Afterburner is powered by our own Rivatuner engine, but this software comes with a few extra's. AfterBurner will support both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards, Voltage regulation on the GPU, overclocking on core, shader and memory domains, GPU load levels (ATI), fan speed adjustment, device information .. and a really wicked graphical (configurable) monitor.

Afterburner v1.5.1 (2010-03-18)

• Added voltage control of MSI R5830 Twin Frozr II series.
• Added voltage control of MSI R5670-PD1G series.
• Fixed voltage control of MSI R5870 Lightning and R5870/R5850 Twin Frozr II
• Fixed description of R5670 1GB series

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HIS 5870 V iCooler Turbo review

We test the HIS 5870 V iCooler Turbo. The HIS Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo edition features a custom-designed cooler that's improved from the iCooler IV HIS, you perhaps can remember they used on some graphics (last generation Radeon HD 4890). The card itself then, while the non-Turbo variants use reference AMD clock speeds of 850 MHz core and 1200 MHz memory, the Turbo model we test today up that number to 875 MHz and 1225 MHz, respectively bring a little more kapoooow to the product.

The HIS R5870 V iCooler Turbo features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and great monitor connectivity. You will have two DVI-D, and one HDMI and DisplayPort connector at your disposal. As added bonus HIS released a special SKU that comes with a full copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as well.

Check out our review

Woaah -- behold the future. LSI has been working on a PCI Express interface SSD. This device has a bandwidth of 1,500MB/s sustained sequential I/O and 1,200MB/s sustained random I/O, regardless of the read/write mix. The company apparantly is sampling this unit to OEMs as we speak.

The product will be tagged onder SKU LSISSS6200 PCIe SSS (solid state storage) solution and is meant for enterprise servers, where fast data access is crucial. It has a low latency and uses few CPU resources, even while delivering up to 200,000 4K sequential I/Os per second (IOPS), as well as 150,000 4K random IOPS.

"Future customer requirements related to price, performance, power consumption and reliability align well with the benefits of solid-state storage," Jeff Janukowicz, research manager, Hard Disk Drive Components and Solid State Drives at IDC, said. "PCIe-based SSS solutions, such as the LSISSS6200, can reliably meet next-generation data center needs with an improved price-to-performance ratio compared to traditional storage solutions."

"The new LSISSS6200 card utilizes the industry's most widely deployed software stack to deliver an enterprise-capable, drop-in storage solution," Steve Fingerhut, senior director of marketing, Storage Components Division, LSI, explained. "Providing customers with a new tier of storage between system memory and low-cost disk drives, without sacrificing reliability or simplicity, PCIe-based SSS solutions represent the next evolution in storage architectures for market segments requiring extreme performance."

There is no word on when the device will actually be released on the market and what it's horrendous price will be. None the less this is killer stuff, great to see it developped.

The new pictures also reveal the implementation of SATA 6.0Gbps and USB 3.0, which means that performance enthusiasts will have all bases covered if they decide to buy this mainboard. The device even includes overclocking features, as well as the now-infamous capability of being overclocked via Bluetooth.

Other specifications of the upcoming monster board include Gigabit LAN, eSATA and Firewire connectivity, USB 2.0 ports and 7.1 channel audio. The rest of the details should become available soon enough, since official pictures usually mean that the formal introduction of a product is not too far off.

Check out some official photo's. I really like the new passive cooling design btw.

MSI released a list of its motherboards that fully support the six-core Intel Core i7-980X "Gulftown" processor.

Model List and BIOS Version Supported

• Eclipse Plus: A7566IMS.110
• Eclipse SLI: A7520IMS.1C0
• X58 Platinum SLI: A7522IMS.370
• X58 Platinum: A7522IMS.370
• X58 Pro: A7522IMS.8A0
• X58 Pro-E: A7522IMS.8A0
• X58M: A7593IMS.350

To provide consumers more comprehensive upgrade services, MSI, the world-leading mainboard and graphic card manufacturer, announced today that all MSI Intel X58-based mainboards will support the latest Intel Core i7-980X Extreme, the 32nm B1 stepping native 6-core CPU. So in the beginning of product design, MSI's total consideration about upgradability is shown, and also the greater scalability to consumers is brought.

On the market, the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme processor, which adopts the cutting-edge 32nm process and B1 stepping, is the first native 6-core CPU for home and office use, and the multi-tasking performance provide by the CPUs will bring users the most impressive experience of performance. The MSI X58 mainboards have been a heat on the market and earned innumerable awards from worldwide media since they were launched for their outstanding specifications and performance. Another heat is expected from them for their full support and compatibility with the Intel Coire-i7 980X Extreme CPUs. As reasons above, MSI X58 mainboards will undoubtedly the first choice for the overclockers thirst for the extreme performance!

In Win introduced the Ironclad, a new full ATX steel with five 5.25" bays, support for up to six 3.5" HDDs, a 2.5" bay for SSDs, and eight PCI expansion slots The motherboard tray features holes for cable management and a hole at the CPU area to make it easier to swap coolers. The case ships with three 120mm fans and one 220mm fan, and features pre-drilled holes for watercooling tubes.

There are 8 expansion slots, with the 8th one making installing double-slot graphics cards on the last expansion slot easy. Each slot cover has a vent with dust-filters. Dust filters also make it to other areas such as the PSU air intake and the front grill.

The case has vents on almost every side. Fans include one 120 mm front, a rear 120 mm, a top 120 mm fan (while the top has slot for two 120 mm fans), a large 220 mm fan on the side-panel, which also has holders for four 120 mm fans instead of the 220 mm fan. Some panels also come with noise-dampening foam padding. Right below the expansion slots and above the PSU, there are four holes for water-cooling tubings, for two independent loops. The front-panel is located on the top, and has FP audio, two USB ports, two eSATA, and an IEEE-1394a [via tpu].

Website VR-Zone claims to have received what are supposedly the final specifications for the upcoming Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 GPUs. The site lists the following information:

• GeForce GTX 480 : 480 SP, 384-bit, 250W TDP, US$499
• GeForce GTX 470 : 448 SP, 320-bit, 225W TDP, US$349

There's also a leaked photo of the GTX 480 on the web but let me say, just stay tuned for the official release of the GeForce GTX 400 which is only seven days away.

Disney Interactive goes for it and creates a Need for Speed facsimile with new additions in this new Split/Second Street Racing Game. The features that separate this new game with the NFS saga is the massive destruction/events that you can taste in-game

Along this new features:

• The City is Your Weapon - Alter the dynamics of the race within a made-for-TV city rigged to blow
• Every Lap is Different -Devastating events that change the track, create new routes and new obstacles
• Action Arcade Racing -Fast paced, intense racing action

You can check out the Video Preview of the Game (is not out yet) here. It will be available for PC and XBOX360.

The First Expansion Pack for the Original Dragon Age is out, called "Awakening", the new stories starts where the original Dragon Age ends, with lands destroyed by the Darkspawn and your mission to rebuild the Grey Wardens.

Awakening will carry on the tradicion of "Import Character" that started with the First Mass Effect Game and Proceed with Mass Effect 2, being an Bioware Game that was to be expected, you can even import a Dead Character from the original Dragon Age, but the game will manage to somehow tell the story of you surviving.

Awakening is somehow shorter than the original Dragon Age and will carry on with Oghren as the only companion from the original game, there are cameos of some characters depending of our decisions.Awakenings will be available for purchase as a Digital Download on steam and other means, for PS3, XBOX360 and PC.

You can check out the website here, and you can read the FAQ here (specially for those that finished the Original Game).

Gigabyte today announced the start of the GIGIABYTE USB 3.0 & 3x USB Power web contest,

Spotted and shown in our CeBIT 2010 report, PowerColor now officially introduces their Radeon HD5770 Eyefinity 5:

The HD5770 Eyefinity 5 features multi-display eyefinity technology, enables up to 5 monitors to be operated from one card through its five mini displayport onboard design. Gamers can easily make use of this unique feature and have different display configurations to enjoy a wider field of view and get more done at the same time.

This unparalleled graphics solution takes advantage of the HD5770 series features, clocking in at 850 MHz core speed and 1200MHz memory speed, the card is ready to tackle all the latest game titles and enable a superior gaming experience. With support for Microsoft

Sure, it takes a while to figure out the difference between ASUS

The web is serving some more info info about the clockspeeds of AMD's upcoming six-core Phenom II X6 "Thuban" processors. Apparently a couple of  BIOS updates from Gigabyte revealed the clock frequencies of AMD's upcoming Thuban processors. Here are the bold figures:

• Phenom II X6 1035T will run at 2600 MHz / 2.6 GHz
• Phenom II X6 1055T will run at 2800 MHz / 2.8 GHz.
• Phenom II X6 1075T will run at 3000 MHz / 3.0 GHz

That makes the fastest model 333 MHz slower than Intel's Core i7 980X processor. Considering the architecture it's save to say that AMD will not be blowing away Intel performance wise, but the six-core Thuban processors are clocked fairly high though and as such they will deliver a really good punch as performance will no exception be great and knowing AMD, pricing will be MUCH better than Intel's offering.

Put really simple, AMD typically charged 45~50 USD per core. I'm smelling a 300 USD six-core processors!

Razer issued the the DeathAdder Left Hand Edition, claiming this is world's first gaming mouse designed with the professional left-handed gamer in mind. It should be available soon for around $59.99 (59.99EUR).

Features:

• Ergonomic left-hand design
• 3500dpi Razer Precision 3.5G infrared sensor
• 1000Hz Ultrapolling / 1ms response
• Five independently programmable Hyperesponse buttons
• li>On-The-Fly Sensitivity
  

Microsoft launched just recently it's new Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview program, this new site allows you to try the new IE9 that has, between a lot of new things, HTML GPU Acceleration, that's right, Microsoft implemented 3D acceleration to Internet Explorer, really, in an effort to compete with Firefox and Chrome the new Internet Explorer also offers the following:

• Improved ACID3 test
• Hardware Background compile of Javascript
• HTML5 with GPU Acceleration
• CSS3

So, that's it, give it here, the main site also offer Demos so that you can test all of this new technologies.

Be adviced, it is only a Preview and it's not even BETA, but, the new GPU Acceleration should be interesting.

NVIDIA issued a beta Forceware driver. This is a WHQL-candidate driver for GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, and 300-series desktop GPUs and ION desktop GPUs.

This driver resolves fan speed issues reported with version 196.75 drivers. NVIDIA asks that you remove 196.75 drivers and update to either 196.21 WHQL drivers or to this 197.13 WHQL-candidate driver.

If you currently have 196.75 installed, please first uninstall it before installing 197.13.

New in Version 197.13

• Adds support for Next Generation ION.
• Adds support for GeForce GT 320, GeForce GT 330, and GeForce GT 340.
• Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0129.
• Upgrades HD Audio driver to version 1.0.9.1 (for supported GPUs).
• Increases performance in several PC games from v196.21 WHQL. The following are examples of measured improvements. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

• • Up to 13% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with a single GPU
  • Up to 30% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with SLI technology
  • Up to 13% performance increase in H.A.W.X with single GPU
  • Up to 15% performance increase in H.A.W.X with SLI technology
  • Up to 30% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with single GPU
  • Up to 28% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with SLI technology

• Adds SLI and multi-GPU support for top new gaming titles including Assassin Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Zombie Driver.
• Enhanced SLI support for Metro 2033, Supreme Commander 2, Unigine, and World of Warcraft
• Adds override anti-aliasing support for Mass Effect 2.
• Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.
• Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

Existing Support:

• Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with the new Adobe Flash 10.1 beta. Learn more here.
• Supports OpenCL 1.0 (Open Computing Language) for all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
• Supports OpenGL 3.2 for GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
• Supports CUDA Toolkit 3.0 features and performance enhancements. See CUDA Zone for more details.
• Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology* on DirectX 9 and OpenGL.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Learn more here.
• Download these FREE PhysX and CUDA applications now!
• Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.

We have a discussion thread open on these drivers right here.

Download:

 Forceware 197.13 Windows 7 | Vista (64-bit)
 Forceware 197.13 Windows 7 | Vista (32-bit)
 Forceware 197.13 Windows XP (32-bit)

ECS A890GXM-A (AMD 890GX motherboard) review

AMD's new 890GX chipset is merely out for what, two weeks ? This will be the third AMD 890 based motherboard review. This time around from the good folks at ECS.

The AMD 890GX based motherboard chipsets proof their strength and by all means is really fun to work and play around with. When you plant the two chips from AMD on a mainboard from ECS, they'll try to do some more stuff. It's the ECS Black series style - with a bucket load of features like integrated graphics sub-D, DVI, HDMI and display port connectors, passive cooling, 8-channel sound, dual GigE Ethernet, Crossfire ready, and pretty decent overclockabilty.

Check out the full Guru3D article here.

ASUS introduced the P7F7-E WS Supercomputer, a new workstation motherboard designed for Intel LGA1156 Xeon 3400, Core i7, Core i5, Core i3 and Pentium series processors. The motherboard features the Intel Ibex Peak 3450 chipset + NVIDIA NF200 and supports up to four graphics cards. The motherboard is equipped with SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 support, and features two Quick Gate ports that enable you to easily connect USB devices to the motherboard.

Specifications:

eVGA today officially releases a board we've been talking about a lot. They launched the Classified SR-2, nicknamed "mother of all motherboards". This is a dual-socket Intel 5520 chipset based server motherboard dressed up for hardware enthusiasts, it supports 4-way SLI, has 8-phase PWM, support for up to 48GB DDR3 memory, USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps.

The motherboard uses the new, huge HPTX form factor that measures 15" x 13.6". EVGA warns the motherboard will only fit in wide ATX cases with 9 or more expansion slots, and that it is possible that mods may be required for a correct fit in the chassis. You can check out the full specifications over here.

We are proud to present the EVGA Classified SR-2, the absolute ultimate for the extreme user. It takes everything that made the X58 Classified 4-way SLI motherboard great and doubled it up. Now you can experience the ultimate in overclocked multithreaded performance by way of Dual 1366 sockets which allow for hyperthreaded Intel Xeon CPU

ATI Eyefinity Technology Bezel Correction - compensate for your bezels so objects in your game move from one display to the other smoothly ATI Catalyst

Key Features:

• The Epic Conclusion of the Saga
  

A game that I have been looking forward to very much is Metro. The guys behind it are programmers from the STALKER team, who left the software house and started this new project all by themselves. And the end result at least graphics wise is really good. THQ sent out a press release announcing the North American release of Metro 2033, the post-apocalyptic shooter developed by 4A Games.

Based on a novel by the Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, Metro 2033 combines classic first-person-shooter action with elements of survival horror and intelligent plot and character development not seen before in gaming, to create a true genre original. Metro 2033 is now available to purchase at retail stores around the world for both the Xbox 360

Intel has formally launched their six-core workstation and server processors. The Xeon 5600 has been made on the same 32 nanometer process as the Core i7-980X and give more performance without consuming more power as a result. Performance gains range from 10 percent in single tasks that don't use the extra two cores to as much as 60 percent for heavily threaded apps, but even the flagship, 3.33GHz X5680 consumes the same 130W as its predecessor.

The X5680 and other 32nm Xeons launched today are considered more secure and support both hardware AES encryption as well as Trusted Execution to prevent rogue code or privacy breaches without draining away performance. Like most other 32nm chips, they support Turbo Boost to overclock to as much as 3.6GHz (again on the X5680) and Hyperthreading that lets a single six-core chip behave like a 12-core part under optimized conditions.

Apart from the 3.33GHz model, lower-clocked 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz and 2.93GHz chips also carry six cores and consume a lower-still 95W of power. A low-voltage 2.26GHz six-core Xeon uses just 60W of energy, while quad-core chips have been given a wide spread and range from 1.86GHz at 40W to 3.46GHz at 130W.

Systems based on the new Xeons should be available within the next 45 days, with availability depending on the computer builder; Dell, HP and others have been named. Although the initial lineup is primarily tailored to servers, Intel has confirmed that workstation versions should be available soon, including a Xeon 3600 series that tops out at the same 3.33GHz, six cores and 130W whose limitation to single-processor systems will keep its price down to $999 in bulk.

For a review on the six-core Core i7 980X click here.

• Includes the latest PhysX runtime builds to support all released PhysX content Metro and others.
• New runtimes for the PhysX SDK 2.8.3.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series, 100-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory and 32 CUDA cores. Note: Some applications may have higher minimum requirements.
• Experience GPU PhysX acceleration in many games and demos, some of which are highlighted in PowerPack downloads here.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on GeForce via CUDA 2.0 for SDK versions 2.7.3, 2.7.2, 2.7.5, 2.8.0, 2.8.1 and 2.8.3 (requires graphics driver v177.81 or later).
• Supports control of your GPU PhysX configuration from the NVIDIA display driver control panel. (requires graphics driver v180.00 or later).

Compatible with:
GeForce 200-series, 100-series, 9-series, and 8-series GPUs (with minimum of 32 cores and a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory)
AGEIA PhysX Processors (All).

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