Intel's upcoming LGA2011 server board product, S4600LG (codenamed "Lizard Head Pass") which will be capable of handling 1TB of RAM. Yes, that's 1024GB of RAM. The board is designed mainly for high-performance computing and math-intensive server applications, such as video streaming sites using it for transcoding, etc.

The board is capable of achieving such large memory expansion room by providing three DIMM slots per memory channel, with each socket giving four memory channels. The S4600LG supports the 8-core Xeon E5-4600 series Sandy Bridge-EP processors. The S4600LH is driven by an Intel C600 "Patsburg" chipset with up to 8 SCU ports and 2 SATA 6 Gb/s ports. One of the downsides is the board doesn't have any standard expansion slots, with only two PCI-Express 3.0 x48 risers, which daughterboards with three x16 slots each, can be attached (as shown in the picture above).

The board also sports dual Intel LAN with VT support, KVM and BMT logic is in-built and the board should be available in Q2 2012. 1TB of RAM, doesn't that just sound insane to others? I really think we'll see a shrink in personal machines over the future as Windows becomes much better on resources, but for a server build, this thing is a beast and a half.

LG have announced that they will be throwing an 84-inch TV into their truck when they drive over to CES next year. 84-inch may sound impressive, but that's not all that is coming to Las Vegas next year. The new 84-inch TV is 'ultra definition' sporting a resolution of 3840x2160.

It includes LG's usual Cinema 3D and Smart TV features built-in, including support for the upgraded Magic Motion remote and voice control. At the moment it's just a tease, with no information like pricing, or availability. There are also no easy sources of 4K-res video content, not even games. One of the biggest pushes by LG for this new set is 3D.

LG's Cinema 3D technology uses a Film Pattern Retarder screen and passive glasses that result in lowered resolution, but with the plentiful amount of pixels, there's no question about whether viewers are still getting at least an HD picture. What I want now, is 3 of these screens, in portrait, an new hover-chair for my PC, and eleventy-million AMD Radeon HD 7970's in CrossFire. Battlefield 3 would never be the same...

It sure has been a busy holiday season this year! So many announcements and releases with todays release from Danger Den. They've announced the latest CPU cooling block - DD-M6 CPU Block, which is the highest performing CPU block to date from Danger Den.

The DD-M6 replaces the long-running MC-TDX block improving upon both reliability and performance. Thermal performance has also received an upgrade, while maintaining low-flow restriction design. The CPU block is available in solid copper and brass parts that are non-plated or nickel plated. A new and improved mounting system is also included in the DD-M6 CPU block package allowing reliable mounting pressure in an attractive package.

Danger Den's president, Jeremy Burnett says:

There have been plenty of people who have worked for ATI, that have moved onto bigger and better things by packing up their brown box, throwing their personal items inside like a plant or a family portrait (ok, ok, that sounds like a Hollywood cliche, but it's how I imagine it as an Australian) and moving to a better job.

Now former AMD employee, Richard Huddy, has moved onto Intel. His goal with the red team was to form stronger relations with the game developers themselves. Big news, eh? Huddy has pushed through plenty of things for not only the technological industry, but the gaming industry. He worked with one of my favorite games, Max Payne, and ended up with a starring role as the mad professor in the lab. From there, he has helped a tonne of huge games hit the market.

These include Harry Potter, Just Cause, Battlefield 2 and Burnout Paradise. He also was a big player in pushing HDR with AA into a bunch of games over the years. Why would Intel want Huddy? Well, they want their GPU business to fly. Intel's Haswell architecture, due in 2013, will reportedly establish Intel as some form of leader in the mass-market graphics space.

[update] I've been informed by Gigabyte that it was not an actual build issue, but a BIOS-related problem. Gigabyte recommend that users who own the below boards update their BIOS immediately, or contact Gigabyte directly (details on this link). Gigabyte have stated it was an isolated case and can be fixed with the use of the F7 BIOS.

I do apologise greatly for the mistake, to both our readers and Gigabyte.

Last week, YouTube user "japan0827" uploaded a video of his overclocked testbed releasing a plume of smoke. Of course, being upset, posted on various Asian message boards with detailed pictures of the board that failed: a Gigabyte X79-UD3, and more specifically, a MOSFET in its CPU VRM.

Google has just passed the 62 million user mark in their social networking site Google+. They're also seeing a very tidy 625,000 new users each day and Paul Allen has a prediction for 2012: Google+ will have 400 million users by the end of next year.

Paul Allen says that the huge growth in support for Google+ could be:

The holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 signups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks.

In a surprising move, The Pentagon have just officially certified an Android-powered device, alongside Android 2.2 for use on the Defense Department networks, which marks the first move away from RIM's BlackBerry. This is the first smartphone since the BlackBerry to receive approval.

The approval went to Dell's Venue, with Dell's now discontinued Streak tablet being the previously approved device. Other Android-based manufacturers such as Samsung, Motorola, HTC and others were not covered in the recently published document. DoD employees only have limited access to the device's feature set, of course.

The Android Market will be banned, and all web browsing must be done through a DoD proxy server. On top of these restrictions, classified information cannot be sent, received or accessed using the Android handsets. On the fruity side of things, Apple's iPhones and iPads are currently being tested for use on DoD networks, but the DoD are not making any comments on when the iOS-powered devices might get approval.

An update to the popular Infinity Blade 2 is coming soon, with lead designer Donald Mustard teasing that the update includes "Clash Mobs" which will let players all over the world play Infinity Blade 2 and fight enemies together in real-time.

Mustard says:

Clash Mobs will appear in an update of the game and incorporate players from all over the world. Right now, you play the game by yourself, but Clash Mobs will let you partner with thousands of other players in real-time to help you reach a goal in the game. If you're fighting a giant monster, there's only so much one player can do alone," Mustard said. "We want to make big challenges a group effort, so after you're done shooting the monster, another player can step in and work to finish him off. This could even take 24 hours, with lots of players stepping in to help.

Intel is set to smash into the system-on-a-chip (SoC) market in 2012, where they are going to be "becoming mobile" in quite a serious way. Intel went through an internal reorganization and merged four distinctive business units into one: Mobile Communications, Mobile Wireless, Netbook & Tablet PC and Ultra-Mobility.

The new group is called "Mobile and Communications" and is lead by Mike Bell and Hermann Eul. The first product to come from the fancy new group is the 32nm chip called Medfield. Medfield is Intel's codename for their first SoC and first true highly-integrated-solution. Intel have in the past, talked of "vertically integrated platforms", without talking about how many chips were required in order to have a functional platform. This marks a new direction for Intel.

Intel's Medfield is competition against Apple's A-Series, NVIDIA's Tegra range, Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Samsung's Exynos, Texas Instruments OMAP and others. Out of the ranges just explained, Samsung's Exynos is the only SoC currently built on a 32nm process, just like Medfield.

Intel have reportedly notified their partners that they will "fully release" Thunderbolt technology in April of next year. Intel are said to be preparing to launch Thunderbolt-supported motherboards, notebooks and desktop PCs at that time.

Intel and Apple originally partnered on Thunderbolt which became a standard across Apple's MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini and iMac lines. The cost of Thunderbolt technology is said to drop in the second half of 2012, which will allow for much more market penetration.

Apple may offer Thunderbolt-equipped goods, but the first Thunderbolt products have been limited to the relatively high-end market. Widespread adoption of Thunderbolt should help accessory makers for not just the PC, but the Mac market. Intel have always said that they see USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt as complementary technologies and have plans to support both in their motherboards in 2012.