Content and news by Rob Williams

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – August 1, 2005 – At SIGGRAPH 2005, AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc, will support the AGEIA physX™ SDK with the upcoming release of SOFTIMAGE®|XSI® version 5.0, Avid’s award-winning digital character and visual effects software.

Artists have created some of the most memorable game characters using SOFTIMAGE|XSI software, and their real-time interactivity will increase with XSI v.5.0 by taking advantage of AGEIA’s state-of-the-art physics simulation engine for rigid body dynamics and high-precision actual-shape collision handling. In addition, Softimage plans to offer support for hardware-accelerated simulation using the AGEIA physX processor.

Sweet, maybe more reason to look forward to the PhysX! Check out the full press release here!

My evaluation of such low-end hardware using the latest graphically challenging games might seem pointless at first glance. Look twice and you’ll see that while both HyperMemory and TurboCache boards were generally really unhappy with the latest games, analysis of UT2004 shows that in older games (and to some extent new ones at very low resolution) they’ll do fine. If your aim is to build a really cheap PCI Express-based gaming box for the kids, or to use a card as a stop-gap solution before you pick up something more powerful, they do fine.

Check out the full review over at Hexus.

The Intel P4 LGA775 socket series CPU’s are some of the most thermally demanding chips on the market. Unfortunately, the lack of aftermarket thermal solutions is puzzling. We take a look at one of the few LGA775 solutions and see how it does at taming the heat.

Check out the full review over at Futurelooks!

Computer hackers worked through the weekend to expose a flaw that could allow an attacker to take control of the Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO – news) routers that direct traffic across much of the Internet.

Angered and inspired by Cisco’s attempts to suppress news of the flaw earlier in the week, several computer security experts at the Defcon computer-security conference worked past midnight Saturday to discover and map out the vulnerability.

This is quite a big problem that should be fixed quick. There are patches available for the routers, so now it’s a matter of just patching them. Check out the news post at Yahoo.

After part of the team drove a trailer loaded with equipment to Utah Hill, near Beaver Dam in the state of Utah, iFiber Redwire used a fascinating collection of homemade antennas, surplus 12 foot satellite dishes, home-welded support structures, scaffolds, ropes and computers to wirelessly connect to their comrades who were located southwest of Las Vegas at the top of Mount Potosi. The final result was a full 11 Mbps data transfer rate over a distance of 125 miles, a new world record for an unamplified wireless networking connection.

Insane! That’s an unbelievable distance, especially for an unamplified setup. Huge grats to the team! Check out all the information here.

Prices for AMD’s mainstream Sempron lineup fell by up to 25%. In addition, AMD cut prices for dual-core Athlon 64×2 processors 8-12%. AMD also launched the Athlon 64×2 3800+ processor, which at US$354, is the company’s lowest priced dual-core processor.

I have already noticed this. I see the 3200+ Venice for around $230CAN.. that’s awesome! Check out the full news post at DigiTimes.

Antec contacted LR and wanted us to take a look at an updated PCI Slot cooler that was “better” than anything that we have looked at. Being that it is in the middle of summer in sunny Las Vegas we figured it was only fair to put the new Antec Vcool multi-speed VGA cooler to the test.

Check out the full review at Legit Reviews.

As the major processor makers cram more transistors on a wafer, the amount of heat processors generate increases. While air cooling techniques are still sufficient to handle the greater heat output, much better solutions exists. Using a kit with parts pre-selected can often times be better than a similar do-it-yourself system and also cost much less. In this review we will look at the water cooling alternative with a complete kit provided by Gigabyte Technology – the 3D Galaxy Liquid Cooling System.

If you want to get a liquid cooling setup going, then definitely check out this great looking one at Bjorn3D.

The BigWater SE includes an all-copper waterblock with blue LED built in, 120cm radiators, and a newly-designed DC 12V black motor. The output of 90 LPH will support all your liquid cooling needs in the system – yet it is only as quiet as 18dBA. For the reservoir, Thermaltake has utilized the unused 5.25” bays in the system in order to save room in the system. With the face plate displaying how much coolant is in the liquid cooling system, the user will always know how much water is in the system and when to refill the coolant.

Check out the full review over at Techniz!

A few weeks prior to the launch on GeForce 7800 GTX, based on NVIDIA’s latest G70 chip, NVIDIA held an “Editors Day” to introduce the press to the new architecture and capabilities. Whilst that the Editors Day we got the opportunity to sit down with NVIDIA’s CEO and visionary, Jen-Hsun Huang and ask him a few questions…

This is a great interview to see what NVIDIA is up to, and to get some personal opinions from the CEO. Check it out at Beyond3D.

A leading cryptographer unveiled a technology on Friday that he said could make it impossible for malicious hackers or government investigators to eavesdrop on Internet phone calls. PGP Inc. founder Phil Zimmermann said his new encryption software would for the first time make phone calls placed over the Internet private.

Wow, this is going to be great. Check out the full article at Reuters.

The new Steel Sound 5H-USB professional gaming headset looks just like any other gaming headset. But looks are deceptive for this headset boasts of unique features like a specially-tweaked USB sound card, a retractable microphone as well as the ability to be dismantled for easy transportation! Check it out now!

Check out the full look at this great looking headset, over at Rojak Pot.

Cooler Master has teamed up with InsaneTek to provide a great case giveaway. Be sure to get in on the action! There are some rules
you have to follow first. These rules are provided by Cooler Master. Of course you also have to follow our typical contest rules
too.

Check out the full contest details at InsaneTek.

WHEN WE FIRST reviewed the Athlon 64 X2 processor a few months back, we said that it was an outstanding CPU, but we wished out loud for AMD to start selling a 2GHz version of the X2 at a lower price. After all, we argued, Intel’s Pentium D 820 is a killer deal at just under $250, while the least expensive Athlon 64 X2 costs over twice that. Sure, the X2’s performance might well justify the price premium, but we’ll take more for our money when we can get it.

Check out the full review at Tech Report.

In the following pages our handy to use lists which we hope you will find as useful as we do is the range of current Intel Pentium 4, D dual-core, EE & M and Celeron D & M processors with all the details necessary from number, speed and cache etc to enable you to make an easy choice from the many different processor types, speeds and versions that are available.

Check out the full look over at A1 Electronics.

Today on BFR we have the opportunity to review Gigabyte’s GA-K8N Ultra-9 motherboard. Last year we looked at their GA-8GPNXP Duo which is based on the Intel 915P chipset and packed full of features. The Ultra-9 has a Socket 939 Processor type and, like the 8GPNXP, is feature rich containing the Nvidia nForce4 Ultra chipset with on board sound, ethernet, IEEE 1394b (FireWire), 2 RAID controllers, as well as Gigabyte’s ever popular Dual BIOS technology. This motherboard also has an extreme amount of SATA connections.

Jump over to Bona Fide Reviews for the full review!

Spam is one of those things that nobody wants, but probably has plenty of. If there happens to be anyone out there unfamiliar with spam, we are not talking about the luncheon meat, but the unsolicited, junk e-mail that clogs our inboxes. And in case you are curious, according to some sources, the junk mail version of spam earned its name from a Monty Python skit regarding the luncheon meat of the same name. Care to sing along?

These are tips we could all use! Check it out at Big Bruin.

ATI’s Radeon X800 XL GPU is considered to be one of the best price/performance gaming solutions available. Gigabyte’s offering
provides stellar silence and hip looks as well as a nice bundle.

Check out the full review over at InsaneTek.

The Sapphire bundle is really becoming sub-par. They have certainly kept up with cooling needs and pay great attention to that side of the business. The inclusion of the Component output even shows that they have a lot of care for things other than just pure gaming. That being said, they really either need to just completely dump the bundled software or get new games. Two year old software that isn’t even in the most popular genre do nothing but cost people money that they would otherwise spend on more parts.

Check out the review over at Got Apex!

When it comes to ATI video cards, Sapphire is one of the top, if not the number one manufacturer. After their tremendous success with video cards, they are now entering the motherboard business.
Sapphire’s PI-A9RX480 is based on the ATI RX480 chipset and is specifically developed to fit the needs of overclockers and enthusiasts. The BIOS shines when it comes to overclocking options. For example DDR Voltage can be selected up to 4.0 V.

Head over to techPowerUp! for the full review!