Content and news by Rob Williams

If building a new computer or simply upgrading, you likely want to make sure your GPU decision is a good one, all while making sure not to break the bank. We are taking a look at the EN8800GT TOP which fits the bill. Even better, it’s pre-overclocked, to improve performance even further.

Australia has never been that friendly towards games that offer gratuitous violence or over-the-top sexual content, but that might be changing in the near-future. As it stands, the Australian rating system doesn’t allow games to sell that include a rating above MA15+, which is somewhat right in between the ESRB’s Teen and Mature ratings… so it results in a lot of game titles having to suffer through mass editing or being banned entirely.

But this might change if a few government officials follow through with their ideas. If passed, Australia will be allowed to sell games with an R18+ rating, essentially ridding the need for editing content prior to release and also banning of certain titles. This decision was no doubt helped by the fact that over 50% of the country are 18 years and older, so banning mature titles is cutting out a large part of the market. For the sake of all Aussie gamers, I hope to see this become a reality. Too much of the world is censored for no good reason…

Luckily for gaming Aussies (50 percent of which are over the age of 18), government officials are considering the addition of an R18+ rating, allowing the sale of more mature titles. This proposition will be discussed at the next Standing Committee of Attorneys-General on March 28. Should the system undergo the change, for the first time in Australian video games, there will be blood, nudity, and strong language. You know, the good stuff.

Source: Joystiq

As is well-known by everyone, HD DVD is dead, with Blu-ray reigning supreme. So, what do you plan to do with your huge HD DVD collection that you’ve accrued since launch? Wired’s How-To wiki takes a look at how you can take all of your HD DVD movies and convert them to Blu-ray. If you guessed that such a thing is time-consuming and costly, you’d be right.

Like ripping/backing up DVD movies, the steps are overall rather simple. Rip the movie, convert, burn to new media… it’s not rocket science. However, where a high-definition format is concerned, high prices are sure to follow. Blu-ray burners still retail for around $400, while blank media hovers at around $12. The recommended ripper software costs over $100. That’s quite an investment, and one that makes little sense for most people… or for anyone.

With the time and effort it takes to rip, convert and burn each HD DVD movie, it would require a huge movie buff to want to take the time to process them all. And if you only have a few titles, then it would make no sense to invest in all the required hardware. Given that each blank disc costs $12 alone, and the time to complete one disc could be an entire evening, it would make more sense to just purchase the movies again on Blu-ray and save yourself the hassle. For the movies that have been HD DVD-exclusive, they are sure to be released on Blu-ray in the coming months.

This means getting the rip ready to burn to Blu-Ray disc: transcoding refers to changing the file format and size, while authoring refers to preparing and arranging the files so that players may properly understand them. If you just want to keep the file on the computer as a backup, you can stop here. Even if no one is making physical HD DVD players, there’ll always be software to play the files themselves.

Source: Wired How-To Wiki

Nowadays, acquisitions are almost as popular as beginning a new company. The latest attempt is courtesy of EA, who really, really wants Take-Two Interactive. Who can blame them? Despite Take-Two’s shaky history, they own one of the top franchises in the world, which in turn gives them massive potential. EA even went as far as to offer a staggering $2 billion, but Take-Two remains firm and doesn’t plan to consider any take-over until the day after GTA IV launches.

That’s an interesting move, but it could be a smart one on Take-Two’s behalf. The chances of GTA IV being unsuccessful are about as likely as Nintendo closing shop. So once the game drops, chances are good that Take-Two’s stock will rise, in turn increasing their worth.

Kotaku has published a nice write-up about the pros and cons of what such an acquisition would deliver. It goes without saying that EA would be gaining a lot, but that doesn’t necessarily mean gamers would be the beneficiaries as well. The biggest issue would be 2K Sports… it would no doubt cease to exist, because it makes no sense for a company to compete with themselves. Not to mention that future Take-Two DLC would in no way be free. So in the end… this deal looks to be great for EA, and very bad for consumers.

Remember that nice chuck of free DLC Take-Two released for BioShock at the end of last year? How much do you think EA would have charged for it? My guess? More than free. I’m imagining new car packs for Grand Theft Auto for 500 points a shot here. Maybe even some costly DLC that makes some of those EA Sports titles play like their often superior 2K counterparts! That would just be completely awesome.

Source: Kotaku

Intel’s new dual-socket enthusiast platform is in every sense impressive, but due to the price of the recommended CPUs, owning one is a dream for many. We’re taking a look at a few ways to build your very own full-featured 8-core “Skulltrail” machine for a price that’s a lot easier to manage.

Earlier this month, we published a preview of Intel’s latest high-end enthusiast platform, Skulltrail, and it only took a few weeks before Intel made it officially official. For those unaware, Skulltrail is a platform that gives new meaning to what we know as high-end. Picture one huge motherboard, two extremely fast Quad-Core processors (for 8-cores) and even bragging rights to last for months. That’s Skulltrail.

At today’s GDC in San Francisco, Intel officially announced the platform and revealed pricing at the same time. As was expected, the Core 2 Extreme QX9775 3.2GHz processors are sold at a price of $1,499 to sellers, meaning the end price to you will be closer to $1,650 – $1,700. That’s one processor… Skulltrail takes two.

The motherboard was bound to be an expensive component as well, but it’s actually priced higher than I originally believed, at $649. Again, this will be slightly higher once it hits retail, so expect to pay around $700. Paired together, the base Skulltrail components will cost around $4,100. If you are contemplating such a purchase, be sure to read our preview from a few weeks ago and find out if it’s right for you.

Stay tuned as we will soon be unveiling a follow-up Skulltrail article that will benefit all you budget-focused folk that don’t want to be left out.

GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE, San Francisco, Feb. 19, 2008 – For those who crave more performance than what four processing cores and a single graphics card can deliver today, Intel Corporation has introduced the Intel Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform. Formerly codenamed “Skulltrail,” this is one of the first enthusiast desktop platforms to support two Intel quad core processors for a total of eight processing engines and a choice of multi-card graphics solutions from either ATI* or NVIDIA*.

Source: Intel Press Release

It was a fun run, but Toshiba has just made it official that they will be backing out of the HD DVD camps and halting production of their players. Players will continue to be sold for the next few months, but will dwindle off as time passes. For those wondering if Toshiba will now begin making Blu-ray players, CEO Atsutoshi Nishida claims there are “no plans at all”.

Other manufacturers of HD DVD players have also stepped back and decided to cease production, and that includes Toshiba’s add-on for the Xbox 360. In addition, ardent HD DVD supporter, Universal Studios, has also announced their shift to the Blu-ray camps, not surprisingly. Like many, I am hoping they will re-release all of their HD DVD releases on Blu-ray, since there are numerous titles people are missing out on.

And though HD DVD has only just died, the rumors took no time at all to propagate. According to Aussie site Smarthouse, Microsoft might be including a Blu-ray player with the Xbox 360 in as early as May. This sounds like wild speculation, but like us, Microsoft could have seen the writing on the wall for some time now and were planning ahead. Since Blu-ray is the victor, it would make a lot of sense for them to add the support to their console. It’s only a rumor, but a good one.

Those already sold on high-definition movies will either declare this as a great victory or a tragic loss, though keep in mind that even HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales combined are barely a drop in the bucket compared to regular DVD. Recent statistics from Zip.ca show that high-definition disc rentals account for 0.87 percent of total shipments.

Source: DailyTech

Palit is a relative newcomer to the GPU market in North America, but we are sure to see more of them as months pass. Our first look at a Palit card is courtesy of the 8600GT “Super+1GB”. Though equipped with loads of memory, we found that it added little benefit over our 256MB competitor.

Does a multi-GPU setup with one card interest you? You may want to take a look at AMD’s latest high-end offering, the HD 3870 X2. We are taking a look at ASUS’ version of the card which features a fantastic bundle, including an HDMI adapter and Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts.

It should come as surprise to no one that HD DVD’s death is closer than ever, and according to various sources, it could come before the week is over. According to Ars Technica, sources have revealed that the likes of Netflix and Wal-Mart have known about the plans for Toshiba to withdrawal from the HD DVD camp for weeks now, which is the reason both of them made their announcements early.

The past month and a half have not been fun for Toshiba and HD DVD supporters. Since Warner’s announcement to cancel their support for HD DVD, things have gone downhill at an accelerated rate, with numerous other companies following suit – ultimately pushing Toshiba to make the rough, but obvious decision.

Once the announcement is finally made, it’s only a matter of time before movie production is halted and the remaining stores cease to offer them for sale. It’s a harsh way to go, but was inevitable.

What’s more, our source says that Netflix and Wal-Mart were aware of HD DVD’s impending official death, and rather than allow a long and drawn out withdrawal from the market that could burn customers, those companies chose to broadcast their intentions to the marketplace immediately. This puts pressure on Toshiba and its partners to exit the business without spending months trying to unload product that’s essentially already obsolete.

Source: Ars Technica

I admit it. Whenever I see a new “Beta” for an application, I don’t pay much attention. This is especially true with Mozilla’s Firefox, since I now that even if I wanted to test it out, none of my extensions would work. But, my poor attitude aside, Beta 3 for Firefox has just been released, and reviews are fantastic so far, so it does deserve a little attention.

In fact, Ryan Paul at Ars Technica was so impressed with the latest beta that he went on to say, “I’m convinced that Firefox 3 is very close to being ready for widespread adoption.” After taking a look through the article, I am very tempted to go give it for a spin myself. The better Add-On and Bookmarks management is keen. Worth a look, but remember that if you give this a try, it might make reverting back to Firefox 2 somewhat of a chore, so it might be smart to use a secondary profile for testing.

In nightly builds that have been released since the beta 3 code freeze, the bookmark process has been refined further. When the user bookmarks the page by clicking the star icon in the URL bar, the browser will inform the user that the page has been bookmarked, but will not provide access to any of the other bookmark information unless the user clicks the Edit button.

Source: Ars Technica

I am not normally interested in small notebooks, but Lenovo’s upcoming X300 has definitely caught my eye. Like the MacBook AIR, it includes a small frame – built for road warriors who don’t want to lug a heavy notebook around. Battery-life is also improved as a result, so overall it’s a big win. Except for the pricing of course, which falls right below the AIR with SSD at $2,500 – $2,800.

In the case of the X300 though, Lenovo made sure to include a few things left out on the AIR, such as more USB ports, built-in Ethernet and an ODD. To me, the omission of those on the AIR were my biggest gripes, and many others, so it’s nice to see them here. The X300 might not be sleek (and it’s far from sexy) like the AIR, but it still includes the classic ThinkPad styling that many have come to enjoy over the years.

I look forward to seeing Mossberg’s final review on this. Lenovo might just have a winner here.

Mossberg goes on to note that the ThinkPad X300 weighs 3.12 pounds with a standard battery and optical drive. A comparison is made to the MacBook Air’s lighter 3 pound fighting weight, but Apple manages to leave out all the important stuff to get to that figure.

Source: DailyTech

Whew, it seems that rumors of weeks past have been proven absolutely true. In the upcoming issue of PC Gamer (April), Red Alert 3 is announced and I suppose there will be a slew of screenshots as well. I for one, cannot wait. I was a huge fan of the first two and hope that this upcoming one lives up to all of its well-deserved hype. I also have to say that this is one of the coolest PC Gamer covers I’ve seen in a while.

That tease from last week really was Red Alert 3! Just goes to show, dream long enough and hard enough and those dreams can actually come true. The game’s the feature of next month’s PC Gamer cover spread, and since said cover shows only some concept art, all we know about the game is that it’s a third Red Alert.

Source: Kotaku

If you happened to have thought that things couldn’t have gotten worse for HD DVD, then think again. Yesterday, there were two rather sizable announcements, both favoring big Blu.

First is Best Buy, who’ve just made the decision to go pro-Blu-ray, but there’s a twist. While they don’t mention clearing out HD DVD (and they shouldn’t), they plan to begin telling customers that Blu-ray is the future, because as we all know, Blu-buy knows what is right for us, as consumers. We can all be sure that this has absolutely nothing with wanting to make things easier by dedicating floor-space to a single high-def format. That would be foolish thinking.

As if Toshiba needed more to worry about, Netflix also decided to jump the HD DVD ship and begin renting out Blu-ray format movies exclusively. These two companies pairing their decisions is yet another major blow to HD DVD, and if things didn’t look grim before, they are looking a whole lot worse now.

“We believe our move to feature Blu-ray should help consumers feel confident in their hi-def content choices,” said Best Buy Home Solutions Senior VP Mike Vitelli. “We are excited about helping customers find the right mix of products and services to make the next generation of high definition entertainment technology come alive for them. We believe that Blu-ray is the right solution for consumers.”

Source: DailyTech

It’s no secret that people are displeased with eBay’s recently updated rate plan for sellers, but they are looking to help improve the situation with a few follow-up cuts. This will effect low-value items primarily, looking to completely overlook the people who would really notice the difference – those selling items ranging in the hundreds of dollars.

I’ve sold an item or two on eBay in the past, and I can attest that the final rates are ridiculous. If it’s not bad enough that eBay charges you a “final-value” fee on top of an insertion fee, it’s the double-whammy that sucks… when PayPal charges you for usage also. Selling a $500 item could result in fees of around $30, or more.

Google, where are you with an eBay killer? I wish I could properly convey through text how very serious I am about that question.

Given the free market options that the web has granted classifieds users to partake in, the developed arena of self-promotion and social media have enabled others, eBay realizes its necessity for ongoing changes with its own service. It seems that eBay has been resisting major changes to its services, but these fee changes are something that will resonate with every user.

Source: Mashable

Yahoo! has been receiving a lot of press lately, thanks to the fact that they are looking to be bought up by a great company, or merge with another. Like the weather in my city, the potential deals are changing far too fast.. it’s hard to keep up. Last week, we found out that Microsoft had interest in purchasing the company for a staggering $40+ billion, but as it turns out, Yahoo! wants absolutely nothing of the sort. Or, they at least want to play hard to get, in order to increase their worth.

So, Yahoo! doesn’t want Microsoft – what else could possibly happen? Why, a merger with AOL, of course. If you just muttered a silent “WTF” under your breath, don’t worry, you are not alone. Why Yahoo! would even contemplate a merger with a company whose history is scattered, I’m unsure, but these talks could yet be another way to drive up the companies price.

I think Michael Arrington summed it up rather well, “AOL’s great, and I appreciate the effort they are putting into creating quality, cutting edge web services. But AOL plugs none of Yahoo’s holes – no search marketing platform (Google handles that for them). No algorithmic search technology (ditto). And very few actual searches (they have 5% market share, or less).“

Who knew watching Yahoo! play this game would be so much fun?

In short, while a merger between Yahoo and the content and advertising business of AOL has some synergies and may have made some sense pre-Microsoft bid, it seems impossible that Yahoo shareholders could possibly approve it in light of an existing offer that values Yahoo at a 60 percent premium to where it was trading only 10 days ago.

Source: Mashable

Kyle Bennett is no stranger to stirring the proverbial pot in the tech industry. He’s a well-known gear-head who’s not afraid to speak his mind – which is one reason he rubs so many people the wrong way. And while I may not agree with everything he says, there is one area where we do agree, and that’s with video card benchmarking.

Over at Hard|OCP, he has just posted a new article explaining their testing methodology, and goes into some depth with regards to specifics. Although we’ve not had many GPU reviews in the past, all of our testing is done manually as well, with the exception for a few timedemos for use with our CPU reviews (since timedemos rely a lot on the CPU). For our GPU reviews, we play through all of the levels manually.

This article came at a coincidental time, because I just spent the past weekend benchmarking five GPUs for upcoming reviews, with three more left on the table. I admit, playing the same level over and over and over gets tedious, but a tall Guinness or short Heineken works wonders!

The article is worth a look if you want a another opinion on why timedemos are not the way to do things. But, it will all come down to personal preference, and there is no denying that most of the time, timedemos are somewhat accurate. One interesting finding, though, is that even though most reviews for the AMD HD 3870 X2 show the card to be faster than the 8800 GTX… it turns out that real-world, that’s not the case.

That comparison also couldn’t come at a better time, since that was an identical scenario I will be dealing with later today or tomorrow. I am interested to see if the numbers all scale with his. I’ll post in the news once I have some findings.

That is not to say that synthetic and canned benchmarks do not have their places in testing, we just don’t usually find those metrics to be indicative of what the end user has in terms of actual experiences. Some website’s want to tell you the “relative performance of a graphics card” based on a timedemo that in no way represents playing the game. That is not what we want to focus on here at HardOCP.

Source: HardOCP

Running Linux on a PS3 is nothing new, but seeing PS3s sold with Linux pre-loaded is. Creators have Yellow Dog Linux have begun selling such PS3s through their website for a $50 premium over normal retail. Included is the standard 80GB console and regular accessories, along with the pre-installed Yellow Dog Linux, ready for use once hooked up to the TV.

I have a few gripes with this deal. While Linux is a great OS to use, it’s usability factor on the PS3 is far lower than on even a lower-end machine. Few applications are optimized for the Cell architecture, which results in rather lackluster performance (try compiling something to find out what I mean). But, it’s still a very fun experiment, and one that inspires much hacking.

The other gripe I has is that the resulting video will not look that great on all displays/televisions. On my television for example, it doesn’t look that great. In fact, it makes my eyes want to bleed after a while. On my computer monitor, however, it looks better, but still not perfect. For actual Linux use, a real computer would make a lot more sense. The PS3s on-board GPU was not made for PC use, that much is obvious.

Source: Terrasoft Solutions

Where their processors are concerned, AMD can’t catch a break lately. Late last week, news broke that Dell removed many AMD-based machines from their website, noting that they would still be available through regular retail outlets and also via the telephone. Why they would be available through the telephone and not online, where the process is made much easier, is way beyond me.

As it turns out though, this move doesn’t hit AMD like many think it would. An AMD spokesman is quoted as saying, “We feel very good about the relationship with Dell and the growth ramp we’ve experienced.”, and the fact that Dell is pushing for more sales outside of online/phone could in the end, help AMD a great deal. As with most things, time will tell.

About 80 percent of Dell’s sales are made to business, government and education customers, and about 20 percent to consumers. The company is trying to bolster its consumer business by breaking from its strict reliance on Internet and phone orders to offer machines through a growing list of retailers.

Source: MSNBC

I’m sure it goes without saying that Microsoft’s WGA protection for Windows is nothing more than a pain in the rear, but they are working towards making it much easier to deal with along with the launch of Vista’s Service Pack 1. But at the same time, they are not making it easier at all, because it becomes much more of a nag – in the “eat your vegetables or no video games” kind of way.

Prior to this updated method, WGA used to disable certain features of Vista, such as Aero and ReadyBoost. It could even so as far as disallowing you to enter the OS until you activate… meaning you would have to go through Safe Mode in order to access any of your documents. With the upcoming update, WGA will add these caveats to a non-activated install:

• Add a 15-second nag to the login
• Change the desktop background to black each hour
• Pop up regular reminders in the systray
• Optional Windows Updates are not accessible
• Force people to reinstall Windows XP

My question to most people is, why not just go ahead and activate? It sure seems to be the easiest way around things. Of course, the people this effects most are those who fiddle with different hardware all the time (motherboards, mainly). Since I use Vista only on the benchmarking machine, re-installing is not much of a problem, but for those who actually use their machines for regular purposes, it would no doubt become annoying, fast. Microsoft needs to drop WGA and be done with it.

Personally, as someone who tinkers with the hardware settings on a regular basis, these nag screens offer a welcome relief from being forced to activate when in the middle of something (this happens to me all the time when using virtual machines). Personally, I’d rather that Microsoft abandon WGA altogether, but this is a step in the right direction.

Source: ZDNet Blogs