Cranking out news for the geeks, music buffs and gossip junkies, my way. -Greg

I’m pretty tech savy and when I think about upgrading my PC, its full blown warfare. I have to research (lets just say motherboard’s) on what I already know, or think I know. Then I have to go back and read millions of endless EU comments about every review I’ve read. Ok, so now I narrowed it down to a few possibilities , so I have to start thinking about price. Well when I finally decide on a MB I goto the next item, lets say CPU. I have to go through the whole process again, except now I have to make sure my MB supports my final decisions, which can help the initial norrowing down. This whole process may take me a couple days or weeks, even months. Ok, now I finally have everything, but yes I said even months, so you know by now ALL the prices have changed, most of the technology has changed and I’m beginning to start looking at a little newer stuff because its the same price of something I was looking at a month ago.. It’s war I’m telling ya!!  So whats the point, well now it looks great the new i5 chips are really cheap, wait they don’t support hyperthreading, I’m not going to upgrade my chip unless I move up to hyperthreading. So I’ll get an i7, now wait a minute this is getting more expensive and I can only use sets of 3 or sets of 2  sticks of RAM.. Do you see my point yet, Intel is just not making this any easier, tech is just getting outta hand.. lol makes me think about when I’m playing xbox, what happened to 2 buttons, A and B? -Greg

September 8, 2009 1:00 PM PDT

by Brooke Crothers

The main message of the new Core i5 chip is simple: it’s cheap–even cheaper than Intel chips based on older technology.

The i5, which brings Intel’s new “Nehalem” microarchitecture into the mainstream PC market, immediately makes many, if not most, of the older desktop processors obsolete. Consumers need look no further than pricing on sites like Amazon. The i5-750 lists for $250, while the older–based on Intel’s last-generation “Core 2″ microarchitecture–Q9650 lists for $319.

The official pricing from Intel in quantities of 1,000 units makes the price gap even more stark: $196 for the i5 and $316 for the Q9650.

“The new Core i7′s and Core i5′s bring pricing to more mainstream levels, with the Core i5-750 at a 1KU (1,000 units) price of $196, which is well below the Core 2 Quad Q9650 at $316,” said Intel spokesman George Alfs.

“We are very serious about bringing all new Core processors to new price points and you’ll see this trend continue with Westmere,” he said, referring to Intel’s upcoming processors based on a next-generation 32-nanometer manufacturing process.

Comparing the old with the new, some consumers might point out that the older Q9650 has, for example, more on-chip memory and a higher clock speed than the Core i5. But the writing is on the wall: consumers will almost always opt for new over old when new is less expensive.

On Tuesday, Dell began offering the Studio XPS 8000 tower with the Core i5 starting at $799 and packing 4GB of “Dual Channel DDR3 memory” and a 500GB hard disk drive, among other features. Adding a 20-inch monitor hikes this to $979.

The message is more muddled, however, for the updated Core i7 processors because they maintain the same “i7″ identifier as their predecessors–first launched in November–but offer different features that are not readily apparent to less-sophisticated buyers and potentially vexing for some savvy consumers.

“It gets confusing for the more technically knowledgeable buyer, and for us as system builders,” said Kelt Reeves, president of enthusiast PC maker Falcon Northwest. “Buying a Core-i7 950 model? Well then you can have a maximum of 12 gigs (gigabytes) of triple channel memory and you buy your memory in sets of 3 sticks. Buying a Core i7-870? Well then your memory is installed in pairs and the max you can have is 8 gigs,” he explained.

Reeves continued. “For instance, if you’re a heavy Photoshop user having 12 gigs of the fastest memory might be very important to you,” he added, saying in that case a consumer would want to opt for a Core i7 900 series over the newer 800 series.

There are other gotchas too. On the i5 processors a feature called hyperthreading is not included, as CNET’s Rich Brown pointed out Tuesday. Hyperthreading effectively doubles the number of tasks–or processing threads–a chip can do. “Heavy multitaskers and those who use multithreaded software will feel the loss here,” Brown said.

Nominations Announced in New York and Nashville

September 9, 2009; Written by Calvin Gilbert

Brad Paisley

With six nominations, Brad Paisley emerged as the frontrunner when the nominees for the 43rd annual CMA Awards were announced Wednesday (Sept. 9) in New York and Nashville. Keith Urban, Jamey Johnson, George Strait, Taylor Swift and Zac Brown each received four nominations.

Darius Rucker and Lee Ann Womack announced the final nominees in five of the 12 categories during a telecast Good Morning America at the ABC News studios in New York’s Times Square. Randy Houser announced the candidates in the other categories at CMT’s studios in Nashville on Insider Special Edition: 2009 CMA Awards Nominations, hosted by CMT personalities Cody Alan and Alecia Davis.

Rucker, once primarily known as the lead vocalist for Hootie & the Blowfish, picked up his first CMA nominations as a solo country artist. He’s nominated in the new artist and male vocalist categories. Womack and Strait share a nomination for musical event of the year for “Everything but Quits,” a duet featured on her Call Me Crazy album.

In addition to nominations for entertainer of the year and male vocalist, Paisley received an album of the year nomination for American Saturday Night and single and song of the year nominations for “Then,” the single he co-wrote with Chris DuBois and Ashley Gorley. Paisley’s collaboration with Keith Urban on “Start a Band” netted a music video of the year nomination for them and director Jim Shea.

Urban’s other nominations include entertainer of the year, male vocalist and album of the year (for Defying Gravity). Urban could potentially win a second trophy in the album of the year category for co-producing the project with Dann Huff.

Strait also received nominations for entertainer of the year and male vocalist, along with music video of the year for “Troubadour,” directed by Trey Fanjoy. Strait and Womack won the CMA’s musical event honor in 2005 for their collaboration on “Good News, Bad News.”

Swift’s four nominations include her first for the coveted entertainer of the year prize. She is also nominated for female vocalist and music video of the year (the latter for “Love Story,” directed by Fanjoy.) Aside from an artist nomination in the album of the year field, Swift could receive a second trophy for co-producing Fearless with Nathan Chapman.

Johnson, a new artist nominee, is also up for single and song of the year for “In Color” and album of the year for That Lonesome Song. He won a CMA song of the year award in 2007 for his work with co-writers Bill Anderson and Buddy Cannon on Strait’s hit, “Give It Away.”

Brown received his first CMA nominations Wednesday. The Zac Brown Band is included in the new artist and vocal group categories. The band’s hit single, “Chicken Fried,” is nominated for single of the year, and Brown garnered an extra nomination for co-writing the song with Wyatt Durrette.

This year’s CMA Awards will be broadcast live Nov. 11 from Nashville’s Sommet Center. Paisley and Carrie Underwood will return for a second year to host the ABC telecast.

Haha, how hilarious is this, poor George getting sexually harassed while at a press conference. He does a great job of dealing with the guy I have to admit. I’m not sure I could hold my composure as well. I wonder if this guy thought he had a genuine chance or if he just figured he would get on the news. Since he is a fan, George should at least thrown a couple dollars at him, haha… -Greg

Tue., Sep. 8, 2009 3:32 PM PDT by Marcus Errico

George Clooney came prepared to the Venice Film Festival.

Buzzworthy new flick. Check. Hot Italian girlfriend. Check. Crazy gay fanatic. Check and double check.

Clooney was fielding queries during a televised press conference for his new movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, when he got an eyeful from a male questioner.

“I am gay, George, and I think I am in love with you…Please take me,” the dude said, stripping down to his underwear. “May I kiss you, please. Just one kiss?”

The ever chill Clooney didn’t miss a beat. ”It’s hard when you take a big chance and it doesn’t really work,” he chuckled.

“It’s always embarrassing when you take one real big swing for the fences and it just falls flat,” said Clooney, who was decidedly not persuaded to do some switch-hitting. “It was a good try, though.”