Office workers who work in certain industries need special computers to get their work done. A standard desktop that is used for checking email and writing word documents in a normal office just won’t cut it in a graphics design or CAD department. For this type of environment, a powerful workstation computer is needed.

HP has announced its new Z series workstations today that use the new Intel Xeon 5500 series processors. The new series includes the Z800, Z600, and Z400 workstations that are aimed at the CAD, engineering, medical imaging, finance and oil/gas industries.

When I was a kid, my doctor’s nurse would always bust out of the door to the exam room with an arm full of paper folders with all my medical records inside. More often than not she gave the doctor the wrong folder resulting in more agonizing wait time before I found out if I had to get a shot or not.

Today when I take my son to the doctor the nurse comes out with a small tablet computer in hand with access to all the medical records in the office. A new rugged tablet computer for health pros has been launched by GammaTech called the Durabook RT10. The machine is fully rugged and can withstand drops of up to four feet and features Intel Health technology.

iBUYPOWER has teamed up with Tiger Direct to launch the new Gamer Power 906, which sports an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 Processor, 4GB DDR-2 RAM, Nvidia 9600GT1GB GPU, 500GB SATA storage and 600-watt PSU. It’s an affordable performance system with enough juice for graphic intensive games.

The components inside the Power 906 are housed in a roomy NZXT Alpha Chassis with a silent cooling solution, professional cable management system, clear side panel and is preinstalled neon lights. Not bad for under $750.

Today your average notebook has integrated graphics that are built into the notebook and many desktop systems have the same sort of graphics. Some of the higher-end gaming and multimedia notebook and desktop computers have discrete graphics, which are graphics cards that fit into motherboard expansion slots.

Today the bulk of the notebook market has integrated graphics. However, JPR says that by 2012 integrated graphics will be all but gone. The research shows that in 2008 67% of graphics processors shipped were integrated.

Panasonic has announced its W8 Premium Edition laptop. These are tough laptops that sport an 80GB Intel X-25M SSD with 250MB/sec reading speed and 70MB/sec writing speed.

The notebook comes in three different lid cover flavors including Black, Silver and Pink Splash. No info on pricing or availability just yet. Panasonic simply wanted you to notice them.

It wasn’t so long ago that adding a SSD to your computer meant $1000 or more in additional costs. Buying a SSD to add as an upgrade was only marginally cheaper with even small capacity SSDs selling in the $800 range.

SSD prices are coming down quickly in part thanks to the technology getting cheaper and in part due to the poor global economy putting price pressure on manufacturers. Intel’s X25-M SSD can now be had on Newegg.com for under $370.

We all know the global economy is bad, consumers have less money to spend, fewer computers are sold, and thus less CPUs are needed putting Intel and other chipmakers in a bad spot. Intel has announced that it will begin measures that will help it face the challenging economy in America.

Intel says that it will consolidate its manufacturing operations by cutting its capacity to match the current economy. In other words, it’s cutting production and doing so by closing up some of its older tech manufacturing plants.

Intel and NVIDIA aren’t exactly the best of friends. Just when things were looking up in the relationship thanks to NVIDIA allowing SLI on the Intel X58 chipset, NVIDIA ousts Intel as the GPU of choice in the new MacBooks.

A rumor circulated around the Internet that claimed Intel may be looking to kill NVIDIA’s new Ion platform that combines the Intel Atom CPU with an NVIDIA 9400 GPU. The rumor had Intel only selling the Atom CPU with its 945 chipset.

I am a big fan of netbook computers. I have tested several and found them to be great for reducing my load when traveling to places like CES. The catch is that netbooks offer little graphics power meaning that you get a less than ideal HD video and gaming experience on most netbook computers.

NVIDIA announced a new platform this week called Ion that promises to provide Intel Atom powered netbooks and net tops with the graphics muscle they need for better HD video viewing and even PC gaming.

There’s always the chance that someone may steal your laptop and enjoy a nice relaxing day of browsing through your digital life. The very idea sucks, but Ericsson and Intel are developing a solution. The two companies are working on a remote kill switch for laptops.

Outfitted with both HSPA and GPS, the laptop can be SMS disabled and also globally located if stolen. A disabled laptop cannot be booted while third party software can handle aspects of extra data encryption. A thief with some tech know-how may be able to get around some or all of these measures, but at least this would be a deterrent to theft.

Intel and Micron’s joint venture in NAND flash technology, IM Flash Technologies, has announced mass production of 34nm, 32 gigabit multi-level cell NAND Flash device. This move puts the company in the lead of Flash technology ahead of the likes of Samsung and Toshiba with the only monolithic 32 Gb NAND chip that fits into a standard 48-lead thin small-outline package (TSOP).

The companies stated in the announcement that the development of the technology process is going along well and is actually ahead of schedule with the ability to provide companies to create greater capacities of NAND Flash memory for devices like cameras, phones, media players and computers at a lower production cost than what is currently available.

Dell has a computer for every need and more than one type of computer user can see benefit from the new Intel Core i7 CPUs. The benefit to gamers of a fast CPU is obvious so it makes sense to see the i7 CPU in a gaming rig. However, Dell is also putting the processor into computers not aimed at gamers.

Dell announced a new Studio XPS PC that uses the new Core i7 processors with pricing starting at only $949. At that price you can be the CPU used is the low-end Core i7, but it should still offer good performance.

A new CPU from Intel is big news around the PC enthusiast realm. Intel has introduced its latest Core i7 CPU that promises to deliver vastly superior performance compared to the previous generation of Intel processors.

According to Intel, the Core i7 parts deliver 40% more performance in processing intensive applications compared to the previous generation of processors. The CPU features Turbo Boost Technology that accelerates performance to match a computer user’s needs and the workload of the system at the time.

When Intel first started getting detailed about hardware requirements for its Core i7 CPUs, one of the things that worried some enthusiasts was the low max voltage RAM could be ran at. This meant that new RAM was needed to get the best performance out of the Core i7 and X58 chipset combination.

Kingston was among the first RAM makers in late October to launch triple-channel kits specifically for the new Intel platform with its first triple channel HyperX RAM. Kingston is now back with more DDR3 triple channel kits specifically for the Core i7 platform and other platforms. The difference is that the new HyperX offerings Kingston has announced use a new heatspreader design.

Unless you live under a rock you know that the economy in the U.S. and abroad is taking a beating right now. Despite the slow economy PC sales and shipments have continued to grow. Some research firms attribute the continued growth in part to the shipment of netbook computers.

IDC reported today that CPU shipments for Q3 2008 hit record highs. Worldwide CPU shipments for PCs grew 14% compared to the previous quarter and grew 15.8% over the previous year. The research firm reports that the Atom from Intel contributed significantly to the overall market performance. Even taking the Intel Atom out of the equation IDC reports that the CPU market grew by 8.3% from the previous quarter and 8.7% from the previous year.