It's rumored that NVIDIA is slowly prepping an entire move towards 55nm chip fabrication.

We already noticed that the new GeForce 9800 GTX+'s (G92b) chip is at 55 nm. Today the silent introduction of the G96 aka GeForce 9500 GT will take place (55nm). And as it seems, the GeForce 9600 GT will receive the die shrink as well.

Other than the a smaller chip-die size, the 55-nm silicon will have no new improvements Then again, typically 55-nm runs much cooler, so who know what gain on overclock you guys will see.

 

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I can't help it, but yeah .. I'm again looking forward to the next installment of the game series. EA are planning to launch the open beta test for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 soon, and in order to allow gamers to check if their PC's will be able to run the game, EA has revealed the first details on the system requirements.

System Requirements:

• OS
  

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Gas Powered Games has a new trailer available for Demigod, they fighting, RTS hybrid for the PC. This new project is called Demigod and is being described as an amalgamation of action, RPG and RTS genres. More importantly, the game revolves around a multiplayer experience. While GPG did mention plans to incorporate a single-player mode, nothing was revealed on the subject at this time.

For those who are unacquainted with the mechanics of DotA, here's how the whole thing works. The key facet of DotA is that players control a single Hero unit, each of which has a variety of unique abilities and is able to level up by taking out AI-controlled enemies across the map. This provides the groundwork for Demigod. You can forget about the worn-out gameplay principals of managing swarms of units and gathering as much resources to outperform your enemies.
 

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This should be fairly good bang for bucks. Intel is planning to release a Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor on the 31st of August. The processor is clocked at 2.33GHz CPU.

Obviously the quaddie will have a 1333 MHz FSB and 4MB of cache memory. Ruumored it that the CPU will sell for a wholesale price of $224 (that's per 1000 CPUs). By doing so the  Q8200 will be the cheapest 45nm quad-core that money can get you. Both the Q9300 with its 2.5GHz clock and Q9400 with 2.66GHz clock will remain selling at ~ $266.

It should be a fairly intersting product, especially when you consider these processers typically can be tweaked and oerclocked to really good clocks.

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AMD is denying a report that appeared in the Austin American-Statesman that contains an interview with new CEO Dirk Meyer that seemed to indicate that the chip maker was preparing to spin off its manufacturing facilities in Germany and sell its two fabrication plants, or fabs.

The story appeared in the July 18 editions of the Statesman but was brought back to life July 23, when the Inquirer news site used the Meyer interview to bolster its own story that AMD is ready to sell off its manufacturing infrastructure as part of cost-cutting drive. The selling of the two German fabs could be seen as part of AMD's plan called "asset-smart" or "asset-lite," which has been much talked about in the past year.

In the Statesman story, Meyer appears to have confirmed that AMD will sell off its manufacturing facilities in a few months, and then a new company would form with different ownership. Drew Prairie, an AMD spokesperson, said Meyer was referring to how the company manufactures its wafers.

"He said it is 'fundamentally important to AMD to transform how we manufacture our wafers,'" Prairie wrote in an e-mail. This could refer to a number of improvements, including AMD's planned shift to 45-nanometer manufacturing later in 2008.

Since announcing its seventh quarterly financial loss July 17, and with the departure of Hector Ruiz as CEO, AMD has been under scrutiny by both the financial community and the IT industry as the chip maker looks to come back by the end of 2008. Meyer has said AMD plans to refocus its energies on its core processor and graphics business.

However, the more AMD keeps its asset-smart strategy under wraps, the more speculation it generates, which puts additional pressure on the company. Ruiz has said he will remain with AMD as the executive chairman of its board and focus on implementing the asset-smart program.

Prairie said AMD hopes to release some information on asset-smart soon.

Some financial analysts believe asset-smart involves spinning off AMD's manufacturing facilities, and that would leave Ruiz as a natural choice to be the top executive of this new company.

AMD has two fabs in Dresden, Germany, called Fab 36 and Fab 38. In the chip business, manufacturing eats up a vast chunk of the revenue. Intel announced in 2007 that it had spent billions on just one new fab and AMD could save much-needed millions by selling its own facilities.

AMD has jettisoned manufacturing facilities in the past. In 2004, AMD converted its Fab 25 in Austin, Texas, into a facility that is now making flash memory for Spansion, a company in which AMD holds a financial stake

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OCZ Technology has the honor to be the first ever manufacturer to have one of their SSD drives tested here at Guru3D.com, and we have others in queue as well. Despite the negative spins from traditional HDD manufacturers and a couple of sour SSD manufacturers who do not have their technology right, let me state .. Solid State Drives are here to stay, and inevitably they will replace HDDs. And by saying that I do not mean in the next 3 years or so. But think of long term usage, this will be the faster technology, this will be a high-volume technology and it will be a reliable technology as there are no more moving parts inside that storage unit.

The SSD technology has advanced to a level where it can compete with even the fastest WS Velociraptor HD, and let us show you exactly that. You can find the review here:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-core-sata-64gb-solid-state-drive-review/

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The Folding@home project expands list of non-gaming applications for graphics processing units (GPU). By running the Folding@home client on an NVIDIA GeForce GPU, protein-folding simulations can be done 140 times faster than on some of today

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Buffalo has announced the launch of external as well as internal 8x Blu-ray burners for Japanese market. The internal Buffalo 8x Blu-ray burner BR-816FBS and external BR-816SU2 (USB2.0 & External SerialATA), are based on Panasonic SW-5584 BD burner. Both Buffalo 8x Blu-ray burners support 8x recording for single layer Blu-ray recordable discs (BD-R) and 2x for dual layer BD-R, BD-RE and LTH BD-R media. Buffalo external BR-816SU2 8x Blu-ray burner with 8MB buffer memory, measures 50x164x281 mm, weighs 1.8 kg and will be available in Japan by early August for approximately 44,500 yen ($416). The Buffalo internal BR-816FBS 8x Blu-ray burner with 8MB buffer memory, measures 146

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With the new Asus Xonar D1 7.1 PCI soundcard, users can enjoy the same rich gaming audio effects and extensive Dolby Home Theater features as the PCI express Xonar DX soundcard and free up PCI express slots for other uses at the same time. This iteration of the Xonar provides fine-tuned audio components that reach a clear 116dB SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio); while the built-in DS3D GX revives support for DirectSound HW multi-channel gaming audio and the latest EAX (Environment Audio Extension) in PC games. The Asus Xonar D1 also comes equipped with the renowned DS3D GX 2.0, which revives EAX HD 5.0 DirectSound HW effects in games for both Windows XP and Vista. DS3D GX 2.0 automatically enables the latest EAX and DirectSound HW after installation, with no additional driver patches, game modifications, or OpenAL required.

Taipei, Taiwan, July 27, 2008

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Lancool issued a rpess-release about the release of a new midi-tower computer case, the K6:

Today the PC- K6 midi chassis is launched under the Lancool brand. Incorporating outstanding quality and craftsmanship; the Lancool series have a steel inner-core, making them stronger than all-aluminum chassis, but also considerably cheaper.

The strength of the Lancool series lies not only in the structure, but also in the features, which include support for 4x 3.5

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Creative released a new MP3 player, the ZEN Moziac:
The Creative ZEN Mozaic comes complete with an impressive built-in speaker, vibrant 1.8-inch LCD colour screen, FM radio and voice recorder. Weighing just 43g and measuring 79.5mm x 40mm x 12.8mm, the super compact Creative ZEN Mozaic provides up to 32 hours of audio playback with a single charge of the battery. Also available at a later date are 8GB and 16GB models.

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Golden Shellback coating is a unique coating that protects critical operational equipment against damage and loss of function caused by exposure to weather and moisture. It is ideal for application in the electronics industry.

Golden Shellback coating produces a vacuum deposited film that is nonflammable, has low toxicity and has the ability to weatherproof electronic devices and other surfaces. It contains no volatile organic combustibles (VOCs). The clear, nearly non-detectable, uniform film is insoluble in solvents. When applied to clean, moisture free surfaces, such as plastic, copper, aluminum, metal, ceramic, steel, tin or glass, the coating is transparent with excellent weather proofing and anti-corrosion properties.

Advantages
Golden Shellback coating has an excellent ability to repel oils, synthetic fluids, hazardous materials, dust, dirt and water based solutions. Low surface tension values, such as water and oils will bead and drain freely from coated surfaces. The process produces a uniform, continuous, near hermetic coating that resists rain and humidity. Electronics casually exposed to water continue to work even after exposure. The coating is readily applied and not generally considered to be removable. Repairs are made using abrasive methods.

http://golden-shellback.com/

http://revision3.com/tekzilla/newtime/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLFDT_I2Up4&eurl=http://www.hardocp.com/archives.html?news=LDA3LDIwMDgsaGVudGh1c2lhc3QsMjEsNjY=

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Looking for a parking space is about to get much easier, at least for San Franciscans. Later this year they will be able to use cell phones to access a live online map of where spaces are free in the city, thanks to a huge network of sensors.

The devices include a magnetometer that picks up the change in the magnetic field caused by a parked cars. False positives are possible, so there's also an array of other sensors within each device to monitor parking spaces. There are no details yet on exactly what those sensors are.

The network is impressively easy to set up. "Cities can simply glue the [devices] to the street and have a working system almost instantly," says Jim Reich, the vice president of engineering at Streetline, the company behind the new system.

Because it is a wireless mesh network, there's no need to program in or connect new sensors directly, they just join in with the others.

The city hopes that easier parking will reduce traffic congestion, preventing drivers going round in circles in search of elusive free parking spots.

Others are not so sure. If parking becomes easier, the result is likely to be more traffic - not less - thinks Yossi Sheffi at MIT. He says London's congestion charge is a better way to reduce the number of cars on busy city streets.
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HighPoint Technologies announced today it is releasing the RocketRAID 2644x4 SAS RAID controller card that will deliver throughput speeds as high as 1000MBps and is capable of supporting as many as 128 SAS and SATA hard drives (via SAS expanders from LSI and Vitesse). The controller can connect with up to four PCI-Express busses capable of tranferring data at 1000MBps speeds in both directions at the same time.

The controller is designed for high-definition digital video and audio environments, offering support for RAID 0/1/5/10 and JBOD. Highpoint bundlesits own TerabyteArchitecture software that ensures data protection and reliability, while the company's RAID Management Suite helps users setup and manage their RAID arrays.

The RocketRAID 2644x44 controller is available now, priced at $136. It supports both Windows and Mac OS X.

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Here is a trailer on Crysis Warhead 'Comic-Con 08' gameplay, as spotted on ggmania:


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Happy SysAdmin Day!

A day originally created by Ted Kekatos a system administrator in Chicago. He was insired and led to create a day in which it is set to celebrate the system administrators and to show appreciations too these few. The first SAAD (System Adminstrator Appreciation Day) was held in the year of 2000.

It generally celebrated on the last friday of each july every year.

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Creative Labs issued a new driver for Windows XP & Vista.

This driver is intended for Sound Blaster Audigy-, Sound Blaster Audigy 2-, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS- and Sound Blaster Audigy 4-geluidskaarten. New is Vista support for Dolby Digital and DTS-decoding.

Added Features:

• Dolby
  

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It is rumored that the Core 2 Duo E8600 will come out on August 10 with a $266 price tag. The CPU will run at 3.33GHz, or about 170MHz faster than the Core 2 Duo E8500 Intel recently pulled down from $266 to $183.

This may be the last high-end Core 2 Duo, and recently leaked roadmaps would seem to corroborate that claim. Supposedly, Intel will replace the E8600 and other current-gen chips in the same price range with dual- and quad-core Nehalem derivatives in the third quarter of 2009.

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According to the front Malaysia's premier gaming mag PC Gamer, Grand Theft Auto IV is coming to the PC. Since I have no clue as to what is exactly coming with the package, it's time for gross speculation.

My guess is that it will just be a direct port of the Xbox 360 version, with the same stipulations that Rockstar has with Microsoft in tow. That means, probably, no downloadable content until the exclusive agreement ends with Microsoft. Regardless of content, I wonder if Rockstar will open up some development tools this time around? Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has quite the community still surrounding it.

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GPU Caps Viewer has been updated with new demo (OpenGL HW geometry instancing - shader model 4.0 required), detection of GeForce GTX 280/260 and Radeon HD 4850/4870/4870X2. Detection of PhysX driver has been added as well as support for S3 Chrome 400 series (430 GT and 440 GTX).

GPU Caps Viewer is an OpenGL graphics card utility for Windows XP and Vista (32/64-bit). This utility is useful for all 3D enthusiasts and graphics developers and is a must-to-have in you graphics-geek-toolbox. GPU Caps Viewer offers the following features:

• quickly overview of the features of your graphics card and GPU
• OpenGL capabilities as well as the complete extensions list
• GPU temperature (GeForce abd Radeon)
• GPU burner (based on the FurMark engine)
• tech-demos to validate graphics drivers (vertex displacement mapping, hardware geometry instancing, soft shadows, point sprite particles, HDR)
• online validation facility
• complete report in xml format

Download - click here

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