This download is a driver providing Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows XP support for Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series of audio devices. For more details, read the rest of this web release note.

Beta version was out a while already, but this is the final version. Also the 1st official Windows 7 driver for X-Fi.

Download: click here

A company named DataSlide has presented a new type of mechanical HDD that could bring massive improvements in performance and power efficiency.

The company is developing what it calls "Massive 2D Parallel Storage Technology," which effectively takes the spinning disk of a standard HDD and turns it into a two-sided rectangular plate. That plate then slides in between two surfaces containing arrays of read/write heads, one head per sector. With no arms to zip around DataSlide is projecting up to 160,000 operations per second and 500MB/s transfer rates, numbers that blow even the fastest SSDs out of the water, and power consumption of less than four watts. That the heads and the storage are actually making physical contact all the time is disconcerting, but a diamond coating pledges "years of worry free service." Yes, diamonds, the things able to scratch just about anything else on the planet -- sounds like a great lubricant to us.

Acer announced a new HD LCD display today to add to their current line of HD displays. It

It looks like Intel may be ready to launch new solid-state drives based on 34nm NAND technology within two weeks or less, a report claims. Rumored since January, the drives are expected to ship in 80, 160 and 320GB capacities, the last being significant for more practically replacing a conventional hard disk. Other capacities may also be in the works, dense enough to replace many notebook hard drives, a source says.

The 34nm process is said to offer several advantages, including not only higher capacities but faster performance. Intel may also be able or willing to lower prices, traditionally the greatest obstacle to SSD adoption; an SSD-equipped MacBook Air, for instance, is $300 more than one using the default hard drive. Airs are not, however, believed to currently use Intel drives.

LG have unveiled two new

Corsair today announced two new products in its Performance Series SSD family: the P128 and P64 high-performance solid-state drives.

Building on the success of the award-winning P256 SSD, the Corsair P128 delivers the same 220MB/sec read speeds and 200MB/sec write speeds as its higher capacity cousin, at a lower cost. The P64 is one of the best-performing, lower-density SSDs available, with read speeds of up to 220MB/sec and write speeds of up to 120MB/sec. Both drives utilize the same cutting-edge technology as the P256, including a sophisticated Samsung controller IC with 128MB of cache memory and NCQ support to deliver class-leading, stutter-free performance.

Being scheduled for a release on October 22nd, some very interesting new information regarding Windows 7 was released today. Microsoft revealed for example that "on October 22nd, Windows 7 will be available in the following 14 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Chinese (Hong Kong).

Then on October 31st, the remaining 21 languages will become available: Turkish, Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek, Ukrainian, Romanian, Arabic, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Thai, Croatian, Serbian Latin, and Latvian."

Now to the even more interesting question of how much Windows 7 is going to cost:

"So here's the low-down on pricing for Windows 7. The estimated retail prices for upgrade packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99

And the estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

This means that Windows 7 Home Premium full retail product is $40.00 less than Windows Vista Home Premium today."

And here is another tidbit for you:

"In select markets, Microsoft is offering its customers the ability to preorder Windows 7 upgrade versions at a significantly reduced price. This is easily the most aggressive pricing Microsoft has ever offered for Windows. The low preorder price will vary per country:

• US: Windows 7 Home Premium ($49.99) and Windows 7 Professional ($99.99)
• Canada: Windows 7 Home Premium ($64.99) and Windows 7 Professional ($124.99)
• Japan: Windows 7 Home Premium (
  

Hey chaps ! It's time to announce the winners of A decade of Guru3D Contest two. This contest was a logo-hunt and we literally received roughly two thousand correct answers.

The logo was 'hidden' in the following article on the second page:

• An interview with ATI - Dave Baumann

We like to congratulate the winners very much, here is the lucky five ! And sure .. we are all a little jealous as gosh ... we had some great prizes to give away !

1. Zachary Peterson / California - He wins a Custom Far Cry 2 / Guru3D theme spray painted Smooth Creations CoolerMaster chassis.
2. Darren Gordon / Scotland - He wins a HIS Radeon HD 4890 TURBO Edition and Zalman GS1000SE chassis
3. Ben Isaacson / United Kingdom - He wins a Point of View GeForce GTX 275 EXO editon ! and Zalman CNPS9900 CPU cooler
4. Bert Schreu / Belgium - He wins a HIS Radeon 4850 TURBO Edition and Corsair TX650W PSU
5. Joanne Suen / Canada - She wins a HIS Multi-view and HIS VT Book.

To the prize winners, of course our  congratulations. Shipments have already been sorted out and most prizes are already on their way and might be in your possession already.

For those that still would like a good competition with awesome prizes, check out contest 1 which you can still join.

OCZ technology is prepping on a new solid state disk, dubbed Vertex Turbo. This new product is basically the same as the standard Vertex SSDs, but with cherry-picked flash memory and Barefoot SSD controller to achieve higher performance.

The OCZ Vertex Turbo is expected to deliver max read speeds of 278MB/s and max write speeds of 213MB/s, roughly 10 percent and 15 percent faster than the non-Turbo Vertex.

Within a couple of weeks you'll be able to pick up the Vertex Turbo in 30GB, 60GB, 120GB and 250GB capacities. Pricing is said to be around 10 percent higher than the Vertex series.

Aah, it's been nearly a week, time for a new update of some good hardware deals. This week I'd like to scrawl through some nice AMD 790GX/FX motherboards. These things are stacked with features, offer performance and value and let's face it .. Phenom II processors are top notch. Here we go:

Socket AM2+

• ECS  EliteGroup A790GXM-A - Check it out, we tested this little fucker recently and we like the value here for sure. This is the DDR2 version for an easy upgrade, spotted fore only $89.99
• MSI AMD DKA790GX - MSI has a fully integrated motherboard as well. Virtually the same features as the ECS board though. Again a DDR2 board, it's selling at $104.99
• GigaByte GA-MA790GP-UD4H - You can also go blue with this Gigabyte motherboard. It has the new ultra durable technology, meaning this board is made to last long, priced $119.99

Socket AM3

• GigaByte GA-MA790X-UD4P - this is simple put a very sweet motherboard. It's Socket AM3 and takes DDR3 memory. Spotted for $109.99
• MSI 790FX-GD70 Motherboard - Again an AM3 motherboard, which takes DDR3 memory. i personally have this one, and it's really one of the best 790GX motherboards available. It comes with a higher price tag though, $191.70

Total value deal

• Asus M4A78 Plus AM3 - Now if you want to save every penny, it won't get much better than this. This is the Asus M4A78 Plus AM3. It takes DDR3 memory and is feature rich, it is selling for only $77.99 (!).

Matrox has announced the Matrox DualHead2Go DP Edition (D2G-DP-IF) and TripleHead2Go DP Edition (T2G-DP-IF) Graphics eXpansion Modules (GXMs) for DisplayPort-enabled computers and monitors:
"Matrox is pleased to offer its first external multi-display upgrades to DisplayPort adopters seeking maximum display performance across multiple displays," says Samuel Recine, Director of Business Development, Matrox Graphics. "For example, with the new TripleHead2Go DP Edition, the DisplayPort interface allows users to easily connect three displays to a single notebook to generate a purely digital connection from system to monitors, while enabling resolution support of up to an impressive 1680x1050 per external display."

The Matrox DualHead2Go DP Edition and TripleHead2Go DP Edition GXMs are external multi-display upgrades that work in conjunction with your system's existing GPU to connect two or three displays

Linksys introduced the WRT160NL, a new Linux-based Wireless-N broadband router with Storage Link. It's now available for $109.99, full specs can be read over here.

Linksys' WRT160NL is not really a "normal people" router. Its bonus features cater to tech enthusiasts who don't think that connecting their home computers to one another and the internet is enough. The most notable boon here is that the WRT160NL has a version of the Linux operating system pre-installed. Geeks like to hack their routers to install Linux so they can run all sorts of Linux apps on them

Might be interesting. Microsoft is looking for people to participate in their "real life stories" campaign so that you can share your story about Office 2010 with the world.

As part of the program, Microsoft will give you a laptop for at least six months and you will receive a free copy of the final Office 2010 suite when it is released. Of course, the laptop will only be loaned to you, for at least six months though. If you are selected to participate, you will also gain access to the new web-based Office suite to test out. What all must you do as part of the program? Use the Office 2010 suite and participate in interviews, phone calls, surveys, and training. As part of the requirements, you need to own less than 6 computers in your business or household. To signup for the program, head to Microsoft.com.

We test the all new OCZ Summit SSD. OCZ submitted their 250 GB version for a review. The new Summit series SSD drives come with a massive 128MB cache, and that certainly guarantees flawless operation for an operating system like XP of Vista.

The controller used in this SSD comes from Samsung. This is what the Summit is based off, a Samsung S3C29RBB01 controller with Samsung NAND flash memory (MLC). As a result we spot read speeds of up to 220MB/s and write speeds of up to 200MB/s.

Check out this Guru3D review right here.

Canadian based graphic card manufacturer Matrox, currently focusing on professional multi-display video cards, introduced two new products in its M-series. The M9138 features three DisplayPort ports, while the M9148 boasts even four which are also usable as DVI ports - apparently through adapters.

The maximum resolution per port is 2560 x 1600, and both low profile, passively cooled PCIe x16 cards come with 1 GB of onboard video memory. In case you are interested in using even six or eight monitors simultaneously this is also possible by using two of these cards, as they both support a "joined graphics card mode".

Suggested MSRP for the M9138 is $395 USD, and $629 USD for the M9148.

File hosting web sites like the German owned RapidShare are currently popular alternatives for people to illegally download music, TV series and games. Being in the crosshairs of the music industry and other organizations trying to protect various copyright holders for some time already, "the Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany, has ruled that file-hosting service Rapidshare must proactively filter certain content," today. "Music industry outfit GEMA asked the court to ban Rapidshare from making 5,000 tracks from its catalogue available on the Internet. The court estimated the value of the tracks at $34 million."

"The decision of the Hamburg Regional Court is a milestone in GEMA

In a statement id Software announced on its web site today that it was acquired by ZeniMax Media Inc., parent company of noted game publisher Bethesda Softworks. Founded in 1991, id Software is well known for its first person shooters like the popular Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake series, among others. ZeniMax Media is a media organization which "creates and publishes original interactive entertainment content for consoles, the PC, and handheld/wireless devices. ZeniMax Media divisions include Bethesda Softworks, Vir2L Studios, ZeniMax Europe Ltd., and ZeniMax Online Studios.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, commented on the transaction: "This was a unique opportunity to team with a smart, sophisticated publisher like Bethesda Softworks where the interests of the studio and the publisher will be fully aligned in the development and marketing of our titles. In addition, we will now have financial and business resources to support the future growth of id Software, a huge advantage which will result in more and even better games for our fans."

id Software will continue to operate as a studio under the direction of its founder, John Carmack. No changes will be made in the operations of id Software in the development of its games. All the principals at id Software have signed long-term employment contracts, assuring they will continue in their roles developing games at the studio.

"This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward," said John Carmack, who will continue to serve in his current role as Technical Director. "We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am."