Dell's Alienware segment has refreshed its top-of-the-line gaming PC, the Area-51 ALX. At the center is the option of a quad-core, 3.2GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, overclocked for even greater performance to 4GHz; to avoid corresponding overheating problems, Alienware has equipped all ALX computers with liquid cooling. Motherboards, meanwhile, can now be configured with up to 4GB of 1,600MHz Corsair DDR3 RAM.

Cooling may be particularly important in tandem with new video options, which give buyers the choice of two Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards in ATI's CrossFireX SLI mode, or two GeForce 9800 GX2 cards in Nvidia's Quad SLI format. Prices for the new ALX configurations are extremely high, however, beginning at $6,159 or $185 per month, and yes, that's without the inclusion of a monitor or speakers.

Shacknews recently had an interview with Valve pimp daddy Doug Lombardi who laughs in the face of PC gaming death:

Shack: Do you guys ever get tired of the same old "PC Gaming Is Dying" stories?

Doug Lombardi: I mean, I think, we sort of laugh at it. Because we've been wildly successful--we're very fortunate, you know. Our games have all done really, really well, Steam has taken off and become this whole other business for us, Valve has never been in better shape--and yet everybody is talking about how in the PC world, the sky is falling. And we're like, we've been doing this for 10 years now--actually 12 years since the company started, 10 years since the first game came out--and we've never been in better shape, financially or otherwise. The company is over 160 people now--it was 20 people when we shipped Half-Life. We've got multiple projects going--we were always a one-project-at-a-time group.

We don't understand why that story gets traction over time. I think people have finally started to clue in to the fact--there was a story last week where people finally looked at the online subscription revenues for WoW and all the things that look like WoW, and realized, wow, there was a butt-load of cash being made here that wasn't being counted at the register, at retail, in North America, which is where all these stories come out of.  NPD, god love 'em, they release a US retail sales report, and people take that and say that's the world picture. And it's just not true.

Forgive me for being  little sceptic ... however Cooler Master is the first PSU maker that has a power supply above 300W with a 80 Plus Silver rating. Most new PSUs have a 80Plus Bronze rating which means they have an efficiency between 82% and 85% but new Cooler Master Ultimate Circuit Protection (UCP) 900W power supply has a silver rating which means it has an efficiency from 87% and up 90%.
Power supplies who have an efficiency starting from 80% will get the standard certificate.

For those who can manage to reach an efficiency starting from 82% and at least 85% will get the Bronze award. And then there is also the until now almost impossible to reach Silver award that needs at least an efficiency starting from 85% and up to a minimum of 90%! And until now it's still an utopia that a power supply reaches the Gold award with an incredible efficiency starting from 87% and up 90%.

VIA Technologies announced theif VIA EPIA M700 Mini-ITX board, the first to feature the VIA VX800 chipset, for digital signage and retail display systems.

Available in two versions, the VIA EPIA M700 uses either a 1.5GHz or fanless 1.0GHz VIA C7 processor, depending on system performance, size and thermal requirements, and supports up to 2GB of DDR2 system memory. The VIA EPIA M700 leverages the multimedia performance of the VIA VX800 unified chipset with its VIA Chrome9 HC3 integrated DirectX 9.0 graphics core and up to six-channel VIA Vinyl HD Audio surround sound, while the VIA Chromotion video engine provides hardware video acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VC1 and DivX video, plus a VMR capable HD video processor.

The VIA EPIA M700 boasts two PCI-Express based Gigabit LAN ports to facilitate wideband data transfer for large video and other files over networks.

As well as a front panel DVI port, pin headers for an additional DVI or HDMI port through a daughterboard are also included, as is support for 18-bit TTL displays. Digital video input is available through pin headers supporting CCIR

We know the Metal Gear Solid series is famous for its long cut-scenes, but this tops everything! Metal Gear Solid 4, the latest instalment in Hideo Kojima's seminal stealth series, has cut-scenes (note the plural) that approach the 90 minutes mark.

For those troubled with time keeping, that's the length of a feature film.

The news comes from PSW magazine, who's been and finished MGS4, and then promptly whispered in our ears about the shocking 90-minute cut-scenes. The latest issue hits newsstands today, by the way.

We were expecting long story sequences (MGS2 approached the 45 minute mark in one) but an hour and a half of cinematics was unexpected.

The good news is that you can now skip or pause the scenes. Hands up though, how many of you are actually going to sit through the full 90 minutes?

"MGS4's story is massive. The videogame equivalent of all three Godfather movies on one disc," says the mag.

"As you'd expect, you'll spend a lot of time watching cut-scenes, so if you found previous games' story exposition laborious, then you'd better find yourself a nice cushion and plenty of teabags in readiness for MGS4's.

"They can be skipped, but you'll be missing out on some of the finally crafted examples of FMV footage anywhere in gaming," the article boldly proclaims.

Futuremark issued a pending hotfix for 3DMark Vantage today. Bringing it up to version 1.01

I have made a mirror from where you can download the binary. Later, likely tomorrow I'll have the full version of Vantage updated as well. Yet currently I'm in the USA and my internet access is pretty limited, but the 15 MB patch will be sufficient as well as it includes the entire update.

The hotfix updates the following:

• Off-line score viewing is now available in the Advanced Edition.
• Score save / submit saved options are now available in the Advanced Edition.
• Ad banners have been removed from all editions.
• Added a "SEND ERROR" button to error messages; clicking this will send detailed error information to Futuremark for better bug tracking and fixing. No personally identifiable information will be sent or stored.

The hotfix fixes the following:

• An issue preventing valid serial key entry in some cases has been fixed.
• An issue causing "boost::filesystem::create_directory" error message after registration has been fixed.
• Added a check and error message for hardware that is not DX10 capable.
• Improved detection of supported resolutions so that CPU test minimum requirement (1280x1024) is now taken into account correctly.
• Fixed an issue where pressing the ESC key during CPU test loading screen, the user would be taken to a score view with score -1.
• The entire 3DMark Vantage application is now elevated to Administrator rights, rather than only the SystemInfo component. This will ensure more robust SystemInfo and benchmark functionality, and fixes the "pop-behind" elevation dialog.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused "WM_QUIT" error messages.
• Post-processing scale is now displayed correctly in the UI for the Extreme Preset.
• Fixed an issue that could cause resolution switches at test runtime.

Download hotfix: click here

In the aftermath of the EU versus Microsoft decision, you'd expect Microsoft's rivals to be looking at a huge payday. But while the EU found that Microsoft's actions did indeed harm its rivals, it has no intention of giving them any cash. When Microsoft pays the fine, the money goes straight into the European Union's central budget.

It's a similar story with actions taken by industry organisations on behalf of their members. According to the New York Post, while the recording Industry Association of America has netted hundreds of millions of dollars in cases against file sharers and file sharing networks, the money has yet to filter down to the artists. An unnamed industry source says record companies are telling artists there's not much money left after legal fees - and even if there is some left, artists might not be entitled to it.

EA released a new trailer of Spore, Spore is a simulation game created by Will Wright that allows players to control various life forms from the cellular to the galactic level. The game will be available in September.

If you own an ATi video card, head on over to the AMD / ATi website and download the new Catalyst 8.5 drivers for Windows Vista/XP and Linux. The drivers resolve some issues, and offer performance improvements, display mode enhancements, HDMI Audio for all TV timing modes, and WHQL certified support for Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 3. The Linux driver resolves some issues and adds new 3D settings to the Catalyst Control center.

Related games, AMD says it has resolved problems in Clive Barker's Jericho, Crysis, Gears of War, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Hellgate: London, Stranglehold, Tabula Rasa, Team Fortress 2, and Tomb Raider Anniversary.

Download:
 ATI Catalyst 8.5 Vista (64-bit)
 ATI Catalyst 8.5 Vista (32-bit)
 ATI Catalyst 8.5 XP (32-bit)

Acer presents its new Aspire PREDATOR line of desktop computers to PC gaming enthusiasts. Fans will appreciate the deep metallic copper colored housing: the front of the body can be raised, accompanied by an original optical bay mechanism to reveal a rewritable DVD and Blu-ray Disk reader. The USB and audio ports on top are complemented with a front-mounted multi-card reader. Blue rays of light emanate from the power button and front hard-drive door.

Predator PCs allow easy access to hard disks via a special door on the front of the lower part of the chassis: the standard Acer Easy-swap Hard Drive solution makes the 4 Serial ATA 3 Gb/s high capacity hard disks removable even when the PC is turned on and in use. RAID 0, 1, 5, 1+0 modes with NVIDIA MediaShield Storage technology guarantee the utmost data security in the event of disk failure. Also, 10,000 rpm Raptor hard drives are available as an option.

Machines feature Dual LAN ports, and the teaming mode permits two connections to work at the same time for network redundancy.

The Aspire PREDATOR incorporates the Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor with 1333MHz FSB that can be tuned, along with RAM and graphic cards, using nTune utility. In addition, the NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI MCP, 3-way SLI capable motherboard offers 2 x G9600GT, 2 x G9800GTX or even 2 x G9800GX2 (4 x GPU) graphic cards depending on the configuration.

The PREDATOR features a liquid cooling system claimed to be made to last for continuous operation without fear of pump failure or coolant evaporation.

The new Aspire PREDATOR desktops come with multimedia gaming keyboards with illuminated keys, gaming mice, and support Dolby Home Theater audio enhancement as well as EAX 4.0.

Logitech today announced the V450 Nano cordless laser mouse for notebooks. It comes with Logitech's exclusive compact Plug-and-Forget Nano-receiver.

The V450 Nano mouse features an advanced laser sensor that delivers smoother tracking and better precision, offers 12 months of battery life, and Logitech's 2.4 GHz wireless technology.

The V450 Nano mouse (MSRP $49.99 U.S.) is expected to be available in the U.S. late in May and in Europe in July.

Although NVIDIA may be grabbing headlines lately with leaked details of its next generation GeForce graphics cards, AMD isn't exactly standing still with its Radeon offerings. ATI is preparing its Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs which will replace the existing HD 3800 lineup.

While the HD 4800 Series is rumored to feature GPGPU physics and HDMI 7.1 surround sound pass-through, today we were made privy of one concrete aspect of the new cards: the onboard memory. Qimonda contacted DailyTech earlier this morning with the news that they will supply AMD with GDDR5 memory chips for the reinvigorated Radeon family.

"The days of monolithic mega-chips are gone. Being first to market with GDDR in our next-generation architecture, AMD is able to deliver incredible performance using more cost-effective GPUs," remarked Rick Bergman, AMD Senior Vice President and General Manager, Graphics Product Group. "AMD believes that GDDR5 is the optimal way to drive performance gains while being mindful of power consumption. We

Age ratings for downloaded video content and video games are to be introduced in the UK.

Overseen by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the scheme will see certificates appear on websites, via set-top boxes and portable players. Disney, Warners and Fox have signed up to the scheme with other "key industry figures... poised to join the scheme".

The BBFC said independent research showed 74% of parents were concerned about the lack of ratings on downloads. More than 1,000 videos will have online certificates by the end of May. The voluntary scheme will also require online services and video on demand schemes to have "age verification or gate-keeping systems in place for parents to monitor and control underage viewing".

Peter Johnson, head of policy at the BBFC, said the body would police the age verification systems "It's up to individual systems to work out how to introduce these technologies," he said. "But we will police it through test purchases."

Online gaming

Mr Johnson said the scheme, called BBFC.online, was not an attempt to censor the internet, nor to regulate online video gaming David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said the organisation continued to work with the game industry's self-regulatory body Pegi to find solutions to classifying the burgeoning range of online gaming. "We don't need to set up in rivalry with Pegi online. We can work cooperatively," he said. The scheme could also be rolled out to include online services such as Microsoft's Xbox Live, Sony's PlayStation Network and Nintendo's WiiWare, all of which offer video and games for download.

While the BBFC system has not been designed with TV catch-up services, like the BBC's iPlayer, in mind, said Mr Johnson, organisations like the BBC and ITV were welcome to join.

Content providers

Without providing specifics, Mr Johnson said the BBFC expected all the "leading content providers and aggregators to sign up to the scheme in the coming weeks and months". "We are talking to everybody who is likely to be a significant player in this industry," he said. Mr Cooke said he hoped the voluntary scheme would obviate the need for any legislation to cover downloadable video content in the UK. The BBFC reported that parents it had consulted had expressed surprise that online video content did not legally have to be classified in the UK. "I'm hoping there won't be any need for legislation to underpin this scheme," he said.

The UK government is considering a massive database to store every person's emails, phone calls, text messages and internet use. The plan was suggested as a tool to help security forces tackling crime and terrorism.

At the moment, records of phone calls and text messages are kept for up to 12 months by telecoms companies, in compliance with a European Union anti-terrorism directive.

But a new proposal by the UK Home Office would see internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies handing over records containing billions of emails as well as Internet usage and voice-over-Internet calls, media reports said on Tuesday.

Police and security services would only be granted access to the information after seeking permission from the courts. The UK was this year labelled an "endemic surveillance society" by a study of privacy protections worldwide.

Playing catchup
The Home Office said the database could help catch up with rapid changes in communication methods during the past 15 years.

"The changes to the way we communicate, due particularly to the internet revolution, will increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data and use it to protect the public," it said in a statement.

"To ensure that our public authorities and law enforcement agencies can continue to use this valuable tool, the government is planning to bring forward the Communications Data Bill." The draft bill is expected to be released later in the year, but the plan has yet to be discussed by ministers.

Phone calls would not be recorded in full, but the phone numbers involved and the duration of each call would be logged.

Secret records
In 2006, the US National Security Agency was found to be secretly keeping billions of such records. Experts say such records can reveal detailed information about callers' lives, but that such analysis is unproven as a way to reliably track and catch criminals.

Critics of the new plan have raised concerns about privacy. Jonathan Bamford, Assistant Information Commissioner at the UK government's regulatory office for data storage, use and privacy said: "We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen's phone and internet records. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society."

Opponents also pointed to the UK government's recent track record on large databases. A health service database that is the world's biggest civil IT project has incurred large budget overruns and delays, while a recent security breach saw the whole nation's child benefit records lost in the post.

Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 mainboard review

Gigabyte recently released an Intel X48 based mainboard that needed a review. Pretty high-end gear for sure as Intels X48 chipset brings support for the all new 1600 Mhz FSB processors, two 16x PCI-E 2.0 slots, which you can use for ATI CrossFire, two ATI graphics cards and heaps of niche features.

The GA-X48-DQ6 mainboard includes a Quad BIOS, no less than 8 SATA devices can be connected, you'll have eight USB 2.0 connectors on the rear, as stated earlier on, two PCI-Express gen 2.0 ports. Also when you first glimpse at the mainboard you'll notice some subtleties, the first is that Gigabyte is trying to tackle heat in an original manner, and they are doing a nice job with that.

URL to the article:
> http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-gax48dq6-review/

Corsair announced today that Corsair Labs has set the world record for the highest achieved DDR3 frequency.

Verified and validated by CPU-Z, Corsair Labs achieved an astounding speed of 2462MHz at CL=9 with a single-rank 1GB module. This new world record eclipses all previous CPU-Z validated memory benchmarks. This record was set using Corsair's DOMINATOR DDR3 memory module paired with an Asus P5E3 Premium motherboard based on the Intel X48 chipset. This is now the highest achieved DDR3 frequency of all time. Validated results and setup details can be found at valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=361829.

The DOMINATOR family of memory represents company's enthusiasts series. DOMINATOR is designed with the highest performing IC over-clocking capability and Corsair's patented DHX cooling. DHX technology is an innovative quad-layer heat sink design that improves thermal dissipation. With DHX Technology, heat is removed via two paths

Logitech today announced the Logitech Pure-Fi Mobile speaker system. If you have a mobile phone that uses Bluetooth wireless technology with the Advanced Audio Distribution (A2DP) profile, you can stream stereo audio through the compact Pure-Fi Mobile speaker system