General Gaming Article |
- New Far Cry 3 Trailer Is A Very Special Brand of Insane
- BioWare Concedes to Angry Fans, Promises "Clarified" Ending Content for Mass Effect 3
- Build It: A Powerful All-Purpose Rig for $830
- New MSI Afterburner Beta Introduces Kepler Support For Intrepid Overclockers
- Want To Vibrate When Grandma Calls? Nokia Applies For Haptic Tattoo Patent
- Antec Rolls Out High Current Pro 1000 Platinum Power Supply
- Does Apple's New iPad Really Have a Heat Issue?
- HP Merges Printer and PC Businesses as Part of Major Restructuring Effort
- Hey Look, Razer's Blade Notebook is Back in Stock
- Want a Job? Fork Over Your Facebook Password, Employer Says
| New Far Cry 3 Trailer Is A Very Special Brand of Insane Posted: 21 Mar 2012 08:52 PM PDT And by special, we mean magical jelly beans! That's what those are, right? Certainly not small objects of a more hallucinogenic and sinister nature. Goodness, no. Why, next thing you know, they'll be putting knives and guns and knifeguns in these things. But that'd just be-- oh. Oh gracious. Did he just stab that man in the... What about his family? Who will make payments on their home? ...Which just exploded. But look, hang-gliding! Isn't that nice? So, to conclude, Far Cry 3 is about jelly beans and hang-gliding and paying off loans on time with no complications. Yep. That's it. Check out the full trailer after the break. Click gently, though. The trailer's a docile creature. Don't want to frighten it. |
| BioWare Concedes to Angry Fans, Promises "Clarified" Ending Content for Mass Effect 3 Posted: 21 Mar 2012 08:12 PM PDT
"As co-founder and GM of BioWare, I'm very proud of the ME3 team; I personally believe Mass Effect 3 is the best work we've yet created," wrote BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka. "So, it's incredibly painful to receive feedback from our core fans that the game's endings were not up to their expectations. Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics – but out of respect to our fans, we need to accept the criticism and feedback with humility." "To that end, since the game launched, the team has been poring over everything they can find about reactions to the game – industry press, forums, Facebook, and Twitter, just to name a few. Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey. You'll hear more on this in April. We're working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we've received." Which all sounds nice enough, but it's not hard to read between the lines: Fans got mouthy, and BioWare caved. And we can discuss the minutiae of Mass Effect's over-promised, under-delivered focus on choice and player control or the actual content of the ending all we want, but the fact is that a massive temper tantrum was massively effective. Will BioWare's eventual rewrites be detrimental to the story? It's too early to tell. But games are both an art form and a product. If artists are too afraid to honestly express themselves because it might make consumers upset, then we've got a much, much bigger problem on our hands.
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| Build It: A Powerful All-Purpose Rig for $830 Posted: 21 Mar 2012 12:16 PM PDT Putting together an all-purpose rig under a strict budget is the best way to keep a PC builder on his or her toes THE MISSIONBuilding expensive, over-the-top machines is easy. It's when you dip below the $1,000 mark that it gets difficult. This month, I undertook the challenge of building the best all-around PC I could for less than $850. To me, that meant a machine good at multithreaded tasks as well as gaming. We've said it before, and we'll stick to our guns: Intel's Core i5-2500K is the sweet spot for price/performance. Unfortunately, that price is too high for this configuration. That left me pondering whether to do yet another Core i3 box or another AMD box. Readers have been ragging on us about what fantastic deals Phenom II procs currently are. I looked high and low and, surprisingly, I did find some e-tailers selling Phenom IIs way below the list price. For just $139, you can net a 3.5GHz Phenom II X4 970. That gives you four cores, a much larger cache, and a fully unlocked part for not much more than the Athlon II X4 has been going for. The Phenom II X4 isn't always a clear-cut winner against its Intel counterpart, the 3.3GHz Core i3-2120, but it does hold its own in multithreading tasks and game-related chores, which are all about the GPU. Picking the Other Parts
I initially picked Nvidia's GeForce 560 Ti card for this build, but later decided to swing ATI because our motherboard, a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3, only offers CrossFireX support. To get SLI on an AMD board, you need to pony up for a 990FX chipset, which would have broken my budget. The best deal seems to be the Radeon HD 6950 card. The 6950 is a cut-down Radeon HD 6970 made to rain on the GeForce 560 Ti's parade. Gigabyte's GV-R695UD was about the cheapest I could find at the time, and it features enhanced cooling over a stock card. When it came to the other components, I had one thing working for me and another against me. Working for me was system RAM. RAM is so cheap that building a rig with even 32GB is doable (provided you have eight DIMM slots). However, 4GB is about all you really need in a budget box—and all I could afford. Yes, 8GB would have been nice, but I had to save pennies for something really out of control: the hard drive. Here's how dire things are right now: In August 2011, we built a $667 PC that had a 1TB WD Caviar Blue drive for $60. This year, I was happy to get a bare 500GB Western Digital Blue drive for $99. In fact, the drive I snagged for this build had already risen 30 percent in price by the time I finished building my rig. The same hard drive six months ago sold for $34! I'm still sticking to the $99 price, as that was the price when I originally configured the machine, but by the time you read this, the hard drive could be $500, and we'll be living in a dystopian world where people are scrounging e-waste dumps looking for 32MB USB keys discarded in 2003. I'll pull up in my busted‑up $830 PC and some dirty, toothless PC mechanic will marvel at the "last of the 500GB Interceptors! A piece of history!"
Assembling the Hardware1 Install the BrainsTo keep things easy, I installed the Phenom II X4 970 with the board out of the case. First, drain any built-up static electricity by touching a large metal object. Unlock the AM3+ socket by lifting up the arm. Match the gold triangle in the CPU's corner with the white corner marker on the motherboard.
Gently lower the chip into the socket until it rests flush with the socket. Now lock the arm in place, and you've just installed your CPU.
2 Install the Cooler and RAMI went with the amazingly cheap ($20!) Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. It offers far more performance than the stock fan. To install it, first remove the stock mounting bracket from the motherboard by using a Phillips‑head screwdriver to remove both of the plastic brackets on top.
The metallic backplate on the back should now pop off. Reassemble the bracket and place this in your motherboard box in case you need it in the future. Now place a small dab of thermal paste on the CPU heat spreader. You can use a plastic bag as a makeshift glove to spread the paste on the heat spreader's surface. The Hyper 212 Plus comes with a backplate, which you will have to hold in place while you install the bracket. With the bracket in place, install four of the nut‑and‑screw assemblies to hold the bracket in place. Now use the included tool to lightly torque the screws in place.
Don't over tighten, as it could chew into the motherboard. Remove the fan from the cooler, and spread the X-shaped bracket through the base of the cooler. Now, using a screwdriver, attach the x-bracket to the four exposed nuts with the four spring screws.
Once the cooler is firmly attached, snap the fan back in place and hook up the fan to a fan header. For my configuration, I set the fan to blow air through the cooler where it would be exhausted through the case's rear fan. While the board is out, you might as well install the RAM by matching up the notches in the RAM with the notches in the slots. On this board, I installed the pair of 2GB modules in the two blue slots.
If you're not using this board, you should consult your manual to see how to install the RAM for dual-channel mode.
3 Prep the CaseInstall the optical drive in the bay of your choice, which will be the top bay for most people, since the system will likely sit on the floor. At this point, you should also install the hard drive in one of the bays that will clear the GPU, as the hard drive will jut out quite a bit in this BitFenix case. You should now install the PSU, as well. I chose to face the fan intake toward the bottom of the case—that way, air is sucked in through the bottom and vented out the rear.
4 Mount the MotherboardThe BitFenix case is a bit unusual in that it features an inverted design that flips the guts of the case. Remember to knock out the rear metallic I/O panel that's in the case before you mount your board. When you mount your board, make sure you use as many screws as you have mounts in the case. If you have nine mounting points, you should use nine screws or you will need to remove the board and start all over again. You should know that the BitFenix case is a bit shallow, and the Hyper 212 Plus is a little tight in the case. The side panel will fit, but it will be right up against the cooler.
5 Mount the GPUThe Gigabyte version of the Radeon HD 6950 features three fans to keep it cool—and in my case, they're flipped over so the warm air is directly vented out the top. Remember, since the case is inverted, you'll be installing it in the x16 PCIe slot that is the lowest in the board.
6 Connect the Umbilical CablesConnect the main power connector, the ATX12V, and pipe power to the GPU, HDD, and ODD. You should also take the time to connect the power switch, LED, and reset switch, and plug in the USB and front audio panel headphone jack.
Budget Burner or Just Burnt?Our budget burner doesn't set any benchmark records. Nor would we expect it to at a mere $830. Even up against our old zero-point system with its 2.6GHz Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.5GHz, the $830 rig didn't win any battles (mind you, our zero-point cost north of $2,500 when originally constructed).
Where the $830's talents come into play is against far more modest machines. For example, when put up against the $667 rig we built in August 2011, the extra cash helps out. That 3.1GHz Core i3-2100 box takes a back seat in our multithreaded tests, and the Radeon HD 6950 eats the $667 Radeon HD 6790's lunch, as well as dinner. In the interest of full disclosure, I did decide to give the $830 a little extra edge by overclocking the Phenom II X4 970 to 4.1GHz. Since I paid $20 for the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus, I figured I'd make it work for a living. But what about last month's $1,500 AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer box? The $830 box's four cores couldn't hang with the Bulldozer's eight cores, but in gaming benchmarks, the Radeon HD 6950 isn't that much slower than the Radeon HD 6970 in the pricier box. In STALKER, I'm only giving up 7 percent, and Far Cry 2 saw a mere 5 percent delta between the two rigs. That ain't bad when you're looking at $830 vs. $1,500. To be fair, that Bulldozer rig also didn't have Microsoft's new hotfix that specifically addresses Windows 7's scheduler issues with the Bulldozer chip, so there's a good chance that last month's machine is even faster today.
Still, I'm not unhappy with the performance of this machine, especially the frame rates I'm seeing. Not everything is perfect, though. It's hard to believe that I had to fall back to a 500GB HDD to make budget, and it would have been nice to run 8GB of RAM instead of the 4GB of DDR3/1333. I also must note that there have been negative comments regarding the reliability of budget Rosewill PSUs, but I'll take the risk because they're low-cost and, more importantly, have a U.S.-based website where you can actually use the two-year warranty. You can't say that for a lot of budget PSUs, where the warranty is in name only. |
| New MSI Afterburner Beta Introduces Kepler Support For Intrepid Overclockers Posted: 21 Mar 2012 11:12 AM PDT
Here's a list of changes in the MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 Beta 15, according to its download page on Guru3D:
That's well and good, but in a forum thread created to support the Beta, developer Alexey Nicolaychuk said that this will likely be the last public Beta for any Afterburner offerings. Future updates will probably be official releases only, with all beta testing taking place in private. |
| Want To Vibrate When Grandma Calls? Nokia Applies For Haptic Tattoo Patent Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:48 AM PDT
UnwiredView's Vlad Bobleanta noticed the application almost a week ago, but we noticed it when the article hit the front page of Slashdot earlier this morning. The theoretical process involves being tattooed with ferromagnetic inks that have been superheated in order to become demagnetized. (Another, less cool/frightening version involves an adhesive stuck to your skin.) The inks then listen for specific magnetic fields emitted from your electronic device -- the patent lists mobile phones as a possible transmitter, but also a ton more, including laptops and game consoles -- and vibrates when it receives the signal. Nokia says it could be used to notify users not only about incoming calls and notifications, but also when, say, you launch an application or get too close to the transmitting device. The patent also says that different vibrations can be associated with different types of content, so you could theoretically shake one way when your significant other calls, another way when your grandma calls, and a third way when you receive a Facebook notification. Nokia certainly is onto something interesting, but is it something you're interested in? Would you want to live in a world where your skin vibrates with every call and homeless people have been transformed into wandering 4G hotspots? No matter what your answer, we suggest browsing through the patent for an interesting read -- assuming you don't mind technicalese legal speak, that is. |
| Antec Rolls Out High Current Pro 1000 Platinum Power Supply Posted: 21 Mar 2012 10:14 AM PDT
In addition to that high-level power efficiency, the press release Antec shipped around says the High Current Pro 1000 Platinum sports "four +12V rails (that) deliver 40A of output each with low ripple and noise levels and an output ratio of up to 100 percent." The PSU's modular cabling consists of darkened wires designed to blend into the case and not be seen when they're installed properly. (Antec somewhat amusingly calls 'em "Stealth Wires.") There's a 135mm fan on board, and the unit's 8-pin connectors plug into dual 16-pin sockets. Antec says the 16-pin socket design leaves the door open for even bigger connectors somewhere down the line. The PSU also includes Over Current Protection (OCP), Over Voltage Protection (OVP), Under Voltage Protection (UVP), Short Circuit Protection (SCP), Over Power Protection (OPP), Over Temperature Protection (OTP), Surge & Inrush Protecion (SIP), No Load Operation (NLO) and Brown-Out Protection (BOP), according to its listing at Newegg. Intrigued? The High Current Pro 1000 Platinum is on sale now for $270. |
| Does Apple's New iPad Really Have a Heat Issue? Posted: 21 Mar 2012 07:19 AM PDT
Consumer Reports kicked things off by claiming it recorded temperatures as high as 116 degrees Fahrenheit on the front and rear of the new iPad while playing Infinity Blade II for 45 minutes. Ambient room temperature was a controlled 72 degrees, well below Apple's upper threshold recommendation of 95 degrees. That's fairly hot, but it's not going to set your hand or lap on fire, and it's cooler than most laptops. It's also on the extreme high-end of what other outlets are reporting. CNET, for example, noted a high of 94 degrees on the opposite speaker corner after running Infinity Blade II at full brightness, which is still 10 degrees hotter than what it measured the iPad 2, but 22 degrees less than what Consumer Reports noted. The fellas over at Tested saw even lower temperatures. After running Infinity Blade II for 15 minutes, the new iPad ramped up to 82 degrees, slighter hotter than the iPad 2 at 78 degrees, and 34 degrees less than what Consumer Reports recorded, albeit the game ran for only a third of the time. For what it's worth, Apple is denying the iPad has an overheating issue, telling All Things D that "The new iPad delivers a stunning Retina display, A5X chip, support for 4G LTE plus 10 hours of battery life, all while operating well within our thermal specifications. If customers have any concerns they should contact AppleCare." Or maybe you're just holding it wrong. Alternately, you could just do what we did - problem solved! |
| HP Merges Printer and PC Businesses as Part of Major Restructuring Effort Posted: 21 Mar 2012 06:36 AM PDT
HP President and CEO Meg Whitman had some nice things to say about Joshi on his way out, words that were well deserved after he helped grow IPG's revenue from $19 billion to $26 billion during his time as VP, as well as doubling operating profit to around $4 billion. She also discussed the decision to merge the company's lucrative printer and ink business with its market leading (but much less profitable) PC division. "This combination will bring together two businesses where HP has established global leadership," said Whitman. "By providing the best in customer-focused innovation and operational efficiency, we believe we will create a winning scenario for customers, partners and shareholders." HP nearly severed its PC business under the previous leadership of Leo Apotheker, a software guy who was run out of town, and that option was still on the table when Whitman took over. She wasted little time in deciding it was in HP's best interest to maintain its market leading PC business, and the company believes this merging of the titans will speed up decision making, increase productivity, improve efficiency, and ultimately provide a simplified customer experience. Image Credit: Flickr (donjd2) |
| Hey Look, Razer's Blade Notebook is Back in Stock Posted: 21 Mar 2012 06:19 AM PDT
Razer's Blade, if you recall, is a 17.3-inch gaming laptop with a full aluminum chassis. It has a Core i7 2640M processor (2.8GHz, 4MB cache), 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory, Nvidia GeForce GT 555M graphics, 256GB SATA III solid state drive, integrated digital 7.1 surround sound, a single USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, GbE LAN, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 2MP webcam, and Windows Home Premium 64 bit. The main feature, however, is the Switchblade user interface with 10 dynamic adaptive tactile keys for easy access to in-game commands. An LCD screen sits beneath those keys and can either be used as a trackpad, or to display in-game information when using a USB mouse. As an apology of sorts for shipping delays that plagued the Blade's initial release, Razer is including an Orochi Blade Edition gaming mouse with every Blade purchase, for a limited time. Image Credit: Razer |
| Want a Job? Fork Over Your Facebook Password, Employer Says Posted: 21 Mar 2012 05:56 AM PDT
Maybe you take yourself out of the running and walk out of there just as quickly as you arrived, which is what Justin Bassett, a statistician living in New York, did during a job interview, according to an AP report. Bassett willingly answered questions about his character and other standard fare queries, but as AP tells it, the interviewer tried to look up his Facebook profile only to find that it was set to private, so she asked him for his login credentials. Bassett isn't the only one to run into this, AP says, and some people are in no position to decline. They can, of course, but when you're hard up for a job and there's potential work sitting right in front of you, it's difficult to get up and walk away. For the time being, this practice appears to be legal. Proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland want to make it illegal for companies to ask for login credentials to social networking sites, AP says. And what does Facebook think? The world's most popular playground tells AP that it forbids "anyone from soliciting the login information or accessing an account belonging to someone else." Do you think employers should be allowed to ask for login credentials? What about law enforcement agencies, where the practice is supposedly more prevalent? |
You can't please everyone. It's an adage that's been true for as long as there's been more than one human being on earth, but BioWare's doing its damndest to prove it wrong. Via a winding apology letter, the developer's promised that its game about a thwarting Reaperpocalypse that'll leave less than one human being on earth is in for some major updates. These "content initiatives" will "provide clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey." So basically, the relentlessly demanding fans – some of whom even 
If those spiffy new Kepler-based GTX 680 graphics cards do in fact end up hitting the streets tomorrow, as has been widely rumored, enterprising overclockers will no doubt be looking to tweak their new hardware to even higher levels of performance. Boosting core frequencies should be a cinch for owners of MSI-brand GTX 680s; the company joined forces with Guru3D to release a new Beta version of its Afterburner overclocking utility, complete with support for Kepler GPUs.
If you own a cellphone, there's a good chance you've encountered phantom vibrations; you know, when you could've sworn you felt your phone vibrating in your pocket when it really wasn't. Nokia's poised to either eliminate phantom vibrations completely or take them to new (and possibly somewhat creepy) heights with 
Kick ass gaming rigs need kick ass power supplies; we're guessing that a stock PSU just won't cut it when faced with a new GTX 680. Antec's catering to power users with its new High Current Pro 1000 Platinum PSU, the company's first kilowatt power supply that's efficient enough to rock an 80 Plus Platinum certification.
Apple CEO Tim Cook talked a lot about the post-PC era when introducing the new iPad tablet, but if reports are true that the device tops 100F in some situations, and you're male, you may want to steer clear of resting it on your lap, lest you fry your little swimmers and we start talking about the post-human race era. Or not. Conflicting reports abound on just how hot the new iPad gets.
Hewlett-Packard today announced that it's shaking things up in a big way. As part of what the company calls an "organizational realignment," HP has decided to combine its Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) and its Personal Systems Group, or printer and PC businesses, into a single entity. At the same time, executive vice president of IPG, Vyomesh Joshi, is calling it quits after serving 31 years with the company.
The Razer Blade gaming laptop is back in stock and available to purchase, though there's no guarantee it will stay that way. More often than a not, a visit to the Blade's product page showed that it was out of stock, somewhat surprising when you consider the item's $2,800 price tag. But that's how it's been up to this point, so if you've been itching to cut loose with the Blade, now is your chance to get it.
We get it, nearly everyone's on Facebook these days, some of whom reveal a little too much about themselves. You should be careful what you post. Why? Because employers check Facebook profiles of prospective job hires; that's old news. Alternately, go nuts with what you post and be selective in the people you allow to view your profile. But what happens when an employer asks for your username and password during a job interview?| You are subscribed to email updates from To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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