The TR Podcast 75: Gaming in the cloud, new Radeons, and the ultimate fan controller

	Date: October 30, 2010 Time: 1:28:26 Hosted by Jordan Drake Co-Hosts: Scott Wasson, Cyril Kowaliski, Geoff Gasior Download: MP3 (63.8MB) | M4A (86.9MB) Subscribe: RSS (MP3) | RSS (M4A) | iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (M4A)
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Show notes
We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of the TR Podcast, starting with two listener mail questions. KJ wants to know how AMD's Zacate will stack up against Intel's Consumer Ultra-Low-Voltage offerings, while Chris asks if Geoff ever found a better MP3 player for swimming.

Shortly thereafter, Scott reviews the newly rebooted Medal of Honor before getting into the meat of this episode: AMD's new Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 graphics cards. Scott gives us the skinny about the new Barts silicon, morphological AA, how these cards stack up against the Nvidia competition, and more.

As we reach the tail end of this episode, Geoff brings up AMD's latest efforts in the domain of fan-speed controls, Cyril discusses Asus' dual-core, Ion-based Eee PC, and our editors all voice their thoughts on Apple's new—and expensive—MacBook Air models.

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

Follow us on Twitter - Scott - Jordan - Geoff - Cyril - The Tech Report

Listener mail:

Zacate vs. Intel? - from KJ - (0:01:47):

"AMD Zacate. I currently own a Intel CULV (Pentium SU4100 - Gateway ec1430u 11.6). Are there any good reviews of the zacate platform vs the intel culv (2010) platform? I have read your "Toshiba's Nile-powered Satellite T235D notebook". I am in no hurry to replace my intel culv (SU4100), but I am interested on how zacate preforms. You can refer me to a podcast, website.

Zacate vs. intel culv:
- battery life (mostly for video, web surfing)
- performance - video/CPU
- Mobile SSD performance which is faster AMD (sb???) or intel (ich???)
- price/availability. Where are these AMD products.

I enjoy the intel culv (su4100) for battery life, and video playback (SD, HD blu-ray on 1080p monitor when mobile). I found though that a SSD upgrade dramatically improved user interaction. It also seems most review focus on battery life and video performance but for web surfing the SSD upgrade improves speed of web browsing. In the past I found that the intel atom based sata controller runs at sata1 speeds."

A swim question for Geoff - from Chris- (0:04:34):

"I have a question for the TR podcast, specifically for Geoff. As the winter season rolls over Canada, I find myself swimming more and more. I was wondering if Geoff ever found a suitable way to listen to music and podcasts while swimming. Unless I've missed something, his last review lamented the lack of storage and an easy way of changing tracks. I came away with the feeling that there was still a lot wrong with this type of product."

Tech discussion:

Scott and Jordan talk Medal of Honor (0:06:00)

An evening with OnLive's cloud gaming service (0:15:16)- Read more

AMD's Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 graphics processors (0:18:30)- Read more

AMD's SB800-series fan speed controller exposed (1:03:56)- Read more

Asus' Eee PC 1015PN netbook (1:11:15)- Read more

New, 11.6-inch MacBook Air starts at $999 (1:19:31)- Read more

That's all, folks! We'll see you on the next episode.