F.E.A.R. E3 Movie Released

Monolith has released the F.E.A.R. trailer that was shown at this years E3, giving us a look at their upcoming action title. Weighing in at 103megs, you can grab this bad boy from the following mirrors: FileShack 3dGamers WorthPlaying Now get downloading!

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 09:07PM GMT +10 by BenSW

Intel's dual core Smithfield two sl

THE BURNING QUESTION about dual cores is how will Intel implement Smithfield and its spawn. Since it is just two cores on a slab, it could be done in a bunch of ways. Intel is not going to take the easy way out, put two cores in a package and wire them together, but they are going to come close. Smithfield will simply be two adjacent Prescott cores with a little additional wiring between them. Every second row of cores on a wafer will probably be mirror imaged and the only new stuff is the wiring between the two cores. Read more

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 09:03PM GMT +10 by BenSW

Nforce 5 to clock P4 bus to 1200MHz

THE NFORCE 5 CHIPSET will be a highly overclockable chipset. Our sources confirmed that the Nvidia Pentium 4 chipset will go up to FSB 1200MHz, using 300MHz rather than 200MHz multiples. Our friends at www.ocworkbench.com even have a screenshot to prove it. It goes up to FSB 300 without major problems. Intel 915 and 925 chipset cannot easily get to those speeds. For the record, an FSB of 300MHz means that in quad pumped Pentium 4 mode it actually works at 1200 MHz. We also learned that this chipset is already sampling and that it is working well. Our industry sources that are important to Nvidia already saw the chipset in action and they showed some enthusiasm about it. This chipset is expected in the first quarter of 2005, and we are sure that Nvidia might grab some important design wins with it. Read more

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 09:02PM GMT +10 by BenSW

ATI's SLI to work without connector

ATI'S WAY OF doing SLI called AMR (ATI Multi Rendering) will work differently from Nvidia's now world famous SLI. ATI will make its SLI work without a small printed circuit board (PCB) to interconnect the cards. SLI uses two PCIe graphic ports and in the case of Nforce 4, works at PCIe 8X for each card and renders your picture with both cards. For this operation Nvidia SLI needs a special interconnection between two graphic cards. It’s a small cable or PCB that transfers up to four GB per second from one card to another. For this operation, coordination is crucial as one card needs to know what the other card is doing. Read more

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 09:02PM GMT +10 by BenSW

Radeon 9800 to XT Mod Guide

Adrian's Rojak Pot have thrown up Rev. 6.0 of their flashing your Radeon 9800 Pro To Radeon 9800XT Mod Guide by adding the following pages: Added a note stating that the 256MB section only applies to Radeon 9800 Pro cards using the Radeon 9800XT PCB. (Page 4) and Updated Identifying The Moddable 256MB Radeon 9800 Pro (Page 8) and Added the Radeon 9800 All-In-Wonder. Read it here

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 01:29PM GMT +10 by erock

RightMark Memory Analyzer 3.45

RightMark Memory Analyzer 3.45, the universal CPU/Chipset/RAM experimental test suite has been released! RightMark Memory Analyzer provides stable and accurate measurements of the most important low-level characteristics of the CPU/Chipset/RAM subsystem of your PC. Seven types of tests are implemented in the current release of the RightMark Memory Analyzer suite, that allow you to determine the following low-level parameters of the platform. Download link & read more

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 01:28PM GMT +10 by erock

AusFX Giveaway: 10 Days Left!

BE QUICK, only 10 days left to put your name down for the AusFX New Years Present! You could be the lucky winner of a NVIDIA 6600 Graphics card, AMD64 CPU, Motherboard, or gaming packs!* Read these threads for details:* AusFX New Years Present (Info & Put your name down here) AusFX New Years Present Discussion area Register on forums here

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 01:21PM GMT +10 by erock

Infinium & NVIDIA Partner

Infinium Labs to Demonstrate Phantom Game Service in NVIDIA Booth at CES ARASOTA, Fla., Dec. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Infinium Labs (OTC Bulletin Board: IFLB - News) will demonstrate its flagship Phantom Game Service(TM) in the NVIDIA® booth (No. 35311) in the South Hall of the Convention Center during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Thursday - Sunday, Jan. 6 - 9, 2005, in Las Vegas. Infinium Labs' selection of NVIDIA to supply graphics processing chips for the company's Phantom Game Service signals the emerging importance of graphics processing in the home entertainment stack. Infinium will incorporate NVIDIA's state-of-the-art GeForce(TM) line of graphics processing units (GPUs) and nForce(TM) platform processors in its Phantom Game Service to deliver top quality graphics, cinematic gaming, and media and communication processing performance to players of the on-demand game service, set for launch in 2005. "Gamers want crisp, vivid images," said Kevin Bachus, president, Infinium Labs. "NVIDIA's GeForce and nForce processors will help us deliver the best possible on-demand performance to our customers, direct to the living room." The Phantom Game Service will be delivered over broadband to a Windows XP Embedded-based receiver that sits with other devices in the room where family members go for entertainment. Read more @ Yahoo! Finance

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 01:15PM GMT +10 by erock

HardOCP sues Infinium Labs

The hardware site and console-maker's dispute intensifies with a new legal action filed in federal court. Today HardOCP responded to Infinium Labs' repeated requests to retract its now-infamous profile of Infinium cofounder Tim Roberts. However, the Web site's owner and editor-in-chief, Kyle Bennett, used more than pointed prose--he has sent a team of lawyers after Infinium. Read More Make sure you check out the related articles below to get all the background information! Related Articles: Infinium Labs ready to haul HardOCP into court. Behind the Infinium Phantom Console Inside the Infinium Labs Phantom Console

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 01:13PM GMT +10 by erock

Nvidia's 6200 AGP to come

WE HEARD that Nvidia plans to bring all of the Geforce six series back to AGP. Nvidia wants to make Shader 3.0 available for all of its customers as many of them still have AGP systems. The company is working on a printed circuit board (PCB) that will enable its customers to make 6200 AGP cards. Of course this card will be powered with the BR2, HSI chip which translates PCIe commands to AGP and vice versa. We are not sure when these cards are going to be ready but 6600GT AGP cards are already available and 6600 standard AGP are expected shortly. Read more

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 08:24AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Albatron could acquire Chaintech

CONSOLIDATION may be on the way for a number of the Taiwanese second and third tier players. Earlier today we reported that Palit is likely to snap up graphics firm Gainward, and now we've heard a fresh rumour out of Old Taipei. That is that Albatron is interested in acquiring the business of Chaintech - the reason being that the latter has a VGA factory that the former covets. Right now, it's just a rumour and neither company could be contacted for each to formally deny or to confirm the speculation. Because Albatron may covet the VGA production facilities all it wants, but if Chaintech doesn't want it to happen, we guess it just plain won't. Source: TheInquirer

Posted: December. 31, 2004 @ 08:21AM GMT +10 by BenSW

NVIDIA NVFlash 5.12

Theres a new version of the NVIDIA bios flash utility (please use with caution!) Download

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 04:24PM GMT +10 by erock

ASUS targets 10-12 million Cards in 05

Asustek Computer’s goal of shipping 10-12 million graphics cards in 2005, up about 33-62% from the 7.4-7.5 million units estimated for this year, will mean more competition for OEM and clone orders among Taiwan graphics-card makers in the coming year, market sources said. If realized, Asustek will replace Micro-Star International (MSI) as Taiwan’s largest graphics-card maker, the sources noted. MSI, currently the No. 1 graphics-card maker, will only retain its position for 2004, with projected shipments of 7.5-7.6 million units, the sources said. However, MSI’s graphics-card shipments are expected to grow about 5.3-5.7% on-year and reach eight million units in 2005, lagging far behind Asustek’s shipment target, the sources added. In addition, MSI is also expected to face strong competition from two other makers, Tul and Leadtek Research, which have recently shifted their marketing efforts from the clone market, where they had previously put their greatest emphasis, to focus on securing more OEM orders, the sources stated. Sources at Gigabyte and its subsidiary Info-Tek Corporation (ITC), the vendor of GeCube-brand graphics cards, said, however, that they will step up efforts to win graphics-card orders from system integrators (SIs), in addition to ODM and clone orders. Source: Digitimes

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 04:20PM GMT +10 by erock

Gigabyte Claims VGA Performance Crown

Taipei, Taiwan – GIGABYTE Technology, a world leader in IT product design and development, introduces the 3D1 for high-end gamers, the world’s first dual GPU graphics card to feature two high performance NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT graphics processors on a single PCI Express board. The 3D1 is also the world’s first NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT graphics card with 256MB DDRIII memory supporting 256-bit memory bandwidth, further helping to achieve unprecedented visual gaming performance and distinguishing it above competing products. Read More

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 04:19PM GMT +10 by erock

Longhorn Transformation Pack 8.0

TCMagazine have a nifty little program that transforms your current XP operating system into Microsofts upcoming Longhorn OS. With Longhorn Transformation Pack you can transform your Windows XP into the upcoming Longhorn (the new Windows edition from Microsoft). This is version 8 and includes support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 as well as a lot of other enhancements. Download it here

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 03:58PM GMT +10 by erock

Thursday Morning Video Card Reviews

Gigabyte GeForce 6600 GT review by Bjorn3D Gigabyte GeForce 6800 review by Bjorn3D ASUS Radeon X800 XT PE review by Hexus HIS Radeon X700 Pro review by LegionHardware Gigabyte GeForce 6800 review by Neoseeker (FANLESS GPU) HIS Radeon X700 Pro review by TweakTown

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 08:25AM GMT +10 by erock

Far Cry Map Pack Released

The folks over at CryMod.com have posted a multiplayer map pack for CryTek's hit first person shooter, Far Cry. Weighing in at 183megs, you will have 12 new levels to kick some butt in. Some of the maps were created by CryTek members, while others were contributed by the community. Anyways, click here for the goods!

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 07:58AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Quake IV screenshots

Check out these new Quake 4 screenshots posted at Games Domain. Looks like they added high-res textures, but does it have AI and gameplay? Source: FiringSquad

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 07:57AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Dual core Opteron speeds

SOURCES TOLD the INQ this week the likely power specifications and other specifications of dual core Opterons AMD will release in 2005. AMD has already sampled some dual core chips to a select few of its customers. HP is a favoured case in example, but some members of the X64-32 coding community are believed to have samples as well. The preliminary info that AMD supplies is aimed at manufacturers of power supplies, heatsinks, mobos and systems - these vendors all need the information early. Read more @ TheInquirer

Posted: December. 30, 2004 @ 07:54AM GMT +10 by BenSW

ASUS Preps Graphics Cards Breakthrough

ASUSTeK Computer reportedly said Tuesday it targeted to ship 10 – 12 million graphics cards the following year, up about 32% - 62% from calendar 2004. The move may put ASUS on the first spot among makers of graphics cards and means increasing competition between manufacturers. The decision may also outline standalone graphics cards market growth. ASUSTeK’s Computer’s goal of shipping 10 – 12 million graphics cards in 2005, up from the 7.4 – 7.5 million units estimated for this year, will mean more competition for OEM and clone orders among Taiwan graphics-card makers in the coming year, DigiTimes reports. Read more

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 10:38AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Single-chip 802.11a/b/g solution

Airoha Technology and Uniband Electronic, two Taiwan-based fabless RFIC-design houses, will both launch IEEE802.11a/b/g WLAN solutions in 2005, the companies said. Airoha recently began sending samples of the AL7230, a single-chip IEEE802.11a/b/g WLAN solution, to customers. AL7230 integrates a power amplifier (PA) supporting both the 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands, according to the company. Volume production is slated to begin in early 2005, said the company. In addition, shipments of Airoha’s first integrated single-chip 802.11b solution, with an embedded PA and launched in August 2003, have now surpassed the one million mark, the company stated. Monthly shipments of the company’s single-chip 802.11g solution, which was launched in mid-2004, have now surpassed 100,000, the company noted. Source: Digitimes

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 10:37AM GMT +10 by BenSW

PlayStation 3 GPU with XDR DRAM

Some peculiarities of the PlayStation 3 graphics processing unit developed at NVIDIA Corp. showed up on the web. It appears, that the visual processing unit will merge NVIDIA’s present and future generation architectures and will have built-in memory controller that supports Rambus’ XDR DRAM. PlayStation 3 GPU Details Materialize A report over Japanese web-site PC Watch suggests that the PlayStation 3 graphics processing unit will use NVIDIA’s technologies found in the current NV40 generation of its own chips as well as numerous techniques developed for the next-generation part known under NV50 code-name. Still, despite of circuitries of the company’s desktop chips found in the GPU, according to NVIDIA’s chief Jen-Hsun Huang, the PlayStation 3 GPU has nothing to do with Microsoft Windows, Microsoft DirectX orL and will use Sony’s API for the console. Naturally, the PlayStation 3 graphics processing units supports XDR DRAM memory developed by Rambus. While there is nothing new in Rambus memory for Sony, NVIDIA has never worked with memory by Rambus. Read more @ XbitLabs

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 10:35AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Microsoft releases in 2005

Bink has made a list about software, what we can expect from Microsoft next year. Here´s a snip: * Windows 2003 Server R2 * Biztalk 2004 64 * Commerce Server 2002 64 * Windows XP x64 * Windows Server 2003 x64 * SQL 2000 SP4 * Virtual Server 2005 sp1 * Windows Server 2003 SP1 * Encarta 2006 * Money 2006 * Longhorn Beta (client) Want to know more ? Visit Bink

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 10:33AM GMT +10 by BenSW

ATI to introduce X300 with Hyper Memory

ATI told us all about its Hyper memory marchitecture quite some time back. Nvidia was the first to present its Turbo Cache marchitecture but ATI's approach is slightly different. ATI told us first about it but Nvidia showed an actual product first. Digitimes has claimed that ATI will present the X300 version with Hyper Memory marchitecture. We told you before that ATI will use the same architecture able to address system memory and use it for graphics. Digitimes expects it in early 2005 and we are looking forward to seeing them in action. Source: The Inquirer

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 09:54AM GMT +10 by erock

ATI's X850, X800XL

Samples might be ready either by the end of the week, or in the first week of January. The same goes for X800XL cards based on the 110 nanometre R430 based core. Still, this card might easily slide to the middle or to the end of January we are told. It's new architecture, and a new core so it might come a bit later. This time it seems that ATI might ship some cards on time for a change. We are still sceptical especially after the delays of 2004. Read More at The Inquirer

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 09:50AM GMT +10 by erock

ForceWare v71.22 Beta

Theres a new version of ForceWare drivers V71.22 you can download it from here.

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 09:39AM GMT +10 by erock

RivaTuner 2.0 RC 15.3 NYE

RivaTuner is the most powerful tweaking utility for NVIDIA display adapters running under Windows 98 / Windows 98 SE / Windows ME / Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The purpose of this utility is to give you access to all the undocumented features of the Detonator drivers. All versions of the Detonator drivers have a lot of undocumented registry entries. Some of them don’t affect anything, but there are some that are very useful. Download

Posted: December. 29, 2004 @ 09:37AM GMT +10 by erock

Gigabyte Dual 6600GT EXCLUSIVE

OC Workbench have an exclusive on Gigabyte's GV-3D1 dual GeForce 6600 GT GPU graphics card! Check it out! Source: nVnews

Posted: December. 27, 2004 @ 09:16AM GMT +10 by erock

Monday Morning Video Card Reviews

Radeon 9800 Pro To Radeon 9800XT Mod Guide by RojakPot ATi Radeon All-in-Wonder X600 Pro PCIe 256MB review by TweakNews Leadtek GeForce 6800 LE AGP review by Dark Tweaking Chaintech GeForce 6600 GT AGP review by OCModShop Sapphire Radeon X800 XT PE AGP review by PC-Experience PowerColor Radeon X700 Pro review by PCStats

Posted: December. 27, 2004 @ 09:14AM GMT +10 by erock

R520 taped out

OUR WELL INFORMED Spanish lady nicknamed Informationa Digitala told us that ATI's next generation chip codenamed R520 is taped out. She confirmed that the chip is 90 nanometres. As far as we know it works well, but it's early days yet. We suggest that we are talking about A01 silicon and that there is always some hardware things and flaws that can be fixed in the next revision. ATI still has time as the company wants to launch in a Spring window. The chip is real, the chip is there and all of the previous news that we brought is confirmed. Nvidia changed its plans to compete with the Fudo R520, indicating that the R520 chip is definitely going to be a good one. ATI still have to live with the fear that the new Nvidia chip might be better. Read more @ TheInquirer

Posted: December. 27, 2004 @ 05:45AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Playstation chip starts at 90 nanometre

AS WE REVEALED before, Sony Playstation 3 is due to arrive in Spring 2006 in Japan and Autumn 2006 in the US and the rest of the word. The initial Nvidia chip is likely to be built on 90 nanometre marchitecture. This is not such a surprise as ATI's R520 will be a 90 nanometre chip and it's scheduled for spring 2005. The R520 is 90 nanometre but even if R500 turns to be a 110 nanometre chip it will get shrunk to at least 90 nanometrea. We are in the dark about R500 chip so we are not sure here. Nvidia will be licensing GPU technology for Sony. Sony will dictate what it wants as Sony is the boss here. Nvidia has to customise its marchitecture for Sony requirements - you have to listen to your boss. At least this is what our business analyst source claims. The initial implementation of Playstation 3 chip build by Nvidia is expected on 90 nanometre marchitecture. Our sources suggest that it could mean that this chip is likely to be a discrete GPU. Initial chips are expected for first batch of Playstation 3 cosnsoles. Read more

Posted: December. 27, 2004 @ 05:43AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Asia claims 40% of global roaming...

US BASED MOBILE networks, followed by European operators are missing out on key revenues from global roaming, according to an Indian based software house, Bharti Telesoft. The company claims 64 out of a potential 205 GSM networks are deploying its RoamWelcome roaming software. The vast majority of Telesoft's clients are in Asia. . The software identifies GSM handsets belonging to subscribers 'roaming' outside their home network and sends out promotional messages to tempt the owner onto the sender's network. It can even help to convert roamers into using the network as their 'preferred network' when visiting that country. Bharti Telesoft says that 40 per cent of the global roaming subscriber base – generating roaming revenues at around $20 billion (out of a total $ 50 billion) - were won by the Asia Pacific region. The potential for roaming is almost entirely ignored by US based networks. For example, GPRS roaming is virtually non-existent in Silicon Valley, supposedly the world's high tech capital. Read more

Posted: December. 27, 2004 @ 05:41AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Merry Christmas

From all of the team here at AusFX.com we want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and safe travels over the Christmas weekend! Eat up big, grab and give those pressies and have heaps of fun! Remember the 'real' reason for the season Our news will recommence on the 27th of December!

Posted: December. 24, 2004 @ 06:29PM GMT +10 by erock

Intel to Remove DDR2 Support from chips

The worlds largest supplier of computer chips Intel Corp. is reportedly planning to introduce its new chipsets that feature PCI Express interconnection, but lack DDR2 support. The introduction may emphasize lukewarm welcome for DDR2 SDRAM by the industry and Intel’s desire to improve its positioning on the chipset market. Intel’s forthcoming i915PL and i915GL chipsets will support dual-channel PC3200 (400MHz) memory only, instead of supporting both DDR and DDR2 which is a standard for the i915P and i915G chipsets, but will still boast with support for LGA775 processors and PCI Express interconnection, according to a DigiTimes report. Santa Clara, California-based Intel reportedly plans to introduce the 915PL and 915GL chipsets on January, 22, 2005. Read more @ XbitLabs

Posted: December. 24, 2004 @ 02:15PM GMT +10 by BenSW

Valve bans 30k more CD keys

Valve has announced that they have banned another 30,000 steam accounts which had been used to try to illegally gain access to Valve games without a valid purchase. Only last month 20,000 accounts were banned for the same reason, only this time Valve states that, 'The accounts that are disabled today will not be reactivated'.

Posted: December. 24, 2004 @ 11:21AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Thursday Afternoon Video Card Reviews

ATi Radeon X800 XL PCIe review by BeHardware MSI GeForceFX 5700 LE review by BuddhasLANRoom Asus V9999GT GeForce 6800 GT AGP review by Digit-Life Chaintech GeForce 6600 GT 128MB AGP review by Techniz.co.uk nVidia GeForce 6600GT AGP on TweakTown NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT PCI-E on PCmoddingmy

Posted: December. 23, 2004 @ 12:47PM GMT +10 by erock

Grand Theft Auto 2 For Free

This version of GTA2 is modified from its original version to enable support for modern PC's and current Microsoft® Windows® platforms. However, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that GTA2 will work correctly on your PC. Download, Installation and execution of this software is entirely at your own risk. Read more

Posted: December. 23, 2004 @ 08:52AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Opera 8 Beta 1

Opera Software has released the First Beta release of Opera 8 the "fastest browser on earth" Download here

Posted: December. 23, 2004 @ 08:51AM GMT +10 by BenSW

ATI's profit up, but Intel threaten

GRAPHICS FIRM ATI turned in net profits of $63.7 million for its first financial quarter, up 34 per cent from the same period last year. The increase in net profit was matched by its revenues, which rose by 31 per cent to $613.9 million year on year. But shortage of some components meant that its revenues weren't as high for the quarter as some had hoped. While its desktop and notebook turnover rose around 20 per cent from the year before, the firm said that integrated chips from Intel represented a formidable challenge to growth. In fact, it appears that sales of ATI chips for consoles and other consumer products is the real growth area for the Canadian firm, and revenues from these will be greater than for the PC parts. Source: TheInquirer

Posted: December. 23, 2004 @ 08:49AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Abit in trouble, wire claims

TAIWANESE wire Digitimes said that suppliers of components to motherboard maker Abit are showing signs of angst after the firm's chairman said banks may freeze its assets. According to the wire, the Taiwan Stock Exchange has asked Abit to supply it with firm details of its finances. Digitimes also claims that distributors in Europe and other regions are worried about the supply of motherboards from Abit. The report is here.

Posted: December. 23, 2004 @ 08:49AM GMT +10 by BenSW

ATI prepares two new chipsets

ATI IS WORKING to improve two chipsets. Its RS480 and RX480 families had some features that could certainly do with a sound tweaking. Both chipsets suffered from USB 2.0 slowdown, lack of LAN and Azalia-like audio. Early adopters of ATI's chipsets used the ULI Southbridge as it did had all those features ready and good to go. In the first quarter of next year, ATI will have a new south bridge that will fix and incorporate all these things that went wrong or were missing. ATI will certainly benefit from a fully packed chipset and having Azalia like Dolby Digital Live capabilities is a good choice. Full Story @ TheInquirer

Posted: December. 23, 2004 @ 08:48AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Unlock your "cut-down" card

Lately we are seeing more and more "cut down" versions of the high-end video cards and it seems that this trend will continue in the future... What we consider as a "cut down" version of a video card is a product that uses the same GPU chip (Graphical Processing Unit) a high-end card has, but placed on a low-end card with some functions of the chip disabled. An example of this is the 6200-based series video cards that are actually using a standard 6600/6600GT core, but instead of 8 pixel pipelines, on the 6200 only half of them are working, the other four are disabled. Read the article @ HWSpirit.com

Posted: December. 22, 2004 @ 04:15PM GMT +10 by erock

AusFX New Years GIVEAWAY!!!

Want the chance to WIN a NVIDIA GeForce 6600, or a AMD or 754 CPU?... Even a DFI Lanparty 260UT or Patriot PC3200 2x256 "TCCD"? Perhaps simply Half-Life 2 & Far Cry gamepacks? Make sure you check out our AUSFX NEW YEARS GIVEAWAY thread in the forums for more details on how you could win some stuff!

Posted: December. 22, 2004 @ 01:28PM GMT +10 by erock

WD cools down caviars

YOU'VE GOT TO keep caviar cool otherwise it becomes a very stinky mess somewhat quickly, and now Western Digital is applying coolage to its range of Caviar hard drives. The firm said the "Cool" Caviars, which have capacities of up to 320GB, incorporate features to cut down operating temperatures, improving reliability. The firm said that environmental features can reduce the life of hard disks, and it claims WD drives have the lowest power consumption of any desktop unit. The drives are also quieter, said WD. The WD Caviars at 320GB have started shipping this week, while the Caviar SE320 will be in the shops next month, it said. The firm is taking pre-orders for these drives, and said if you buy by the end of the year, the units will be shipped free. The suggested price for the SE320GB is $249. The drives have 8MB and 2MB buffers, and WD said it has improved the caching algorithms for the family of drives. Source: The Inquirer

Posted: December. 22, 2004 @ 09:10AM GMT +10 by flawmatt

Epox to make 754 pin Nforce 4 boards

MOBO FIRM Epox will introduce a Nforce 4 754 motherboard, based on the Nforce 4 Ultra chipset. It will be a high end board and will support all but SLI. It won't arrive before at least February or maybe even later in Q1, that's the plan. For all 754 Athlon supporters and for Sempron 754 supporters it will give you an option to upgrade the board and graphic card without the cost of a new 939 CPU. We can guarantee that the board will support PCIe 16X slot, DDR memory, Socket 754 and Serial ATA. I hope to be able to provide some more specifics soon enough. I guess that Epox won't be alone with such a board but it looks like it will be an early bird. Source: TheInquirer

Posted: December. 21, 2004 @ 07:59PM GMT +10 by BenSW

Geforce 6800 GT/Ultra PCIe Info

KNOWLEDGEABLE SOURCES from Taiwan claim that there are too many PCBs that are waiting for NV40 chips. Nvidia is definitely failing to provide these chips to many of its customers. Geforce 6800 Ultra and GT PCIe are based on the good old NV40 core paired with BR2. Nvidia calls it NV45. Nvidia was happy to tell us before that Nvidia managed to overclock NV40 AGP interface from 8X to 12 X or faster. With this overclock, Nvidia managed to match the AGP8X chip speed with 16X PCIe interface and make a chip which is almost as fast as the native PCIe one. Now for the consequences. It seems that not all of the NV40 chips, especially the fastest one clocked at 350 or 400MHz, manage to work with BR2 chip overclocked to 12 X AGP. That might explain the shortage. Read more

Posted: December. 21, 2004 @ 07:57PM GMT +10 by BenSW

Geforce 6200TC with 512MB memory

OUR DUTCH friend, winner of the INQ 2004 fashion award, has noticed something about 6200TC that many other people haven’t. When he tested NV44, Geforce 6200TC he didn’t want to follow Nvidia's master plan. Nvidia advised people to use fast CPUs and 1024 MB of memory. That’s not any kind of entry level system to us. A normal entry level system these days comes with 512MB and it is natural to choose this amount of memory for testing rather than 1024 MB. It turns out that X300SE gets very competitive in Half Life 2 when you use 512MB of memory. When using 1024MB of RAM, the Nvidia 6200TC is the clear winner over X300SE. With 1024MB in Doom 3 Geforce 6200TC scores 20.9 FPS, while when you use 512MB, the performance drops three times to a rather pathetic and non payable 6 FPS. Oops. Futuremark 3Dmark03 and 05 are not affected by the amount of memory. After all it turns out that there is a dark side to Turbo Cache marchitecture. Source: TheInquirer

Posted: December. 21, 2004 @ 07:56PM GMT +10 by BenSW

ATI Ships Over 5 Million Chips for HDTV

ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX: ATY, NASDAQ: ATYT) announced that in 2004 ATI’s Digital Television division shipped more than 5 million chips for HD (high-definition) TVs and HD cable and terrestrial set-top boxes. In addition, ATI announced market leadership in ATSC/able™ silicon solutions with an ATI-estimated 85% market share for THEATER™ and NXT demodulators and a 40% market share for XILLEON™ MPEG decoders and display processors. ATI’s NXT, THEATER and XILLEON chips enable consumer electronics manufacturers to create a wide variety of products that feature exceptional reception and video display performance. Manufacturers also have access to ATI’s extensive software support and reference designs to help them bring to market unique products that conform to worldwide industry standards. Read more

Posted: December. 21, 2004 @ 09:57AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Flaw found in Google's new desktop

A Rice University computer scientist and two of his students have discovered a potentially serious security flaw in the desktop search tool for personal computers that was recently distributed by Google. The glitch, which could permit an attacker to secretly search the contents of a personal computer via the Internet, is what computer scientists call a composition flaw--a security weakness that emerges when separate components interact. "When you put them together, out jumps a security flaw," said Dan Wallach, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice in Houston, who, with two graduate students, Seth Fogarty and Seth Nielson, discovered the flaw last month. "These are subtle problems, and it takes a lot of experience to ferret out this kind of flaw," Wallach said. Read more

Posted: December. 21, 2004 @ 09:56AM GMT +10 by BenSW

Tuesday Morning Video Card Reviews

ATi Mobility Radeon 9700 review by RojakPot Point-of-View GeForce 6800 GT review by Beyond3D ATi Radeon X700 Pro review by SystemCooling ATi Radeon X800 XL review by Beyond3D ATi Radeon X800 XL review by PCPer ATi Radeon X800 XL review by Techreport Asus GeForce 6800 AGP review by TCMagazine nVidia GeForce 6600 GT AGP review by TweakTown

Posted: December. 21, 2004 @ 09:01AM GMT +10 by erock

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