WASHINGTON (AFP) - Smokers are about to get help kicking the tobacco habit: an interactive computer game that aims to

Ubisoft vs cigarettes

The machine is powered with already mentioned Diamond Radeon 3870 X2 dual chip card, Phenom 9750, AMD 700-SB600 based Abit AX78 board, 4GB of Kingston memory, 500GB Western Digital hard drive and Coolit Systems Eliminator CPU water cooler. Next to that it is powered with Cooler Master Peal Power Pro 1250 power supply. According to the vendors the machine is enough to score 14019 3DMark06, though I prefer to see actual game results.

The machine is already available at SmoothCreations.com and it costs a steep $2,262.92. Though Guru3D has to admit, that rig is looking frickin' cool. I wouldn't mind seeing that with a Guru3D.com spraypaint !

It is rumored that an AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 dual-GPU graphics card will be released with an arrival in mid-Q3 2008 and that it will be cheaper than a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 graphics card.

Much like the last-gen products ATI seems to bridge two chips on one PCB. The big downside to this is that the card will be dependent on the drivers as it uses ATI's multi-GPU solution CrossFireX for linking the performance of the two GPUs, and the drivers is suppose to be one of the bigger reasons AMD is holding off the launch until mid-Q3. The other reason is that AMD wants to make sure that it can pump out enough regular Radeon HD 4870 cards first without the GDDR5 supply becoming an issue.

AMD believes that 4870 and 4850 are the cards that will hurt NVIDIA the most.

If the supply of GDDR5 chips is solid, or at least sufficient, and the drivers are adequate, AMD will present its new flagship in August at a price which is below that of NVIDIA's flagship product GeForce GTX 280. Stories are going around that it could be anywhere between $450-550. Even though it uses two chips, it is suppose to be a Cool N' Quiet card. We say that knowing that the cooler isn't even finished yet, but we also know that AMD has no intention of launching a card that runs hot and makes a lot of noise, and that the previous generation cooler was a rather good one.

The RMAA suite, designed for testing quality of analog and digital paths of any audio devices, was updated to version 6.1.0.

Changelog:

• Added capability to test any output of MME devices in Windows Vista (to provide access to all outputs maximum speaker configuration must be selected);
• Added capability to test any output of KS devices in Windows XP (PRO version only);
• Saving resulting WAV files is now available for any combination of tests;
• Fixed the problem with testing high-latency USB devices.

Download - click here

Well, it definitely is a little extreme. Arctic Cooling today unveiled the Freezer Xtreme, adding an Intel and AMD compatible product into their CPU cooler product line.

The original twin-tower heatsink consists of 102 fins. The 120mm PWM fan combined with 8 heatpipes (4 double-sided) and the heatsink also cools RAM, Northbridge and voltage regulators. Together with the pre-applied MX-2, the Freezer Xtreme offers improved performance and achieves 160 Watts cooling capacity.

The 120mm fan of the Freezer Xtreme is equipped with low-noise impeller and patented fan holder for quiet operation. Controlled by PWM signal, the fan runs just the necessary speed for the lowest noise level. As a result, Freezer Xtreme generates only 0.5 Sone at full load.

Backed by a 6-year limited warranty, Freezer Xtreme will be available in July 2008 with the MSRP of US$39.95 and

Arctic Cooling Introduces Freezer Xtreme Twin-Tower Cooler

I noticed over at ggmania that Adventure game developer Deck13 and German publisher dtp entertainment sent out a press release announcing Venetica, an old-timey RPG starring Scarlett, the daughter of Death. dtp entertainment is going to release Venetica in 2009 for PC and the Xbox 360.

ASUS launched the ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamer) XG Station. With extremely detailed and impeccable design, the XG Station has attained the honorific of being conferred with the red dot design award honourable mention 2008. The XG Station is also bundled with the EN8600GT/HTDP/256M graphics card, and equipped with an Express Card interface

ASUS ROG XG External Graphics Card announced

Running With Scissors released the multiplayer version of Postal 2: Share the Pain for free.
The MP FPS includes 14 multiplayer maps, 25 playable characters, 11 crazy weapons and 4 different gametypes.

Description: 14 multiplayer maps
25 playable characters
11 crazy weapons
4 different gametypes

You can download directly from the Guru3D.com download mirrors if you like to kill some time.

Click here.

An earlier report was telling that second-tier motherboard maker Abit is reportedly concidering phasing out of the motherboard market after evaluating its shipment performance of Intel 4 series motherboards, according to channel sources.

Abit, however, maintains it does not know anything about the speculation and will continue to develop motherboard products.

Abit's has failed to meet the expectations of parent company Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) in its ability to compete with fellow second-teir makers in terms of performance, or first-tier makers in terms of pricing in the mid-range and entry-level market, and so the company is evaluating whether to quit the market and start developing other products for the Abit brand, noted the sources.

In 2007, Abit shipped 2-3 million motherboards and had set a goal to ship six million units in 2008. However, the company's current shipments have actually decreased. Abit will determine whether to stay in the market after evaluating its shipments performance of P45-based motherboards, added the sources.

Link

Now this story saying the opposite.

Univeral abit denies quitting motherboard business after intel P45

We managed to catch our PR contacts before they are off for the day. Their immediate reactions is that we should not believe in such rumours.

Thore Welling, Universal ABIT Global Marketing Director points out:

Abit reportedly to phase out the market update

BFG Technologies announced www.bfgpower.com, a new power supply website that is designed to educate consumers about the various features and benefits of BFG

BFG launches Power Supply Website

But an Nvidia exec says smaller isn't always better or more efficient. Such statements will help define how the two chip giants do battle at the high end of the graphics chip market in the coming years.

One of the largest graphics chips yet will be Nvidia's upcoming high-end GTX 280. This is the kind of chip that high-end gaming enthusiasts crave. But great performance often means a large transistor count. And the GTX 280 is expected to have both.

AMD, of course, also intends to deliver extreme graphics technology with its upcoming X2, a follow-on to the current 3870 X2 series. And AMD wants to be clear: its strategy is fundamentally different than Nvidia's.

"We took two chips and put it on one board (X2). By doing that we have a smaller chip that is much more power efficient," said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing for the graphics products group at AMD.

"We believe this is a much stronger strategy than going for a huge, monolithic chip that is very expensive and eats a lot of power and really can only be used for a small portion of the market," he said. "Scaling that large chip down into the performance segment doesn't make sense--because of the power and because of the size."

Skynner said that AMD tries to design GPUs (graphics processing units) for the mainstream segment of the market, then ratchet up performance by adding GPUs rather than designing one large, very-high-performance chip.

Nvidia's "strategy is to design for the highest performance at all cost. And we believe designing for the sweet spot and then leveraging for the extreme enthusiast market with multiple GPUs is the preferred approach," Skynner said.

This applies to memory too. AMD thinks support for technologies like GDDR5 memory is another way to deliver good performance at a reasonable cost. "You don't need a huge chip with a huge data path to get the bandwidth. You can utilize a technology like GDDR5 to get that bandwidth," Skynner said.

Nvidia tends to favor very-fast, single-chip solutions. Nvidia, of course, has a different take on why it chooses to develop big, fast chips.

"If you take two chips and put them together, you then have to add a bridge chip that allows the two chips to talk to each other...And you can't gang the memory together," said Ujesh Desai, general manager for GeForce products at Nvidia.

"So when you add it all up, you now have the power of two GPUs, the power of the bridge chip, and the power that all of that additional memory consumes. That's why it's too simplistic of an argument to say that two smaller chips is always more efficient."

Desai takes this argument a bit further. "They don't have the money to invest in high-end GPUs anymore. At the high end, there is no prize for second place. If you're going to invest a half-billion dollars--which is what it takes to develop a new enthusiast-level GPU--you have to know you're going to win. You either do it to win, or you don't invest the money."

BFG 800 Watt ES series PSU

Today the turn goes to BFG's for a product review, specifically their new ES line of power supplies, and guys .. this might be the black sheep of PSU's, as looking at it from a bit of distance .. it's a regular, non out of the ordinary PSU. Black, nothing modular, looks are okay though. That literally was my first impression. Then I hooked it up, 'is it switched on yet ?' .. 'yeah  it is' .. I just didn't hear a thing. Pure silence. Nice sleeved and long cables was my second impression. Wow .. then I stumble into the PCIe connectors for your graphics card(s) .. four of them where two of these have additional 2-pin header making them 8-pin compatible. This editor slowly starts to smile now, then he looks at the AMPs distribution for the voltage rails 3 & 4 for 12 Volts dedicated to graphics ... woah .. 36 Amps a piece, that's massive.

Probably this is one of the best power supplies we ever tested here at Guru3D.com, be sure to check out the review:

URL to article:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/bfg-es-800-watt-psu-review/

Two major modifications were made to display images on both sides. First, a new reflective layer is arranged in the color filter substrate. When the images are viewed from the TFT array substrate side, the layer reflects incoming light. On the other hand, when viewed from the side of the color filter as in the case of the existing LCD panels, the light is reflected by the reflection electrode formed on the TFT array.

Another major improvement relates to the structure of the TFT array. The company formed two transistors in one pixel in order to display different images on both sides of the panel.

LG Display reportedly prototyped 2.2- and 15-inch LCD panels with the new structure. Both panels feature a reflectivity of 20%. The 2.2-inch prototype has a resolution of 160 x 120 and an aperture ratio of 43%, according to the company. The RGB three colors are arranged in a stripe pattern.

The 15-inch prototype reportedly has a resolution of 2048 x 1536 and an aperture ratio of 46%. It employs a sub-pixel arrangement with four colors, consisting of R, G and B and the additional white (W).

This is not a bad deal ! Steam offers now 20 Eidos games that are available on Steam individually for $390 as a one package with a $99 pricetag.

The included games are:  Battlestations: Midway, Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty, Commandos 2: Men of Courage, Commandos 3: Destination Berlin, Commandos: Strike Force, Conflict: Denied Ops, Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman: Blood Money, Infernal, Just Cause, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, Project: Snowblind, Rogue Trooper, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, Tomb Raider: Legend.

That is a great deal overall. Just hope that you don't have these games already.

Click here