A YouTube video of Crytek's upcoming game Crysis running on an Intel Penryn quad core CPU has been posted by XtremeQuest. Although we can't say we've heard of XtremeQuest before, it seems like there are a few YouTube videos of various related stuff, like a Graw 2 chat with the developers.

The interesting part about the Crysis video is the comments made by Cevat Yerli, the President and CEO of Crytek. It's apparently the first time he's seeing the demo running on the Penryn system. The game has been in development for three years and he said he thinks that the performance in amazing. He's really happy about how the game runs on the Penryn and he expects two to three years life span for Crysis.

According to Cevat, Crysis will be able to take advantage of the four cores of the Penryn and Crytek is working hard on adding additional features for multithreaded game play and better AI. The system looks pretty basic, although it's hard to tell from the fairly poor quality video. You can't really make out what the graphics card is, but our guess is that it's a GeForce 8800 series card. There's also an Intel motherboard, it might even be a Bad Axe 2 board, it does at least look very similar.

Dave Orton, the former CEO or ATI is leaving AMD at the end of the month according to a press release posted on AMD's website today. This is indeed sad news and it seems like most of the key ATI staff has left AMD since the merger of the two companies. Dave Orton held a press conference about AMD's new graphics products here in Taipei at Computex, just a month ago.

It is worrying times for AMD and if they keep losing key ATI staff at this rate, there won't be much of a graphics team left at AMD. Adrian Hartog and Rick Bergman will be reporting directly to Hector Ruiz as an effect of Dave Orton's resignation.

SiS is going to have a new chipset with integrated graphics for the 1,333MHz FSB Core 2 Duo processors from Intel, the SiS 680SCE. The specifications are pretty basic, as this new chipset only supports single channel memory. It will feature SiS' new Mirage 4 graphics engine which is meant to have DX10 support, but with a single channel memory controller, we have to wonder how well this new graphics engine will perform.

The Mirage 4 does support HDMI with HDCP, which might make this an interesting platform for media center type applications. The chipset also supports a x16 PCI Express slot and four x4 PCI Express slots. Additionally it also supports up to three PCI slots, HD audio, SATA RAID, Gigabit Ethernet and up to 10 USB 2.0 ports.

Dell has launched a new range of PCs and notebooks for the Small Business market and the Vostro range looks to be quite a decent option for those looking for simple, but serious business machines. The desktop systems starts at US$319 for the mini tower version and the slim tower starts at $349.

Both of the desktop systems are based on the Intel G33 chipset. The basic model comes with a Celeron 420 and 512MB of RAM for either model, as well as an 80GB hard drive and a 16x DVD-ROM. You can of course as always configure your own system and Dell offers a wide range of options up to an E6700 processor and various graphics options.

Pioneer Computers Australia is offering quad core CPU options for its DreamBook Power D90 SLI notebook. Well, to call it a notebook is almost wrong, as this is more of a mobile desktop. With a 17-inch display that has a native resolution of 1,920x1,200 and a weight of 5.4kg, it's hard to call this a notebook.

Still, it has some rather interesting features, as for starters, it's based on the P965 desktop chipset. This gives away the fact that the quad core CPU is going to be a desktop part as well. The D90 comes with a choice of processors from the basic E4300 to the Q6600 quad core and the X6800 Extreme Edition.

Along with further price cuts and a trimmed down production line of their CPUs today, AMD have also released a couple of new "TV Wonder" tuner products.

The first offering is their new "TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe", a PCIe x1 card featuring the Theater 650 Pro video processor (which debuted around a year ago). Dual tuners reside on the card, one purely for receiving digital, and the other analogue. Both are capable of operating simultaneously, allowing the user to watch and record from two individual sources at the same time.

Next up is the "TV Wonder 600 USB", featuring a hybrid TV tuner design which is capable of tuning into both digital and analogue broadcasts, but don't confuse that for being able to provide dual tuner functionalities like the TV Wonder 650 Combo card, as it does not sport dual tuners. This should be a great little addition to your notebook though.

If we're to believe information posted on HKEPC, AMD is working on CrossFire for three cards and the RD790 chipset will be the first to support three cards. Although not a lot of information is known at this time, the addition of HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 makes this chipset a clear candidate for new features.

Add to this 41 PCI Express lanes and its clear that AMD is working on something, although Physics is of course one of the most touted applications for a third card. However, HKEPC claims that the performance improvement of adding a third card raises CrossFire performance from 1.8x to 2.6x by going from two to three cards over a single card.

If AMD indeed can pull this off, then AMD should have a solid lead over Nvidia's SLI technology, as long as they can convince their customers to spend the extra money on a third card.

Good news for avid Quake fans, it has been confirmed that Nvidia are sponsoring QuakeCon 2007. This is set to take place at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas from August 2 through 5, and the organizers are expecting to draw around 6,000 gamers from around the globe. They anticipate it will be the largest and most successful QuakeCon to date.

The total prize pool will be a whopping $100,000. No doubt competition will be more fierce than ever, so get training HARD if you want to be in on the action!

In a recent announcement it's been mentioned that this year's QuakeCon event will also see the first ever "Quad Damage" tournament, this will span across all four Quake games. It will be a great way to find out who is the most multi-talented challenger out there, and worthy of being dubbed the true "Quake Master".

ThermalTake has released a new case in its Mozart media center range, the Mozart iP. ThermalTake claims that this is the world's first case with an integrated iPod dock and we believe them. The dock is integrated into the fascia of the desktop case and it looks rather smart on the pictures. You can see the iPod screen and access the scroll wheel via a cut-out in the case. The dock will also charge your iPod while it's plugged into the Mozart iP.

What's more is that the Mozart iP comes with a dedicated remote control for the iPod dock and there's a special controller that fits into a rear slot in the case that allows the iPod audio to be easily mixed with the sound from your sound card and then passed onto the speakers.

It seems like Creative has caused quite a stir among its users by charging US$9.99 for its EAX enabling Alchemy Windows Vista driver for the Audigy series. It might seem cruel by Creative to charge for something that should be free, especially since you can still buy a brand new Audigy card. Most of this comes down to changes in the Windows Vista driver model and EAX is no longer supported in DirectX.

The Alchemy project allows Direct Sound commands to be translated into OpenAL commands and thus EAX will work. Creative released a free version of Alchemy for its X-Fi customers a while back and has been working on improving the Alchemy drivers since. However, Creative went out with a statement when the X-Fi version arrived that it was going to charge a small fee for the Audigy version of the same software.

You can now order the Audigy version of Alchemy from Creative's web shop for a $9.99 fee, although this has upset many Audigy users and it seems like a workaround has already appeared on the least of expected places, Creative's Forums. A user called daniel_k has posted a link and instructions to how to use the X-Fi version to get free EAX support for Audigy cards.

Memory maker Super Talent have released a new series of DDR3 modules this week, starting with the W1333UB2G8 kit. This kit comprises a couple of 1GB sticks rated for 1333MHz speeds with timings of 8-8-8-18.

However, the most exciting is their two DDR3-1600 kits. The best of the two happens to run fantastic timings (as far as DDR3 goes for now) at 7-7-7-18 with 1.8V, very nice indeed for 1600MHz modules. Then there's the other 1600MHz rated kit, operating with slightly looser (but still quite reasonable) latencies of 9-9-9-21.

Another highlight of the new family is the introduction of a 2GB DDR3 module, up until now I hadn't spotted a 2GB DDR3 module yet (only 2x1GB kits). This module is designed to operate at up to 1333MHz with 8-8-8-18 timings at 1.8V.

Yesterday, yours truly headed over to the Shuttle HQ here in Taipei for a visit to bring you the latest news of what Shuttle is working on and what will happen over the next few months. There has been a lot of turmoil about Shuttle recently and there have been some rumours about the company being sold, but they're not true according to the people we've spoken to. Shuttle is refocusing its product development and it is moving away from some of the low cost products it launched last year as they proved to be uncompetitive.

The good news is that Shuttle has a solid launch schedule of new products that will be arriving in a steady stream over the next couple of months, with the first products appearing later this month. Shuttle also has a new marketing team onboard and is focusing on making its products better than ever. A wide range of new features will be incorporated, some more useful than others, but it looks like Shuttle has no intention of giving up.

Dailytech have gotten a hold of AMD's latest roadmap which confirms their plans for the remainder of the year and into Q1 2008.

The most interesting info plucked from the roadmap is in regards to their upcoming "Phenom FX" range of processors. Under this new naming scheme, AMD will announced both the Phenom FX-80 and FX-90 series, with the 80 series designated to single processor systems whilst the 90 series is suited specifically to 4x4 dual processor configs.

AMD expect to launch the FX-80 series towards the end of the year, with the 90 series to debut early next year.

HIS has announced its entire range of AMD Radeon HD 2600/2400 based graphics cards and apart from the Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 version, HIS has its own designs up and running. HIS launched a total of six new cards and four of the new cards feature HIS' new "Hi-Fi" concept design with gold plated DVI connectors, a black back panel and blue PCB.

There will be two IceQ version, one 2600 XT GDDR3 card and one 2600 Pro DDR2 card. The clock speeds for the IceQ version of the 2600GT wasn't revealed, but the 2600 Pro will have the GPU clocked at 650MHz and the memory at 1050MHz. Both cards will be available with 256 or 512MB.

The PG221 22-inch gaming monitor from Asus was announced earlier today and it has some rather interesting features that set it apart from your average 22-inch LCD display. It has a resolution of 1,680x1,050 which is pretty much the norm for a display this size and Asus has coated it with a reflective coating. This is not to everyone's liking, but it is great for high contrast stuff like games and video.

But it's the rest of the specifications that makes this display interesting, it has a built in pair of 5W speakers and a small 15W subwoofer hanging off the stand. This isn't the first time we've seen this from Asus, but it keeps things neat and tidy if you don't have a lot of desk space for a set of speakers.

Palit has just announced its Radeon HD 2600Pro Sonic, which features a built in HDMI connector, making it easier to connect the card to HDMI enabled displays and HD TV's. The card retains one DVI and get a D-Sub connector as well, although it's missing a TV-out connector, but if your TV already has HDMI, why bother with analogue?

The card itself looks quite generic and it features a fairly standard cooler. The HD 2600Pro Sonic has 256MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.4GHz and the GPU is clocked at 650MHz. This is the first Radeon HD 2600 Pro card to feature GDDR3 memory and it should allow for a performance boost against the competition.

A Korean company called SavitMicro has launched an interesting device, it's a NAS and HD video player in one. It's called the cineDISK CD36HD and its one of the most feature packed devices of this type we've ever seen. Not only is it a NAS (it's actually a NDAS devices), although it only has 10/100Mbit Ethernet, it can also connect to your PC via USB 2.0 for some faster file transfers and it has two USB 2.0 host ports for external drives. There's also a version available with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi.

So far it's not that remarkable, as there are plenty of devices like this on the market already. What sets the cineDISK CD36HD apart from every other such device is the fact that it connects up to your TV. Around the back you'll find DVI-D, Component video, S-Video and composite video outputs. It supports up to 1080p resolution, but there's no mention of HDCP support. It has a set of stereo RCA jacks, an optical and coaxial S/PDIF and finally even analogue 5.1-channel RCA jacks. Pretty impressive to say the least.

Logitech has announced two new web cameras, the QuickCam Pro 9000 and QuickCam Pro for Notebooks, Both cameras can record video at 960x720 at 30fps, although these aren't the first cameras from Logitech to be able to do this. The big news here is that both these cameras use Carl Zeiss optics, which Logitech claims will improve the overall picture quality.

These are also the first web cameras from Logitech to feature auto focus and this should provide for superior quality to past cameras in itself. For still images these two new cameras features 2Mega pixel resolution and they will take still images at 1,600x1,200, although this can be software interpolated up to 8Mega pixels. Logitech's RightLight technology is also part of the package and it makes it easier for the camera to adjust to varying light situations automatically.

With the new AMD cards having launched yesterday, we tried to find out if you could find one in Australia and how much it would set you back. Well, the good news is that you can indeed get a Radeon HD 2600 XT if you'd want to pick one up today. The only problem is that it'll set you back AU$187 inc GST and that's for a GDDR3 card.

The card is from PowerColor and its entire range of cards are available right now. Starting from the bottom, a 256MB GDDR2 2400 Pro will cost you $110, the 2400 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 is retailing for $132. Considering that you can easily pick up an 8500GT, which is a faster card, for under $100, it seems like the 2400 series is priced out of its class.

A Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256MB of DDR2 memory will set you back $159.50 while the 512MB version is another $11 at $170.50. Both of these cards are more expensive than an 8600GT, which should be the faster card. Althoug the 2400 XT is faster than an 8600GT, with current pricing, there isn't enough of a performance difference to consider one of these cards.

The lads over at InsideHW have recently been handed a mysterious Intel based processor, which when firing up CPU-Z reported it to be a "Celeron" branded offering derived from the Conroe-L core. This simply indicates we will soon be seeing nice and cheap Conroe based Celeron processors enter the market.

The sample InsideHW were given was in fact an engineering sample, allowing the multiplier to go up to 14.

Some details about the processor. It's a single-core chip with 1MB of L2 cache, is based on a 65nm fab and runs a bus speed equal to that of the Pentium E2000 series, 200MHz (800Mhz Quad-pumped). InsideHw have a guess and say that it's likely this upcoming family of chips will be dubbed the "Celeron E1XXX" series or something like that.