Compaq Presario CQ40-125AX Preview

Today I like to introduce a new laptop, made by Compaq (division of HP).

Compaq Presario CQ40-125AX (Price : RM 2099)

• AMD Turion X2 RM-70 2.0GHz
• ATi HD3450 256MB (Good for low-end gaming!!)
• 1GB RAM
• 250GB HDD
• Webcam 1.3MP
• WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth
• DVD Writer
• 14.1" WXGA

The reason I preview this laptop is that it's graphic card is quite good! For 2.1k, you can get a discrete graphic card that normally found in laptop that costs 2.8k and above.

IMHO, this laptop is good for those people who always play dota or CS(they can play at high quality!!). You can add another 1gb of RAM for rm60 so that it won't lag in Vista. Forgot to mention, this laptop does not come with windows vista nor xp. So you have to add another RM 250 for a Vista Home Premium Version.

You can go to this thread that is dedicated to this series of laptop, that is, CQ40 series.

This website have extensive review about this laptop, albeit it is in chinese.

October 3K PC configuration~

Yawn......time to make another 3k rig again......no new changes on the hardware news except for the introduction of AMD Radeon HD 4670 and 4550. But no more talking (typing i mean), let's see my choice for this month's 3k PC~~

• CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9550 2.2GHz - RM 484
• RAM: Aeneon 2GB DDR2 800MHz * 2 - RM178
• HDD: Western Digital 640GB SATA - RM 239
• Motherboard: Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H - RM 309
• Graphic Card: SapphireHD4850 512MB DDR3 - RM574
• Optical Drive: LG DVDRW 20X SATA (GH20) - RM74
• Monitor: LG 19" LCD (W1942T) - RM 529
• Speaker: Edifier M1350 2.1 - RM 80
• PSU: HEC Ace power 480W - RM290
• Casing: Lian-Li PC-7 - RM 220 (Get it from ATE)

Total : RM 2977

Well, it's RM97 more than the previous 3k PC, but you get a better graphic card that can beat 3870 by 40%++.

AMD’s First 45nm Desktop Microprocessors Set to Arrive on the 8th of January, 2009.

Advanced Micro Devices plans to announce its first desktop microprocessors produced using 45nm process technology on the 8th of January, 2009, the first day of Consumer Electronics Show. The code-named Deneb chips will not get truly high clock-speed boost, but will be able to offer substantially higher performance thanks to larger cache and architectural improvements.

The first desktop processors from AMD made using 45nm process technology will be AMD Phenom X4 chips clocked at 2.80GHz and 3.00GHz, sources familiar with AMD’s plans said. The new processors will support both DDR2 and DDR3 memory, but since the initial chips will be available in socket AM2+ form-factor, the chips will have to rely on dual-channel DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066MHz DDR2) memory.

Surprisingly, but the 45nm process technology will not allow AMD to reduce power consumption of its quad-core AMD Phenom X4 process considerably and the new chips are projected to have 125W thermal design power (TDP), inline with today’s higher-end Phenom X4 chips. Still, the new microprocessors will definitely have better performance-per-watt ratio compared to predecessors.

Earlier this year AMD said that code-named Shanghai and Deneb microprocessors, which are based on the improved K10 micro-architecture, will be able to offer higher instructions per clock (IPC) throughput compared to currently available AMD Phenom and AMD Opteron processors, which should transform into higher overall performance per clock. Thanks to higher IPC and larger level-three cache (6MB instead of 2MB), the new processors are likely to offer considerably higher speed than existing quad-core chips by AMD.

Pricing of the new chips will depend on their performance against competitors as well as other market conditions.

Officials from AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Personally, I think AMD might be able to dominate the lower market where budget are most important(read: rm500 and below) to user. Intel CPU might have higher performance but they costs more too. You might say Intel CPUs overclock better. But we must remember not all people know what is overclock.