Friday, June 06, 2008

Dell's XPS One (RED) slashed by $400


Get it while you can. A new coupon is available which cuts the original $1,599 price of Dell's XPS One (PRODUCT) RED to just $1,199. That's $100 less than the entry level XPS One. Now, let's race to see who can void the offer faster 'cause this is one hell of a deal. Instructions after the break. Ready... go!P.S. US only.

AMD including hidden overclocking functionality in tri- / quad-core Phenoms?


Straight up, this one sounds just too bizarre to ever be true, but we suppose (almost) anything goes when talkin' AMD. Now that you're suitably skeptical, word on the street has it that AMD's triple- and quad-core Phenom processors posses a half dozen "hidden pins" which can enable painfully easy overclocking when paired with the right chipsets. Yeah, this sounds way too much like some sort of Up / Down / Up / Down / Select / Start fantasy boost, but apparently a 2.8GHz Black Edition CPU can be taken to 3GHz with a SB700-equipped motherboard or an even more tantalizing 3.2GHz when used with a SB750. As expected, the release date for this tech is listed as unknown, but maybe that's just some code trying to tell us we're really stuck in the Twilight Zone.

SonyNEC Optiarc projects sub-$100 Blu-ray optical drives by year's end


If you'll recall, SonyNEC Optiarc was the same company that suggested BD prices would be halved by 2008 from what they were in late 2006, and while stickers are still relatively high on standalone decks, the prediction actually wasn't too far off. A new report from Tom's Hardware notes that the aforementioned outfit is expecting Blu-ray combo drives "to reach the $100 line before the holiday season." For around $50 more, it reckons you'll have access to slim-line notebook drives that handle the same duties. Granted, there's no real confirmation surrounding the assertions, and we'll be the first to blindly hope such wishful thinking comes true, but we'd say BD prices in general have a whole lot of falling to do in six short months for this one to even stand a chance.