Latest News - Page 3210

NVIDIA's long awaited Fermi based GXT 400 series GPUs are all set to hit the market on the 26ths of this month. However, as with many past launches of new GPUs we are beginning to see the early peaks and leaks of pictures and specs.

Today it is MSI that is showing of their new GXT 480 in the hopes that at launch time you have them firmly in mind for your NVIDIA DX11 purchase. The card in question is the N480GTX, and like the others that will hit the stores around the 26th it is a reference card.

MSI is making claims of "military-class" components for N480GTX. However, I am not sure that this is the right thing to do. After being in the Military myself, I can tell you that most of what I used was old, used and often in need of constant maintenance. Here's to hoping that they MSI GTX 480 is nothing like that at all.

The popular DirectX 11 benchmark from Unigine Corp. called Heaven has seen a major update this week, taking it to Version 2.0.

Changes include :-

• More tessellation load.

So, Google has lifted the curtain on the searches in China. This is seen by many as a very bold move and one that on the surface proves Google's stated commitment to net neutrality. To do this they have re-routed all Google.cn requests to Google.com.hk. They claim this is a legal way to get around China's censorship laws.

Still, if we look a little below the surface of the move we might see some murky water flowing around. It is important to remember that Google entered the Chinese market with the full knowledge that they would be required to censor search and ad results. They also knew that they would be required to give information to the Chinese government about the people using the search engines, G-Mail and Google Docs accounts.

So, knowing all of this information and bearing in mind the claim that Google made saying that the Chinese Government backed a Cyber Attack on their systems, we could see another motivation for Google's move. Perhaps the Chinese Internet market is not worth the hassle when your search (and ad) results are intentionally limited. After all, Google is an online ad company first and a search engine second these days. It is also important to remember that every business wants to make a profit. There is no company out there that wants to lose money. Simply put, China is a bad investment for Google.

Such a shame - boutique PC maker Hypersonic-PC has closed down. According to a message left on its website, "At this time Hypersonic-PC is not accepting any orders. We are honoring all warranties and will continue to support existing customers. All customers that currently own a Hypersonic branded PC or Notebook can contact the following numbers for direct product support."

While Hypersonic-PC wasn't as well known or successful as the likes of Alienware, Falcon Northwest or Voodoo, the PC maker did produce some rather solid products targeted for the gamer. I personally still use one of their 12.1-inch laptops that really impresses me for its looks and performance.

OCZ Technology bought the PC maker sometime ago now as it expanded into new areas. Rob from Techgage was able to contact Alex Mei, OCZ's Executive VP and CMO, and got the following response: "We are focusing all our resources on SSD, PSU and Memory and our SI business really didn't fit into the spectrum of things."

Whoever the dude was that put those plugs on Christmas lights that let you daisy chain sets was a genius. He should have won some sort of Nobel Prize. A new design concept has turned up for USB cords that is very similar to Christmas lights.

The concept cables have a USB port on the back of the plug that lets you plug in multiple USB devices using one USB port. Sure, you can already do this with a USB hub, but these stackable cables mean you don't need to take a hub with you.

The cables are color coded to make it easy to track which of your peripherals each one goes too. I'm not sure how many of these would be chainable before you draw too much power, but I bet you could get your USB lava lamp and other gadgets in there.

According to a report by Fudo, Intel intends on launching a completely unlocked retail shipping processor in early June, which is Computex time here in Taiwan.

Multiplier unlocked processors are not a new thing, but they are usually always reserved only for media samples or for early development and testing.

The processor is question as reported is the Core i7 875K, where the 'K' apparently stands for unlocked. It is a Socket 1156 based processor designed for high-end Intel P55 Express chipset based motherboards. According to Fudo, it will come with a TDP of 95 watts and your motherboard will require a BIOS update to fully support it. Fudo goes on to say that it's a quad-core CPU with Turbo Boost and dual-channel DDR3 1333 memory support.

GIGABYTE today posted an update on its Tech Daily blog regarding a new small Mini-ITX motherboard that is in the works from the Taiwanese company.

The motherboard is based on Intel's H55 Express chipset. Blog author Tim mentioned that it comes loaded with many audio and video features that are unprecedented in motherboards of this size and we would tend to agree with that statement. He reckons that "dynamite does come in a small package!" What's interesting is that we saw on a Chinese blog that the board will also come with USB 3.0 ports, which makes it the first Mini-ITX board to come with the new SuperSpeed connectivity.

TweakTown was able to obtain a picture of the upcoming motherboard, which sits next to a comparatively giant X58A-UD7, for some prospective on its actual size. The shot of the board you can see above is of a non-final sample and we are not totally sure when the board will go on sale, but we expect pretty soon.

Following on from our 1-2 Punch article that went up over a month ago, Our VGA reviewer Shane has been made aware of some more exciting details via access to the release notes for the soon to be released ATI Catalyst 10.3 driver suite.

Along with all the aforementioned additions in the way of superior Mobility support, extended Eyefinity features and 3D Stereoscopic driver hooks, the release notes give a very pretty picture on the performance side of things from this new driver as well; not just for HD 5000 series owners, but for those with HD 4000 series cards. too.

The ATI crew have made sure to focus on some of the best and most popular gaming titles right now and worked real hard in squeezing every bit of performance they could out of their current and previous generation models. Check this out for size :-

NEC Electronics recently announced that it plans on massively ramping up production of its USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) certified SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) host controller.

By April, the large Japanese company stated that it intends on doubling its output production of the popular host chip from one million units to two million per month.

Recently there has been a delay in seeing some USB 3.0 based products hit the market due to shortages of USB 3.0 host controllers, which are vastly only produced by NEC and Fujitsu, at this stage of the game. In fact, we've been waiting on review samples of USB 3.0 hard drive enclosures for instance, but they've had to be postponed due to aforementioned shortages.

The time is nearing for AMD to kick off its new Phenom II X6 series processors which house six cores. The folks at Techpowerup have today learned more specifics about the first wave in the lineup which will include three models.

The fastest of the pack is the Phenom II X6 1075T (125W TDP) which comes clocked at 3.0GHz. Beneath that is the 1055T model (both in 125W and 95W TDP variants) clocked at 2.8GHz and then the 1035T (95W TDP) at 2.6GHz. All of the processors are confirmed to have 9MB of cache (6MB L3 + 3MB L2) and will of course have an integrated DDR3 memory controller and are based on 45nm technology.

It's already safe to assume even the fastest of these chips won't have what it takes to compete with Intel's Gulftown and not only just because the i7-980X is clocked higher. But providing AMD launches these new six-core models with the right pricing, they could be an attractive alternative to LGA 1156 Core i7s.

If you remember back during CES we told you about EVGA's ambitious project to build a highly overclockable dual 1366 socket motherboard that could run Quad SLI or Quad Crossfire. Well it has finally been announced and given a name. This board will be known as the Classified SR-2.

Just like we told you before this will run two Xeon 55xx or 56xx CPU with up to 48GB of registered DDR3 1333 memory (24GB per CPU) it supports both dual and triple channel setups. It also has a enough PCIe x16 slots to support up to four GPUs in full x16 mode across all of them. However, to get all this in the board has to be huge! It is even larger than full XL-ATX. It is so big EVGA had to come up with a new size name HPTX.

Power will also be an issue, to run Tri SLI and OC both sockets will put you in the area of 1500 Watts of power draw. With Quad SLI you are looking at 2000+ Watts. Most are thinking that to get this off the ground a pair of 1200-1400 Watt PSUs will be needed. Unfortunately there is still no word on when these will actually hit the market.

The biggest problem facing users who want to have surround sound in their home is the placement of the rear speakers. This is particularly challenging if 7.1 surround is what you are after. A new update fro Dolby 7.1 surround has been revealed.

The update adds a pair of new audio zones with a back surround left and back surround right placement. These pair with the two front zones to provide better 3D sound. The new setup feeds each of the new rear channels their own signal rather than using a single signal for both like the old system.

We aren't sure when the new system will land and if you will need a new receiver to take advantage of if you can somehow upgrade existing gear. I bet you need new gear.

With a fresh new brand identity up its sleeves, well out in the open actually, the Taiwanese memory company has just announced a brand new 8GB memory kit based around its XPG Gaming Series brand of high performance RAM.

The dual channel memory kit is designed specifically for gamers with Intel P55 or H55 Express based motherboards. The memory operates at 1600MHz DDR with its timings at 9-9-9-24 at 1.55 to 1.75 volts in the power department. While the memory speed is not incredibly fast, the 8GB of RAM should provide a smooth gaming experience especially when running with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 that is able to make use of all of the memory.

The modules come with a stylish black heat spreader and should be on sale now or soon. You can find more exact details here in the press release.

Over at NVIDIA's company nTersect Blog, Ashu Rege has blogged about the impressive DirectX 11 technology demonstrations that the graphics firm showcased at GDC in San Francisco last week. These demonstrations are designed to show developers what next-gen GPU technology such as the GeForce GTX 480 and 470 can do and also create hype in the community.

We already saw a video of the amazing DX11 hair demo the other day, but now we get a closer look into some of the other demos that were on display to game developers during the event.

There is also the DX11 island demo, which was created to showcase a large scene with simulated waves. Next up is the DX11 grass demo, which displays around 3.5 million blades of grass moving around in the wind. Sadly we haven't discovered videos of these two new demos in action, but even from the pictures and what we saw with the hair demo, you can bet they will be super impressive.

You would usually except the likes of OCZ, GSkill or Corsair to come out with the fastest certified memory on the planet, but this time it is Kingston who beats the other guys to the punch with its latest HyperX DDR3 memory kit.

Kingston part number KHX2400C9D3T1K2/4GX has been certified by Intel for operation up to an incredibly fast 2400MHz on a GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P motherboard. With the DIMM voltage set at 1.65 volts and the timings at 9-11-9-27, this new RAM will provide some incredibly fast memory performance numbers.

You can see the press release here.

Prolimatech sure did a fine job of boldening its stance in the CPU heatsink market with the introduction of the Megahalems almost a year ago, with performance figures showing it to be well worthy of its preceding hype.

The company puts itself back in the spotlight once again today with the introduction of its latest weapon, the Armageddon. This monstrous heatsink supports all current sockets including LGA 1156, 1366 as well as AM2/AM2+ and AM3 (requires an optional kit).

Dimensions of the tower-designed Armageddon come in at 144 (W) x 160.3 (H) x 50 (D) mm with a weight of 750 grams. Either 140 or 120mm fans can be strapped to one or both sides of the cooler, but no fans are supplied with it. Both the cooler's base and heat-pipes are nickel-plated copper.

As the launch date nudges closer, the big talk of the town is of course NVIDIA's next-gen GTX 470 and GTX 480 graphics cards that bring DX11 support and expectedly a significant performance leap over anything we've seen up 'till now; these slated for a March 26 launch date.

However, there's a wee bit of sour news for those of you who already have every intent in getting a hold of one the minute it's available. while NVIDIA originally planned for cards to hit retail shelves only a few days after launch (March 29th apparently), our VGA reviewer has been given indication that the availability date has been forcefully pushed back by NV to April 6.

The most probable reason for this is due to NVIDIA not wanting to make samples available to reviewers until close to launch and then issuing out an optimized working driver for the cards very close to this time to prevent early leaks of performance figures on older non-optimized drivers that could affect initial impressions. To ensure partners don't accidently let leak a sample ahead of time, NVIDIA is tightly holding onto all cards until launch date, so the April 6 availability date gives enough time for cards to reach retailers.

Alienware are well reknowned for bringing some of the most extreme all-out pre-built gaming rigs to town and they've certainly done their best to top any previous efforts with the soon to be available Area-51 ALX desktop PC.

The lucky folks at Hot Hardware were given one of these rigs to tinker with and quickly learned that it brings the best of everything available on the market today, including Intel's new Core i7-980X processor with six cores jammed inside.

The attention to detail with this beauty is second to none and brings several finishing touches not seen on a desktop system before, not to mention unprecedented performance with dual HD 5970s and the aforementioned Gulftown monster of which gets some self-contained water cooling treatment.

Unlike the past when both the manufacturer and AIBs shook their heads at any form of manipulation with voltage on graphics cards to favour a better overclock, these days it's a different story with some companies going so far as to provide software with their cards that promote the ability to do so for your overclocking pleasures.

With that said, our VGA man Shane Baxtor has learned that NVIDIA won't be cutting overclocking hungry folks out with their latest lineup of DX11 based cards to hit town, GTX 480 and 470. The company is apparently going to be happy in offering people more options when tinkering with their overclock result including the ability to adjust the core voltage via the card's PWM chip, within a respectable limit of course.

What we won't know until cards start to show up on the market is how the various AIBs will provide this ability; whether it's via a unique piece of software that lets the user tap into the voltage levels, or a standard feature directly from NVIDIA themselves.

Whilst we all continue to count down the days until NVIDIA lets Fermi (GF100) off its chains, little has been shared to give a clearer perspective on just how these latest and greatest monsters from NVIDIA dubbed the GTX 480 and GTX 470 will perform.

But, one thing that we're sometimes seeing pop up is the box designs some of the AIBs are going to use to ship their variants in. Not exactly exciting, but sure whets the appetite a bit.

The folks over at Toms Hardware have acquired box art images from Palit for its GTX 480 and 470 models, both using a V designed engine theme.