AMD did not impress their fans by denying warranty if the performance "OC" bios switch was used on their Radeon HD 6990, but XFX have stepped up to the plate and are now saying that they will be fulfilling their warranty even if AMD won't.

XFX told Kitguru that they'd be offering it, with a statement saying:

XFX will warranty the 880Mhz OC Usage as per our usual RMA terms, as long as there is no Consumer Induced Damage etc, as per our usual terms and process for RMA's...

The first wave of AMD's FX-series processors based on a Bulldozer micro-architecture will include four different models with eight, six or four cores and a TDP of either 95W or 125W. The first batch of AMD FX8000, FX6000 and FX4000 chips currently known as codename Zacate will completely support all of the advantages that the Bulldozer architecture has to offer.

This includes the new Flex FP floating point processing unit. The new chips (including the eight-core) are projected - by AMD's internal documents - to offer roughly 50-percent performance improvement over the Phenom II-series of microprocessors in multimedia applications.

The main family of AMD FX-series CPUs will feature two eight-core models, a single six-core model as well as a quad-core model. The FX-series chips will support dual-channel DDR3 1866MHz memory, it will also support Turbo Core dynamic acceleration technology and will come in AM3+ form-factor which will have a 95 and 125W TDP.

Microsoft just released the "final" version of Internet Explorer 9, the Browser That Started It All. Sort of.

Though there are bound to be bugs nonetheless, Microsoft is touting some pretty impressive features. Though the browser comparison on their website is a bit outdated, here are some of the options that a user just won't be able to find in Firefox 4 or Chrome 9 (Betas):

- Full hardware acceleration for text, graphics, and video provided by default

The first video of Samsungs upcoming iPad 2 competition, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is out and is titled "One day with The New Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1," has been posted on YouTube. It's 12 minutes of hands-on footage and is bought to you by AndroidHD. This is not an official video, with that being discovered subtly by the video's description.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 features a 10.1-inch WXGA TFT LCD display with a 1280x800 resolution, 1GHz dual-core processor, weighs in at 1.23 pounds (599 grams), features a SIM slot, 3.5mm jack, BlueTooth 2.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11. It uses Samsung's proprietary charging cable and doesn't have a USB or HDMI port. Galaxy Tab 10.1 does however feature dual surround-sound speakers, an 8MP rear-racing camera with Auto Focus which is capable of capturing 1080p video, a 2MP front-facing camera and is set to become available in 16 and 32GB versions.

One of the biggest features of the Android-powered tablet is that it ships with Flash 10.1 support. As for the video's description, I have it listed below.

Wimbledon, Heathrow, Chelsea and Thames - these are the codenames of AMD's next-generation mobile GPUs. The 28nm-based GPUs are expected to be released over next 12 months or so with the first three, Heathrow, Chelsea and Thames set for production starting Q4 2011 with a release of November 2011. Wimbledon behind them with a release sometime in Q2, 2012.

APU's have changed the market and thus, the releases feel this love. The 28nm product lineup shows a redefinition of the categories - "Value" is gone. In its place will be the mainstream/performance GPU, Thames. Thames uses a 128-bit memory bus and has twice the performance of the 2011-based "Seymour" mobile GPU (which is the Radeon HD 6400M). The thermal envelope on Thames will be 15 - 25W which is quite a bit higher than the 10W associated with previous entry-level mobile GPUs.

The difference between mainstream and performance GPUs is now blurred - TDPs and even performance will be close between Thames and Chelsea. The Gamer/Enthusiast chip is where the fun will be. Heathrow will sport a 128-bit or 192-bit memory but and will use a TDP above 35W.

Five years ago this week, what would be the very successful Social Media site Twitter blossomed into existence. March 21, 2006 saw the world's first tweet.

You only get one!

To commemorate Twitter's fifth birthday (5 years in this social media ecosystem is an eternity), Twitter posted a plethora of interesting stats regarding then and now:

This morning, Hasbro (King of Toys) and Jagex, creators of RuneScape, announced a strategic development agreement on releasing a Transformers massivley-multiplayer-online-game.

CEO of Jagex Games Studio Mark Gerhard said in a press release,

"TRANSFORMERS is one of the most iconic brands in the world and we are delighted to team up with Hasbro in order to bring our shared vision to reality. There is a huge appetite for an online TRANSFORMERS game and we will utilize every bit of our development and publishing expertise to deliver a dynamic and action-packed game that TRANSFORMERS fans will find irresistible."

Thought the iPad 2 lines/delays were a travesty? Quit whining, you knew it was going to happen anyway. Instead, imagine for a moment that you had pre-ordered one of the most acclaimed fighting game's amazing sequel back in January and had still not received it by mid-to-late February? Wouldn't you expect that benevolent game-making enterprise to give you something for your troubles?

Despite initial shipping issues back in February, Capcom has been very generous in its apologies (check out the 3rd entry down in that last link), according to recent Capcom blog post:

We've been working on this for a while now and some of you may have thought we'd forgotten about you.

SXSW just had its first game dev competition, offering a $50,000 Grand Prize (It's no Seumas McNally, but still nothing to sneeze at) sponsored by the online and independent gaming development community, indiePub, who is in turn sponsored by Zoo Entertainment Inc.

Feel free to check out the press release below, but you might want to know that ALL OF THE WINNINg GAMES ARE PLAYABLE at indiepub.com

Cincinnati, Ohio - Online independent gaming community indiePub, sponsored by video game publisher Zoo Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZOOG), today announced the winners of South By Southwest's (SXSW) first ever video game development competition, the Independent Propeller Awards, held during SXSW ScreenBurn Arcade, the gaming portion of SXSW Interactive.

Google have had a great time with YouTube and have said that 2010 has been a great year for YouTube. The results of this success are leading YouTube to hiring more staff to allow YouTube to grow. The plan is to expand its staff by 30-percent which makes it the largest hiring year in the history of YouTube.

Right now, YouTube has between 600 and 700 staff, a 30-percent increase would create 200 new jobs. YouTube launched on February 14, 2005 and has enjoyed rocketing success since. YouTube sees 35 hours of video uploaded for every minute that passes and well in excess of 2 billion views per day!

"It's been amazing to watch an idea become a platform that turned into a stage for hundreds of millions of people to express themselves," a Google spokesperson said in a statement. "We now have aspiring filmmakers and musicians building their careers on YouTube, activists opening our eyes to global issues and individuals telling their stories in ways that only video can capture. And because we believe that technology and platforms like YouTube are giving rise to the most diverse set of faces and voices ever seen or heard in human history, us YouTubers really enjoy and feel proud to work here."