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October 2008 |
The INQUIRER would like to show you how heat pipes and vapour chambers work. "You all know what they look like from the outside, copper tubes that go from the bottom of some very expensive and odd-looking heat sinks to the fins up top."
On December 15, at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, Intel plans to release details on its 32nm chip fabrication technology. But even more impressive is the news coming out of AMD who claim to have a 22nm process. "From the sounds of things, we can expect to start seeing 32nm chips from Intel around the third or fourth quarter of 2009 and 22nm chips from AMD".
Google has just announced the release of Chrome Beta 03.154.9 which addresses several security bugs as well as minor improvements in user interface and a number of other small issues raised by users. "Version 03.154.9 may be primarily a bugfix release, but it demonstrates Google's commitment to continuing Chrome development, tackling security vulnerabilities, and addressing some of the complaints that have been raised by users".
According to Cnet, AMD has just released their answer to Intel's Xeon range of processors, the Shanghai Opteron, a 45 nanometre quad core CPU. "AMD is hoping to make a much better impression with Shanghai. Its first quad-core chip, Barcelona, was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare only to be delayed a whopping eight months (or more, depending how the delay is calculated) due to production glitches and bugs. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market".
It would seem that not a day goes by where we don't hear either about the Rudd Government internet filtering plans or the ongoing debate regarding game censorship. According to a report on Sydney Morning Herald website, South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson withdrew his support for a discussion paper, effectively censoring the censorship debate. "Censorship ministers in March agreed "in principle" to canvas public opinion on the proposed introduction of a R18+ classification for games and release a discussion paper on the issue, but Mr Atkinson has refused to agree to make the report public, effectively shelving it."
In gaming news, GamesIndustry.biz says that Bethesda Studios employees has leaked company's upcoming plans for a new Elder Scrolls title in 2010. "Fallout 3 publisher Bethesda has indicated that the next title in the hugely popular Elder Scrolls series will be released in 2010."
Atari has confirmed that it has acquired the rights to a new Chronicles of Riddick game. "The new game was originally supposed to be published by Sierra, but was one of many titles sent into limbo when the publisher fell into trouble after the Activision and Blizzard merger."
Meanwhile GameSpot posted a preview of Tom Clancy's End War: The Weapons of the World War III for XBox 360. ""Clancy-proofing." This is the process that every would-be high-tech geopolitical action thriller must go through before it gets stamped with the official Tom Clancy license. This means that every weapon in the game must be accurate, down to stopping power and explosion radius. Now comes the scary part. The future weapons of massive destruction that litter the battlefields of End War and fuel the fictional World War III have also been Clancy-proofed. Though these harbingers of Armageddon don't exist today, they are based on existing research and prototype technology. Fear the future."
Friday again already..
    
    
The INQUIRER posted an interesting article titled Overclocking post-Nehalem overview. "it seems an overclocked enthusiast Nehalem system would focus more on the CPU itself, its cooling and power delivery on the mobo, while the memory and chipset cooling would by right be simplified".
HEXUS.net has some info about a new Core i7 liquid metal-based CPU cooler. " If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, the LM10 has no moving parts and an unlimited mean time between failures. Inside is a yet-to-be-named liquid metal that's said to provide superior thermo physical properties and is circulated without moving parts thanks to a built-in electromagnetic pump".
Not happy with your plain looking, cheap USB thumb drive? Then you could always splash the cash on this 18-carat solid gold USB drive. "Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced a limited edition 18-carat solid gold USB drive that comes with a serialized Certificate of Authenticity".
Few weeks ago, EA was in the news because of their invasive and controversial DRM policy which seems to have upset many people and today they're back in the headlines with news that if you misbehave on EA's forums you will not only be banned but you will find yourself unable to play EA's games. "Electronic Arts has a new policy in its forums: misbehave and violate the publisher's terms of service, and not only will you be banned from the forums, but you'll find yourself unable to play any of your EA games, too".
Apparently two Australians are part of the MSI Master Overclocking Arena 2008, coming up in November. More info here and a video here.
South Australia's Attorney General Michael Atkinson has apparently refused to allow a report on introducing an R18+ games rating in Australia to go public. More info here. While we don't like pointing fingers, it seems that the only thing standing between Australia and an adult rating for video games is the South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson - who has made the decision to effectively halt any progress on the topic for the foreseeable future.
Music by The Beatles will be available for the first time in digital format (I'm assuming CD's don't count?) as part of MTV Rock Band, thanks slipkord. The importance of this event vastly transcends gaming. This is the first time that the Beatles music has been licensed for release in a digital format; the songs have never before been officially licensed for release oniline, even through popular services such as iTunes.
"Meant To Be Seen" is a site dedicated to stereoscopic 3D gaming, and they're running a survey with prizes. 3d gaming and home/cinema 3d entertainment is currently undergoing a rebirth with new products announced from Nvidia, ATI and many other monitor and large screen TV manufacturers and 3D driver suppliers. On a related note, XbitLabs reviewed a stereoscopic monitor.
Gazdinf, who says he enjoys reading OCAU from Hungary, sent in this article about catching earthquake details using ordinary laptop computers. Inside your laptop is a small accelerometer chip, there to protect the delicate moving parts of your hard disk from sudden jolts. It turns out that the same chip is a pretty good earthquake sensor, too.
Here's a timewaster: a sheep reflex tester.
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 31-October-2008 04:06:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
Teufel Impaq 500 2.1-channel Home Cinema System on TrustedReviews.
Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS Full HD 22in Monitor on TrustedReviews.
Creative HS-1200 Wireless Headset on Metku.
JayBird JB-200 Bluetooth Stereo Headset on LegitReviews.
Sansa SlotMusic Player on DigitalTrends.
Video Cards:
Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition 512MB on LegitReviews.
HIS ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB on Bit-Tech.
HIS Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB on Guru3D.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 512MB Overclock Edition on ThinkComputers.
HIS HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX on OCOnline.
Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB on PCPerspective.
MSI HD 4670 on Bjorn3D.
BFG Tech GeForce GTX 260 OCX on Tweaktown.
Software:
Far Cry 2 PC game on YouGamers.
Far Cry 2 Performance on DriverHeaven.
Far Cry 2 Performance on TechSpot.
Comodo Registry Cleaner on ITReviewed.
Fallout 3 PC game on Bit-Tech.
Cooling:
OCZ Gladiator Max CPU Cooler on Virtual-Hideout.
OCZ Gladiator Max CPU Cooler on OCClub.
Zalman CNPS9300 AT CPU Cooler on HWLogic.
Cooler Master Z600 CPU Cooler on Bit-Tech.
Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo VGA Cooler on OCClub.
Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer CPU cooler on Ninjalane.
Thermaltake MaxOrb EX CPU cooler on Frostytech.
Cases:
Antec Skeleton Open Air Computer Case on FutureLooks.
Antec Skeleton Open Air Case on Pro-Clockers.
Coolermaster CM690 on CaseCritics.
Aerocool Aeroracer Pro Mid-Tower on Tweaknews.
LanCool Metal Bonded PC-K1 Mid-Tower on ThinkComputers.
SilverStone FT01 Mid-Tower on Techgage.
LanCool Metal Boned PC-K1 on ITReviewed.
Misc:
Linksys WRT610N Dual-N Wireless Router on ITReviewed.
Logitech Pure-Fi Anytime iPod Alarm Clock on I4U.
Microsoft Arc Mouse on EverythingUSB.
SilverPower SP-S850 Power Supply on Bjorn3D.
Thecus N4100 Pro NAS network storage on TweakNews.
More Great Firewall of Australia
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Friday, 31-October-2008 03:18:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's a big page in our Wiki with Australian Internet Filtering Media Coverage listed. Thanks to Jay and others for keeping that updated! Also, there is a series of protests organised in various cities this weekend.
Here we go again....It seems that Nvidia is accusing ATI of cheating. "IT SEEMS NVIDIA will do anything to detract attention from its own problems right now, and the firm seems to have decided that instead of putting its energy into its own products, it would rather slam ATI instead. Earlier in the week an Nvidia spinner approached us with allegations that ATI were involved in a “major, major cheat” and that Nvidia could prove it.".
Yesterday it was G.Skill who released their arsenal of DDR3 memory for the X58 platform. Today sees Kingston unleash their line up of HyperX triple channel DDR3 memory. "Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is first to ship 2GHz memory in triple-channel configuration".
And not to be out done, Crucial joins the party with their new Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3-1333 PC3-10600 2Gb Kit. "Crucial finally releases their Ballistix Tracer DDR3 memory. These 2Gb kits are rated to run at 1333Mhz and features flashing LEDs. Now all you enthusiasts can show off your extreme rigs to the max!".
Senior technology analyst at DFC Intelligence, Wanda Meloni says that Sony is likely to lose money on the PlayStation 3 under current world economic climate. "Sony is likely to lose a huge amount of money on the PlayStation 3 even when game sales and licensing payouts are factored in". No surprise then why Sony will not be offering a price cut on the PlayStation 3 this Christmas. "Sony has again confirmed that it will not be offering a price cut on the PlayStation 3 this Christmas as it is still trying to maximise profits and is concerned that a price cut is not in the interest of its share holders".
Over the past week or so we have read and heard allot about the Rudd Government wanting to implement mandatory filtering of the internet by ISP's in order to deliver on his election-winning pitch which promised families far-reaching measures to block prohibited content. It now appears that this idea has hit a major hurdle. "A headline-grabbing election promise to crack down on internet nasties looks to be in trouble as Senate opposition grows".
How would you like to be the first one to test drive the all new 2009 Nissan 370Z Coupe? Click here for details on how you can do that.
Thursday Afternoon
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Thursday, 30-October-2008 15:43:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Thanks to Matt for this one!
Anandtech have an introduction to virtualization. There's no denying that virtualization is changing company's server rooms all over the world. It is promoting both innovation and the preservation of aged applications that would otherwise not survive a migration to modern hardware platforms. Virtualization is completely redefining the rules of what can and cannot be done in a server environment, adding a versatility to it that is increasing with every new release.
With the release of Intrepid Ibex imminient, Cnet have procured screenshots from the final release. This latest installment of Linux for desktop computers and servers strives to be easy to use, a tough challenge given the complexities of Linux. Ubuntu comes with a variety of applications, including OpenOffice.org (though not yet new version 3.0) and Gnome's Evolution software for e-mail and calendars.
A mobile phone based on Google's Android platform is set to be released in Australia by Christmas. Ruslan Kogan, 25 - who has been selling cut-priced Kogan-branded TV sets, GPS systems, DVD players and other gadgets over the internet from his base in Elsternwick for the past 2½ years - says he will sell the phone from December 15 for $199. Kogan said his Google phone would look similar to the iPhone in that it would be a touch-screen device with no built-in keyboard. He said it would include WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and a trackball to aid in navigation.
However, it appears that the Google Android operating system is vulnerable to a drive-by exploit. Technical details of the vulnerability, which occurs because Google Android uses an unpatched open-source software package, is being kept under wraps until a patch is available. Google was notified of this issue on October 20th, 2008.
Microsoft have announced that they will be providing online versions of their popular office suite. These will be "lightweight versions", but Microsoft told us yesterday that they'll still have rich functionality and will be comparable to Google's suite of online office applications. The apps will enable users to create, edit and collaborate on Microsoft Office documents through the browser. The apps will work in IE, Firefox and Safari browsers (no word on whether Google Chrome will be supported).
Microsoft have also lifted the lid on several Windows 7 features. Microsoft has been very secretive about Windows 7. While it has let leak scant details about how touch functionality will play a critical role in the new OS, more information on how the new OS ticks, and its general feel have been scarce. The Windows team has been using a blog to let out information on the new product, but the stream has been more like a slow trickle, with few concrete explanations of features.
A new FPS warfare game, Rising Eagle-Gaza, is pitting Iranian troops against Israelis. A Sydney-based Jewish businessman bankrolling a shoot-'em-up warfare game pitting Israeli troops against Iranians says the aim is to "throw out a challenge to Iran" after its President vowed to wipe Israel off the map. It is available as a free download here.
Here's an interesting website that contains instructions to build weaponry out of common office supplies. Later that week, people came in to thank me. Some even brought chocolate. But most of them wanted to know where I had bought that fabulous gun. I showed them how it was made. They were thrilled and from that day on, we haven't had a single boring presentation.
With Halloween just around the corner, it's time to drag out the Zombie shooters again. The Last Stand and its sequel pit you in a battle against time to escape the zombie hordes.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 30-October-2008 13:28:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
NVIDIA nForce 730i / GeForce 9300 Chipset for LGA775 boards on Tweaktown.
MSI's P45 Platinum and Diamond Motherboards LGA775 boards on HotHardware.
ECS A780VM-M2 AM2+ board on Digit-Life.
AMD Phenom X4 9950 AM2+ CPU on HardCoreWare.
ECS P45T-AD3 LGA775 board on LegionHW.
Asus M3A78-T AM2+ board on SilentPCReview.
Zotac GF9300-A-E LGA775 board on TrustedReviews.
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P LGA775 board on Techgage.
Input Etc:
SilverStone Raven Mouse on Modders-Inc.
Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Gaming Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
WolfKing Trooper MVP Gaming Mouse on Tweaknews.
Das Keyboard Professional and Ultimate on TechSpot.
Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse on HWZone.
Razer Lachesis Gaming Mouse on HWSecrets.
OCZ Technology Dominatrix Laser Gaming Mouse on BigBruin.
SilverStone Raven Gaming Mouse on TBreak.
Vidabox Premium Wireless Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Western Digital's Caviar Green hard drive on Tech-Report.
GUP Japan Smart Drive Classic Cooper HDD enclosure on ITReviewed.
Thermaltake Vi-On HDD Enclosure on TechWareLabs.
Patriot Warp V2 128GB 2.5" SSD on Tweaktown.
SanDisk Cruzer Titanium Plus USB Flash Drive on FutureLooks.
PNY MicroSD Mobility Pack on ITReviewed.
Thursday Midday
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Thursday, 30-October-2008 12:12:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Thanks again to BlaYde for this one..
According to this report VIA have produced a mini-ITX motherboard with a 1.6GHz Nano processor on it; "The board is called the VB8001 and it features the aforementioned processor, two DDR2-533 slots (max. 4GB), integrated Chrome9 HC graphics, a PCIe x16 slot, mini PCI, and a whole bunch of standard features like SATA ports, gigabit Ethernet, etc...
Word coming out of China is that Sapphire have a dual-slot HD4850X2 with some heavy duty cooling. Pictures of the card have been posted on this Chinese website.
This may not come as much of a surprise to most fans of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, but the most popular MMO has hit another record breaking milestone, with the subscription hitting 11 million users worldwide. "Blizzard Entertainment announced today that World of Warcraft, its subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is now played by more than 11 million gamers around the world".
Microsoft has finally decided to put their Office package on the web according to AppScout. "Specifically, users will be able to "access, create, edit, share and collaborate" on documents, Microsoft said".
As we move ever closer to the release of Intel’s new Nehalem processors due for release next month, more and more manufacturers are releasing compatible hardware for the new Core i7 / X58 platform. Today G.Skill has launched a full line of DDR3 performance memory. "G.Skill provides 3GB and 6GB triple memory kits with DDR3 1333MHz and 1600MHz".
Most computer enthusiasts are pretty familiar with SSD technology and the increase in performance it offers over a standard HDD based storage solution. They also know that SSD's, whilst getting more affordable, are still on the expensive side when compared to an HDD solution. But what if you had "unlimited funds", Bit-tech.com ask?. "if you're wondering what SSD technology would look like if you had a near-unlimited budget, try asking Texas Memory Systems."
Windows 7 is a major talking point at this year's Microsoft Professional Developer Conference currently held in LA and today Ars Technica has a nice write up on Windows 7 UI. "Windows 7 will not contain anything like the kind of far-reaching architectural modifications that Microsoft made with Windows Vista."
Interesting Forum Threads
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Wednesday, 29-October-2008 22:34:51 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A few that caught my eye as I wandered around:
[REVIEW] Everglide Titan Mousemats in Overclocking & Hardware.
Dell 2408WFP a01 input lag! in Video Cards & Monitors.
Will you be upgrade to i7 when they come out? in Intel Hardware.
Dead Space in Games.
GTA:IV Trophies this week in Games.
Technology they say will kill illegal file sharing in Networking, Telephony and Internet.
Internet on an international flight? in Networking, Telephony and Internet.
Windows 7: "Gamers Edition" What would you like to see? in Windows Operating Systems.
Have you gone solid state drives in Storage and Backup.
Photo5 Entries in Photography.
Amateur Astrophotography - Tarantula Nebula + Orion Nebula in Photography.
Universal Remotes - the good the bad and the ugly in Audio Visual.
Triple channel memory DDRIII in Memory.
How will this recession evolve? in Career, Education and Finance.
Has the Aus real estate bust begun? in Career, Education and Finance.
Renovating my room (fast-paced worklog) in Lifestyle.
Skaife to give up his seat in Motoring.
Official 2009 WRX 0-60mph 4.8 sec, 13.5sec 1/4 mile $40k in Motoring.
Limes - why so expensive?! in Geek Food.
We'll never stop pirates: Microsoft in Current Events & Serious Discussion.
US airport security is a sham in Current Events & Serious Discussion.
Ten 24-hour sports channel in Entertainment.
Wordle.net: Awesome text to art [~NSFW?] in The Pub.
China in a flurry over pirated windows in The Pub.
Darkness has sent along some screenies and in-game videos from Far Cry 2, in case you (like me) haven't got yourself a copy yet. There's a huge Far Cry 2 thread in our Games Forum.
Sceenshots:
  
  
  
Here's 3 more I stole from OpenSystem and ospi in the thread. :)
  
And here's some videos:
Ambush (22MB)
Assault (13MB)
Crash (3.1MB)
Sniper (15MB)
Time (10MB)
Added: Jungle (17MB)
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 29-October-2008 16:11:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Thanks again to Matt for this post!
Microsoft has unveiled their new operating system Windows Azure for cloud computing. Previously known as Project Red Dog, Windows Azure is a scalable hosting environment for deploying applications in Microsoft's cloud, said Microsoft Corporate Vice President Amitabh Srivastava, one of the key developers of the platform."Windows Azure is a new Windows offering at the Web tier of computing," said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. "This represents a significant extension" of the Windows computing platform, he said.
Meanwhile, Intel has demonstrated the first working Morestone MID platform. This sexy MID has been dropping jaws for more than a year now. Unfortunately, the plastic mock-up has always been a non-working, gutless model with little more than a glossy screen and backlight to demonstrate the form factor Intel's gunning for with its future Moorestown Mobile Internet Devices. That all changed today when a world's first working, Moorestown prototype hit the stage at Intel's Taipei, Developer Forum in the familiar hands of Anand Chandrasekher.
Here's some more about Google's new Google Earth software for the iPhone. "The idea of having Earth on a mobile device is something people dreamed of back to the Keyhole days and before," said Peter Birch, Google Earth's product manager, referring to the satellite imagery company Google acquired in 2004. "This is the first opportunity we've had to be able to deliver a great experience."
ZDNet have compared Mac OS X and Vista RAM usage. Because this system has a mere 1GB of RAM, I was curious to get a sense of how thrifty OS X Leopard is when it comes to memory usage. I was especially curious to see how Leopard compares to Vista, which as been slammed by critics as a resource hog.
The UNSW is threatening to axe their free wireless internet service due to illegal downloads. The university's director of IT, Michael Kirby-Lewis, said complaints about illegal downloading by students had risen from one or two a month to "a number a day", putting UNSW and students at risk of litigation for copyright infringement.
The BBC is following a shipping container around the world for a year. The Box has arrived in Shanghai, completing the UK-China leg of its global journey. It will stay in the Shanghai area until early in November when it will carry a new cargo to the US.
Today's timewaster is this cute little rabbit called Fred. Or, if you don't like the sight of rabbit guts, you can make Sarah Palin say anything you want (some strong language of course) and share the hilarity in our forums.
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
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Wednesday, 29-October-2008 13:26:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Silverstone TJ10b-WNV Nvidia LE Chassis on DriverHeaven.
Thermaltake Armor+ MX on Virtual-Hideout.
Lian Li PC-A7010 on TechPowerUp.
Enlight EN-2413 on DriverHeaven.
Antec NSK 6580B Mid-Tower on Hi-TechReviews.
Lian Li PC-V600 Mid-Tower on TheTechLounge.
NZXT Guardian 921 Mid-Tower on PureOC.
Lancool Metal Boned K12 on HWZone.
Lian Li PC-A77 on TechWareLabs.
Portable and Prebuilt:
Alienware Area-51 QX9770 CrossFireX System on PCPerspective.
Smooth Creations Smoothbook Slice netbook on Techgage.
AVADirect Custom Overclocked Gaming System on PCPerspective.
Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch laptop on DigitalTrends.
Nextar M3-MX GPS Device on I4U.
Memory:
G.Skill Pi Black Series 800MHz CL4 4GB Kit on Bit-Tech.
Crucial Ballistix Tracers DDR3 1333 4 Gig Kit on Bjorn3D.
Power Supplies:
Xigmatek NRP-MC651 650W on Tweaktown.
FSP Group Everest 900W on Hi-TechReviews.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 29-October-2008 03:34:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
Scythe Kama Bay Amplifier on TechPowerUp.
NEC MultiSync 24WMGX3 TFT Monitor on XSReviews.
NEC's MultiSync 24WMGX3 24" widescreen monitor on Bit-Tech.
Shure SE102 Noise Isolating Earphones on TrustedReviews.
Panasonic HDC-SD100 HD Camcorder on DigitalTrends.
22" HP Debranded DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor on OCIA.
TerraTec DMX 6Fire USB Audio Card on ITReviewed.
Samsung LN52A630 52-Inch LCD HDTV on FutureLooks.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 Digital Camera on HWSecrets.
Sony Bravia KDL-46W4500 46in LCD TV on TrustedReviews.
Software:
Dead Space PC game on OCModShop.
Far Cry 2 PC game on GamingHeaven.
Far Cry 2 PC game on TrustedReviews.
Video Cards:
MSI N9800GT GeForce 9800 GT 512MB on LegitReviews.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 260 OC 896MB on Guru3D.
Sapphire 4870 Toxic Edition on TechWareLabs.
Asus 9800GT Matrix on RBMods.
Zotac GTX280 AMP! Edition on OCClub.
Cooling:
Thermalright TRUE Black 120 CPU cooler on Bjorn3D.
Cooler Master Hyper Z600R CPU cooler on Tweaktown.
Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer CPU cooler on PureOC.
Vantec Aeroflow FX 120 VAF-1225 Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Antec Notebook Cooler 200 on Virtual-Hideout.
It would appear that world's economic and financial crisis has had no negative impact on the GPU market. According to a report on the Inquirer, graphics card market is booming;“AS THE ECONOMY goes to pot, only graphics cards seem to be reversing the trend, coming out on top, with GPUs seeing their largest increase in quarter to quarter shipments in six years, according to new research figures.”
Google Mobile Blog has announced the release of Google Earth for the iPhone and iPod touch. “Google Earth is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch, allowing you to fly to the far reaches of the world from the palm of your hand.” You can grab a copy by visiting iTunes store or just use your iPhone and search for "Google Earth”.
Chief software architect at Microsoft, Ray Ozzie, announced this morning the release of Microsoft Windows Azure during a keynote speech on the first day of the 2008 Microsoft Professional Developer Conference held at the Los Angeles Convention Centre. “Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centres.”
ZDNet Australia is reporting that by June, 2009 all Australian international airports will be equipped with the new border control biometrics system called “SmartGate”. At a cost of $61.7 million, SmartGate’s primary role is to cut passenger processing times when entering Australia. “Melbourne has gone live. As of last Monday, we've had more than 5,000 successful transactions," a senior Customs spokesperson told ZDNet.com.au”.
Fans of the popular Linux distro Ubuntu will be able to get their hands on the latest version, Ubuntu 8.10, this Thursday according to a report on Digital Trends. Ubuntu 8.10 will feature 3G support, the ability to write to and install from a USB drive, guest sessions for more privacy and GNOME 2.24 desktop environment which will include a new instant messaging client, a built-in time tracker, the latest Ekiga 3.0 video and audio conferencing tool, improved file management and toolbars plus better support for multiple monitor use with the ability to set screen resolution by monitor. You can download a copy of Ubuntu 8.10 from here this Thursday, 30th October, 2008. There is a thread on our forums dedicated to Ubuntu should you require more info or help.
And while we’re on the subject of operating systems, ZDNet has an interesting article on the features of Microsoft Windows 7 pre-beta build. While more official news is expected to come out over the next couple of days at this year’s Professional Developers Conference currently held in LA, small amounts of news on the Windows Vista successor is starting to show up; Microsoft isn’t going to show Windows 7 to attendees of the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles until Tuesday, October 28. But new info about what’s part of the pre-beta build that will be provided to show-goers is beginning to trickle out".
According to Intel, the upcoming new Nehalem processor due out in November will be the greenest to date. “The company said that the systems it has built into its platforms and the technology used have been revolutionary, so much so that Gordon Moore, co-founder of the company, called its 45 nm transistors the company’s greatest advancement ever. The high-k metal gate technology in the systems uses the element Hafnium to manage the problems of building transistors on such a small scale. The company says the new design gives major improvements in both energy efficiency and speed”.
Bit-tech takes a look at Gigabyte’s final X58 board, the Gigabyte UD5P. “Gigabyte will launch three X58 motherboards in a few weeks – the Extreme, the UD5P and the UD5. All will feature Ultra Durable 3 with Gigabyte’s new 2oz copper layer in the PCB, Dynamic Energy Saver advanced, 50-squillion hour Jap caps and Dolby Home Theatre audio with the premium Realtek AL889a sound codec. Other features for the series include dual Gigabit LAN, 4-pin and 6-pin Firewire connectors on the rear I/O as well as eight USB 2.0 ports, 10 SATA, dual BIOS and an Ultra TPM module”.
Kevin Bermeister and Michael Speck, who were once foes in a bitter legal battle between Kazaa, a P2P file sharing program, and the Music Industry have joined forces to develop new technology which they say will eliminate the illegal sharing of pirated content and child porn over peer-to-peer networks. “Kevin Bermeister, sued for millions by the music industry between 2004 and 2006 over his association with what was once the world's most popular file sharing service, and Michael Speck, who ran the music industry's case as the head of its anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations, are now partners in a venture dubbed Brilliant Digital Entertainment. The pair have developed an application designed to run on existing internet service provider networks that enables the "instantaneous conversion of infringing activity into legitimate content transactions".
Now on to some gaming news. GameSpot has a hands on preview of Left 4 Dead, a “zombie pandemic shooter” while IGN has a review of Fallout 3 which is due for release this week. They also posted a Fallout 3 Guide which covers many aspects of the game; “Our Basics section covers all of Fallout 3's many fundamentals, so that new players can learn the game's complicated mechanics and style-of-play, while veterans to this type of game can simply brush up on their skills. The Walkthrough and Side Quests sections will hold the player's hand through each and every aspect of the game, complete with plenty of explanations and screenshots. And finally, our Appendices section is our vast compendium of knowledge, with information on items, weapons, armor, enemies, and much, much more”.
Free Codeweavers Software
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Tuesday, 28-October-2008 22:14:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A few people have pointed out that all of Codeweaver's software is free today only. This is a fully working, fully supported copy of either CrossOver Mac Professional, or CrossOver Linux Professional. No hooks, tricks, timebombs, or gimmicks: it's the real deal. Seems to be Windows emulation software, and the free offer seems to be related to a political issue. Their site is being hammered at the moment but seems to be mostly working. Discussion here.
Dangals' MurderMod
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Tuesday, 28-October-2008 16:40:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a very impressively finished PC from Dangals, which he calls his "MurderMod". Check out the detailed worklog:
click for the thread!
Tuesday Morning #2
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Tuesday, 28-October-2008 04:03:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Apparently laptops given to NSW students will only be able to browse a white-list of websites. "Our internet filtering is unbreakable. We have a huge proxy array that does all the filtering. We've just brought that in-house and the reason we have done that is we want much tighter control over it," said Wilson. Hear that, kids? Unbreakable. Golly.
Dopefish spotted an interesting article about Hubble's antiquated computers. NASA scientists trying to find out what went wrong during last week's repair of the Hubble Space Telescope find themselves dealing with 486 processors and other outdated computer technology. But sometimes, mission managers say, simple is good when you're out in space—as long as you know how to talk to decades-old computers.
The System Administrator's Guild of Australia are the latest to add their voice to the chorus of "internet filtering isn't going to work, guys" directed at the Government. She stressed that SAGE-AU's position on the issue of Internet filtering was "based purely on the technical feasibility of an Internet filtering solution," and not on the questions of censorship. Some more stories about the censorship plans here and here, and of course there's a huge thread here.
Here's a cool video about an interactive mirror. The interactive mirror features proximity sensors, gesturing, and both nearfield and farfield infrared. Also, check out this hard drive clock project.
Digit-Life took a look at NVIDIA's CUDA technology. In the first article dedicated to NVIDIA CUDA soft hardware architecture we focus on differences between CPUs and GPUs in parallel computing, peculiarities of GPU computing, NVIDIA CUDA features and limitations as well as its programming and memory models.
For an actual practical application of CUDA, TechReport looked at Badaboom 1.0, which uses NVIDIA GPUs to transcode video. Elemental has released version 1.0 of Badaboom to the public, so we got on the phone with Elemental CEO Sam Blackman to learn about the software.
Michael sent in this (downloadable) game from the Bureau of Meteorology. In response to the research from the TCCIP the Centre for Disaster Studies in conjunction with the Bureau of Meteorology developed 'Stormwatchers' an interactive cyclone awareness game for children. The game was first developed as an interactive CD ROM package that was distributed throughout Queensland schools and was later modified for Western Australia. Throughout the late 90's the game was seen as an important educational tool for cyclone awareness and preparedness across Queensland.
Aftahours noticed some scented laptops from ASUS. Surely that would get really annoying really quickly. And then last but not least, Surf: Ocean fragrance. Hmmm. I am a PC and I smell like Feeeesh.
XbitLabs compared inexpensive quad-core CPUs. In our today’s test session we will compare Core 2 Quad Q9400, Core 2 Quad Q9300, Core 2 Quad Q8200, Core 2 Quad Q6600 and Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition. They also continue their 22-inch monitor roundup.
NVIDIA's Big Bang II
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Tuesday, 28-October-2008 03:07:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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We're a little late reporting this, but NVIDIA recently released "Big Bang II", which is a fancy name for the latest 180 release of their ForceWare drivers. Apart from performance increases, they apparently also offer dedicated GPU PhysX, multi-monitor SLI and support from SLI on Intel's X58 motherboards. These are also the recommended drivers for Far Cry 2.
Coverage on TechARP, PC Perspective, TechReport and HWZone. Big threads here and here.
Tuesday Morning
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Tuesday, 28-October-2008 02:11:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Thanks again to BlaYde for this news post:
A 15 year old student in the United States is facing felony charges for breaking into his school's computer network and then calling the school principal, warning him about the security hole.
Australian systems administrators' professional group is upset with the Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for alleged attempts by his office to silence a vocal network engineer expressing an opinion about the planned government internet filtering scheme. Internode network engineer Mark Newton has publicly criticised the government's mandatory ISP filtering plans on the grounds that ISPs would face major network redesigns to meet requirements, increased costs and security threats to Australian internet users.
And while we’re on the subject of internet filtering, Family First Senator Steve Fielding wants hardcore pornography and fetish material blocked under the Government's plans to filter the internet.
A Bond University study for the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia has renewed calls for R18+ classification for games.
A report on Cnet.com says that Sony’s new PSP-3000 which comes equipped with a new screen is in fact worse than its predecessor. The new screen is supposed to help reduce the glare, produce better colours and reduce pixel ghosting, however, some users are reporting that the new screen has introduced artifacts in the form of visible scanlines and jaggies. According to Sony this appears to be a hardware fault and there are no plans for a quick fix via a software updates; Since this phenomenon is caused by hardware characteristics, there is no plan to fix it with a system software update.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation on eBay where perhaps the transaction didn’t go smoothly, you didn’t receive the goods as per original sale description or you might have been misled by the seller in some way and as a result felt compelled leave negative feedback? A 42 year old Chris Read from UK is facing a court battle after leaving negative feedback on eBay for a mobile phone he bought on the auction site. Mr Jones (seller) claims the unfavourable comments have damaged his business. The legal missive goes on to warn Mr Read that if he fails to retract his comments he will be dragged to court where he faces costs, lawyers' fees and damages .
What’s better to have? Low latency DDR2 800MHz CAS3/4 or DDR2 1066MHz CAS5? Richard Swinburne of bit-tech.net attempts to answer this question in his article Low Latency DDR2 800MHz versus 1,066MHz. And while you’re over there, check out Tim Smalley’s report on AMD releasing a limited number of retail and review editions of the ATI HD4830’s cards which have only 560 stream processors enabled, instead of the usual 640.
AnandTech has a first look at the MSI X58 Eclipse motherboard. We are rapidly approaching the i7 Core and X58 launch date. With that in mind, we are starting to receive final production motherboards from a variety of manufacturers. The latest board in the labs is the MSI Eclipse featuring the X58 and ICH10R chipsets.
David A. Karp, author of Windows Vista Annoyances (O'Reilly), as well as a dozen other books on technology would like to help you Make Vista Great. Surprisingly, most of Vista's annoyances are fixable. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do some tweaking, you can turn Vista into a pretty great OS.
According to the Interactive Australia 2009 report (IA9), the average age for an Aussie gamer is now 30. GameSpot has filed this report as well as an in-depth feature about the IA9 report and the habits of Aussie gamers.
With the imminent release of Fallout 3 this week, Todd Howard, executive producer of the game told Reuters that fans of the game will not have to wait another 10 years to see a sequel to Fallout 3. Gamers have been waiting 10 years for Bethesda Softworks' "Fallout 3," for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. "I think it's good for people to miss things," said Todd Howard, executive producer of the game. "Ten years between 'Fallout' is a bit long, but I think there's this nostalgia factor. Fans of the post-Apocalyptic game, set in Washington, D.C., won't have to wait another decade for "Fallout 4." Howard said he believes three years is a good time frame between games.
Flagship Studios' ill-fated massively multiplayer online game, Hellgate: London will have the servers brought offline as of February 1, 2009. The writing has been on the wall for some time, and now it's official: Hellgate: London will be taken offline as of February 1, 2009.
Monday Evening Reviews
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Monday, 27-October-2008 18:34:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
MSI DKA790GX Platinum AM2+ board on OCClub.
ECS A790GXM-A AM2+ board on Digit-Life.
Gigabyte GA-EP45 UD3 LGA775 board on CPU3D.
GIGABYTE EP43-DS3R LGA775 board on Tweaktown.
Asus Rampage II Extreme X58 LGA1366 board on OC3D.
Video Cards:
ATi Radeon HD 4830 512MB vs. Asus GeForce 9800GT 512MB Matrix on InsideHW.
Blu-Ray Performance - Intel X4500HD Versus Radeon HD 4830 on LegitReviews.
ATI Radeon HD 4830 on HWZone.
ATI Radeon HD 4830 on HotHardware.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4550 512MB on Phoronix.
ECS Hydra and Zotac Zone liquid-cooled video cards on Digit-Life.
Palit HD 4870 512MB on Motherboards.org.
Sapphire HD 4550 on Pro-Clockers.
Storage:
Tagan Icybox IB-NAS4220-B Dual Bay NAS on ThinkComputers.
iStarUSA xAGE-N99-SAU HDD dock on APHNetworks.
Input Etc:
Hot Wheels Turbo Driver Controller on I4U.
Nova Microtech Mousepad on OCModShop.
NZXT Avatar Gaming Mouse on HWSecrets.
Power Supply:
CWT 750VH 750W on HWSecrets.
Coolmax CUG-950B 950W on RBMods.
SilverStone Olympia 1000W Evolution on OCOnline.
Cooling:
Cooler Master Hyper Z600-R Heatpipe CPU Cooler on Tweaknews.
Evercool Zodiac Snow White Notebook Cooling Pad on HWZone.
Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler on Frostytech.
Memory:
OCZ PC3-16000 NVIDIA SLI-Ready Edition on Bjorn3D.
Corsair Dominator Series 4 GB DDR2 Kit 1066 MHz CL5 on TechPowerUp.
Monday Midday
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Monday, 27-October-2008 11:48:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Thanks again to Matt for this post!
Major Australian cities are set to get an electric vehicle recharging network. The agreement with have the finance group raising the money to build the charge network and placing the network in the country's largest cities like Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Each of the three cities would have a network of between 200,000 and 250,000 charging stations by 2012.
A new version of the popular Linux OS Ubuntu, Intrepid Ibex, is about to be released. Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need - a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more. Discussion here.
While on the subject of Ubuntu, Firefox creators Mozilla have removed the EULA from their Ubuntu version. Mozilla received a lot of criticism from OS community for bundling EULA with Firefox builds. Even though they decided to remove EULA, earlier Ubuntu Ibex alpha builds still had the old EULA on. The last update has removed this much talked about EULA and in to something perhaps more acceptable to the OS community.
If you're free on the 15th of November, and live in either Sydney or Brisbane there's a synchronous pub crawl planned. Behold, my brethren of the interconnected tubulars. This is a summons to congregate under the fluorescent lighting of an alcohol-serving venue (or several), and partake in the consumption of lager and other beverages of fortune.
Computer giant Apple have hired a Yale dean to head their educational inititive Apple University. The Cupertino, Calif., computer maker said Joel Podolny, the dean of the Yale School of Management, will join Apple as vice president and dean of Apple University. The company declined to provide details about the university or the position.
Hotels in the US are starting to use iPhones to communicate with guests. Guests at the Malibu Beach Inn and the Sky Hotel, both in California, can order food, drinks, wake-up calls, spa treatments, concierge services and transportation, all from a special application on their iPhone or iPod Touch. If they don't have either of the devices at check-in, guests are provided with a 16GB iPod Touch that has the "Hotel Evolution" application already loaded.
The U.N. is using the popularity of mobile phones in South Africa to combat the AIDS epidemic. Project Masiluleke will send one million free text messages a day to push people to be tested and treated. Trials of the system showed that calls to counsellors at the National Aids helpline in Johannesburg increased by 200% when messages were broadcast.
Andrew is once again riding to help combat MS, and is looking to raise of $4000. Thanks to all who have donated so far. With the help of OCAU I have smashed my $1500, $2000 and $3000 targets! As a result I will be riding with OCAU.com painted on my arms and legs.I now am looking to hit $4000! What kind of challenge can you offer me? As an added bonus any donation of over $5 scores you an entry into a raffle.
With haloween approaching, what better than a timewaster where you play as death? No connection between victims, just ruthless - and entertaining - murder in an arcadish point n ' click puzzle style. I'll be the first to tell you it's short, but it was just something fun for October and, to me, fit well with the holiday, although a little early :D
Thanks go to Arthur (a.k.a. BlaYde on the OCAU Forums) for this post!
Scientists from Princeton University, Oxford University and the U.S. Department of Energy have built the world's smallest storage device. They claim to have achieved this by embedding both the electron and nucleus of a phosphorous atom in a silicon crystal.
Five motherboard makers (Asus, DFI, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI) and Dell have committed to enable Nvidia's Multi-GPU Technology on Intel's next-generation platform to be released in mid-November, 2008. Since Nvidia does not have a license to create chipsets compatible with Intel Core i7 processors and was unable to deliver its own core-logic to support SLI, the firm decided to license its technology for rumoured $5 per mainboard unit or sell a special nForce 200 hub to mainboard makers.
Microsoft have confirmed that a beta version of Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Vista and Windows Server 2008 will be released by the end of the month, however, a company representative said that no firm date has been set for the final release date; "As always, the final release date is based on quality and we will track customer and partner feedback from the beta program before setting a final date for distribution." SP2 is said to include support for Blu-ray drives as well as Bluetooth 2.1 and Windows Search 4.0.
Dpreview.com have an in-depth review of a Sony Alpha DSLR-A900. "Sony's eagerly anticipated flagship digital SLR finally gives Minolta/Konica Minolta users a full frame option and, on paper, looks like a strong new entry to the exclusive full frame club."
Google has released Gmail for mobile 2.0. Derek Phillips, Software Engineer at Google says the Gmail for mobile version 2.0 is "faster and more reliable" by pushing all the "processing to the background", greatly improving the "client-side caching scheme" and optimizing every "bottleneck piece of code" they came across.
In gaming news, GameSpot reports that the BioShock 2 trailer has been officially released following one YouTube user's claims that a PS3 version of the game contained a teaser trailer for BioShock 2. "2K Games finally came clean, releasing the trailer to the public." Meanwhile Jorgen Tharaldsen of FUNCOM talks to IGN.com.au about the state of MMO. "I think that the MMO genre is in a somewhat fragile state, and the evolution of the market right now reminds me (somewhat) of what I saw back in 2001 to 2003, where many heavy projects led to very few winners and a lot of cancelled games."
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced details of the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo to take place from June 2-4, 2009, at the Los Angeles Convention Centre. IGN.com.au take an in-depth look at the announcement in their article titled E3 2009 Exposed: Details on Next Year's Show.
Some recent photos from our Photography Gallery forum:
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 26-October-2008 13:09:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
Archos 5 60GB mp3 player on TrustedReviews.
Atomic Bass for iPhone with Mic on I4U.
Sharp AN-PR1500H Home Cinema Rack System on TrustedReviews.
Apple iPod Touch 32GB on DigitalTrends.
NuForce Icon-1 Amplifier and S-1 Speakers on Techgage.
Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Speakers for iPod on TheTechLounge.
mStation 2.1 Stereo Tower on ThinkComputers.
Ergotron Neo-Flex Dual LCD Lift Stand on FutureLooks.
Motherboard and CPU:
AMD X4 9950 BE (125W) AM2 CPU on Bjorn3D.
Asus P6T Deluxe & Intel Nehalem CPU on InsideHW.
MSI G31 M3-F LGA775 board on TrustedReviews.
ECS P43T-A2 LGA775 board on Modders-Inc.
Portable:
Apple MacBook 13-inch on DigitalTrends.
HP Pavilion dv7-1000ea 17in Entertainment Notebook on TrustedReviews.
HP Pavilion tx2515au Entertainment Notebook PC on HWZone.
Asus Eee PC S101 on Bit-Tech.
Cases:
Antec Skeleton workbench case on HWSecrets.
Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower on PCStats.
Thermaltake V9 VJ40001W2Z on OCClub.
Apevia X-Master HTPC Case on ThinkComputers.
Thermaltake M9 on PCStats.
Sunday Middayish
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Sunday, 26-October-2008 11:16:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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This entire news post is from Matt. Thanks, Matt!
Are the days of RAID 5 numbered? RAID 5 protects against a single disk failure. You can recover all your data if a single disk breaks. The problem: once a disk breaks, there is another increasingly common failure lurking. And in 2009 it is highly certain it will find you. Update: Lemming pointed out Dan Rutter's response to this article.
Gears of War 2 will not be released in either Germany or Japan. Seeing as the first one wasn't released in Germany, that's no surprise. But Japan? Why isn't it being released in Japan? The first one was, despite its "Z" (adults only) rating, and it did pretty well for a Western game, selling over 30k units. Heck, Microsoft even held a Z-rated party last year celebrating the fact they release adults-only games. So what gives?
Youtube recently added an audio preview feature to their comments page. It seems someone at YouTUBE took this comic seriously and decided to add an "Audio Preview" feature. Now you can hear your comments read aloud to you.
DailyTech get the inside word on Opera 9.6. Discussion turned to the recently released 9.6 browser. Overall, Mr. Tetzchner says the real difference between his company's browsers and competitors Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox, is that Opera is lighter, faster, and offers more useful built in functionality without having to tack on confusing upgrades.
DamnInteresting have a new article on the worst nuclear contamination site in Russia. In late 1945, along the banks of the Techa River in the Soviet Union, a dozen labor camps sent 70,000 inmates to begin construction of a secret city. Mere months earlier the United States' Little Boy and Fat Man bombs had flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaving Soviet leaders salivating over the massive power of the atom. In a rush to close the gap in weapons technology, the USSR commissioned a sprawling plutonium-production complex in the southern Ural mountains. The clandestine military-industrial community was to be operated by Russia's Mayak Chemical Combine, and it would come to be known as Chelyabinsk-40.
For all those wanting to kill some time, here's an interesting game. Lead the British or German army through the trenches of Europe in this First World War strategy game. Use infantry, armor and fire support to take control of the ground or bombard your foes into submission. Or, try this tactical assassin sniper game.
Korea and Japan are leading the world for the proportion of households with fiber-optic broadband connections. The OECD's latest broadband statistics showed that Korea had 12.2 fiber-optic connections per 100 inhabitants in June… Japan has a fibre penetration of 10.2 percent…
Hardcore Computer are now offering a PC they claim to be the world's first "total liquid submersion personal supercomputer." Hardcore floods the inside of the chassis with a dielectric fluid it calls Core Coolant to keep all the heat producing components of the computer cooler. The CPU, motherboard, RAM, dual power supplies, and video cards are all submerged under water.
Fans of the co-op shooter Army of Two may be excited to hear that a movie based on it is in pre-production. Burns is an odd choice to write the film though, as he was for the Halo film too. Speaking about the movie adaptation, he admitted straight away that he wasn't a gamer, though that may actually helped him land the deal. Thanks for those, Arthur!
Don't forget to check out Monday's episode of Good Game where they'll be looking at Far Cry 2, Dead Space, Office Wars (their community-collaborative project with Infinite Interactive), the history of Epic Games and more. The podcast will be available here if you miss the 9pm screening on ABC2.
Evangel noticed this brief article on an open-source DRM project which is backed by companies such as Sony and Samsung. The co-chairman of the Marlin Developer Community claims the open-source system is far less oppressive than those from rivals such as Apple and Microsoft, allowing users to share content between any Marlin-enabled device in the home rather than on specific machines.
Researchers at the University of California have shown that, under certain conditions, Scotch tape can emit X-rays. "At some point we were a little bit scared," says Juan Escobar, a member of the research team. But he and his co-workers soon realized that the X-rays were only emitted when the kit was used in a vacuum. Discussion in this thread. Thanks Goth.
Apparently documents obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald indicate that the office of Stephen Conroy has attempted to silence ISP employees from criticising the "clean-feed." On Tuesday, a policy advisor for Senator Conroy, Belinda Dennett, wrote an email to Internet Industry Association (IIA) board member Carolyn Dalton in an attempt to pressure Newton into reining in his dissent.
Saturday Evening Reviews
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Saturday, 25-October-2008 20:02:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Memory:
G.Skill 4GB DDR2-800 Pi Black Series Dual Channel Memory Kit on BigBruin.
ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra Liquid Cooled SLI Kit on HotHardware.
Input Etc:
Nova Raider 6000dpi Mousepad on OCModShop.
Microsoft SideWinder X5 Mouse on I4U.
Power Supply:
Tagan Super Rock TG880-U33II on CPU3D.
InWin Commander 1200W on XSReviews.
Portable:
Apple's New MacBooks on HWZone.
MSI Wind U100 Series netbook on DriverHeaven.
MSI Wind on NBCompare.
Misc:
Dead Space PC game on Bit-Tech.
Sitecom WL-308 Gigabit Gaming Router on ITReviewed.
SilverStone Sugo SG04 case on Phoronix.
CoolerMaster V8 CPU Cooler on Bjorn3D.
MS Security Bulletin
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Friday, 24-October-2008 17:09:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I've already linked this thread but it needs a little more attention drawn to it. Basically, Microsoft have released a critical security bulletin for pretty much all versions of Windows back to Win2k SP4. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 systems, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability without authentication to run arbitrary code. It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. So you probably want to get patchin' ASAP.
Here's an interesting pic from last night, showing our forum server's bandwidth usage during the spamfest:
Anyway, it's Friday again, so here's some misc pics! Thanks to hendot and others for these:
     
     
Interesting Forum Threads
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Friday, 24-October-2008 14:04:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Spamfest went well, congrats to the winners. :) Keep an eye out for the next one, and in the meantime, here's some interesting threads:
Project: Netserver LD Pro Case in Modding.
Charity Case Mod in Modding.
Antec Nine Hundred Case Mod in Modding.
ASUS Xonar Essence STX, nice sound card with SNR up to 124dB in PC Audio.
A javascript framework I wrote in Graphics & Programming.
Something big going down - Technet Email in Windows Operating Systems.
The Shotgun appreciation thread in Games.
HDR's from around the world in Photography.
Top Gear Australia in Entertainment.
Spacewarp - Marble Runs! Now with my own pics! in Other Toys.
Chess World Championship in Other Toys.
LittleBigPlanet Beta in Game Consoles.
50% tax for people who earn more than a million in Current Events.
Best microscopic images of 2008 (National Geographic) in Science.
Does Nature break the Second Law of Thermodynamics? (Scientific American) in Science.
Fed Gov proposal on Ornamental Fish - Please Read in Pets & Animals.
Guns 'n' Roses - Chinese Democracy...date is set - 23/11/08 in Entertainment.
Man builds Lamborghini in basement in Motoring.
OCAU's opportunity to vote in the USA election in The Pub.
Epic sickie fail in The Pub.
Sabot68 reminds us there's only two weeks left to vote in the PC Authority Reliability & Service Awards and possibly win some stuff, like he did last year.
Rezin spotted this interesting article where a Greens senator quizzes Senator Conroy about internet filtering in Australia. But in terms of the policy, what we are investigating is whether it is possible to ensure that people can opt out of an ISP filter if they wanted to look at material that is legal as opposed to not allowing an opt out for material that is illegal.
Far Cry 2 came out yesterday or thereabouts, and Guru3D have checked out its performance with 17 video cards. Not all at once obviously, although it would be insanely fast if you could get that working.. Bit-Tech reviewed the game and also mention DirectX 10.1 features being supported in it on NVIDIA cards. Gamespot reviewed it also and we've got a discussion thread here.
Dodo's call centre has apparently copped a hefty fine from the ACMA, thanks Stygian. Between July and October 2007, ACMA was inundated with 119 complaints from members of the Do Not Call Register that had received unsolicited calls from Dodo.
Here's a pile of interviews: Left4Dead's Chet Faliszek on OCModShop, a Drakensang interview on Bit-Tech, NBA 09 The Inside Interview on GamingNexus, Legendary producer John Garcia-Shelton on GamingNexus and a Fallout 3 interview on GamingNexus too.
DARPA are apparently building a video search engine, thanks slipkord. The government agency that birthed the Internet is developing a sophisticated search engine for video, and when complete will allow intelligence analysts to sift through live footage from spy drones, as well as thousands of hours worth of archived recordings, in order to spot a variety of selected events or behaviors.
InsideHW rounded up eleven 22-inch Wide TFT monitors. As result of these changes on local and global market it is actually very favorable state for nowadays buyers. Now you can have bigger monitor on the table with more than acceptable price especially if you buy it on sales. So, according to all that, wide monitor with 22-inch diagonal is the best buy at the moment.
If you believe BFM it's nearly Xmas, so we should break out the Winterbells timewaster yet again. Failing that, try this escape game.
ATI Radeon HD 4830
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Friday, 24-October-2008 03:06:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD today launched their ATI Radeon HD 4830. The ATI Radeon™ HD 4830 graphics card delivers outstanding value to gamers. With the launch of this card, even the most intimidating games that were previously unplayable on a graphics card selling for less than $150 can now be enjoyed at playable frame rates, even when using image enhancements such as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.2 For those gamers looking to get even more performance out of their gaming rigs, ATI Radeon™ HD 4830 cards support ATI CrossFireX™ technology allowing gamers to combine as many as four cards in one PC.3
Coverage on Anandtech, Guru3D, Bjorn3D, LegitReviews, TechReport, TechReport, TechPowerUp, TechPowerUp and PCPerspective.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 23-October-2008 18:09:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
NZXT Whisper Full Tower on OCIA.
Thermaltake V9 Gaming Case on ThinkComputers.
Ikonik Zaria A20 Mid-Tower Enclosure on Tweaktown.
Antec Micro Fusion 350 on OCClub.
Thermaltake V9 on NinjaLane.
Motherboards:
MSI P45 Platinum LGA775 board on LegionHW.
Gigabyte GA EP45 DQ6 LGA775 board on TechWareLabs.
Biostar TP45 HP LGA775 board on XbitLabs.
Intel DX48BT2 LGA775 board on SharkyExtreme.
ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition LGA1366 board on Techgage.
ASUS P6T Deluxe X58 Express OC Palm Edition LGA1366 board on TechARP.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R LGA775 board on TechWareLabs.
Storage:
Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB Hard Drive on ExtremeTech.
Freecom Mobile DVD RW LS Pro on ITReviewed.
G.Skill FS-25S2-64GB 2.5" Solid State Disk Drive on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultra+ Liquid-Cooling System on XbitLabs.
Swiftech MCP655 (adjustable) Pump on Bjorn3D.
Xigmatek Battle Axe VD964 GPU Cooler on CPU3D.
Evercool 925-HPC CPU Cooler on XSReviews.
Antec Notebook Cooler 200 on ITReviewed.
Cooler Master V8 Heatsink and Fan on TechWareLabs.
Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler on Virtual-Hideout.
Video Cards:
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Overclocked on XbitLabs.
Powercolor HD4670 PCS on OCClub.
Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP²! Edition on Bit-Tech.
Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD4850 on Tweaknews.
MSI Geforce 9600 GT 1Gb Hybrid Freezer on MadShrimps.
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 260 AMP²! Edition on BenchmarkReviews.
Thursday Afternoon
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Thursday, 23-October-2008 17:29:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Arthur sent in a pile of interesting snippets:
Ars Technica has a review of the 2008 MacBook Pro. Steve Ballmer says that Windows 7 is Vista but Improved and whilst we’re on the subject of Microsoft, the Inquirer is reporting that the Silicon Valley giant has been awarded a patent for speech censoring . Panasonic has released a world first; Lumix G1 - Micro Four Thirds Camera. Meanwhile Australian Taxation Office is carrying out a sting operation targeted at eBay traders who attempt to avoid paying tax on income earned through the site.
The Business of Tech: AMD & Intel Q3’08, report Anandtech. Now that we have the quarterly numbers in for both Intel (who reported Tuesday) and AMD (who reported Thursday) we’re going to take a quick stroll through the numbers to see what’s up.
EA's DRM, arrogance may cause gamers to skip good titles, say ArsTechnica. Unfortunately, the politics of piracy prevention are now hurting both EA and the gamers that want to support quality titles, and it doesn't look like there will be a happy resolution in the near future.
We'll never stop pirates, says Microsoft. Meanwhile the Apple-Microsoft ad war gets ugly. Apple's ads have long lampooned the PC for being staid and uncool but, this time, Apple's target isn't the PC per se, but Microsoft's marketing strategy.
ATI are looking for more advanced cooling for video cards, say XbitLabs. According to the company, vapor chambers provide up to 30% better cooling performance when compared to heat-pipes. In addition, vapor chambers are relatively easy to utilize. Still, vapor chambers require sophisticated heat-spreaders, just like heat-pipe based coolers.
Thanks Arthur!
Wednesday Night
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Wednesday, 22-October-2008 22:12:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember we're having a Forum Spamfest Competition tomorrow! Gotta be one of the easiest ways to win stuff.. in theory.. ;)
India have launched their first lunar mission. The unmanned lunar orbiting spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 was launched with an Indian-built rocket at 6.22am (local time) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, 80 kilometres north of Chennai. Discussion here.
The first traffic noise cameras have been deployed in Australia. The fully automated noise camera systems have been in development since 2005 but are now are active and issuing warning notices in the small New South Wales suburb of Mount Ousley, according to the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) Annual Report.
APCMag report on the most complained-about ISPs in Australia. The CEO of one well-known ISP, speaking to APC on condition of anonymity, said it was well known within the industry that some telcos find it cheaper to pay complaint penalties to the TIO than to fund better customer service. Discussion here.
ThePirateBay are boycotting all press after being smeared in the media for publishing publicly-available autopsy photos. As many people know, The Pirate Bay is known not to censor anything from the site that is legal under Swedish law. So, when The Pirate Bay got emails from several people who asked them to remove the torrent, or the photos, they didn’t comply.
CD sent in this story about a Dutch court convicting 2 people of stealing virtual items. The Leeuwarden District Court says the culprits, 15 and 14 years old, coerced a 13-year-old boy into transferring a "virtual amulet and a virtual mask" from the online adventure game RuneScape to their game accounts.
Wednesday Evening Reviews
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Wednesday, 22-October-2008 18:04:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable & Prebuilt:
Nextar I4-BC GPS on DigitalTrends.
CyberPower Gamer Xtreme XE gaming PC on Tweaktown.
Booq Boa Slimcase M Laptop Bag on FutureLooks.
PC World Advent Eco PC on ITReviewed.
Asus U6V Laptop on RBMods.
Audio / Visual:
Pioneer Kuro PDP-LX6090 60in Plasma TV on TrustedReviews.
Nikon D90 DSLR camera on DigitalTrends.
ViewSonic VX2262wm Super HD Monitor on BIOSMag.
Razer Mako 2.1 Advanced Desktop Audio System on DriverHeaven.
Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player on DigitalTrends.
Logitech Z Cinema Advanced Surround Sound System on I4U.
Storage:
First looks at Intel's X25-M SSD on XbitLabs.
Thermaltake BlacX SE USB Hard Drive Dock on EverythingUSB.
Eagle Technology L-Series 2.5-inch HDD Enclosure on OCModShop.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB Hard Drive on TechReport.
AMCC 3ware 9690SA-81 RAID Controller on BIOSMag.
Thecus N5200BR NAS Server on GamePyre.
Norco Technologies DS-1000 Storage System on Virtual-Hideout.
Crucial 32GB 2.5" Solid State Disk Drive on Tweaktown.
Power Supply:
Rexus PST-3 Digital Power Supply Tester on LegitReviews.
Coolermaster UCP 1100W on XSReviews.
Antec Signature 650W on JonnyGuru.
FSP Group Power-Mod 700W on OCIA.
Cooler Master UCP 1100W 88%+ Efficient on Bjorn3D.
The Great Firewall of Australia
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Wednesday, 22-October-2008 15:35:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Great Firewall of Australia continues to be on everyone's mind, with threads here and here. I admit I've been finding it hard to get motivated about this, simply because I just think the whole idea is such an unworkably huge waste of time. As we've seen a zillion times before it simply won't work (like it doesn't in China, who have more money to spend on it), it will be easily bypassed (by moving dodgy content to https, FTP, torrents, newsgroups, using anonymous proxies, etc) and all that'll happen is we'll spend millions of taxpayer dollars on it and continue to look like the backward cousins of the world technology community. People who want access to dodgy content will still have it and the rest of us will be the ones suffering from the expense and technological limitations involved, even if we have no interest in dodgy content.
For more info, there's a site here opposed to the clean feed, another one here and there's a petition here. But really, the best thing to do would be to write to your local member of parliament and clearly express your concerns.
Forum Articles
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Wednesday, 22-October-2008 11:42:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Wednesday Morning Reviews #2
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Wednesday, 22-October-2008 11:03:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
NZXT Rogue Crafted Series SFF Gaming Chassis on LegitReviews.
HSPC TopDeck Tech Station workbench case on PureOC.
Silverstone Fortress FT01 on Bit-Tech.
NZXT Guardian 921 on TechWareLabs.
Sunbeamtech Acrylic HTPC Case on HWSecrets.
Raidmax Aura on Modders-Inc.
Memory:
OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 PC2-8500 4GB on Modders-Inc.
Gskill PI series 6400 DDR2 on Bjorn3D.
Aeneon Xtune DDR3-1866 (PC3-15000) 4GB DDR3 Kit on OC3D.
Patriot PC3-16000 Viper Series 4GB kit on OC3D.
Input Etc:
Vidabox Premium Wireless Keyboard on OCClub.
Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard on HWSecrets.
Microsoft Sidewinder X5 Gaming Mouse ARB-00001 on BenchmarkReviews.
SilverStone Raven Gaming Mouse on TechWareLabs.
Logitech Wave Pro Desktop on ASELabs.
SilverStone Raven Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers.
Software:
Sid Meier's Colonization PC game on GamePyre.
Lego: Batman PC game on GamingHeaven.
Far Cry 2 Performance on OCClub.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 22-October-2008 02:43:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
MSI N260GTX on InsideHW.
HIS HD4670 IceQ Turbo on OCrCafe.
Force3D Radeon HD 4870 512MB DHT on Guru3D.
ASUS EN9800GT Matrix on HWZone.
ASUS EN9800GTX+ 512MB Dark Knight on Techgage.
Diamond HD4870 1GB on OCClub.
Cooling:
Noctua U12P CPU Cooler on Tech-Reviews.
Thermaltake PW850i ProWater watercooling kit on BurnOutPC.
NZXT Sentry LX Fan Controller on Virtual-Hideout.
Cooler Master V8 Giant CPU Cooler on TweakNews.
Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler on LegionHW.
AMA Serac 770 Watercooling Kit on DriverHeaven.
Motherboards:
Foxconn BlackOps X48 LGA775 board on OC3D.
EVGA 790i Ultra LGA775 board on Bjorn3D.
MSI P45-8D Memory Lover LGA775 board on MadShrimps.
ASRock A780GXE/128M AMD 780G AM2+ board on ThinkComputers.
Gigabyte EP45-EXTREME LGA775 board on TechGage.
Asus Rampage Extreme LGA775 board on HWLogic.
MSI DKA790GX Platinum AM2+ board on Motherboards.
Zotac nForce 610i Mini-ITX LGA775 board on Tweaktown.
A professor at the University of Toyama is hoping to make a heart with technology similar to an inkjet printer. The idea is for the printer to jet out thousands of cells per second, rather than ink droplets, and to build them up into a three-dimensional organ.
Microsoft has been granted a patent which involves automatic censoring of explicit language in audio streams. The patent involves real-time (or batch) analysis of an audio stream that can recognize inappropriate language based on phonemes, and then overwrite objectionable words with bleeps, other noises, or silence. Thanks slipkord.
CPU3D have an interview with Fnatic - a team of professional Counter Strike players. This October has been one of their busiest months for Fnatic's CS 1.6 team. Having already won a tournament in Montreal (Canada), they now aim their sights at both Dubai (UAE) and Hangzhou (china) tournaments later this month.
Adobe has released a new version of their Flash Player which fixes the 'clickjacking' vulnerability. The Flash Player update, which upgrades version 9.0.124.0 and earlier to version 10.0.12.36, closes several software holes, including the one used by the clickjacking attack, and makes it harder for attacker to circumvent the security controls, Adobe said in an advisory.
A new addition in the Playstation 3's Terms of Service and User Agreement gives Sony the "right to keep records of anything you say or do online, or to simply listen in." "Any data collected in this way, including the content of your communications, the time and location of your activities, your Online ID and IP address and other related information may be used by us to enforce this Agreement or protect the interests of SCEA, its users, or licensors."
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the amount of spam has barely decreased even though the world's largest spam operation was recently shut down. "I don't believe it has made any statistically significant difference to spam levels at all," Paul Ducklin, head of technology for the Asia-Pacific region at security firm Sophos, said. "If one spammer disappears, there are plenty more to take up any slack bandwidth that might appear."
Storm for Brisbane
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Tuesday, 21-October-2008 18:10:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Severe storm en route to Brisbane City etc.. might want to unplug your PC. Some discussion here.
Thursday Spamfest!
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Tuesday, 21-October-2008 16:28:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Time for another spamfest! This time we'll do it on Thursday 23rd October (2 days away), and give away a prize every hour from 1pm to midnight ADST (Sydney time). It's easy to win, you just need to be the first person to post in this thread during the :00 minute of the hour. Only one prize per person, but feel free to have a go at each one, and then you can pick the one you wanted to win and the others will go to the 2nd person who posted, etc.
1pm - two OCAU stubby holders and an OCAU case badge
2pm - PCCaseGear.com Window Kit (2001 era :) )
3pm - Thermalright V1 Video Card Cooler with Fan
4pm - nvidia laptop bag/sleeve
5pm - DFI "PC Transpo" case carrying sling/bag
6pm - two OCAU stubby holders and an OCAU case badge
7pm - Everglide crystal-looking mousing surface and Mouse Skatez
8pm - Thermaltake BigWater SE Watercooling Kit (waterblock, radiator, pump, res, tubing, fluid, etc)
9pm - Toy Dog Webcam
10pm - Misc Prize Bundle (6-in-1 USB card reader, ATI shirt, Zalman northbridge heatsink)
11pm - DFI FrontX Port Relocator (rear/mobo ports to 5.25" bay)
midnight - Bitspower 2x 80mm Round CCFL Fan Kit
Note: ONLY ONE POST PER USER PER HOURLY GAME. General chitchat in the entries thread is fine, but between server timestamps of xx:58pm and yy:02, if you post more than once, you'll be disqualified. Where xx is the hour before the prize hour and yy is the prize hour, obviously. So for the 3pm game for example, only post once between 2:58 and 3:02.
Prizes and winners will be announced in this thread, and general discussion can go here. Good luck!
BTW, this is (obviously) misc random stuff from the AggCave, but if you're a PR person at a vendor or manufacturer who wants to contribute some prizes to our next spamfest, drop me an email. :)
Modding Spotlight
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Monday, 20-October-2008 22:00:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's some impressive mods going on in our Modding Worklogs Forum. Here's three that caught my eye:
Sponsor Specials
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Monday, 20-October-2008 20:57:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials Forum if you're shopping around. In there our many sponsors have discounts and specials on netbooks, web hosting, coolers, headphones, many different PC components and there's even a PC building competition. Check 'em out!
Monday Afternoon Reviews
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Monday, 20-October-2008 12:49:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable:
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 Netbook Video Spotlight on HotHardware.
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 on HWZone.
LapWorks Wizard Notebook Stand on HWLogic.
Acer Aspire 5530G notebook on InsideHW.
Prestigio GeoVision 430 GPS on InsideHW.
TomTom Go 530 Traffic Sat-Nav on TrustedReviews.
Storage:
iStarUSA T5F-SS SATA Mobile Rack on Hi-TechReviews.
ATP ProMax II SDHC Class 6 2GB on APHNetworks.
Vantec Nexstar MX Dual Bay Hard Drive Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
Sunnytek Mobile Mini Backplane for 2.5" SATA on LegitReviews.
Patriot Memory 32GB Xporter XT pocket drive on OCOnline.
32GB Kingston DataTraveler 150 USB drive on DVHardware.
Input Etc:
Microsoft SideWinder X6 Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Microsoft Explorer Mouse with BlueTrack on I4U.
NZXT Avatar Gaming Mouse on RBMods.
One of AMD's co-founders Ed Turney has died aged 79. Known as "Fast Eddie," Turney's initial assignments at the fledgling AMD involved buying equipment and overseeing construction of the company's first chip factory. At the same time, as director of sales, Turney was charged with building a sales organization, including developing a network of electronic distributors - a vital step in enabling the company to compete with established companies such as Intel, Fairchild, National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Motorola and other companies that no longer exist.
BlaYde sent in this story about Australians downloading TV shows. Per capita, we have become the most prolific downloaders of television contraband from the internet, a new report by the Australian Institute of Criminology found.
HotHardware played around with some of Intel's new solid-state drives in RAID0. With a bit of that "Friday on our minds" attitude adjustment going on in the lab, we decided to RAID a pair of Intel’s new X25-M series SSDs up to see what they could do.
FutureLooks checked out whether playing Wii Fit for a month could actually help you lose weight. In a similar fashion as Wii Sports, Wii Fit is being marketed as a fun way to play games and to keep in shape. Does it live up to this promise? Well, I’ve been at the Wii Fit thing for about a month now, so it’s about time I provide a bit of a retrospective.
PCPerspective compared budget video cards. Several new cards have been released from AMD recently in the sub-$70 graphics market including the Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350 to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce 9500 GT and its recent price drop. Oh, and S3 Graphics is back in the mix with the new Chrome 440 GTX.
Justin pointed out this blog post about VoIP with a mobile handset in Australia. Reading this makes it sound excellent for some users (including myself). A viable mobile carrier alternative!
Some recent photos from our Photography Gallery forum:
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 19-October-2008 14:38:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Hungover and sunburned on a stinking hot day.. urrrrgh.
Audio / Visual:
Antec Veris Multimedia Station Premier in-bay gadget on TechWareLabs.
Samsung SyncMaster 2493HM 24 Inch LCD Monitor on FutureLooks.
Zune 3.0 (120GB) media player on TechReviewSource.
Sandisk Sansa Fus 4GB media player on HWZone.
Samsung SyncMaster T220HD 22in LCD TV/Monitor on TrustedReviews.
Asus VK222H 22" widescreen LCD monitor on Bit-Tech.
Mitsubishi LaserVue 65" HDTV on TheTechLounge.
Software:
Civilization IV: Colonization PC game on YouGamers.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning MMORPG on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
Biostar 512MB 9500GT on OCOnline.
XFX GeForce 9600 GSO XXX Edition on HWZone.
Power Supply:
Ikonik Vulcan 1200W on XSReviews.
Thermaltake Toughpower QFan 650W on OCClub.
Apple users will be dissapointed to see that prices of the new Macbook line-up are more expensive to purchase here than what they can be imported for from the US. So what is the reason for the higher price tag? Reports say that Apple has done this in order to maintain profit in case the Australian dollar plunges even further.
Google's first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, will have a feature which will allow them to remotely delete software deemed to be malicious. "While we encourage that community aspect, we are also very careful with the safety and security of the user. In limited cases where an application has a malicious intent, we will remove it from the Market and potentially uninstall it from user devices to ensure the safety of the Android Market community."
Apparently outer space smells like fried steak and the welding of a motorbike. Nasa asked Steven Pearce, the managing director of Omega Ingredients, which makes fragrances, to recreate the scent after hearing of his work creating smells for an art exhibition in July, one of which was of the inside of the Mir space station. More info here and discussion in this thread.
A new feature being considered for Microsoft Windows 7 is "Instant On", allowing you to browse the Web, watch DVDs, use instant messaging and listen to music about eight seconds after turning the PC on. Microsoft distinguished between an Instant On Windows experience and a "Full Windows" experience by describing Instant On as limiting what activities users can do with the OS and what applications they have access to. Thanks for those, Mindy!
There are rumours that Foxconn are looking to scale back their operations. We do not know the reasons why Foxconn would consider ceasing production of their motherboards, and if the rumours prove to be true it will be a sad day for enthusiasts.
GPU maker NVIDIA has finally responded to questions about their GPU and chipset problems. Once Nvidia was done addressing McLellan's accusations, the company answered our questions about potential desktop GPU issues, the failing Nvidia-powered HP desktops we heard about earlier this week, and whether the GeForce 9400M chipset in Apple's new MacBooks could also face problems.
Motherboards.org look at three motherboards with a GeForce 9300 chipset. The GeForce 9300 chipset is 20% faster than the Intel G45 chipset across the board. By this performance metric, it is likely that the faster 9400 boards will outstrip the G45 chipset by 35% or more across the board. This is a very impressive feat for an integrated graphics card to say the least.
It's that time again..
     
     
Interesting Forum Threads
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Friday, 17-October-2008 15:59:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If you're feeling generous, Movember is coming, to raise money for men's health, while Andrew357 is riding to the Gong for MS. Also, an Australian Guitar Hero champion is raising some funds to get himself to the Grand Finals in Germany. Here's a few other interesting threads:
ICD7 Thermal Compound Results Thread in Overclocking & Hardware.
Need case/cooling ideas for a filthy environment in Overclocking & Hardware.
Solar panels on a new house in Electronics.
Surge protection power board warranty and energy rating? in Electronics.
Sub Zero Insulation - kneaded Eraser in Extreme Cooling.
Over the top solutions in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Your ideal IT area (workshop, storage etc) in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Weirdest problems you've ever experienced in an enterprise environment in Business & Enterprise Computing.
A View of the IPv4 & IPv6 Internets in Networking, Telephony and Internet.
Goosh.org - Unix-like Google Shell in Networking, Telephony and Internet.
How much do you really download via torrents? in Networking, Telephony and Internet.
Beta Nvidia Forceware 180.10 Drivers Leaked | Multi-Monitor SLI Support! in Video Cards.
NVIDIA and AMD to begin 40nm GPU Conquests in 2009 in Video Cards.
Nvidia To Rename Its Graphics Chips..Hopes To Simplify Its Range in Video Cards.
Intel starts shipping Solid-State Drives in Storage & Backup.
Time-lapse + tilt-shift in Photography.
Transporter 3 (2009) - Jason Statham in Entertainment.
PS3 v2.5 & PSP v5.0 Information in Game Consoles.
Digital dash completed in Motoring.
Jinmén chef's knives: made from artillery shells (long, large photos) in Geek Food.
Awesome ice cubes in Geek Grog.
Google in 2001 in The Pub.
Banjo used in brain surgery in The Pub.
Friday Morning
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Friday, 17-October-2008 04:02:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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InfoWorld are saying there may be no opt-out ability in the proposed Australian government internet content filtering system. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch. Discussion here.
Issue two of The Overclocker Magazine is now out, featuring among other things an interview with Intel's performance engineer Francios Piednoel, asking questions from members of our Intel Hardware Forum. General discussion of the mag is here.
Facebook passed the 10 billion photos mark recently. To celebrate, we got a bunch of cupcakes and handed them out to our engineering and operations groups. One of our engineers calculated that if we had gotten one cupcake for each of our photos, and lined them up side by side, the line could reach halfway to the moon.
PopularMechanics list their top ten most brilliant gadgets of 2008. The early 20th century produced a breathtaking succession of innovations—the Wright Flyer, the Model T, the Panama Canal. It was a golden age of engineering. A century hence, observers may well look back at our era in much the same way.
If city life is getting you down, or you're a reclusive millionare superhero, perhaps it's time you got your own island in Queensland? Meanwhile, I'll be in my secret tunnel lair under London. The tunnels once housed the telephone exchange which connected the Cold War hotline between the presidents of the US and USSR.
Software:
Antec Veris Multimedia Station Premier on TechwareLabs
Lego Batman on TrustedReviews
Crysis Warhead on I4U
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway on Bit-Tech
Need For Speed: Undercover on Bit-Tech
Lego Batman on Bit-Tech
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Interview on Gaming Nexus
Audio:
Monster Beats Headphones on TheTechLounge
Altec Lansing Soundbar on ThinkComputers.org
PureAudio USB-SA Sound Card on I4U
SouthWing SH241 Bluetooth Headset on Legit Reviews
Case:
Moneual Moncaso972 Case on Hardware Secrets
Antec Skeleton Case on Extremetech
Apevia X-Qboii Micro ATX Case on ThinkComputers.org
Lian Li TYR PC-X500 Chassis on Overclock3D
CoolerMaster 932 HAF on Hi-Tech Reviews
NZXT Guardian 921 Case on RBMods
Lian Li PC-A7010 Case on PureOverclock
Antec Fusion Remote Max HTPC Case on Pro-Clockers
Laptop/Systems:
Asus Eee 1000H on OCC
Lenovo Thinkpad W700 Mobile Workstation on HotHardware.com
YoYoTech Warbird Gaming System on CPU3D
Compact Slate UMPC from Match Tech on VIA Arena
Toshiba Satellite NB100 Netbook on TrustedReviews
Antec Veris Multimedia Station Basic on Techware Labs
Display:
Sony Bravia KDL-52W4500 52in LCDTV on TrustedReviews
Samsung LE55A956 55in LCD TV on TrustedReviews
Keyboard/Mouse:
Razer Salmosa Gaming Mouse on DriverHeaven.net
Microsoft SideWinder X5 Gaming Mouse on TweakTown
Das Keyboard Professional on The Tech Lounge
OCZ Technology Alchemy Series Elixir I Keyboard on BigBruin.com
Cooling:
Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo VGA Cooler on Hardware Secrets
Thermalright Ultra Extreme Socket 1366 CPU Cooler on Madshrimps
Thermaltake V14Pro CPU Cooler CL-P0471 on Benchmark Reviews
Thermalright T-Rad² on Legion Hardware
LapLogic W800 Aerogel Extreme Notebook Cooler on HardwareLogic
OCZ Gladiator Max CPU Cooler on Bjorn3D
JETART - CoolStand 3 Laptop Cooler on Techware Labs
GELID GC1 Thermal Compound on DriverHeaven.net
Arctic Cooling Fan on XSReviews
Thermaltake PW850i Watercooling Kit on Hi-tech Reviews
Vantec AeroFlow FX 92 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.org
Storage:
ICY BOX IB-390 Series on Techware Labs
QNAP TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS on NinjaLane
Kingwin EZ-Dock HDD Dock on Overclocker Cafe
Norco DS-500 eSata RAID Storage Array on Tweaknews.net
Ultra Slim DVD Box by ICYBOX on CowcotLand.com
Videocard:
Palit HD4850 Sonic on Overclockers Club
MSI Radeon HD 4850 Video Card R4850-512M on Benchmark Reviews
Force3D Radeon HD 4870 Black Edition on Techspot
Motherboard:
MSI P7NGM Digital on Viper Lair
GIGABYTE EP45-UD3P Motherboard on TweakTown
Misc:
Mio C320b Car Navigation System on Hardware Zone
HTC Touch Diamond & Touch Pro Mobile Phones on InsideHW
LG DRT389H DVD Recorder on Trusted Reviews
OPEN 824RLW 4 port ADSL 2+ Modem Router Wireless VoIP on OCAU member "Draco II's" blog.
G.Skill F2 6400 CL4D-4GBPI-B on Overclockers Club
XSpice Kira 530w Power Supply on XSReviews
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
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Thursday, 16-October-2008 21:46:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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NVIDIA have released a new mobile GPU. The GeForce 9400M is already in the new Macbooks announced recently, in fact. The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M is a single chip, high performance, highly integrated design that is ideal for notebooks and smaller computing devices. It features 16 parallel processing cores that deliver a whopping 54 GFLOPs of processing power, making it the most powerful integrated GPU on the market today. It also delivers up to 5x faster graphics performance than Intel Centrino 2*, and long-lasting battery power, allowing consumers to watch a complete, full-length HD movie on a single charge.
Coverage on PC Perspective, NeoSeeker, Guru3D, HotHardware, Tech-Report, Big-Bruin, Bit-Tech (and here) and HWSecrets.
Thursday Evening
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Thursday, 16-October-2008 20:15:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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So, there's photos of the upcoming Star Trek movie full of young trendy actors. Oh god, I'm a huge Star Trek fan and this just looks like a Saturday Night Live sketch not an actual movie.. but I hope to be pleasantly surprised..
BigPond customers can apparently look forward to 10 minutes of computerised-voice support, before being transferred to someone in the Philippines. The outsourced provider of BigPond's tech support, TeleTech, has advised a large proportion of its Australian workforce that they will no longer be required, as BigPond's call centres will be moving to the lower labour-cost country by 1st February 2009.
IntelInside spotted some tiny Australian PCs taking on the giants. A husband and wife team from the Sunshine Coast are preparing for all out war with the likes of Dell and HP in the burgeoning market for low-cost PCs.
TRAG!C sent word of an interesting idea, donating your piracy 'savings' to poverty. If the MPAA and RIAA are to be believed, rather than buying media, file-sharers around the world are saving billions of dollars by downloading copyrighted material instead. For these people, we now have the ultimate solution to salve their ‘guilt’.
Expect about a billion reviews later tonight..
Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 16-October-2008 03:40:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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OCAU's Folding@Home Team recently passed one billion points. Congrats to them and if you want to join us, check out this page or the Team OCAU forum.
I've dusted off my PS3 to download the new 2.50 firmware which came out recently. Still no native support for Windows shares as far as I can tell, which is the main thing I'd like to see.
Bit-Tech have a Battlestar Galactica case mod. Working around a Cooler Master Stacker case, he's just put together a Battlestar Galactica mod that has incredible attention to detail, and uses a vast variety of techniques in its fabrication. Hrm, that reminds me of something..
Chris spotted this 100% passively-cooled machine. I have wanted to build a fully passively cooled computer case since I had my first Athlon Thunderbird 800 MHz. That time the fan noise was amazingly high, and manufacturers didn´t much care about the noise levels, and didn't offer products for building a quiet PC. Nowadays a quiet PC is not much of a challenge to build, but totally silent? It would require that there were no moving parts at all.
There's some new MacBooks out. TechReport have their thoughts and there's plenty more info and discussion here in our Apple forum.
BFM found a rabbit at work. As you do. Anyway, he's wanting suggestions for naming it. Sometimes the forums scare me. :)
Telstra have cut the National Broadband Network estimate to $15Bn, thanks CD. Mr Quilty warned that the $15 billion was likely to balloon unless the Australian dollar regained some of its falling value, but he declined to revise his boss's latest network price tag.
Scorptec PC Build-Off Competition
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Wednesday, 15-October-2008 12:54:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Scorptec are running their PC Build-Off Competition again at the upcoming eGames expo in Melbourne. The major prize is the PC you build, valued at $2000! Last year an OCAU member won it, so it'd be good to see that happen again this year. :)
Discussion here.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 15-October-2008 03:59:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Australian Government is apparently going to regulate efficiency in the technology sector, thanks MH. In a series of tests with newly purchased desktops and laptops, Mr Holt found some startling results: five desktops and four notebooks out 19 and 10, respectively, didn't meet the Energy Star version 3 specification, which became effective in 2000.
A few people sent in this story about a guy who plays 36 WoW characters at once. What's interesting is the PC setup he has (scroll down the page) that lets him do it.
XbitLabs checked out a few Corsair Power Supplies. We will discuss solutions targeted for different market segments and ranging from 450W up to 1kW capacity.
Here's a quite neat little mod to get a rear WiFi antenna connector into your EeePC. I noticed that there seemed to be a bit of room in the box section which comprises the left hand hinge mount base, seen below in the main picture, and the zoomed insert. Sure enough, when the LCD panel and PCB are removed after unscrewing the two hinge mount screws ( an easy job) the area available seemed to offer just enough room for my purposes.
AC/DC are apparently shunning iTunes with their latest album. AC/DC, formed by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young in 1973, is among only a handful of bands to refuse to put their music on the popular download service.
Guru3D take a look at the Philips amBX, an "ambience kit" for games that includes, wait for it, two fans for that "wind in the hair" feeling. Bizarre. Years ago we were all thrilled by a concept called Force Feedback. When you were flying a flight simulator and were pulling some negative G's the joystick would apply pressure so that it felt heavy.
SS sent in this story about black silicon. A newly discovered material called ‘black silicon’ is between 100 and 500 times more sensitive to light than conventional silicon, and could be used to revolutionize solar energy generation.
ArsTechnica have an article about some dodgy numbers about the war on piracy. These statistics are brandished like a talisman each time Congress is asked to step up enforcement to protect the ever-beleaguered U.S. content industry. And both, as far as an extended investigation by Ars Technica has been able to determine, are utterly bogus.
Today's timewaster is this eyeballing game from Tabris.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 15-October-2008 02:54:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
ATI Radeon HD 4350 versus EVGA GeForce 9400GT on Motherboards.org.
ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI Video Card Kit on LegitReviews.
Gigabyte GV-R487X2-2GH-B Radeon HD 4870x2 on CPU3D.
Sapphire Toxic HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 on XbitLabs.
MSI N9800GT on OCClub.
Palit GeForce 9800 GT Super+ 1GB on BenchmarkReviews.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic Vapor-X on Phoronix.
Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic on Bit-Tech.
Input Etc:
Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse with BlueTrack on Tweaktown.
Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Pro on HWSecrets.
Storage:
Thermaltake Blacx Docking Station N0028USU on BenchmarkReviews.
HighPoint RocketRAID 3220 and Promise SuperTrak EX8350 RAID Controllers on XbitLabs.
QNAP TS-109 Pro II NAS on XbitLabs.
Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 2.5" 7200 RPM Hard Disk on Tweaktown.
Corsair Voyager Mini Flash Drive on EverythingUSN.
Cooling:
Cooler Master GeminII S CPU cooler on OCClub.
Vantec Aeroflow FX92/FX120 HDT CPU coolers on Virtual-Hideout.
Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler on OCIA.
Evercool Transformer 6 CPU cooler on Frostytech.
DFI LANParty DK X48-T2RSB Plus
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Tuesday, 14-October-2008 17:08:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Windwithme has checked out a budget X48 board from DFI, the LANParty DK X48-T2RSB Plus. Lots of pics and info as usual:
click for the thread!
Tuesday Morning Reviews
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Tuesday, 14-October-2008 03:41:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
NZXT KHAOS Gaming Case on DriverHeaven.
Coolermaster HAF932 Full Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Apevia X-Sniper G Type on HWLogic.
Antec Mini P180 Chassis on BurnOutPC.
Video Cards:
ATI RADEON HD 4670 512MB on Digit-Life.
PowerColor HD 4870 on TechWareLabs.
Sapphire HD 4870 TOXIC Edition on Modders-Inc.
Memory:
OCZ Reaper HPC PC3-10666 on PureOC.
Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3-1333 4GB Dual Channel Memory Kit on ThinkComputers.
Motherboards:
ASUS P6T DELUXE X58 LGA1366 board on OC3D.
ASUS P6T Deluxe X58 Express (OC Palm Edition) LGA1366 board on TechARP.
ECS A790GXM-A Black Series AM2+ board on Phoronix.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake Toughpower 850 Watt ESA on Bjorn3D.
Silverstone OP1000-E 1kW on JonnyGuru.
Oldschool Paperwork
(41 Comments)
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Monday, 13-October-2008 15:59:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I had a skip here this weekend and was throwing out loads of old junk from the AggCave. I did find some interesting things though, so stay tuned for a spamfest to give those away. :) But I cleared out a load of old paperwork, and found a pile of receipts including these:
click to enlarge
Oldschool OCAU'ers will know why those brought a smile to my face. :)
Slipkord sent word that Richard "Lord British" Garriott of Ultima fame is currently orbiting the earth as a space tourist. Richard Garriott has made history in becoming the first 2nd-generation space traveller, due to his dad Owen Garriott being a former astronaut in the 1970s. Meanwhile Esther Dyson, who has been involved in many web startups etc, is training as a backup astronaut for a similar flight.
An Australian radio presenter has missed the hourly news bulletin because she was busy using Facebook. Management at 3AW promptly sent a memo to all staff instructing them to stay off Facebook unless they were using it for research.
Microsoft has a new programming language called 'M'. More info here. The company is today due to announce M, for building textual domain-specific languages (DSLs) and software models with XAML. Microsoft will also announce Quadrant, for building and viewing models visually, and a repository for storing and combining models using a SQL Server database.
WSJ have an interesting article in defence of piracy. How is it that sensible people, people no doubt educated at some of the best universities and law schools in the country, would come to think it a sane use of corporate resources to threaten the mother of a dancing 13-month-old?
Deepspring sent in this review of Open Office 3.0. Open Office is a free and open source alternative to MS Office Suit. It features OO Base (Data management), OO Calc (Spreadsheet), OO Draw (Graphics), OO Impress (Presentations), OO Math (Equation and Formula), and OOWriter (Word Processing).
ArsTechnica report on rumours about the next Skulltrail being X58-based, thanks George. If that's true, it would presumably remove the server memory requirements of the current Skulltrail platform, as detailed in chainbolt's recent review.
OC3D have a waterblock shootout. What do you get when you compare the Swiftech Apogee GTZ, Aqua Computers Cuplex HD and the XSPC Delta v3 with a number of leading waterblocks? OC3D took a look to see if we could find an answer.
HyRax1 noted Wikipedia switching all servers to Ubuntu. According to Brion Vibber, CTO of the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia made the move because the "mix of things, some Red Hat 9, some Fedora, several different versions," made it harder and harder for Wikipedia's tiny five-person IT staff to maintain Wikipedia's approximately 400 servers.
From Junglist: Hey, just letting you know reviews of Fracture and Saints Row 2 will air tonight on Good Game, 9pm on ABC2. We'll also visit the Infinite Interactive studio in Melbourne where our interns have been instantly promoted to lead external development teams, and will consequently have a great influence on their new game, "Office Wars". All episodes can be streamed or downloaded from our website.
Some recent photos from our Photography Gallery forum:
Sunday Morning Reviews
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Sunday, 12-October-2008 02:07:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
500GB HDD Roundup on HWSecrets.
Kingwin Elite Series USB/eSATA External Hard Drive Enclosures on ThinkComputers.
Western Digital 300GB VelociRaptor Hard Drive on TechARP.
Input Etc:
Everglide DKTBoard gaming keyboard on BurnOutPC.
Razer Salmosa mouse on PlayIT3D.
I-Rocks RF-6572 2.4GHz Wireless Keyboard Mouse Combo on BigBruin.
Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Gaming Keyboard on TBreak.
Audio / Visual:
Onkyo TX-NR906 AV Receiver on TrustedReviews.
Samsung T240 LCD Monitor on OCOnline.
Genius Luxemate 525 keyboard on XSReviews.
Portable & Mini:
Samsung Q310 (ASS0UK) 13.3in Notebook on TrustedReviews.
Acer Aspire X1200 SFF mini-PC on TechSpot.
Software:
Spore PC game on I4U.
Wipeout HD PS3 game on Bit-Tech.
Fuzzle iPhone game on OSXReality.
Sacred PC game performance on LegionHW.
Quantum of Solace hands-on preview (various platforms) on Bit-Tech.
IMSI/Design TurboCAD Pro 15 Platinum Edition on BIOSMag.
Cases:
Tagan A+ Seenium on Bjorn3D.
Motherboards:
MSI P45 Diamond LGA775 board on BIOSMag.
DFI Lanparty DK P45-T2RS Plus LGA775 board on MadShrimps.
Gigabyte GA-EX58-Extreme LGA1366 board on Bit-Tech.
BIOSTAR TPower N750 AM2+ board on Tweaktown.
ASUS M3N78 Pro AM2+ board on Motherboards.org.
Power Supplies:
Silver Power SP-SS500 500W on XSReviews.
AXP Supernova 1000W on DriverHeaven.
Cooling:
Best CPU Cooler Performance - Q3 2008 on BenchmarkReviews.
Gelid GC-1 Thermal Paste/Compound on Tweaknews.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Saturday, 11-October-2008 19:13:33 (GMT +10) - by Rezin
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Here's a bit of a snapshot of what's going on in the OCAU Forums.
US Utilities throws Billions at Australian Solar Tech in Science.
What's wrong with my plants? in Pets & Animals.
Plasma panel size vs resolution - question in Audio Visual.
I dont sweat do you? in Sport, Fitness and Health.
Want to learn an instrument in Musicians.
Bathurst 2008 - October 9-12 - fans only in Motoring.
More AV scams in General Software.
New! Halo 3 recon in Games.
Best audio format in PC Audio.
Carbon Fibre in Modding.
Programming - Where to start? in Graphics and Programming.
Which 64 bit OS? in Windows Operating Systems.
Laptop prices with diving AUD in Portable and Small Form Factor.
My G.Skill DDR2 is unusually hot. I think? in Memory.
Best Hard drive config for gaming machine in Storage & Backup.
Where to buy domains from these days? in Networking, Telephony and Internet.
Sub Zero Insulation - kneaded Eraser in Extreme Cooling.
Post your Rate My Cables here! in Modding.
Maximum (but safest) amount of LED's from USB in Electronics.
HD4850 issues? HD4850 owners please look! in Troubleshooting Help.
8800GTX -> 4870 or 4870x2... worth the change? in Video Cards and Monitors.
VGA/DVI Dummy Loads - Make, Buy, or someone supply? Team OCAU - Distributed Computing.
Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman in Other Operating Systems.
The time to buy hardware is NOW....before most recent fall in $AUD take effect in Overclocking and Hardware.
Wierdest problems you've ever experienced in a enterprise computing environment in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Saturday Midday
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Saturday, 11-October-2008 13:05:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A Russian firm is using the power of NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate WiFi 'password recovery' times up to 10,000 percent, with some people saying this means encrypted WiFi is no longer secure. David Hobson, managing director of GSS, claimed that companies can no longer view standards-based WiFi transmission as sufficiently secure against eavesdropping to be used with impunity.
On a similar note, Wired have some Wi-Fi shoes for War-Walking. A pressure sensitive insole detects when you are walking and switches on the WLAN detector. Just a concept, but neato.
Guru3D have a very cool VW Bus PC project. Actually it seems to be a commercial project rather than a DIY mod.. still cool.
A Northern Territory computer engineer has allegedly gone on a rampage across various government systems, thanks Sniper. McIntosh is facing charges of property damage over $50,000 and up to 10 years jail if convicted.
Cisco seem to be shipping music rather than software with some of their hardware, thanks mazzanet. After chucking it in the drive and loading it up we discovered that in the place of the usual boring software was an audio disk with 12 tracks of Spanish music.
Tweaktown have video coverage of the recent GO OC event in Taiwan. We were at the event with cameras in hand and managed to put together a six minute video of the event show the good, bad and ugly.
Bit-Tech have a 4GB DDR3 1,600MHz to 1,800MHz memory roundup. With the inevitable arrival of Intel's Core i7 and the AMD socket AM3 CPUs in the near future, both of which will be DDR3-based, we decided to take a look at some 4GB kits to get you off the ground - if you were to buy now, they'd still be an investment for future upgrades.
It's been a while since I've mentioned Zero Punctuation's hilarious video reviews, but they're definitely worth a look. The latest one is of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Warning, strong language!
I'm not a bank robber, but if I was, I'd hope to be as clever as this guy. "I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour," one of the unwitting decoys, named Mike, said to the NBC station. As it turns out, they were simply placed there to confuse cops who were looking for a guy wearing a virtually identical outfit.
Matthew-r88 spotted this creepy robot 5yo in Japan. But, as our video shows, Repliee looks less like a realistic robot and more like she has come straight out of a Japanese horror film.
Thanks to Timbot, Allen and others for these!
    
      
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 10-October-2008 14:59:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
GeForce GTX 260 reloaded vs. the Radeon HD 4870 1GB on TechReport.
ECS Hydra Watercooled 9800 GTX+ SLI on Bit-Tech.
ATI Radeon HD 4550 passive 512M on TechPowerUp.
Palit Radeon HD 4870 X2 on GamePyre.
Palit HD 4870 Sonic on NeoSeeker.
XFX 9800GTX+ on OCClub.
Intel G45 Express integrated GPU on TechReport.
Power Supply:
Lian Li Maxima Force Extreme Power Supply PS-A750GB 750W on TechWareLabs.
SilverStone OP1000-E 1000W on PCPerspective.
OCZ ModXStream 600W on OCIA.
Cases:
Cooler Master HAF 932 on NinjaLane.
Cooler Master HAF 932 on HWZone.
Thermaltake M9D on BurnOutPC.
Cooling:
Danger Den Custom Water Loop on Bjorn3D.
NZXT Sentry LX Fan Controller on TechWareLabs.
Coolermaster V8 CPU Cooler on CPU3D.
Evercool Transformer 6 CPU Cooler on RBMOds.
Intel Skulltrail
(9 Comments)
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Thursday, 9-October-2008 21:15:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Chainbolt has taken an in-depth look at Intel's Skulltrail platform. 8 cores at 3.2GHz each with 4 PCIe slots makes for an almighty desktop system. Loads of info, benchmarks and more in this six-page review:
Click for the review!
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 9-October-2008 20:46:11 (GMT +10) - by Rezin
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Portable:
iRiver Spinn 4GB personal media player on TrustedReviews.
Dell Latitude E6400 14.1in business notebook on TrustedReviews.
Samsung S3 MP3 player on TweakTown.
Lenovo ThinkPad X300 13.3" laptop on Think Computers.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic mobile phone on OC Workbench.
Samsung SGH-i8510 Innov8 mobile phone on OCWorkbench.
Samsung SGH-i8510 Innov8 mobile phone on Hardware Zone.
Gigabyte M912 netbook on OCWorkbench.
Motherboards:
ASRock AOD790GX/128M (AM2/AM2+) on OCWorkbench.
Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H (LGA775) on OCWorkbench.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P (LGA775) on TrustedReviews.
Storage & Media Players:
Icydock MB664US eSATA/USB external hard drive enclosure on PCSTATS.
Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray Player on Hardware Zone.
Samsung DVD-SH875M DVD/HDD recorder on TrustedReviews.
Super Talents SSD MasterDrive MX SATA-II 25 (translated) on TweakPC.
Intel X25-M solid state drive on LaptopMag.
Cooling:
Xigmatek Red Scorpion S1283 CPU heatsink on PureOverclock.
EKL Alphenfohn GroB Clock'ner CPU heatsink on Frosty Tech.
Audio / Visual:
InFocus IN3104 DLP projector on BIOS.
Olevia 242T FHD 42" HDTV on Benchmark Reviews.
Samsung LN46A630 HDTV on Digital Trends.
Samsung HT-X710T home theater system on Digital Trends.
Two Linux developers from Intel's Open Source Technology Center have demonstrated an Asus Eee PC which can boot Linux in five seconds. They had to hold up the EEE PC for the audience, since the time required to finish booting was less than the time needed for the projector to sync. … The fast-booting system does not use GDM but boots straight to a user session, running the XFCE desktop environment. Discussion in this thread. Thanks Mad Mike.
Microsoft has denied that their Web site for the DevSta coding competition was defaced by hackers, stating that some entries were simply "non-genuine submissions." Given the trite nature of the vandalism it's easy to believe what Microsoft's say. The pictures I included show what amount to nothing more than rubbish postings in a user-submitted area of the site, specifically, the contest submissions. Thanks Badooleoo.
Badooleoo also sent in this link with a site warning that pushing the DIMM voltage higher than 1.65V might be damaging to Nehalem CPUs. Of course, this is still beyond the standard JEDEC DDR3 voltage spec of 1.5V, but it's also a long way off the voltage required by overclockers' enthusiast memory, such as Corsair's Dominator TW3X2G2133C9DF, which needs 2V to run at its specified 2,133MHz maximum speed with timings of 9-9-9-24.
A new exploit affecting all the major desktop browsers has prompted Adobe to release a workaround for their Flash Player until they can fix the "Clickjacking" threat in a future version. In a nutshell, it's when you visit a malicious website and the attacker is able to take control of the links that your browser visits. … With this exploit, once you're on the malicious web page, the bad guy can make you click on any link, any button, or anything on the page without you even seeing it happening. Thanks Callan.
Edj noticed that the Victoria Police Traffic and Transit Safety Department are using Google Maps to visually pinpoint the "location of road fatalities across the state this year." Leading Senior Constable Ian Whalley of the Road Safety Unit said the map gives community members a visual of the number of tragedies on our roads. "The map not only shows the number of deaths on Victorian roads, it displays exactly where they are occurring, giving the community a clear view of fatality hot spots," he said.
Ars Technica looks at the increase of commercial-grade hardware being passed off as military-grade electronic components, some of which have ended up in mission-critical systems. Under the new rules, government contractors were explicitly discouraged from designing systems that required the use of expensive, proprietary electronics or processors that would never be widely produced.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 9-October-2008 01:33:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Seems to all be reviews lately.. if you see any interesting news out there, send the link and info to news@overclockers.com.au.
Motherboards:
Biostar TPower I45 LGA775 board on InsideHW.
Gigabyte EP45-T Extreme LGA775 board on NeoSeeker.
Cooling:
Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler on XbitLabs.
Zalman CNPS9300 AT CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Power Supply:
Lian-Li Silent Force 750W on OCClub.
Antec Signature 850W on Virtual-Hideout.
Audio / Visual:
Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player on FutureLooks.
LG HT953TV Home Cinema System on TrustedReviews.
Canon Vixia HG21 HDD Camcorder on DigitalTrends.
Portable & Mini:
Asus Eee PC S101 netbook on Bit-Tech.
Shuttle XPC Glamor SN68PTG6 Deluxe mini-PC on Digital-Life.
Storage:
ATP EarthDrive 4GB Flash Drive on TechWareLabs.
Thecus N5200BR NAS Server on Motherboards.org.
Synology DS408 4-Drive SATA RAID Gigabit NAS on BenchmarkReviews.
QNAP TS-409 Network Attached Storage System on APHNetworks.
Video Cards:
HIS and Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Face Off on HotHardware.
HIS HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX 512MB PCI-E on OC3D.
Zotac GeForce 9600 GT DP on HWZone.
MSI Radeon HD 4670 on Tweaktown.
ATI Radeon HD 4670 on GamePyre.
Gainward Radeon HD 4870 1GB Golden Sample on DriverHeaven.
Inno3D iChill GeForce 9800 GT Twin Turbo on Guru3D.
Sapphire HD 4670 on Bjorn3D.
Misc:
Epson Artisan 700 Multifunction Printer on ExtremeMHz.
Logitech Illuminated Keyboard on EverythingUSB.
Brothers In Arms - Hells Highway PC game on GamingHeaven.
Bgears b-Envi case on HWSecrets.
Sil80's MAME Cabinet
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Wednesday, 8-October-2008 18:30:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Sil80 has finished quite a cool project, a custom MAME cabinet. In case you don't know about MAME, this is basically a PC in a custom-made cabinet that lets you play your favourite arcade classics via emulation. There's a PCDB entry with lots of pics:
Click for the PCDB entry! (11 pics)
There's also a detailed worklog thread here in the Modding forum.
Wednesday Afternoon
(6 Comments)
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Wednesday, 8-October-2008 15:39:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Ford has introduced a worried parent mode in its new cars. MyKey can do three basic things: allow parents to limit a vehicle's top speed to 80 mph and/or the stereo's volume up to 44% of its max, and set a sustaining chime if the seatbelts aren't being used. Discussion here.
Simon spotted an interesting article about light bulb networks. Using a technique which rapidly switches the LEDs on and off data transmissions could be made via imperceptible -- yet undoubtedly brain-scrambling -- flickering patterns, and each light would be its own network entry point at speeds of 1 to 10Mbps. More info here.
MYSRH sent news about photo-realistic animation in films and games, thanks to a new modelling technology. She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.
PCWorld talk about their 15 coolest upcoming games. In the following pages, PC World's two gaming experts--Matt Peckham, writer of the popular Game On blog, and Darren Gladstone, PC World's Casual Friday columnist--dissect an assortment of hotly anticipated sequels, like Epic's tactical run-and-gunner Gears of War 2 and Bethesda's gleefully violent Fallout 3, as well as promising first-timers such as Media Molecule's ridiculously adorable LittleBigPlanet and EA DICE's gleamingly dystopian Mirror's Edge.
AMD Becomes Fabless
(2 Comments)
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Wednesday, 8-October-2008 15:30:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD is splitting its factories into another business with investors from Abu Dhabi. More info here. The deal should shore up AMD's finances and let it focus on the design and development of computer chips. The new venture, to be based in the U.S. and for now called Foundry Co., will include AMD's manufacturing plants, including two in Dresden, Germany. The stock market has responded positively to the news. TechReport have their thoughts posted also.
Discussion here in our AMD Hardware forum.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 8-October-2008 02:56:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 LP on AseLabs.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 (512Mb DDR3) on CPU3D.
AMD Radeon HD 3300 / 790GX integrated GPU under Linux on Phoronix.
Sapphire HD 4850 Dual Slot Fansink on Bjorn3D.
Audio / Visual:
Zoom H2 Handy Recorder on TechWareLabs.
Sapphire HD4870 Toxic on OCClub.
Cases:
Lian Li PC-A7010 All Aluminum Full Tower on LegitReviews.
NZXT Khaos Full Tower on Tweaktown.
Power Supply:
InWin Commander 750W on XSReviews.
SilverStone ST60EF 600W on NinjaLane.
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W Modular ESA Compliant on ThinkComputers.
Cooler Master Ultimate Circuit Protection UCP-900W on Tweaknews.
Motherboards:
Asus Rampage II Extreme LGA1366 board preview on Bit-Tech.
Asus P6T Motherboard LGA1366 board preview on DriverHeaven.
DFI LANPARTY UT X58 LGA1366 board preview on Tweaktown.
Misc:
Wicked Lasers Sonar II Blu-ray Laser on I4U.
Belkin F5D8053 WiFi N Wireless Adapter on BenchmarkReviews.
G.Skill PI Black PC2-6400 4GB memory on LegionHW.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Tuesday, 7-October-2008 15:52:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A quick snapshot of what people are talking about:
What is the purpose of weighted gaming mice? in Newbie Lounge.
Is overclocking dangerous? in Overclocking & Hardware.
1RU Server Upgrade? in Overclocking & Hardware.
Project ideas and inspirations in Modding.
Nvidia Forceware 178.13 WHQL Official / 178.15 Betas in Video Cards.
8.10 RC2 Cats with fan control in Video Cards.
Fusion-IO ioDrive - Fastest SSD in the world in Storage & Backup.
Countering laptop thieves with remote access? in Other Operating Systems.
New OS - "Windows Cloud" in Windows Operating Systems.
Macbook Pro - Falling out of love... in Apple Hardware & Software.
Vista Media Centre 2008 TV Pack Update in Audio Visual.
Koenigsegg CCXR - lots of pics in Motoring.
350Z utterly ruined by body shop in Motoring.
The F1 Silly Season 2009 in Motoring.
Bathurst 2008 - October 9-12 in Motoring.
The amazing Jessica in Photography Gallery.
Guitar magazines, podcasts, TV shows etc in Musicians.
Goverment banning cyber bullying in Current Events.
Govt cracks down on use of skinny models in Current Events.
What not to do with habanero chilis in Geek Food.
9 Oddest Experiments (NewScientist) in Science.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 7-October-2008 15:27:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Some snippets from Sniper:
USA is using the old F4 Phantom not only as a remote controlled drone for target practice, they are also using it as a unmanned combat drones. Skynet here we come. :)
Kingston will be selling Intel SSDs soon. The new Intel SSDs featured some good performance with Intel claiming that the SSDs yielded up to 240MB per second in read performance, with 170MB per second in write performance.
Fudzilla report on crazy expensive motherboards for i7 processors. We've yet to see pricing from a wide range of other companies such as Gigabyte, MSI, Foxconn and ECS, to mention a few, so there might still be room for some more affordable boards to turn up.
AMD reckon their Shanghai processors will be 35% faster than their current products. The advances are direct results of larger 6MB level-three cache, thinner 45nm process technology as well as micro-architectural improvements that boost instructions per clock (IPC) throughput.
Sniper also spotted this PCIe-based SSD. The ioXtreme brings high-end PC users 80 GB of PCI-Express based, high-performance, solid state storage that was designed for the world’s fastest supercomputers.
Tuesday Afternoon uberReviews
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Tuesday, 7-October-2008 13:57:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 4550 on Tweaktown.
HIS Radeon HD 4850 ICEQ4 TurboX on Guru3D.
AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB on Bit-Tech.
Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD4870 512MB on Big-Bruin.
ATI Radeon HD 4550 on DriverHeaven.
Zotac 9500GT on XSReviews.
ASUS EAH4870 TOP Radeon HD 4870 on HotHardware.
XFX 9800GTX+ SLI on GamePyre.
Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition on Techgage.
Software:
Pure PC game on TrustedReviews.
Football Manager Live Preview PC game on DriverHeaven.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning MMORPG on Bit-Tech.
Input Etc:
Silverstone Raven Gaming Mouse on PureOC.
Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard on PlayIt3D.
Logitech Cordless Desktop S520 on OCIA.
Storage:
HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4 PCI-E SAS Controller on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Vi-ON 3.5-inch External Hard Drive Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UT+B Dual Bay Hard Drive Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
ICY DOCK MB672SKGF-B Internal SATA HDD Enclosure with LCD Display on Bjorn3D.
Thermaltake BlacX HDD enclosure on ASELabs.
ATP 4GB ToughDrive Flash Drive on TechWareLabs.
Audio / Visual:
SageTV HD Media Extender on I4U/
Iqua Sun Bluetooth Headset on Tech-Reviews.
Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000 webcam on Hardware-Pacers.
HIS Multi-View USB Adapter on OCCafe.
Apple iPod nano 8GB 4th Gen on TrustedReviews.
Audioengine AW1 Wireless Audio System on Techgage.
Mitsubishi LaserVue 65" HDTV World Premiere on TheTechLounge.
LG 32PG6000 32in Plasma TV on TrustedReviews.
Philips DCP951 Portable DVD Player on TrustedReviews.
Portable:
Acer Aspire 5530G Notebook (AMD Puma) on HWZone.
Acer eMachines E510 Notebook on InsideHW.
Motherboards:
ECS X48T-A Black Edition LGA775 board on Motherboards.org.
ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe AM2 board on LegitReviews.
Sapphire Pure PC-AM2RX780 AM2 board on OCClub.
Cooling:
OCZ Gladiator MAX Heatsink on Frostytech.
Evercool Royal Notebook Cooling Pad on OCOnline.
Thermaltake PW 850I Pro Water CPU Liquid Cooling System on Tweaknews.
Cases:
Hiper Osiris Mid-Tower on PCPerspective.
Hiper Osiris HTPC case on HWLogic.
Apevia X-Sniper G-Type Mid-tower on Virtual-Hideout.
Misc:
A-Data Vitesta Extreme Edition DDR2 4 GB 800+ MHz CL4 memory on TechPowerUp.
Keelog USB Keylogger on RBMods.
Forum Projects
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Monday, 6-October-2008 18:36:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A couple of interesting things, both from the AMD Hardware forum:
Monday Morning
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Monday, 6-October-2008 03:50:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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So, it turns out nerds are sexy. That's what I've been saying all these years, ladies..
Xbit checked out two mainstream CPUs from Intel, the Core 2 Duo E7300 and Pentium Dual-Core E5200. These processors are priced very affordably at $133 and $84 respectively; therefore, they will most likely be of great interest to many users out there.
ArsTechnica have some interesting musings about reviews and promotion in the gaming industry. We asked Kain point blank if it was ethical for him to publish a game news and review site with his strong financial interest in the industry. "If the product is independent, then of course," he told Ars.
A Japanese organisation is keen on the space elevator idea, despite there not yet being suitable materials to build the cable from. Tsuchida said some possible locations for an elevator include the South China Sea, western Australia and the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. He said all of those locations usually avoided typhoons, which could pose a threat to the safety of an elevator.
Callan spotted this article about a man who prevented a nuclear war. If you were alive on September 26, 1983, when I was 12 years old, you almost didn't make it through the day. If you are too young to have lived that day, you were almost never born.
Timbot sent in this gallery of a huge datacentre. 1&1's five server rooms hold 860 racks and can accommodate at least 40,000 servers.
Some recent photos from our Photography Gallery forum:
Tomorrow being the first Sunday in October, if you live in the Eastern states it's time to fiddle with your clocks again. Details are on the Australian Government website here. In short, at 2am, set your clocks to 3am.
No doubt the usual hilarious combination of mostly-automatic DST correction on your PC, our servers and the forum software will once again conspire to have everyone showing different times. I find the trick is to poke randomly at things in UserCP until it works. :)
NanoDuke noticed that the PC version of The Suffering is now available as a free download. Midway's classic PC shooter, The Suffering, is now available to download and play for FREE as an ad supported game. This is a full version with no time expiration sponsored by the US Air Force.
Techware Labs explains how you can use Microsoft's free Virtual PC 2007 to run other operating systems within your current Windows environment. Whether it be a version of Linux or maybe even Windows 3.11, you can install just about anything. Matt Androski will go through a step by step guide of how properly install and configure Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.
Velocity Reviews takes a quick look at the free versions of three popular antivirus programs. Ultimately, the choice of anti-virus software depends on the balance of simplicity to use, detection effectiveness and the system resources consumed. Each of the 3 main AV solutions outlined in this article are good choices, however they will each be suited to a different type of user.
A new version of the popular open source graphics editor The Gimp has been released. Version 2.6 offers a variety of new features, user interface improvements, and is also the first release to include support for the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL), a powerful, graph-based image editing framework.
Google looks at why they believe their Google-designed data centres are the most efficient in the world. Specifically, Google-designed data centers use nearly five times less energy than conventional facilities to feed and cool the computers inside. Our engineers worked hard to optimize every element in the data center, from the chip to the cooling tower.
The Gamerscore Blog have a quick look at the new Live Marketplace coming to the Xbox 360. Today, when you look at a particular game in the Game Store you get a pretty basic list of information… When you go into the new Games Store this fall, you will be able to check out screenshots of the game, watch trailers and read the back-of-the-box description like you are shopping at a retail store.
Saturday Afternoon Reviews #2
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Saturday, 4-October-2008 13:43:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
Biostar TPower I45 LGA775 board on Digit-Life.
Catching the Eclipse - MSI's X58 Motherboard Previewed on HWZone.
Asus P6T Deluxe (X58) LGA1366 board on CPU3D.
Foxconn BlackOps Intel X48 LGA775 board on XbitLabs.
J&W X48D2-EXTREME LGA775 board on XbitLabs.
Foxconn Digital Life ELA P45 LGA775 board on LegitReviews.
MSI DKA790GX AM2 board on TrustedReviews.
790GX and SB750 Explored and Reviewed AM2 chipset on MadShrimps.
ASUS Rampage Formula X48 LGA775 board on PCPerspective.
ECS Elitegroup A790GXM AM2 board on Guru3D.
Portable & Prebuilt:
ASUS U6Sg Notebook on XbitLabs.
Raon Digital Everun Note mini-notebook on TrustedReviews.
Beast Aphros Reality Extreme Gaming PC on CPU3D.
MSI Wind U100-291UK - Exclusive Review netbook on TrustedReviews.
Power Supply:
5-way High-End 1KW+ PSU Round-Up on OC3D.
ATX Power Supply Units Roundup Part X on XbitLabs.
XSpice Croon 750W on XSReviews.
OCZ EliteXStreme 800W on Bit-Tech.
Kingwin Mach 1 ABT-700MA1S 700W on HWSecrets.
Tuniq Ensemble 1200W on TechWareLabs.
FSP Group Everest 80PLUS 700W on TechWareLabs.
Cooling:
LapLogic G800 Aerogel Extreme Notebook Cooler on HWLogic.
Zalman CNPS 9300AT CPU cooler on OCOnline.
Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler on Bjorn3D.
Cooler Master V8 on OCClub.
Misc:
Enermax Aurora Premium Keyboard & Enermax JAZZ HDD Enclosure on DriverHeaven.
AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE (Black Edition) AM2+ CPU on Guru3D.
Saturday Afternoon Reviews
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Saturday, 4-October-2008 12:40:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Input Etc:
Razer Salmosa Gaming Mouse on FutureLooks.
Lachesis Razer Mouse on Bjorn3D.
Memory & Storage:
A-DATA Vitesta Gaming DDR2-800 4GB Kit on Phoronix.
iStarUSA xAGE-N99-US External HDD Dock on HWLogic.
Cases:
Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower on OCIA.
Cooler Master HAF 932 on OCClub.
Thermaltake Spedo Advance on PureOC.
Lian Li Tyr PC-X2000 on TechSpot.
NZXT Guardian 921 Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
Video Cards:
AMD Radeon HD 4670 512MB on PCPerspective.
Gigabyte GV-R4850MC-1GH on CPU3D.
nVidia 9800GT SLI on TBreak.
IS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX on Bit-Tech.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic 512MB Factory Overclocked on ThinkComputers.
PowerColor PCS HD4670 512MB GDDR3 on XbitLabs.
HIS IceQ 4 Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 on HWZone.
Gigabyte 9800GT 512MB on Motherboards.org.
Audio / Visual:
Iiyama ProLite E2607WS 26in Monitor on TrustedReviews.
Onkyo DV-SP406 DVD Player on TrustedReviews.
ASUS My Cinema U3100Mini USB 2.0 Digital TV Receiver on LegitReviews.
Jazz Elite HDV-188 5MP HD Video Camera on BigBruin.
Samsung PN50A450 Plasma TV on DigitalTrends.
Sony Bravia VPL-VW80 SXRD Projector on TrustedReviews.
Philips HTS6100 Soundbar Home Cinema System on TrustedReviews.
Samsung SM2693HM 25.5" Widescreen Monitor on Bit-Tech.
Yubz Talk Mobile Bluetooth Handset on LegitReviews.
Software:
Pure PC game on GamePyre.
GTR Evolution PC game on GamePyre.
Google Chrome browser on InsideHW.
Friday again already?! Thanks to mpot and others for these:
     
     
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 3-October-2008 13:24:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The wreckage of Steve Fossett's plane has been found, indicating he died instantly after crashing into a mountainside. An NTSB team arrived Thursday to investigate the crash. Rosenker said investigators, based on examinations of the debris, believe that the plane struck the mountain horizontally but not necessarily head-on.
Digit-Life checked out the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 in real-life apps, focussing on how memory speed affects performance. Adobe Photoshop takes advantage of faster memory more effectively with the QX9770 processor -- twice as efficiently as with Phenom X4 9850. Alas, "twice as efficiently" in this case means just 6% versus 3%, that is very little at best.
Here's an interesting dual mobile touchscreen prototype. First of all, I wasn't interested in an ebook reader. I wanted a device that was all about writing. Sure, reading and writing go hand in hand - you encounter cool ideas and search out reference material on the web-but what I wanted to build was a tool for thought.
NVIDIA and ATI are involved in a class-action lawsuit over GPU price fixing, thanks Loop Goose. The suit alleges that NVIDIA and ATI conspired to fix prices in the GPU segment in an effort to stabilize GPU prices resulting in buyers paying more for the companies' respective products.
Another laptop thief has been sprung by remote access, thanks Sniper. Jose Caceres said he used a remote access program to log on every day and watch his computer being used, and then tipped off police, leading to the arrest of a 34-year-old male suspect.
Google have made their 2001 index available, thanks Jesta. In honor of our 10th birthday, we've brought back our oldest available index. Take a look back at Google in January 2001.
Quite a few people sent in this story about toxic fumes and Apple computers. Very interesting screenshot on that Mac. :)
HotHardware have a 9800GT face-off between Gigabyte and Palit. Both cards are clocked at the exact same level, but feature different coolers and different sized frame buffers.
Metku meanwhile have a 6-way DDR3 roundup. This time we are mainly going to concentrate on the performance of the kits, not the technology behind them. The people at CSX, Patriot, Crucial, G.Skill, Mushkin and Corsair were nice enough to join us.
If you're bored, you can put Steve Ballmer into a tutu.
GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H Review
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Thursday, 2-October-2008 18:50:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Windwithme has another detailed review - this time it's Gigabyte's GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H. This is an AM2+ motherboard based on AMD's 790GX+SB750 chipset, with built in 128MB DDR3 graphics thanks to the HD3300 GPU:
click for the thread!
Thursday Evening Reviews
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Thursday, 2-October-2008 18:14:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
4850X2 - MultiGPU Solution for Masses? on InsideHW.
Palit Radeon HD 4870 1GB Sonic Dual Edition on LegionHW.
HD 4850 / 4870 / Golden Sample and Bliss 9600 GSO Golden Sample on Digit-Life.
ASUS 9800GT Hybrid Power on TBreak.
Gainward GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB on Tweaktown.
Cases:
Antec Twelve Hundred on BenchMarkReviews.
Thermaltake V9 on HWSecrets.
Akasa Infiniti Zor on OC3D.
Lian-Li PC-60F Aluminum Chassis (Black) on CPU3D.
Cooling:
Arctic Cooling Accelero S1/S2 Turbo Module for VGA coolers on Tweaknews.
Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
NZXT Sentry LX fan controller XSReviews.
Zalman CNPS-9300 AT CPU Cooler on Bjorn3D.
Power Supplies:
Corsair HX520W on OCClub.
Tuniq Ensemble 1200W on Virtual-Hideout.
Press Releases
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Thursday, 2-October-2008 12:30:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Australia's Attorney-General has announced a new National Counter-Terrorism Alert System. “Australia is a vast country - a security situation in Perth may have no impact on the people living in Sydney or Melbourne. This more targeted system of national counter-terrorism alert will help avoid unnecessary disruptions to everyday life. It will also be more cost-effective for the private sector, which has made a substantial investment in its security arrangements,” Mr McClelland said. More info in this PDF.
SuperTalent have new cost-effective SSD's. Super Talent’s MasterDrive SSDs have become legendary for their many advantages over hard drives. MasterDrive SSDs offer five times better resistance to shock and vibration, consume less power, support a wider range of operating temperatures and altitudes, and are completely silent. The new MasterDrive LX, offered in 64GB and 128GB capacities, offers all these benefits.
Razer and Richard "Lord British" Garriot have a space charity. Apparently he's going into space this month. For every message posted on the site, Razer will make a donation of a quarter of a dollar to the Challenger Learning Center, to support its mission to create a scientifically literate population that can thrive in a world increasingly driven by information and technology.
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds. A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the spacecraft's landing site. Data show the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.
OCZ have a new HydroFlow CPU waterblock. Designed with the highest possible exchange rate between the block and coolant, the HydroFlow can be easily integrated into any enthusiast system and help efficiently lower the processor temperature.
Early Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 2-October-2008 02:18:47 (GMT +10) - by Rezin
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Mike over at Somebody Think of the Children has posted an update on the Australian Government's "clean feed" filter initiative. This is as close we have come to confirming early information that no Australian will be able to completely opt-out of the Government's clean feed.
Bit-tech have published the September entries for their Mod of the Month contest. This month's competition has a little bit of everything, from crazy wooden curves to an IKEA table - so there's a little something for everyone!
Wal-Mart will be shutting down their digital rights management servers on October 9. Those foolish or unlucky enough to purchase DRM-laced music from the store now need to burn all of their tracks to audio CDs—which, fortunately, they can buy at Wal-Mart.
Sol Trujillo is claiming that the transformation of Telstra from a telephone company in dramatic decline into a media communications company can be attributed to his arrival in 2005. Speaking in London overnight at the Financial Times Conference, Making Transformations Work, Mr Trujillo described the transformation as a work in progress but said it had already proven its success by "delivering world leading performance".
Fudzilla is reporting that Intel plans to launch a new cheap quad core on November 30th. It will launch Core 2 Quad Q8300 and this new CPU will work at 2.5GHz at FSB 1333 and it comes with 4MB cache.
Apparently sources in the game development and publishing community are suggesting that a successor to the Nintendo Wii will be on the market "by 2011." Unlike previous console transitions from Nintendo, the new system will be presented as a true successor to the Wii, and is being dubbed by those that have seen the presentation as "Wii HD."
AnandTech tested the 2.1 firmware update for the iPhone 3G to see if there was any improvement in its battery life. The 2.0 and later firmwares apparently fixed many of the source issues behind these problems, and the most recent firmware update (2.1) supposedly increased battery life. I just happened to apply that update before heading out of the house for the entirety of the day and most of the evening, so I got a reasonable chance to try it out.
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews #2
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Wednesday, 1-October-2008 17:37:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
Thermaltake VI-ON 3.5" HDD Enclosure on RBMods.
iStarUSA 2.5 & 3.5 HDD Docking Station on Hi-TechReviews.
PNY Attaché 2GB Ghostbusters Edition USB drive on XSReviews.
Thecus N3200 NAS on HWLogic.
HighPoint RocketRAID 3120 PCI-E SATA RAID Controller on Tweaktown.
IcyDock MB454SPF-B SATA 4-Bay Hot-Swap 3.5-inch Drive Bay on PCStats.
Motherboards and CPU:
AMD Phenom 8750 Black Edition AM2+ CPU on InsideHW.
ASRock AOD790GX/128M AMD 790GX AM2+ board on ThinkComputers.
Audio / Visual:
Planar PD8130 DLP Projector on TrustedReviews.
Samsung SyncMaster T220 LCD Monitor on HWZone.
Creative HS-1000 Fatal1ty USB Gaming Headset on EverythingUSB.
Thermaltake A2413 7-inch LCD on TechReport.
Altec Lansing iM600 iPod Speaker System on ThinkComputers.
Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 4 Sound Isolating Earphones on TheTechLounge.
Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray Player on OCOnline.
Soyo Pearl Series 24-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor on ThinkComputers.
Sony Bravia VPL-HW10 SXRD Projector on TrustedReviews.
Comply NR-10 Noise Isolating Earphones on TrustedReviews.
Memory:
Patriot Viper DDR3 2000MHz 2x2GB on OCClub.
Corsair DHX 4GB DDR2-800MHz on Phoronix.
Prebuilt and Portable:
Asus Eee PC 1000H Netbook on HotHardware.
Acronis True Image Echo Workstation on APHNetworks.
Power Supplies:
Corsair HX620W on TechWareLabs.
AXP Supernova 800W on DriverHeaven.
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
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Wednesday, 1-October-2008 16:00:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
ATI Radeon HD 4550 Versus EVGA GeForce 9500GT on Motherboards.org.
GeForce 9400 GT Meets Radeon HD 4550 on HWZone.
Sapphire HD 4670 on Modders-Inc.
ATI Radeon HD 4550 on NeoSeeker.
ATI Radeon HD 4550 512MB on Guru3D.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic on BenchmarkReviews.
ATI Radeon HD 4550 Entry-Level DX 10.1 GPU on HotHardware.
Force3D Radeon HD 4870 Black Edition on Tweaktown.
Cases:
Gigabyte 3D Mars on TechReport.
Thermaltake V9 on Pro-Clockers.
Antec Twelve Hundred on CaseCritics.
Cooling:
Sapphire HD4850 Dual Slot Heatsink on OCClub.
Noctua NH-U12DO Workstation CPU Cooler
OCZ Dominatrix Laser Gaming Mouse on OC3D.
Coolermaster V8 Heatsink on Frostytech.
Input Etc:
OCZ Dominatrix Laser Gaming Mouse on I4U.
OCZ Dominatrix Gaming Mouse on HWSecrets.
Logitech G9 Mouse on NGOHQ.
SilverStone Raven RVM01B Mouse on Phoronix.
Yesterday AMD announced the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 4550 and ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics cards. These are the latest additions to the award-winning ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series graphics line up. These feature-rich graphics cards deliver exceptional gaming and HD multimedia performance at value prices. Both cards are based on the same technology found in the celebrated ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series, including support for the latest DirectX® 10.1 games and superior HD multimedia capabilities.
Tom’s Hardware share part four of their Avivo HD vs. PureVideo HD analysis. In this article, we will dig deep into the performance of the first integrated high-def video accelerators—the Radeon HD 3200 (used in AMD’s 780G chipset) and the GeForce 8200 (used in Nvidia’s MCP78S chipset). Both chipsets are for AMD’s socket AM2+ CPUs, so we can perform a real apples-to-apples comparison here.
TechARP get busy with Foxconn’s BlackOps X48 Motherboard. Based on the Intel X48 Express chipset, the BlackOps is Foxconn's ultimate motherboard for the Intel LGA775 platform. They threw everything but the kitchen sink into this motherboard, making it their ultimate X48 motherboard and possibly one of the best in the market.
Legion Hardware review the latest reincarnation of Thermaltake's Big Typhoon Cooler. Recently we were able to check out the latest revision of Thermaltake’s notorious Big Typhoon cooler, known as the “BigTyp VP”. This new revision brought a few new and interesting features, while the fundamentals remained the same as the original which was released a few years prior.
BusinessWeek have compiled a list of the twenty five most influential people on the web for 2008. Each year, we turn to readers and BusinessWeek staff for the Best of the Web list, asking them to contribute names for a list of the Intern¬et's movers and shakers. Take a look at the slide show to see which people have the most impact on the Web these days.
AnandTech has published their Photokina 2008 product coverage. Developments in optics may still follow the slow and steady evolution of the past, but digital imaging is clearly a fast moving electronics market that is evolving just as fast as computer technology. Photokina is still every two years, but every two years no longer even covers new model DSLR introductions.
Trusted Reviews preview Epic’s upcoming Gears of War 2 for the Xbox 360. Even two years later, there’s little that can stand up to GoW when it comes to all out action and playability, with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune being the only title that bears comparison. So, what can Epic possibly do to make Gears of War 2 a better game than its illustrious predecessor? We find out!
Ars Technica help you in understanding Moore's Law as well as its origins. In April of 1965, Electronics magazine published an article by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. The article and the predictions that it made have since become the stuff of legend, and like most legends it has gone through a number of changes in the telling and retelling.
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