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SiS has launched what it claims is the first integrated chipset designed to support the Pentium 4's effective 800MHz frontside bus frequency, the SiS661FX. But since the part won't ship in volume until August, with mobo availability in September, it's possible a rival will get a similar product out the door first.

SiS' chipset provides single-channel 400MHz DDR SDRAM support. It also offers an AGP 8x graphics card bus, over which its DirectX 9-compatible graphics core operates. The graphics core contains two pixel rendering pipelines and can apply four textures per cycle. LCD resolutions of up to 1600x1200 are supported, but CRTs can be supported at up to 2048x1536. The chipset provides TV-out, and dual-screen output. John Hsuan, SiS' chairman, recently said the company may consider using ATI graphics cores in its integrated chipsets, leading to the possibility that ATI technology is powering the SiS661FX's graphics. SiS simply refers to the core as a "Real256E". Its graphics subsidiary, Xabre, has yet to announce a DirectX 9 core.

SiS' HyperStreaming technology is used to connect the North Bridge to the South. The latter, the SiS964, supports Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 and JBOD; two ATA 133 channels; 10/100 Ethernet; 56kbps modem; six-channel AC97 sound; eight USB 2.0 ports; and an integrated PS/2 mouse/keyboard controller. ®

News source: The Reg

Microsoft describes Exchange 2003 as "the most reliable and secure version of Exchange Server to date." The product was developed with the same Trustworthy Computing coding principles used during the development of Windows Server 2003, meaning it is secure by design, secure by default, secure in deployment, and secure in communications, to use the company's now-familiar refrain. Primary functional improvements in this release include a completely revamped Outlook Web Access (OWA) client, which closely resembles and works like Outlook 2003; significantly faster synchronization between Exchange and Outlook 2003; new mobile device integration; a new HTPPS connection mode which negates the need for complex VPN access to the server; and a host improvements gained when the server is installed on Windows Server 2003, which adds support for better backup and restore methods and eight-node clustering.

From a pricing perspective, Exchange 2003 will cost the same as its predecessor, Exchange 2000, though it should be noted that customers will generally receive more bang for their buck with this release, especially if they are interested in deploying OWA. The product will be available in two editions, Standard and Professional, and will include licenses for the server, users, devices, and an external connector, which allows an unlimited number of external users to access the server.