Download ATI Catalyst 8.9 Windows XP 32-bit drivers.

Download ATI Catalyst 8.9 Vista 64-bit drivers.

Download ATI Catalyst 8.9 Vista 32-bit drivers.

Take this mainboard from ECS. It comes with integrated Dual Core Atom 330 processor. It has integrated sound, 10/100 Ethernet and integrated graphics. Really all you need to do is insert a slice of DDR2 533 memory and connect a HD, and you are on the web ... browsing at fairly normal speeds, listening to a songs, watching a DVD ... heck it all works fine on that Intel Atom 330 for sure. Next to that, the power consumption is obviously amazing. The platform completely maxed out merely utilizes 55 Watts, and half of that your PSU will account for all by itself.

As spotted on Dailytech, OCZs 64GB Core Series SSD can be purchased for as little as $99 (after rebate).

Last week the 32GB OCZ Core SSD dropped down to an unheard of $99 after a $60 mail-in rebate. This week, it looks as though it's the 64GB version's turn to take a price cut.

Newegg is now listing the 64GB Core Series SSD at $99 after a $70 mail-in rebate. In roughly a week, the customers can now get twice the space at the same price -- that's quite incredible considering the drives retailed for $259 when they were introduced just over two months ago.

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We noticed two new Super Talent Technology solid-state hard drives were introduced this week and they are being dubbed as
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Confirmed , then denied ..  then denied again. typically when we see so many rumors about something, they are at the very least negotiating or discussing the possibilities. Anyway, Google may buy Half-Life developer Valve Software to give itself an edge in content distribution, according to a new rumor. Allegedly "well placed" sources of the Inquirer claim the early search engine company is aiming to buy Valve for its Steam platform, which so far has been used as a store for users to download free and paid games as well as a small number of videos and other content. The system has been heralded for making an end-run around traditional retail and provides an edge over some other online app downloads by remembering a customer's purchases should they lose an existing copy to a computer crash or upgrade.

It's unclear what role the potential acquisition would serve for Google's existing platforms. The company now has several downloadable apps that include Chrome, Google Earth, Picasa and others but has also relied heavily on web-based apps such as Google Docs. The firm also has a large infrastructure to support YouTube and isn't presently involved in the gaming sphere.

Such a move would however challenge Microsoft, which has been developing a similar distribution model for its Games for Windows platform and has also experimented with online distribution for some of its core businesses. Windows Vista has had built-in online shopping to allow upgrading to more advanced versions without buying a second retail copy.

Google hasn't commented on the matter, though Valve's marketing VP Doug Lombardi now says the story is nothing but "rumor."

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Never underestimate the power of the internet. EA Maxis' PC everything-sim Spore will soon get an update loosening one of its copy protection limits and allowing customers to de-activate existing installations of the game. The game's three-installation limit has sparked full-blown Internet Rage for users' inability to de-activate installations in a method like Apple's iTunes. "Right now, with our solution, you can't. But there is a patch coming for that," EA representative Mariam Sughayer told MTV Multiplayer. No timeframe other than "near future" was given for the update.

EA also provided some numbers which it claims are a sample--not actual sales figures--backing up earlier claims that the three-install limit affected less than one percent of users. Sure enough, by EA's numbers, 0.9% of Mass Effect PC owners had tried to exceed the limit, while only 0.4% have managed to hit the same barrier with Spore. 83% of Spore owners had installed the game just once.

Spore's other DRM limitations, like restricting online accounts to one per copy, will stay in place - courtesy of Shacknews

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This is the one title I look out really badly. Activision has released an official co-op trailer of Call of Duty: World at War. There's still no fixed date for the game's release at the moment, but shooter fans should definitely be looking forward to a four-way play option from the look of this.


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The all new Radeon Catalyst update for September. Obviously including the new X2, Radeon HD 4600 support and a lot of new features and updates.

New Features

 Catalyst Control Center:  New Display mode support

• This release of Catalyst
  

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We test the Gigabyte GV-R485OC-1GI Radeon HD 4850 equipped with 1GB of DDR3 memory. It has a custom PCB (printed circuit board), comes with no less than 1 Gigabyte of GDDR3 framebuffer (memory), the manufacturer slapped a Zalman cooler on top of it and to finish it off they even overclocked it. It's the stuff we life and breathe for here at Guru3D.com, definitely worth our time checking out. As it turns out, this is one of the best Radeon HD 4850 cards we ever tested.

Read this Guru3D review, click here.

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We test the Gigabyte GV-R485OC-1GI Radeon HD 4850 equipped with 1GB of DDR3 memory. It has a custom PCB (printed circuit board), comes with no less than 1 Gigabyte of GDDR3 framebuffer (memory), the manufacturer slapped a Zalman cooler on top of it and to finish it off they even overclocked it. It's the stuff we life and breathe for here at Guru3D.com, definitely worth our time checking out I'd say.

Rivatuner has been updated towards version 2.11 In this release we have included a huge number of new stuff to keep you busy, obviously support has been added as well as ForceWare GeForce drivers up-to 177.98 and AMD ATI Catalyst 8.8 support.

With this release comes support for ATI Radeon HD 4600/4800 (RV710 and RV730) class graphics adapters and better GeForce GTX series 200 support (including GeForce GTX 260 Core 216) as well. We now also support much asked for proper fan control on AMD RADEON HD 4870 X2 series.

RivaTuner is a complete powerful tweaking environment, providing you everything you may need to tune NVIDIA GPU based display adapters. The widest driver-level Direct3D / OpenGL and system tuning options, flexible profiling system allowing to make custom settings on per-application basis, both driver-level and low-level hardware access modes, unique diagnostic and real-time hardware monitoring features and exclusive power user oriented tools like built-in registry editor and patch script engine make RivaTuner's feature set absolutely unmatched. RivaTuner supports all NVIDIA display adapters starting from Riva TNT family up to the latest GeForce series and widest range of NVIDIA drivers starting from the oldest Detonator 2.08 up to the newest ForceWare drivers family. In addition to complete NVIDIA hardware support, RivaTuner also provides support for display adapters based upon newer ATI graphics processors. All RivaTuner's features besides driver-level tuning options are also available on supported ATI hardware.

Guru3D.com is Rivatuner's official homepage, click here to find version / build / changes and FAQ information.

For novice users, we have a guide to help you through Rivatuner and setup fan speeds and overclocks on your graphics card. This guide will hopefully help you understand how to use the features that Rivatuner provides.

• Download
• Homepage
• FAQ

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Download NVIDIA PhysX System Software, this update is compatible with AGEIA PhysX processors and CUDA ready GeForce GPUs

The long awaited and overdue 5D successor has finally made its appearance- and it has given Canon a lot more ammunition in its DSLR war against Nikon. Armed with newest Canon?fs in-house development Digic IV image processor, the EOS 5D Mark II sports a 21 megapixel full frame CMOS sensor and features full 1080p HD movie mode, 3.9 frames per second, 9 AF points + 6 AF assist area Auto Focus system, high resolution 3.0?? 920k dot LCD monitor with live view, new battery and battery grip, integrated cleaning system and can shoot up to ISO sensitive of 256,000.

The Canon EOS 5D mark II is slated to ship by the end of November 2008 at $2699.

• Digic IV image sensor - New 14-bit image processor with sRAW1 and sRAW2 mode. Three increments of High ISO Noise Reduction - Low, Normal, Strong and Off . Three increments of Auto Lighting Optimizer: Low, Normal, Strong and Off and Vignette Control
• New 21.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor with improved EOS Integrated Cleaning System (E.I.C.S.)
• 3.9 frames per second continuous shooting
• HD video mode full 1080 resolution at 30fps
• ISO 100-6400 (expansion from 50 up to 25,600)
• 9 AF points + 6 Assist AF points
• Canon
  

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University of Rochester issued a press-release that it has a working three-dimensional computer chip it calls the cube and is running at 1.4GHz.

The nicknamed Rochester cube takes the concept of three-dimensional circuits to a new level, as its processing functions are optimized vertically in the same way as a regular chip

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Creative has unveiled its latest Sound Blaster product, the X-Fi Notebook ExpressCard. The X-Fi up-samples MP3 playback to 24-bit, 48kHz output. "CMSS-3D" processing is designed to recreate surround sound effects when used with headphones. EAX Advanced HD format is supported for gaming sound effects, or Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround formats, while using PowerDVD software for movies.

The X-Fi Notebook is compatible with Creative wireless receivers, allowing signal transmission across the room or through walls. Recording and playback both use a 24-bit/48kHz signal. Users must be running Windows Vista or XP SP2 and have a free ExpressCard slot. The Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook is available from Creative for $90 and includes earphones with a built in microphone.

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It's that time again, wondering yet what the best sold PC games in the USA are ?

1. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack
2. Spore
3. Spore Creature Creator
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
5. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
6. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard
7. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
8. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack Limited Collector's Edition
9. Warcraft III Battle Chest
10. Crysis

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More news on Intels Core i7 today, as the release date, prices and clock-speeds have leaked.

Core i7 processors (Bloomfield) socket LGA 1366 and the X58 chipset should be released at 3 November for hardware manufacturers and should be available to the consumer 4 weeks later. It is expected that at first the three quad-core Nehalem based CPU's will be released at

In the second quarter 2009 Bloomfield processors  will step over the 3.2 GHz frequency, and in the third quarter will appear the more accessible processors LGA 1160.

Processors released will be:

• Core i7 920 2,66GHz
• Core i7 940 2,93 GHz
• Core i7 965 3,2 GHz

Prices, I've also got these for you .. the Core i7 920 will cost 284 USD, the Core i7 940 562 USD and the Core i7 965 which is an Extreme edition BTW, will cost 999 USD. These are prices per 1000 sold processors.

Rumor is that at the end of September a few guys will already receive samples to test .. yet are prohibited to overclock. Intel is supposedly only to allow the expensive processors to be overclocked. Processors under 400 USD will get a bus lock, prohibiting overclocking.

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According to the fud there are some specs available on nehalem processors. They seem to have a TDP (maximum Wattage) of 130W on all three 2.6, 2.93 and 3.2GHz versions.

Either this is a typo in Intel's official documents that we've seen, or it means that 3.2GHz, which is 600MHz faster than 2.6GHz Nehalem, will have the same TDP.

We've seen the same numbers before, which might indicate that these are the real numbers. The first chips to bear the Core i7 name will be mainstream desktop parts meant for gamers and conventional systems; Intel doesn't allude to the expected 3.2GHz speed but has previously confirmed the new architecture's switch from a front side system bus to point-to-point connections between the processor and peripherals, an on-die memory controller, and Hyperthreading that can at times double the number of effective cores working on a given task at any one time.

 

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A week after exposing the shoddy manufacturing of Xbox 360s to Venture Beat, Robert Delaware lost his job for speaking out about the Red Ring of Death.

Robert Delaware, 29, was fired for talking about Xbox 360 failures
"I don't regret it," Delaware said in a phone call to Venture Beat on Thursday. He says it was important to come forward as a game tester to ensure the problem gets corrected.

Delaware worked for Excell Data, a temp agency, but was fired by his Microsoft manager last Wednesday for speaking to Venture Beat, the paper said. As a result of his whistleblowing, he may face civil lawsuits from both his former employer and Microsoft for breach of contract.

"I'll fight it," he said, speaking of possible litigation. "If they want to come after me, bring it on."

Last week, Delaware told Venture Beat in its six-page expose of Xbox 360 defects that Microsoft rushed development of the console to beat PlayStation 3 and Wii to market, resulting in a reported 33 percent failure rate. Microsoft has since increased the original 90 day 360 warranty, first to one year, and later to the current three year extension.


Watcher
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This driver Supports all AGEIA PhysX Processors and GeForce PhysX. This driver will allow you to select and dedicate a GPU to PhysX as well.

• Supports for NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory.
• Experience GPU PhysX acceleration in several full games and demos today by downloading the GeForce Power Pack.
• Supports AGEIA PhysX processors and software runtimes (no change to PPU driver support).
• Includes the latest PhysX runtimes used in the latest game titles.
• Supports the following NVIDIA PhysX runtime engines: 2.8.1, 2.8.0, 2.7.4, 2.7.3, 2.7.2, 2.7.1, 2.7.0, 2.6.x, 2.5.x, 2.4.x and 2.3.x
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on GeForce via CUDA 2.0 for SDK versions 2.7.3, 2.7.2, 2.8.0 and 2.8.1 (requires graphics driver v177.81 or later).
• The PhysX control panel can be found in the Windows Start Menu under NVIDIA Corporation.

Download - click here.

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BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX MaxCORE test -- NVIDIA was seeking for some more performance in the GTX 260 series, they need to give it a little more bite. And though I'm sure that yet another SKU will drive board-partners crazy, I say bring it on.

NVIDIA today is introducing the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, this new chip has one additional shader cluster which brings the accumulated number of shader processors towards 216. And it does make a slight difference, yet we'll test the BFG OCX MaxCORE version of it, and boy it does have a lot more bite.

You can read the review right here.

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GameTrailers has a video review of the retail version of the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, available tomorrow on pretty much all platforms (except PC)


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Seagate announced the Fall 2008 lineup of the company

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Intel launched the Xeon 7400 today. The processor once nicknamed "Dunnington" is the first x86 architecture design to hold six cores and is targeted at very high-end computing where sheer parallelism is more important than clock rate; it's particularly useful for virtual machines and databases, Intel suggests. The chipmaker estimates a speed boost of as much as 50 percent and helps this in part by a similar increase in Level 2 cache to 16MB as well as dedicated virtualization features on the cores themselves.

The processor line tops out at a lower clock speed than quad- or dual-core Xeons and sees the top model reach 2.66GHz with the same 130W of peak power as higher-clocked quad core systems. A 2.4GHz model carries most of the performance but at 90W, while a 2.13GHz entry runs at 65W and is suited to rack servers or other thin servers and workstations. Four quad-core models are also available; the top 2.4GHz version carries the same 16MB of cache as six-core systems and uses 90W of power. The remaining three clock in at 2.13GHz but use cache and power use to determine their speed, with a regular 90W version loading up 12MB of cache, a budget version stripping down to 8MB of cache, and a low-voltage model carrying 12MB but using just 50W of energy.

Intel expects several large-scale PC companies to build systems on the chips, which range in cost from $856 to $2,729 in batches of 1,000. The new Xeons are the last before the transition to the new Core i7 architecture but should result in some of the techniques involved in their design rolled into other processors.

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HP updated its TouchSmart all-in-one PCs to push them into high-end home theater territory not covered by earlier models or rivals such as the iMac. The IQ800 series carries a 25.5-inch, 1920x1200 display that converts the touchscreen PC into a near home theater; accordingly, the system comes with a Blu-ray combo drive in one model while all of them have 1080p-capable video and ATSC/NTSC TV tuners. To match the HTPC focus, either system also has new ambient lighting on their chins that either illuminates the wireless keyboard on a desktop or just sets the mood.

The PC builder's custom touchscreen interface is the same as before and streamlines lightweight photo management and editing, music playback, and widgets for weather or other info.

Two models start off the IQ800 line. The IQ804 is built for average use with a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, a DVD burner and a GeForce 9300M GS for video. An IQ816 model adds the Blu-ray combo drive along with a Penryn-era 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo, a larger 750GB hard disk and GeForce 9600M GS video. Wi-Fi over 802.11n provides local networking for every model while either also has a Pocket Media Drive bay to add extra internal storage.

HP starts the IQ800 series at $1,899 and estimates a launch for September 21st. The premium IQ816 boosts the price to $2,099 for an October 21st release.

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It takes a lot of people to do a lot of work, and we surely did that recently as Team Guru3D has entered top 100 in the Folding@home rankings !

It was close to a year ago when team Guru3D joined the folding@Home project for the good cause. At first we had a lot of people donating thei IDLE CPU cycles to the project and recently all the hottie new GPUs from ATI and NVIDIA can be used to compute as well. back then we advanced roughly 40.000 points per day. Wonderful yet currently we average at 170.000-180.000 points per day, amazing. Due to your help we now have entered the Top 100 which is a fantastic achievement.
Guys thank you all so much for helping out in this project !

Now if you have an ATI Radeon series 3000 or newer or GeForce series 8 or newer graphics card and like to help fighting diseases, please join our team, we have Team ID number 69411.

You can download the latest GPU or CPU clients here.

Should you need help / want info check out our Folding support forums here where anyone will help you with any questions you might have. Come on people, team 69411 ! Thanks to all who are participating in this project, and a special thank you to our top 20 donators:

Top 20 Producers
Rank Team	User Name	Points 24hr Avg	Points Total
1	Nineballfool	20,932	1,038,984
2	Roost	10,036	321,645
3	Sardine	8,984	1,076,077
4	OldElfin	8,779	271,425
5	UA.Target	5,803	441,042
6	EtienneRobert	5,735	422,805
7	Bozotheclown	5,106	199,865
8	spectraman	4,978	370,173
9	Rumpl34skin	4,798	54,047
10	Gaboou	4,711	815,087
11	FA155mm	4,238	156,545
12	morbias	4,146	249,798
13	Tarkus	4,111	117,100
14	MoosePower	3,812	207,820
15	mlmiller	3,556	548,460
16	AirCool	3,439	921,521
17	skoechle	3,384	324,998
18	Fenestrate	3,138	387,221
19	Nungar	3,104	854,323
20	powerspec	3,003	48,742

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