I like the Apple coverage! :) What can I say I am an Apple convert!

without even listening to the podcast, i guarantee the tech peer pressure segement relates to the asus eee pc

By the way, Gary Key posted an update [1] over at Anandtech about their GeForce 9300 review. It turns out that the workaround fix for Advance Path won't be in the drivers, where the support already exists, but in the motherboard BIOSes. I guess we'll find out sooner or later whether they succeed or fail in fixing whatever's broken. Similarly, new BIOSes may add support for 4-cycle CAS latency timings. They also resolved the AHCI issues with their Sony optical drive by means of a newer BIOS and drive firmware.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=508

. . . have the Sunday price cuts (Q6600, Q8200, E7300, E2220, E2200) and product introduction (E7400) gone into effect yet? :p

Re the listener question: It doesn't seem to me that memory bandwidth would be a limiting factor in 1080p WMV playback, given that a fast Core 2 Duo with less memory bandwidth available to it (10.7 GB/s vs the Athlon X2's 12.8 GB/s, and further constrained by FSB inefficiency) via a software-only single-threaded decoder (like, say, ffmpeg/ffdshow). Scott mentioned that the CPU utilization was at 50-53%. Is it possible that the decoding was single-threaded and the single-threaded decode was limited by the CPU's single-threaded performance?

I can believe that the decode was limited by the 690G's video decode hardware, though, if it was played back using a DXVA-capable player.

Re the MacBook Pro: The entire desktop is rendered using 3D (Quartz Extreme), so I figure that that's one of the limitations of seamless switching via HybridPower. The GL applications likely have GL contexts that are tied to hardware state, which would make it difficult without additional hardware support in order to seamlessly switch between the integrated and discrete graphics. NVIDIA would need to develop silicon to transfer the contexts between the two graphics devices in order for seamless switching to occur without requiring a logout.

Alternatively, Apple would need to add code to Quartz Extreme in order to, say, switch to old-school Quartz (which is 2D-only and is what OS X uses when it doesn't have 3D-capable drivers available, which is the case when you *cough* use a Hackintosh virtual machine with, say, VMware Workstation 6.5's secret guestOS="darwin-64" setting), then switch the graphics devices, then reinitialize Quartz Extreme again.

(That brings up a question: how does HybridPower work with Vista's Aero Glass? Does the desktop switch to Aero Basic first, then the switch occurs, then the OS turns on Aero Glass again?)

Re the MacBook/MacBook Pro keyboard: Nothing beats a ThinkPad keyboard. And nothing beats a trackpoint! (The ThinkPad keyboard is so good that a lot of people buy the desktop ThinkPlus UltraNav keyboards [1] that are arranged in the same way and offer trackpoint pointers as well, even though they're also somewhat inferior to the real thing. They're still better than a lot of other desktop keyboards!)

[1] http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/Lenovo_ThinkPlus_USB_Keyboard...

Re cables: Perhaps Monoprice.com will have better pricing on the mini-DisplayPort to dual-link DVI adapter? They certainly have the best pricing on HDMI cables among other things. They won't be Apple(R) branded, but do you really need Apple(R) branded cables? :p Edit: it looks like mini-DisplayPort is actually a proprietary connector, so for now the only source for cables is Apple.

Re the GeForce 9300 chipset: Apparently, this chipset is the first NVIDIA chipset to have both DDR2 and DDR3 support, which is probably why they're having all these teething troubles. (The nForce 750i and 780i do DDR2 only, and the nForce 790i does DDR3 only.) Additionally, it's not fair to talk about CAS latency with the GeForce 8200 and 8300 chipsets since the memory controller isn't on the chipset.

Also, regarding QuickPath, it's rumored that NVIDIA will make PCH chipsets for the LGA 1160 mainstream and budget processors that will be launching toward the end of next year and they did get a QuickPath license but chose not to make chipsets for Core i7. (Maybe they expect lower Core i7 driven revenues in the market segment they're targeting?)

I'm concerned like Scott that Advance Path will never be enabled. In particular, it seems more like any workaround would be via the BIOS rather than via drivers. After all, Windows and OS X aren't the only OSes that these chipsets will run. It'll be pretty disappointing if the memory latency performance stays this way for at least this stepping of the chipset.

Re Geoff's Eee PC 1000HA: there are also 8.9" A and HA models, the Eee PC 900A and 900HA. Despite the "900" model number, they're Atom-based and like the 1000HA vs the 1000H, the main differences are the missing Bluetooth and pre-N wireless.

Also, a USB-Bluetooth adapter is $20. I'd rather get one of those than spend the $70 for the internal Bluetooth + pre-N wireless. :p

Eh, I'm not a fan of this episode so much. Nothing too much of interest for me IMO. However, it is still a fine podcast (as usual). I'm also glad to see our sponsor return (where did they go last episode?).

I can't wait for the podcasts when Nehalem and Deneb/Shanghai arrive.

The Mac stuff was interesting, I hope you guys start to cover it.

Overclocking Championship, LoL this is less about skill and more about being lucky to get the right OC'ing chips.

Wow, after listening to all these podcasts it's amazing now little actually happens on a week to week basis.

I've been a fan of techreport for a few years now, just want to say that the Techreport podcast continues to be the best source of tech information in podcast form. All content and no fluff.

mp3 download from TR stops at 14mb.

Who's that handsome devil behind that stylish computer!

I was starting to think this wasn't coming! I was all pumped to have a podcast for the dentist on Saturday but alas no dice!

You know I liked the last episode, although I skipped the section about PerfectCr (no offense.)

Edit 1 : Drake, Scott has been dropping out a lot more this episode than others. Is there anything that can be done about that? FiOS ftw?