Bethesda released a new Brink trailer for your weekend video fun. The game is scheduled for a PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 release this fall. Brink is the new, futuristic first-person shooter from Quake Wars studio Splash Damage, which has gone to great lengths to inject some personality into this sometimes-predictable genre.
We spotted this on one CeBIT already, but the word is out and it is final. Arctic Cooling has announced the new Accelero XTREME 5970 / 5870 - Ultimate Cooling Weapon for ATI Radeon HD5970 and HD5870. Now bare in mind, I stared at this product and the cooler is HUGE. It will eat away at least three slots .. maybe even four.
Still, the AC coolers are amongst the best when it comes to a refined balance of silence and performance. The performance is (according to AC) 40C cooler then the stock cooler running at only 0.5 Sone.
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Main features
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Cooling performance
Both models are equipped with three 92mm PWM fans running from 900 to 2,000 RPM, generating 81 CFM airflow for efficient heat dissipation from the core(s).
The Accelero XTREME 5970 is designed with an 8-heatpipe and 119-fin architecture to achieve 300 watts cooling for the dual-GPU Radeon HD5970. A layer of the ARCTIC MX-2 thermal compound is also pre-applied on the base of Accelero XTREME 5970.
The results are very promising
Creative Technology Ltd. today announced the PCI-E Creative Sound Blaster
X-Fi Titanium HD and USB Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD, setting the gold standard for PC audio with the first discrete audio card and USB digital audio system to include THX TruStudio PC audio technology.
"The Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD and Sound Blaster X-Fi HD provide the highest quality audio playback of any sound products we have ever introduced, over a period of time where we have sold more than 400 million Sound Blaster cards," said Steve Erickson, Vice President and General Manager of Audio and Video at Creative. "We are thrilled to announce that our newest additions to the Sound Blaster line include THX TruStudio PC audio technology, bringing together two of the most respected names in sound quality to provide an unparalleled audio experience on the PC."
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD
The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD is powered by the second-generation Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor for PCI Express slots. The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD combines captivating industrial design with audiophile grade Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) and components to produce a 122dB signal-to-noise ratio, the highest SNR ever produced by a Creative sound card. A replaceable Op-amp is also a distinguishing feature allowing users to customise audio output with colouration that is refined to their personal tastes.
Additional product specifications include:
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD
Designed as a high definition USB audio solution for notebooks and desktops, the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD USB digital audio system features audiophile-grade recording and playback. It is the only USB digital audio system that includes an analogue phono input, as well as standard audio inputs, enabling users to effortlessly convert analogue audio from their record albums or cassette tapes into MP3, AAC, FLAC and other digital formats. The systems comes with Media Toolbox, a comprehensive software package, including an advanced noise reduction programme that easily remove unwanted clicks, crackles, hums, pops, rumble and other sound imperfections from the tracks after they have been recorded, substantially improving the audio quality for playback.
The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD USB digital audio system also features THX TruStudio PC, bringing the same great audio experience found in live performances, films, and recording studios to laptop and desktop PCs.
Additional product specifications include:
Pricing and Availability
The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD and Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD will be available at The CREATIVE Stores at International Business Park and Marina Square, the online store at sg.store.creative.com and authorised dealers in Singapore from March 2010 onwards at the suggested retail prices of S$299.00 and S$149.00 respectively.
NVIDIA Fermi based graphics cards are getting closer and closer. The first AIB partner photo's are now showing up. The graphics cards is equipped with a HDMI connector, a PCI Express x16 interface, takes up two slots and is powered by a pair of 6-pin PCI Express connectors.
Specifications wise all that is known is what has been gathered from the previous leaks and speculations. We expect the device to come with 448 shader cores, over a gig GDDR5 memory and support for PhysX, CUDA, 3D Vision Surround and 3-way SLI. Of course, this feature set is added to the obvious support for DirectX 11.
Further details, like GPU clock speed and power consumption, are still unknown at this time. Anyway, have a look.
Okay, so that's not really 'news' as we mentioned it a couple of times already. But German tech site ATI Forum received slides that show some more info on AMD's six-core "Thuban" processors.
The
Oh sjeeesh, games streaming service OnLive will launch in the US on June 17th backed by Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The serivce launches on PC and Mac, and costs $14.95 a month.
After almost 8 years of development and millions of lines of code, OnLive, the gaming equivalent of cloud-computing technology is set to take the gaming world by storm on June 17th, coming to both PCs and Macs in the contiguous 48 states.
That price "provides access to an ever-increasing library of high-end, new release game content and a host of exclusive community feature such as Brag Clips and massive spectating," said COO Mike McGarvey
"Individual titles will be available for purchase or rental on an a la carte basis. Specific game pricing, including rentals,purchases and loyalty programs, will be announced prior to the consumer launch event at E3. We
Epic Games and Valve Software announced they have inked a deal that will see the Valve's free Steamworks tools more easily available to all Unreal Engine 3 licensees. Epic has made good use of Steam itself, allowing all owners of its shooter Unreal Tournament 3 to activate their copy on Steam and running three 'free weekends' that opened the full game to everyone through Valve's digital distribution platform.
Epic also announces NVIDIA 3D Vision support for the Unreal Engine 3, saying the stereoscopic 3D support will be available to all licensees of their game engine, and also to users of the free Unreal Development Kit.Facts about NVIDIA 3D Vision and Unreal Engine 3:
Aah, don't you just love cryptic messages in your inbox in the morning ? Inno3D send out a mail with the title" ... Inno3D GTX470 / 480 ready for shipment ???"
If you look at the box you'll notice that the GTX 480 will indeed have 384-Bit memory indicating six 64-bit controllers. Also the box denotes 1536MB of gDDR5 memory for the GeForce 480.
Well obviously they are ... check out the photo's. I'll take a crate of these please !
HWiNFO32 is a professional hardware information and diagnostic tools supporting latest components, industry technologies and standards. Both tools are targeted to recognize and extract the most possible amount of information about computer's hardware which makes them suitable for users searching for driver updates, computer manufactures, system integrators and technical experts too. 
Retrieved information's are presented in a logical and easily understandable form and can be exported into various types of reports.
The new version of the HWiNFO32 hardware information and diagnostic tool and it features:
Changes in HWiNFO32
If you want an affordable SSD just for primary and fast OS reasons. OCZ might have an answer for you.
OCZ now is offering a mainstream SSD, with the Onyx. The new flash-based storage unit uses the 2.5-inch form factor and operates on the SATA II interface. It is based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND Flash memory chips and, as users know very well, it is faster and more durable than hard drives.
Among the various advantages of the new device are a lightweight (77g) but durable casing that measures 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm, faster read and write speeds, similarly faster boot-up times and an energy efficiency that, when used in notebooks, enables a longer battery life. The SSD also lacks moving parts, which makes it run without producing any noise.
"As new technologies become available, OCZ continues to expand both our enterprise and consumer SSD lines, and one of our goals is to make SSDs more affordable to end-users. Our new Onyx series SSD does exactly that and is a perfect solution for netbooks, laptops, or home desktop PCs," Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group, commented.
"Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the new OCZ Onyx SSD delivers the speed and reliability of solid state storage to mainstream consumers at an aggressive price point that makes the technology more accessible to customers who want to take advantage of all the benefits of the SSDs without incurring the high cost normally associated with the solution."
The Onyx has "HDD-dominating access times" and read/write speeds of 125MB/s and 70MB/s, respectively. It also boasts 64MB of onboard cache memory, an MTBF of 1.5 million hours and, most importantly, a price of under $100. In fact, the only thing that the SSD has that is inferior to what HDDs can offer is the storage space of only 32GB.
Set to become available in the coming weeks, the Onyx will be priced at $99 and will be accompanied by a three-year warranty.
The colleagues over at Expreview published some photos of the retail version of Galaxy's dual-GPU GeForce GTS 250 graphics card. This custom-design card has a performance level between the GeForce GTX 260 and GeForce GTX 285, but it's unknown for how much it will be sold and if people are actually interested with DX11 class products arround the corner.
Galaxy
ASUS introduced the Cine5, a new compact speaker that provides 5-channel sound.
ASUS today announced the launch of the ASUS Cine5 PC speaker which provides accurate 5-channel surround sound in personalized spaces such as study rooms. With its all-in-one design, the Cine5 delivers realistic and dynamic surround sound to satisfy consummate gamers and personal entertainment users. To deliver exceptionally full sound from a compact form factor, ASUS drew on its expertise in high-performance audio cards during the development.
Leading Surround Technology for True Cinematic Enjoyment
The Cine5 is the first PC speaker in the world to offer leading surround sound presence with the new "EmbracingSound Theatre HD" technology. This patented technology leverages on a discrete 5-channel output to deliver full audio surround, which users can experience whenever they are directly in front of the speaker. In a First Player Shooter game, the Cine5 provides precise sound location that improves shooting accuracy and heightens gaming thrills. The Cine5 also revives 5-channel audio from any down-mixed 2-channel source
Okay, this will be one of the games I'll be on the lookout for. Codemasters announced that F1 2010 will hit Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 this September.
A new generation of FORMULA ONE games will come to high definition consoles and PC later this year as Codemasters
Intel Core i7 980X (6-core) gets tested
Intel today releases it's first ever six-core consumer processor. We test the Gulftown based Core i7 980X. Intel launches the Core i7 980X processor today priced at US$ 999 in thousand-unit tray quantities.
It's scrumptious, it's delicious. Really it overclocks brilliantly as well; it's dark demonic matter my man. Head on over to the review where we'll start up a technical overview and then head onwards to an extensive benchmark session, and sure... we'll throw in an overclocking session as well. We've got a lot of ground to cover.
You can read this Guru3D article right here.
Tomorrow a review on the following ... yeah it's still under NDA so I can't really say what it is man.
USB 3.0 performance explored
A couple of weeks ago we published some USB 3.0 performance results based on an engineering board from MSI. In that early test we where not impressed at all by USB 3.0 performance.
The final production sample of MSI's Star USB controller just arrived though, and that certainly makes the difference. Therefore we test USB 3.0 with the USB 3.0 ready N002 SSD, this device is able to deliver up to very fast 200 MB/s and 170 MB/s sequential read/write performance.
Will it perform good enough over USB 3.0 ?
Check it out right here.
