Content and news by Rob Williams

Half-Life 2 expansion Aftermath will be getting a retail release after all, Valve’s Doug Lombardi has confirmed, and the developer aims to release the game in September.

Speaking to Eurogamer at E3, Lombardi said: “Aftermath will be coming out at retail, but we’re finalising our publishing partner.” Valve recently parted ways with Half-Life 2 publisher Vivendi-Universal Games, who will cease distribution of the company’s products at the end of August.

Good, a retail version! Considering how the version via Steam and Retail costs the same, you may as well go get the boxed copy. Full articles at EuroGamer.

“So, why are we pitting the X700 Pro and not the XT version against the 6600GT? The X700XT has not actually hit retail yet and the word on the grapevine is that it may never hit retail. Current pricing also puts the 6600GT and X700 Pro head to head, with no more than a £10 difference between them. Currently, to pit the 6600GT against the X700 Pro makes perfect sense unless ATI does the right thing and lowers the price of the X700 Pro.”

This is an in-depth look at both cards, and they are put through multiple benchmarks. Before you buy, read this review.

“In this article I will start with the basics of how computer memory works (don’t worry you won’t need to be an electrical engineer to understand it), what kinds of computer memory is available, and some general recommendations on how much you should need. While I can’t possibly go over all possible scenarios and types of memory out there, by the time you have read this article you should hopefully be able to fill in the gaps, and make decisions on your own. “

Check out the full look at memory at Big Bruin.

“Gaviri PocketSearch is like a portable Google’s Desktop or Apple Tiger’s Spotlight in that it indexes your entire drive on-the-fly and allows you to find files based on their type, text and more. Interestingly, the difference is the program’s focus on targeting at the USB flash drive market.”

Check out the full look over at Everything USB.

“This RaidMax Samurai gaming computer case certainly has stunning style and difference all of its own. But not only that is setting it apart it is also well made. Has some unique features and represents a great gaming box.”

Head over to A1 Electronics for the full review.

“Cooler Master continues the Real Power series with a beefier 550W power supply. It comes with 3 independent 12v rails, a PCI-E connector, a wattage meter display, and a bright blue 120mm blue LED fan.”

Check out the full review at InsaneTek.

“Today I have Ok Gear’s 5.1 Channel Surround Sound Heaphones Model OK 800 for review. When offered the chance to review these I jumped on it. I thought ‘Surround Sound’ in a headphone?? This has to be cool. Well let’s find out just how cool these are.”

Head over to Think Computers for the full review!

“CPU coolers are perhaps the biggest and fastest adapting category of
aftermarket computer products today. As new CPUs operate hotter and hotter,
more and more computer users start to realize the importance of keeping CPU
temperatures down. All the big names in aftermarket CPU cooling compete to
design the latest and greatest CPU cooler for these users. One example is
Giga-Byte’s newest flagship CPU cooler, the G-Power Pro Universal Cooler.
Just what does the G-Power Pro offer and how well does it perform?”

What a great looking cooler! Definitely unique, so check it out at A True Review.

“For Windows users, with almost every new graphics driver release, whether it is ATI’s CATALYST or NVIDIA’s Forceware, a small boost in performance is generally noticeable to gamers. Does this same philosophy hold true with Linux NVIDIA users? At Phoronix we’re trying out all of NVIDIA’s Linux graphics drivers from the past year to see just how well these drivers have been tuned over time.”

Check out the full comparisons over at Phoronix.

“MSI has taken on NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset and incorporated a sensible array of features that make the P4N Diamond into a true deluxe mainboard. General performance is good and SLI performance, too, is about as good as it’s going to get with LGA775 as platform base. It’s recommended as a fast LGA775 board with all the trimmings, but it can’t be recommended as the SLI board of choice – no Intel board can. SLI and overall gaming performance belongs to AMD.”

Great looking board! Head over to Hexus to read the review.

“The NGO ATI Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the ATI Catalyst driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with a better performance and better image quality. The Driver has support for all Radeon cards. (even Mobility and FireGL cards)

ATI has rewritten the OpenGL Driver. The Rewritten OpenGL driver is now available inside the OpenGL Driver Switcher!

Release Notes:
• Based on ATI Catalyst 5.5
• Changes: ATI Control Panel is now integrated with the driver
• Added: The rewritten OpenGL driver is now available in the OpenGL Driver Switcher
• Updated: ATI Tray Tools v1.0.2.673
• Updated: OpenGL Driver Switcher
• Fixed: Mobility Installation bug
• Fixed: All in Wonder 8000/8500 Installation bug
• Fixed: Uninstaller related bugs”

Head over to NGOHQ to grab it!

“In order to get this card we have set a very simple task. Most of you will not know, but Powercolor is being headed up by some new fresh faces within the UK, and we want to help them out :o)

We want you – in no more than 10 words to think up a snazzy slogan about their products/cards which they could use on a potential banner advert on a site – like HEXUS.”

Very cool idea, so get your creative juices flowing! Check it out at Hexus.

“A very large percentage of PC users are compromised of PC gamers. Gamers do not place silence, versatility or even value of their system as their top priority, but o­nly 3D performance. While most of us search and evaluate the best price to performance ratio and solution, the majority of Gamers simply want the best there is when it comes to a video card. However, the best video cards are usually the most expensive. Crucial came forward to offer this portion of that market offering the ATi Radeon X850 XT 256MB card following the reference design, which currently is o­ne of the fastest cards o­n the planet. Let us see what this card is made of and what it can offer the hardcore enthusias.”

I’ll be honest, I had zero idea that Crucial manufactured video cards. This ones really impressive though, so check it out here.

“If you recall, we’ve reviewed a PowerColor X800 PRO Limited Assassin Edition back in October of 2004. It was based on ATI’s R420 ASIC. The card featured an AGP bus and 12 pipelines. At the end of 2004, ATI had launched refresh parts and brought their mid-range market up a notch by releasing a R430 chip on 0.11µ silicon process. ATI’s main focus was to fill the gap with a card that would compete with GeForce 6800GT. It was a successful move to introduce X800 XL (R430) with 16 pipelines.”

Other than being really, really expensive, this is a great card with a lot of features. Read the full review over at Bjorn3D.

“Ever since Ryan reviewed the nForce 4 SLI back in October 2004, I’ve been eager to get my hands on one for a review. Of course since then Ryan has reviewed SLI boards from Asus, Gigabyte and DFI and we’ve seen that all these boards perform roughly the same. So what differentiates one offering from another is their price, features, and service/warranty. It is for this reason I’m looking forward to reviewing the EPoX EP-9NPA+SLI. The EP-9NPA+SLI is priced cheaper than many higher end boards, and knowing EPoX’s reputation you can expect a lot of overclocking features too. So let’s see if EPoX has a winner on their hands with their top AMD board.”

Great looking SLi board. The CPU Duct really caught my eye.. that’s a great idea. Read the in-depth review over at PC Perspective.

“Another video card review at Rbmods tonight, we have a heavy weight card from Gigabyte in the left ring corner with a silent pipe cooling technology that weighs in at an amazing 400 grams. Can it stand up against the other “heavy” weight cards in the right ring corner? Seriously yes, we will take a look at this new card from Gigabyte which seems to mainly focus on speed and silence so it will be interesting to see what we can do with this product.”

Great card that in some tests even surpasses the 6800U! Check out the full review at R&B Mods!

” MIAMI (Reuters) – The $1.45 billion judgement against Morgan Stanley for deceiving billionaire Ronald Perelman over a business deal has a lesson all companies should learn — keeping e-mails is now a must, experts say.

Banks and broker-dealers are obliged to retain e-mail and instant messaging documents for three years under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules. But similar requirements will apply to all public companies from July 2006 under the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform measures.”

I never throw away any important e-mails.. but damn. 1.45 BILLION! Read more at Reuters.

“Aesthetically, it features the LiveStrong logo on the back and Lance’s signature, along with one of the yellow LiveStrong wristbands and matching earbuds. The best thing about the notebook, though, is that HP and AMD are donating $50 from each sale to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, in addition to donating laptops to the foundation.”

Seems like a solid laptop, especially with a 64-Bit processor, and it helps people with Cancer out. Read more at Geek Coffee.

“Apple Computer and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall Friday of Apple iBook and PowerBook computer batteries, saying consumers should immediately cease using the series of batteries in question. Apple has established a Web site and telephone number for consumers to use to exchange the batteries for a free replacement.”

Read more at Information Week to see if your G4 qualifies.

“As a response to an article published by Softpedia News a few days ago on of our readers has dropped a few lines. The question was if the PC can compete with new generation gaming consoles. Here is his opinion:

You are well, probably not looking at this from the PC angle. This may go on for a little bit but it covers a lot of good ranting grounds in regards to video games, and if you start to read it, finish it or you wont get what I’m trying to say.”

If you are a PC gamer, gaming on that platform will always be prefered. Check out the read at Soft Pedia.