Content and news by Rob Williams

IN THE LAST remaining months of 2005 Nvidia plans to update its Nforce 4 SLI platform. The new chipset is going to be called Nforce 4 SLI 16X and we saw it in Nvidia’s latest chipset roadmap. It’s listed that it will feature an “enthusiast class” feature set and will sit in a board that’s estimated to cost around $140 plus.

I’m highly doubtful that 16x will make any difference in performance at all right now, or even within the next year or two. We’ll have to see.. Check it out at The Inquirer.

After many years of incorperating ads into their free browser, they have finally come to the conclusion that they shouldn’t be there. So now if you want an ad-free version, just download the latest and they will be gone.

Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera’s growth, due to tremendous worldwide customer support, has made today’s milestone an achievable goal.

Check it out at the official site.

The TV encoder on the 6150 supports component, S-Video and compostive out, as well as a TMDS for DVI support. DVI on the mainboard backplane will be cool to see. Both chips are also able to be passively cooled, bringing us on nicely to the announcement that these two parts and NVIDIA’s first graphics products created on a 90nm process. Manufactured by TSMC, the 90nm process allows NVIDIA to back the transistors needed for the 6100 and 6150 into a chip package small enough and frugal enough to sit on the mainboard and be passively cooled even at top clocks.

Check out the full preview at Hexus.

ATI seek to please with a next generation of video capture, display output and video controllers under the Avivo umbrella. Related to display output, Avivo fixes my whinge with a pair of dual-link DVI outputs, fitted to the low-end up (!) via two built-in TMDS transmitters, and brings the rest of the video path, from input to output, up to modern standards.

This is some good reading, and very informative, especially if you are into this type of thing. Check out the full article at Hexus.

As you can see with this installed there wouldn’t be much need for visiting the rear of the PC with everything except the kitchen sink available( oh Yeh it doesn’t pick up satellite TV either :P ) one thing I have to say though is I was very impressed with the quality of the finish, the paint job on the Allinone is excellent and has I really nice deep gloss finish rather than some tatty matt one.

Check out the full review at Xtreme Computing!

And we are very pleased with the fan and low noise from it which has helped a great deal to reduce the overall noise in the computer case it is fitted to. And not to forget the handy way we and you can reduce the power lead mess inside a computer case with the use of the power distribution box.

Check out the review at A1 Electronics.

Under a load, the ArrowMax PSX-550AL-24 reported effifiencies that bounced between 0.98 and 0.99 (98% and 99%). You can’t get much better than that, and a few months of pocketing the savings on your electric bill will contribute nicely to your next upgrade… The heat output during the testing agreed with the efficiency results, as the air coming out of the ArrowMax power supply felt about as warm as the room temperature.

Head over to Big Bruin for the review!

How in the heck can you live without a USB2 flash drive in this day and age? These drives are a godsend if you have important media to backup or transport. It’s a quick and affordable way of insuring your important data is safe. While all USB2 flash drives are fast, this product is 30% faster. Clearly, this is a must have product! Watch the Video to find out more…

This flash drive has some serious potential! Check it out at 3D Gameman. Expect our review of the drive in the coming weeks.

The Cooler Master CM Media 260 Case has provisions for a single optical drive
(referred to as an ODD in the manual) a single floppy drive, and 2 hard
drives. The floppy drive is ordinarily concealed beneath the left door. The
optical drive has a spring-loaded stealth metal door on the face of the case,
with a button which was dead on for both of the drives I tested.

Head on over to Mod The Box for the review.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – September 19, 2005 – AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that German game developer ASCARON Entertainment GmbH will support the AGEIA PhysX™ processor in the sequel to its World Wide hit Sacred™ as well as future game titles. Based on a license agreement with AGEIA, ASCARON will use the AGEIA PhysX SDK to incorporate extensive real-time physics into its games, which players can experience with exceptional depth on PCs equipped with the AGEIA PhysX processor.

Read: Full Press Release

There are several ways to get your game previewed by the press. You send out a preview copy, you invite people over to the publisher’s offices, you might even throw a party in some nightclub. Not Activision. Late August, they invited a group of international journalists to join them in Poland for…..

Cryptic Studios and NCSoft released a big hit in April 2004 with City of Heroes, which finally gave players the chance to defend freedom and protect the meek with their super powers. Since its release Cryptic has been very generous with release new free content adding new zones, villain groups, powers and…..

One feature which I wanted was a rechargeable unit. This BT unit comes with a ultra small charger which you can carry just about everywhere. It takes roughly four hours to fully charge the headset for use. Another nice feature is Logitech’s WindStop technology. It helps eliminate the noise you hear when air passes over the headset. Quite useful if you like to leave the windows open while you drive.

Check out the full review at Gideon Tech!

Finger print readers have been around for a long time – in Hollywood, where you most likely see them being used to access high security areas in action movies, but similarly they have been around for surprisingly a long time in army bases around the world. As time went on they found their way into corporate networks protecting vital company data before swiftly moving into our homes.

Head over to Tweak News for the full review!

The nVidia 7800GTX is currently the fastest GPU for gamers and when we looked at it when it was launched, we liked almost everything except for the $599 price tag that nVidia put on it. Last month, nVidia introduced the 7800GT graphics card and unfortunately due to custom regulations, the card didn’t make it to us in time. As you probably know it, the 7800GT that it’s a scaled down version of the 7800GTX- in terms of both, features and price.

Check out the full review at T-Break!

As many of you will be aware, F.E.A.R (or First Encounter Assault & Recon for short) involves a rather mysterious looking girl in a red dress, a man with an unappetising taste for human flesh, and some rather flashy action set pieces al la’ The Matrix. All of this is brought together…..

The use of computers for mainstream entertainment such as listening to music and movie watching is becoming more prevalent, with many households now having a dedicated PC for the task. Within the industry, the trend is seen as the ‘next big thing’ – we’ve already written lots about Microsoft Media Center as well as other cases with the same theme. The Home Theatre Personal Computer, in our opinion, has a number of issues to overcome before it is accepted in the family living room alongside the Hi-Fi and TV – namely, its looks and the amount of background noise it produces. Crucial to this is the case the system is built into – and today, we’re looking at the Ahanix D.Vine D5.

Check out the full review at Bit-Tech!

CaseModGod.com has teamed up with memory giant Crucial to bring
you a killer two month long super easy to enter case mod competition. The
top mod will receive a complete Crucial Ballistix Tracer prize package worth
well over $400.00!

Check out all the details at CaseModGod.

Not long ago, did a small article/review on a new innovation, an Oled Keyboard, I am sure everyone knows what I am talking about, it was posted as news everywhere. The only problem with the Oled keyboard is that, after some research, the idea is not that technologically feasible at this time. The other problem with the Oled keyboard is that it is ‘paperware’ it does not actually exist, the pictures look very pretty and caused quite a bit of a fuss in the media, but that’s all they are: Pictures.

I don’t think this should be compared to the OLED keyboard.. doesn’t do much for me. It’s a tech that has potential though. Check out the full look at Think Computers!