Some unreleased Ivy Bridge processors are up on eBay. Not only that, but some Chinese sites still have some listings up.

This goes to show that someone somehow got some engineering samples and leaked them so that the world may experiment with them before the formal announcement.

The Santa Clara, California-based company won't formally introduce the delayed collection until a month or so from now.

Nevertheless, a third-generation Core IB chip is listed on Chinese site Taobao, for a price of 1550 RMB, or $246 / 184.50 Euro.

Additionally, a Core i7-2770K is priced at $440 - $475 (330 to 356.25 Euro) and some Xeon E3-1200v2 series can be found at around $220 / 165 Euro.

To give one example, the Xeon E3-1230v2 can be found at $225 here (168.65 Euro).  Nevertheless, the listings that concern us the most are the ones on eBay, since Chinese websites aren't that easy to navigate for people who don't know the language, even with Google Translate.

Not that it is impossible to deal with Taobao and the others. After all, English-speaking Taobao agents can handle all negotiations with sellers and reship the CPUs, although this will mean a 10% or higher extra fee.

At any rate, searching through eBay may net results like the Core i5-3570K for $319 or Xeon E3-1230v2 CPU for $299. That's 239 Euro and 224 Euro, respectively.

EVGA announces immediate availability of the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Hydro Copper. This card offers a preinstalled Hydro Copper Waterblock, and reduces the GPU operating temperature by as much as 50%. Additionally, the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 is optimized for overclocking with a 5 Phase PWM Design and 8pin + 6pin power connectors.

The EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Hydro Copper ships with increased clockspeeds of 1215MHz (boost clock) and 1150MHz (base clock). The memory has further been tuned with a stock frequency of 6300MHz.

MSRP: $699.99

Handy and affordable, I like it. Expert-oriented is set to launch a new USB 3.0 cloning docking station, the KURO-DACHI/CLONE/U3. This standalone cloning docking station (no computer required) comes with a USB 3.0 connection interface and provides two SATA slots for 2.5-inch & 3.5-inch HDDs/SSDs (can be used simultaneously). The KURO-DACHI/CLONE/U3 will start shipping from early April for 4,000 Yen (about $49).

Phanteks introduces the PH-TC14CS C-Type CPU Cooler. The PH-TC14CS measures 160 x 151 x 140.5 mm ( with dual fans), it weighs 900 grams, has five nickel-plated 8mm copper heat-pipes, and supports the latest LGA 2011/ 1155/ 1156/ 1366/ 775 and AMD FM1/ AM3+/ AM3/ AM2/ 2+/ AM3 micro-processors.

Featuring Phanteks patented Physical Antioxidant Thermal Shield ( P.A.T.S) and Cold Plasma Spraying Coating Technology (C.P.S.C), PH-TC14CS provides a perfect cooling solution for low profile setups. Enthusiasts with HTPC

Well, not unsurprizing, but details of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GT 640, GeForce GTX 650 and GeForce GTX 660 graphics cards appeared on the web.

It looks like the cheaper Kepler cards are going to start appearing in May. NVIDIA will release two GK107-based cards, one with GDDR5 memory (GTX 650) and the other GDDR3 (GT 640) and will likely replace the GTX 550 Ti. The GK107 GPU will have 384 CUDA cores, but other specs are not yet known. Prices should be around 90-110 Euro or so.

There's a GTX 660 coming in the summer for around 200 Euro which will be based on the GK106 GPU. This will have 768 CUDA cores, 64 texture units and 24 ROPs. The memory bus will be 192-bits wide and bolted to 2GB GDDR5 memory.

MediaTek releases the MT7650, the first chip to offer 802.11ac plus Bluetooth 4.0+HS in a single package:
MediaTek Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, today announced availability of its MT7650, the world

Hightech Information System (HIS) today announced the launch of HIS 7850 Fan 2 GB. The card offers outstanding graphics quality and excellent cooling technology for enthusiastic users. With core and memory clocks at 860 MHz and 4800 MHz, the card ensures the highest graphics enjoyment during hardcore gaming. Equipped with HIS outstanding cooler, the card provides a quiet environment for daily tasks and movies.

It's extremely quiet and noise level is less than 28 dB. You feel the quietness when viewing photos, browsing webs, checking your email and playing movies in UVD mode.

It is not good for the graphics card to be alone. Hardwares and softwares are made for each other. iTurbo is your software assistant to control your graphics card to be quiet, cool and experience overclocking by simply pressing the iTurbo Button!

User Friendly Overclocking Software: Cooler, Quieter, OC!
iTurbo's Fan Control and Fan Monitoring allow easy adjustment of your card to its maximum cooling performance or to run your card quietly! Press iTurbo: OC Right Away with the smart auto overclocking.

I played this game so much in the early days. Jordan Mechner may not be a name many of you know unless you are up-to-date with your video gaming history.

 He's probably better known as the creator of Prince of Persia the Apple II way back in 1989. Along the way, he managed to misplace the original source code for that first Prince of Persia game and has been searching for it ever since. Yesterday he found it, and the discovery is all thanks to his father. The three packs of 3.5" Apple ProDOS disks had been safely stored away in a brown box. The problem he faces now is how to extract the code from those old 3.5" disks. The ultimate aim is to make the source code readable on modern machines, and hopefully after that he may be kind enough to release it for us all to see.

SiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility has been updated to build 18.40 SP3

SANDRA will provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, ODBC Connections, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Change-log:

• Removable Storage Benchmark: now uses I/O queues (based on number of system threads) just like the Physical Disks and File Systems benchmarks. This allows better performance on SSDs and other drives that can sustain more IOPS than 1 thread can handle.
• Why did it not use queues already? The benchmark is *not* meant to test IOPS at various data block sizes - but performance in creating / reading / deleting *files*, e.g. when copying / backing up to a removable disk. Creating or reading files (open, read/write, close) carries more overhead than reading/writing blocks of an opened file.
• In most cases, the change should not cause scores to change when testing HDDs, USB2 drives, etc. When testing SSDs, SANs or fast USB3 high-IOPS devices, score of small files will increase. As USB3 devices and controllers have now become mainstream, this update was required.
• Note that Virus Checkers may scan these test files either on open or on close; you may want to exclude temporary files (.tmp) from the scan so that the score is not affected.
• Cache/Memory Latencies Benchmark: has remained single-threaded in order to maintain consistency with previous scores. Running multi-threaded runs into various issues on certain processors and thus cannot be enabled at this time. Should we find work-arounds, the benchmark will be updated before Sandra 2013.
• CUDA GPGPU: Updated to CUDA SDK 4.1; note that future CUDA 4.2 will be needed for "Kepler" and to compile the code into "proper" Kepler object code. Currently Sandra contains code for CUDA 2.x and 1.x devices (hybrid PTX), another one will likely be required for Kepler.
• OpenCL GPGPU: Updated support for AMD/ATI 7700, 7800, 7900 series, nVidia Kepler.

Known Issues:

• CUDA/OpenCL Crypto GPGPU Benchmark: Hashing still fails on the latest nVidia drivers on Fermi; strangely Kepler has no problem with it, nor do older 1.x devices (e.g. GT200, older). nVidia may fix it eventually.
• CUDA/OpenCL Memory Bandwidth Benchmark: some driver/card combinations still have problems transferring large blocks sizes; you may find power management clocking the PCIe bus lower (e.g. 3.0 > 2.0 > 1.x speeds) and not scaling up enough to transfer at full speed.

Key features of Sandra 2012

• 3 native architectures support (x86, x64, ARM).
• Huge official hardware support through technology partners (Intel, AMD/ATI, SiS, VIA).
• 5 native virtualisation technologies support (Virtual PC 7, Virtual Server 2005, Hyper-V Server, VMware Server/ESX, VMware WorkStation/Player)
• 3 native GPGPU/GPAPU platforms support (OpenCL, DirectX Compute Shader/DirectCompute, CUDA).
• 4 native Graphics platforms support (DirectX 11.x, DirectX 10.x, DirectX 9, OpenGL 2.0+).
• 10 language versions (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (Traditional, Simplified), Russian, Portuguese) in a single installer.
• Enhanced Sandra Lite (Eval) version (free for personal/educational use, evaluation for other uses)

Download here

We review the MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning. What a product to look at, the R7970 lightning has a very rare design, comes with only the best components, has voltage monitoring headers, comes pre-overclocked (extensively at 1070 MHz) and allows to be voltage tweaked at many levels.

To pursue Eyefinity they have made the card Eyefinity6 compatible, by use of four DisplayPort connectors and two single link DVI connectors you can get six monitors running. Though realistically nobody does that as you have that ugly bezel from left to right smack down in the middle of you field of view.

There's another feature though, to give the product a little more 'niche' MSI implemented a small add-on board that is called a GPU-reactor which functions as a power supply module which, when installed on the back of the GPU. Read the article here.

The Rig of the Month March 2012 is not at all a power house, plain and simple components are used. The x-factor however is to be found in the chassis. It's a rim, which inside of a PC has been fitted. Though not the most classy job in the world it does make a very original customized PC. And that's exactly what the rig of the month is all about.

Check the article here.

These are the Catalyst profiles for multi-GPU support.

This release of ATI Catalyst delivers support for the latest ATI CrossFireX profiles in a separate executable file ensuring users have access to the absolute latest set of profiles installed on their PC.

Latest profiles added :

• FireFall: Resolve corruption when enabling Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center on single GPU configurations
• Test Drive Unlimited 2: Improves CrossFire performance- Ridge Racer Unbounded: Fixes full screen corruption for single GPU configurations
• Stacking: Resolved image quality issues when enabling Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center on single GPU configurations
• Dirt 3: Fixes corruption found in particular scenes when CrossFire is enabled

Download here

Silverstone introduced two new capacious HTPC cases under its Grandia series, the GD07B and GD08B. The cases are designed to support large-area motherboards in the SSI CEB and E-ATX form-factors, apart from conventional PC motherboard form-factors such as ATX,

Rumors about NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 600 range started to surface. TPU  writes the GK104 will end up in two more cards in May: the GeForce GTX 670 Ti and GeForce GTX 670. These two models are anticipated to be launched in the $400-$499 and $300-$399 ranges, while a dual-GK104 GeForce GTX 690 is expected around May-June.

Also in May, NVIDIA will launch desktop discrete graphics card SKUs based on the GK107 chip, which makes up its GeForce GT 650M/640M mobile graphics SKUs. Following this, some time in Summer, NVIDIA will release a new chip, the GK106, which will make up the GeForce GTX 660, which will be out to compete with Radeon HD 7850, and HD 7700 series. It looks like NVIDIA is waiting on current inventories of GF114-based SKUs to get digested, including those of the recently-launched GeForce GTX 560 SE, and is hence in no hurry to launch a new GPU to capture the sub-$250 price-points. Besides the dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990, there's nothing new in the works, at the red camp that we know of.

Kotaku is reporting a few details from the successor to the PS3...particularly the name and a few of the specs.
While the official reveal of Sony's next home console could still be months away, if not longer, Kotaku has today learned some important details concerning the PlayStation 3's successor.

For one, the console's name or at least its codename/working title is apparently Orbis. And it's being planned for release in time for the 2013 holiday season.

The details in this story come from a reliable source who is not authorized to talk publicly about next-gen hardware but has shared correct information with us before. What they're telling us in specifics matches much of what we've heard and reported in generalities in recent weeks.

Our main source supplied some basic specs for the console, but as the future is always in motion, bear in mind these could easily change between now and the Orbis' retail release. Still, if you'd like to know what developers are being told to plan for now, here you go.

• AMD x64 CPU
• AMD Southern Islands GPU

The former, that's largely something we've heard before, but the latter is interesting. That's the name given to many of AMD's 2012 roster of high-end PC cards. The PS4's GPU in particular, we're told, will be capable of displaying Orbis games at a resolution of up to 4096x2160, which is far in excess of the needs of most current HDTV sets. It'll also be capable of playing 3D games in 1080p (the PS3 could only safely manage 3D at 720p).

We review the MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning. What a product to look at, the R7970 lightning has a very rare design, comes with only the best components, has voltage monitoring headers, comes pre-overclocked (extensively) and allows to be voltage tweaked at many levels. To pursue Eyefinity they have made the card Eyefinity6 compatible, by use of four DisplayPort connectors and two single link DVI connectors you can get six monitors running. Though realistically nobody does that as you have that ugly bezel from left to right smack down in the middle of you field of view. There's another feature though, to give the product a little more 'niche' MSI implemented a small add-on board that is called a GPU-reactor which functions as a power supply module which, when installed on the back of the GPU.

We review the Rosewill Hive 750 Watt PSU. There are vast differences in quality and price of course and a higher end enthusiasts PSU can cost a few hundred dollars. Many people are looking for good quality at a more reasonable price and this is where products like the Rosewill Hive series comes into play offering high power and features usually seen at higher price points.

Check out the full review right here.

Hasbro, a maker of toys and board games that sells, among other things,

ZOTAC uses the GK104 GPU ties it to 2 GB of high-grade Hynix GDDR5 memory chips, and paired them with a 12-phase VRM power supply.

Next to International Rectifier GaNpowIR driver-MOSFETs the VRM uses server-grade tantalum capacitors, and FPCAP multi-phase capacitors. To drive it all, ZOTAC used CHiL CHL8318 VRM controller.

The card also will come with a USB control module. Called OC+, ZOTAC will bundle the card with a front-panel OC module that probably fits into a 5.25" or 3.5" exposed drive bay, gives you hardware control, and real-time diagnostic information about clock speeds, fan speeds, and voltages. The air-cooler uses two fans to ventilate a dense aluminum fin array, which draws heat using copper heat pipes. Here a couple of photo's courtesy of expreview.

Palit Microsystems Ltd, the leading graphics card manufacturer, announced a brand new Jetstream series at the GeForce GTX 680 The Palit Jetstream series of graphics cards features innovative cooling and an optimized product design to deliver gamers the ultimate gaming experience. As the latest and most powerful GPU in the series, the Palit Jetstream GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream guarantees gamers cutting-edge performance and an explosive new gaming experience.
 
The factory overclocked Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream is at boost clock 1150 MHz that is +92 MHz than the standard speed and 2GB GDDR5 memory clock is set at 6300 MHz (+292 MHz higher). Equipped with the Jetstream cooler and optimized product design, Palit GeForce GTX680 Jetstream performs 12.5% higher at 3DMark11 Xscore and average 10% higher among all hot gaming titles. In addition, Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream uses 6+8 PCI-Express power connectors to gain extra power and equipped with DrMOS and 6-phase PWM to make current circuit more stable and efficient which maximum the overclocking potential. With new Jetstream thermal design features, the noise level is 9dB quieter and the temperature is 8 ?

Tegra 4 may be based on the Kepler architecture. According to the vr-zone information, Tegra 4 will not only beat but leapfrog the competition (Mali-T600 Serie and PowerVR SGX54x).

One subject of our discussions was Project Denver and the pace of its development, but also the development of Tegra 4 i.e. T40. As we all know, Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 use what is essentially NV4x-class GPU (GeForce 6000, 7000 Series, RSX from Sony PlayStation 3). As such, we were not surprised to hear that benchmark results are not ideal against the competiton. Truth to be told, if Imagination Technologies and ARM took one more year to beat what is an eight year old PC architecture, it would be borderline ridiculous.

According to the sources in the know, Tegra 4 will utilize a GPGPU-compliant, i.e. CUDA-compliant graphics core which is very power savvy. Since a single Kepler-based 20W GPU is enough to run Battlefield 3 with Ultra details in 1366x768 resolution, a 1W GPU should be more than good enough to run Angry Birds in current and next-gen smartphone and tablet designs. Also, with the breakthrough in smartphone i.e. superphone design, you can expect that next generation of superphones such as Motorola's Droid Razr MAXX to carry 2500-3300 mAh batteries, and that will get you both the desired thinness and long battery life.

• PNY Technologies
  

Scythe presents the Grand Kama Cross Rev. B CPU cooler:
Japanese cooling expert Scythe announcing a new revision of the Top-Flow CPU cooler Grand Kama Cross. New Rev. B of the x-shaped cooler comes with reliable quality and performance for the same price as prior version. Main improvement is the compatibility to the new enthusiast socket LGA2011 from Intel. Furthermore Socket compatibility list includes latest Intel socket LGA1155, LGA1156, LGA775, LGA1366 as well as AMD socket 754, 939, 940, AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+ and FM1.

Well-proven Top-Flow design of grand Kama Cross Rev. B utilizes the created airflow to additionally cool surrounding components on the motherboard. Curved aluminum fin structure deflects the airflow, which has a positive influence on temperatures of Voltage regulator modules, chipset and RAM. Efficient airflow is achieved by the pre-assembled 140 mm axial fan. Scythe Slip Stream 140 PWM fan comes with PWN support and allows stepless fan speed adjustments from 500 to 1.300 RPM.

Grand Kama Cross Rev. B combines high performance and quality. To prevent copper base from corrosion it is nickel-plated. Fast heat transfer from the copper base to the aluminum fins is achieved by utilizing 4 copper heatpipes. Overall Dimensions (177 x 140 x 137 mm)as well as weight of 750 grams remain same with the prior version.

New Grand Kama Cross Rev. B (Model No. SCKC-2100) is available as of today for 30,50 EUR (excl. VAT/TAX).

Microsoft just announced the release of Kinect for Windows 1.5 will be hitting the shelves in late May. Version 1.5 boasts some improvements and additions, including better tracking capabilities, more languages for speech recognition and availability in 19 more countries.

Kinect for Windows 1.5 will add a few new features, including Kinect Studio, which will let developers record, playback, and debug clips of users engaging with their apps.

Microsoft also talked up the addition of a "seated" or "10-joint" skeletal system that will let apps track the head, neck, and arms of a Kinect user - whether they're sitting down or standing.

"What is extra exciting to me about this functionality is that it will work in both default and near mode," Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows, wrote in a blog post.

Eisler also promised four new languages for speech recognition - French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. On that front, Kinect for Windows will also get new language packs that take into account how a language is spoken in different regions - like American vs. British English or France vs. Canadian French.
The Kinect for Windows 1.0 SDK made its debut in early February in 12 countries. The offering is intended to take the Kinect sensor technology beyond entertainment and use it for things like healthcare.

Eisler said this week that the SDK will be released in 19 more countries in the next few months. Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan will get access in late May, while Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates will come online in June.

The current version of Kinect for Windows SDK is available for download now. Hardware is also shipping, but it will set you back $249; a $149 academic version is expected later this year.

The first look at Max Payne 3 multiplayer. 

Presenting the first video in a special two-part series unveiling Max Payne 3 Multiplayer. In the video above, see how Max Payne 3 Multiplayer brings the franchise's combination of highly responsive and cinematic shooting action to the realm of online multiplayer across a range of game modes, the implementation of Max's signature Bullet Time

We have spotted the new AMD Catalyst 12.3 (8.951.0 March 8) AMD Official WHQL drivers.

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.3 Windows release includes: 

NEW FEATURES

Full Support for AMD Radeon HD 7000 series of products 

• Catalyst 12.3 now fully supports the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 and AMD Radeon HD 7700 series of products 

RESOLVED ISSUES

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 12.3 software suite for Windows 7. These include:

• AMD Catalyst Control Center startup issues/ delays have been resolved
• Tom Clancy HAWX: No longer crashes after task switching with MLAA (Morphological Anti-Aliasing) and Anti-Aliasing enabled
• Furmark Benchmark: No longer crashes when launched in High Performance mode.
• Quake 4: No longer display corruption after task switching when run in High Performance mode
• XPlane: Textures no longer exhibit flicker and corruption
• Skyrim: No longer displays flickering and texture corruption.
• Alan Wake: A system crash is no longer experienced when running the game in DirectX 9 mode with Crossfire enabled
• Far Cry 2: A random system hang is no longer experienced when running the game at high in game setting

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista  Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst

OCZ released the Arowana Flash Translation Layer (FTL) firmware update for SSDs running Indilinx Barefoot controllers, and 34 nm NAND flash. The update was announced in May, 2011, and released for the OCZ Vertex Plus family, but it's only now that users of the original Barefoot-controlled drives get a firmware to update their drives with.

The new 3.55 firmware significantly improves sequential and random-seek performance. The screenshots below (in order) are of a Barefoot-driven OCZ Vertex drive with the old firmware (IDE), new firmware (IDE), and new fimware (AHCI). To learn more about the update, and how to go about do it to your drive, visit this page. Like most other SSD firmware updates, the process erases everything on your drive, so be sure to make a backup.