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Show notes
This week on the show, we start with a frank discussion of Apple's latest laptop release, in which Scott and the gang (including new TR blogger Matt Butrovich) talk about the pros and the cons of the new MacBooks. The discussion explores the industry trends affecting today's operating systems and should interest even Mac-hating PC hardware enthusiasts. Joshua Buss talks about the Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship he covered from Taiwan. Geoff and Scott follow up with Nvidia's GeForce 9300 chipset, and we finish the episode with a discussion of tech peer pressure, the best netbook yet, and grandma's computer.

Also in this episode, we announce and begin our first-ever TR Podcast giveaway. Jordan starts the show with a quick explanation of the contest and rules, but you should check out our official giveaway post here. Thanks to NCIX for providing the Acer Aspire One that we're giving away to a lucky podcast listener.

Send in listener mail, and we'll answer on the podcast. - jdrake@techreport.com

Listener mail:

Integrated graphics on an HTPC? (0:03:52) - from Renoir:

"I was very interested in Scott's comments in the latest podcast that related to possible downfalls of using integrated graphics for a media PC (690G was mentioned in the podcast). Specifically, the issues with dropped frames despite sub 100% cpu utilization and slow menu performance in Windows Media Centre. I was wondering what he felt was the cause for these issues especially considering the CPU is not maxed out? My guess would be that inadequate memory bandwidth/latency is at fault and if that is the case I'd be interested to hear his comments on whether he feels that the integration of the GPU on to the CPU package in future AMD CPUs will solve those issues given that the GPU will have less 'hops' to go through to get to main memory than it does in the current 690G/780G topology?"

Tech discussion:

New MacBooks have aluminum enclosures, Nvidia graphics (0:11:19)- Read more

Gigabyte's Open Overclocking Championship 2008 (0:38:13)- Read more

Nvidia's GeForce 9300 chipset (0:56:28)- Read more

Geoff gives in: buys a new netbook (1:07:51)- Read more