Hiper Type R Mk-II 680W power supply

One PSU that certainly will catch your attention as well is the one we'll be testing for Hiper (High Performance group) today. It's their beefy 680Watt Type RII 680 Watt PSU. A product that costs roughly 120-130 bucks. This PSU immediately will catch your attention die to it's original packaging, the extremely 'out there' paint job and then .. when you look at the front side of the PSU, you'll spot 8 USB connectors. And all that is it next to being an actual PSU.

Another advantage, despite the fact that the PSU is rated 680 Watts it can actually peak at 890 Watt, and actually is s more energy friendly product.

Have a read here:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/hiper-typer-mkii-680w-power-supply/

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Round Rock, Texas, May 1, 2008

* Play Crysis at full 1920x1200 resolution and 30+ FPS with Quad Graphics
* Enhanced optional patent-pending H2C cooling solution keeps gamers in the red zone, CPUs out
* Choice of Painted Anodized Aluminum H2C chassis or Silver Brushed Aluminum air-cooled chassis with optional X-View clear panel for under-the-hood ogling

Dell has raised the performance bar yet again with the launch of the XPSTM 730 H2C edition, a premier gaming desktop that is one of the most advanced gaming platforms on the planet.

With support for optional quad-core processors, quad GPU graphics solutions and up to four hard drives, the XPS 730 is more than ready to deliver an immersive experience and ensure gamers pwn their opponents in the most demanding PC games available today.

The air-cooled XPS 730 (starting at $3,999) and XPS 730 H2C (starting at $4,999) bring together some of the top bleeding-edge performance technologies gamers crave, such as:

* The new NVIDIA

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*whistle*

Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies revealed in an interview that the recently released Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, Xbox 360) had a budget of roughly $100 million, marking the title as the most costly development of any game to date. Here's an clip:

As somebody who abhors violence, I ought to feel a degree of ambivalence about Benzies, instead I feel as awestruck as an Italian peasant in the presence of Galileo. What is lost amid the brouhaha over virtual gangsters killing virtual policemen, snorting virtual cocaine and sleeping with virtual prostitutes is the incredible technological innovation and attention to detail that goes into the game. GTA IV, actually the eighth game in the franchise, takes about 60 hours to complete. (Benzies has played it about 40 times and won't play it again). Each scene is rehearsed by actors, filmed in a single take then "translated by animators. There are about 1,000 pages of script.

"It's like making a theatre production, a few movies and an album all to fit into one package," he says. He hasn't a clue how much GTA IV has cost to make but hazards a guess at $100m. About 1,000 people have had a hand in developing it. The perfectionism Houser and Benzies demand of their teams is astonishing.

For GTA IV, time-lapse cameras were set on rooftops in New York to capture the correct intensity of the rain. Over 100,000 photographs were taken on location. In the US, a deal with Amazon lets players download any of the 150 songs they hear on the radios of the cars they steal. Liberty City has its own working version of the internet. If you blow up part of the city, you will hear about it on one of the city's half a dozen radio stations.

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Wow it was a long time ago since we reviewed the first model. Hercules announced that their Mobile DJ MP3 is available, and it's only 99 bucks.

Hercules, the computer DJ entertainment specialist, brings the fun of DJ mixing to music fans everywhere with the first wireless digital mixing mini-controller, the Mobile DJ MP3. An intuitive, user-friendly DJ mixing controller for PC, the Mobile DJ MP3 allows users to, personalize music and host parties like a DJ. The portable Mobile DJ MP3 is available for the retail price of $99.99 in black as well as white online at www.djdeals.com, J&R Computer World, Musician's Friend, American Musical Supply, and more. (www.hercules.com)

Until now, DJ mixing novices have found only semi-professional or professional DJ hardware or complex mixing software requiring practice and agility to progress beyond the basics. The Mobile DJ MP3, the most mobile, dual deck, DJ mixer available, is an affordable, general consumer solution for anyone 12 years and up looking to mix his or her favorite digital tunes and be the hit of their house party. Indeed, with this wireless, handheld mixer the host of the party can control the music while still mingling and dancing with friends.

"In light of the explosion in the popularity of MP3s, we have created a novice MP3 mini-controller that puts DJing within reach for all music and entertainment enthusiasts of all ages" explains Fran

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An interesting interview with Valve VP of Marketing, Doug Lombardi:

"But I think a lot of what's happening now in the public perception and the press perception is fueled by thing like NPD releasing sales data from retail in the States that says "Oh, PC games were only 12 per cent of sales at the holiday" - or last year, or whenever it was - and everybody grabs hold of that and all of a sudden declares that PC gaming is on the way out and what-not. But that ignores all the subscription revenue from World of Warcraft, which just by itself would change that number, that perception that's its only 12 per cent of the business. Just add that in and all of a sudden I'm guessing it's over 20 per cent of the business. Throw in things like Steam sales - that's going to move it again. Then there are different models, like the DICE guys are doing."

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Crytek was probably the last innovative dev team devoted solely to making PC users feel inadequate about their system specs. No longer.
In an interview with PC Play, Crytek president Cevat Yerli has said that thanks to both "huge piracy" and the small returns PC games bring in compared to console titles, the company will no longer be making games exclusively for the PC market.

They'll still make games for the PC, of course, just...not only for the PC.

I'm not disputing that piracy is a big issue but ... Crytek ... Maybe if your obscene system requirements had a little to do with it ? Granted though, they brought one of the most technologically impressive masterpieces to the gaming world. They at least have the balls to push the envelope.

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We have absolutely no idea how valid these results are. Yet there are some results floating on the web showing regarding ATI's upcoming ATI HD 4870 512MB ATI HD 4870 versus the 1GB GeForce 9800 GX2. Included are Crysis and 3DMark06 results.

Let me state that anyone can make this stuff up and re-produce some nice charts. But if true .. very interesting as it would certainly seem that the new Radeon is an impressive contender. A well .. fingers crossed.

Apparent test system:

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 @ 3.00GHz
ASUS P5E3 Deluxe
2

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NVIDIA's GeForce 9600 GT based products have been around for like two months now. Those of you who decided to wait a little before purchasing this product, I can only say bravo. Because at this very moment prices are dropping, the 'OC', thus special edition versions are widely available bringing even more value to you well spent money.

Now we spotted the exact triple X model as tested today for roughly 159 USD /

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This is pretty cool technology for sure. Sharp started a partnership with AMIMON in order to offer a wireless HDTV link based on the latter company's WHDI technology. Apparently the 37-, 42- and 46-inch displays will be sold in both nations with an optional wireless video transmitter bringing its users the ability to send uncompressed HD to their HDTV from up to 100-feet / 30 meter away. As for US pricing and availability, Sharp's not quite ready to dish out those points, and while we're not exactly sure if this is the launch that finally gets wireless HD headed in right direction, it certainly can't hurt matters.

Santa Clara, Calif. and Osaka, Japan

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Media giant Samsung yesterday announced and launched two new Blu-ray disc players. Can you believe this is already the a fourth generation player, the BD-P1500 and second-generation home theater HT-BD2F. The next-generation Blu-ray disc format offers massive data storage capacity, high-definition video and audio quality, and is now the most likely successor to the DVD format. The Samsung BD-P1500 player can play the original and full screen high-definition versions of CD, DVD, and Blu-ray discs, and sports various functions.

The Bonus View function, for instance, provides information on actors and an actress appearing in a movie as it is played, and with the Bookmark function, a user can easily jump to the scene s/he likes.  Samsung decided to use a

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Spotted this one on ars technica, doing a blunt copy paste here. Grand Theft Auto IV is to be released today and already Jack Thompson has begun to step up his war on the title. The embattled Florida attorney has written a letter to the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, R. Alexander Acosta, demanding that legal action be taken against Take Two and retailers for selling the game. This time, Thompson appears to have an unlikely ally thanks to video gaming news site IGN.

Thompson sent a copy of the letter to Ars Technica, and his demands are far-reaching. "Indictments should be returned against Take Two corporately and its Chairman, Strauss Zelnick, along with other Take Two officers. Indictment should also be against Sony and Microsoft which are making this pornographic game available to minors, and openly so, on their PS3 and Xbox systems," Thompson wrote. "Further, indictments should be handed down against Wal-Mart, Best Buy, GameStop, and all other retailers distributing this game to minors at their retail stores, openly, to kids who are only seventeen."

He then compares the game to, of all things, polio. "Grand Theft Auto IV is the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio. We now have vaccines for that virus... The 'vaccine' that must be administered by the United States government to deal with this virtual virus of violence and sexual depravity is criminal prosecutions of those who have conspired to do this.  If you doubt me, look at the aforementioned streaming audio/video. It will make you sick."

This is where the story takes a turn, because Jack Thompson provides a link to a video, put together by the gaming news site IGN, called "Ladies of Liberty City." Be careful clicking on that link; there is absolutely nothing there that is safe for work.  The video strips the game of all context and merely shows scenes of sexual content and violence, one after the other. In fact, it can be hard to watch for that reason, and it's a rather numbing experience. The game's lead character, Niko, drives up to prostitutes, honks the horn, then shoots them. You see a simulated sex act, only to have Niko run the hooker over afterwards with his car. The video shows graphic lap dances featuring one, and then two, girls. The language is even worse, including

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See, now that would make an awesome home storage device to story .. well everything ! Netgear in Q3 will release it's new baby from their Readynas family of products. The Network Storage device has six drive bays and can be delivered with a capacity up-tp 6 TB.

The lovely thing about it that it is doing RAID as well. This 6-bay gigabit network attached storage (NAS) appliance is packed with high-end server features, including RAID (redundant array of independent disks) levels 0, 1, 5, 6, and Auto-Expandable X-RAID2 support for data protection against disk failure, system monitoring capabilities and built-in backup. To ensure high availability to stored data, the ReadyNAS Pro features dual redundant Gigabit Ethernet ports for failover protection. Powered by an Intel Core

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The 3DMark Vantage Catalyst hotfix driver includes bug fixes and performance enhancements.
Please be sure to use this hotfix driver when running 3DMark Vantage

Select the 737-33840: 3DMark Vantage Hotfix

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=33840

Watcher

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OCZ Technology today announced the Special Ops Edition DDR3 Series, available in both PC3-8500 and PC3-10666 kits featuring the high densities and stability gamers demand. These DDR3 kits are ideal for users advancing to the next generation of memory platforms, offering the speeds, density, and reliability required for the latest DirectX 10 PC titles. Featuring a unique camouflage motif heatspreader design, the DDR3 Special Ops Edition Series was designed for gaming systems in need of a reliable upgrade as well as some extra style.

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In the aftermath of the 3Dmark Vantage release NVIDIA released a new GeForce driver. The driver supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, and 9 series GPUs including these newly released GPUs:

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

Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI

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Rivatuner has been updated towards version 2.09 In this release we have included a huge number of new stuff to keep you busy, obviously GeForce 9x00 support has been added as well as ForceWare 175.xx and Catalyst 8.4 support.

RivaTuner is a complete powerful tweaking environment, providing you everything you may need to tune NVIDIA GPU based display adapters. The widest driver-level Direct3D / OpenGL and system tuning options, flexible profiling system allowing to make custom settings on per-application basis, both driver-level and low-level hardware access modes, unique diagnostic and real-time hardware monitoring features and exclusive power user oriented tools like built-in registry editor and patch script engine make RivaTuner's feature set absolutely unmatched. RivaTuner supports all NVIDIA display adapters starting from Riva TNT family up to the latest GeForce series and widest range of NVIDIA drivers starting from the oldest Detonator 2.08 up to the newest ForceWare drivers family. In addition to complete NVIDIA hardware support, RivaTuner also provides support for display adapters based upon newer ATI graphics processors. All RivaTuner's features besides driver-level tuning options are also available on supported ATI hardware.

Guru3D.com is Rivatuner's official homepage, click here to find version / build / changes and FAQ information.

For novice users, we have a guide to help you through Rivatuner and setup fan speeds and overclocks on your graphics card. This guide will hopefully help you understand how to use the features that Rivatuner provides.

• Download URL- http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTuner-v2.09-download-163.html
• Homepage - http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner 
• FAQ - http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatunerfaq

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Despite comments from Ballmer last week Microsoft today announced Windows XP will still retire on June 30, except for some market segments like low-cost PCs.

The spokeswoman said Microsoft is aware that some customers are pushing for an extension to the deadline -- more than 160,000 people have signed a "Save XP" petition launched by Infoworld magazine, for example. But the company has also done its own research among partners and customers, and feels that "the dates are right," she said, speaking on behalf of Microsoft.

"We feel we've made the right accommodations for customers in certain segments who may need more time to transition to Windows Vista," she said. "But as Steve noted, we maintain a constant stance of listening to our customers and our partners. That's what is guiding our plan, and will continue to guide us going forward."

The "accommodations" refer to several exceptions that Microsoft has made to the June 30 deadline. For example, companies that make volume purchases of Vista Business or Vista Ultimate can ask their vendor to "downgrade" their license to Windows XP. Microsoft has also made exceptions for the emerging class of small, ultra-low-cost PCs, and it will continue to provide Windows XP Starter Edition for PCs sold in emerging markets.

Retailers and PC vendors can also continue to sell any backlog of Windows XP licenses that they bought before the June 30 deadline. Beyond those exceptions, most new Windows licenses purchased after June 30 will be for Windows Vista.

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AMD on Monday announced it will be adding Business Class platforms to its line-up of multi-core CPUs. The maker's dual-core Athlon and triple or quad-core Phenom CPUs, coupled with AMD 780V chipset and optional ATI Radeon integrated graphics support are featured in the Business Class. The benefits of the new platforms will include up to 24-month image stability when installed in first-issue desktops, and a minimum 12 months in subsequent models. Furthermore, all are energy efficient thanks to Energy Star 4.0 rating.
One of the first desktop PCs utilizing AMD's Business Class platform is the HP Compaq dc5850, also announced today and is expected to ship on May 5. Dell's PC utilizing the new chips is the OptiPlex 740. AMD also hinted its upcoming mobile platform, code-named Puma, will use the Business Class platform.

The new platforms will also give businesses the freedom of choice when it comes to software and hardware integration, as it is committed to open security standards such as TCG and DMTF as well as the latter's DASH standard.

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I think it's officially the memory kit with the longest name now. PQI has released the Phoenix Series ~ Turbo Immortality Edition DDR3-1600 4GB dual channel kit. With a tested operating frequency of 1688MHz at 1.54V and 2GB capacity, the module is sure to boost your computing experience to the next level. In compliance to JEDEC standards and compatible with Intel's X38 chipset, PQI's Phoenix Series Turbo Immortality Edition DDR3-1600 memory is made of Elpida's 70nm 128M8 modules. When working in dual channel, a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 25.6GB/Sec can be reached.

Utilizing Intel

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EA held a London press event on Friday and released some brand new media as well as some new information on Battlefield Heroes. Battlefield Heroes

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