Tech News

Futuremark 3DMark06 Analysis

The launch of Futuremark’s 3DMark06, it’s latest ‘Gamer’s Benchmark’, has thrown up all manner of questions and concerns about the benchmark itself, Futuremark as a company, the changes facing consumer 3D graphics in Windows Vista, and just how much weight the benchmark carries outside of the forums and hardware websites of the world.

This is a very informative look at everything 3D Mark, including how Futuremark specifically designs each version. I agree it fails in some areas, but it’s still fun to use. Check out the full article at Hexus.

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ASRock 775XFire-eSATA2 Review

ASRock is a subsidiary of ASUS and manufactures low-cost motherboards. The ASRock 775XFire-eSATA2 for Intel Socket LGA775 is based on Intel’s i945 chipset and can run ATI Crossfire. Due to a lack of PCI-E lanes in the Intel chipset this is only possible in x16/x4, but this board costs only USD 80.

Looks like a great motherboard, but lacks overclocking ability. What do you expect for an $80 motherboard though? Check out the full review at techPowerUp!.

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EVGA e-GeForce 7300GS 256MB PCI-E Video Card Review

The EVGA e-GeForce 7300GS 256MB PCI-E Video Card is a wonderful product for anyone who requires a very quiet Home Theater PC. With its passive cooling feature, it’s completely silent. This product comes loaded with most of the current technologies like CineFX 4 graphics engine, Intellisample 4.0, TurboCache, PureVideo, and supports DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3. Performance is reasonable, but this clearly is not a hardcore gamer’s card. Watch the Video to find out more…

You can check out the full video review over at 3D Gameman.

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Cooler Master eXtreme 600W PSU Review

When you think of Cooler Master you probably think of stylish looking aluminum cases. Until recently, the secret was that they made beefy power supplies to go in those cases. Today we have the pleasure of looking at one of their top-of-the-line models the eXtreme Power 600W; this supply is ATX 12V V2.01 compatible and should be adequate for those looking for a power supply offering a bit more power than normal.

Head on over to Hi-Tech Reviews for the full read.

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Accelerated Knoppix v1.0

Released late last month by Japan’s Alpha Systems was
Accelerated Knoppix v1.0. Whether you are a die-hard Linux user, or even
a Windows enthusiast, Knoppix is one of the most commonly known LiveCD
Linux distributions. Japan’s Alpha Systems have taken Knoppix v4.0 and
constructed it into an efficient masterpiece. The developers have
re-arranged the Cloop file system block and optimized the hardware
detection and configuration process. This LiveCD can fully boot on a
system in under 60 seconds! Accelerated Knoppix is certainly one of the
fastest Linux distributions we have ever tried, and Alpha Systems have
provided complete technical illustrations with their project.
Accelerated Knoppix comes with the same programs as what is found on the
CD variant of Knoppix v4.0.

Check out the full pictorial at Phoronix.

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OCZ PC-3200 2GB Gold Edition GX XTC Review

The advantages of having 2 GB of RAM are readily apparent when using memory hungry applications, and this kit from OCZ Technology allows you to have this advantage without having to make the trade-off for quality.

Head on over to Virtual-Hideout for the full review.

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Corsair 3500LL Pro TwinX 2GB Review

Fast, Beautiful, Stable and Spacious. Things you’d normally say about a sports car or a luxury beast before being jerked back by the missus so you don’t drool on it. That’s exactly how we feel about this memory. This memory is perfect for the mid to high level overclockers, the gamer, and the benchmark fanatic.

Check out the full review at Motherboards.org!

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Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro Review

As with Arctic Cooling’s other recent CPU coolers, the fan has no “sides”. This helps to draw air from more than just one direction. Notice the fan’s shock mounts, this is to help eliminate fan vibration being transferred to the heatsink itself.”

Check out the review over at OCIA.

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NVIDIA cuts TCP offloads to end data corruption

Since the nForce4’s release, the chipset’s ActiveArmor networking capabilities have struggled to live up to their promised potential for reducing CPU utilization by handling TCP checksumming in hardware rather than on the host CPU. Over time, we’ve watched ActiveArmor’s CPU utilization oscillate between impressively low and alarmingly high. Every new driver release seemed to change ActiveArmor’s CPU utilization, and to make matters worse, many found that using ActiveArmor at all could lead to data corruption or instability.

Check out the full article at Tech Report.

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AeroCool Zerodba 620 Watt Power Supply Review

Power supplies are like the young child in family, often overlooked by his sibling until something goes wrong and then everyone is there for him or her. A power supply is the same way; you install it and ignore it till something acts funny or your system won’t boot. Today we are looking at AeroCool’s newest addition to their power supply line-up, the AeroCool Zerodba. This unit is ATX 12V V2.0 compatible and rated at 620 watts of power, what makes it so unique is the fact that it operates without generating any noise. Come on all as we check this one out.

Head on over to Hi-Tech Reviews for the full review.

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LG Flatron L2000C Review

Ideal for the home or office, LG’s silver-and-black Flatron L2000C (£340)
can adjust to a multitude of situations with its ability to tilt, swivel and
pivot up to 90 degrees. For users who like their space, this true 20-inch
unit (4:3 aspect ratio) features a 800:1 contrast ratio, brightness of
300cd/m2, 1600×1200-pixel native resolution, and speedy 8ms response time.
It even comes with both analogue RGB and digital DVI-D ports, so caters for
both old and new graphics cards, and relatively wide viewing angles of 178
degrees.

You can read the full review over at BIOS Magazine.

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Hiper’s New 730W Quad-SLI Ready PSU Info Leaked

HPU-4×730 series is the flagship HIPER PSU for 1st half of 2006, it is enclosed with our PATENTED MESH & Industry’s fist Stainless Steel PSU Body. Compared to the Type R 580 series, HPU-4×730 utilizes all new Omnigrid II that enables one-step lock/release mechanism. It’s specially designed for BTX chassis. It also features four independent 12V rails. In terms of connectivity, HPU-4×730 comes with 2 dedicated PCI-E straight from the 12V rails, 2 additional Molex/PCI-E exTender, deigned to support NVIDIA’s new technology – Quad-SLi , which providing much more stabilized 3D hard-gaming. HPU-4×730 also provides P4 and P8 connector for users with motherboard that requires P8 connection, and with 5 modules of Molex output thus by using appropriate exTender it enables user to connect up to 20 devices.

I have to admit that this is one of the coolest PSU’s I have ever seen. I can’t wait until it sees the light of day. Check out all the info over in the 3D Gameman forums.

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Adobe to promote Symantec suite

Adobe Systems has agreed to promote Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2006 software to people who download its free Adobe Reader. Users who download the latest version of the PDF reader software see an ad for a trial version and special pricing for the security suite, Symantec said Thursday. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

As much as I like Adobe, this is not acceptable. Firstly, NIS has nothing to do with reading PDF’s. Secondly, NIS is junk software I wouldn’t even pass along to an enemy. Wow, I bashed Norton Internet Security twice in one day :) More at News.com.

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Star Wars: Empire at War Review

Star Wars: Empire at War is the latest offering in the great and venerable line of Star Wars games. Developed by a newcomer Petroglyph and the long time vet LucasArts, Empire at War is a Real-Time Strategy game with empire-building elements. And while it doesn’t deviate too much from established RTS patterns, it does make several ambitious attempts to break new ground. They’re not all good of course, but only rarely can someone be faulted for trying something new.

Check out the full review at Hooked Gamers.

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Google fixes Gmail security flaw

Google has fixed a flaw in its Gmail web e-mail service that could have allowed remote attackers to compromise users’ e-mail accounts. The blogger is reportedly a 14-year-old schoolboy. He discovered the flaw after sending rogue code from his Yahoo web mail account to his Gmail account. His blog is hosted by the Google Blogger service.

Great to hear they fix a newly found problem that quickly. It’s funny that Google cares about security so much, because closing your browser after using your Gmail keeps you logged in. Maybe they should fix the widespread problems first. More at Computer Weekly.

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Symantec Users, Start Your Keyloggers

Script kiddies have been taking advantage of intrusion prevention features of Symantec’s Norton Firewall and Norton Internet Security Suites to knock users offline in IRC channels, according to an amusing post at Washingtonpost.com. From the article: ‘Turns out that if someone types “startkeylogger” or “stopkeylogger” in an IRC channel, anyone on the channel using the affected Norton products will be immediately kicked off without warning.

I tend to believe anyone who uses Norton Internet Security doesn’t care much about their PC experience to begin with, so what do they expect? If it’s as easy as typing in a simple string of text though, that’s almost laughable. More at Slashdot.

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March 2006 System Update for Xbox 360

The March 2006 Xbox 360 update will prepare your Xbox 360 console for future system and title updates. This free update is available to all Xbox Live members. Your console will be updated the next time you sign in to Xbox Live.

That’s different. An update so you can accept more updates. Is the Xbox 360 going to be update happy like WinXP? Read more at Team Xbox.

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Apple puts foot in mouth

“Go ahead, just try to play Halo on a budget PC,” Apple said. “Most say they’re good for 2D games only. That’s because an ‘integrated Intel graphics’ chip steals power from the CPU and siphons off memory from system-level RAM.” That’s all well and good. But now comes the new Intel-based Mac Mini. And guess what, it has integrated graphics too.

It may be integrated into the motherboard, but I am curious about the actual performance factor. If it can still play reasonably good games, then it would still make a decent computer. Check out the full blog posting at Cnet.

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The Godfather Interview

Q: Name a few of the major weapons in The Godfather The Game.

MO: There are five classes of weapons in The Godfather The Game starting with your bare knuckles (these are often the only intimidation tool you’ll need) to melee weapons (bludgeon your opponents with crushing blows using baseball bats and lead pipes) to stranglers (sneak up on your opponent and garrote him from behind feeling his heartbeat in the controller) to an arsenal of firearms (ranging from the .38 Snub Nose – wielded primarily by beat cops patrolling the streets of NYC to the legendary Tommy Gun – wielded by the highest ranking mobsters throughout the city) and of course the heavy explosives (molotovs, dynamite and time bombs used to take out mobsters in quantity, blow safes/vaults and if necessary blow up an entire building).

You can read the full interview at Worthplaying.

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Legend of Mir 3 Open Beta

CARY, N.C.- March 3, 2006, — iEntertainment Network, (BB:IENT.pk), an award winning online publisher, developer and community management company, announces today that Legend of Mir 3, a renown Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing game with over 1 million worldwide players, has been launched in Open Beta on IENT’s gaming service. Mir 3 provides great gaming fun for online players with over 40 maps, 15 extended Quests with over 100 stages, and continuing Daily Quests.

You can check out much more info at the Official Site. Source: Blues News.

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Intel First-Quarter Revenue Below Expectations

SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 3, 2006 – Intel Corporation today announced that first-quarter revenue is expected to be between $8.7 billion and $9.1 billion, as compared to the previous expectation of between $9.1 billion and $9.7 billion, primarily due to weaker than expected demand and a slight market segment share loss.

The full press release can be read here.

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Novell Reports Financial Results for First Fiscal Quarter 2006

WALTHAM, Mass. – March 2, 2006 – Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL) today announced financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended Jan. 31, 2006. For the quarter, Novell reported revenue of US$274 million, compared to revenue of $290 million for the first fiscal quarter 2005. Net income available to common stockholders in the first fiscal quarter 2006 was $2 million or $0.00 per diluted common share. This compared to net income available to common stockholders of $392 million, or $0.90 per diluted common share, for the first fiscal quarter 2005, which included a $448 million net gain related to the settlement with Microsoft in that quarter.

The full press release can be read here.

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OCZ Technology Introduces Enhanced Latency PC-3200 Platinum XTC Modules

Sunnyvale, CA—March 2, 2006—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the release of PC-3200 Platinum 1024MB XTC and PC-3200 Platinum Revision 2 XTC. The launch of the new series will meet the needs of today’s high-end system builders, gamers and enthusiasts who seek high performance DDR400 memory solutions.

The full press release can be read here.

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EMC and Microsoft Expand Alliance

HOPKINTON, MA and REDMOND, WA – March 3, 2006 – Building on a longstanding relationship of integrating enterprise-class systems, software, services and shared best practices, EMC Corporation and Microsoft Corporation today announced a significant expansion of their alliance to further simplify the delivery of information lifecycle management (ILM) solutions for Microsoft® application environments. EMC and Microsoft will work together to develop and deliver a portfolio of integrated solutions that will help business customers cost-effectively manage information on the Microsoft server platform.

The full press release can be read here.

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Hardware Roundup for Mar. 3

Ahh, lots going on today! You better grab your coffee, stop doing your work, and get ready to read. If you missed the slew of recent A8R32-MVP Deluxe motherboard reviews, Legion Hardware, Tech Report and techPowerUp! all have new reviews today. T-Break takes a lot at one of the top Intel offerings from ASUS, the P5WD2-E, which uses the 975x chipset. Speaking of Intel, there are two DDR2 related reviews. Driver Heaven takes a super fast 1GB OCZ kit for a run, and PC Stats takes a look at the brand new Super Talent 2GB kit of the same speed. At 5-5-5 timings, PC Stats managed to get the memory to push 1020MHz!

If you lack knowledge of how GPU’s work, like me, then you will want to check out 3D Chip today. You will need your German to English translator, but it’s a very informative article as it shows you how graphic effects are calculated and processed, and which family of cards support which version of DirectX. If you are looking for a new Power Supply to keep your system happy, Extreme Overclocking and Tweak News both have great reviews of some great units. Last, but definitely not least, Digit-Life and MadShrimps both take one of the top end [for now] eVGA cards for a spin. Personally, I would hold off upgrading until I see what pricepoint the 7900’s wind up at..

Cases & Enclosures
• Aerocool ExtremEngine 3T – 3D Xtreme
• Asys Eiffel Tower – CaseModGod

Cooling
• EKL V8 Cooler Heatsink – Hardware-Review
• Noctua NH-U9 Low Noise Heatsink – Frosty Tech
• Alphacool NexXxoS XP CPU Waterblock – PC Apex
• Tai-Chi M Laptop Cooler – Techniz
• Thermalright V1-Ultra – PC Modding Malaysia

Memory & Storage
• OCZ 1GB DDR2 PC2-6400 – Driver Heaven
• Seagate 5.0GB Pocket Hard Drive – Phoronix
• Super Talent PC2-6400 T800UX2GC4 – PC Stats

Motherboards & CPU’s
• ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 – AnandTech
• ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe – Legion Hardware
• ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe – techPowerUp!
• ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe – Tech Report
• ASUS P5WD2-E – T-Break

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Corepad Eyepads – Think Computers
• Hiper Type-R 480W – Extreme Overclocking
• mobiBLU DAH-1500i Cube Digital Audio Player – Bjorn3D
• Thermaltake PurePower 600Watt – TweakNews

Video Cards & Monitor
• ASUS Geforce 6600GT EN6600GT Silencer/HTD – Viper Lair
• Bases Series Part 1: The Functional Method of the GPU – 3D Chip
• EVGA 7800GTX KO – Madshrimps
• EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO ACS3 Edition 256MB – Digit-Life
• Sapphire X1800 XT – Pure Overclock

Etcetera & Contests
• All DT, All the Time! (Podcast) – Design Technica

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