Valve have just released their much talked about "Lost Coast" level addon for Half Life 2, which showcases the HDR (High-Dynamic Range) lighting capabilities of the Source engine in all its glory. Valve state that you'll need to meet the following specs for the new level to run at an acceptable rate :-

CPU: A 2.6GHz Intel or AMD 2800+
Memory: 1GB or better
Video: ATI X800 or better, or NVIDIA 6800 or better

So as you can see, theres certainly a hefty price for all this lovely eye-candy. Providing you own a copy of Half-Life 2, you can jump straight onto Steeam and start downloading it now!

What we've done today is take two of the latest, most feature-packed nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards on the market: the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and the DFI LANPARTY NFII Ultra B and compare them. Both of these motherboards are targeted towards the high-end gamer and hardware enthusiast. They support all of the nForce2's key features, as well as the goodies that are optional for motherboard manufacturers to implement such as the Dolby Digital capable MCP-T and NVIDIA's DualNet networking. ASUS and DFI also add features unique to their respective boards, taking the nForce2 platform to entirely new levels.

Oh, and for those of you interested there is a Crossfire vs SLI performance test over at AMDZone, followed by a 15 minute runover from the Hexus lads.

Hexus:-
The interface is exactly the same as that for Half Life 2, after all this is an add-on, not a total conversion. You start off with a decent enough array of weaponry, though as yet there's nothing new...but then I've only played for quarter of an hour so far! One thing that is clear in the first few minutes is that although you got a nicely diverse range of weapons, you've bugger all ammo to go in them...each weapon has just one mag load, so you'd better make every shot count.