Gaming - Page 1213

All set to dazzle the masses at CES with a new lineup of goodies, Logitech has just announced a complete new series of gaming peripherals under its G-series product line.

With Voodoo now under HP's wing we've been seeing some interesting gaming oriented systems introduced at the desktop and portable levels that continue to show what Voodoo does best, innovation. Another which is in the works and will be showcased in just a few days at CES (in prototype form); the HP/Voodoo Firefly, a gaming notebook that houses a rich feature-set with exclusive touches.

After you have recovered a little from your New Year's Celebration You might want to head over to Theo Valich's Blog.

He has a very interesting read on the direction computer and peripheral companies are headed. He penned this as a sort of response to a Blog entry by Rahul Sood from Voodoo HP. Sood declaims (in his blog entry) that the high-end PC is dead while pitching Voodo's upcoming Blackbird 003 which is a small and neat little device.

Read Theo's article here.

Read Sood's Blog entry here.

OCZ continues to dip its nose in new business with the release of its Dominatrix laser gaming mouse.

Microsoft appears to be intent on continuing the revitalisation of its popular SideWinder brand by launching not just one, but two new family members today.

It is no secret that Microsoft's second generation gaming console, the Xbox 360, has had more than its fair share of thermal issues since it became available, nearly 3 years ago.

TG Daily, features an account of AMD's fight to make leaps and bounds in the enthusiast sector of the market.

Sunnyvale, CA based AMD's CPU offerings, have been lagging behind Intel's Core 2 processor family which, literally, has been obliterating offerings from AMD in sheer performance stakes. With Intel in their target and by launching, what they deem as highly overclockable, yet affordable CPUs, AMD aims to match, if not exceed, their successes against NVIDIA.

On the GPU battlefield, AMD's turnaround in late 2007, with the HD 3800 series, marked the turning of the tide in price to performance ratios and this, has been heightened with the recent launch of the RV770 GPU, which has taken birth as the HD 4800 series.

Amongst information pertaining to AMD's upcoming Phenom 9950 CPU, together with 790GX and SB700/750 chipset solutions, a screenshot depicts the highly anticipated R700 graphics solution, in CrossFireX configuration, scoring X12515 in 3DMark Vantage.

NZXT has just taken the covers off its latest gaming case, Khaos.

Just when you thought the computer industry was already flooded with cases, we get another one to add into the mix. NZXT's Khaos was introduced today and it looks like yet another one to add to the potential list for your new box.

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.