Content and news by Rob Williams

The NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the NVIDIA ForceWare driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with better performance and image quality. The Driver has support for all Geforce cards.

If you love using optimized drivers, grab the newest NGO ones here!

For a Friday, there are not that many reviews out today. Maybe some people took an early weekend? Viper Lair is taking some great looking OCZ DDR2 modules for a spin. They were impressed with the tight timings, and I see that the price isn’t too shabby either! Cross-Fire is still but a youngin’, so Legit Reviews is putting the DFI CF board for a run. No doubt, if I had CF this would be the board I’d be picking up.

Cases & Enclosures
• Cooler Master AMMO 533 ATX PC Enclosure – Club OC

Cooling
• Jetart 3D Slot Fan – Rojak Pot

Memory & Storage
• OCZ PC2-6400 EB Platinum Edition – Viper Lair

Motherboards & CPU’s
• DFI RDX200 CF-DR Cross-Fire – Legit Reviews
• Gigabyte GV-K8N51PVMT-9 – PC Stats

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• OCZ Modstream 520W PSU – Hardware Asylum

Video Cards & Monitor
• MSI 512MB Geforce NX7800GTX – PC Stats
• XGI Volari 8300 Reference Videocard – PC Stats

Etcetera & Contests
• Apple iPod Video – Big Bruin
• CD Ripping Services Compared – Design Technica
• Dell Dimension XPS 400 Evaluation – Hard|OCP
• Monthly Contest Reminder (Leadtek Winfast PX7800GT!) – NGOHQ
• Realm Systems BlackDog Portable Linux Server – XYZ Computing

AMD IS preparing for a shift towards DDR-II memory, while still keeping the production of Socket 939 processors “according to demand”. A new Socket has 940 pins, but it isn’t compatible with existing Socket 940 solutions (no suprise there).

Finally, some reasonably priced DDRII chips. I cannot wait to see how DDRII performance will compare to Intel. Check out the posting here.

IN A previous story, we have cited our sources who received information from AMD about “stopped shipment for Q4”, with Opterons Socket 939 joining the pack. AMD reacted quickly to assure the customers that wasn’t the case, and those several AMD sources got their behinds well slapped.

This is great news for those who still want to get ahold of one of the 939 Opties. Check out the posting at The Inquirer.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has been a big hit with holiday shoppers as the console racked up over 325,000 unit sales in November. Even though Xbox 360 has been a highlight of the holiday season, video game sales have dropped 18% from the same period last year:

They could be doing so much better had they actually released more though. Check out the posting at AnandTech.

Is Google getting ready to buy browser maker Opera Software? That’s the rumor making the rounds in the blog world this week.

Pierre Chappaz, former president of Yahoo Europe, posted a report on his blog about the deal, which he attributed to a knowledgeable source.

What doesn’t Google want to own? Of course they have no chance in acquiring Firefox, so Opera is a possibility. I’d just hate to see things in the future ‘optimized’ for a specific browser. Check out the blog post here.

You all know that France is the country of baguette, camembert and jolies madames but did you know it was also the country in the world were AMD is most successful? Reaching the mythical target of 30% overall market share (Gartner source), the small team of AMD France is doing an incredible job to promote the company to this unprecedented level! This is why AMDboard.com’s team is proud to announce the birth of AMDboard VF, the full French flavor of the mythic AMDboard.com. With French market-related news and reviews of products found in France, AMDboard VF aims to increase awareness of AMD’s products even more and help French-speaking users to enjoy their daily life with their Athlon 64, Athlon X2, Athlon XP, Duron, Opteron, Sempron and Turion 64’s processors as well as their favorite socket 754, socket 939, socket 940, socket A and upcoming socket M2 and socket F’s motherboards.

Check out the French version of the site here!

Dallas, Texas is home to the CPL Winter Championships 2005 where the world’s best gamers converge to battle it out in three tournaments for bragging rights and money. This year, CPL brings us fast-paced action with the Counter Strike $60,000 5V5 Tournament, the Quake 4 $30,000 Summer Championships 2006 Qualifier, and the F.E.A.R $10,000 Centrino Mobile Tournament.

For a cool sumup of the event, head over to techFEAR. There are not many pictures right now, but their coverage is only getting started.

Not a day goes by where someone doesn’t review the Corsair 3500LL 2GB kit, but that’s because it’s so damn good. Check out the review of this great memory at Guru 3D today. For a little bit of a twist, 3D Xtreme takes a SuperTalent kit for a run, which proved to be solid, especially for a name we rarely see. If handheld storage is your thing, then you may want to check out the unique and small looking thumb drive by PQI at PC Stats.

If you have some cash to spare and need a new GPU, you can either check out Mad Shrimps today for a review of the Club 3D 7800GT. I can vouch for that card.. it’s one of the best purchases I’ve made although I use eVGA. For a gamer on a budget, PC Stats is evaluating the 6600GT by Gigabyte, which is also a solid card but it may be worthy to pay the little bit of extra cash for the GS.

Cases & Enclosures
• Thermaltake Swing VB6000SNS – TweakNews
• Raidmax RX-9 Gaming Case – 3D Gameman

Cooling
• EverCool GT-365 – A1 Electronics

Memory & Storage
• ATP ToughDrive 1GB – Phoronix
• Corsair CMX1024-3500LLPRO – Guru 3D
• PQI Memory Intelligent Stick Pro 170 512MB – PC Stats
• SuperTalent PC4000 C2.5 1GB kit – 3D Xtreme

Motherboards & CPU’s
• Asus A8N-VM CSM GeForce 6150 – PC Stats
• ECS KA1 MVP Extreme – T-Break
• Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RD480 Crossfire – techPowerUp!

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Antec Neo HE 500W Power Supply – Think Computers
• Creative EP-630 Headphones – Trusted Review
• Logitech G7 Mouse – Design Technica
• Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard – HardwareXL
• Saitek Cyborg EVO Wireless Joystick – Red & Blackness
• Xbox 360 Controller for Windows – Game Zone

Video Cards & Monitor
• Club 3D GeForce 7800GT 256MB – Mad Shrimps
• Gigabyte GV-NX66T256D – PC Stats

Etcetera & Contests
• beblu Pentium M component HTPC – Bit-Tech
• Creative Webcam Live! Motion – Red & Blackness
• Competition: Win a Kingston Datatraveler II+Migo 512MB Flash Drive – Pure Overclock
• Datacolor SpyderTV Color Calibration Device – Future Looks
• Spire DigiPanel II – Overclockers Online

AUSTIN, Texas, December 12, 2005b—Marvel Entertainment, Inc., NCsoft® Corporation, NC Interactive, Inc. and Cryptic Studiosâ„¢, Inc. are pleased to announce today that they have amicably settled all claims brought by Marvel and all claims brought by NCsoft, NC Interactive, Inc. and Cryptic Studios, Inc. The parties’ settlement allows them all to continue to develop and sell exciting and innovative products, but does not reduce the players’ ability to express their creativity in making and playing original and exciting characters. Therefore, no changes to City of Heroes® or City of Villains’â„¢ character creation engine are part of the settlement. The parties have agreed that protecting intellectual property rights is critically important and each will continue aggressively to protect such rights in accordance with all applicable laws. While the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, all parties agree that this case was never about monetary issues and that the fans of their respective products and characters are the winners in this settlement.

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NCsoft – North American is headquartered in Austin, Texas and is part of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation. NCsoft, with its own development and publishing offices in Texas and California, also works with subsidiaries and third party developers throughout North America to develop and publish innovative online entertainment software products. The company launched two massively multiplayer titles on the same day last year: Lineage II and City of Heroes, and in 2005 the hit games Guild Wars® and City of Villains were released. In 2006, NCsoft is poised to launch two more massively multiplayer titles: Auto Assault® and Tabula Rasaâ„¢. More information about NCsoft can be found at http://www.PlayNC.com.

NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, Lineage, Guild Wars, Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. City of Heroes and City of Villains are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cryptic Studios, Inc. and NC Interactive, Inc. Cryptic Studios is a trademark of Cryptic Studios, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Its deathly silent and you have nothing but the faint beam from your flashlight to slowly navigate the area. Questions run through your head as your brain tries to make sense of what just happened to the rest of your squad, suddenly, you spin around to try and pinpoint the location of a large bang, you see nothing, but begin to proceed cautiously none the less. A small girl appears in your path causing your grip around the shotguns barrel to tighten, as she begins to move you quickly pump a shell into the chamber and backpedal, your breathing becomes more intense and erratic and she begins to move closer to you. Your slow back-pedalling brings you up against a wall, and you let fly with a 12 gauge shell, which has seemingly no effect at all on the girl. Without thinking you eject the empty cartridge, steady your footing, and prepare to fire again as she continues to slowly stumble towards you …. Welcome to the world of First Encounter Assault Recon (F.E.A.R).

Head on over to Xtreme Review for the full review.

Fans of the X series of games are sure to love this game. After spending my life in it for nearly a week, it’s easy to see how one can get lost in the possibilities, as EgoSoft successfully brings an entire universe to your fingertips. What you do with that universe from the start is up to you, and that’s precisely the fun of it. Be a ruthless pirate, a freelance law enforcer, a paid assassin, the ultimate economic guru, or whatever else you wish to pass your time as.

Check out the full review at GamePyre.

Greetings from the Central Wastelands!

– The Auto Assault team

Listen up, you HD-mongering American Xbox 360 owners: it may be time to invest in a little Japanese-import HDTV for your Xbox 360. Here is the deal: in the US, HDTV A/V outputs support 480p, 720p and 1080i, correct? Well Japanese HDTV components run on all of these and one more, that is 750p. That’s why the HD component cable for the Japanese 360 looks a little different and is called a D-Terminal cable. What does this mean for you? Well, it means Japanese gamers can play 360 games at 720p at a hot 60fps and you can’t. Feeling a little screwed? Yeah, we all are. Thanks, Microsoft.

It’s not as bad as you think, so read the posting over at Gizmodo.

PCSTATS looks at the new features which Microsoft plans to bring to the table With Internet Explorer 7, and examine how the underlying functionality of the browser has changed to better protect your computer. Internet Explorer has the distinction of being the browser most targeted by all forms of spyware, malware, and other nasties, so more security is always good news. Essential features like tabbed browsing are just the tip of what Internet Explorer 7 has to offer.

Check out the full look over at PC Stats!

Today is the day to read up on memory if you are looking to purchase some. PC Stats and InsaneTek are both taking a look at some Corsair PC4000 Platinum, which we also reviewed a few months ago and loved. If I were to build a brand new computer, that’s the memory I would throw in. If you don’t need 2GB (Don’t kid yourself!), then you may want to check out PC Modding Malaysia who are looking at some extremely fast DDR2 memory, clocked at PC7200!

For a different kind of memory, both Tech Report and Viper Lair are taking a look at the new Barracuda 7200.9 500GB! Legit Reviews and Hardware XL also have some great contests going on today, so definitely head over to those sites and enter!

Cases & Enclosures
• Raidmax Sagitta ATX Gaming Case – Big Bruin

Cooling
• Evercool Sharks Heatpipe CPU Cooler – Think Computers
• Pentium 4 CPU Cooler Round-up – Trusted Reviews
• PrimeCooler MegaCool 5 AMD Heatsink – A1 Electronics

Memory & Storage
• Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT PC4000 DDR500 Memory – PC Stats
• Corsair XMS TWINX2048-4000PT 2GB Dual Channel Kit – InsaneTek
• Kingston HyperX PC7200 DDR900 1GB Kit – PC Modding Malaysia
• OCZ Gold PC4000 GX XTC 2GB Dual Channel Kit – InsaneTek
• Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.9 hard drives – Tech Report
• Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.9 – Viper Lair

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Bluetake i-PHONO mini Bluetooth Stereo Headphone – A True Review
• Logitech G7 – TeleFragged
• Steelpad S&S Professional Mousepad – Maximum CPU

Video Cards & Monitor
• Acer AL1951 19″ LCD Monitor – UK Gamer
• ASUS Extreme N6600GT Silencer – Hard|OCP
• mad-moxx Radeon X800 GTO² 16 Pipes Burstfire – Technic3D
• Sapphire RADEON X1300 256MB – Case Mod God

Etcetera & Contests
• Black Jack: Biohazard Anime DVD Review – Think Computers
• Blu-ray Disc considered ?The New Higher Definition Format? – Design Technica
• Contest: 4 Free Motherboard and CPU Combos – Legit Reviews
• How to Build an Alienware desktop clone for cheap – Bona Fide Reviews
• Jackson Armor Card – Extensive Mods
• Put Your Mouse Where It Does Not Belong Contest – HardwareXL
• Sony PSP Gigapack – UK Gamer
• Thunderbird: 1.5 and Beyond – XYZ Computing

Steganos cares about your computer security, and offers a complete suite to make sure you are kept safe. It combines 10 security tools together into one massive package, and we are going to take a look at what’s available and see if it’s worth your money.

How much RAM does your PC have? If you run Windows XP, it is probably in the range of 512 MB to 1 GB. Older Windows versions will do the job with less than that, but as soon as you execute demanding applications or more than one application at a time, anything below 512 MB will likely translate into performance bottlenecks.

This is a great article if you are still not using 2GB, but are considering it. They don’t take a look at anything higher than 2GB, but there’s not a true need for that right now. Check out the full writeup at Toms Hardware.

The modestly popular Konfabulator widget application for Windows and Mac (review) was snatched up by Yahoo in late July, and the company promptly turned around and started giving it away for free. We knew that Yahoo was going to use it to promote some of their web services, and they’ve delivered on that promise now that the application has graduated to version 3.0. And with its first big release in the Yahoo ownership era, it has received a new, Yahoorific name: Yahoo! Widget Engine.

It still seems a little buggy; they certainly have things to improve. It’s free though, and available for Mac and PC so it’s worth a try if it interests you. Read more at Ars Technica.

I guess this was to be expected. BusinessWeek reports that Japanese customers bought less than half of the available Xbox 360 units available during the consoles debut. Considering that Japan is home to Nintendo and Sony, Microsoft still has an uphill battle with the 360.

No doubt MS has a tough audience over there, but it’s because the games available for the 360 are nothing like what Japanese players want. Microsoft has to really negotiate with game companies to introduce unique games over there. Not many people in the US like playing Japanese games, so the same goes for over there. Read the post at Anand.