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.