General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Sapphire, PowerColor Show Off New AMD Radeon HD 7000 Cards

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 11:03 AM PDT

Another day, another pair of new AMD Radeon HD graphics cards, this time from Sapphire and PowerColor. The two offerings are from opposite ends of AMD's assault on the entire price point spectrum -- the PowerColor being a 7770 card, and the Sapphire a high-end 7970 -- but they're both capable of hitting 1GHz speeds out of the box.

The PowerColor PCS+ HD7770 GHz Edition rocks core and memory speeds of 1.15GHz and 1.25GHz, respectively, with 1GB of GDDR5. CrossFire, Eyefinity and DirectX 11 support are all on board -- as one would expect -- and the card fights off thermal issues with a heat pipe sitting directly on and over the GPU and a center-mounted fan.

Meanwhile, the Sapphire HD 7970 OC Edition "only" clocks in with 950MHz/1425MHz core/memory speeds out of the box, but a dual BIOS switch lets users up that to 1GHz and 1450MHz. The card uses Sapphire's Dual-X technology to keep things cool, which the company describes as "a highly efficient multi-heatpipe cooler with dual fans" capable of "superb cooling performance even under extreme load." And if you wanted to put that claim to the test, a new version of Sapphire's TriXX overclocking tool is also available. Read up on all the fine details -- like the ridiculous number of cables, connectors and adapters Sapphire throws in the box -- over at the Sapphire HD 7970 OC Edition web page.

As far as prices go, the Sapphire HD 7970 OC is up at Newegg for $580, while PowerColor remained mum about PCS+ HD7770 details. We'd expect the PCS+ HD7770 GHz Edition to probably fall somewhere between $160 and $200 when it drops, though.

And for you fretting Nvidia fans: hub-bub around the web says the first Kepler cards should be launching sometime very, very soon. (But we all know the old saying about hub-bub in one hand and wishing in the other, so take that with a grain of salt.)

Gamers Contribute Over $1 Million To "Wasteland 2" Kickstarter Fund

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 10:23 AM PDT

Our beloved Fallout grew from the barren seeds of Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic RPG created by Interplay in 1988. But while Fallout may be the unofficial successor to the stand-alone Wasteland, an official successor is now waiting in the wings. Brian Fargo, Interplay founder and executive producer for both Fallout and Wasteland, has raised over $1 million in KickStarter funding for Wasteland 2 -- and he's bringing his old design friends along for the ride.

Joining Fargo will be Wasteland designers Alan Pavlish, Mike Stackpole and Ken St. Andre, Fallout co-creator Jason Anderson, and music from Fallout 1 and 2's Mark Morgan. They've also wrangled in concept artist Andree Wallin and are working on pulling in even more Wasteland/Fallout vets to the cause.

Fargo's original goal was to raise at least $900,000; as of right now, the total stands at $1,019,080 with nearly 18,000 people contributing. (Fudzilla reports that Razer honcho Min-Liang Tan ponied up $10,000 towards that total.) And if the money keeps coming in, Wasteland 2 will only get bigger and better. The team pledges to include additional maps, music, stories, challenges and even a Mac version if the funding hits the $1.25 million and $1.5 million milestones.  "That's a lot of money needed, but not when compared with the budgets of most full scale RPGs made today," the Kickstarter page notes.

Pledging $15 gets you a DRM-free copy of the game when it launches (Estimated to be October 2013), while upping the ante gets you even more goodies, including boxed copies complete with art books and cloth maps, access to closed beta trials on Steam, and even the ability to have weapons and locations named in your honor. Heck, if you've got $5,000 laying around that you feel like contributing, the team will even go so far to erect a statue of you somewhere in the game.

That about covers it, but if you want more info or feel like contributing to the game's development, be sure to check out the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter page.

Ubuntu-Based Anonymous OS Appears, But May Be Trojan-Laden Trap

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 10:17 AM PDT

One of the trickier parts of operating as part of a collective "hacktivist" organization -- aside from  having senior members rat you out to the FBI, of course -- is that anybody can slap the Anonymous tag on something he's doing. Case in point: Anonymous-OS.  Yesterday, an Anon-branded Ubuntu-based OS popped up on SourceForge, complete with hacker-friendly tools like Slowloris and Wireshark preinstalled. According to the SourceForge page, Anonymous-OS has already been downloaded over 37,000 times, but you better look before you leap: the semi-official @AnonOps Twitter account says the OS isn't actually from Anonymous.

Actually, the @AnonOps account says "The Anon OS is fake it is wrapped in trojans. RT". See, there's that pesky non-centralized "leadership" rearing its ugly head again! Skimming through the poorly worded Tumblr blog created to support the project, we noticed that the release lacked the typical eloquence and basic grammatical skills typically associated with Anon missives.

The operator of the Anonymous-OS blog claims his distro isn't filled with baddies and even posted a screenshot that he says proves it. However, don't forget that a week so ago Symantec revealed that wanna-be Anon supporters trying to download the Slowloris DDoS tool were duped into downloading the Zeus Trojan, instead.

So it Anonymous-OS infested with Trojans? Heck if we know. For what it's worth, we'd always recommend staying far, far away from unofficial Linux builds stuffed by hacking tools and maintained by Anonymous sources.  (See what we did there?)

Mark Your Calendars, Diablo III Comes Out on May 15

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 07:01 AM PDT

Hell hasn't frozen, though Blizzard did finally commit to a shipping date for Diablo III, the highly anticipated third installment in the popular hack-and-slash Diablo franchise. The game comes out two months from today on May 15, and if you're chomping at the bit, you can put your preorder in right this very second (Battle.net account is required). It's $60 for the digital version, or free if you sign up for a World of Warcraft Annual Pass.

"After many years of hard work by our development team and months of beta testing by hundreds of thousands of dedicated players around the world, we're now in the homestretch," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We look forward to putting the final polish on Diablo III over the next two months and delivering the ultimate action-RPG experience to gamers worldwide starting on May 15."

Diablo III will launch in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau; gamers living in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil will be able to buy Diablo III digitally on Blizzard's Battle.net website, while gamers in Latin American countries and in Russia will be able to get their hack-and-slash on starting June 7.

Blizzard also plans to sell a Collector's Edition bundle in retail stores. It will consist of the game on DVD, a two-disc DVD/Blu-ray set with behind-the-scenes coverage, Diablo III soundtrack CD, 208-page art book, a 4GB USB soulstone with full versions of Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, and other extras.

Diablo III Preorder

Smartphone Owners Say Screen Size Matters

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 06:42 AM PDT

Make no mistake folks, size matters, which means you can forget all that silly talk about it being how you use the thing that really matters. A recent study suggests that most definitely isn't the case, and that bigger is better. We're of course talking about smartphone screens (cue the collective sighs of relief), and according to a report published by the Strategy Wireless Device Lab, smartphone owners prefer screen sizes ranging from 4 inches to 4.5 inches, so long as the device is also thin.

Out of those surveyed in the U.S. and U.K., nearly 90 percent of current smartphone owners showed a preference to a prototype smartphone with a display larger than their current device.

"This trend is driven by increased mobile Web browsing capability, as well as engaging video and gaming experiences," said Paul Brown, a Director in the Strategy Analytics User Experience Practice.

Kevin Nolan, Vice President for the User Experience Practice at Strategy Analytics, added that it's equally important for smartphone manufacturers to "ensure that mobile devices are not too heavy and that the devices remain thin enough for purses and pockets."

The sweet spot for such devices is, as mentioned, between 4 inches and 4.5 inches, perhaps suggesting that while smartphone owners crave bigger displays, there might be a limit. Samsung's Galaxy Note boasts a 5.3-inch screen and is billed as a hybrid phone/tablet. TechnoBuffalo asked its readers if they think the Galaxy Note is too big, and so far there's a nearly even split between those who do (37.85 percent) and those who don't (36.46 percent). A quarter (25.69 percent) of survey respondents said they'll reserve judgement until seeing one in person.

What do you think is the perfect size for a smartphone display?

Google Confirms Development of Chrome for Metro

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 06:25 AM PDT

Browser vendors are gearing up to take their hostilities to a new battlefield: Windows 8's Metro interface. Mozilla commenced work on a "Metro style enabled desktop browser" for Windows 8 earlier this week, and now Google has confirmed similar plans. Hit the jump for more.

A spokesperson for the company recently told Mashable that the web giant is readying a Metro-friendly version of Chrome  for Windows 8. This new version of its web browser will be based on the desktop browser and not the Android version, the rep further revealed.

"Our goal is to be able to offer our users a speedy, simple, secure Chrome experience across all platforms, which includes both the desktop and Metro versions of Windows 8," the spokesperson said in a statement. "To that end we're in the process of building a Metro version of Chrome along with improving desktop Chrome in Windows 8 such as adding enhanced touch support."

There was a lot of confusion regarding Microsoft's policy on third-party Metro style browsers until recently, but Firefox developer Brian Bondy's blog post announcing the commencement of Firefox Metro development has brought a lot of clarity to the whole situation. It's now known that Windows 8 supports three categories of web browsers: desktop, Metro style and Metro style enabled desktop browser.

A Metro style enabled desktop browser, according to an MSDN whitepaper, is "a desktop browser that can also participate in the new Metro style experience." While Firefox for Windows 8 will fall in this category, it's not clear from Google's statement if it too is taking the same approach.

Marvell Rolls Out New SATA 6Gbps Controller for SSDs

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 06:10 AM PDT

Marvell this week said it's ready to start shipping its new 88SS9187 SATA controller with on-chip RAID technology for NAND flash memory devices. The on-chip RAID solution is able to recognize and retire defective NAND, and is one of a handful of new "game changing" features baked into Marvell's third generation SATA 6Gbps controller, such as a "groundbreaking correction capability" courtesy of its high performance ECC engine.

"We continue to drive market-leading innovation in our SATA technology products, as seen with today's launch of the 88SS9187 SATA controller powered by high performance embedded processor technology," said Alan Armstrong, vice president of Marketing for the Storage Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "The best-in-class, open architecture of the device allows SSD manufacturers to fully customize their products to meet specific customer demands and distinguish their products based on price, performance, power and functionality. Marvell is thrilled to be leading the industry with our advanced SSD acceleration technology, which is enabling our partners to take their products to the next level."

Marvel claims its new SATA controller offers higher performance at lower costs and greater power efficiency. It supports high-speed DDR3 DRAM, maximum sequential read performance for a SATA 6Gbps device, around 500MB/s of sequential write performance "even at dirty drive conditions," and high random read and write IOPS.

Image Credit: Marvell

iBuyPower's Erebus GT Now Available to Order

Posted: 15 Mar 2012 05:51 AM PDT

The new Erebus GT from boutique system builder iBuyPower is a smaller, less expensive version of the original, which has now been renamed Erebus XL, and it features a proprietary liquid cooling solution powered by Koolance "that provides epic overclocking potential." It's a custom cooling solution that consists of three radiators and 13mm high-flow tubing to circulate 4.5 gallons of coolant every 60 seconds.

Like the original Erebus, the GT sports a steel chassis frame. The top and front paneling are made of aluminum, and there's a top-mounted fill port that goes to the built-in reservoir, which can be checked through the front panel.

"Our engineering team worked hard to get Erebus GT to market quickly after receiving such a warm reception at CES 2012," said Darren Su, Executive Vice President of iBuyPower. "The improvements from the first generation Erebus were the direct result of customer feedback and include a smaller footprint without sacrificing cooling ability and a lower starting price."

Pricing starts at $899 for a system built around AMD's FX platform and includes an AMD FX-4100 processor with iBuyPower's 'PowerDrive Level 1' overclocking service (OC up to 10 percent), 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti, Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 motherboard, 1TB SATA 6Gbps hard drive (7200 RPM, 32MB cache), 24X DVD burner, 700W power supply, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

There are plenty of upgrade options to choose from at every step of the way, as well as various platforms to build around, including Intel's Z68 chipset ($1,099 and up) and X79 platform ($1,399 and up), all of which are available now.

iBuyPower Erebus GT Product Page
Posted by Shri Krishna

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