMD X2 performance, it scares me. 2)AMD doesn't make its own chipsets anymore. Intel can design and produce chipsets directly for Apple meaning they don't have to do it anymore freeing up a lot of R&D money for them.
Plus, by this summer Intel will release their new desktop chips which will be 64bit and by the fall their new mobile chips which will also be 64bit.
You do realise that in only a few applications does the transition to 64bit actually equal performance improvements yet....
Did shortages force Apple to skip other Intel models?
Jan 12th 2006 3:20PM (Engadget)Why? Because some of us need or want programs that for whatever reason aren't availible for OSX. I routinely use SolidWorks and Matlab amoung others, and I enjoy a good game from time to time. None of these things runs on OSX. Sad for me. But being able to use OSX for word processing/internet etc (ie: probably most of my time spent on the computer) and then being able to switch to a MS OS for other things on the same machine would rock! Ease up fanboys and realize that there are legit applications for MS despite its shortcommings.