Sources tell TG Daily that there are a series of price cuts scheduled for the GeForce GTX 200 series graphics cards. The GeForce GTX 260 which now sells for as low as US $379.99 (after e-tailer rebates), could have its price slashed by US $30 sending its price down to as low as $359.99, and the flagship GTX 280 could face a US $90 slash sending its price down to as low as $559.99 (versus the original price). There is a likelihood of e-tailers coming up with their own rebate schemes. The fresh price-bands could take effect from the 7th of July, 2008.

Source: TG Daily

TG Daily stumbled across roadmap information of NVIDIA which provides certain details of the green giant's DirectX 10.1 implementation plans. Currently, ATI and S3 Graphics make graphics processors (GPU) compliant to DirectX 10.1 specifications. In a presentation slide, are seen plans of NVIDIA coming up with a brand new fleet of mobile (notebook) DirectX 10.1 graphics processors slated for spring 2009 and desktop GPUs either for late Q4 2008 or early 2009 with a possible ramp throughout Q1 and Q2 of 2009.

This gives competitors at least a 6-month time advantage in which they could build developer relations and aid development of games based on the DirectX 10.1 API since it's now certain that the API is going to become an industry-wide standard, with the biggest player in the discrete-graphics industry having plans to embrace it.

The second revelation that slide brings up is that NVIDIA will implement GDDR5 memory with its upcoming products within 2008.

Source: TG Daily

NVIDIA admits that some of its notebook graphics processors are failing at “higher than normal rates”, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These chip failures will cost NVIDIA anywhere between 150 and 200 million US Dollars this quarter financial year toward warranty, repair, return and replacement for laptops with such NVIDIA products incorporated.

Nvidia says that “significant quantities” of chips are experiencing thermal issues caused by possibly weak die and packaging – in essence the parts are overheating and failing, while not pointing out exactly which laptop models are affected by this. As an immediate response, NVIDIA prepared an emergency driver that maintains the fan cooling speed higher than original parameters. Expect the notebook to be noisier.

NVIDIA had announced yesterday that they were looking at a Q2 revenue falling more in the range of $875 million to $950 million contradicting analysts' speculation of a $1.1 billion figure. Repercussions soon followed at the Nasdaq, where the NVIDIA stock plunged 21.94 per cent or $3.95 to $14.08 a share.

OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the expansion of its Intel Extreme Memory modules lineup, the latest memory solution that implements a high-performance specification optimized and predefined for the Intel X38 and X48 chipsets. The new modules are rated at DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1600 and feature the all-new Intel branded black XTC heatspreader. With a long history of providing the most innovative products to the enthusiast community, OCZ is excited to take advantage of Intel’s interest and development of overclocking platforms with these latest additions to the series.

The Swiss cooling solutions provider ARCTIC COOLING today announced the launch of the dual-fan Accelero TWIN TURBO, adding another multicompatible high performance merchandise into their reputable VGA cooler product line. Specifications are provided below:

Following countless complaints of World of Warcraft (WoW) user account hijacks and misuse, Blizzard has come up with a device, a security code generator that each user possesses, the device generates a six-digit security code that the user has to enter when logging on to the WoW account. The generation pattern is unique for each user's generator and this effectively eradicates account misuse, or at least attempts to. Blizzard CEO and cofounder Mike Morhaime says "It's important to us that World of Warcraft offers a safe and enjoyable game environment", he further adds that an aspect of that is helping players avoid account compromise, so they are pleased to make this additional layer of security available to them.

Once activated with Blizzard, the authenticator offers a six-digit code that must be used within 60 seconds on a gamer's WoW account. The user has to enter this number alongside username and password. Similar methods are adopted by PayPal, banks, and other financial institutions to help protect data, PayPal charges US $5 for the PayPal Security Key.

Blizzard plans to charge US $6.50 for the device but no announcements are made as to when it will be available.

Source: Blizzard

In what can dubbed as a fiasco, the much anticipated 2.40 firmware update for the Playstation 3 (PS3) gaming console which was released the other day, has been scrapped owing to several units facing acute problems with the new firmware. The new firmware had brought in new features such as an in-game XMB access and a trophy support along with enhanced gamer profile system.

Shortly after the update went online, several users began reporting problems with the update. A thread at the official Playstation 3 forums is currently over 60-pages and is filled with a number of ranting PS3 owners. Kokatu.com reports that the new firmware causes controller malfunctions, and sometimes corrupts the system completely. One of the solutions included that the user could remove and format the hard-drive and reinsert it, the system will prompt the user to format it following which the system will return to normalcy. Of course, you lose all previous firmware update along with all your saved games and user profiles. If you are a victim of this, please visit this site for possible solutions.

Sony has come up with a statement saying "In order to further assess the issue, we have temporarily taken the firmware offline for further testing. We are working diligently to isolate the problem for those few consumers and to identify a solution before we put the firmware back up".

With inputs from Kokatu, Gamesindustry.biz

Mozilla now holds the Guinness World Record for the most downloaded software within 24 hours. On the Mozilla Firefox 3 launch day, from 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008 the browser software was downloaded 8,002,530 times as recorded by Guinness - thus official declaring it a world record.

Source: Mozilla

They just keep coming in, keep coming in bunches. I'm refering to the Eee PC series by ASUS which has unofficial product releases almost on a daily basis now. As the competition for ultra-portable notebooks hots up with prominent players such as Dell, HP and the more recent MSI with the Wind series, ASUS have scheduled several variants of the Eee PC concept for launch. Feeling the heat of the 10" MSI Wind series, ASUS have announced the Eee PC 1000 and Eee PC 1000H complete with Intel's Atom processor, nearly full-size keyboard, and the option to select a HDD for the first time on the Eee series.

Apart from these, four new models, the 903, 904, 904 HD, and 905 are in line. Coming to the Eee PC 904 and 905, although not much is known about the differences between the 904 and 905, both use the larger 10" Eee PC 1000's frame with the smaller 8.9" screen from the Eee PC 900/900. So users can now have the 8.9" screen and a larger keyboard; but they now have to deal with the increased screen bezel. With the 904 HD, the 'HD' doesn't refer to a high-definition display as most of us would assume, but that you get a conventional hard-disk drive instead of a solid-state drive. We've already covered the Eee Monitor in a recent news item here.


With inputs from DailyTech

The co-general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, Pat Gelsinger told Custom PC that NVIDIA’s CUDA programming model would be nothing more than an interesting footnote in the annals of computing history.

Gelsinger says that programmers simply don’t have enough time to learn how to program for new architectures like CUDA. Says Gelsinger: “The problem that we’ve seen over and over and over again in the computing industry is that there’s a cool new idea, and it promises a 10x or 20x performance improvement, but you’ve just got to go through this little orifice called a new programming model. Those orifices have always been insurmountable as long as the general purpose computing models evolve into the future.”. The Sony CELL and the fact that it didn't live up to all its hype as something superior to current computing architectures proves his point.

Gelsinger tells that Intel’s Larrabee graphics chip will be entirely based on Intel Architecture x86 cores, and the reason for that is so developers can program for the graphics processor without having to learn a new language. Larrabee will have full support for APIs like DirectX and OpenGL.


Source: Custom PC

Industry sources confirm that Microsoft will be cutting the prices of its popular Xbox 360 gaming console variant, the 20GB Pro by US $50, bringing it down to US $299. A major retailer said that this move would come in before E3 which runs July 15-17 in Los Angeles.

The previous price-cut to this console was during the launch period of Halo 3, where the price cut from $399 ro $349. This slash is more of a ploy to increase the product's competitiveness against the Nintendo Wii while also making it a good deal over the Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3 in terms of market share, even so with the holiday season around the corner. While Sony could be pondering its own price cut, the consumer electronics giant did note recently in an annual report that the PlayStation 3 has cost the company $3.3 billion since its late 2006 launch because of a strategic decision to sell the system for less than it costs to make.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

And you thought your solid-state hard-drive (SSD) increased your laptop's battery life? Think again. In a new article, Tom's Hardware investigated the possibility that SSDs in fact increase power consumption of the system, and the results were astonishing.

While a conventional hard-drive idles at 0.5W to 1.3W, it's only during heavy-duty as in lots of random-access, when the actuator moves the heads back and forth that the drive could peak at up to 4W. NAND Flash based SSDs only know two power states, 'idle' and 'active', SSDs from some vendors don't even feature these. While power consumption of conventional drives are proportional to their form-factor since it affects the weight of the platter(s) and effectively the load on the motor, with SSDs, form factor doesn't affect consumption, and a 1.8" SSD could have higher idle consumption than its conventional counterpart.

You can read the article here.


Source: Tom's Hardware

BFG Technologies, Inc., the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC2 and the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX factory overclocked graphics cards.

Backed with 24/7/365 free technical support and a lifetime warranty, the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC2 and OCX versions are factory overclocked graphics cards that go through extensive testing to find the right mix of speeds for the core, memory, and shader clocks that will produce the best performance and uncompromisable stability at each level.

First talked about at Computex 2008, the newest entry to the ASUS 'Eee family' is the Eee Monitor. This product aims to give you everything you would expect a monitor to provide alongside display. The monitor in the pictures looks to be 19 to 20 inch, has a fixed web-cam, a 4-port USB hub, but what looks rather strange is that this 'monitor' doesn't looks like it has a D-Sub or DVI connector leading us to believe it's a self-contained PC a-là Apple Mac. The connectors behind show an ethernet port, a phone jack, standard sound jacks (line-in, line-out, mic), and the usual power-input. If it’s meant to serve as a monitor, it must also double as a docking station, because otherwise there’s no reason to have Ethernet and audio ports. The product also features integrated speakers made by Denon. It also features integrated data-card readers.


Source: LaptopMag

The much-anticipated Sony Playstation 3 Firmware 2.40 is now available, as promised, just as July 2nd rolled around. The update includes:

• Xross Media Bar (XMB) access in-game.
• Trophy Support (the PS3's answer to the Xbox 360's achievements).
• Expanded Gamer Profiles.

For details on how to update, please visit this page.

Source: Sony Computer Entertainment

Advanced Media, Inc., is a manufacturer and marketer of the popular Ridata brand of recordable DVD media, electronic storage products, and digital media accessories. The company is pleased to announce the Ridata Single Layer Cell (SLC) 2.5” IDE Ultra-S to its award-winning Ridata Solid State Drive (SSD) product line up. IDE is an established interface that is pin-to-pin compatible and eliminates setting the BIOS on installation. The Ridata SLC 2.5” IDE Ultra-S 16 and 32GB are now available, the 64 GB arrives in Q3 2008.

The rather lucky Taiwanese team of Tom's Hardware got their hands on an Intel Bloomfield engineering sample that has a clock-speed of 2.93 GHz, running on a Intel X58 chipset based motherboard made by Foxconn called Renaissance to evaluate a Gainward Radeon HD4850 sample. System details are provided below.

This 78 year old company, specializing in fool-proof safes that are supposed to be safe from fire and water introduce their latest product, the SentrySafe QA0005 Fire-Safe Waterproof, a fire and water safe external hard-drive.

The device uses a fortified Maxtor OneTouch4 Mini and bundles password protection and data encryption software. According to the company, this device can withstand up to 30 minutes at 840 °C and can be completely immersed in water for up to 24 hours.

The QA0005 sells for US $400.


Sources: SentrySafe, iXBT

A new survey by Net Applications shows a steady increase in the market share (not to be confused with browser usage) of Mozilla Firefox and more importantly, a surge in the usage of the Apple Safari web browser. The two web browser software have been chipping away share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (MSIE) and it appears that Microsoft could use a convincing new browser rather sooner than later.

According to the survey, Internet Explorer (all versions together) still holds a 73.01 per cent market share, which is down by 1 per cent from 73.75 per cent in May and 74.83 per cent in April. While this growth of web-browser software against MSIE cannot be regarded as an upsurge just as yet, the growth of Apple Safari against other MSIE-alternatives is close to being called so. The Apple browser with a current share of 6.31%, up from 5.81% in April, has long overtaken Opera which was once considered the best alternative to MSIE and since early days believed in platform-diversity to gain market share.

With inputs from TG Daily

California based NZXT debuted today its first fan controller named Sentry LX. While it looks cool and might actually be cool, Sentry LX is just another new fan controller on the market. All of its features listed below are pretty much the standard these days.

• Simple Installation – Sentry LX slides easily into any dual 5.25” drive bay
• Complete Control – 5 Temperature Probes keep tabs on all areas of your system while the 5 Fan controllers adjust the fans’ RPM speed
• Auto/Manual Modes – Allows users to automatically adjust the fan speeds to correspond to a specific temperature or manually set your system for extreme overclocking capabilities or absolute silence
• Temperature Alarm – Instant notification if temps rise above a designated point
• Intuitive Interface and LCD Display – NZXT’s ergonomic interface design allows you to customize your airflow on the fly
• Sleek Design – Aluminum plated front panel is designed to match any high-end chassis

Retailing for $59.99, Sentry LX will be available in July.

Source: NZXT

NVIDIA Corporation and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) today announced that UIUC has been named as the world’s first CUDA Center of Excellence. In addition to the appointment, NVIDIA has donated $500,000 to UIUC for the development of parallel computing facilities and the continuation of its research programs.

Apple posted today the 10.5.4 update recommended for its Mac OS X 10.5, 10.5.1, 10.5.2, and 10.5.3 Leopard operating systems. The 10.5.4 update includes general operating system improvements that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac. You can download the 561MB update code directly from Apple, or by using the Software Update feature in Mac OS X Leopard.

Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd has launched the PC-A77 full tower case incorporating outstanding quality with a clean simple style. Standing at 220mm x 595mm x 590mm (W,H,D), with every part of the front cover decked out in 5.25” bays. In total, 12x 5.25” bays which can support all your ODD needs, alternatively they can be stacked with HDD’s via the internal HDD cages. The blue lit LED fan speed monitor surveys the temperature zones diligently and determines the best speed for your fans, keeping your rig cool and well ventilated.

Antec today presented its newest and most advanced family of power supply units, the Signature Series. Available in 850W and 650W models, the Signature PSUs feature several innovations that distinguish them from the competition. One of them is that they use active DC-to-DC voltage regulation, as opposed to the standard passive magnetic amplifier method, providing for shorter transient response times and greater system stability. In addition, the Signature Series boasts an advanced cooling system with a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) controlled fan, that ensures quiet and efficiend operation in any condition. Other features of the Signature Series include a dual power circuit board (PCB) layout and a hybrid advanced cable management system that uses modularized cables only for connectors that are of second importance. Main connectors such as the 24-pin ATX one, and the PCI-E power connectors are fixed. The Signature 650 and Signature 850 are available now and will retail for estimated street prices of $249.00 and $299.00, respectively. The PSUs are backed by Antec's Quality 5-Year Warranty for parts and labor.


Source: Antec

Razer, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle electronics peripherals, has announced the launch of Aurantia (China Pro-Gaming Edition) - Razer’s first entry level gaming keyboard that will be sold in China only. Physically the keyboard measures 446mm L x 205mm W x 29mm H (with the wrist rest attached) and offers 104 programmable keys with macro capabilities plus an additional three keys for 'gaming mode' (this one disables the Windows key), 'profile switching', and 'mute' functions. Future owners of Aurantia can also store and load up to 10 different keyboard profiles with on-the-fly switching function. A detachable non-slip wrist rest is supplied with the keyboard's package as well. The Aurantia uses red as lables for the keys and will be sold together with the Razer Salmosa mice (China Pro-Gaming Edition) as a bundle, at an MSRP of RMB 399. The public in China will have a chance to test the Razer Aurantia at the Razer booth at ChinaJoy 2008, happening in Shanghai later this month.


Source: Razer

OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and computer components, today unveiled the OCZ Core Series SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drives (SSDs). OCZ has gained momentum in this pioneering technology, which uses NAND flash instead of rotating platters as the storage medium, and is a high-performance, highly reliable and energy-efficient alternative to conventional hard disc drives.

AMD Introduces three new Phenom X4 quad-core desktop processors, the flagship Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition along with two low-power parts, the Phenom X4 9350e and Phenom X4 9150e.

The Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition is targeted at the performance/enthusiast segment, it features a 2.60 GHz clock speed and comes with an unlocked FSB multiplier among standard AMD Phenom specifications. This part however has a rated TDP of 140W and not all motherboards will be able to run it owing to its thermal and power characteristics. ASUS have already released a partial list of their motherboards that are ready for these 140W CPUs we covered here. You have to check with your motherboard vendor for compatibility. This chip attains its speed at a voltage of upto 1.3 V.

With a market position resurrection in progress, AMD/ATI look to compete using a tried and tested tool for technological supremacy over its rival(s), developer-level optimizations for their games. Blizzard has been looking at implementing DirectX 10.1 with its future games. If that happens, it becomes a favorable scenario for AMD's products since Blizzard aren't habituated to making games that run best on only the most expensive hardware, but that with DirectX 10.1, they will look to implement certain DX10.1-exclusive effects, which means that even mid-range users of ATI products could enjoy the best visuals that the game has to offer, something NVIDIA and its users could miss out on.

The RV770 is perhaps the best thing that happened to AMD in a long while. But more than AMD, it's perhaps the best thing that happened to us, the consumers. But general product launches seem to be just the tip of the ice-berg. The new PCB's designed by ATI for RV770 cards are actually running at well below the clock speed they can support and there is every reason to believe that these cards will be challenging NVIDIA's very best.

The HD4870 PCB with two 6-pin power connectors can support a maximum TDP of 225W (2x 75W from the power connectors + 75W from the PCI-Express interface). While at stock parameters, the HD4870 will not consume over 170W, it implies that with a fair bit of binning for high-performing parts, there is a serious lot of room for overclocking way beyond what the ordinary HD4870 cards can take.

If you own one of the latest ATI Radeon HD 4850 cards and you're not satisfied with the reference single slot cooling and more specially with the temps you're getting in both idle and load, here's a quick workaround which might help you until better solution is available. A Guru3D forum member has found that if you make a profile in catalyst after turning on Overdrive, you can then edit it and manually change the fan speed. All steps to make it work are written here. Here's also a direct link to the full Guru3D thread. I'm not exactly sure, but this workaround should also work with ATI Radeon HD 4870 cards.

Source: Guru3D

Scythe has now introduced Kama Panel 2 - a new 5.25-inch multi-functional controller for PCs. Available in black (SCKMPN-2000-BK) and white (SCKMPN-2000-SL) the Kama Panel 2 measures 148 x 42 x 90mm (WxHxD) and features an integrated memory card reader, six fan controlling knobs (4 of them are detachable), two USB 2.0 ports, one Line-In jack, a Mic-Out jack, an Audio-Out jack, an IEEE1394 plus one data and one power SATA connectors. The integrated memory card reader is compatible with all SD Card, miniSD Card, SDHC Card, Micro SD Card, MMC Card, RS-MMC Card, Compact Flash, Micro Drive, xD Card and Memory Stick PRO, DUO and PRO-DUO cards. Also if the four detachable fan knobs are removed you can place a slim CD/DVD drive in their place. The suggested retail price for Scythe Kama Panel 2 is $39.80 or 24.95 Euro without VAT.


Source: TechConnect Magazine

ViewSonic Corp. introduces the latest addition to its complete range of LCDs with the affordable, feature-rich VA2626wm LCD monitor. At less than $530, the 1080p Full HD panel offers a large workspace for the productive multi-tasker and the ultimate viewing experience for movie buffs and gamers. Multiple inputs, like HDMI, VGA and DVI with HDCP compatibility, allow Blu-Ray" disc player, cable box, satellite box, or gaming console connections, and quickly take users from work to play.

Following the recent launch of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 GPUs, AMD plans to introduce the high-end dual-GPU HD 4870 X2 by the end of July, according to sources at graphics card vendors. Evaluation samples are schedule to be available in mid-July, and AMD will begin shipping reference design boards with 2GB* GDDR5 memory at the end of the month, the sources detailed. In mid-August, AMD will also begin shipping the 4870 X2 (RV770XT) GPU to partners wishing to design custom cards, the sources added. HD 4870 X2 graphics cards are expected to be priced around US$499, the sources detailed.

*Although it's is expected that the R700 features 2x 512MB of GDDR5 memory, sources such as HKEPC and DigiTimes are reporting it as 2GB of GDDR5. Whether it's true or not remains to be seen as this information comes from otherwise reliable sources.


Source: HKEPC

AMD, Austin have managed a benchmark score of X12515 in the 3DMark Vantage benchmark using two Radeon HD4870 X2 cards in CrossfireX, a feat that takes three GeForce GTX 280 cards in 3-way SLI to achieve. The R700 boards were clocked at 778 MHz core, while the GDDR5 memory was clocked at 980 MHz QDR (effectively 3.92 GHz). This brings the total on-board video bandwidth to a stellar 250.8 GBps.


With inputs from TG Daily

ASUS is planning to launch two new Eee PC variants, the 904 and 905, which have an 8.9-inch display panel but use a similar chassis and keyboard as the company's 10.2-inch models, according to sources at channel vendors.

The Eee PC 904 and 905 will incorporate Intel Atom processors and the major difference between the two and the previous 901 model is that they feature a bigger keyboard. ASUS is still evaluating whether to make changes to the two variants' battery and storage capacity.

ASUS expects the Eee PC 904 and 905 to come out at a similar price band as the current 900 and 901, and will eventually replace them. The company also considers whether to drop prices for the 900 and 901 to flush its inventory or leave them in the market to defend against Acer's Aspire One, noted the sources.

Source: DigiTimes

Topower Computer, an well recognized industry leader in enthusiastic and high reliability power supply, today unveiled the PowerBird power supply series for high caliber performance gaming systems. The PowerBird designed to offer the enthusiastic market an award wining computer power supply with cutting edge designs, the PowerBird is the power supply solution for those users that require a premium efficient and high stability solution for their leading gaming system.

With announcements coming in from of rolling out Solid State Drives (SSD) and that it would become a prominent player in the SSD business, Seagate is still in requirement of trade relationships with a NAND Flash manufacturer, add to that it doesn't have production facilities of its own.

This has gotten analysts to speculate on where Seagate will source its chips from, a possibility being buying Intel's share of the Intel-Micron JV. Such a buy-out would set Seagate back by close to $1 bn. Another possibility would be to acquire SanDisk or Hynix (Hyundai) which focus on making entry-level solid state drives, but are a major players in the overall NAND flash market. If it will be SanDisk, Hynix or any other flash maker remains to be seen, but it wouldn't come as a surprise if Seagate announces the acquisition of a flash company soon.

Source: NordicHardware

I spotted some new nude shots of the upcoming ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card today and decided to share them with you. Little is known about the card's specs at the time, but what's apparent from the pics is the black PCB, the two 55nm-built RV770 GPUs and the PLX PCI-Express 2.0 bridge chip situated between the GPUs. On both sides of the PCB there are 16 Qimonda GDDR5 chips for a total of 1GB video memory. Also one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCI-E connectors will be needed for proper operation.


Source: ChipHell

Diamond Multimedia (diamondmm.com), a leading manufacturer of PC graphics cards, sound cards and communications products, launched today along with boutique system builder Smoothcreations, and Water cooling mavens, Danger Den the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 XOC Black Edition graphics card. This card offers exquisite gaming capabilities combined with state of the art efficiency.

The HD 4870 is a smoking gun dual slot card, PCIE 2.0, with 512MB of DDR5 memory and a clock speed of 800 MHz. The memory speed is 1100 MHz and is designed with 800 stream processors. The HD 4870 provides plug-and-play ATI CrossFireX™ upgradeability with up to quad-GPU support. Continuing with ATI’s Power Play and 55nm processing technology, this card is the fastest and efficient. “The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition was clocked to kick some ass”. We didn’t just want a fast card out in the market, we wanted the fastest card that could kick the living daylights and bust some performance records, say Mario Gastelum, Director of Product Development & Engineering. “we wanted a card that kicked the competitions teeth into the curb”, and that’s exactly what our engineers accomplished”. “The firmware was custom designed to enable end users to go beyond the normal over clocked speeds and allow them to push their cards for higher performance via the catalyst control center.” The GPU’s custom firmware has been unlocked to push cards to GPU settings of up to 950 MHz and Memory of up 1200 MHz.

Update: Diamond has decided to make "these cards available in ecommerce in the next few days".

With the level of competition in the computer hardware industry reaching new highs by the day, manufacturers are looking for innovative ways to market their products. With "Stability, Durability" being the new mantra and players such as Gigabyte and ASUS already using these as USP for some of their flagship products, Cooler Master jumps in with their Ultimate Circuit Protection (UCP) line of power supply units.

They have launched three models, a 700W (RS-700-AAAA-A3), a 900W (RS-900-AAAA-A3) and an 1100W (RS-B00-AAAA-A3). These PSU's are unique for having conductive-polymer (solid-state) capacitors in the most temperature sensitive parts of the PSU, supplemented with Japanese electrolytic capacitors. A surge-protective soft start circuit is also included.

Akasa adds its entry to the range of heavy-duty power-supplies with its PowerXtreme 1200W (model: AK-P120FG-BK). This 150x160x86 mm PSU features six independent +12V rails and a rated efficiency of 80 per cent. Apart from the usual plethora of connectors PSUs of this range are expected to have, it features two 8-pin auxiliary power connectors for multi-CPU socket desktop and workstation boards. It features a total of nine 6-pin PCI-E power connectors with six of them capable of doing 8-pin with a side 2-pin expansion that's detachable. Akasa provides a cable-management kit in the package, no modularity was advertised. The power distribution diagram is provided below. The PSU is priced at £189.95 or €240 (excl. VAT).


Source: Akasa

ASUS, a company that already sells more than enough custom video cards is now introducing its new MATRIX branded ROG (Republic of Gamers) EN9600GT HTDI/512M. I'll skip the mile long press release pointing out at this card as being the world's most intelligent, and write out some of its main advantages that might convince you of buying it. Dressed in black, the GeForce 9600GT MATRIX is equipped with the ASUS Super Hybrid Engine for automatic detection and adjustments of voltage, clock settings and GPU fan speed. With its help the card lowers its GPU voltage in 2D mode and stops the GPU fan for completely silent operation. When required, the fan will start to spin depending on the GPU load and temperature. Futhermore, the EN9600GT MATRIX comes with iTracker, a feature that provides four different mode profiles: Optimized Mode, Gaming Mode, Power Saving Mode, and Default mode. It also displays in real-time the GPU/shader/memory clock speeds, GPU/memory voltages, GPU loading, GPU/memory/power IC/ambient temperatures, and the GPU fan speed. Finally, the card's remaining characteristics: 650MHz/1625MHz/1.8GHz (900MHz DDR3) core, shader and memory clock speeds respectively. Click here to see the full press release.


Source: ASUS