Date: December 20, 2009 Time: 1:28:00 Hosted by Jordan Drake Co-hosts: Scott Wasson, Cyril Kowaliski, and special guest Rob Williams Download: MP3 (63.4MB) | M4A (86.5MB) Subscribe: RSS | iTunes
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Sponsored by MSI. Be sure to check out our review of the MSI P55-GD65 motherboard, which earned TR's Recommended award.

Show notes
After kicking off this episode with a review of James Cameron's Avatar, the gang welcomes Rob Williams of TechGage, who fills in for TR's venerable chipset and storage expert Geoff Gasior this week. Cyril then follows up on last episode's GPU shortage discussion, giving us the latest on the availability of AMD's Radeon HD 5850 and 5870 graphics cards.

Later, in a round of ultraportable stories, Scott shares his experiences with GPU-accelerated Flash video, installing Windows 7 on his Samsung NC20, and using Acer's Aspire Timeline 1810TZ ultraportable. A listener question subsequently prompts several Intel-related stories, including updates about the Larrabee graphics processor, the Federal Trade Commission's recent lawsuit, and the upcoming 32-nm Clarkdale, Arrandale, and Gulftown CPUs.

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

Listener mail (1:03:21):

Larabee as a software platform? - from Cassidy (ssidbroadcast) - (0:55:13):

"Hey Guys - Apparently Larabee is being "downgraded" to a software platform?* Sounds like a major setback for Intel. Could we hear your guy's take on this?"

Tech discussion:

Cyril's Avatar review (0:02:37)- Read more

Jordan's Avatar review (0:14:34)

Availability check: Radeon HD 5850, 5870 drought ends (0:19:06)- Read more

GPU acceleration comes to Flash video (0:28:27)- Read more

Installing Windows 7 on a Samsung N20 (0:39:41)- Read more

Eee PC 1201N shows up at Newegg (0:43:34)- Read more

Scott's podcast exclusive review of the Acer Aspire 1810TZ (0:48:43)

Intel confirms January 7 launch for Clarkdale, Arrandale (1:03:45)- Read more

First Gulftown CPU may be branded Core i7-980X (1:06:31)- Read more

Pineview Atoms on their way (1:12:05)

FTC sues Intel over antitrust violations (1:17:22)- Read more