Gaming - Page 1207

GIGABYTE made the next headlines recently regarding its upcoming GK-K8000 which claims to be the world's first mechanical gaming keyboard.

It is mechanical in the sense that it uses non-click Cherry MX-linear keys which is said to guarantee a life cycle of up to 60 million keystrokes. Do the math on that!

We've just found out that Gigabyte has released information about it's up and coming retail branded PC's and one of the first models will be the Eagles, which is a high-end gaming system which will ship with a watercooling setup as standard. The black tower case with a full-length door doesn't look like any of Gigabyte's own brand cases and even things like the motherboard model name doesn't look familiar.

We're not sure if it's a good idea on Gigabyte's behalf to start competing with what inadvertently are their customers for many of their other product ranges. None the less, looking at the specifications of the Eagles system, this could possibly prove to be a successful venture for Gigabyte.

It seems like there's no end of new gaming keyboards this week and the latest one comes from another traditional mouse mat manufacturer, Everglide. Their new gaming keyboard goes under the name of the Everglide DKTboard and it's sold in a bundle with a DKTmat.

Apparently the DKTboard has been designed and engineered with help from Razer. The keyboard features a slim key-cap structure that is meant to deliver faster response and a more tactile comfort. It also comes housed in an aluminium casing to add to the ruggedness.

Although information about the OLED equipped DGL-4500 gaming router from D-Link has already leaked out onto the web, the company has finally launched it and it looks like it might be worth it for serious gamers. Not only does it have four Gigabit LAN ports, but even the WAN port supports Gigabit speeds, which is great if you happen to have a really fast internet connection unlike most.

It also features Draft-N Wi-Fi and it has three removable antennas and D-Link has added an extra twist by allowing it to work on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz band with speeds of up to 300Mbit. There's a USB port on the back as well, but sadly this is not for external storage, nor will it function as a print server, as this is simply for Windows Connect Now profiles to be copied onto a USB flash drive.

Now we usually leave the gaming stuff to TweakTown Games, but the "new" 40GB PS3 announcement made us a little bit upset to say the least. Whereas in Europe the "new" lesser PS3 will set you back AU$625, it will cost you $699 in Australia, uhm why? As if this wasn't bad enough, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is dropping the price of the 60GB starter pack to the equivalent of AU$782 while SCE Australia has figured there's no need to drop the $999 price tag according to Kotaku

The "new" lesser PS3 has as you've most likely already guessed a 40GB hard drive, but this in itself isn't what makes it so much cheaper, as Sony has removed a few more features just in case to try to spend as little cash as possible on its new entry level model. The multi-slot card reader is gone and so is a pair of USB ports, so you're left with only two on the "new" version.

HP has launched a dedicated site for its upcoming Blackbird 002 high-end gaming PC and it looks like one sweet machine. A lot of the technology in the Blackbird 002 comes from HP's Voodoo PC purchase and the brains of Rahul Sood. The Blackbird 002 even features a Voodoo DNA logo inside the chassis to show that this system is something special.

Not only is it gorgeously designed, but it's also really tidy inside, something we can't say about some HP PC's we've seen in the past. It's possibly the cleanest build we've ever seen. It's also got a lot of interesting design features such as water cooling by Danish Asetek, a special airflow system and a unique stand that the whole case rests on.

Over the past couple of days Microsoft and Razer has both launched new gaming mice and it wasn't too long ago that Logitech launched a new model, but today an unexpected announcement dropped into our mailbox from SteelSeries who announced not one, but two new gaming mice. SteelSeries is probably better known for its mouse mats or gaming surfaces as they like to call it and headsets than its mice, although they've offered a couple of tweaked Microsoft mice.

The two new models goes under the Ikari brand and are called Ikari Optical and Ikari Laser professional gaming mice. According to the press release, these two new mice have been under development for 15 months with the help of some 20 professional gamers along with input from some further 5,000+ gamers.

If you've been playing with computers for as long as we have, then you might remember the Microsoft SideWinder range of gaming peripherals from the mid 90's. Well, SideWinder is back and Microsoft has launched a new gaming mouse as the first product in the revived brand.

Microsoft has pulled out all the stops in terms of the marketing campaign for the new SideWinder mouse. There's a dedicated website which you can find here, called the Site of Champions. But what really matters is the hardware, at least if Microsoft intends to sell any of the new mice.

Luckily it looks like Microsoft has done their homework and this one will give Logitech a run for their money. If this or the Logitech G9 will be your choice is a difficult matter, since they're both very similar and very different. For starters, this is the first Microsoft mouse to incorporate adjustable weights, but Microsoft hasn't taken it as far as Logitech, as you're limited to 5 and 10 gram weights with a maximum of 30g.

Ideazone, the company behind the Zboard is back with a new product, the Merc Stealth. Although the Merc has been around for some time, the new, updated version comes with three different backlights, red, blue and purple. This might not seem all that special, but the Merc Stealth also has illuminated characters on all its keys.

This should hopefully make it easier to use the keyboard in a dimly lit room and you can adjust be backlit in three steps as well as switch it off completely. As with the original version, the Merc Stealth features 34 dedicated gaming keys that are labeled and according to Ideazone are positioned for ultimate precision and control.

Engadget has scored some images of what supposedly is the next gamin mouse from Logitech, the G9. It looks a bit rough and ready and it's most likely a fairly early prototype, although some don't believe it's the real deal. However, there are too many features of this mouse that makes it look like the real deal.

First of all it features the braided cable that the G5 is using, secondly the scroll wheel is the same as the VX and MX Revolution mice are using. Coincidence? Possibly, but even the side buttons looks similar to those used on the MX Revolution.

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.

During the Taipei Game Show here in Taiwan today we spotted a black Xbox 360 console. It's been talked about for the past week or so about only being available in Australia but we're unsure how much truth there would be in that if its being shown at a game show in Taipei.

Take a look, if this is the rumored black Xbox 360 that's been talked about you may be somewhat disappointed as there was no HDMI port to be found or any extended storage capacity from the HDD.