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Latest OCAU News |
Memory:
Aeneon XTune 2GB DDR2-1142 Kit on BigBruin.
OCZ Flex II 4GB DDR2-1150 Kit on Legion Hardware.
Motherboards:
Intel DX48BT2 LGA775 board on Trusted Reviews.
XFX nForce 790i 3-Way SLI LGA775 board on HardOCP.
ASUS Rampage Formula X48 LGA775 board on Hardware Canucks.
Cooling:
Vizo Mini Ninja Notebook Cooler on Modders-Inc.
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 and Red Scorpion CPU Coolers on Madshrimps.
Thermaltake DuOrb and V1 CPU Coolers on HardOCP.
OCZ Freeze Thermal Compound on Elite Bastards.
Coolink Chipchilla Chipset Cooler on XS Reviews.
Storage:
Pioneer DVR-215BK DVD Writer on CD Freaks.
Corsair Survivor 32GB Flash Drive on TechwareLabs.
Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB SAS on Hot Hardware.
Kingston DataTraveler 400 8GB on BIOS Magazine.
Video Cards:
BFG GeForce 9800 GTX OCX 512MB on bit-tech.
Sapphire Atomic HD3870x2 Watercooled on CPU3D.
Foxconn GeForce 9800GTX 512MB on Overclockers Club.
ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB Crossfire on TheTechLounge.
Misc:
Asus Eee PC 4G 7" on APH Networks.
Agfaphoto AP2300 Photo Printer on BIOS Magazine.
Asus P527 GPS Smartphone on I4U News.
Samsung ML-1630 Laser Printer on Overclockers Online.
Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials Forum if you're shopping around for a good deal. In there our many sponsors have threads featuring cooling gear, laptops, hard drives, TV tuners, games, prebuilt PCs, web hosting, headphones and more. Worth a look!
Dangerfield sent word that Electronic Frontiers Australia are unhappy about the Government wasting money in the new federal budget, to fund the mandatory "clean-feed" Internet. In fact, in a survey of 18,000 Internet users, only 13% agreed with the policy. That’s why we feel it is a shame, when the Government has identified real needs for better education and policing, that their approach to Internet policy is so skewed towards the filter initiative. There are greater risks to Australian children online, and real steps can be taken to mitigate these risks. That’s where the funding should be going.
Frostytech have listed their top heatsinks for AMD and Intel. Quickly find your way to the current Top 5 heatsinks according to FrostyTech. The first pair of lists is for Intel Heatsinks, broken down by lowest temperature and quietest operation. The second set of lists are for AMD Heatsinks. Lifespan indicates if the heatsink is new, old or end of life.
Tech Report checked out some P45 boards from Gigabyte. Intel has yet to formally introduce the P45 Express, but given the success of the P35 chipset, we were naturally eager to get a glimpse of its successor. Gigabyte had no less than five different P45 models on display, including a new Extreme board that may well live up to its name, at least as far as overclocking is concerned.
From quertylesh: there's a known problem with XP SP3 when installed onto HP AMD machines, and on other AMD based OEM PC's. here's one source. a more detailed explanation shows that the problem is because OEMs like HP were too slack to create images for different hardware configurations when they build their systems, causing a registry fault when XP SP3 is installed onto one of the systems which has an incorrect XP image pre loaded onto it.
Guru3D looked at game performance scaling with quad-core CPUs. Guru3D takes 10 modern dual & quad core processors and then fires off a dozen of games at them in combo with a high-end graphics card.
VIAArena have a naked Pico challenge competition. To demonstrate the remarkable power and thermal-efficiency of the VIA EPIA PX5000EG board, VIA welcomes you to take part in the 'Naked Pico Challenge' where we will push the one watt VIA Eden ULV processor and in fact the whole board to it's absolute limits by running a system under full load without any cooling whatsoever! Simply guess how long the VIA EPIA PX5000EG board can take the strain and win a VIA ARTiGO Builder Kit.
I've heard about this from a few different sources now.. apparently some freaky ants are eating computers in Houston, Texas. "I think they go into everything and they don't follow any kind of structured line," said Rasberry. "If you open a computer, you would find a cluster of ants on the motherboard and all over. You'd get 3,000 or 4,000 ants inside and they create arcs. They'll wipe out any computer." NASA's Johnson Space Center is in Houston and they're getting worried. :)
Cases:
In Win Metal Suit GD Mid-Tower on Overclockers Club.
NZXT Tempest Mid-Tower on Phoronix.
Cooler Master Centurion 590 on Techgage.
NZXT Tempest Mid-Tower on Bjorn3D.
Cooling:
Sunbeam Rheobus Extreme Fan Controller on BIOS Level.
Thermaltake DuOrb and V1 CPU Coolers on HardOCP.
CoolIT Freezone Elite Watercooling Kit on bit-tech.
ThermoLab Nano Silencer CPU Cooler on TweakTown.
Storage:
Sony DRX-S70U DVD Writer on CD Freaks.
Corsair Flash Voyager GT 16GB USB Drive on CPU3D.
Lexar 2GB SD Card & 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo on R&B Mods.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD3870 512MB on Big Bruin.
ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB on TechLounge.
Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Toxic on ASE Labs.
Asus Radeon HD 3850 X2 1GB on PC Perspective.
Power Supply:
Kingwin 700W Mach 1 PSU on Techware Labs.
Ultra X3 800W Modular PSU on Tweak News.
Zalman ZM1000-HP 1000W PSU on SilentPC.
Misc:
Sunbeam SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter on TechPowerUp.
Asus Xonar D2/PM Sound Card on X-Bit Labs.
Toshiba Satellite M305 Laptop on Digital Trends.
Meizu Mini Player SL 8GB on Trusted Reviews.
Guinness World Records have apparently certified GTA IV as breaking records in its first day of sales. Fastest-selling video game in 24 hours: Halo 3 at $170 million Fastest-selling theatrical movie in 24 hours: Spider-Man 3 at $60 Million Fastest-selling book in 24 hours: Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows at $220 million. Speaking of which, Moodles spotted that Zero Punctuation have reviewed it.
There's some cool new features in Google Maps.. Wiki and photo integration.
Jimx pointed out this windows copy replacement that lets you queue things up, pause copies, etc. Looks pretty handy.
Joeechick noted that St John Ambulance have a free online crash course in First Aid. This fun, yet useful 'Crash Course' gives you the basic knowledge to 'Do Something' before the ambulance arrives. The course shows you how to recognise an unconscious person, and provide basic first aid such as CPR, bleeding control and recovery position. The duration of the course should take approximately 30 minutes. You can complete the interactive course at your own pace, in your own time or even to review a session where you left off.
Digit-Life explore 8800GT performance scaling in modern games. We decided to find out what parameters affect performance in modern games most of all. Besides, we haven't analyzed how performance is affected by CPU/GPU/video memory clock rates for a long time already. So we decided to test a G92-based graphics card and determine main rendering bottlenecks in modern games.
Meanwhile MadShrimps go on an extreme overclocking adventure with a GeForce 9800 GTX. One area where the 9800 GTX might shine through however is overclocking, the new GPU generates less heat, and with the help of some LN2 it will be interesting to see how high it can climb!
Over at AusGamers, who kindly host our servers, they're running a survey and competition where you can win an Xbox360 or a Nintendo DS.
This survey is intended to give us some insight into the sort of visitors we get here on AusGamers - we want to know more about you so we can better serve your gaming needs. We've tried to keep it as simple as possible, so please take the time to fill it out as accurately as you can - the better the information we get, the more we can do. So, get answering, and putting "OCAU" in the "Other" box for Question 24 probably wouldn't hurt. :)
Motherboards:
Asus P5Q Deluxe LGA775 board on VR-Zone.
ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi LGA775 board on Hardware Canucks.
Asus Crosshair II Formula AM2+ on NeoSeeker.
Displays:
Panasonic Viera TX-32LXD85 32in LCD TV on Trusted Reviews.
Samsung T220 22" LCD Monitor on InsideHW.
BenQ W5000 Full HD DLP Projector on Trusted Reviews.
Video Cards:
Gigabyte Radeon HD3650 512MB on Legion Hardware.
Sapphire HD3650 OC 512MB on Pro-Clockers.
Asus EN9800GTX TOP 512MB on Trusted Reviews.
Palit GeForce 9600 GSO Sonic 768MB on TweakTown.
Input:
Cyber Snipa Warboard Gaming Keyboard on Pro-Clockers.
Everglide DKTBoard Gaming Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard on Trusted Reviews.
Power Supply:
Corsair HX1000 1000W PSU on Hardware Canucks.
AcBel Polytech iPower 660 PSU on Hardware Secrets.
BFG Tech ES-800 800W PSU on TechPowerUp.
Gaming:
Dragon Quest Swords (PS2) on Trusted Reviews.
Grand Theft Auto IV (360) on bit-tech.
Everyday Shooter (PC) on DriverHeaven.
Mario Kart (Wii) on Future Looks.
Misc:
Solio H1000 Hybrid Solar Charger on TechwareLabs.
Rosewill RHUB-310 USB Port Hub on AnandTech.
Fujifilm FinePix S100FS Digital Camera on Trusted Reviews.
EVO-G MP1 Mousepad Review on HardwareLogic.
NASA Announcement
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Thursday, 15-May-2008 00:24:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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NASA have been a bit mysterious this week, saying they will have a press-conference (tonight at 3am Sydney time) to announce the success of a long galactic hunt. NASA has scheduled a media teleconference Wednesday, May 14, at 1 p.m. EDT, to announce the discovery of an object in our Galaxy astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years. This finding was made by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with ground-based observations. What could it be, we wonder?
Join the speculation in the Science forum here.
aXiSte pointed out this thread which reminded me of these photos you've probably seen linked on the news page a few times:
 
The funny thing is, people still occasionally email those photos to the news mailbox, saying I have to check out this crazy person carrying an oldschool CRT and midi-tower on a motorcycle. Of course, the crazy person is me, and those photos were taken back in about 2000 when I used to go to LAN parties fairly often by bike.
Anyway, I found the full set of pics recently so figured I may as well post the lot. Enjoy!
   
   
 
Digg members, feel free to Digg this!
News Archive Fixed
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Wednesday, 14-May-2008 18:41:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Our OCAU news archive was a bit broken for a while there, but it's fixed now. So, you can look at the previous 7, 14 or 30 days if you wanted to catch up. There's also monthly archives going back to March 2000!
If a more up-to-the-minute feel is what you're after, remember we have a forum live view now too.
OCAU salutes Admiral for MS awareness (Ok and maybe photos of his wife in a bikini)
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Wednesday, 14-May-2008 14:34:22 (GMT +10) - by Rezin
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WHEN Kristofer Dick and his newly wedded wife Cecilia Egan put down their names to support awareness and raise money for Multiple Sclerosis, they didn't anticipate the response they were going to receive.
What started as a promise to the forum members of Overclockers Australia for one honorable man to provide many with pictures of his wife running in a bikini has mutated into a fund raising Frankenstein. Kristofer (who uses the online handle of 'Admiral') was/is quoted in the thread as saying:
"If OCAU members can collectively donate $1000 to the 'team' that my wife and I have, she'll do the run in a bikini, as long as it's not raining or ridiculously cold."
With Kristofer being a regular contributor to the OCAU photography forum and keen amateur photographer, members of the computer enthusiasts website are going to expect nothing short of supermodel quality snaps.
With funds slowly dribbling in, one forum regular decided to up the online stakes and throw down the gauntlet claiming:
"I'll donate $50 if you post a picture of you getting out of the pool, wearing a bikini.
I'll bump it up to $75 if you hold a sign saying 'Goose1981 (the online handle of the member) gives the best cuddles'."
This would be the catalyst to what would explode into a fund raising frenzy as Admiral invoked the Toxx Clause. The clause stipulates that since he said he would do [x] if you achieve [y], so long as [y] is achieved, he has to do [x] or he will be banned. Goose1981 in consideration donated a generous sum of $100 to the Multiple Sclerosis fund binding Admiral to bikini wearing, sign hoisting, watery grave.
Understandably, by this stage the thread had successfully raised its fair share of attention. So much attention in fact that another member who goes by the handle CHiMPY, decided that a personal donation of $500 should be enough to keep Admiral out of a bikini, pleading:
"I have donated in an effort to keep Adsy's clothes ON..
Nobody needs to see that. Trust me people."
With the original target of $1000 obliterated in nothing short of 24 hours, and the opportunity to continue raising money for a wonderful cause the collective group of online delinquents knew that this could be milked for all it was worth. One of the female members who goes by the online handle Ma Baker, expressed sympathy for Admirals wife having to do a 16km run in her bouncing beach best. Ma Baker felt it would only be fair that Admiral should stand by his lady and take the plunge together.
The stakes were raised again, with Admiral bellowing to the masses that should the target of $2000 be met:
"I'll do the run in Speedos, and both of us will paint some OCAU coloured racing stripes and logos on ourselves."
Since that time the donations have been rolling in, with the total at this stage at approximately $2555 within 48hours. With each dollar, new and ingenious methods of ultimate embarrassment have been suggested including:
- Auctioning off parts of skin for temporary advertising during the 16 km run. (Confirmed!)
- Pink speedos. (Confirmed!)
- Body paint and racing stripes. (Confirmed!)
- A Mankini.
Admiral was recently quoted:
"That's beyond anywhere near what I thought I could raise, I honestly didn't think that we'd get close to $1000 initially, this is just incredible. Everyone here deserves amazing praise, to get an online community donating so much towards such a good cause really says a lot about the calibre of the members here.
Time to secure those pink speedos..."
With the evil minds of embarrassment ticking over in the online community, only time will tell what dastardly acts of humiliation await, but at least Admiral and his wife can sleep easy knowing that it's all for a good cause!
You can help out the cause by donating by credit card or debit card here and check out all the shenanigans as they unfold here. Donations over $2 are tax deductible. Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system, affecting over 18,000 young Australians, and many more world wide, please give generously.
Details of the run which will be held in Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday June 1 can be found here.
Written by: Break the Cycle
[Digg link]
Motherboards:
Asus M3N-HT Deluxe AM2+ board on Hardware Logic.
DFI LANParty LT X48 T2R LGA775 board on bit-tech.
Sapphire PURE CrossFireX 790FX AM2+ board on Digit-Life.
Cases:
Apevia X-Telstar Full-Tower on Overclockers Club.
In Win B2 Stealth Bomber Mid-Tower on TweakTown.
Lian Li PC-P80R Spider Series Case on Hi-Tech.
Silverstone Crown CW03 HTPC Case on Tom's Hardware.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-U9B CPU Cooler on R&B Mods.
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU Cooler on CPU3D.
OCZ Vendetta 2 CPU Cooler on FrostyTech.
Storage:
OCZ Technology 4GB Rally2 USB Flash Drive on ViperLair.
Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus 1TB External HDD on ThinkComputers.
OCZ 32GB Solid-State Drive on Benchmark Reviews.
Video Cards:
Asus 8600GT TOP 265MB on The Tech Lounge.
Asus EN9600GT TOP & Silent Video Cards on Hardware Zone.
Gigabyte GeForce 9600 GT 512MB on Digit-Life.
Point of View GeForce 9600 GSO 386MB on Guru3D.
Notebook:
Asus U2E-1P057E 11.1" SSD Ultra-Portable on Trusted Reviews.
Alienware Area-51 m15x Notebook on Digital Trends.
Hypersonic Avenger AG2 12" Notebook on Techgage.
2008-09 Federal Budget
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Tuesday, 13-May-2008 20:16:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The new Federal Budget has been unveiled tonight. The Government will deliver a strong surplus of $21.7 billion (1.8 per cent of GDP) in 2008-09, with every dollar of new spending matched by spending cuts.
There's a huge discussion thread here in the forums.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Tuesday, 13-May-2008 17:22:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Another quick snapshot of what's going on in the forums:
No more overclocking on Intel's future CPUs in Intel Hardware.
Sysadmin-ing, and how to get into it in Enterprise Computing.
1TB Samsung F1 Drive in Storage and Backup.
Windows XP SP3 Released in Windows Operating Systems.
Bus Simulator 2008 - PC gaming at an all-time high in Games.
Games that go well with drinking in Games.
Haze Demo - First Impressions in Sony Consoles.
MSI Wind in Portable and Small Form Factor.
Post Your ISP Deal / Broadband speed + package + cost in Networking, Telephone and Internet.
Luxury Car Tax to rise from 25% to 33% in Motoring.
Iron Musician - May Entries in Musicians.
Boys who don't play videogames 'are at risk' in Current Events.
2008 Federal Budget in Current Events.
Russia parades nuclear missiles and military hardware in Current Events.
New Metallica album out soon in Entertainment.
Google Treasure Hunt in The Pub.
Why do mummy and daddy smell funny? in The Pub.
Alien Hand Syndrome (wtf?) in The Pub.
Stupid words that Software Engineers and Product Managers make up in The Pub.
See my wife in a bikini... in The Pub.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 13-May-2008 16:21:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Daztay spotted the world's first digital camera, which used a cassette tape! In December of 1975, after a year of piecing together a bunch of new technology in a back lab at the Elmgrove Plant in Rochester, we were ready to try it.
InsideHW have an article about AMD's K10 architecture. As far as desktop computers are concerned, the K10 architecture also brings along an entirely new platform, which should unify all vital system components under a single brand - Spider.
BenchmarkReviews meanwhile explore the world of DDR3. Sadly, it might take an article like this to open the eyes of my fellow hardware enthusiast and overclocker, because it seems like DDR3 is the technology nobody wants bad enough to learn about. Pity, because overclocking is what it's all about.
Bit-Tech have some info on the removal of DirextX 10.1 from Assassin's Creed. Huddy said that he is working hard with his team to get DirectX 10.1 support back into the title for Radeon HD 3000 graphics card owners.
Microsoft have said their recent blocking of YouTube links was a glitch. Microsoft said in a blog posting Sunday that the issue was a mistake made by the third party that handles blocking of potentially unsafe content for MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.
LegitReviews checked out Vista game performance with 2GB or 4GB of RAM. We got our hands on a 2GB and a 4GB set of Corsair DOMINATOR PC2-9136C5 memory modules and set off to see what happens to the average frame rate in nine games at 1920x1200.
Scratchy reminded me of the Fair Go Broadband initiative. There is a clear and present danger that in its rush to roll out the National Broadband Network (NBN), the Government will give away critical competition and consumer safeguards.
Bit-Tech ponder consumer and game publishers' rights when it comes to copy protection. Copy protection and piracy seem like two inescapable forces in modern digital media. But is either side right? Brett Thomas sounds off about pretty pictures, perils of intellectual property, and the dollars and cents behind everyone's favourite "freedom fighters."
IBM have a new liquid-cooled supercomputer for weather simulation. Using the IBM Power 575 architecture, the system sports POWER6 microprocessors, operating at a speedy 4.7 GHz. The system utilizes 4,064 of these blazingly fast processors, 12 terabytes of memory, and 150 terabytes of FAStT DS4800 hard drive storage. The computer is one of IBM's new systems that utilizes water cooling, which allows higher clock speeds and lower energy usage, as the PC enthusiast market has long recognized. Well, mainframes were water-cooled back in the 1960's or so, so it's not entirely a new idea. :)
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