According to the source, ACC won't be exclusive to AMD for long. If the slide below is true, NVIDIA's plans regarding MCP72/78 unambiguously indicate the complete support of AMD ACC. The company will just have to use the JTAG interface and introduce certain changes into topology, connecting CPU and MCP72/78. The first motherboards on MCP72/78 with ACC support are expected on September 1.

Note that not all MCP72/78-based motherboards can offer ACC support, since it requires hardware modifications.

In Leipzig the GC 2008 (games convention) just started. Guru3D took a drive over there and shows some of their impressions in a series of small articles. Today the first findings at GC Leipzig 2008. There is loads of stuff going on and though the booths are a little smaller, size-wise this exhibition can definitely match with the E3. Obviously all big names are present. We'll definitely talk you through some of them.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gc-leipzig-game-conference-day-1/

According to claims from Chinese site Expreview a new-and-improved GTX 260s with more stream processors will quietly hit stores in mid-September. These cards will supposedly feature nine thread processing clusters (TPCs) instead of eight, which should work out to 216 stream processors and 72 texture units (up from 192 SPs and 64 TUs on the current model).

For reference, the top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 280 sports 240 SPs and 80 TUs. Expreview goes on to say the new GTX 260 will retain the same 65nm GT200 GPU, clock speed, memory interface width, and memory capacity as its predecessor. We won't hazard a guess as to exactly how the extra TPC will impact performance, but the move should still narrow the gap between the GTX 260 and the 4870. Right now, the Radeon HD 4870 has a slight performance edge and tends to sit between the GTX 260 and GTX 280 in many benchmarks.

All this is unconfirmed though.

A lot of game trailers today as we are covering the Games Conference in leipzig today. Tom Clancy's EndWar is a real-time tactics game designed by Ubisoft Shanghai for the PS3, Xbox 360, PSP and NDS, to be released on October 15, 2008 in North America and October 14, 2008 in Europe.

A PC version is planned for release at a later date. It is set in 2020 at which time World War III is ongoing. Now Germany's giant game show gives us another look at the war to end all wars. Check out the trailer.

The objective is to take out three antiaircraft guns atop some concrete fortifications. The easiest way to take them out is the bazooka; just stand off at a distance, get a clear shot, and avoid having to take out the mess of infantry between you and it. However, you can blow them with charges if you're short of rockets. Then comes an Japanese counter-attack, so you have to man some machine guns and take up positions on top of the fortifications.

This was a co-op battle, so there was naturally a lot of chatter going on about who should go where and who should shoot what. Apart from that, the campaign is the same whether you're playing solo or playing with three others, though the difficulty does scale in relation to the number of players in the battle. If someone is killed, another player can revive the fallen but if everyone dies at the same time, it's back to the previous checkpoint. That's if you're playing regular campaign co-op. There's a nifty little twist called competitive co-op that basically adds a scoring mode; you get points for kills, extra points for head shots, etc. The winner, of course, is the one with the most points. It's possible to really rack up a high score if you manage to snag score modifiers that multiply your points. The kicker is that in competitive co-op, if you die, you lose points, and if someone revives you, they earn points. That mechanic is designed to reign in players, because if you charge ahead or take a lot of risks or play wildly and get killed, you lose points.

• The number of multiplayer slots may be expanded for the PC version (16 is the limit for the console versions).
• The maximum resolution is 2560x1600. 
• Players can record 30 second clips and then they can add filters and adjust the camera angle using the replay editor. They can also paste clips together and then upload them to R* Social Club for others to view online. 
• Players can search for multiplayer games more specifically (e.g. a deathmatch with pistols only). 
• The Xbox 360 controller is compatible with the PC version.

EA announced at its Leipzig Games Convention press conference today additional details on the cast of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, including the casting of Jenny McCarthy, pictured, as Tanya, the staple special ops unit. But that's not all. The leaders of the three factions -- Allies, Empire of the Rising Sun and the Soviet Union -- will be played by JK Simmons, George Takei and Tim Curry, respectively. In the trailer we were shown, Takei's lines appear to be dubbed with his own voice, dialogue intentionally out of synch with his lip movements.

Also announced was the appearance of Kelly Hu, who will join Gina Carano and Gemma Atkinson as the Empire of the Rising Sun's obligatory sexpot. EA's definitely going straight for the groin with this one. Finally, in the cinematic trailer shown at Leipzig, it appears that Peter Stormare will play a part in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Oh snap!

Well, if it is alright with you guys I'm only showing the sexy female cast okay ?

Gemma Atkinson                    Jenny McCarthy                 Ivana Milicevic

Gina

Guess what, we're gonna be busy the upcoming 9 days or so. Tomorrow Guru3D travel to Germany and see if we can shoot a nice pictorial for you guys at the GC Leipzig Game Convention. But Starting on Monday, in San Jose California this will get really interesting as one of the biggest conferences, hosted by NVIDIA, will start. If you are into this industry (as any Guru of course is) then keep an eye out at Guru3D as we'll be green for that week and report back to you guys what NVISION is all about.

Just a few of the things happening:

• Learn from the professionals about how to make better pictures and videos at home
• Learn how to build your multimedia dream computer
• See Diggnation broadcast live from NVISION 08
• See how experts overclock and tune PCs
• Watch the world's Super Bowl of professional gaming
  

Futuremark Games Studio revealed Shattered Horizon, a new game where players fight to survive in the aftermath of a catastrophic Moon mining accident that throws billions of tons of rocky debris into near-Earth space. In this multiplayer first-person shooter for PC teams of players experience realistic zero gravity combat surrounded by the broken remains of orbital infrastructure and the millions of asteroids now encircling the Earth.

Other details of the processor itself are still unknown, though past leaks have pointed to a continued use of Hyperthreading that would let each core handle as many as two code threads at one time and create up to four effective cores with optimized apps. A doubled Level 2 cache of 1MB should also help improve performance.

The semiconductor firm has already confirmed that its initial implementation will include at least a desktop version for nettops and other very low-power, budget systems. A new mainboard, the D945GCLF2, will fit into any mini-ITX case and will include both GMA 950 integrated graphics as well as support for up to 2GB of memory in a single slot, gigabit Ethernet, as well as equal pairs of Parallel and Serial ATA connections for storage.

A launch for the new mainboard is scheduled for September and should be accompanied by the Atom 330 itself; an N330 for netbooks and other very small mobile systems hasn't been confirmed but is possible given a predicted power consumption of just eight watts, or less than half the energy needed for most of Intel's low-voltage Core 2 Duo processors.

The headphones produce 200mW of power, and have a frequency response range between 20Hz and 20KHz. To make the headset more comfortable, both the headband and earphones are cushioned. Razer plans to ship the Megalodon sometime in the fourth quarter of the year.

SSD is the future, make no mistake. With Silicon Power's product the dynamics change a bit. A couple of weeks ago they released a new series of drives. We got one fresh from the factory, this is their all new revised version. Optionally they make use of SLC NAND flash based memory. In certain situations this type is not only faster, it's also 10 maybe 20 times more reliable as the number of write cycles (per cell) starts at 100,000 writes.

A couple of weeks ago Silicon power released a new series of SSD drives. We got one fresh from the factory, and this is their all new revised version. Optionally they make use of SLC NAND flash based memory. In certain situations this type is not only faster, it's also 10 maybe 20 times more reliable as the number of write cycles (per cell) starts at 100,000 writes. So in theory if the OCZ drive would last 5 years, this one could last 50 years.

Check out the Guru3D review right here.

• Price and Performance: First and foremost, what gives the most bang for your buck, in terms of gaming primarily of course.
• Reliablity: Second on the list but just as important. This includes things such as compatability (ever had RAM that worked on one motherboard but not in another?), trustworthiness of a brand overall (do they have a history of making reliable parts?) in addition to the reliablity of the part in question.
• Overclockability: Overclocking can help squeeze out that extra performance out of a system and can make a big impact on price versus performance (why should you buy a $1000 CPU if you can overclock a $200 CPU to match it?) so this factor can always swing my decision.
• Heat and Power Issues: Heat is the enemy of a computer and it can affect the stability (and reliablity) of your machine. Performance per watt has become a buzz word and as power requirements for computers rise I eye this more and more closely.

Check it here:
http://www.guru3d.com/category/pcbuyguide/

In the wake of last Friday's leak, Intel has now formally announced its Mainstream series of SSD drives. Models will be available in 1.8- and 2.5-inch sizes, and rely on MLC (multi-level cell) NAND memory, which should in theory aid to keep prices down. One of the first examples is the 80GB X25-M, which is also Intel's first SATA-based SSD for notebook and desktop OEM builders.

The new drives are built around the standard 1.8 inch and 2.5 inch form factors found in netbooks, notebooks and compact desktops. 80GB drives will roll off the  production line at the end of next month, with 160GB versions hitting in first quarter of 2009.

Intel has yet to reveal pricing for any of the Mainstream drives, but claims that benchmarking shows a 50 percent boost in system performance, and a nine-times enhancement in HDD performance. While expensive and short on capacity, SSD drives are becoming an increasingly common alternative to regular hard disks, due to their faster seek times and increased reliability.

Intel claims the X18-M (1.8 inch) and X25-M (2.5 inch) drives have read speeds up to 250MB/s, write speeds to 70MB/s and a read latency of 85 microseconds. More of a concern for many would-be users is the life of the drive, however Rao says that based on 100GB of transfers per day the drives would deliver

The next release of Emergent's Gamebryo, scheduled for this fall, will ship with the NVIDIA PhysX engine directly integrated into the platform, representing a significant step in Emergent's goal of transforming the Gamebryo engine into a single, integrated framework of game production software and design tools that developers can use to create any type of title on any platform. As a result, developers will be able to accelerate development cycles and spend more time making their games more lifelike with dynamic, real-time environments.

Gamebryo has been fully optimized for development on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii, and was recently selected as the development platform for the next-generation console titles Civilization Revolution by Firaxis and Splatterhouse by BottleRocket. Gamebryo is also being used by EA-Mythic for its upcoming game, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning as well as Divinity 2: Ego Draconis from Larian Studios.

Emergent's CEO sees this agreement as a major milestone in the next generation of game development. He views NVIDIA(R) PhysX technology and Emergent's Gamebryo as a natural fit both strategically and technically.

"More than becoming the standard for creating immersive games, NVIDIA is as dedicated as Emergent to delivering the tools, runtimes and technologies needed to radically improve the state of development," said Geoffrey Selzer, CEO, Emergent. "Both companies are committed to platform agnostic, flexible modular solutions that harness the power of multi-core, multi-threaded development. With NVIDIA's deep support for these values, we will offer the industry the most powerful, flexible, and easiest development environment available to push the edge of video game technology and creativity."

The NVIDIA PhysX development solution consists of a robust physics engine, API, and middleware designed to give developers and animators unprecedented creative control over the look of their final in-game interactivity by allowing them to author and preview physics in real time. PhysX technology works across all major gaming platforms, including Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and the PC, and can be accelerated by both the CPU and any CUDA(TM) general purpose parallel computing processor, including NVIDIA GeForce(R) GPUs.

"We are delighted to be building a fusion of our PhysX technology and the Gamebryo engine," said Roy Taylor, vice president of content relations at NVIDIA. "The combination will provide developers a unique platform for introducing the world to their creative vision and technology innovation."

Some more details have surfaced on ATI upcoming mid-range products, the  RV730-based Radeon HD 4650 and 4670 GPUs that is.

Reportedly, both offerings will feature 320 stream processors-just like today's Radeon HD 3850 and 3870-but with memory interfaces only 128 bits wide. Core clock speeds will range up to 750MHz for the Radeon HD 4670, while memory will top out at 1,000MHz (presumably an "effective" 2,000MHz).

The spec sheet mentions 480 gigaFLOPS, 32GB/s of memory bandwidth, and a 59W power envelope for the 4670, compared to a respective 429 gigaFLOPS, 53GB/s, and 95W for the Radeon HD 3850. As for the 4650, that card will crank out a tamer 384 gigaFLOPS with up to 21.3GB/s of memory bandwidth. Assuming those specs didn't originate from a demented homeless man, the Radeon HD 4670 could turn out to be a fairly potent low-end offering.

Very loose numbers I agree.

Yeah baby, I'm so gonna like this one. Codemasters today announced it will publish French-developed racing game Fuel, previously known as Grand Raid Offroad.

The game is currently in development at Bordeaux based developer Asobo Studios (The Mummy, Ratatouille and Wall-E makers) and will be released on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 next year. They claims to have the largest environment ever created in a race game, with over 5,000 square miles of simulated space. According to its creators, Fuel is set in an "alternate present" where much of the globe has been devastated by the effects of climate change and environmental abuse. Races involve a competition for oil in rally-style cars reminiscent of the Mad Max film series.

The graphics look phenomenal btw !

Expect a lot of new coming from the Games Conmvention in Leipzig this week. Guru3D will also be there starting on thursday to see if we can get some coverage for you guys.

Tom Clancy's EndWar is a real-time tactics game designed by Ubisoft Shanghai for the PS3, Xbox 360, PSP and NDS, to be released on October 15, 2008 in North America and October 14, 2008 in Europe. A PC version is planned for release at a later date. It is set in 2020 at which time World War III is ongoing. Now Germany's giant game show gives us another look at the war to end all wars.

A woman has been ordered to pay

When it comes to ergonomic keyboards, people either love or hate them. If you are on the "pro-ergonomic" side, the Logitech Wave Pro might catch your attention: its "wave" design "cradles your hands" for added comfort.

The keys themselves are shaped and laid out in such a way that your hands won't have to move much - if you know how to type properly, that said. If the hands aren't moving, the palms have to rest on something soft: a cushioned palm rest area. Each of us will have different keyboard preferences, so you really have to try one for a few minutes.

If you want to do the jump, this is Logitech's most ergonomic keyboard+mouse combo.

Logitech keyboards page

Well, there it is, the Lenovo IdeaPad U8 launched official at the Beijing games just as we expected. With the launch come the final specs for this Asia-only MID we've seen incubating now for months: 4.8-inch touchscreen; the latest, sub-3 watt processor from Intel (uh hem, that'd be a Silverthorn-class Atom); 350-grams and 21 x 173 x 84-mm; up to 2GB memory and 6GB flash storage; dual-cameras; support for China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) digital television via that protruding USB dongle; and 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, EDGE data and China-specific TD-SCDMA 3G, presumably. Expect to see it trotted out tomorrow as Intel's San Francisco IDF gets underway -- with any luck, it'll be sporting WiMAX for a North American / European release.