One of the series we started here at Guru3D which I'm very proud of is the Rig of the Month. Each month here at Guru3D.com we feature one of you guys, your PC, your DIY project. It is quite honestly amazing how much detail and dedication you put into an PC, and every now and then it really shows. Today Deskee! by toesy. This project is not unique in the sense Toesy extravagant computer materials, contrary. With very simple idea's he made something really nice .. out of a table.

Suffice to say, 100% Guru3D Rig of the Month material. Take a look at his project as he talks you through this DIY build.

Check it out, click here. More Rig of the Month entries can be found here.

 

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Now that's a nice piece of kit. This stuff makes my hearty go faster, well .. yours truly was a DJ in his early days, so allow me to be a little subjective here.

DJ equipment and accessories maker Numark has unveiled its HDMIX DJ computer, which acts as a DJ mixer for files sourced from CD-RWs, DVD-RWs, a hard drive or any USB-connected device such as a flash drive. It comes with an 80GB hard disk that locks in place, and can be quickly swapped out for one with up to 1TB of capacity. Users browse files from a high-resolution color LCD, and can sort libraries by name, artist, album, genre or beats per minute (BPM). DJs can also create custom playlists, and have access to a bundled keyboard.

The HDMIX has three input channels, each with a dedicated EQ and gain control. The master output features a balanced XLR stereo pair output, along with RCA Master and Zone connections. There are two mic, three line-in and two phono inputs, as well as a pair of USB ports for connecting external devices, which can include PCs used to transfer existing libraries. Users can also rip music from CDs directly to the HDMIX.

There are currently no specifics on the HDMIX's release date or pricing. [via CrunchGear]

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Great new from VIA as they are taking on Atom 330. Our colleagues at Techpowerup report that VIA is working on a new generation of its Nano processor. The new architecture will be known as Nano 3000, a dual-core version is expected in the second half of 2009 while a single-core model should be available earlier. Both chips will bear the same Nano-BGA package as the current generation.

The processor would use a boarder system interface with the 1333 MHz VIA V4 bus (FSB). It will feature x86-64 extension along with the SSE4 instruction sets to make it standards compliant. It will feature 128KB of L1 and 1MB of L2 caches. VIA is also looking to improve the processor's number-crunching capabilities by working on its integer and floating-point operations efficiency. The processor will be built on the Japanese Fujitsu 65nm manufacturing process which has so far been VIA's foundry partner with processors and S3 Graphics products. The company is also considering a switch to the TSMC 40nm or 45nm node later, sources note.

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The master of fud seems to know that ATI's first new part in 2009 will be the RV740, this will be the firm's first 40nm GPU. It's a mainstream card that will be introduced in Q2 2009. A 40nm successor for the Radeon HD 4800 (RV770) series isn't expected until mid-2009 or later.
The difference is not that big, but for Nvidia it is very important to be the faster in majority of benchmark. Everyone now expects a quick launch of new RV770, 40nm successor but we learned that such card comes after RV740 a mainstream 40nm card that is set to launch in Q2 2009.

RV770 successor is a card that comes as a performance card and it is also a 40nm card but this one will launch at a later date, probably in mid 2009 or later. Until this time, ATI won't really have a contender to fight Nvidia but we are sure that red boys will ignite the price wars, which will at least be good for end users.

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Hey everybody, if you did not do so just yet. Today is the last day you can submit results in our Christmas contest. Have a great new years eve, and stay safe with the fireworks ok ? See you on the other side :)

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The AMD OverDrive application was designed to be a utility the provides the ability to maximize the capability, flexibility, and adjustability of the AMD chipset products. It allows user to tune parameters to ensure system stability, optimize performance, and control cooling/acoustic characteristics. Our target is to provide an all-in-one utility which can deliver all-around stellar operation.

Download - click here.

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Each month here at Guru3D.com we feature one of you guys, your PC, your DIY project. It is quite honestly amazing how much detail and dedication you put into an PC, and every now and then it really shows. Today Mike's Project Deskee! by toesy, Guru3D's PC of the Month December 2008.

Wow .. just wow. How far can a designer push the envelope, combining art and technology to extend beyond ordinary for a simple laptop? Designed by Kyle Cherry, Prime Gaming Laptop has envisaged a new type of laptop with creative in mind- a concept laptop with innovative collapsible OLED screens to offering a variety of aspect ratios for utmost gaming experience.

The Prime Gaming Laptop main screen is an OLED 10-inch in size with 16:10 aspect ratio. It features a pair of Aux OLED wing-panels with 8:10 aspect; offers a super wide, 32:10 aspect ratio, 26-inch screen viewing estate when opens and is fully collapsible, laying completely flat on the ground.

Fewer details of the cost and technical information from the artist-within were revealed. It

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A couple of details slipped though a German site this morning revealed another ultra high contrast monitor, with a million to 1 dynamic contrast ratio, on its way to CES 2009 in a short couple weeks. This time, LG will be presenting the W2486L LED BLU 24-inch LCD monitor with a LED backlit technology.

There aren

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Samsung is due to release a new range of Series 3 through 7 HDTVs at next month's CES expo, kicking off January 8th in Las Vegas, a recent forum entry claims. Apart from updating current offerings, the electronics giant is expected to introduce one new 3-series model, three new 4-series TVs, two new 4-series models and four 6-series sets. A new 7-series model, the 7U, is also due for a debut. The refreshed line-up will have a number of new features, including a support menu with a Flash-based user manual, and tools for diagnosing sound and picture issues such as HD connections and DTV signal quality. People will also be able use the menus to upgrade the firmware of Internet-capable TVs.

Among the more notable changes is support for 1080p movies encoded in the MKV, WMV, VOB, AVI, TS, 3GP, MGP and ASF file formats. An Internet@TV feature will replace InfoLive, and use Yahoo Widgets to integrate Internet content onto the screen while watching TV. The 100Hz Motion Plus-capable sets will have a custom setting with Blur and Judder Reduction, and models in the 7, 8 and 9 series will now be officially DivX Certified, as well as support DivX Video On Demand services. A BD Wisesync feature will optimize HD playback by communicating with Blu-ray dic/HTX players. Connecting devices to the TVs, including external drives, will be made possible through a pair of side-mounted USB 2.0 ports.

Samsung is said to be renaming the Motion Plus Low setting to Clear, while High will be called Smooth. There will also be a new picture mode dubbed Natural, which adjusts a display for minimal eye strain. A Film Mode will sense and process film-format settings and adjust the display accordingly. Apart from nomenclature changes, the new TVs are said to be Optical Link Ready, which should allow for an optical pass-through to sound systems.

Most if not all of the new Samsung HDTVs are expected to go on sale during the first half of 2009, though no specific release or pricing information has been revealed. [via AV Forums]

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The Ccolleages at ars technic report that on the upgrade path rumor from Vista to Windows 7. Good bye Business and welcome back Professional. No word on a super-cheap version, such as Starter or Home Basic yet. Interesting.
These are not confirmed, but I am told they are what Microsoft is currently considering:

Windows Vista Home Premium Edition => Windows 7 Home Premium Edition
Windows Vista Business Edition => Windows 7 Professional Edition
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition => Windows 7 Ultimate Edition

Does anyone else find it mildly interesting that Microsoft has gone back and renamed Business to Professional, just like it was with good old XP? These three upgrade paths "confirm" two more editions: Home Premium and Professional. These two are the ones that most customers will likely be buying, whereas the average geek will likely go ahead and grab Ultimate. It's not yet clear whether Microsoft will have an upgrade path for XP users, but I would not hold my breath. Currently there is still no word about Starter or Home Basic editions for Windows 7. We'll keep you posted when Microsoft finally does reveal the official edition list.

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AMD plans to launch six 45nm CPUs under its Athlon line including the quad-core Athlon X4 615 and 605 and triple-core Athlon X3 420 and 410 in April next year and dual-core Athlon X2 240 and 235 in June, according to sources at motherboard makers.

Last order notice for the company's upcoming 45nm AM2+ Phenom II X4 920 and 940 Black Edition CPUs, will be issued in May next year, while AMD has already stopped taking orders for its quad-core Phenom X4 9650 this month. AMD's Phenom X4 9950 (140W) and 9850 (125W) will have their last order notice issued in March next year, and Phenom X4 9750, 9850 (95W) and 9950 (125W) will be in June.

AMD's triple-core Phenom X3 8450 and 8550 CPUs have started phasing out of the market, while the Phenom X3 8650 is scheduled to have its last order notice issued in March next year followed by the Phenom X3 8850 and 8750 in June.

AMD's low-power Athlon X2 4450e CPU will have its last order notice issued in March next year.

AMD declined the opportunity to respond to this report saying it cannot comment on unannounced products [digitimes].

Phase out		Introduction
Model	Month	Model	Month
Phenom X3 8450	end  2008	Athlon X4 605	April 2009
Phenom X3 8550	end  2008	Athlon X4 615	April 2009
Phenom X3 8650	March 2009	Athlon X2 235	June 2009
Athlon X2 4450e	March 2009	Athlon X2 240	June 2009
Phenom X4 9850 (125W tdp)	March 2009
Phenom X4 9950 (140W tdp)	March 2009
Phenom II X4 920	May 2009
Phenom II X4 940	May 2009
Phenom X3 8750	June 2009
Phenom X3 8850	June 2009
Phenom X4 9750	June 2009
Phenom X4 9850 (95W tdp)	June 2009
Phenom X4 9950 (125W tdp)	June 2009

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The guys over at Vr Zone are showing off some new specifications about NVIDIA's plans for the desktop GPU market in 2009.

Obviouslt you already read our GeForce GTX 295 review and GeForce GTX 285 are slated for the first quarter of 2009, and the site says the first 40nm GPU will arrive in Q2 2009. The 40nm GT212 will serve both the enthusiast and performance segment, so the 55nm GT200b GPUs will have a very short lifespan.

The mainstream GT214 and GT216 along with the value GT218 40nm GPUs are expected in Q3 2009, these chips will replace the G94, G96 and G98, respectively. VR Zone claims NVIDIA is working on four desktop SKUs for the GT216 and six desktop SKUs for GT218 at least, so you can expect different clocks and memory configs/types.

For the integrated graphics market NVIDIA is working on the iGT209, this IGP chipset will replace the GeForce 9300/9400 series in Q3 2009. Last but not least, the site also lists the GT300 GPU. This will be NVIDIA's next-generation 40nm GPU, it will support DirectX 11 and is slated for Q4 2009.

Yet another rumor surfaced moments ago though, it seems, NVIDIA will rebrand the GeForce 9800 series graphics cards to GeForce GTS 240 and GeForce GTS 250.

According to sources this respin will commence in February 2009, and that NVIDIA will keep selling both 55nm and 65nm G92 GPUs.

Segment	Now	Q1 2009	Q2 2009	Q3 2009	Q4 2009
Enthusiast	G92 x2 GeForce 9800 GX2	GT200b x2 GeForce GTX 295	GT212		GT300
Performance	GT200 GeForce GTX 280 GeForce GTX 260	GT200b GeForce GTX 285 GeForce GTX 260
Mainstream	G94 GeForce 9600 GT			GT214
	G96 GeForce 9500 GT			GT216
Value	G98 GeForce 9400 GT			GT218
IGP	GeForce 9400 GeForce 9300			iGT209

 

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We just released the New Years edition of Rivatuner, build number v2.22, which is now available for download.

Rivatuner has been updated towards version 2.22 This release has a number of updates and fixes. Obviously support has been added for (ForceWare) GeForce drivers 181.xx and AMD ATI Catalyst 8.12 driver support has been added as well. Biggest change for this release is a much requested feature. Rivatuner can now be Skinned.

But please do check out the changelist.

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.

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 (click here) 
• Homepage
• FAQ

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Intel's X58 as you guys know can support both SLI and Crossfire, for us allowing one PC to test both, and for a reviewer that's pretty wicked really as we do not have to build multiple similar configured systems.

One to rule them all. We figured, let's make a new system and go a little crazy. So the guys over at Smooth Creations decided to help us out by taking care of a custom paintjob. I wanted, blue Guru3D colored flames with our logo stamped in there, with a black coating.

Here's what the Guru3D.com test-platform will look like for the reviews in 2009.

• Chassis - Silverstone Temjin TJ-10 aluminum
• Motherboard - ASUS X58 Rampage II Extreme ROG
• Intel Core i7 965 @ 3750 MHz
• Memory - OCZ DDR3 6 GB 1600 MHz 9:9:9:24
• PSU - 1200 Watt
• 3x HDD (one OS for ATI, one OS for NVIDIA, one 64-bit generic PC testing)
• 1x Optical drive

We wrote up a small 5 page article about this "Project-X", check it out right here.

 

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A couple of online computer stores are offering two versions of AMD's upcoming Phenom II CPUs, ahead of their official debut planned for CES in January. According to the web stores' listings, the two new quad-core CPUs will begin shipping on December 27th. AMD's Phenom II X4 940 quad-core, rated at a 3GHz clock speed, is being offered for $304 by Computers4Sure and $373 CAD ($305) by A-Power. The second chip, the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920, is priced at $271 by Computers4Sure and $317 CAD ($259) by A-Power.

Either chip has 8MB of cache. Initially, the chips will only support DDR2 memory, but AMD will introduce a mainboard chipset over the next few months that will make the CPUs compatible with faster DDR3 RAM.

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If you open up your eyes a little and do a little searching you'll likely stumble into Windows 7 beta 1 (build 7000) on the web as it has leaked to torrent. The Windows 7 Beta1 full ISO image can be found on sites like DepositFiles, Demonoid and Mininova.org.

Another alternative way spotted to download is by using Namipan file hosting (net disk or web drive space) service. Namipan is a China based file hosting service.

The ISO image is the full version DVD image that allows installation of all editions of Windows 7 similar to Windows Vista, namely Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Business, Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Home Basic. After installing, Windows 7 has the version of 6.1 (Build 7000).

The beta will expire on July 1, 2009.

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Fraps is a universal Windows application that can be used with games using DirectX or OpenGL graphic technology. In its current form Fraps performs many tasks and can best be described as:

• Benchmarking Software - Show how many Frames Per Second (FPS) you are getting in a corner of your screen. Perform custom benchmarks and measure the frame rate between any two points. Save the statistics out to disk and use them for your own reviews and applications.
• Screen Capture Software - Take a screenshot with the press of a key! There's no need to paste into a paint program every time you want a new shot. Your screen captures are automatically named and timestamped
• Realtime Video Capture Software - Have you ever wanted to record video while playing your favourite game? Come join the Machinima revolution! Throw away the VCR, forget about using a DV cam, game recording has never been this easy! Fraps can capture audio and video up to 2560x1600 on dual-core CPUs (1152x864 single-core) at up to 100 frames per second!

The latest Fraps 2.9 release adds support for Vista and DirectX 10 games. With games starting to appear using DirectX 10 graphics we are happy to report that benchmarking, video capture, and screenshots are now all fully supported for these titles.
Vista also includes a rewritten audio subsystem. Fraps can take advantage of this and directly record a sound stream from the machine without requiring any support from the soundcard driver. This allows you to capture ingame audio even if you are using a USB headset or other audio device which does not normally support a "Stereo Mix" or "What U Hear" recording input.
Since the Vista Desktop Window Manager (DWM) runs through DirectX we have also added a new option to monitor the desktop under Vista. You can now take screenshots and record video from the desktop just like any other game or 3D application.

Changelog:

• Fixed 64-bit applications crashing soon after loading
• Fixed low quality sound recording with Left 4 Dead under Windows XP
• Fixed graphic corruption in X-Plane (and other OpenGL titles)
• Fixed crash when recording a DirectX 9 game and changing resolution
• Fixed Fraps not detecting games after being run at Windows startup
• Fixed hotkeys not responding when Alt held down
• Fixed monitoring of Vista DWM after a full-screen application has exited
• Fixed Fluidmark displaying a blank screen with Fraps loaded
• Fixed FS9 crashing when menu activated while recording
• Fixed DWMAPI error on some Windows XP installs
• Improved recording speed of DirectX9 games in Vista SP1 and SP2 beta
• Added warning if no sound recording device found under Windows 2000 or XP

Download - click here

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