That is gonna be a sexy solution for sure, expensive, but yeah, very sexy. Good news, we already have a sample inbound, expect some review lovin from us real soon. Anyway, BFG announced the availibility of their BFG GeForce GTX 295 H₂O graphics card with ThermoIntelligence Water Cooling Solution.

Technologies has taken their award-winning GeForce GTX 295 dual GPU graphics card and combined it with a highly efficient, thermally advanced copper water block co-developed with the experts at Danger Den

CPU-Z is a diagnostic tool that provides information on your CPU, including: processor name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, partial overclock detection, processor features, supported instructions sets, L1 and L2 cache information, location, size, speed, and technology.

CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system.

Changes:

• Improved support for AMD Phenom II processor.
• Support for NVIDIA 740i chipset.
• Several bug fixes. 

Download: click here

If you are in the market for a HIS graphics card you might want to check out the versions with new bundle. For a limited timeframe HIS will offer their graphics cards bundles with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. The bestseller gamer will be available with the award-winning HIS 4870 IceQ 4+, 4850 IceQ 4, 4830 IceQ 4, 4800 Fan Series.

" HIS is pleased to provide gamers with GSC Game World's highly anticipated Stalker game. With S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, gamers can take advantage of the powerful DirectX

The Tech-Arp website reports that Windows Vista users will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 for free, with some restrictions though.

Microsoft issued a draft of the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program to their OEM partners on December 10, giving them exactly one month to provide their feedback before Microsoft finalizes the program details. We managed to obtain a copy of the draft, which tentatively refers to the program as the "Windows 7 Upgrade Program". Let's take a look at the key points outlined in the draft.

Interim Name

The official name for the program has yet to be determined. Microsoft is using "Windows 7 Upgrade Program" as the place-holder for the Windows Vista to Windows 7 upgrade program, which was also known as the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program. Microsoft will announce the final program name at a later date.

Overview Of The Windows 7 Upgrade Program

The Windows 7 Upgrade Program is designed to assist Microsoft's OEM partners in minimizing the number of end users who may postpone acquiring a new computer because of the impending release of the Windows 7 operating system. This program allows OEMs to offer an upgrade to Windows 7 to end users who qualify.

This is a consumer-oriented program targeted at individual consumers and small businesses that have purchased eligible PCs during the Program Eligibility Period. End users will have to meet these requirements to be deemed eligible for the upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released :

• End users must purchase a new PC that is pre-installed with an eligible Windows Vista Operating System (OS), during the program eligibility window.
   
• The PC must have a valid Certificate of Authenticity (COA) attached.
   
• The only Windows Vista
  

The recent addition of the ASUS HDAV 1.3 and Essence STX soundcards have targeted two new markets for the ever moving Xonar sound machine landing impressive contributions to the high end HTPC audio and high end stereo/headphone markets.

This review will encompass the new Xonar Essence STX and we will examine what this card has to offer new users who are interested in this product. This new card has been highlighted as the pinnacle of the Xonar soundcards at least as far as 2.0 and headphone audio are concerned.

Read, probably the most extensive soundcard review you have ever seen. Click here to read this Guru3D article.

The new Lian-Li hairline-brushed all aluminum Mini-ITX stands at 11-inch tall. Its mini fridge like design is rather unconventional, not eye pleasing in any ways, but internal space is roomy for the support of full size components. The Mini-ITX board fits on the side panel while the back has mounting brackets readied for a full size ATX PSU. Unit comes supplied with easy installation kits to allow a 5.25-inch optical drive, and a pair of 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch hdd mount effortlessly with anti-vibration grommets and tool-less mounting screws on the system.

The Lian Li PC-Q07 is available now for a suggested retail of $69.

12 February 2009, Keelung, Taiwan

The Sony

Japanese-based Princeton has launched a 21.5-inch LCD monitor, the PTFBGF-22RW. The screen is one of the smallest capable of a native 1080p resolution and has a 16:9 native aspect ratio as well as 300cd/m2 brightness. Its 1,000:1 static contrast ratio that can be boosted to a 10,000:1 dynamic ratio.

Other specs include a fast 5ms response time, along with a 160-degree vertical viewing angle and 170-degree horizontal viewing angle. The aspect ratio can be switched to a 4:3 mode to maintain the aspect ratio of the input signal. Inputs include a VGA port, two HDMI ports and a headphone output as well as a 3.5mm audio jack input. There are two 1.5W speakers built into the display.

The Princeton PTFBGF-22RW is now available, priced at the equivalent of just short of $300.

Well, the word is out and final for Pioneer. Pioneer announced an annual loss of 130 billion yen (approx. $1.44 billion) and unveiled restructuring plans. The company said it will cut 10,000 jobs, close 30 percent of its production units, and that it will close its TV operations by March 2010.

The company will withdraw from the TV business by March 2010 and cut 16 percent of its full-time workforce, plus 4,000 temporary positions, Tokyo-based Pioneer said today. The net loss in the year ending March 31 compares with the 78 billion yen deficit it estimated on Oct. 30. Sales will probably fall 28 percent to 560 billion yen, the company said.

Pioneer, poised for a fifth annual deficit, lost a combined 100.6 billion yen at its home electronics business, including plasma TV operations, since the year ended March 2004. The recession increases the challenge for President Susumu Kotani, who took charge in November, to restore profitability by relying on sales of car-navigation systems even as auto sales plunge.

In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today. The international space station does not appear to be threatened by the debris, they said, but it's not yet clear whether it poses a risk to any other military or civilian satellites.

"They collided at an altitude of 790 kilometers (491 miles) over northern Siberia Tuesday about noon Washington time," said Nicholas Johnson, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "The U.S. space surveillance network detected a large number of debris from both objects."

He said U.S. STRATCOM routinely tracks about 18,000 objects in space, including satellites and debris, that are 3.9 inches across or larger. Tracking priority and "conjunction analysis" - identifying which objects may pose a threat to manned spacecraft - is the first priority.

"It's going to take a while" to get an accurate count of the debris fragments, Johnson said. "It's very, very difficult to discriminate all those objects when they're really close together. And so, over the next couple of days, we'll have a much better understanding."

Asked which satellite was at fault, Johnson said "they ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don't have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what's coming in your direction."

Iridium Satellite LLC operates a constellation of some 66 satellites, along with orbital spares, to support satellite telephone operations around the world. The spacecraft, which weigh about 1,485 pounds when fully fueled, are in orbits tilted 86.4 degrees to the equator at an altitude of about 485 miles. Ninety-five Iridium satellites were launched between 1997 and 2002 and several have failed over the years.

Asked if other satellites might be at risk, Johnson said "technically, yes. What we're doing now is trying to quantify that risk. That's a work in progress. It's only been 24 hours. We put first things first, which is station and preparing for the next shuttle mission."

Yeah - there's a lot hovering around our globe alright ..

Recently Valve announced soon to be released Left 4 Dead Downloadable Content pack (L4D DLC). Good news, this will be free for download on the PC and XBOX360 versions.

February 11, 2009

The scrumptious 65-inch Mitsubishi Laser TV got official back in 2008 and later rolled in production with shipping date announced in October. Its debut gained positive reviews nationwide, supposedly the next generation display to rival Plasmas and LCDs thanks to its wide color gamut ability and low energy consumption. It

In taiwan at a press-conference NVIDIA provided early details of launch plans for the first systems based on its Ion platform. Read our review on ION right here by the way.

Drew Henry, NVs mainboard chipset manager says the first system based on the architecture, which integrates the GeForce 9400M with Atom processors, will ship in spring but will be a "very small, affordable" desktop instead of a netbook or other portable. NVIDIA declines to say which company is making the system but says won't have any relation to the black, generic concept desktop used to showcase the design.

Production systems from most manufacturers will be about twice as large as the concept and fill out about 1L (33.8oz) of space, but will also be less expensive to make by using fewer layers on the circuit board. Some of these desktops will cost as little as $299, though some models will be more complete systems that include optical drives and will likely cost more.

Henry is careful to note that Ion will still be useful in netbooks and that it should still be superior to Intel's just-launched GN40 chipset, which brings the chip maker's GMA X4000 graphics to netbooks. Although Intel's platform is much faster and now capable of 720p, Ion is claimed to be five times faster in graphics performance than GN40 and should still result in the same battery life as existing portables using the older Intel 945GSE chipset.

The company has had trouble getting support from Intel as a result and has noted that Intel often tries to insist on selling its mainboards along with its processors, though in an announcement today NVIDIA has said it now has official Windows Hardware Quality Labs certification for Ion from Microsoft, giving it full support in Vista and eventually Windows 7.

It seems that Zotac soon will be releasing a Watercooled Zotac GeForce GTX 295. We have no details on it, neither on it's price. Availability should be after mid March, zo yes .. we'll drop by the Zotac booth at Cebit for sure ;)

Nvidia rolled out a new batch of beta drivers for GeForce graphics processors in notebooks.

The new drivers are numbered 179.48, and they're available for Windows Vista and Windows XP in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. You'll find the official download page here with different links for GeForce and mobile Quadro NVS GPUs. This release brings compatibility with GeForce 7-series mobile GPUs-something Nvidia says users missed in its first notebook drivers-as well as support for Hybrid SLI. (For the uninitiated, Hybrid SLI lets notebooks to switch between integrated and discrete graphics in order to save power. As far as we can tell, however, only GeForce 9M GPUs work with that technology.)

Nvidia has apparently added support for GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chipsets, too. Don't go and grab the drivers just because you have a mobile GeForce, though. According to Nvidia, this release doesn't work with BenQ Joybook S42, Dell Vostro, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 3650, Lenovo ThinkPad, and Sony VAIO notebooks.

ProWater880i is developed to solve the dilemma of good performance and space saving. With the special designed mounting kit, gamer can easily install ProWater880i in the back of the chassis. It brings two benefits. One is that the radiator can be cooled by the cold air outside and generate better cooling performance. The other benefit is the space allocation within the chassis can be optimized.

To achieve maximized performance, ProWater880i comes with many exciting features. First, it can support the latest and fastest Intel

Remember, this motherboard Intel DX58SO motherboard we reviewed at Core i7 launch ? Good news if you puchased such an Intel DX58SO motherboard, NVIDIA enabled SLI functionality for it. Definitely a smackover ;)

NVIDIA Corporation today announced that Intel Corporation has licensed NVIDIA

Weird and strange advertising campaigns are nothing new, as game publishers and manufacturers attempt to grab just a second of the public

Intel Corp. remains on track to deliver its first 32nm processors before the end of the year. The update came as part of a conference call previewing some of the papers the processor giant will present at next week's International Solid-State Circuits Conference.

"The 32 nm technology is getting ready to go into the manufacturing phase, we are lining up fabs to support it and we expect great demand," said Mark Bohr, director of Intel's technology and manufacturing group. "We are on track for shipping products in the fourth quarter and have 22 nm technology in development for 2011," he said.

Codemasters today revealed the first trailer for FUEL, showing off the scale of the environment in the upcoming racing game.

Word is: "Coming this May, FUEL

One of the most popular file-formats for playback of movies right now is MKV / x.264
We think this format is similar like the early stages of MP3 development. You could use it, but there was very little support for it.

If you playback MKV content at 1080P, you'd need a fairly decent PC to maker that happen, as this type of content is not supported by software like PowerDVD.

How would you like to learn to playback MKV / x.264 content 98% accelerated by your Radeon of GeForce graphics card ? And we'll even go a step further, optimize image quality with the help of your graphics card shader processors ?

Guru3D wrote up a guide on how to make this happen, guide explaining you what you need to do to get that MKV / x.264 GPU accelerated content going.

Click right here to read this guide.

The latest download of Realtek's HD audio driver version 2.15 is available for Windows XP and Vista -it supposedly runs under Windows 7, too. The corresponding Linux drivers are still in version 5.09 and the separate HDMI drivers for Radeon HD cards still in version 2.13.

The HD audio driver version 2.15 for Realtek chips is available for download on our server. The update is available for Windows XP and Vista, the files contain drivers for the 32 Bit and 64 Bit versions. All Realtek HD audio chips, which are common on many motherboards and in notebooks, are supported.

The sound specialist still offers the Beta version 0.1 of the 3D Sound Back Utility which preserves or reactivates 3D sound effects such as Surround, reverb and stereoscopic effects of older games under Windows Vista. Since it is a beta version, the use is used at one's own risk only. You should backup your important files before using the software.

Download - click here.

NVIDIA is hosting a new GeForce Windows XP/Vista 182.05 (32 and 64-bit) driver. The driver is tagged as BETA and up-to this moment we have no work on changes. Interesting though is the high build number.

Should you be interested, give it a try. You can check feedback on this driver in this NVIDIA discussion thread.

Recommended for the best experience in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
Boosts performance in numerous 3D applications. The following are some examples of improvements measured with Release 182.05 WHQL drivers vs. Release 181.22 WHQL drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):

• Up to 8% performance increase in Fallout 3 at high resolution and AA.
• Up to 10% performance increase in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
• Up to 9% performance increase in Half-Life 2 at high resolution with AA.
• Up to 11% performance increase in Left 4 Dead at high resolution with AA.
• Up to 10% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID at high resolution and AA.

Download:

GeForce Forceware 182.05 XP 64-bit
GeForce Forceware 182.05 XP 32-bit
GeForce Forceware 182.05 Vista 64-bit
GeForce Forceware 182.05 Vista 32-bit