Leenux (Edwin) PC is the the Rig of The Month February 2010. Meet the man at the age of 33, he has been a Guru3D aficionado for four years (!) already digging through our articles, he shares our passion of building nice PCs.

Last month we already mentioned that ASUS is working on a new 'Mars' like product, it turns out thje be the ASUS ROG Ares.

 The most interesting fact is that the product is no longer be based on NVIDIA chips, yet would be a Radeon 5870 X2 (5970) model. ASUS would use up all available stream processors (2x1600) and then opposed to the 5970 use normal clocks.

• Normal clocks: (725/1000 MHz core/memory)
• Expected Mars 5870 clocks: (850/1200 MHz).

Now in real-life ladies and gentlemen .. this would just be an overclocked Radeon HD 5970 or simply the R5970 in Crossfire -- but likely with some more memory and a price tag over inflated.

It will be interesting to see though as ASUS would use a custom PCB with new VRM control and much needed power phases. The card will come packked with 4GB of graphics memory and should be able to get a X14104 3DMark Vantage score. Here's a photo courtesy of Muropaketti.

 

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MSI unveiled R5870 Lightning Graphics Card with 15-phase Power Design

【Taipei-Taiwan】World-renowned graphics card and mainboard brand-manufacturer MSI has officially launched a new generation of the Lightning series, the R5870 Lightning. Not only are top-quality components used in the design, but the following features are also included: exclusive all Hi-c CAP for GPU power, 15-phase power design, two 8-pin external power connectors, special PCB design called LPL (Lightning Power Layer), Twin Frozr II Thermal design with 8mm SuperPipe technology

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Well, it's only a compatible HDMI 3D pass-through but still. Sony STR-DN1010 AV is the first A/V receiver from Sony capable of supporting 3-D audio and video. Featuring HDMI 1.4 3D pass-through technology, ample high-definition connectivity and compatibility with all of the latest Blu-ray Disc audio formats, the new Sony STR-DN1010 AV receiver is designed to create a simple solution for controlling any high-definition or 3D capable home theater.

The 7.1 channel STR-DN1010 AV receiver features full high-definition 1080/24p support and seven HD inputs in total (four HDMI and three component) allowing for connection to a wide variety of HD devices. The receiver

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Looks like an official release of Intels Gulftown 6-core processor is getting closer.

This CPU will be based on the Nehalem architecture and will be followed by two others, namely the toned-down 970 and another Extreme Edition, currently slated for the first quarter of 2011. Suggesting that the official launch date of the first such chip is not too far off, the upcoming Intel Core i7-980GX Extreme Edition, otherwise known as Gulftown, has started being listed in Europe.

The 32nm process technology-based CPU is listed at various prices, but in each instance it shows specifications ready to take the performance of any system to new levels. One of the most noticeable elements is the clock speed, which, despite usually being lower for multi-core processors, is of no less than 3.33 GHz. The Gulftown has 12 threads, 6.4GT/s QPI, a 130W TDP and 12MB of L3 cache memory.

With the launch of the Gulftown, Intel will take the lead in marketing six-core processors, Advanced Micro Devices is expected to release their Thuban hexacore chip maybe in late April.  The processor from Intel has been listed on multiple European websites, with one of the lower price tags found to be of 963.40 Euro. This is the equivalent of roughly $1,297. Still, this price will likely go down after the processor's official launch, considering the high likelihood of the Santa Clara company targeting the US$999 price point [via softpedia]

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PCG Hardware stumbled into Scythe's upcoming Yasya processor coolers, wll at least photo's. This new unit features six heatpipes and aluminum fins that are cooled by a 120mm fan. The heatsink measures 130mm x 108mm x 159mm and weighs 848g. It's compatible with the Intel LGA775/1156/1366 processors, and should soon be available in retail stores for about $35 to $40.

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Adobe rolled out Flash 10.1 Beta 3, this new update adds acceleration support for the Intel GMA 500 and Broadcom Crystal HD. You can download the latest beta here.

This is a developer prerelease version of the Adobe

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Download Realtek HD Audio 2.42 Driver for Windows XP, Vista Windows 7

Radeon HD 5830 review

We test the Radeon HD 5830. So where then was still a gap in the market for ATI ? Well, in-between the Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon 5850 there is room for another product. A product that would cost roughly 250 USD and performance wise would sit in-between the aforementioned graphics cards.

So here's what ATI did, they took the sweet Radeon HD 5850, disabled three a whole lot of shader processors and ROP engines, fooled around with the clocks a little and that's what is being released today as the Radeon HD 5830.

Check out the Guru3D review right here.

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The latest download of Realtek's HD audio driver version available for Windows Vista, it runs under Windows 7 too.

The HD audio driver version for Realtek chips is available for download on our server. This download offers both the Windows XP and Vista binaries, 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.

History:
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Driver Package R2.42

Fix DTM 1.4 lullaby test & wave pull mode test issue.

Realtek HD Audio Driver support all of Realtek HD Audio Codec .
1. Vista/Windows 7 WHQL Supporting: ALC882, ALC883, ALC885, ALC888, ALC889, ALC892, ALC861VD, ALC660, ALC662, ALC663, ALC665, ALC260, ALC262,ALC267, ALC268, ALC269, ALC270, ALC272, ALC273, ALC887,ALC670, ALC275, ALC680
2. Windows 2000/XP WHQL Supporting: ALC880, ALC882, ALC883, ALC885, ALC888, ALC889, ALC892, ALC861VC, ALC861VD, ALC660, ALC662, ALC663, ALC665, ALC260, ALC262, ALC267,ALC268, ALC269, ALC270, ALC272, ALC273, ALC887,ALC670, ALC275, ALC680
3. HDMI Device WHQL Support: ATI HDMI Devices
4. OS Supporting: Microsoft WindowsXP, Widnows2000, Windows Server 2003, Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows7 - x86/x64
5. Pack with Microsoft High Definition Audio UAAV1.0a(5013)
6. Add/Fix
1.) Driver :
1. Customizations.

Download Realtek HD Audio 2.42 Driver for Windows XP, Vista Windows 7

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We test the Radeon HD 5830. So where then was there still a gap in the market for ATI? Well, in-between the Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon 5850 there is room for another product. A product that would cost roughly 250 USD and performance wise would sit in-between the aforementioned graphics cards. So here's what ATI did, they took the sweet Radeon HD 5850, disabled three shader clusters, fooled around with the clocks a little and that's what is being released today as the Radeon HD 5830.

CeBIT 2010 is coming, and MSI are hinting for what pleasures they

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Fun stuff, click on the photo's.

If you thought the Google Earth satellite view of the aircraft facility was impressive, check out this.  It

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Last week we showed you some examples of 12-core processors from AMD being sold on eBAY. AMD's Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation John Fruehe admitted today that 12-core Opteron chips have already begun shipping, as reported last week. What the company is calling its most advanced x86 processor, codenamed Magny-Cours, is officially named the Opteron 6100 Series and production has started weeks ago at a factory in Germany. Fruehe goes on to say that OEM partners began receiving production chips in February, though exactly who received the chips is not yet being publicly revealed.

Fruehe also adds AMD is not yet ready to make the official announcement, but acknowledges the recent slew of Internet leaks about the near availability of the 45nm-based chips. Magny-Cours parts will have 8 or 12 cores and 4 memory channels when they officially launch before this spring.

Pricing has not yet been announced, but the eBay seller is attempting to sell four of the G34-socket Opteron chips for a starting bid of $7,700. AMD is believed to be using many-core designs in a bid to rival upcoming six-core Intel Xeons that will threaten current quad-core Xeons.

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A-DATA send issued a press release with details about the products it will present at CeBIT. This includes new flash drives and portable hard drives with USB 3.0 support, the S599 SSD that is based on the SandForce SF-1200 SDD controller, and the XPG Gaming Series v2.0 DDR3-2200G memory.

As the demand of USB 3.0 solutions are increasing, the A-DATA N002 combo flash drive and NH01 portable hard drive with USB 3.0 interface will be showcasing at CeBIT 2010, in order to demonstrate A-DATA

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MTV posted an interview with James Cameron. Cameron talks about how 3D is still being used improperly in Hollywood and hinting to the Grammys where they did 3D totally wrong.

"So there is an evolution, people are now starting to not accept inferior forms [of 3D], which is good. But it's typical of Hollywood getting it wrong, right? We do a film that's natively authored in 3D, shot in 3D, so they assume from the success of that, that they can just turn movies into 3D in 8 weeks and that's going to work somehow.

But it's just not the way to do it, if you want to make a movie in 3D, make the movie in 3D! And by the way, it should be a filmmaker driven process, not a studio driven process. I've been telling filmmakers for the last five years, [there's] this whole new way to paint, a whole new set of colors, and they've all kind of hung back. Now it's getting crammed down from above, and people are getting told to make movies in 3D, and it should've been the other way around, they should've been banging on the doors of the studio saying, 'I want to make a movie in 3D, let me do it!' And it didn't happen. "

Link to the video is here.

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GPU-Z is a lightweight utility designed to give you all information about your video card and GPU.

New Revision updates:

• Added localized tooltips in the languages: AM, AR, BG, CN, DE, FA, FR, IT, PT, RS, RU, TR, UA. Default language is your system language, you can change this setting in the system menu of GPU-Z.
• Added support for ATI HD 5830, HD 5770, HD 5750, HD 5670, HD 5570, HD 5450, HD 4860, HD 4750, Mobility HD 3430, M97, Mobile HD 5850, 5730, 5650, 5470 (Broadway, Madison and Park)
• Added support for NVIDIA GeForce 6200A, GTS 250, 9800S, 205, 310, GT 320, GT 240, GTS 360M, 230M, 330M, 240M, G105M, Quadro NVS170M, G210M, GTS 250M, future MCP, more ION variants.

• Added support for Intel GMA500, Clarkdale, Arrandale

• Added detection for variants of NVIDIA NV41, G94, G98, ATI RV350, RV370, R480, RV515. Most of them used on fake cards relabeled to NVIDIA 9x00 series.

• Improved default clock BIOS parsing on NVIDIA
• Fix for incorrect default clocks on HD 5000 Series
• Fixed incorrect real-time clock monitoring on some HD 5000 cards
• Added more accurate real-time clock monitoring function for NVIDIA
• Improved OpenCL detection on ATI R700, RV790, all HD 5000 cards
• Added temp. monitoring support for some Intel IGPs
• Improvements to CUDA detection
• Removed memory chip input fields from VGA BIOS Upload

Download

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ASUS Maximus III Extreme review

ASUS added a new P55 motherboard in the Republic of Gamers series motherboards, yes the Maximus III Extreme has arrived in our labs. The Maximus III Extreme is what I feel is one of the best tweaker / gamer P55 motherboards currently available in the market. Maximus III extreme will endear itself to PC enthusiasts and gamers. It supports a maximum of 16GB DDR3 memory, and has a stunning five PCIe (x16) slots: which supports single, dual, triple, and quad graphics card configurations, and supports both nVidia

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We test the ASUS Maximus III Extreme. ASUS added a new P55 motherboard in the Republic of Gamers series motherboards, yes the Maximus III Extreme has arrived in our labs. The Maximus III Extreme is what I feel is one of the best tweaker / gamer P55 motherboards currently available in the market. Maximus III extreme will endear itself to PC enthusiasts and gamers. It supports a maximum of 16GB DDR3 memory, and has a stunning five PCIe (x16) slots: which supports single, dual, triple, and quad graphics card configurations, and supports both nVidias SLI and ATIs Crossfire for the same. To get it some additional PCIe bandwidth we spot an NF200 bridge chip. It also supports USB 3.0, SATA 6G, and on-board 10-channel audio. Oh and did I mention you can overclock through Bluetooth on your Smartphone already ?

Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced review

Here we test the CM 690 II Advanced Case. The new version enhances the original CM 690 striking features with a seductive all-black interior, additional capacity, superb cooling system and user-friendly design.
And though looks can deceive, the Cooler Master CM 690 II indeed does very similar to the original, make no mistake internally there have been a good number of changes.

The original CM 690 was the building block of something better and Cooler Master certainly improved on it.

Read the full review here.

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Seems that AMD is prepping their AMD 890GX chipset for a release next week. the new motherboards will carry support for their upcoming six-core processors and will have native SATA3 (6G) through their Southbridge chip.

The motherboards will be compatible with AM3 processors and will feature a derivative ATI Radeon HD 42xx integrated graphics chipset, which has support for DirectX 10.1.

 AMD is also reportedly planning on releasing two platforms without integrated graphics capabilities, namely the high-end 890FX and the mainstream 870 later in April.

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Gigabyte announced their new Super Overclock Series, the company claims that graphics cards launched under this brand will feature GPUs that have been cherry-picked for high performance, efficiency and reliability. The series contains GeForce GTX 260 and now Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 5770 graphics cards.

GIGABYTE, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, grandly introduces a powerful new addition to its product lineup: the Super Overclock Series. All of the GPUs in this new range of high-end graphics cards have been cherry-picked for top performance, efficiency and reliability. Utilizing GIGABYTE

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Don't care what you think or say, Wii or not, that's just impressive ! The interface turns the wiimote motions into percussion sounds, but the performer gives it all life. This shows, once again, what Joe Morello once said: that drums can be melodic instruments.

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As we kind of expected NVIDIA will be launching the GeForce GTX 470 en 480 at the end of March.

Earlier last week NVIDIA 'Twittered' that there would be a big slash 'major' announcement on Monday, and that certainly irritated a lot of people to see a link to just this page carefully hiding the release date of the new cards, Friday the 26th (USA time zone).

The Twitter page was probably not one of the best ideas NVIDIA had as a lot of people anticipated a series 400 release yesterday, it certainly irritated a lot of people to just see the product launch pushed back to the end of March.

What they literally did though, was announce an announcement. Anyway, at least we have a set date now.

Meanwhile an American online retailer listed the GeForce GTX 480 for US $699 on pre-order.

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Today I wanted to write a little 'opinionated' editorial. Typically we do not address rumors and gossip. But an accumulation of things that have been going on over at camp NVIDIA and the Internet leading us to believe things are not as they should be.

What we will tell you is that the clock frequencies on these boards surprised me, the GeForce 470 seems to be clocked at roughly 650 MHz, that's lower than I expected. And that indeed will have an effect on performance. I think it's safe to that the GeForce 470 and 480 will be worthy competitors to towards the Radeon HD 5850 and 5870. Will it be a knock-out ? I doubt it very much. But is it important for NVIDIA to deliver a knockout to the competition ? The rumors are creating a rather negative stigma for NVIDIA.

Here's our (current) take on the pending GeForce 470 and 480.

Click here

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