General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Rumor: Single Slot GTX 670 & 680 Cards Coming Soon From Galaxy

Posted: 06 May 2012 12:59 PM PDT

GTX 670When the GTX 500 series hit the market they were strong performers, but ran both hot and loud. The Kepler architecture on the other hand didn't just give Nvidia's 600 series a performance advantage, they are extremely competitive when it comes to power draw. Thanks to incredible advances in power efficiency however, it may finally be possible to offer single slot design for even the highest end GPU's. Galaxy is looking to be the first AIB vendor to offer such a solution, and a series of leaked photos shows off what they have in mind. 

Both designs are looking to make use of a large single fan design, coupled with copper and aluminum channels to pull heat away from the various components. We're guessing that the PC Gamer's with $350-$500 to spend on a graphics card also has a case that can accommodate a double wide GPU, however small form factor PC's are gaining in popularity and shouldn't be ignored. 

Imagine a day when you can build a Core i7 system with a high end graphics card like this, and have it still be small enough that it could mount to the back of your monitor. We still have no idea when, if ever this card will hit North America, but we'll keep you in the loop. It's entirely possible the cards shown in these pictures caught on fire 30 seconds after the photo was taken, and in-fact were nothing more than a pipe dream.

Only time will tell. 

VLC Offers a Free DVD Player, Why Can’t Microsoft?

Posted: 06 May 2012 12:22 PM PDT

VLCWe've recommended VLC on more than one occasion, and for good reasons. It's the swiss army knife of the video playback world. It supports more formats and codecs then we can count, installs quickly, and is updated frequently. With the upcoming release of Windows 8 however, it will start offering a new killer feature most people probably didn't care about before - DVD playback. Microsoft's decision to not support DVD playback in Windows 8 unless you shell out the extra cash for media center has created a ton of vitriol in comment feeds around the web, but also a pretty obvious question. If a free and open source app can offer the feature, why can't Microsoft? ZDNet blogger Ed Bott set out to answer the question, and his findings may surprise you.

Before we get to the answer it is important to understand that DVD playback is made possible by way of two core software components. First you need an MPEG-2 decoder, and second you need Dolby Digital audio support. The cost of adding these to Windows 7 is estimated to be somewhere in the range of $2-$3, so how does VLC do this for free? It helps to be French.

VideoLAN, the company behind VLC explains the French connection on its "Legal concerns" page, and skipping down to the bottom of the page you find the following. 

"Patents and codec licenses

Neither French law nor European conventions recognize software as patentable (see French section below).

Therefore, software patents licenses do not apply on VideoLAN software."

Of course they also have size on their side. VLC is a nonprofit organization based outside the reach of the US legal system, and represents a small enough niche that it's currently not worth pursuing. We can't help but wonder if that will change over time if it becomes more popular, though it's hard to image a world where the big OEM's ever ditch CyberLink PowerDVD in favor of something open source. 

EA Unleashes the Wrath of the Indies

Posted: 06 May 2012 11:35 AM PDT

Evil EAIn 1697 William Congreve coined the phrase, "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned", though in 2012 its starting to look like "indie" might also be an acceptable substitution. The controversy surrounds EA's use of the words "indie bundle" in their most recent Steam sale, and real indies have been lashing out at the company from every angle.

The most outspoken, as usual, is Markus Persson (AKA Notch), the creator of Minecraft. "EA releases an 'indie bundle'? That's not how that works, EA. Stop attempting to ruin everything, you bunch of cynical bastards.", he tweeted. "Indies are saving gaming. EA is methodically destroying it".

EA has defended its use of the term by claiming that the studios listed in the indie bundle used them as little more than a publisher, and remain independent development houses. Is all this rage justified? Or is this just a side effect of them now being the most hated company in America?

Intel Adds the DX79SR Extreme Edition Motherboard to its X79 Lineup

Posted: 06 May 2012 10:53 AM PDT

intelIf you've been thinking about building a new Ivy Bridge system, you've no doubt been drowning yourself in X79 reviews over the past few weeks. If you fit that description, Intel has one more board that should catch the attention of anyone who plans to build a high end rig. The DX79SR Extreme edition will be positioned above the DX79SI and DX79TO, and will carry a price tag and feature set to match.

The big improvement over the DX79SI comes in the way of additional USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports. Two additional USB 3.0 ports on the back, and the addition of Marvell 88SE9128 controller finally make this board competitive with many of the third party offerings from Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, and others. In total, the DX79SR offers four SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports, four SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, and six USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear, and header pins for two more front). Intel also claims they will be tossing in a USB add-on module which will enable 802.11 b/g/n wireless, along with Bluetooth 3.0 support. If you are a big fan of Intel SWAG it's also worth noting that they are tossing in a mouse pad, and thermal probe at no extra charge. 

The DX79SR will sell for US $299, with the DX79SI and DX79TO dropping $50 off the price at each step respectively. We haven't seen very much feedback yet on how these boards perform when it comes to overclocking, however you should expect it to be pretty basic. If you fancy yourself a tweaker of BIOS's, then you'll probably be better off looking at a third party board. If on the other hand you would like to match up your new processor with the purest Intel experience possible, they've got a pretty competitive lineup these days.

(Image Credit: VR-Zone)
Posted by Shri Krishna

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