Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Corsair 32GB and 256GB Drives to Nova Series SSD

Corsair added of two new drives to their award-winning Nova Series SSD family.

The 32GB Nova Series SSD is the perfect mix of performance and value for use as a boot drive for basic configurations, and can also be used in multi-drive RAID configurations. The 256GB Nova Series SSD is a good choice for systems that need both high performance and large capacity. Both drives utilize the popular Indilinx Barefoot controller.

The 256GB Nova Series SSD is able to achieve speeds of up to 250MB/second read and 195MB/second write, while the 32GB Nova Series SSD delivers speeds up to 195MB/s read and 75MB/s write. Each drive fully supports the TRIM command used by Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems, to maintain optimal performance automatically over the lifetime of the drives.

The 32GB and 256GB Nova Series SSDs are available immediately from Corsair's authorized distributors and resellers worldwide and are backed by a two-year limited warranty

AMD Low-power ATI FirePro RG220 Graphics Card

AMD announced a remote graphics option for IT managers seeking to replace existing desktop workstations with energy-efficient solutions.

The ATI FirePro RG220 graphics card is designed to help IT managers reduce local power and cooling costs per user while limiting the amount of physical hardware at users' desks.

The FirePro RG220 is an integrated graphics card that includes display compression and IP transmission. It compresses dual-display graphic data at the host and outputs it over a regular IP network to a remote thin client device.

"Power consumption restrictions in crowded office buildings cause headaches for IT managers trying to find the right balance between energy efficiency, system performance and IT spend for the work environments they manage," said Janet Matsuda, senior director, Professional Graphics, AMD. "The ATI FirePro RG220 can be part of a secure, easy to manage solution, and is now available to enterprises that need to deploy updates to multiple users simultaneously, while still giving the end user the full PC experience they're accustomed to."


Features of the new ATI FirePro RG220 :
  • Low power consumption: a max power consumption of 35-watts per card.
  • High-Performance, reliable graphics: 512 MB of on-board graphics memory for graphics intensive applications that need to run on two displays at once.
  •  Small form factor: measuring just half the length of a standard PCIe card, the ATI FirePro RG220 fits into smaller systems and only takes up one PCIe slot within a server.
  • Security: powered by the network, the ATI FirePro RG220 is part of a secure solution that stores user data behind the firewall and within the confines of the data center, helping to ensure that customer or corporate information is protected. Supports compression of information residing in the data center for transmission over regular IP networks to the end user's thin client system.
  • Virtualization: Utilizing Parallels Workstation Extreme (PWE), ATI FirePro RG220 offers a traditional graphics experience in a virtual environment, with the flexibility to also support multiple operating systems at each user's desk. 
Three year limited product repair/replacement warranty .

PlayStation Protection Plan for PS3 and PSP Owners

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced the PlayStation Protection Plan, an extended service offer for the PlayStation 3 (PS3 and PSP (PlayStation Portable) systems.

Under the new program, PS3 and PSP owners in the United States can purchase an extended service plan of one or two years that begins after the original one-year manufacturer's limited warranty expires. PSP owners can also choose the Accidental Damage Plan, which adds coverage for cracked-screen damage in the event of an unexpected drop.

With the PlayStation Protection Plan, users can extend the same coverage from the original manufacturer's one-year warranty for one or two additional years. The pricing includes all shipping charges and repairs, which are performed by PlayStation-trained service technicians using official parts at SCEA-authorized repair facilities. The PlayStation Protection Plan is available beginning in May 2010 and will be priced competitively.

- PS3 - 1-year extension ($44.99) or 2-year extension ($59.99)

- PSP - 1-year extension ($29.99) or 2-year extension ($39.99)

- PSP with Accidental Damage - 1-year extension ($39.99) or 2-year extension ($49.99)