We review the Intel series 320 SSD. Armed with cheaper NAND flash memory this drive competes at the middle segment tagged with a decent price. But will it be enough to compete with the competition ?

A product that offers performance somewhere in-between SATA 2 based Indilinx and SandForce 1200 based products, but at a more attractive price, at least that is the theory.

The dynamic is interesting as the performance results today of the 320 series SSD will seem "so 2010", but it's an interesting concept as with cheaper memory, you can increase in volume size hence the review today is based on a dashing 300 GB SSD.

Read the full review here.

Lexar Media announced the immediate availability of Crucial m4 solid-state drives in capacities ranging from 64GB to 512GB. Designed for both business customers and general consumers, the Crucial m4 SSD product line incorporates Micron's industry-leading 25-nanometer (nm) NAND flash technology in a 2.5" form factor. Like its Crucial RealSSD C300 predecessor, the Crucial m4 also supports the SATA 6Gb/s interface, opening up the data path between the host processor and the SSD, and resulting in improved overall system responsiveness, including faster boot times and application loads.

The new Crucial m4 SSD reaches read speeds of up to 415 MB/second, a 17 percent increase over its predecessor. Likewise, write speeds on the new 512GB capacity have demonstrated increases up to 260MB/s, a 20 percent boost over the fastest C300 drive1. Ideal for client computing, Crucial m4 SSD products provide benefits for notebooks, desktops, workstations, and industrial applications, including low power consumption, lightweight construction, and resistance to shock and vibration.

"The new Crucial m4 SSD builds on the enormous success of its predecessor, the Crucial RealSSD C300. As a subsidiary of Micron Technology, we're in the unique position of leveraging Micron's NAND development and manufacturing expertise for our Crucial branded SSDs," said Robert Wheadon, worldwide senior product manager. "These next-generation m4 SSDs offer customers higher capacities and even greater performance at affordable prices."

Competitively priced at US$129.99 for a 64GB SSD; US$249.99 for a 128GB SSD; US$499.99 for a 256GB SSD; and US$999.99 for a 512GB SSD, the Crucial m4 SSD product line is backed by a three-year warranty and available now at www.crucial.com/ssd, or through leading channel partners worldwide.

• Next-generation Crucial m4 SSD
  

Belkin has just released a new line of high-performance routers, with Multi-Beam technology. The routers promise a larger coverage area, and some also feature an automatic data backup app. The N150, N300, and N600 DB routers are available in the US now, and start at $34.99 for 150 Mbps wireless speed.

The higher end N+ router, N750 DB, will be available next month for $129.99, along with the N450 N+ router. The N750 DB and N600 DB are dual band devices, which

OCZ introduced the Vertex 3 Max IOPS, a new solid state disk that promises up to 75,000 random 4KB write IOPS.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today unveiled a new addition to the highly-awarded Vertex 3 SATA III Series. The Vertex 3 Max IOPS edition drives extend the company

ASRock shows the AM3b socket, claiming it's the first motherboard maker to ready motherboard that use real AM3+ sockets. They claim AM3b offers several enhancement, for thicker pins and better ampage which equals better overclocking.

AM3+ is the socket that has been designed for upcoming AMD FX series "Zambezi" processors based on the "Bulldozer" architecture. ASRock highlighted the benefits of opting for its AM3+ motherboards. In the process, it ended up disclosing quite some technical information about AM3+, and why AMD designed it in the first place, when apparently AM3 can run Zambezi with a BIOS update.

AM3+ sockets can be identified by "AM3b" written on the socket, and have wider pin-holes (0.51 mm vs. 0.45 mm of AM3). It is possible that future (retail?) versions of the CPU, if not the engineering samples doing rounds, could use packages with thicker pins that are incompatible with AM3.

Check out some of the slides to get a little more detail ...

Check out this leaked performance figures of AMD's Llano processor.

A YouTube user from Ukraine has posted up several videos of AMD's upcoming Llano notebook platform that are worth a look at before they possibly get pulled down. The video compares an AMD Accelerated quad-core processor A8-3510MX with AMD Radeon HD 6620M graphics to an Intel Core i7-2600 'Sandy Bridge' processor with Intel HD 3000 graphics and shows that Llano performs better.

Ubisoft sens out the words announcing that closed beta testing for Trackmania 2 Canyon will begin sometime in July.

The game will include the map editor and other tools that will also be a part of the entire Maniaplanet service that was first announced last June at E3. The first person shooter game, Shootmania, will enter beta testing "in the coming months" while the RPG game Questmania will have its beta test "at a later date."

Things have gotten really out of hand with the Sony PSN network, after a hack on their servers. 70 million PSN users data HAS been stolen.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

Sony is warning its millions of PlayStation Network users to watch out for identity-theft scams after hackers breached its security and plundered the user names, passwords, addresses, birth dates, and other information used to register accounts.

The stolen information may also include payment-card data, purchase history, billing addresses, and security answers used to change passwords, Sony said on Tuesday. The company plans to keep the hacked system offline for the time being, and to restore services gradually. The advisory also applies to users of Sony's related Qriocity network.

Should you be affected, have a read at Sony here.

I've just posted a new Banchmark in the download section, meet FryBench, a 3D processor rendering application that hints towards CineBench. fryrender is an excellent benchmarking framework for anyone, not just for our customers or 3D users. Anyone out there, from hardware integrators or hardware reviewers to die-hard gamers.

What makes fryrender an ideal tool for CPU benchmarking? Since its conception, fryrender has been designed with the aim of being the most muscled engine in its category. As a result, and after several years of intense development, fryrender's core doesn't let a single CPU cycle be wasted. Its routines have been written to be cache efficient, and to take the maximum advantage possible of the new multi-threading capabilities present in modern CPU architectures.

Download

The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of DirectShow filters, VFW/ACM codecs, and tools. Codecs and DirectShow filters are needed for encoding and decoding audio and video formats. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your audio and movie files. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play all the popular audio and video formats and even several less common formats.

We review the Intel series 320 SSD. Armed with cheaper NAND flash memory this drive competes at the middle segment tagged with a decent price. But will it be enough to compete with the competition ?

The Rig of the Month April 2011 is not necessarily the most beautiful PC on the planet in fact it's the opposite of that, it is however unique and once submitted we couldn't help the fact that it stuck into our minds.

It's not pretty, it's not sexy, it just is exactly the opposite of what one can expect for a ROTM and sure ... it's even quite messy, but that works somehow ...

Submitted to us roughly on April's fools day the guy did win :) As such, meet Craig Fay 27 years old working for a plastic bottling company in the IT department with his crazy rig.

Check out the article right here.

PotPlayer is a freeware Multimedia player. It feels like the KMPlayer, but is in active development. This software support GPU acceleration and post-processing. 

Supports almost every available video formats out there. PotPlayer contains internal codecs and there is no need to install codecs manually. Other key features include WebCam/Analog/Digital TV devices support, gapless video Playback, DXVA, live broadcasting. It's been described on the Internet as The KMPlayer redux, and it pretty much is. Distinctive features of the player is a high quality playback, support for all modern video and audio formats and a built DXVA video codecs. A comprehensive video and audio player, that also supports TV channels, subtitles and skins.

Key features of Daum PotPlayer:

- Support for most audio/video formats and DVD.
- Internal DXVA video codecs (H.264/AVC, VC-1, MPEG2) and EVR (Windows 7 only).
- Hi Quality playback and low resources usage.
- Support all types of subtitling.
- Skins, logos, color themes.
- Digital TV devices support. Live broadcasting.
- and much, much more...

Download

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the new HyperX Plug and Play (PnP) series of high-performance enthusiast memory. HyperX PnP are the first modules to scale the higher memory heights that are a part of the second generation Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs. The memory is programmed with faster frequencies and when 'plugged' into a system using the Sandy Bridge chipset, will automatically 'play' at either 1600MHz or 1866MHz in both desktop and notebook PCs.

The modules are programmed using JEDEC-compliant settings, allowing 1600MHz and 1866MHz frequency support. It is as simple as plugging in the memory and turning on the machine, as the system automatically recognizes faster memory speed with no further BIOS settings required. Users will notice performance gains as overclocking is automatic with the HyperX Plug and Play modules. In addition, the modules are backwards compatible with previously released DDR3 systems on the market.

"The HyperX engineering team has been thoroughly innovative in designing a memory module that automatically raises performance with no overclocking steps required," said Mark Tekunoff, senior technology manager, Kingston. "By using JEDEC-compliant settings to create performance timings, enthusiasts can max out native frequencies on current Sandy Bridge systems and older DDR3 machines."

HyperX Plug and Play is available through Kingston's channel of authorized distributors, resellers, e-tailers and retailers. Kingston HyperX memory is backed by a lifetime warranty and free 24/7 technical support.

OK -- let the irony commence in the forums ;)

NETGEAR has launched a new Router which offers dual band wireless transmission at up to 750 megabits per second. Named the NETGEAR N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router, the router transmits data simultaneously over both wireless N bands with up to 450mbps in the 5Ghz band and 300mbps in the more crowded 2.4 Ghz band. In addition, the N750 offers a wide range of parental controls and even a broadband usage meter for those concerned with data caps. And with DLNA media server support, the router can handle HD video, music, and photos and stream them to any DLNA enabled television or game console on the network.

The parental controls enable for control of all devices on a network including Windows PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets. Parents can be secure in the knowledge that their kids are safely surfing the internet and prevented from visiting suspect sites. The Broadband usage meter can be set to automatically notify when data consumption is about to surpass any monthly limits set by the service provider, thereby saving on expensive data overage fees. And guests can access the Internet and the home network without access to other computers, storage drives or other devices on the home network.

But the hallmark feature is the N750

This week sees the release of Darkspore on the 26th

Not to confuse with the Ti edition, NVIDIA is planning to release a GeForce GTX 560 (without the Ti) on May 17th. It's basically a cut down GeForce GTX 560 Ti with a cheaper price tag to compete with AMD a little better..

Although currently we can

Gigabyte revealed it's working on a new Hybrid EFI Touch BIOS.  You can also catch a glimpse of the user-friendly GUI icons as well as a menu page. 

We can only assume this feature will be introduced on some of the company's upcoming Z68 motherboards?

Asetek has created a watercooling solution for NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580.

The video shows a reference GTX 580 card branded by PNY. The cooler could be to be a pre-assembled GPU water block loop that replaces the aluminum channel heatsink in the reference NVIDIA cooler. The NVIDIA reference blower is retained to cool other components such as memory and VRM, probably at low speeds.

Asetek put its GTX 580 prototype to test, by overclocking the PNY GTX 580 Enthusiast Edition to 995 MHz core, 1846 MHz CUDA cores, and 1100 MHz (4.40 GHz effective) memory. At these speeds, the GPU was able to score 1285 points at average framerate of 51 FPS in Unigine Heaven 2.0 benchmark says TPU.

It would have been clever from Asetek to NOT use Furmark in the video, as dedicated hardware and software detect the stress application and will clock down the graphics core once detected and at certain power signatures.

Discovery News reports the SETI project has been suspended due to budget constraints:
The SETI Institute is suspending its search for extraterrestrial radio beacons using its most advanced alien signal-seeking tool while it hunts for new sources of funding.

The privately financed group, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been using an array of radio telescopes at Hat Creek Observatory, about 300 miles north of San Francisco, since October 2007, to study stars for non-naturally occurring radio signals that could indicate the presence of a technologically advanced civilization beyond Earth.

We review the Corsair Obsidian 650D. And yeah, they stripped away the removable front drive bays, made the chassis smaller and boom, the Obsidian 650D was born. A chassis that is just as impressive as its bigger brother the 800D really.

Plenty of space, all graphics cards to date fit in there (length wise), many drive bays, fan controller, USB 3.0 frontpanel support, easy to clean dust filters and a solution that is once again pretty much tool free and comes in that scrumptious all black design.

Check out the full review right here.

NVIDIA plans to introduce its Synergy (desktop edition of Optimus) technology at Computex. NVIDIA plans to launch their Desktop Optimus a.k.a Synergy at COMPUTEX Taipei this coming June and the best thing is that it is available freely and no license agreement is needed.

IDIA's new technology is designed specifically for Intel's Sandy Bridge desktop platform, particularly motherboards with Intel H61, H67, and Z68 chipsets (you can't access IGP with P6x). Unlike SLI, motherboard vendors needn't shell out a license fee or sign an agreement to implement the technology. A supportive motherboard will have authorization code implanted into SBIOS, much like SLI.

This technology works pretty much similar to LucidLogix's Virtu where it allows dynamic swapping between iGPU and dGPU based on the application's nature and also uses Intel Sandy Bridge Quick Sync technology while doing video transcoding jobs.