Electronic Arts and Pandemic Studios have dropped a new trailer for Mercenaries 2: World in Flames in our lap, complete with an official release date in tow. Pandemic Studios' open-world shooter Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PC, PS2, PS3, X360) is now slated for an August 31. Let's just say that you absolutely have to watch the trailer below to see exactly what sort of revenge story this is. Imagine a pissed off Forrest Gump and you might have some sort of an idea of what we're talking about.

Enjoy.

» Read full story

Realtek updated it's Audio HD driver for both Windows XP & Vista . Our download contains both the XP and Vista drivers (32 & 64-bit).

Changes in version 1.90:

• Support ALC663/ALC272.
• Support ForteMedia microphone effect APO feature.
• Customizations.

Chipsets supported:

1. Windows Vista WHQL: ALC882, ALC883, ALC885, ALC888, ALC861VD, ALC660, ALC662, ALC663, ALC260,ALC262,ALC267, ALC268, ALC 269, ALC 272 
2. Windows 2000/XP WHQL: ALC880, ALC882, ALC883, ALC885, ALC888, ALC861VC, ALC861VD,ALC660, ALC662, ALC663, ALC260, ALC262, ALC267,ALC268, ALC269, ALC 272 
3. HDMI Device WHQL Support: ATI HDMI Devices

Both the XP & Vista drivers can be found in this archive.

Download - click here.

» Read full story

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2281123,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2281122,00.asp

There are those of us at ExtremeTech whose homes you cannot walk through without passing four or five Internet-connected PCs.
Geeks like us spend a ridiculous amount of time browsing the Web. We get our nerd news online, we converse with like-minded individuals online, we get ideas online, we learn about new products online, and so on. We live and breathe the mighty cloud.

While we try to keep you informed and enticed about all things technical, we realize we cannot be the only Web site in your life. To feed your surfing habits, ExtremeTech presents a list of 25 of our own favorite sites.

Watcher
» Read full story

GPU-Z is a lightweight utility designed to give you all information about your video card and GPU.

Changes in version 0.1.9:

• Fixed bluescreen when GPU-Z is started
• Fixed splash screen not going away in some cases
• Fixed crash when GPU registers couldn't be accessed
• Fixed shader count for NV44

Download - click here

» Read full story

The guys over at technabob saw this brightly glowing motorcycle coming down the street, definitely worth to have to stop and stare.

Alas, it

» Read full story

Pretty snazzy looking this one.  HP introduced the HP w1707 Vivid Color 17-inch diagonal flat-panel monitor. This sleek monitor offers a high-quality widescreen picture with a BrightView panel and more viewing area for computer games, spreadsheets and web pages.

You can store your keyboard on the built-in keyboard rest in the stand. HP w1707 17-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor is both spacious and space-saving: the integrated speakers are built into the front for premium sound. HP w1707 model is Energy Star and MPR II compliant, plus recyclable and is available for approximately $180/-

» Read full story

Hehe time for some laughs, what is it with YouTube that people want to ridicule themselves ? Guys, let's drop hardware for a minute, it's time to laugh. So, I like the mythic electropop band Daft Punk quite a bit. And since I am not the only one, there are a lot of peeps making little video's on them. Let's view a couple of them.

This one is just cool okay:

Now the first one is just funny, is the Daft Bodies video where two girls in bikini danced to the sound. Funny right.

But of course, there are always people making an ass of themselves, Get ready for the drunk version :-o

Props to TechAmok for spotting this one. It's nearly embarrassing just to watch is. Keep it coming girls :)

» Read full story

OCZ Technology Group power supply specialist, PC Power & Cooling announced that it has updated the Silencer series with four new, lower-powered units. Going from 370 through 420 and reaching 500W, the new PSUs focus on offering mainstream systems stability, sufficient power and high-efficiency, at an affordable price point.

"I am pleased that PC Power & Cooling is able to offer exceptional Silencer series performance and reliability at such an affordable price point, " stated Doug Dodson, founder of PC Power & Cooling and CTO of Power Management for the OCZ Technology Group. "The Silencer line now offers every type of computer user an option for the premium power management of their system."

The Silencer 370, 420, and 500 offer a range of power for mainstream gaming, home theatre, and work station PCs. The 500W series features a specialized Dell version that allows Dell owners to upgrade their systems with the latest components including any of the new power-hungry high-performance video cards. Ideal for PC users who prefer a straight-forward, value-minded PSU, the Silencer 370, 420, and 500 provide cool, quiet, and reliable power.

» Read full story

Meant more for geeky vacationers than pros, Sony's calling its HDR-TG1 Handycam the world's smallest "full HD" camcorder, packing 10 ounces into a 1.3 x 4.7 x 2.5-inch titanium frame. Sony is all about face-detecting as of late, which comes standard here on both video and still shooting.

It can identify up to eight mugs, and supposedly adds extra "encoding bits" to faces for the best possible rendering of your subjects. Unfortunately, Sony's still forcing the Memory Stick standard upon the world, this time, a choice between PRO Duo or PRO Duo Mark2.

How many more MS flavors can we stand, Sony? It'll be $900 in May, though you can pre-order tomorrow online.

SAN DIEGO, Apr. 2, 2008 - The new pocket-sized Sony HDR-TG1 Handycam camcorder's weighty high-definition capability will appeal to vacationers who prefer to "travel light."

This diminutive camcorder weighs in at only ten ounces. It has an ultra-portable body measuring just 1.3-inches wide by 4.7-inches tall by 2.5-inches deep.

It is a full-featured camcorder that can record 1920 x 1080 HD video and 4-megapixel digital photos directly to Sony Memory Stick PRO Duo or PRO Duo Mark2 media cards. Its size and full recording capability makes it the world's smallest full HD camcorder.

Another bonus for any traveler is the camcorder's durable titanium body and special hard coating that makes it highly resistant to scratches and quite fashionable.

It ships with a supplied 4GB PRO Duo Mark2 media card so it's ready to go straight out of the box and you don't have to make space in your travel bag for extra discs or tapes.

» Read full story

Two weeks late but I've added AMD Overdrive 2.0.17 to the download section, definitely a lovely tool with the new Phenom processors and 780G boards.

This version supports the following chipsets:

• RS740(770)
• RS780(780)
• RD790(790X  & 790FX
• Adds AMD 780G Chipset support
• Adds AMD 780G IGP engine clock control in the Advanced Performance tuning menu
• Enhanced AutoClock feature for Unlocked AMD CPUs (e.g. Phenom 9600BE, Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition)

Download - click here

» Read full story

Ubisoft today announced that it is bringing HAWX to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC this fall. The air combat title is in development by Ubisoft Romania, who worked on the Blazing Angels franchise. Taking place in the year 2012, HAWX put gamers in the seats of over 50 different planes. Set in an era controlled by private military companies, the world is upon global conflict, which is where you come in. What's more, the game supports jump-in co-op throughout its campaign mode, so you can play with up to four players total. It also features a versus mode, in which 16 can battle for experience points and in-game cash, which is used to buy new weaponry.

IGN has the debut trailer, which you can see below.


» Read full story

Creative had a PR nightmare on its hands with its decision to forbid modified Audigy drivers and now the firm is trying to relax the situation:

Creative's initial response was to pull all of his work from the official forums and to send him a cease-and-desist message, but Kawakami now says, "I've been told they will allow me to continue with my mods, except the 'forbidden' ones. . . . I'm also allowed to receive donations."

Indeed, Creative posted a message on its forums in order to re-assert its position. The company starts off by saying it has read the "strong feedback" about its move, and that it failed to make it clear in its initial cease-and-desist note that it does in fact support "independent driver development by independent third parties." The firm adds that Windows Vista's new audio architecture and Microsoft's certification process for audio drivers make it "very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products" and that "outside developers have been very helpful." However, Creative says it frowns on "unauthorized distribution of other companies' property."

This somewhat ambiguous message ends with the promise, "We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers."

» Read full story

At IDF several press-members have been able to see Nehalem (next-generation Intel 45nm processors), actually working at a steady 3.2GHz. On an IDF demo machine the Processors tree lists eight "Genuine Intel CPU" entries with an "@ 3.20GHz" next to each of them. This isn't an eight-core CPU, though-the four extra cores are simply the work of Nehalem's simultaneous multi-threading implementation, which should work similarly to the Hyper-Threading feature of old Pentium 4s and Pentium Extreme Editions.

According to a recent press briefing by Intel's Pat Gelsinger, Nehalem chips will feature 256KB of L2 cache per core, 8MB of L3 cache per chip, and an integrated memory controller with support for up to three DDR3-1333 channels. Nehalem CPUs will also feature a number of architectural enhancements that should make them speedier, clock-for-clock, than current Core 2 offerings. The first Nehalem CPUs are scheduled to ship in the fourth quarter, but the rumor mill suggests the chips won't hit mainstream desktops until 2009.

» Read full story

Well, it's not like we didn't expect it. The Crymod website now offers the latest weekly patch news update for Crysis, the recent sci-fi shooter from Crytek. There's not a lot of new info on upcoming patches except that the 1.3 patch is being worked on. In addition, the update includes some word on a workaround to a multiplayer server issue and some news on playing Crysis against actual Crytek team members on April 8 and a very funny "outtake" video from the game.

In an earlier weekly update we already confirmed that Crytek will continue working on patches for Crysis and supporting the community with new updates. Currently our Multiplayer dev team is fully concentrating on the upcoming Patch 1.3. It has been in development for quite a few weeks already, but we do not have a release date available just yet.

As for the content we can already say a bit, but not that much. The patch will not only include bug fixes and further gameplay balancing, we will also introduce new features to it. Unfortunately we cannot tell you too much about the content at this point, but be sure to not miss out the upcoming weekly update next Wednesday since it will include more news and details on the content itself.

» Read full story

AMD 780G & Athlon X2 4850e (ECS A780GM-A)

AMD recently released their AMD 780G mainboard chipset & Athlon X2 4850e processor. A good moment to see what this new chipset can offer. Guru3D took the all new 780G based ECS A780GM-A mainboard. The AMD 780G chipset features integrated DirectX 10 compliant graphics and a wealth of other features. That said, 780G and Athlon X2 4850e performed well.

Especially so when you consider that the CPU retails for only $89 and the CPU with the mainboard will cost around $160. I have been testing a system for a little over a week now with the new 780G chipset and the Athlon X2 4850e. I have to say, I am pretty impressed with the system. It

» Read full story

The Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai started with some hot news as the first wave of low-power Atom CPUs has been unveiled. Built using the 45nm process, the Atom aka Silverthorne processors target Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and embedded computing solutions and can brag with a TDPrange that goes from 0.65 to just 2.4 watts and an average power range of 160-220 mW.

Intel expects for its new Atom architecture to target $40B in new markets. "It

» Read full story

For those interested in the new GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB, the product became live in our pricewatch database. You can click on the prices to visit the store directly. We spotted them for 325 bucks already.

• XFX Geforce 9800 gtx 512mb DDR3 pcie 2.0 - $324.99
• PNY XLR8 GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) VCG98GTXXPB Video Card - $329.99
• ZOGIS (?) GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) ZO98GTX-E Video Card - $329.99
• Asus GFORCE 9800GTX PCIE2 512MB DDR3 - $378.99

» Read full story

For the second time around NVIDIA updated it's NVIDIA ForceWare 174.74 driver. This driver comes with full support for all current GeForce graphics cards from the GeForce 6, 7, 8, and 9 series and now comes with WHQL certification on 'some' Graphics cards..

• Supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, and 9 series GPUs including WHQL for these newly released GPUs:
  o GeForce 9800 GX2/GTX
  o GeForce 9600 GT
  o GeForce 8300
  o GeForce 8200
  o GeForce 8100/NVIDIA nForce 720a
  o NVIDIA nForce 730a
• Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI
  

» Read full story

The folks from ComputerBase snapped a photo of the Intel Nehalem processor die next to a 1 euro coin at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. Nehalem is a codename for both a processor microarchitecture and a processor. Nehalem will be released in late 2008 for high-end chips and early 2009 for mainstream chips. The microarchitecture is being developed by Intel and is the planned successor to the Core microarchitecture. The processor is expected to debut the microarchitecture. Key features 1 through 8 (or more) cores, Integrated memory controllers supporting DDR3 SDRAM and between 1 and 4 memory channels.

Intel is already well into the development process for Nehalem. Nehalem uses the 45 nm manufacturing methods from Penryn and applies it to the new Nehalem microarchitecture.

» Read full story

Ehm  No, Microsoft hasn't suddenly transformed its 30-inch, multi-touch Surface into a big-ass cellphone. But it has, however, chosen AT&T to launch the world's first Surface into retail.

Shoppers in New York, Atlanta, San Antonio, and San Francisco will be treated to what amounts to the novelty (at least initially) of learning about a device (Samsung BlackJack II, pictured) by simply placing it atop the Surface. They'll also have the ability to explore interactive coverage maps. Later, users will be able to drag ringtones, graphics and video and drop it into "the phones." Note their use of "the" and not "your" phone in the press release. Nevertheless, we're happy to see Microsoft get the technology out the door on its long march towards consumerdom.

» Read full story