The lucky folks at bit-tech were given a final retail sample of MSI's next stab at a board using the X58 chipset for them to check out in detail.

Dubbed the Xpower X58 which is part of MSI's new Big Bang line-up of enthusiast oriented motherboards, this one brings all the latest tricks to the table, including USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps support, as well as support for Gulftown (six-core Core i7s).

Looking at a full shot of the board, what will quickly catch your eye is the six PCI-E x16 slots. However, there's no NF200 chip on the board so it would seem that at best, four of the slots each give eight lanes of bandwidth for multi-GPU setups.

Earlier today I visited the Thermaltake headquarters here in Taipei and was able to get an exclusive look at the near finished products to be launched under the new eSPORTS by Thermaltake brand that caters strictly for the most demanding of gamers around the world.

James Huang from the eSPORTS division of Thermaltake was shy at first, but soon shined to the camera as he gave us a solid introduction and preview of the Challenger Pro professional gaming keyboard, their impressive mechanical keyboard as well as the "Black" professional gaming grade mouse.

Before we entered the meeting room, we filmed walking from outside the building through to where the goodies were waiting for us to check out. You get a look at the non-boring Thermaltake office and all the case mods and such that are on display throughout the building. From time to time, we were told that Thermaltake actually holds mod design contests within the organization and employees who win may receive free products or cash bonuses. This is a look at something that most will never get to see and I thought it would be interesting, especially for Thermaltake fans.

The launch of NVIDIA's first wave of DX11 capable desktop graphics cards is nigh and while ATI don't have any new models on the horizon to answer to it (except for Eyefinity6 variants of existing models), there has been talk of ATI combating GTX 470/480 by lowering pricing on its cards.

However, our VGA guru Shane has heard through the grapevine that while AMD/ATI had considered doing this, it has apparently decided against it and is happy where its lineup of cards sit on the market price wise.

It's likely that this close to launch ATI have a good idea of how NVIDIA's new cards perform and don't seem to be persuaded to adjust pricing on their models; not to mention stock levels not being so much of a problem for Radeon cards these days.

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.