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November 2007 |
    
    
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 30-November-2007 13:49:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AusGamers have a full free download of Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction. Available now for free download, Warmonger pushes the limits of destruction technology where game environments can be shaped and manipulated by players at will. Taking full advantage of AGEIA’s PhysX card combined with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 (UE3), the powerful game mechanics combine high performance action and stunning fluid and cloth effects that reflect the cutting edge of gaming visuals and physics today. Apparently a PhysX card isn't required but if you've got one there's extra bells and whistles etc.
AMD seems to have cancelled Quad FX, more or less. The short answer is that while there are still engineering resources focused on future platform offerings that build off Quad FX, the current energy and effort has gone into programs and product initiatives like “Spider” and AMD has discontinued future planning and development of its eight-core enthusiast platform at this time.
In fact, AMD are not even in the top 10 chip manufacturers anymore, according to iSuppli Corp. "Relative to Intel, there's a little bit of a pick up from Q1, but you couldn't say there's real momentum," said Ford. I really hope AMD turn themselves around soon, we don't want a market with Intel having completely free reign and no competition.
Yahoo and Adobe are teaming up to put ads into PDFs. Josh Jacobs, Yahoo's vice president of publisher solutions, said that while the program is now limited to text, pay-per-click ads, it might be expanded to include other formats, such as graphical and rich media. Hmm, presumably superior free viewers like Foxit Reader won't be affected.
Dan is all about the saving. Why, you might innocently wonder, do so many computer games have lousy save/load features? You know the sort of thing. Save files are all 500 megabytes. Or they're not that big, but saving takes forever. Or saving's fast, but loading takes an age, unless you're close to the start of a level.
HWLogic have an interview with NVIDIA. Not known for resting on their laurels, NVIDIA recently made waves with the release of the 8800GT videocard. HardwareLogic sits down the company responsible for this spunky GPU and discuss NVIDIA's outlook on everything from AMD to physics processing, and even Lindsay Lohan!
There's apparently a new free expansion for EvE Online on the way. The release of the Trinity expansion fortifies EVE Online's position at the forefront of three-dimensional game graphics, creating a breath-taking cinematic experience during actual gameplay. In order to achieve its visual goals, CCP developed a new graphics engine, architected for Shader Model 3.0 and above. YouGamers have the hardware requirements listed here.
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 30-November-2007 02:54:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Cooler Master CM 690 on Bit-Tech.
NZXT Rogue Ultimate Gaming SFF Chassis on Virtual-Hideout.
ThermalTake Armor+ VH6000 on XSReviews.
Cooling:
OCZ Vendetta CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
OCZ Vendetta CPU Cooler on OCClub.
Power Supply:
Sirtec High Power 1000W on Bjorn3D.
Sunbeam Tuniq Mini Plant 950W on TechPowerUp.
Sparkle Power SPI220LE 80 Plus FlexATX PSU on SilentPCReview.
Storage:
Ultra Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler on OCClub.
Western Digital My Book Home Edition 1TB external HDD on DigitalTrends.
Video Cards:
MSI NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC Geforce 8800GT on PCStats.
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 512MB G92 on TweakTown.
XFX 8800GT Alpha Dog XXX Edition on GamePyre.
PlusCorp and EYO Win PCA Awards
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Thursday, 29-November-2007 12:09:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It's certainly been a rollercoaster couple of months for PlusCorp. As I mentioned about a month ago they closed down and placed the business into the hands of voluntary administrators. However, that process is now more or less complete. The business has been bought by another company and will continue to trade under the PlusCorp name. Ex-owner Nigel, who has always been the connection between PlusCorp and OCAU, will continue to be involved with PlusCorp and is very keen to continue supporting OCAU. So that's all good news.
Meanwhile of course PC Authority's Reliability and Service Awards 2007 were presented recently. You might remember that last year OCAU's sponsors dominated the awards and it seems this year has been no different. Despite their last-minute dramas PlusCorp managed to win the overall award of "Best Online Retailer". Fellow OCAU Major Sponsor EYO were a "Highly Commended" runner-up. Congratulations to them both!
click to enlarge
Full details in the latest issue of PC Authority.
Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 29-November-2007 10:50:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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HWZone have a 10-course GeForce 8800GT Feast. Doing our part to keep the buzz alive, we have taken ten GeForce 8800 GT cards and put them through our benchmarks to help you decide which is the one for you.
DriverHeaven meanwhile compared three video cards as well: XFX Geforce 8800 GT 512MB XXX, Sapphire HD 3870 512MB and Asus EAH 3870 512 MB. Our review will be covering comparisons between the 8800GT XXX, 3870, 2900 XT and stock 8800 GT using the latest games and high definition movies.
Tech-Report updated their system guide for November. The past few months have seen the release of a deluge of new PC components that offer solid value for the average enthusiast's PC—not just the high-end stuff with elaborate, snaking heatpipes and outrageous price tags, but truly affordable hardware with next-generation performance.
PC-Perspective looked at the UT3 PhysX Mod in detail. The basic idea behind the PhysX mod to the UT3 is that it allows much of level to be destroyed based on the users actions: ala firing a gun at a wall blows it up.
Digit-Life cover choosing an AM2 motherboard for a mid-range machine. To uncover the full potential of the newest quad-core AMD Phenom X4 and FX processors one should install these into Socket AM2+ boards based on AMD 790FX, 790X and 770 chipsets. However, the new processors can be installed into Socket AM2 boards as well.
LegitReviews looked at tight timings for DDR3 memory. When LR first looked at various DDR3 memory modules back in July they were running 1333MHz and had timings that ranged from 7-7-7-20 to 9-9-9-24, which didn't sound too impressive to enthusiasts. We were recently testing some new memory kits from Corsair Memory and was able to reach 4-4-4-12 timings at 1333MHz and even higher! The days of saying DDR3 can't do tight timings is long gone.
Citrix (who make remote-access solutions) reckon that 23% of Americans are working from anywhere, not just a traditional workplace, thanks Craig. More people are performing at least part of their jobs from virtually anywhere, at any hour of the day, thanks to technology that allows them to “take their office with them” wherever they go.
Thursday Morning Reviews #2
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Thursday, 29-November-2007 10:39:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Input Etc:
Razer Lachesis 4000dpi Gaming Mouse on I4U.
Logitech Wave Wireless Keyboard and Mouse on HWLogic.
Saitek P3200 Rumble Gamepad on OCClub.
Video Cards:
Gigabyte GeForce 8600GTS 256MB on Phoronix.
HIS HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Diamond Viper ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB on Tweaktown.
Leadtek PX8600 GT SLI on Bjorn3D.
MSI RX3870-T2D512E-OC (Radeon HD 3870) on HWZone.
Memory and Storage:
OCZ PC2-6400 Titanium CL3 Dual Channel Memory on OCIA.
Patriot PC2-6400LLK 4GB Memory Kit on Virtual-Hideout.
A-Data Vitesta 2GB DDR2-800 Extreme Edition on Guru3D.
Synology Cube Station CS407 4-Bay SATA Gigabit NAS network storage on BenchMarkReviews.
Vantec NexStar MX Dual HDD Enclosure on Pro-Clockers.
Misc:
Ultra m998 case on OCClub.
Apple MacBook Pro 17in laptop on TrustedReviews.
Actiontec MegaPlug AV 200 Mbps Powerline Ethernet Adapter on HotHardware.
Unreal Tournament III PC game on IGN.
Ultra Stackables peripherals on RBMods.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 29-November-2007 09:56:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
ECS A770M-A AMD 770 AM2 board on OCWorkbench.
DFI LP UT 790FX-M2R AMD 790FX AM2 board on OCWorkbench.
Cooling:
Thermalright Inferno FX-14 CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.
Noctua NF-P12 Fan on XSReviews.
Rosewill RCX-Z5 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake iXoft Notebook Cooler on TechWareLabs.
Power Supply:
PC Power Silencer 750W Quad PSU on CPU3D.
X-Spice Croon 750W on Tweaknews.
Antec NeoPower 650W on OCClub.
Audio / Visual:
Canon IXUS 860 IS digicam on TrustedReviews.
Kossart h50 Headset on TechPowerUp.
Sony Alpha DSLR-A700 digicam on DigitalTrends.
Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 Webcam on ThinkComputers.
Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick TV tuner on TheTechZone.
ASUS Xonar U1 USB Audio Station on TechGage.
Samsung YP-P2 8GB Media Player on TrustedReviews.
Scorptec PC Buildoff Winner!
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Wednesday, 28-November-2007 20:56:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Scorptec PC Buildoff Competiton was held on the weekend. Congratulations to Michael aka Warhead from our forums who is a worthy champion!
The system was assembled in just over 18mins!!! As the winner of the Scorptec 2007 PC Build Off competition, Michael gets to keep the whole PC that he built!
Specifications:- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU
- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P Motherboard
- OCZ 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) PC-6400, 800Mhz DDR2 RAM
- XFX GeForce 8800GT, 512Mb, “Alpha Dog Edition”, Dual DVI
- Seagate 250GB, 7200rpm, SATAII/300, 16Mb Cache
- Pioneer 8x/18x Dual/Single DVD Burner
- Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Keyboard/Mouse Combo
- Acer 22” Widescreen LCD, 5ms, DVI, HDCP
- NZXT Hush Black Case with Blue LED
- OCZ StealthXStream 600W PSU, SLI Ready
- Plantronics Audio 360 Stereo Headset
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate OEM
Here's some photos from the day:
    
     
So, congrats again to Warhead and thanks to Scorptec for organising a cool competition!
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 28-November-2007 13:36:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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HardOCP looked at DX9 vs DX10 in Hellgate:London and liked what they saw. Yes, the performance hit is rather stiff but it is well worth it.
ITWire are reporting that WinXP SP3 brings a speed boost, which may hurt Vista uptake. As for the speed of Vista SP1, we’ll see what the test results are when it is finally released, but for XP users, the upcoming SP3 looks like being the must-have update of the year.
Crymod have a Benchmarking Tool for Crysis available. The tool provides a robust front end to benchmarking Crysis. Provides ability to queue up many runs and will provide detailed results for each test as well as an overall summary with accurate averages. The first and foremost goals were simplicity and reliability in the tool and in the benchmark scores. Works with retail and demo.
Timbot spotted a driving simulator from Toyota who hope to eliminate traffic deaths, and a Humvee simulator that probably hopes to do the opposite. This 360-degree ultra-high-definition military simulator allows you to drive a Humvee and fire real weapons with absolute precision, including machine guns and rocket launchers, anywhere you want.
On a similar note, JC sent in this Renault safety ad which dramatically (and quite artfully) shows off their impact protection.
There's a new robot in Japan that seems to be moving us closer to "companion" machines. Twendy-One, named as a 21st century edition of a previous robot, Wendy, has soft hands and fingers that gently grip, enough strength to support humans as they sit up and stand, and supple movements that respond to human touch. It can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it, serve toast and help lift people out of bed.
We haven't heard of RAMBUS in a long time, but apparently they're still out there and are aiming for Terabyte-per-second memory bandwidth. Rather than simply increasing the clock speed of memory to achieve higher output, Rambus looks to boost bandwidth with a 32X data rate.
From Carlos: Google has plans for renewable energy to be cheaper than coal. ... "Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades," Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, said in a statement. But how about 1.21 jiggawatts!?
Pearcey5 spotted this gun-like adapter for your Wiimote. Taking it out of the box and waving it around the shopping centre is probably not a good idea. He also noticed this external HDD with PIN access and onboard keypad.
Meanwhile BAE are working on a giant railgun. Such a cannon would be able to fire at speeds in excess of Mach 7 at targets as far as 220 miles away using cheap metal slugs.
Here on OCAU we love our computer mods, and this mod of a PC inside a piano definitely pushes the boundaries of what people can convert into computers. Thanks for sending that in Steve. :)
If you're someone that buys motherboards and CPUs as gifts, then Techgage have a guide posted up on their site to help you find the best one at the right price.
The guys over at Bit-tech have a chat about the new Intel X48 chipset, that supports groovy stuff like DDR3 and PCI-Express 2.0.
Phoronix have a Newbies guide to RandR 1.2 posted up on their site. Check it out here.
Via Arena show us around the Infill G4 Car PC. Beauty meets car PC brains at the SEMA car show in Vegas. Gone are the days of hiding wires from the front dash all the way to a PC in the boot of your car and navigating Windows Media center with a wireless mouse on your lap. The Infill G4 car PC with StreeDeck software gives PCs for cars style and function all the way.
How's this for a speed bump? Would definitely fix up soccer mums that think their car is designed to drive over roundabouts, over kerbs and speed up for speed bumps.
There appears to be a lot of futuristic stuff floating about lately in the news, this being another one. We present some of the outstanding recent developments in the field of user experience design. Most techniques may seem very futuristic, but they are reality. And in fact, they are extremely impressive.
And finally we have 20 terminal commands for hidden settings in Leopard that some of you might find useful.
Cooling:
ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 Premium on XSReviews
Gigabyte Volar CPU heatsink/fan on Silent PC Review
Asus Silent Knight II CPU Heatsink on APH Networks
Thermaltake Bigwater 760i Water Cooling System on Techware Labs
Apack ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 CPU Cooler on Techgage
Gigabyte Volar on OCC
CPU:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Processor on Digit-Life
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Processor on Digit-Life
AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Black Box on Penstarsys
PSU:
Ultra X3 600W PSU on PC Perspective
Games:
Valve: Portal on Bonafide Reviews
Cars: Mater-National on I4U
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on Yougamers
Super Mario Galaxy on IGN
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga Xbox 360 on TweakTown
Frontlines: Fuel of War on IGN
Motherboard:
Asus M2A-VM HDMI: AM2 mATX motherboard on Silent PC Review
MSI K9AGM2-FIH AMD Motherboard on The Tech Lounge
Abit IX38 Quad GT Motherboard on CPU3D
RAM:
Patriot Extreme Performance DDR2 800 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400 on Overclockers Club
Display:
Samsung Syncmaster 940UX 19inch LCD Display on PCStats
Samsung HL-S6187W 61inch 1080P DLP Projection HDTV on Tweaknews.net
LG 37LF66 37in LCD TV on Trusted Reviews
Videocard:
XFX 8800GT 512MB Alpha Dog XXX Edition on Metku.net
Audio:
Philips AJ300D Docking Entertainment System on Hardware Zone
LG Muziq: on Digital Trends
Storage/Portable:
A-DATA Turbo Series 16GB SDHC Card on Tech Powerup
RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120 on Trusted Reviews
Misc:
VIZO Master Panel II on Futurelooks
Logitech G15 Keyboard V2 on Modders-Inc
Case:
NZXT Rogue SFF Gaming Case on OCIA
Thermaltake Xaser VI Super Tower Chassis on TweakTown
Apevia X-QPACK Cube Case on ChileHardware (translated)
Tuesday Morning Reviews
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Tuesday, 27-November-2007 02:10:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
4-Way Intel P35 Motherboard Overclocking Roundup on MadShrimps.
Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core QX 9650 LGA775 CPU on OCClub, our review here.
Audio / Visual:
Microsoft Zune 80GB Digital Media Player on ExtremeMHz.
Creative Gigaworks T40 speakers on RBMods.
3 Skypephone on TrustedReviews.
Video Cards:
Diamond Viper HD3850 Crossfire on OCClub.
XFX 8800 GT Alpha Dog XXX Edition on Bjorn3D.
Diamond ATI HD 3850/3870 on Motherboards.org.
ATI FireGL V7600 512MB on HotHardware.
ASUS GeForce 8800GT 512MB on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
Nanoxia Silent Case Fans on Tweaknews.
Zalman ZM-MCF2 Multi Fan Controller on Bit-Tech.
Gigabyte G-Power 2 Pro CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
Thermaltake Bigwater 760i Water Cooling System on TechWareLabs.
Cases:
Antec Performance One P182 and P190 towers on CircuitRemix.
Ultra m998 on OCrCafe.
Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 on Virtual-Hideout.
Silverstone Kublai Series KL01 on ThinkComputers.
Software:
Crysis PC game on Gamepyre.
Crysis PC game on TrustedReviews.
Power Supply:
CoolMax CUQ-1200B Modular 1200W on BenchMarkReviews.
Corsair TX750 750W on Phoronix.
Hiper HPU-4M630 on HWLogic.
Storage & Memory:
Kingston 8GB DataTraveler II+ Migo Edition on Techgage.
QNAP TS-209 Pro Turbo Station network storage on TrustedReviews.
Mushkin 4GB XP2-6400 memory on TBreak.
Crucial Ballistix 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory Kit on LegitReviews.
IBM have conjured up and are patenting a 'terrific' idea of putting ads on DVD rentals. Yes, ads that can't even be fast forwarded, unless you pay the extra and get the ad-free DVD rental. More info here, thanks for sending that in Craig!
From IntelInside: In South Korea a Boot Camp is run for young people who are not battling alcohol or drugs, but rather an addiction to cyberspace. Full article here, on NYTimes.
Bit-tech has obtained some exclusive photos of the final designs of MSI's new HydroGen waterblock that will be offered as a limited edition on some of its next generation Intel X48 boards.
Also from the guys over at Bit-Tech: DeviceVM, the maker of the Splashtop software which features embedded Linux "fast boot" products like the one used on the Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP @n has been released under GPL. We had a chat with both Asus and DeviceVM to find out where the two companies expect the software to go now that it's an open platform. Read the whole article, here.
Tweaktown check out the new Catalyst 7.11 drivers from ATI.
Phoronix have posted up the results to their 2007 Linux Graphics Survey. For the past month we had been running the 2007 Linux Graphics Survey at Phoronix where we polled users to find out what display hardware they use, what their driver choice(s) are, and their other preferences as it pertains to Linux desktop users on the visual front.
Time to update your CPU-Z if you haven't done so already. Version 1.42 has been released, offering Wolfdale/Yorkfield/Penryn CPU support, and improving the support of some of the AMD chips as well.
This is pretty cool, Craig sent in this video about these new human robotic exoskeletons that some crazy robotics company in the states (Raytheon) have designed. I want one!
Tweaktown play with the new Albatron Blue Ray Decoder Card, and yes that's Blue Ray. :)
Just spotted this case mod, if you can call it that. I present to you the 66 fans in one PC cabinet mod!.
And if your Monday evening is as boring as mine, you will probably find this article sent in by metamorphosis amusing as well. 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits. Everything from exploding testicles to prehensile penises!
Interesting Forum Threads
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Monday, 26-November-2007 21:10:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Tech Tour Intel: Gainestown Socket-B spotted in silicon debug lab in Intel Hardware.
Showcase your Mac(s) in Apple Hardware & Software.
The Dual Disk NAS Thread in Storage.
Heard a loud bang. Need help in Troubleshooting Help.
Xtreme Cooled Case Gallery in Extreme Cooling.
The Fridge in Extreme Cooling.
How did you come to case modding/overclocking? in Modding.
Creative Released PCIe X-Fi Xtreme Audio in PC Audio.
Fire Suppression System in Enterprise Computing.
Modular PSU's are abominations! in Overclocking & Hardware.
Out of the mouths of babes in Other Operating Systems.
Home made ECG - Issues with interference - guru required! in Electronics.
Gradient Map for B+W - Photoshop Tip #4 in Photography.
Largest you have printed? in Photography.
Redbull Disaster! in Photography.
WA desperately seeking IT workers in Career, Education and Finance.
The "post cool pictures of space" thread! in Science.
Post pics of your accidents in Motoring.
Climate of Hope in Current Events.
The John Howard Tribute Thread in The Pub.
Sunday Evening Reviews
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Sunday, 25-November-2007 19:06:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere vs iRhythms A491 iPod docks on TrustedReviews.
Yidsun SP-788 Bluetooth Stereo Headset on TweakTown.
SteelSeries Siberia Neckband Headset on TechPowerUp.
iSkin Cerulean X1 Noise Isolation Headphones on TrustedReviews.
M-Audio Studiophile AV40 Desktop Speaker System on Futurelooks.
Casio Exilim EX-S880 digicam on TrustedReviews.
Maximo iM-490S iMetal Earphones on LegitReviews.
Cases:
Ultra m998 Mid-Tower on Bjorn3D.
iStar S-9-H34 Elegant Storm on HWLogic.
Thermaltake DH-101 VF7001BNS HTPC case with LCD display on VelocityReviews.
Input Etc:
Ideazon Merc Stealth Illuminated Gaming Keyboard on 3DXtreme.
Razer Lachesis mouse on XSReviews.
Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave on HWZone.
Steelseries SteelPad S&S Mouse Pad on CPU3D.
Storage & Memory:
G.Skill DDR2 and DDR3 Memory Kits on Tweaktown.
Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini external HDD on Tbreak.
Forum Articles
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Saturday, 24-November-2007 17:21:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Some interesting projects from the forums:
There's also a large Quad-Core Overclocking Results thread in Intel Hardware with several interesting results.
Saturday Afternoon
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Saturday, 24-November-2007 14:51:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AGEIA have released an extreme physics mod pack for UT3. AGEIA PhysX owners will get the unique opportunity to tear up Unreal Tournament 3 through some exclusive and revolutionary new features never before seen in PC games! Bit-Tech have posted their thoughts here, and meanwhile, AMD may buy AGEIA if the price is right.
Engadget have been hands-on with the Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard. We've gotta say we're pretty impressed, the build seems as solid as a rock, the screens are crazy bright and all the glossy keys catch the light just right.
TechReport ponder the problem with enthusiast platforms in the wake of AMD's Spider launch. TechARP have a technology report on the new platform too.
Dan ponders what alternatives to Gigabyte's i-RAM exist. Gigabyte's i-RAM Solid State Drive is more than TWO YEARS old now, but it still doesn't seem to have any competition. That may explain why the price hasn't bloody dropped, either.
Digit-Life looked at some inexpensive AMD CPU coolers. The market of budget coolers for AMD processors is still saturated despite growing manufacturing costs, high competition, price erosion, and serious pressure from boxed CPUs. Thus it's time to review some new products, namely 16 coolers from ASUS, Foxconn, GlacialTech, Thermaltake, and Titan.
From Statts: The Classic Adelaide is regarded as one of the greatest road rallies for classic and marque cars in the world. It runs through the hills surrounding Adelaide and includes a twilight Prologue event in the streets of Adelaide (GP/Clipsal 500 circuit). It runs from 21-25 of November. Lots of great pics so far in the thread, with plenty more coming over the weekend!
Quite a few people are grumpy about the price of COD4 on Steam almost doubling overnight, info here and here. Still - it means that for exactly the same digital download, we're being slugged nearly twice the price of the Americans.
Meanwhile, from CeeJay: Psyconauts, one of the best games EVER, in my opinion, is FREE to play on Gametap until the end of the year. Hmm, you have to download some player thingy it seems.
News Headlines
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Saturday, 24-November-2007 14:31:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Some more headlines from Mindy:- Apple takes European Telcos Prisoner over iPhone.
- Vista Upgrade Scaring IT Help Desk Pros.
- Firefox 3 Beta 1 Arrives in Fighting Shape.
- BioWare’s new “Mass Effect” seen as a new RPG trendsetter.
- Spacewalkers Outfit Space Station's Newest Room.
- Microprocessor math bugs pose security risk, warns cryptographer.
- The immense fossilised claw of a 2.5m-long (8ft) sea scorpion has been described by European researchers.
- Inflatable Moon Base Prototype Heads to South Pole.
- NASA lifts brief ban on US Spacewalks.
Saturday Afternoon Reviews
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Saturday, 24-November-2007 13:59:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember to vote today!
Motherboard and CPU:
MSI P6N Diamond LGA775 board on HotHardware.
Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 LGA775 board on LegitReviews.
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 LGA775 CPU on HWSecrets.
Cooling:
OCZ Vanquisher and Vendetta CPU Coolers on XbitLabs.
Thermaltake T3000 passive notebook cooler on DVHardware.
Gigabyte Volar CPU Cooler on CPU3D.
Cooler Master Hyper212 CPU cooler on OCClub.
Tuniq TX-2 Thermal Compound on OCIA.
Software:
Crysis PC game on DriverHeaven.
Flight Simulator X: Acceleration PC game on YouGamers.
SimCity Societies PC game on YouGamers.
Power Supply:
Enermax Infiniti 720W SLI on OZHW.
Sunbeam Tuniq Ensemble 1200W on TechPowerUp.
Zalman ZM850-HP 850W on Virtual-Hideout.
Hiper Type-R MKII HPU-5K880 / HPU-5B680 PSUs on DriverHeaven.
Memory & Storage:
Patriot Memory PDC32G1600LLK 2GB DDR3-1600 memory on PCStats.
Adata DDR2-800+ Extreme Edition 2Gb Kit memory on CPU3D.
Four A-Data USB Flash Drives of 4GB Size on XbitLabs.
Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus 500GB External Hard Drive on Techgage.
Misc:
Cyber Snipa Dog Tags USB stick / army knife on XSReviews.
Lexmark X500n Multifunction Colour Laser on TrustedReviews.
A few more from here and there, thanks to everyone who sent these in:
     
     
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 23-November-2007 02:47:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
MSI NX8600 GT Twin Turbo on HardOCP.
AMD & PowerColor HD 3850 on InsideHW.
Motherboard and CPU:
Asus Maximus Formula & Maximus Extreme boards on Bit-Tech.
Intel E6450 Wolfdale LGA775 CPU on TBreak.
MSI P6NGM-FD LGA775 mATX board on TrustedReviews.
Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 AM2 board on SysOpt.
Audio / Visual:
Panasonic Viera TX-37LZD70 37in LCD TV on TrustedReviews.
Samsung YP-T9 Slim Portable 4GB Multimedia Player on FutureLooks.
Portable:
Rock Xtreme 770 T7800-8800 gaming laptop on TrustedReviews.
Sony PSP-2000 portable game console on I4U.
Cases:
Thermaltake Soprano DX Mid-Tower on TheTechLounge.
Hiper Anubis Mid-Tower on Techgage.
Evercool Widescreen Laptop Cooler on Virtual-Hideout.
Raidmax Aztec & Sagitta 2 (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Cooling:
Mini Thermal Paste Roundup on PCApex.
Zalman CNPS8700 LED CPU cooler on OCOnline.
Amazon's Kindle
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Thursday, 22-November-2007 15:16:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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An update to this thread reminded me about Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. I'm surprised there hasn't been more coverage about this. It was released earlier this month and sold out in a day or so. Despite its mid-80's Macintosh appearance it boasts a fairly funky "as sharp as printed text" screen technology and has wireless support for subscribing to newspapers and web browsing as well as more traditional e-book reading. I don't imagine the special features will work outside the USA yet, but it'll be interesting to see what the hackers manage to wring out of this Linux-powered gadget.
Here's a link to Amazon's Kindle page (affiliate link) with lots more details.
Sponsor Specials
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Thursday, 22-November-2007 13:01:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials Forum if you're shopping around for a good deal. In there our many sponsors have threads featuring TV tuners, MP3 players, CPUs, external HDD's, energy drinks, motherboards, CPU coolers, headphones, speakers etc. Check 'em out!
Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 22-November-2007 02:10:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Sniper noticed that the Eee PC will be available in Australia soon, with ASUS having named Myer as their outlet here. According to Asus, the company is selling a Eee PC, which a customised version of the Xandros Linux distribution, every six seconds, which equates to about 100,000 a week.
W.G.A.F sent in this 4x 1000GB hard drive roundup on TomsHardware, focussing on the new Samsung drive. With the advent of Samsung's latest product family, the Spinpoint F1, the quartet of Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Western Digital is once again complete.
IGN interviewed Graham from Auran, an Australian game developer working on an FPS/MMO called Fury. As well as talking about the past, Graham looked to the future, mentioning a few new strategies currently being worked on that should boost enjoyment of the game, and maybe see us getting some servers a bit closer to home.
Bit-Tech have posted their thoughts about the Phenom launch. On the whole then, I think you should be able to gather that I’ve not been particularly impressed with the launch of Phenom thus far, but I think that there’s definitely still time for AMD to redeem itself in the enthusiast crowd as the chip, and more importantly the technology behind the chip, matures.
PenStarSys have their thoughts up as well, but they're a bit more light-hearted. So how does Meatloaf have anything to do with AMD? I’m not entirely sure yet, but I think I can connect the dots by the time I finish writing this article.
From IntelInside: In a recent meeting in Chile, Spain’s King Juan Carlos asked Venezuela president Chavzez to shut up (¿por qué no te callas?). The spat was caught by TV cameras and is something of a YouTube sensation. The King's outburst has become a ringtone hit across Spain, downloaded by an estimated 500,000 people and generating a reported 1.5m euros ($2m).
Another Asian country may be joining the space race (following recent efforts by China and Japan): South Korea has plans to launch a lunar orbiter by 2020, thanks Mindy. The country's science ministry has announced a space 'road map', pledging to develop a rocket capable of the lunar mission within the next decade, at a cost of more than $4 billion.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 22-November-2007 01:13:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
MvixUSA MX-760HD Wireless HD Media Center on TechWareLabs.
Panasonic Viera TX-37LZD70 37in LCD TV on TrustedReviews.
iSkin Cerulean X1 Noise Isolation Headphones on TrustedReviews.
Power Supply:
Sirtec High Power 1200W on Guru3D.
AXP / Xion SuperNova 600W on TechPowerUp.
Memory:
Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600MHz on DriverHeaven.
OCZ PC2-6400 ReaperX 4GB DDR2 on Pro-Clockers.
A-DATA Extreme Edition DDR2 800+ 2x1GB on APHNetworks.
Video Cards:
AMD Radeon HD 3850 vs. Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS on LegionHW.
Sparkle 8800 GT 512MB on MadShrimps.
Storage:
Synology DS207+ Network-Attached Storage on ThinkComputers.
A.C. Ryan AluBoxTFX HDD enclosure on Bjorn3D.
VANTEC EZ Swap EX 2.5 Inch SATA Hard Drive Enclosure on FutureLooks.
Misc:
Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet input device on Techgage.
OCZ Technology Vendetta CPU Cooler on OCIA.
Gigabyte iSolo 210 case on HWLogic.
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews #2
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Wednesday, 21-November-2007 14:32:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Zalman Reserator XT liquid cooling system on XbitLabs.
Antec NoteBook Cooler S on LegitReviews.
Thermaltake Bigwater 760i Watercooling System on OCIA.
Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler on OC3D.
Jetart CoolStand 2 notebook cooler on DVHardware.
Memory:
Chaintech Apogee GT DDR2-800+ (PC2-6400) Low-Latency on Digit-Life.
OCZ PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz RAM Kit OCZ3P16002GK on BenchmarkReviews.
Patriot Memory PDC32G1600LLK 2GB DDR3-1600 kit on PCStats.
Storage:
OCZ ATV Turbo 4GB flash drive on Phoronix.
ATP Electronics ToughDrive and Petito flash drives on BigBruin.
Software:
Empire Earth 3 PC game on GamePyre.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer game on YouGamers.
Gears of War PC game on DriverHeaven.
Crysis PC game on Tweaktown.
Misc:
VIZO Master Panel II bay device on Virtual-Hideout.
Asus C90S laptop on NeoSeeker.
News Headlines
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Wednesday, 21-November-2007 13:59:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Mindy sent along a pile of news, so here they are in headlines form:
- LG phone survives sugarcane field fire, can still send and receive calls.
- Amazon launches new mobile Reader.
- Nintendo's George Harrison responds to new DS rumours.
- Flood may have been catalyst for Agriculture spreading to Europe after last Ice age.
- New British laws that could result in cloned or genetically modified babies.
- AI Guitar able to tune itself.
- "Recycling" of computer waste mainly taking toxic waste to China.
- Surfer-scientist may have cracked the theory of everything.
- "Star Eating" comet - Comet "grows" in size due to magnification effect.
- Sony cuts Game Developers prices for the PS3.
Enjoy!
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
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Wednesday, 21-November-2007 13:30:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Samsung HL-T5689S rear projection TV on DigitalTrends.
Sony Ericsson W910i Walkman Phone on HWZone.
Canon PowerShot A720 IS digicam on TrustedReviews.
SIM2 Domino D10 projector on TrustedReviews.
Samsung SyncMaster 2232GW Wide-Screen on TechGage.
Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 Studio headphones on TechPowerUp.
Creative Inspire T7900 sound card on XSReviews.
Motherboard & CPU:
Intel Celeron 420/430/440 CPUs on Digit-Life.
MSI X38 Diamond LGA775 board on TBreak.
AMD 790FX Chipset and Motherboard on HWZone.
AMD Spider platform on Bjorn3D.
Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP LGA775 board on HWLogic.
Video Cards:
Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H Radeon HD 2600 on XbitLabs.
XFX 8800 GT XXX on I4U.
NVIDIA GeForce 8800M Preview mobile GPU on HotHardware.
Cases:
SilverStone Temjin TJ10 on NinjaLane.
NZXT Alpha on TechPowerUp.
NZXT Hush on TechPowerUp.
CoolerMaster COSMOS on MadShrimps.
Antec Sonata III Midsize Tower on BonaFideReviews.
GlacialTech Altair A380 HTPC Enclosure on Virtual-Hideout.
NZTX Alpha Classic Series on ThinkComputers.
Intel QX9770 Previews
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Tuesday, 20-November-2007 18:52:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The bad news for AMD is that Intel have sucker-punched the Phenom launch, by sending out samples of their own QX9770 quad-core CPU to be unveiled on the same day. This is a chip that Intel admit won't be available until Q1 2008 and will be priced well above Phenom, but it's a pretty clear show of strength to try and crash AMD's party. This is a Penryn CPU and almost identical to the QX9650 that Chainbolt covered in his article here. The differences are a 3.2GHz core speed and a 1600MHz FSB.
Coverage on Anandtech, BootDaily, HardOCP, HotHardware, LegitReviews, NeoSeeker, PC Perspective, Techgage and Techspot.
I think Anandtech summed it up best: Intel plays dirty. But then again, why shouldn't they? Discussion in this thread in our Intel Hardware forum.
AMD's Phenom and Spider
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Tuesday, 20-November-2007 18:34:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD took the wraps off their Spider platform recently. This is based around their quad-core Phenom processors and also includes chipset and GPU products. The platform can deliver upgradeability and customization for scalable enthusiast performance, leading-edge performance and bandwidth to deliver next-generation HD experiences, and industry-leading platform performance-per-watt for flexibility and headroom.
The AMD Phenom quad-core processor is the most advanced AMD desktop PC processor, commanding four natively integrated processor cores to break system bandwidth barriers and turbo-charge performance. Enhanced features include AMD CoolCore™ technology, support for a split power plane motherboard design and the ability to set independent core frequencies.
Coverage on Anandtech, ExtremeTech, FlingingSquids, HardOCP, HardwareCanucks, Hexus, HotHardware, LegitReviews, OCWorkbench, PCPerspective, RWLabs, Tech Report (and here), TechWareLabs, TomsHardware and ZDNet.
Discussion in this thread in our AMD Hardware forum.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 20-November-2007 15:47:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A few people pointed out that there's an Australian "Top Gear" on the way. Australia is the first country in the world to secure the rights to make a local version of the show, which mixes performance cars with comedy and celebrities. It seems forum-goers aren't too confident of its success, though.
iiNet may be returning to its earlier "iiBorg" days, looking to acquire smaller ISPs again, thanks Sniper. He added: "Over the ten years to 2006 we acquired and integrated 31 ISP’s across Australia and New Zealand."
An MSN Messenger trojan is spreading rapidly. The malware is being introduced by MSN Messenger files posing as pictures, mostly seeming to come from known acquaintances.
Here's another cool steampunk laptop. This may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux.
The Hubble Space Telescope is keeping an eye on an astronomical mystery. At the end of October, Nobel Intent reported on a surprising astronomical event; periodic comet Holmes (17P) brightened over one million-fold over the course of a single day.
PureOC took a walk around the eGames & Entertainment Expo in Melbourne last weekend. The eGames expo provides a platform for manufacturers, game developers and publishers, to launch, showcase and market products in the digital entertainment industry.
SecureComputing consider how to kill deleted data for good, thanks Craig. I borrowed the camera before the wedding, removed the SD card from the camera, ran a file-recovery application and retrieved all the shots he had deleted.
Intel's Penryn CPUs
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Tuesday, 20-November-2007 05:18:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Chainbolt has taken a detailed look at Intel's Penryn processor family, concentrating on the QX9650 CPU. These are lead-free quad-core CPUs based on the 45nm "Yorkfield" architecture, with 2x6MB L2 cache, SSE4 and a swathe of other features and tweaks. This 5-page article has plenty of benchmarks, power considerations and overclocking:
click for the article!
Monday Night Reviews
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Monday, 19-November-2007 23:39:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Input Etc:
Logitech G11 Keyboard on ReviewSpring.
Microsoft 69R-00001 Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 on BenchMarkReviews.
Coolermaster Dual-Sided Mouse Pad on CPU3D.
Audio Visual:
Alph Jawbone Bluetooth Headset on LegitReviews.
Philips HTS8100 Soundbar DVD System on TrustedReviews.
Creative Gigaworks T40 2.0 Speakers on TrustedReviews.
Cases:
APEVIA X-JUPITER S-Type Full Tower on Modders-Inc.
Antec Performance One P190 tower on NordicHW.
Cooling:
Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler on OCIA.
Ultra 3.5" Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler on RBMods.
Ultra Products Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler on OCIA.
Cooler Master's Hyper TX2 & 212 Heatsinks on Bit-Tech.
Storage:
Synology DS-107+ SATA NAS Server on Pro-Clockers.
Western Digital RE2 750GB Hard Drive on Tweaktown.
Synology DiskStation DS207+ Dual Drive SATA NAS Server on FutureLooks.
Adata FP1 Fingerprint USB Flash Drive (1Gb) on CPU3D.
Software:
F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate on Bit-Tech.
Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Candidate Release Preview on TechARP.
Mythbuntu 7.10 MythTV distro on Phoronix.
Jericho PC game on DriverHeaven.
Misc:
SMC EliteConnect Wireless Hotspot Gateway on TrustedReviews.
TakeMS Mach2 1066MHz 2GB Kit memory on InsideHW.
Asus P5E X38 LGA775 motherboard on XbitLabs.
Inno3D GeForce 8800 GT Overclocked Edition video card on OCrCafe.
Monday Morning
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Monday, 19-November-2007 02:31:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Not much going on out there it seems..
There's an unpatched Firefox exploit which can make your Gmail vulnerable, thanks Timbot. The vulnerability, which is still in the wild some 10 days after its discovery on gnucitizen.org, allows hackers to access Google accounts, including Gmail, with cross-site scripting attacks.
An Abu Dhabi firm has taken an 8.1% stake in AMD. AMD plans to use the cash to invest in "research, product innovations and manufacturing excellence." The Business Review reports that some of the funds will be channeled into a $3.2 billion USD chip plant on the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta, NY.
A few people sent word that there's free Krispy Kreme donuts on offer for registered votes the day after the election. Krispy Kreme will invite voters to make a gold coin donation to The Salvation Army Youth Services on Sunday 25 November as part of the Free Krispy Kremes for Australia Policy.
Check out this intricate carved wooden PC on a (very slow) Russian site. Not really to my taste but you can appreciate the effort that's gone into it.
A couple of links from SSJX: a Laptop Mod and how to electrocute your hot dog.
Google may be gearing up to bid billions on a part of the wireless spectrum. Of course, the plans for the 700MHz spectrum may be far beyond a simple mobile handset -- due to the ability of the frequency to travel long distances with relatively little power, it could be used to provide rural areas with broadband Internet access.
Sunday Morning Reviews
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Sunday, 18-November-2007 00:58:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Asus Tritonn 75 CPU cooler on TBreak.
Nexus LXM-8200 CPU Cooler on TechWareLabs.
Audio / Visual:
SteelSeries Siberia Neckband Headset on Bit-Tech.
Sapphire HD 3850 video card on OCClub.
Memory:
Patriot Memory PDC32G1866LLK 2GB DDR3-1866 Memory Kit on PCStats.
A-DATA Vitesta Extreme Edition DDR2-800 2GB Memory Kit on PCStats.
OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Titanium with XMP on Tweaktown.
Kingwin Z1 Series SATA Hard Drive Enclosure on OCIA.
Software:
Microsoft Windows Home Server on TheTechLounge.
Crysis PC game on YouGamers.
Misc:
Silverstone GD01 and LC17 HTPC Cases on SilentPCReview.
Corsair TX750W PSU (video review) on 3DGameMan.
abit IP35 Pro "Off Limits" (Intel P35) motherboard on HWZone.
Saturday Morning
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Saturday, 17-November-2007 03:11:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Japan's lunar orbiter has returned some more cool footage, this time a view of Earth-rise and Earth-set. The KAGUYA successfully shot high-definition images of the Earth-rise showing an impressive image of the blue Earth which was the only floating object in pitch-dark space. These are the world's first high-definition earth images taken from about 380,000 km away from the earth in space.
Xbit tested thirty 250GB hard drives. HDDs with a storage capacity of 250 gigabytes currently have the most optimal price/performance ratio. Hmm, not sure if that's still true in the Australian market.
Scott spotted this smudge-free computer screen on the way. LG Philips LCD said the thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel allows easy removal of dust, smudges, fingerprints and even permanent ink.
Georgia Tech researches have worked out a user interface that uses blowing. Stop sniggering. Once installed, users can puff on either side of the screen in order to scroll left / right, icons can be selected depending on the fierceness of the puff and games could integrate the technology in to add another level of interactivity. Sure, until you get all light-headed and wobbly.
Valve have released their latest hardware survey results, which gives an interesting snapshot of gamer PCs. Interesting that the 2nd most common resolution is still 1024 x 768.
TechARP have info on AMD's Spider platform, while Phoronix say there's another GPU documentation release from them soon. Their first batch of documentation covered the basics for the RV630 and M56 GPUs and was released freely to the public without any Non-Disclosure Agreement!
Anandtech cover the new 65nm Xbox360 update. A move to 65nm would undoubtedly reduce power consumption, potentially make the console quieter and obviously make it cheaper to produce. With the Xbox 360 there's also another side effect that many surmised would result from a move to 65nm: increased reliability.
Saturday Morning Reviews
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Saturday, 17-November-2007 01:56:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
ECS P35T-A LGA775 board on Virtual-Hideout.
ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 r5.0 LGA775 board on Pro-Clockers.
Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 Phenom board on OCWorkbench.
Audio / Visual:
LG L226WTQ LCD monitor on ReviewSpring.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100 digicam on TrustedReviews.
Y-CAM White & Black IP Cameras on TrustedReviews.
Video Cards:
ASUS Extreme Radeon HD 3870 on TechSpot.
ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series (and CrossFire pictures) on LegitReviews.
Sapphire HD 3870 on OCClub.
HIS Radeon HD3870 Review & Crossfire Performance Preview on HWCanucks.
Powercolor HD3850 Extreme PCS on OC3D.
PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 Xtreme 512MB on HWZone.
Storage & Memory:
Patriot PDC24G6400LLK DDR2-800 4GB Memory Kit on PCStats.
Kingwin KF-4000-BK 4-Bay Hot Swap SATA Drive Rack on BigBruin.
Seagate Momentus 7200.2 160GB 2.5" hard drive on SilentPCReview.
Icydock MB663 2.5-inch Internal / External Hard Drive Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
A-DATA Classic PD18 2GB flash drive on Phoronix.
Cases:
Cooler Master CM690 on BleedinEdge.
Sunbeamtech Quarterback Mid-Tower on OCIA.
Apevia X-Jupiter Junior S Type on Modders-Inc.
Cooling:
Titan Vanessa L/type CPU cooler on BleedinEdge.
Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound on HWLogic.
Zalman CNPS8000 CPU & VF900-Cu GPU Cooler on PCApex.
Software:
Crysis on Bit-Tech.
Unreal Tournament 3 Performance Preview on XbitLabs.
Tabula Rasa MMO game on YouGamers.
Input Etc:
FUNC F-Series Mousing Surface on CircuitRemix.
Logitech G9 Laser Mouse on DigitalTrends.
Cyber Snipa PC Gamepad 2 on XSReviews.
Misc:
Mojo Energy Mints on ATrueReview.
Glacial Power 550W PSU on TechWareLabs.
A few people are reporting in this thread that they've seen the Google Maps "street view" vehicle around Australia, so perhaps we'll have our very own privacy concerns soon. ;)
The Australian guy arrested for uploading the Simpsons movie to the internet after recording it in a cinema with his mobile phone has been fined $1000 AUD. His lawyer, Ken Stewart, told the court Duarte had twice tried to upload the film onto the internet after he had seen it on July 26, but thought he had been unsuccessful.
Futurelooks consider how video games can actually make you fitter nowadays. Here are five areas or trends where we have experienced the merging of video games and exercise.
HWSecrets cover nVIDIA's Tesla, their general purpose GPU computing technology. These "video cards" feature GeForce 8800 GPUs but they do not produce video: they are targeted to be used as CPUs, processing programs. In this article we will tell you everything you need to know about Tesla, including a lot of pictures of Tesla solutions.
MadShrimps had fun overclocking a GeForce 8600 GT. In this article we focus on squeezing every extra frame from a Geforce 8600 GT video card, applying volt modifications and extreme cooling to scale the performance to the maximum.
Digit-Life have an article about GeForce G8x performance in modern games. Unfortunately, our plans never got to the first base - G80's hardware performance counters didn't work with some shader units disabled. So we decided not to trash our test results and use them in a brief comparative analysis of performance and some other parameters of modern 3D games.
Bit-Tech have a Penta PC mod. Our hard-rocking modder, Wolverine, is back - this time with a whole new style. He's headed to us with a wall-mounted HTPC that's 1kg of components, 10kg of acrylic and 100kg of awesome detail cuts. So step in and check it out!
The "Colossus" code-breaking machine from WWII will race a modern computer in breaking Nazi codes soon. The finished Colossus is to be pitted against a contemporary general-purpose PC in a code-breaking race. The raw fodder for the race is a set of messages encrypted using Nazi ciphers and transmitted by amateur radio enthusiasts in Germany.
Today's timewaster is from elementalelf, it's a reaction time tester where you avoid being shot in the head. :)
Friday Morning Reviews #2
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Friday, 16-November-2007 02:50:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
AMD ATI Radeon 3850 & 3870 on Guru3D.
ATI Radeon HD 3850 CrossFire on LegitReviews.
Sapphire HD 3870 on OCClub.
PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 Xtreme on NGOHQ.
AMD Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 on TechReport.
Powercolor HD3850 Extreme PCS on OC3D.
Portable:
Gateway C-140 laptop on DigitalTrends.
Palm Treo 500v PDA on HWZone.
Input Etc:
Razer Lachesis mouse on TechPowerUp.
Microsoft SideWinder mouse on Metku.
Logitech MX Air mouse on DriverHeaven.
Logitech G9 Laser Mouse on APHNetworks.
VidaBox Wireless Media Keyboard on Techgage.
Storage:
Thermaltake Max 4 Active Cooling Enclosure on TechPowerUp.
Seagate Barracuda 1TB ES.2 HDD on Bjorn3D.
Cooling:
XSPC X2O Watercooling Kit on CPU3D.
Thermaltake MaxOrb CPU Cooler on TecWareLabs.
Misc:
Ultra Stackables perhipherals on ExtremeMHz.
Logitech KINETIK 15.4 Backpack on DigitalTrends.
Abit IP35 Pro LGA775 board on TrustedReviews.
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 16-November-2007 02:37:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases & Modding:
ThermalTake DH102 HTPC Case on XSReviews.
Aerocool Easywatch Front Panel Display bay device on Pro-Clockers.
Gigabyte 3D Mars case on CPU3D.
Xoxide X-Purity LCD Edition Case on RBMods.
SilverStone TJ09 case on OCOnline.
SilverStone TJ10 case on Motherboards.org.
Power Supply:
ABS Tagan ITZ Series 1300W on PCPerspective.
Tuniq Miniplant 950W on Pro-Clockers.
Audio / Visual:
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS on TrustedReviews.
Rosewill RDF-670B 7" Widescreen Digital Photo Frame on BigBruin.
Microsoft Zune 8GB mp3 player on DigitalTrends.
Fatman iTube ValveDock iPod amplifier on TrustedReviews.
iN Studio 5.0 Smart Speakers on TechWareLabs.
AMD ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe x1 TV tuner (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Toshiba HD-EP30 HD DVD Player on TrustedReviews.
LG L204WT 20.4-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor on ThinkComputers.
Software:
Hellgate London on GamePyre.
Unreal Tournament III Preview on TrustedReviews.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on Bit-Tech.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on TrustedReviews.
Race 07 on GamePyre.
Conflict: Denied Ops preview on YouGamers.
AMD's ATI Radeon HD 3800
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Thursday, 15-November-2007 16:40:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD unveiled their ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series GPUs today. As the world’s first series of graphics processors to deliver Microsoft’s DirectX® 10.1 support, 55nm process technology and tri and quad multi-GPU support with ATI CrossFireX™, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series ushers in a new era of enthusiast gaming performance at mainstream price points.
More info on Anandtech, HardOCP, HotHardware, LegionHW, OCWorkbench, PCPerspective, Technic3D and Tweaktown.
There's an enormous HD 3800 thread here in our Video Cards forum.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 15-November-2007 16:23:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS4 LGA775 board on Virtual-Hideout.
Jetway PA77GTA-VT Phenom board on OCW.
ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP@n LGA775 board on InsideHW.
ASUS Blitz Formula (SE) LGA775 board on PCModdingMy.
Abit IP35 Pro LGA775 board on TrustedReviews.
Storage:
Thecus N5200 Pro NAS network storage on Tweaktown.
Seagate 7200.11 1TB HDD on Bjorn3D.
Scythe Kama Connect 2 HDD to USB adapter on NGOHQ.
Antec Veris MX-1 Actively Cooled Hard Drive Enclosure on FutureLooks.
AirLive WMU-6500FS Wireless HDD on HWLogic.
OCZ ATV Turbo Flash 4GB on Virtual-Hideout.
Cooling:
GlacialTech Igloo 5710 Slient and PWM Heatsinks on OCIA.
Thermaltake V1 CPU cooler on TechWareLabs.
Swiftech Apogee Ultimate Liquid Cooling Kit on Motherboards.
Gigabyte Volar CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Thermalright SI-128 SE Heatsink on OCIA.
Jetart ThermoEye temp probe on DVHardware.
Thermalright HR-11 VGA Cooler on Modders-Inc.
Video Cards:
Gainward 8600GT on XSReviews.
Asus EN8600GT Silent/HTDP/512M on SilentPCReview.
ASUS EN8600GTS SILENT on Tweak.dk.
Gigabyte GeForce 8500 GT 256MB on SharkyExtreme.
PNY GeForce 8600GT 512MB on OCClub.
Inno3D GeForce 8800 GT OC on TechSpot.
Inno3D GeForce 8800 GT 512MB the OC edition on Guru3d.
Wednesday Evening
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Wednesday, 14-November-2007 20:10:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Turns out that Australia and NZ got Crysis three days before the USA and Europe. Despite some folks' expectations to the contrary, Crysis reportedly features an immersive storyline as well as very solid, open-ended, and fun gameplay. "Crysis is about the gameplay. It's about being put in the middle of a dense jungle, being given an objective, and being told, 'Get there however you want.'" IGN have a review too.
Tweaktown wonder if 3G mobile internet will work on a 300km/h train. It only claims to work at up to around 150km/h, which is faster than most situations where this device would be used. What happens though when we fire it up on Taiwan’s new High Speed Rail trains which burn their engines at up to 300km/h?"
They also have a four-way thermal interface material roundup. Today we have two more products to add to the list of those who want your TIM dollars, A.I. Technologies and Tuniq (a subsidiary of Sunbeam). Both have TIM products that are making the same bold claims we have already been hearing, so it is time for a little direct comparison.
From Phil: It seems that Autopatcher is back in Beta with a Beta release available. Also, one of the posts mentions a similar product which from my initial testing appears to be as good if not better. Called ‘Offline Update’ – have to find the English translations on the site, but so far so good.
Sniper spotted this cool exploded iPod sculpture, where the iPod still works. The bubbles happened during a mistake on my last pour, but a lot of people have now told me they like the serendipitous addition.
The Folding@Home blog has info on some new GUI and GPU clients. Remember, OCAU's folding team is team 24, still #2 in the world rankings.
Dymocks are embracing ebooks. Digital touch screen kiosks have been installed in the Dymocks flagship store at 428 George Street in Sydney to market the ebook range and teach customers how to download them. Within months people will be able to walk into the store with a memory card and buy ebooks directly from the kiosk. Meanwhile, here's 20 places to get some public domain ebooks, free and legal, to see if you like the idea.
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 14-November-2007 14:55:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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People are saying Crysis has been out and about for a couple of days in pre-order downloads, postal deliveries and even in some shops. So if you can, go find it and kiss your weekend goodbye. :)
Gary spotted an interesting plan for Darwin, the southern hemisphere's most advanced computer lab. Microsoft Northern Territory and Pacific Islands manager Andrew Hodges said the facility would be like having "NASA in your backyard".
Unix points out that ZoneAlarm AntiSpyware is available free for today only. Discussion thread here.
Cameron reckons the PS3 will be getting DivX support soon. "We are excited to work with Sony Computer Entertainment to bring DivX to PS3," said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. More info here.
HWZone have a Barcelona vs Clovertown vs Harpertown showdown. Barcelona was supposed to redeem AMD of all its woes in the highly competitive CPU industry. So where does this much hyped CPU stand today amongst the Intel Xeon (Clovertown) machines and that of the upcoming 45nm Intel Xeon (Harpertown) based machines? We reveal it all in this three-way showdown article.
XbitLabs meanwhile have a Topower Power Supply Units Roundup. Topower is a popular manufacturer. Besides making a wide range of PSUs for such brands as Tagan, BeQuiet, Mushkin and OCZ, the company is promoting its own brand, offering boxed PSUs of varying wattage and functionality. Today we are going to review 9 solutions from Topower ranging from 500W to 800W.
HardOCP were not impressed with a recent DX10 update to Lord of the Rings Online. Like World of Warcraft and similar online games, when the patch goes live across all servers you must update the game to this new patch before you can play. Therefore this patch is mandatory if you wish to play.
Phoronix ponder the new ATI Linux drivers. It's been nearly seven months since I wrote my first article about ATI drivers and how they literally crippled my computer and my daily life. Last month, ATI had finally released their latest drivers which contains the new OpenGL component and AIGLX support. Was this release worth the amount of hype and did it solve everyone's problems? For me, simply, no.
Paul sent word that Volantis is going open source. Volantis, a specialist in making the same content work on every mobile phone, is open sourcing its server, allowing anyone to download and run their content-optimising system for free. The Mobility Server: Community Edition is initially available as a free binary, with source code to follow next year under the GPL. It's the same package used by Volantis customers around the world to modify content to suit the connecting device.
LegionHW looked at GeForce 8800 GT SLI Performance. While there are quite a number of different factors that need to be considered, such as price, operating temperatures, and noise levels, we must first establish if SLI 8800 GT graphics cards are a viable solution in terms of performance. Having tested with a total of nine games, some new and some not so new, we can now put all of this into perspective.
Dan has more letters. In this edition: Underweight D batteries, a poor projector purchase, product-shot cameras and electrocution on the open road.
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
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Wednesday, 14-November-2007 13:16:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
BenQ W10000 - 1080p DLP Projector on TrustedReviews.
Vantec NBA-100U 5.1 Channel USB Audio Adapter on BigBruin.
Honestech My-IPTV&CAM Anywhere Deluxe IPTV/Webcam package on Techgage.
Edifier M3400 2+1 Speaker System on NinjaLane.
Asus Xonar U1 Dolby USB Sound Card on EverythingUSB.
Planar PD7060 Projector on TrustedReviews.
Software:
Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East PC game on YouGamers.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare PC game on TrustedReviews.
ET Quake Wars Limited Collectors Edition PC game on Gamepyre.
The Witcher PC game on DriverHeaven.
Time Shift PC game on DriverHeaven.
Power Supply:
Enermax Galaxy EGX850EWL 850W Modular on PCStats.
Antec TruePower Quattro 1000W on Hi-TechReviews.
Cases:
Cooler Master CM690 Mid-Tower on Modders-Inc.
Ultra m998 Mid Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Tagan APLUS El-Diablo Tower on OZHW.
Video Cards:
BFGTech GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB on Bit-Tech.
Input Etc:
Razer DeathAdder Laser Mouse on CPU3D.
Logitech G15 2007 Programmable LCD Gaming Keyboard on BenchMarkReviews.
Unix pointed out that you can get a free copy of CA Internet Security with 3 licenses, by doing a Commonwealth Bank security quiz online. Discussion here.
DriverHeaven checked out the Visiontek 2600 XT QUAD 1GB video card. Well before you close the window, this is no ordinary 2600XT, Visiontek's new "Quad" 2600XT is basically two cards in crossfire, slapped together with a mighty 1 GB of ram! Hardware video acceleration and the ability to power four 2560x1600 monitors certainly deserves some attention, right?
Craig sent word of a self-destructing USB key. “Being encrypted, people can’t perform brute force attacks and if anyone tries to break the password it seriously does self-destruct. After ten failed attempts it will shred all the info on the flash drive and no one can retrieve the programme,” said Ross. More info here, discussion thread here.
From Bangers: Hi guys, thought the readers might like to check out this video of a hack for the Nintendo Wii that allows you to manipulate the Wii interface Minority Report style.
IBM are apparently planning a new supercomputer based on Cell processors and chips from AMD. Roadrunner, which will be delivered to the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in summer 2008, will be capable of performing more than a quadrillion operations, or a petaflop, when it's fully operational. IBM helped design and build the Cell chip and has been looking for ways to expand its commercial potential.
mpot and Craig both spotted this story about new hard drives shipping with trojans onboard. About 1,800 brand new 300-GB or 500-GB external hard drives made for Maxtor in Thailand were found to have trojan horse malwares pre-installed (autorun.inf and ghost.pif).
Phoronix compared the performance of Ubuntu 7.10 and Fedora 8, new versions of two popular Linux distros.
Timbot spotted an article about online poker bots. The same group at Alberta has just shown that their Polaris program is on the verge of taking down poker professionals. In the recent “Man vs. Machine” Poker Championship, Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami barely beat Polaris two sessions to one (with one a virtual draw). After the tournament, Laak candidly acknowledged that “the bots are closing in.”
RE sent in a timewaster with a good cause: freerice.com, an online vocabulary game which apparently donates rice for every correct answer. 260 grains from me so far. Go go vocab! Update: there's a thread about it here.
Tuesday Morning Reviews #2
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Tuesday, 13-November-2007 02:39:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio / Visual:
20inch LCD Comparison: H20 20.1 & Samsung 204B on MadShrimps.
Asus PG221 LCD Screen on RBMods.
Apple iPod Touch 16GB on HWZone.
Creative Zen 4GB MP3 player on TBreak.
Pantone huey Monitor Color Correction-Calibrator on MadShrimps.
Plantronics Voyager 520 Bluetooth Headset on BlueTomorrow.
Cases:
Zalman Z-Machine GT1000 High End Gaming Enclosure on TweakNews.
Thermaltake DH-101 HTPC Case on TechPowerUp.
Cooling:
Titan G5T Notebook Cooling Pad on OCClub.
Zalman CNPS8700 NT CPU Cooler on OCIA.
EnzoTech Sapphire CPU Water Block on Virtual-Hideout.
Misc:
Billion BiGuard S20 VPN Gateway on TrustedReviews.
Super Talent PC3-14400 DDR3 1800MHz W1800UX2GP memory on BenchMarkReviews.
PC Doctor Diagnostic Test Kit on Phoronix.
Ultra Products Stackables storage and other gadgets on OCIA.
Steelseries Steelpad Qck Mouse Pad on CPU3D.
Gears of War PC game on YouGamers.
Microsoft Webcam and Mouse Mobility Pack on FutureLooks.
Tuesday Morning Reviews
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Tuesday, 13-November-2007 01:52:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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CPUs:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core Processor on Guru3D.
Intel Core 2 Evolves - QX9650 45nm Penryn CPU on Tweaktown.
Storage:
Western Digital's RE2-GP hard drive on TechReport.
Synology Disk Station DS207 NAS network storage on TechWareLabs.
Kingston DataTraveler ReadyFlash USB Flash Drive 1GB on CircuitRemix.
QNAP TS-109 Pro All-in-one NAS Server on ThinkComputers.
Power Supply:
PC Power and Cooling Silencer 610 on HWLogic.
Antec NeoPower 650 Blue on Pro-Clockers.
Tuniq Ensemble 1200W on OCrCafe.
Video Cards:
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT on LegitReviews.
MSI RX2600XT Diamond Plus on HotHardware.
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT on TechARP.
Monday Morning
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Monday, 12-November-2007 00:49:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a new OpenGL benchmark: Lightsmark. Before Lightsmark, realtime global illumination was limited to small scenes, small resolutions, small speeds, specially crafted scenes with handmade optimizations. Lightsmark breaks all limits at once, running in reasonably sized scene (220000 triangles) in high resolution (1680x1050) at excellent speed (100-400fps).
Check out this cool-looking helmet that pilots of the Joint Strike Fighter will be wearing. Pilots flying the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will have an astonishing array of technology encasing their heads - enabling them to see right through their own aircraft fuselage to the ground below. Australia will apparently be receiving up to 100 JSF's from 2013 onward.
Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency have provided the world's first high-definition footage of the Moon. The first shooting covered from the northern area of the "Oceanus Procellarum" toward the center of the North Pole, then the second one was from the south to the north on the western side of the "Oceanus Procellarum." The moving image data acquired by the KAGUYA was received at the JAXA Usuda Deep Space Center, and processed by NHK. There's a video on the linked page.
Developing nations can now enjoy the same productivity-crippling slacking off that we do, because EA will be putting SimCity on the OLPC for free. "'SimCity' is entertainment that's unintentionally educational. Players learn to use limited resources to build and customize their cities. There are choices and consequences, but in the end, it's a creativity tool that's only limited by the player's imagination," said Steve Seabolt, vice president of global brand development for the Sims label.
Engadget had a play with Samsung's 64GB SSD. They seem to be coming along nicely, but not quite there yet. Won't be long now tho. Once we switched over from cleanroom drive tests to formatted drives running operating systems, though, the FlashSSD started to mop the floor with its platter-based counterpart. In Xbench it doubled sequential and random uncached read and write speeds over the platter drive in most cases, topping out at about 52MBps read / 32MBps write.
A Chinese submarine recently popped up in the middle of a U.S. Navy exercise, leaving them a little red-faced. One Nato figure said the effect was "as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik" - a reference to the Soviet Union's first orbiting satellite in 1957 which marked the start of the space age.
Microsoft have launched a licensing system for PC refurbishers, thanks Craig. Windows XP Home for Refurbished PCs and Windows XP Professional for Refurbished PCs are the two operating systems available and the PCs that are being refurbished need to have a Certificate of Authenticity.
Ambush spotted 40 free fonts over on SmashingMagazine. Some exceptional free fonts; some are even Public Domain or licensed under GNU GPL.
Bit-Tech interviewed Mark Rein about PS3, PhysX, DX10 etc, while DriverHeaven talk to the president of content relations at NVIDIA about the "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" program.
From LinX: In case this hasn't been posted before, I've spotted a remake of Wing Commander Privateer. Information can be found here. They have Windows, Linux and Mac Ports. This was like my favourite game the best parts of 13 years ago.. rofl. Seems to be free, too.
Here's a few photos people have sent in. Firstly some unusual roads from BP:
   
 
VooDoo of course sent in this V8 BBQ:
   
Paul sent these with a story: They apparently had an engine fire (cause unknown so far) and lost all hydraulics and electrics on the left side. To make things worse, when they went in to do an emergency landing they got an unsafe light on the nose landing gear. The Pilot had to execute a single engine go-around on the right engine only, with the left engine still well and truly on fire. All this and airline management the world over still insist that Aircraft Mechanics and Pilots are both underworked and overpaid.
  
Finally Darth Kitty from RnR and an airport computer from Alex: I took this photo yesterday at Hanoi International Airport. They are still using 486s for the Flight Info boards. This one looks like its missing it's Master Boot Record.
 
Sunday Morning Reviews #2
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Sunday, 11-November-2007 02:00:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 LGA775 CPU on TBreak.
Gigabyte X38-DQ6 LGA775 board on Pro-Clockers.
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L LGA775 board on OCClub.
Gigabyte GA-X38 DQ6 LGA775 board on CPU3D.
MSI X38 Diamond LGA775 board on CPU3D.
Software:
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare PC game on Virtual-Hideout.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare PC game on Tweaktown.
Memory:
Aeneon XTUNE DDR3-1333 (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Crucial Ballistix 12800 DDR3 2GB Kit on XSReviews.
Kingston HyperX KHX9600D2K2/2G DDR2 2GB Kit on TrustedReviews.
OCZ Platinum PC3-12800 Enhanced Bandwidth 2x1GB DDR3 on APHNetworks.
Misc:
Asus EN8600GT OC Gear 256MB video card on PCPerspective.
Delphi NAV300 Portable GPS Navigation System on FutureLooks.
Samsung SGH-F500 Ultra Video Mobile Phone on TechARP.
Ultra's X3 600W & 1,000W PSUs on Bit-Tech.
Sunday Morning Reviews
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Sunday, 11-November-2007 00:38:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Zaward Twin Towers chipset cooler on XSReviews.
Audio / Visual:
Meizu M6 Mini Player on ThinkComputers.
Nokia 5310 XpressMusic music mobile phone on HWZone.
Samsung SGH-F500 Ultra Video Mobile Phone on TechARP.
Samsung SyncMaster 245T monitor on TrustedReviews.
Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin iPod speakers on DigitalTrends.
Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC Wide-Screen LCD monitor on Techgage.
ViewSonic VA1930WM 19-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor on ThinkComputers.
Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 and ASUS Xonar D2 sound cards on DriverHeaven.
Sony Alpha 700 Digital SLR camera on TrustedReviews.
Storage:
Synology Disk Station DS-207+ SATA Gigabit NAS network storage on BenchmarkReviews.
Saints Row PC game on GamePyre.
Klegg NetDisk MEGA NDAS network storage on TechWareLabs.
OCZ ATV Turbo 4GB flash drive on TechPowerUp.
SimplteTech SimpleDrivePS 160GB Portable HDD on HWLogic.
ATP ToughDrive mini flash drive on OCOnline.
Saturday Morning
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Saturday, 10-November-2007 03:05:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Bit-Tech cover colour depth. Which to choose, which to choose...higher is better, right? And so we all flip to 32-bit, convinced that we're seeing the best that our computers can offer. We are...aren't we?
Apparently Microsoft pirates are targeting Australia, thanks Craig. Brian Williams, senior regional investigator at Microsoft APAC said US and Canada are also popular markets but Australia has emerged as a prime target.
Next time you sit on the couch watching MythBusters, you might be learning how to save someone's life. Australian company Beyond Productions, producer of MythBusters, said it plans to present Julian a "hero pack" in honour of his good deed.
Here's a cool new ad for Guinness. Shot in an Argentinian mountainside village, it features a game of dominoes which escalates to include suitcases, tyres, oil drums, fridges, wardrobes and cars.
AMD have a new stream processing platform. The FireStream 9170 features up to 500 GFlops, or 500 billion floating point operations per second. AMD's second generation stream processor is built with a 55 nanometer manufacturing process and consumes less than 150 watts of power. The processor is a single-card product with 2Gbytes of onboard GDDR3 memory to compute large datasets without CPU traffic.
MOS spotted this brain-hurting article about learning a new language in an hour by deconstructing it. During my thesis research at Princeton, which focused on neuroscience and unorthodox acquisition of Japanese by native English speakers, as well as when redesigning curricula for Berlitz, this neglected deconstruction step surfaced as one of the distinguishing habits of the fastest language learners.
From daztay: Here some old footage of early computers. The following is the first military defense computer, it was so advanced that it had a "display screen" which is a cross between a radar and tv. IBM on guard! 1956 also IBM 704 playing chess.
Next time you get beaten at chess, you could well be entitled to punch your opponent in the face, assuming you're playing the growing sport of "Chessboxing". "What a king hit!" "Ooh, he's got a wicked left rook." Hmm, what other good sports combinations could there be? Perhaps origami while racing an F1 car. The juggling marathon. Pole-vault table-tennis. Sadly it's alternate rounds of chess and boxing, probably to avoid getting a queen in the eye.
Tech-Hounds have a P35 motherboard roundup for your LGA775 CPU. We'd take a look at both DDR2 and DDR3 motherboards, which include the ASUS P5K3 and P5K Deluxe, Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 and P35-DS3P, MSI P35 Diamond, P35 Platinum and P35 Neo.
Craig sent word of a fake anti-spyware scam which has tricked thousands of victims. Apparently this "Russian Business Network" has gone offline but may re-appear again elsewhere, thanks Paul.
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 9-November-2007 13:07:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Toshiba Regza 42Z3030D 42in LCD TV on TrustedReviews.
Geeks Wireless Infrared Color Cameras and Receiver on RBMods.
Freecom MusicPal Wi-Fi Internet Radio on TrustedReviews.
V-Moda Bass Fréq Headphones on TrustedReviews.
10.4" TFT LCD Digital Photo Frame on OCIA.
NETGEAR SPH200D DECT Skype Phone on Tweaktown.
Soundgraph Moneual Labs IMON Ultra Bay W/ Remote Control bay device on Tweaknews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
MSI GX600 Gaming Notebook (Intel Santa Rosa) on HWZone.
Apple iPhone mobile phone on TrustedReviews.
Uberclok Reaktor prebuilt pre-overclocked PC on DriverHeaven.
Jetart NP8000 Portable and Cool Stand 2 Notebook Coolers on FutureLooks.
Intel Classmate PC prebuilt cheap/small PC on HWZone.
Storage:
StarTech Slim USB 2.0 DVD/RW Drive on TechWareLabs.
OCZ Minikart USB Flash Drive 2GB on CircuitRemix.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB HDD on HotHardware.
Thermaltake MAX 4 Active Cooling Hard Drive Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
Software:
Gears of War PC game on Bit-Tech.
Hellgate: London PC game on YouGamers.
Clive Barker's Jericho PC game on GamePyre.
The Simpsons PC game on TrustedReviews.
Medal of Honour: Airborne PC game on Tweaktown.
Misc:
Microsoft Mobile Memory Mouse 8000 on EverythingUSB.
Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad PSU on PCStats.
VIZO Master Panel II Expansion Interface bay device on BenchMarkReviews.
The Logitech Kinetik 15.4 Briefcase on Digitaltrends.
Non-Contact Handheld Infrared Thermometer on OCIA.
Friday Midday Reviews
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Friday, 9-November-2007 12:50:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Zalman CNPS8700-CU LED CPU cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Thermaltake MaxOrb CPU cooler on Tweak.dk.
GlacialTech Igloo CPU cooler on LegionHW.
Koolance CPU-330 and VID-282 Waterblocks on PCPerspective.
Thermaltake DuOrb GPU Cooler on Phoronix.
Arctic Cooling Turbo Module VGA cooler add-on on HWLogic.
Motherboards:
Foxconn X38A Digital Life LGA775 board on InsideHW.
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R Intel P35 Express LGA775 board on PCStats.
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H AM2 board on LegitReviews.
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Intel P35 Express LGA775 board on PCStats.
Asus Blitz Formula S775 P35 on MadShrimps.
Cases:
Gigabyte iSOLO 210 Mid-Tower on TechGage.
Origen AE S10V HTPC Case on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 Case on DriverHeaven.
Cooler Master CM 690 on Virtual-Hideout.
Forum Articles
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Thursday, 8-November-2007 21:36:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Some interesting projects from the forums:
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 8-November-2007 17:22:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Power Supply:
Sigma Shark 635W on OCClub.
Everest 1010W on Guru3D.
Rosewill Xtreme Series RS850-S-B 850W on OCIA.
Input Etc:
Logitech G9 Laser Mouse on TechPowerUp.
Ideazon MERC Stealth Gaming Keyboard on TechGage.
Memory:
Mushkin HP2-8500 2GB Memory Kit on HWLogic.
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition PC2-9200 2GB DDR2-1150 on OCClub.
Geil Gaming Series PC2-6400 Quad 4GB Kit on DriverHeaven.
Video Cards:
MSI NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC on ViperLair.
Vvikoo 2600 Pro Turbo on XSReviews.
MSI NX8600GT Twin Turbo Shader Overclocking Geforce 8600GT on PCStats.
Cases:
Rosewill R5605-BK on ThinkComputers.
Ultra m998 Midtower (video review) on 3DGameMan.
XCLIO 6030 Plus on Virtual-Hideout.
Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS Full Tower on Tweaknews.
In Win BK623 Mt. Jade Desktop Media Case on Tweaknews.
    
    
Enthusiast System Architecture
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Wednesday, 7-November-2007 21:07:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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NVIDIA have announced the Enthusiast System Architecture. PC industry luminaries, including NVIDIA, Dell, HP, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, CoolerMaster, Thermaltake and others, today announced details of a new open, and royalty-free standard for the real-time monitoring and control of PC power supplies, chassis, and water-cooling systems. The Enthusiast System Architecture (ESA) specifies an information protocol that system components can use to “communicate” with each other to adjust operating parameters, and relay important system information back to the user.
More info on BigBruin, Bit-Tech, HotHardware, LegitReviews, PC Perspective and Tech-Report.
Wednesday Evening
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Wednesday, 7-November-2007 18:26:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A popular toy called Bindeez has been recalled around Australia because it contains a chemical that the human body turns into a drug. More info here. Chinese-made Bindeez, which won the 2007 Australian Toy of the Year award at the Melbourne Toy and Hobby fair, contains hundreds of beads which can induce seizures, drowsiness or a coma if eaten.
Lurks sent word that there's now Mac and Linux clients for EvE Online, for all your whizzing around in big spaceships fun.
YouGamers wonder how much video memory you actually need. So if you're out to buy a new graphics card, what do you do - buy the one with the most memory, the fastest memory, the latest memory type?
IGN have interviewed Tim Schafer about Brutal Legend, their upcoming metalhead console game. Not only is it coming from the brilliant mind of Tim Schafer (yes, he of Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Pyschonauts and many more) and Double Fine, but it's designed as the ultimate homage to heavy metal.
Pro-Clockers reviewed an interesting AM2 motherboard from ASRock. Today, we have the ASRock ALiveNF7G-HDready Micro ATX Motherboard on our test bench. With onboard support for dual monitors and 720p Blu-ray / HD-DVD playback, this budget motherboard is sure to make consumers take a double take when they see it on store shelves.
Phoronix report on Reside@Home, a Linux-based solution for aged care. The Reside@HOME product consists of a tabletop device (referred to as the "Reside@HOME Monitor") that is located with the care receiver and then a web-based control panel to facilitate the caregiver interaction.
ThePirateBay are working on an alternative to BitTorrent, thanks Sniper. But BitTorrent has seen some long-awaited success in working with major media companies, and as its ties with the industry grow, it might add features to discourage trading pirated materials, said Pirate Bay's co-founder, Peter Sunde.
ojk007 spotted this Crysis demo modification that seems to enable DX10-like effects under XP. After extensive digging and searching for trying to figure out a way to run dx10 on xp. I finally found a credible source that actually allows and enables you to play what looks exactly like a DirectX 10, "Very High" settings version of Crysis under XP aint that kool ;)
Matt sent in this clever VB ad, where an orchestra plays the entire VB theme on VB bottles (7.2MB MPG).
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 7-November-2007 17:15:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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LegionHW take a look at overclocking the Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 CPU. Overclocking the E4600 to 3.0GHz is relatively easy and all we were honestly required to do was increase the FSB in the ASUS P5K-E Deluxe BIOS to 250MHz.
Craig spotted an article on making your Linux desktop look like a Mac. This document will present the procedure to install Mac4Lin pack & tweak certain things to get that almost perfect Mac OS X like desktop.
Futurelooks have decided on their Top 10 Best Fighting Games of all time. Other people may like to get their sports fix and countless others much prefer the first-person shooter (FPS) or real time strategy (RTS) genres, but for me, there is nothing better than a fantastically executed versus fighting game. I went through a Mortal Kombat phase for a while, a long time ago.
3DGameMan's latest video review is a Xigmatek Cooler Roundup. Xigmtek’s cooler series has a lot of potential. They have some great numbers straight out of the box with near silent fans.
MadShrimps meanwhile have a much larger CPU Heatsink Roundup. In this large group test we compare over 30 CPU heatsinks with different fan speeds, giving you the data on both thermal and decibel performance. Want to upgrade your stock cooler? This roundup will help you out.
XBitlabs have a DDR3-1800 SDRAM Roundup. For our today’s roundup we managed to collect memory kits from Corsair, OCZ and Super Talent that can work at 1800MHz and higher frequencies. Let’s take a closer look at them and find out if they will be able to win this duel against DDR2 solutions.
They also checked out three Santa Rosa based notebooks in Vista. However, Centrino Duo platform has also changed dramatically since day one. In fact, Intel is currently offering the third generation of this platform already that is known under Santa Rosa codename.
TweakGuides have their Crysis Tweak Guide published. I've finally completed the Crysis Tweak Guide, and while there are no magic tweaks or quick fixes, the guide covers all the in-game settings in detail, and provides descriptions for all the major advanced command variables which allow you to customize the game to suit your needs.
IGN have a video article from when they spent a day on the range, firing the guns in COD4 in real life.
Sponsor Specials
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Wednesday, 7-November-2007 15:51:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials Forum if you're shopping around for a good deal. In there our many sponsors have threads, currently covering video cards, CPU coolers, cases, speakers, energy drinks, mp3 players, notebooks, network storage and various other components. Check 'em out!
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
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Wednesday, 7-November-2007 13:01:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38) LGA775 board on HWZone.
ASUS Commando LGA775 board on ThinkComputers.
Gigabyte's X38-DS5 and X38T-DQ6 LGA775 boards on Bit-Tech.
ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP LGA775 board on HWSecrets.
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 Express LGA775 board on PCStats.
Audio / Visual:
SteelSound 4H Headset on DVHardware.
Canon PowerShot A720 IS digicam on DigitalTrends.
HP Photosmart C4280 All-in-One printer/scanner on TrustedReviews.
AudioFX Pro 5+1 PC Gaming Headset by Ben Heck on BigBruin.
Edifier e1100 2.1 Speakers on NinjaLane.
Storage:
OCZ ATV Turbo 4GB USB Flash Drive on MikhailTech.
D-Link DNS-313 NAS Box network storage on TrustedReviews.
A.C. Ryan AluBox eSATA HDD enclosure on Bjorn3D.
Thermaltake Max 4 External HDD Enclosure on Virtual-Hideout.
Wednesday Midday Reviews
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Wednesday, 7-November-2007 12:41:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I wonder how many people will be reading this with a "brain freeze" today..
Video cards:
Gigabyte GV-NX85T256H Geforce 8500GT Videocards in SLI on PCStats.
XFX GeForce 8800 GT on PCPerspective.
PNY XLR8 8800 GT 512MB on I4U.
Cooling:
Zalman CNPS8000 CPU & VF900-Cu GPU Cooler on PCApex.
Zalman VF-1000LED Graphics Card Cooler on OCIA.
Vantec LapCool 5 Laptop Cooler on MikhailTech.
Tuniq TX-2 Thermal Compound on HWLogic.
Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler on TBreak.
Zalman CNPS7500-CU LED CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Zalman VF1000 LED Video Card Cooler on SilentPCReview.
Swiftech H20-120 Compact Watercooling Kit on DriverHeaven.
Cases:
GlacialTech Altair A380 HTPC Case on RBMods.
Antec Sonata Plus 550 on OZHardware.
AOpen G325 Gaming Case on Tweak.DK.
Cooler Master CM690 Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake DH101 HTPC ATX Case VF7001BNS on BenchMarkReviews.
Free Slurpees Tomorrow
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Tuesday, 6-November-2007 15:16:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A few people sent word that tomorrow, being 7/11, you can wander into your local 7-11 shop, say "Happy 7-Eleven Day" and get a free slurpee. Shame the nearest one is about an hour from here. :)
More free stuff in our giant Free Stuff thread.
Quite a few guys (disappointingly no ladies) from the forums have decided to grow a moustache to help raise money for men's health. Why are we doing this?- Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
- Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.
- Men generally live less healthy lives than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.
There is still time to sign up on the website so you can participate, or you can get involved in the forum thread. If all goes to plan there will be a video in that thread of somebody waxing my mo at the end of the month!
Agg edit: I'd love to be involved, but you have to start without any facial hair obviously, and facial hair is not optional in my family. :)
Interesting Forum Threads
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Monday, 5-November-2007 16:28:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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new way to play with Phenom X4: 4 cores, 4 frequencies! in AMD Hardware.
XPReview leaking Phenom performance? in AMD Hardware.
Get shot and feel it with 3rd Space FPS Vest in Games.
ASUS Eee PC - Launched! in Portable and Small Form Factor.
The fastest Windows Vista notebook test by PC World is...... in Apple Hardware & Software.
Why no reviews compared oc'd 640MB 8800GTS versus oc'd 512MB 8800GT yet? in Video Cards & Monitors.
BFG 8800 GTS EE OC 640MB PCIe, 112 Stream Processors + Benchmark in Video Cards & Monitors.
The Lagom LCD monitor test images site in Video Cards & Monitors.
New Dell E248WFP 24" LCD in Video Cards & Monitors.
8800GT dangerous mem clock >2000Mhz ? in Video Cards & Monitors.
Yay for music in Musicians.
Simulating evolution using genetic algorithms in Science.
Dangerous Science - the death of the chemistry set in Science.
Development of Intel's 45nm process in Science.
Skoda just launched locally in Motoring.
My baby bearded dragons! in Pets & Animals.
Betta breeding journal in Pets & Animals.
Shepherd Neame Bottle 1698 - Mini beer review in Geek Grog.
Holiday to Colombia - advice? in Lifestyle.
WikipediaVision in The Pub.
Monday Afternoon
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Monday, 5-November-2007 15:27:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's a lot of talk about a possible strike by the Writers Guild of America. Why do we care? Well, who do you think writes the episodes of your favourite (American) TV shows? :) Some shows may even be cancelled if it's not resolved. Discussion in this thread in the TV, Movies, Radio, Music, Books, Magazines, Pamphlets, Leaflets, Live Comedy and Otter Twirling forum.
Dink spotted this amazing barbarian origami. Wow, typing "barbarian" just reminded me of the Amiga game of the same name. :)
Two teams have completed a self-driving vehicle competion recently, the DARPA Urban Challenge. In the running for the $2 million first prize and $1 million second prize are Stanford University's robotic VW Passat, Virginia Tech's modified Ford Escape Hybrid, and Carnegie Mellon's autonomous Chevrolet Tahoe. These teams finished the urban challenge's three missions within the allotted six hours and without significant problems.
Here's an interesting photographic article about using a Wii Remote to correct perspective in photos. It is not its novelty that sets it apart, but the fact that it has integrated in a cheap, small device, several different sensor whose measurements can be relayed to a computer via bluetooth. Norbs made a thread about it here.
ChaosNight sent in this review of a pre-built 12-TEC cooling system in a nice SilverStone case. The Boreas itself rolls with 12 ThermoElectric Coolers (peltiers) -- three times that of CoolIT's Eliminator Cooler. Attached to the large heatsink are four fluid heat exchangers, which house the TECs. At its peak, the giant cooler pulls in 130 watts of juice... and turns you deaf, as the two attached 120 CFM fans redefine the notion of "kicking it into high gear."
Craig spotted an article on converting a Macbook keyboard from QWERTY to DVORAK. Telling anyone you've done this may place you irrevocably in the Hardcore Nerd Zone, sadly.
DriverHeaven interviewed Christopher Strasz about the upcoming MMORPG Tabula Rasa. Before we even approached content creation, we wanted to ensure that the player progression itself was rewarding. Much of this is attributed to the combat system.
Kylie Minogue is "taking on MySpace and Facebook" with the first popstar-created social network, KylieKonnect. It will make her an instant internet entrepreneur and shows the way the music industry is heading. Hmm, righto then.
From Ash: Windows Server 2008 RC1 can now be downloaded, for either a 30 day trial or a 180 day guided trial.
YouGamers ponder Proper Multicore Gaming. BioShock is working the CPU pretty hard, across all of the available cores, but The Witcher isn't; Call of Duty 4 and Crysis are pretty similar, and the Unreal Tournament 3 deathmatch with 9 bots needs lots of CPU time.
Corsair HQ Tour
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Monday, 5-November-2007 04:07:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Dinos22 has posted a huge thread detailing Team.AU's visit to Corsair's headquarters in Fremont California. There's loads of pictures and info about how they manufacture and test their memory and PSU products etc. Very interesting!
Click for the thread!
Monday Morning Reviews
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Monday, 5-November-2007 03:53:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Asus EN8600GT OC GEAR on SilentPCReview.
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT & SLI on Bit-Tech.
GeForce 8800 GT SLI Performance on HWZone.
nVidia GeForce 8800 GT on TrustedReviews.
HIS 2900Pro 512MB vs. XFX 8800GTS 320MB Fatal1ty on InsideHW.
Storage & Memory:
A-Data's FP1 fingerprint flash drive on TechReport.
Mushkin PC3-10666 DDR3 1333MHz RAM Kit HP3-10666 on BenchMarkReviews.
Cases:
GMC AVC M-1 Media PC Case on TechWareLabs.
Codegen M603-CA on BurnOutPC.
Sunbeam Tuniq 3 Mid-Tower on ThinkComputers.
Antec Sonata III 500 on HWSecrets.
NZXT Rogue on XSReviews.
SunBeamTech UFO Acrylic Cube on Guru3D.
Thermaltake SopranoFX on Bjorn3D.
Audio / Visual:
Sound ID SM100 EarModule Bluetooth Headset on BigBruin.
Pentax Optio S10 digicam on TrustedReviews.
Ferguson Hill FH007 and FH008 Speakers on TrustedReviews.
Software:
Half-Life 2 Episode Two Graphics Performance on XbitLabs.
Hellgate: London PC game on Bit-Tech.
Misc:
Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave on OCOnline.
Cirago Micro Bluetooth USB Adapter on OCIA.
Black & Decker VPX Starter Set tools set on I4U.
Photography Forum
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Sunday, 4-November-2007 20:46:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If you're a shutterbug (or want to be), check out our very busy photography areas. The main chitchat is in the Photography Forum, but there's also a Gallery for people to showcase their efforts and a Marketplace for photographic gear.
Here's some recent threads from the Gallery:
  
  
Sunday Evening
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Sunday, 4-November-2007 19:43:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Shadowman spotted this quite cool steampunky PC which apparently spits out beer. :) Or it might just be beer-coloured cooling fluid. Though actually nobody can tell how this weird thing works.
The Space Station has been having a bit of a rough week with torn solar panels etc, but apparently a recent space walk has repaired it. If the procedure had not been successful, the array, on the left side of the station, might have had to be discarded. The loss of a solar array would have reduced the ability to produce power, possibly constraining future construction on the station.
Here's an amusing video telling the whole Half Life (and HL2) story in 60 seconds. Won't make much sense if you haven't played them through I guess. :)
Speeders on the UK motorway system could soon have a Formula 1 inspired roadster to contend with. It'll scramble from zero to 100km/h in less than 3.0 seconds flat, and will hammer from zero to 160km/h (0-100mph) in 5.0 seconds, which is fast enough to remind you what you had for breakfast.
Qimonda is apparently sampling 512MB GDDR5 modules. One of Qimonda's early customers could be Intel, one of whose stealth projects is a GPU/CPU combo processor code-named Larabee. Engineers expect to see the first samples of this chip late next year, and although it would put Intel on a par with AMD in the graphics department, analysts are actually seeing it as an "nVidia killer." Larabee would reportedly require GDDR5. Discussion here in the Memory forum.
Time Magazine have decided on their Invention of the Year for 2007: Apple's iPhone. The thing is hard to type on. It's too slow. It's too big. It doesn't have instant messaging. It's too expensive. (Or, no, wait, it's too cheap!) It doesn't support my work e-mail. It's locked to AT&T. Steve Jobs secretly hates puppies.
Sony are crowing that the PS3's contributions have made the Folding@Home program the most powerful distributed computer in the world, according to Guinness World Records. The record was initially set on September 16, 2007 as Folding@home surpassed one petaflop(*1), a computing milestone that has never been reached before by a distributed computing network. In addition to this, the collective efforts of our users have enabled PS3 alone to reach the petaflop mark on September 23, 2007. If you have a PS3, fold for Team 24! :)
Phoronix report on a conceptual Google OS called gOS. The gOS (GreenOS) is designed to be a conceptual Google Operating System that is based upon Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.
Sunday Evening Reviews
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Sunday, 4-November-2007 19:03:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Glacialtech Igloo 5062 Cu Light Heatsink LGA775 CPU cooler on FrostyTech.
Zalman CNPS7500-Cu & CNPS8700 CPU Coolers on Virtual-Hideout.
Aquacomputer Aquaduct 360 XT watercooling kit on Virtual-Hideout.
Motherboard & CPU:
MSI P6N Diamond nForce 680i LGA775 board on PCStats.
Asus P5E3-Deluxe/WiFi-AP@n X38 LGA775 board on APHNetworks.
Asus Maximum Extreme X38 LGA775 board on TrustedReviews.
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 LGA775 CPU on TrustedReviews.
Asus Maximum Formula (Special Edition) LGA775 board on TechSpot.
Portable:
Asus U1F: Ultra Compact High-End Notebook on XbitLabs.
Blackberry 8820 (with Wi-Fi) PDA phone on HWZone.
Thermaltake iXoft Notebook Cooling Pad on Phoronix.
Lapworks Laptop Desk Futura on HWLogic.
Asus EEE PC notebook on FutureLooks.
Asus EEE PC full review on HotHardware.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W on PCFrags.
Corsair HX620 on TBreak.
Gigabyte Odin GT 800W (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Rosewill RD600N 600W on ThinkComputers.
Quick news post before flying out to South Africa in the morning!
Yif's submitted a few items that might interest. A security update was released for Acrobat Reader with fears PDFs being the latest method of attack. Next, scientists have genetically modified mice to produce funky colours to trace neuron activity. Whilst these scientists appear to have created an army of superstrong mice. Finally, if you're wondering why iPODs don't have bluetooth, this article might shed some light on the topic for you.
If the report on the 6.6 billion dollar investment in the Super Hornet has tickled your interest in defence spending, check out the electro shirt, that the government has injected another 4.4 million development dollars into. The Australian Defence Department has injected $4.4 million worth of funding to further the CSIRO’s research into designing clothing which can be used as a self-recharging electrical source on the battlefield. Both are ub3r cool.
We recently had an OCAU vs. Whirlpool Team Fortress 2 battle go down and looks as though we wiped the floor with them. Details can be found in this thread. Well done guys!
ArsTechnica have posted an article regarding Telstra's adoption of the iPhone. As the iPhone slowly expands its reach, one of the big questions has been what countries it will pop up in next. One such country is Australia, where Telstra has confirmed that the company is talking to Apple about the iPhone, according to MarketWatch.
If you're in the market for an LCD monitor (and it is a good time to buy as prices continue to drop), it might be worthwhile to head over and check out XBitLabs' LCD Buyer's Guide for Fall 2007. This article was conceived to serve as a guide. Without delving into technicalities and features of each monitor I just browsed through the catalogue of currently available models, pointing out the most interesting offers.
Apparently Microsoft has "accidentally" sent out Windows Desktop Search 3.01 as a forced update which resulted in the inability to disable the service via Group Policy for businesses. A way around this has been posted by Rod Howarth for those interested.
If you've been following AMD's release of RV670, TweakTown have posted up information on AMD's Q4 graphics line up. We’ve managed to get our hands on a document which contains AMD’s plans for Q4 this year and how they position their products against Nvidia’s in the graphics card market. Clicky link to find out what's in it.
Still on AMD (well ATi) graphics, Phoronix have compared performance of ATI Open vs. Closed AIGLX. We have taken an ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB PCI-E graphics card, which is supported by both the Radeon and fglrx drivers, and have compared their Compiz performance in a few different scenarios.
And another graphics related comparison was done by TechARP who compared the performance of Crysis in 64 bit and 32 bit flavours. Before you go rushing off to buy the 64-bit version of Windows Vista though, take a look at what we found when we benchmarked the 64-bit Crysis and compared it to the performance of the 32-bit Crysis.
Power:
Corsair TX750W Power Supply at PC Perspective
Coolmax CUQ-1200B 1200W Power Supply at PCSTATS
OCZ ProXStream 1000 W Power Supply at Hardware Secrets
Generic 150 Watt Car Power Inverter at MikhailTech
Motherboards and Memory:
Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 at t-break
MSI X38 Diamond Motherboard at CPU3D
Mushkin XP2-6400 (DDR2-800) 2x1GB Memory Kit at TheTechLounge
Graphics Cards:
ASUS Extreme N8800GT at Legion Hardware
MSI RX2600XT Diamond OC Edition at Viper Lair
XFX 8800 GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition at Overclock3D
Cases:
Antec Veris Fusion Black 430 Media Case at Virtual-Hideout
NZXT Alpha Mid Tower Case at OCIA
Thermaltake DH101 VF7001BNC HTPC Case at Rbmods
SilverStone Kublai KL01 Mid-Tower at Techgage
Thermaltake SopranoRS 101 & WingRS 100 Cases at TweakTown
Cooling:
Tunic Tower 120 at bit-tech
Glacialtech Igloo 5057 E Heatsink at FrostyTech
ZEROtherm Nirvana NV 120 Cpu Cooler at OCC
CoolIT Systems Eliminator CPU Cooler at SysOpt
Tuniq TX-2 Thermal paste at Pro-Clockers
Zalman ZM-MFC2 Multi Fan Controller at OCIA
CoolIT Freezone Elite at NordicHardware
Storage:
ATP Tough Drive Mini 2 GB at techPowerUp
Western Digital Scorpio 250GB 2.5" HDD at TweakTown
Apple iPod nano 8GB at Digital Trends
Software:
OpenSolaris Project Indiana at Phoronix
NBA Live 08 Xbox 360 at TweakTown
Orange Box Xbox 360 at Gamepyre
The Witcher PC at IGN
Other:
XTracPads Fat Mat Mousing Surface at APH Networks
Seiko SLP 450 Printer at Digital Trends
D-Link ANT24-0230 Xtreme N 2.4GHz Antenna at Futurelooks
Altec Lansing PT8051 Wireless Theater System at I4U
Incase 13" Neoprene Sleeve at Digital Trends
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator at Metku
AC Accelero S1 at BurnOutPC
Those interested in the WipEout series of games for PSP might be interested in IGN's interview with Martin Audio who worked on the soundtrack. It's not enough for us to just listen to the tunes while we play - we want to find out about the people and equipment behind the tunes, and how they came to be featured on the Pulse soundtrack. With that in mind we caught up with Martin Audio
Still in gaming news, YouGamers has posted coverage of the 2007 Golden Joystick Awards, which incidentally is NOT the pr0n industry's annual awards ceremony. It's actually a gaming insustry awads event. Equally as dodgy sounding is Dan's ten-minute ring light which might appeal to the photo buffs out there. While you're over at DansData, check out his responses to some letters on hard drives as well.
David sent in a reminder that Movember '07 is currently underway. Just a note to remind all moustache lovers, male and female, that Movember is underway and aside from helping a worthy cause its an excuse for all the mushroom lifestyle IT nerds to air their well nurtured facial growth with new found pride. I'll be out of the country for most of Movember for work and usually don't bother shaving whilst over there anyhow.
Some stuff worth checking out sent in by forum members. A cool look at the Last Supper In Detail and a Bioshock halloween. Also, apparently scientists found the oldest living animal on earth and then killed it. From Justin, apparently a tram ran on lithium batteries and recharged in under a minute and is vinyl going to make a comeback as a music medium?
If that piece of news regarding the tram on batteries didn't impress you, perhaps this effort by scientists will. Your next laptop could have a continuous power battery that lasts for 30 years without a single recharge thanks to work being funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. The breakthrough betavoltaic power cells are constructed from semiconductors and use radioisotopes as the energy source. Edit: Appears to be a hoax!
Some information on AMD's RV670 have been posted on PCPerspective. Perhaps the most surprising information from AMD about RV670 is the fact that it is going to be the first DX10.1 compliant hardware -- something the upcoming NVIDIA hardware can't claim. Many people have been debating the importance of the DX10.1 changes over DX10, and it makes sense that AMD is going to be pushing the differences while it has the edge of the other green team in that area. LegitReviews have also posted up an article about the leak, too.
Finally, some news for the Linux users out there. Nick sent in some interesting information about a bug in Ubuntu that can cause hard disk problems in laptops. Also, Phoronix have done some benchmarks on the past 12 Linux Kernels.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 1-November-2007 00:29:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
MSI x38 Diamond LGA775 board on XSReviews.
Biostar P35 T Series TP35D3-A2 Deluxe LGA775 board on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
MSI NX8600GT Twin Turbo on OCClub.
Calibre P860 on BurnOutPC.
XFX Geforce 8800 GTS 320 Fatal1ty on MadShrimps.
Cases:
Antec Veris Fusion Black HTPC on Tweaknews.
Lian Li PC-B58 Mid-Tower Case: Non-Production Release on BenchMarkReviews.
Ultra m998 Midtower on OCIA.
Power Supply:
PC Power & Cooling 750 Watt Quad Silencer on Bjorn3D.
Enermax Infiniti 720 SLI on HWZone.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Killer Notebooks Uchigatana Laptop on TechWareLabs.
Fujitsu LifeBook T2010 Tablet PC on OZHardware.
ASUS Eee PC cheap small portable PC on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
Thermaltake Bigwater 760i Water Cooling Kit on HWLogic.
ZEROtherm BTF92 OC Edition CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Software:
The Witcher PC game on Bit-Tech.
Clive Barker's Jericho PC game on TrustedReviews.
The SettlerS: Rise of an Empire PC game on YouGamers.
Audio Visual:
Creative Zen 4GB MP3 player on TrustedReviews.
Rosewill RDF-670B Digital Picture Frame on FutureLooks.
Logitech G51 Gaming Surround Speakers on Techgage.
SoundGraph iMON Ultra Bay LCD Display on Virtual-Hideout.
VIZIO 52-inch GV52L Full HD LCD TV on I4U.
Epson EMP-TW1000 Projector on TrustedReviews.
Cameras & Printers:
Ricoh Caplio R7 digicam on Trustedreviews.
OKI B2200 Personal LED Printer on TrustedReviews.
Storage:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Hard Drive on TechReport.
OCZ ATV Turbo USB 2.0 Flash Drive on Pro-Clockers.
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