Content and news by Rob Williams

Swiftech used their Patent Pending Diamond Pin Matrix design and was optimized using Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis to optimize flow and performance. By looking at the layout and design, it seems that this is an updated and improved version of their older MCW5000 series blocks.

Check out the full review at OCIA.

Want a large and fast memory kit for your system? The new OCZ PC-4000 Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC might be just what you are looking for.

Sporting the new XTC heatspreader and double the memory capacity of usual OCZ memory kits, the PC-4000 Gold GX XTC is an interesting new subject for us to investigate.

Head on over to Rojak Pot for the full review.

When it is all said and done, the SilverStone Zeus ST56ZF is a very
solid offering. The package is top notch with very little chance of damage
being done to the unit during any amount of transport and the power supply
inside is just as good. In addition, the quality of the cables is excellent,
with clean heatshrinking and artistic cable tying. Another nice feature of
this power supply is that the length of the cables should allow this power
supply to be used inside of any case no matter how big.

Check out the full review over at Overclockers Online.

Not long ago, I took a look at security software from Keynesis called Lockngo. Keynesis also has a program to compliment Lockngo called Portable Sweeper. The two programs together provide a great set of tools for anyone wishing to have their portable devices secure and safe. Portable Sweeper is a bit different in that it cleans your system or your hosts system of all traces that you were on it and what you were doing on it. Let’s take a closer look and you can get a better idea of what I am talking about.

Check out the full look at Think Computers.

ATI recently released a range of top-to-bottom graphics products with what they call Avivo technology. Avivo is responsible for making 3D and video pixels look good on your display. Trouble is, some of it wasn’t working.

Check out the full look at Hexus!

In an effort to gain a larger mobile penguin presence we have
numerous notebook related articles under works and our first to deliver
is a mobile cache comparison examining the benefits of an increased
ATA-6 cache size, which is one of the ways to seek an increased
performance over a HDD speed increase with the downfalls of that being
an excessive amount of heat along with being noisy and wearing down the
battery life. Just how well does the standard 8MB compare to 16MB on the
Pentium M front?

Phoronix has been some busy today! Check out this article right here.

GAIM, the popular open-source multi-protocol multi-platform
instant messaging client, has finally released its initial BETA for the
upcoming v2.0.0. Since the GAIM v1.5.0 release, the developers have
dedicated their time and efforts on version two and their strenuous work
is definitely visible in the latest BETA. In GAIM v2.0.0 BETA 1 there
are improvements with everything from status drop-down menu to improved
plug-ins.

I like what I’m seeing of this so far, it made me download the beta right away. Check out the full pictorial at Phoronix.

With the number of fresh Linux installs we perform on a weekly
basis with a variety of hardware, simply using the stock install CDs
have become a sizable task due to the number of FOSS updates available
on a daily basis. In fact, alone on Red Hat’s servers and mirrors are
over 839 updates just for the FC4 i386 architecture!

If you use FC4 on a regular basis, then you may find this article over at Phoronix to be quite helpful.

If you’ve held off buying anything up to just to wait and see how it pans out just before Christmas, or you’ve already splashed out on an ATI Radeon X1800 XT or XL (I’ll come back to that later), or you simply have that car crash curiosity about high-end 3D graphics right now, today’s article will have your interest.

If you are pondering Cross-Fire, check out the in-depth look at Hexus!

From a rendering perspective, the GeForce 7 series is not that much
different from NVIDIA’s own GeForce 6 series. So, image quality will be the
same if not similar between the two. However, there is one major
difference – the GeForce 7 series can perform antialiasing on transparent
(or alpha) textures, either using multisampling or supersampling. Naturally,
we’re very interested in this feature and just like we promised in our last
article, we will focus on this feature in this article.

Check out the full article over at Tech-Hounds.

This power supply performs well for this category of product. While the 12V rail is a little low it has no problem powering an overclocked system. Stability is also important, especially when overclocking. This really reflects the quality of power it’s providing. I experienced no locks or system instability…

Head on over to 3D Gameman for the full review.

This is the latest beta of ATI’s Catalyst Drivers which supports the new AVIVO functionality of the X1000 Series. Several websites have been reporting about this, now you can try it yourself.

Grab the beta over at techPowerUp!

As most readers are now aware, the FCC is about to issue (or reissue) a report stating that cable companies should offer à la carte pricing to their customers instead of force-feeding them prepackaged tiers. According to the FCC, consumers should have the ability to select and pay for only the channels they want to watch, versus having to pay for bundles or “tiers” comprised of many channels they never view.

If something like this is passed, I could see it affecting some channels to the point that they must shut down. It will be interesting to see if this actually plays out. Check out the full article at Design Technica.

Surprisingly, an
expansion was released in less than a few months of the original,
bringing a new angle to the online carnage: Special Forces, or more
specifically, delicate situations with use of specialised weaponry and
equipment.

Check out the full review over at Xtreme Review.

Intel and ECS have partnered up to bring a great contest with great prizes. There are still 2 weeks left before the contest is
over so hurry up and get in on the action before it is too late!

Check out the full contest details over at InsaneTek!

SHARMAN Networks executives are in hot water with wigged ones down under and could be facing porridge for contempt.

Sharman, the outfit that makes Kazaa filesharing technology, blocked access to its file-sharing network in Australia on December 5 rather than install keyword filters to prevent the download of copyright music.

First, I am surprised that people still use that piece of junk software. Second, I hope they get taken down. Third, link.

Enter Asus with its brand new Extreme GeForce 7800 GT Dual. This monster of a graphics chip sports two 7800 GT chips running in parallel. We’d like to note a few things that are special about this card. First, only 2000 samples of this my-card-is-faster-than-your-card graphics board exist, worldwide. Second, the THG lab received two of them. Third, although the cards lack the usual SLI connectors, two of these monsters can nonetheless be combined via SLI. That means we can now achieve Quad SLI with four GeForce 7800 GT chips and a total of 1 GB of video memory.

I still have no real idea why they release cards like these, that are not available for the public to touch. Not only that, they don’t have perfect drivers for it yet, so what’s the point of benchmarks? At any rate though, it’s an interesting concept, but may be a little overboard. Check it out at Toms Hardware.

Dell on Friday announced a recall of about 22,000 notebook computer batteries sold in the United States and an additional 13,000 abroad.

The 35,000 recalled batteries were sold with several models of Latitude and Inspiron machines and Precision mobile workstations between Oct. 5, 2004, and Oct. 13, 2005.

My laptop almost hit it close, but I guess I am safe. If you bought your Dell laptop between those dates, look for more info at News.com.

The BBC is reporting that companies and law enforcement agencies are becoming increasing frustrated and concerned at the high amount of fraud at eBay. There are reports that it can take two months for eBay to pass details to fraud investigators, and that even for companies with a ‘special relationship’ with eBay it can take 5 days for fraudulent auctions to be shut down.

No doubt things need to be taken care of, because people fall for clever schemes on eBay everyday. Check out the posting at Slashdot.

LAST WEEK, VALVE INVITED members of the technology press to its offices in Bellevue in order to show off a collection of cinematic effects that have been added to the Source engine. The effects, which include color correction, film grain, motion blur, and depth of field, are all designed to deepen immersion and imply greater scene complexity while making life easier for game designers, artists, and even mod authors. All the effects are showcased in a recently released Day of Defeat trailer that was created entirely in the Source engine with in-game assets. Some effects will even make their way into Day of Defeat: Source and the Half-Life 2: Aftermath expansion pack. Here’s our take on what these new effects can do, how they’re implemented in the Source engine, and why they may drive the development of the next generation of graphics hardware.

Check out the full look here! I can’t wait to see this finally implemented.