A lot of rumors have been floating on the web for a while now regarding NVIDIA's upcoming GT200 based graphics card(s). Apparently this new card series is close to being released as info and pictures have begun to surface. Among them the cooler design and conceptual art of the PCB.

PC Online claims to have obtained pictures of a cooling device that according to them belongs to the next generation graphics card from NVIDIA. At first glimpse the cooling unit looks very close to the one used on GeForce 8800 GTS, 512MB.

Specification wise it is rumored that the GT200 aka GeForce 9800 GTX has no less than 240 shader processors, 32 raster units, 1 GB of GDDR3, and surprisingly a 512-bit memory interface. This totals up to a completely new architecture for sure.

Thermal design of the cooler also points towards a 240-watt graphics card. This new graphics cards silicon has a rumored 1.5 billion transistors, though earlier reports suggested 1 billion. Anyway here are some pictures we gathered from several sources on the web ...

To be continued soon.

CPU scaling in games with dual and quad core processors

Guru3D takes 10 modern dual & quad core processors and then fires off a dozen of games at them in combo with a high-end graphics card. Then they observe the raw differences in performance with the more modern games. They show & scale 8 AMD & Intel Quad-core processors and 2 dual-core processors in gaming resolutions from 1024x760 up-to 2560x1600.

Processors used in this article:

• AMD Athlon X2 4850E
• AMD Phenom X3 8750
• AMD Phenom X4 9450
• AMD Phenom X4 9850
• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
• Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 Extreme
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6850
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
• Intel Core 2 Quad QX9770

The idea behind the article is to show you which processors offer the most bang for buck, and the ones who offer the best performance. You want to find out the core truth here ? Definitely check out this article then.

Article URL:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/

With advanced thermal and optical technologies, AUO has successfully developed ultra-slim 42

User Marduk in our forums spotted this one, pretty hilarious to be honest. A 13-year-old boy from Texas who stole his father's credit card and hired two prostitutes has been convicted of fraud.

Newark teenager Ralph Hardy confessed to ordering an extra credit card from his dad's existing credit card company and taking his pals on a US$30,000 spending spree, which culminated in them playing "Halo" on an Xbox with the hookers in a Texas motel. The $1000-a-night prostitutes were released without charge but Ralph was given a three year community order upon his conviction on May 9, money.co.uk reported.
The prostitutes told police they grew suspicious when the kids said they'd rather play Xbox than play with them.

Authorities were alerted to the motel by a delivery clerk who, after delivering supplies of Dr Pepper, Oreos and Fritos, was asked by the kids where they could hire some escorts. They young lotharios explained they'd just won big at a "World of Warcraft" tournament and wanted to relax.

The delivery clerk called the police who arrived to find $3,000 in cash, electronic gadgets, an Xbox console and games, plus the two prostitutes. Ralph reportedly told the oficers his dad wouldn't mind, because he'd turned 13 the previous week and he'd forgot to get him a present.

Ralph and Co. told the working girls they were people of restricted growth working with a traveling circus. They added that State law did not allow discrimination against the disabled so they had no right to refuse them.

Explaining why he ordered two escorts, Ralph said he thought it was the done thing when you win a "World of Warcraft" contest.

The prostitutes ended up playing "Halo" with the kids instead of having sex with them.

The new entity, to be called JVC Kenwood Holdings, will aim to quadruple operating profit in three years, the two companies said in a statement. The joint holding company will be created Oct. 1.

The move is the latest stage of a long-running combination plan that underscores the pressure for consolidation as competition intensifies among Japan's crowded field of small to mid-size consumer device makers.

An onslaught of South Korean and Chinese rivals have driven prices lower, and the high investment costs for digital appliances have squeezed profits, JVC and Kenwood said.

Victor, best known for its JVC brand of home electronics goods, and Kenwood, famous for its car audio systems, set share swap terms for the deal to which they agreed in principle last summer.

Under terms of the deal, Victor holders will have the right to two shares in the new holding structure for each Victor share owned, while Kenwood investors will qualify for one share in the new company for each Kenwood share owned.

Ubisoft has released a new Far Cry 2 trailer, showcasing this first person shooter sequel in the works at Ubisoft's Montreal studio. Developed for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, Far Cry 2 is scheduled to ship this Fall. Here are the new scenes from Far Cry 2:

All these DIY notebooks come from OCZ standard with a 15.4" WXGA display, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512MB GPU, Intel PM965 northbridge/ICH8M southbridge, SATA support for HDDs or SSDs, 8x dual-layer DVD burner, four USB 2.0 ports, ExpressCard 34/54 slot, and a fingerprint reader. Optional components will include Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a TV tuner, and a Intel 4965AGN 802.11a/g/n wireless adapter.

OCZ's DIY gaming notebook is no lightweight, however, and weighs in at hefty 7 pounds with a 9-cell battery pack. External dimensions for the machine ring in at 14.25" x 11.25" x 1.5".

"For years consumers have wanted to build their own mobile computing platforms, but the product offerings and market simply did not serve them as they did in the desktop do it yourself segment," said OCZ Systems Solutions Product Manager Eugene Chang. "With the OCZ Do-It-Yourself Notebook initiative, OCZ empowers with the resources like validated component guides, documentation, tech support, and a warranty to allow consumers to configure and build a true gaming notebook with the exact specification that matches their unique requirements."

OCZ also plans to go above and beyond the call of duty by offering validated components in the system, toll-free support, and detailed instructions on how to complete a new system build.

OCZ has not informed us of the pricing, but this will be revealed when the system and its siblings arrive later this year.

NVIDIA re-released their Forceware GeForce 175.16 drivers, this time they carry a WHQL stamp, meaning they are tested and approved my Microsoft. Among the support is the new GeForce 9600 GSO (read our review here).

These drivers supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, and 9 series GPUs including these newly released GPUs:

• GeForce 9800 GX2
• GeForce 9800 GTX
• GeForce 9600 GT
• GeForce 9600 GSO
• GeForce 8300
• GeForce 8200/ nForce 730a
• GeForce 8100/nForce 720a

Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI

Matrox Graphics announced a new product called the Matrox Extio F1240, it's a new latest addition to its line of Extio remote graphics units (RGUs), capable of driving two 30-inch displays, each at its native dual-link digital resolution of 2560 x 1600.

A fanless device, the Extio F1240 RGU provides a quiet and secure environment by separating the host computer from the monitors and other peripherals (keyboard, mouse, and audio) by up to 250 meters (820 ft) via fiber-optic cable. Extio RGUs takes advantage of PCI Express bus extension technology to deliver a user experience that parallels working with the computer situated at the user's desk.

The Extio F1240 RGU is equipped with a Matrox-designed graphics chip, 128 MB of graphics memory, dual-LC connector for fiber-optic cable, 2 digital (DVI) and 2 analog (HD-15) monitor connectors that support a variety of resolutions up to 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 (using the digital connectors only), 6 USB 2.0 ports (4 in front, 2 in back), integrated audio hardware, an optical connector for digital audio output, and analog audio connectors for a microphone input, line input, and line output. Extio is available in PCI or PCI Express (PCIe) to meet different slot requirements on host systems.

Key application areas include financial, insurance, and commodities trading systems; emergency and transportation dispatch control systems; process control systems; security systems; command-and-control systems; and other high-reliability applications in enterprise, industrial, and government systems.

Front:

• A - 4 USB 2.0 ports
• B - Microphone, mini-jack connector with bias current (3.5 mm / 1/8")
• G - Audio-in, mini-stereo-jack connector (3.5 mm / 1/8")
• D - Audio-out, mini-stereo-jack connector (3.5 mm / 1/8")

Back:

• E - Audio-out, mini-Toslink connector (3.5 mm / 1/8")
• F - 2 USB 2.0 ports
• G - Fiber-optic, dual-LC connector
• H - 2 RGB and 2 DVI connectors
• I - Power input, lock-in, DIN-4 (12 VDC, 5 A) connector

See, now this shows that with dedication and effort you can make a lot of stuff happen. Excellent job this kid who it took a full year o put together from scratch, but a German PC modder going by the name "Froop" managed to build an elaborate PC casemod inspired by the Chernobyl theme in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The result is "Unit 4," a working PC model of Chernobyl complete with a flip-top that allows you to peer into the bowels of the destroyed power plant. The construction process is outlined in its entirety in the following links, but you can check out some pics of the early stages as well as the final product in the gallery.

Thanks James for pointing me to this news.

Point of View GeForce 9600 GSO 384 MB review

NVIDIA replaced the GeForce 8800 GS with the GeForce 9600 GSO. The 9600 GSO is still based on the same G92 core with 96 stream processors that the 8800 GS has, but NVIDIA gave card makers a bit more freedom in their designs in terms of own PCB design to and determine their own clocks.

This 'old' card will still have 384 MB of GDDR3 memory over a weird 192-bit memory interface. Cards like these will sell for less than 99 Euro, and considering the performance you get returned for that, you'll love it. Guru3D peeks at Point of View's offering.

Click here to read the review

Being obsessed with gadgets doesn't equate to hardware handiness. In fact, some of us at Crave are loath to remove the back of a computer for fear of the havoc we might wreak--a sorry state for upgrades.

Creative Technology has a solution in at least one category, sound cards. It has just released its "Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1," which allows dolts like us to upgrade audio quality by just plugging the device into a USB port. The small box, which goes for $60, could be a good solution for casual gamers and music lovers who don't want to mess with the innards of their desktop or laptop.

Codemasters has released a playable PC demo of Race Driver: GRID, offering 3 events to compete in. Word is: "Charge a Ford Mustang GTR muscle car through the iconic streets of San Francisco, race a BMW 320Si in the Jarama Touring Car Race and drift around the docks of Yokohama in a Nissan Silvia S15. Race against 11 friends on your favourite track and test your mettle online or prove yourself in the single player game."

The demo is 893MB.

Things went a bit off chart when popular video website gametralers started sparked a massive, internet-wide flame war with its PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 comparison video of GRID ... but not quite.

GameTrailers.com has become infamous for their comparison videos of multiplatform titles spread across the PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360, but they've seemed to decide to take it one step further. After the entire Devil May Cry 4 debacle that left a lot of gamers displeased on both sides of the spectrum, one would expect a similar situation from not taking place later on. They've recently released their side-by-side comparison of the latest demo, GRiD, produced by Codemasters. We've included the video below.

Now, what you just saw was a straight comparison between both formats, but it leaves you wondering as to why GameTrailers decided to pull this comparison video from their website. You might be able to find the answer out as to why in the video below.

The question we're trying to have answered much like a lot of other gamers are is, "How many other times has this occured?" In a world where gaming journalism has become heavily influenced by money, free swag, free games and press kits, we find ourselves disconnecting with the love we once had for honest-to-god unbiased journalism and replacing it with a tinted view of the dollar. Leave your impressions below.

In the end, you should leave it up to your own opinions on which you feel looks better by viewing credible sources of media. Do this by visiting the official homepages of games or by just checking the title out side-by-side on your own.

Ubisoft has sent out a trailer of the HD WMV version of Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway. Take a look at the latest trailer of Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway, Gearbox's upcoming shooter.

This trailer is two weeks old, yet we now received the high-def version. The game was announced with a Holiday 2006 release date, which was later pushed back to Q1 2007 before being postponed to sometime this year. This trailer concludes by narrowing that release window to August 2008, generously allowing us to once again roll out our joke about release dates paving the highway to hell with good intentions. The WMV file is zipped.

Download

A new NVIDIA ForceWare driver appeared on the web which is being served on-line by one of NVIDIA's partners. This driver set is commonly distributed and it is receiving pretty good feedback.

Bare in mind this to be considered a beta driver, use it at your own risk.

There are several discussion open on these drivers in the Guru3D NVIDIA driver forums, check them here. Driver wise, pretty much any GeForce graphics card build in the last 3 years is supported. We have virus & pest checked these drivers and they are scanned as clean.

  ForceWare 175.70 Vista (32-bit)
  ForceWare 175.70 Vista (64-bit)
  ForceWare 175.70 XP (64-bit)
  ForceWare 175.70 XP (32-bit)