General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Giveaway: Arena of Heroes Gold Founders Pack

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 05:46 PM PDT

Worth $50, the Gold Founders Pack includes access to the turn-based MOBA's closed beta and more

A turn-based  multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game is an oxymoron, right? Guess what? Such a game does exist now in the form of Arena of Heroes (PC, Mac and iOS), which developer Sneaky Games recently managed to sneak into the market. An otherwise free-to-play title, the innovative title is currently in closed beta and open only to those who purchase one of the three available Founders Packages that cost between $20 and $120.

Thankfully, Maximum PC has twelve Gold Founder Packs and every intention of giving them away right here, right now on a first-come, first-serve basis. So, without further ado, here's the first activation code: 43HD2ZFSAMTK3.  Hit the jump for the remaining eleven codes.

The Gold Founder Pack, which costs $50, not only includes beta access (PC or Mac only), but also 500 halycite gems, gold founder in-game badge, six heroes and four skins. Now that we have apprised you of the gold pack's monetary value and contents, here are the rest of the codes:

  • NMXU8BQ4N82K3
  • DM36QLGBWEHK3
  • P4CGMDQ75KYK3
  • UCMBGEA34SCK4
  • 3368YFDA3VMK4
  • WMWKZGAPY56M4
  • B4NDTJWXHN8M4
  • JC9U8KMN2F9M4
  • S3Z6QP8JTPZM4
  • XMBGCQMVRVLM4
  • 54DVEQSW75EM4

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Nvidia GeForce 320.00 Beta Drivers Increases Performance Up to 20 Percent

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 12:17 PM PDT

Nvidia GeForce TitanFree performance gain, if you don't mind beta software.

If you like to live on the edge by installing pre-release software, risks be damned, and own an Nvidia-based graphics card, today's your lucky today. Nvidia just released new 320.00 beta drivers for GeForce graphics cards, and if you install them, the GPU maker says you can enjoy performance gains up to 20 percent. Most of the gains won't be quite as high, though several titles receive a shot in the arm from the new drivers.

The examples Nvidia shared all pertain to GeForce GTX 660 graphics cards and include the following gains for single card setups:

  • Up to 20 percent in Dirt: Showdown
  • Up to 18 percent in Tomb Raider
  • Up to 8 percent in StarCraft II
  • Up to 6 percent in Sniper Elite V2
  • Up to 6 percent in Metro 2033
  • Up to 6 percent in Far Cry 3
  • Up to 6 percent in Deus Ex: Human Revolution
  • Up to 5 percent in F1 2012

Nvidia also added several new SLI profiles, including ones for Alien Fear, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Dead Island: Riptide, Dragon Sword, and a bunch more.

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Cooler Master's V Series PSUs Ready for Upcoming 80 Plus Titanium Spec

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 11:12 AM PDT

Cooler Master V1000Are these the best PC power supplies in the world?

We're taught from a young age that it's good to have goals, and Cooler Master's are anything but modest. The case and cooling company wants to be known as the leading power supply brand in all the world, and the way it plans to achieve that lofty goal is by introducing its new V Series PSUs. These new power supplies eschew a multiple rail design in favor a single +12V rail, but what's most impressive is the rated efficiency.

Not satisfied with current 80 Plus standards, Cooler Master claims its V Series is prepped and primed for an 80 Plus Titanium tag, as soon as it officially exists, that is.

"Efficiency is especially good at low system load, typical when browsing the web or watching videos. Since most PCs spend 90 percent of their uptime in this state, power savings here are much more relevant than 1 or 2 percent higher efficiency at full load," Cooler Master explains. "This is why the future Titanium spec will require 90 percent efficiency at 10 percent load, something the advanced design of the V series already reaches today."

Cooler Master says its V Series PSUs use the highest grade Japanese electrolyte and solid capacitors, high quality 42mm transformers, and a custom interface PCB that aligns all rails to reduce voltage plane cross-over and minimize crosstalk, EMI, and droop.

The PSUs are offered in 700W, 850W, and 1000W capacities, each with flat black-ribbon cables for easier cable management. And as far as existing standards go, each one is 80 Plus Gold certified to deliver up to 93 percent efficiency at 50 percent load.

No word yet no price or availability.

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Western Digital Lays Claim to Industry's First 5mm 2.5-inch Hard Drive

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 10:45 AM PDT

Western Digital Blue Ultra Slim 5mm HDDTiny drives for ultraportables.

Western Digital, a major player in the storage space, today announced it's begun shipping what it claims are the world's first ultra-slim 2.5-inch, 5mm hard drives and solid state hybrid drives (SSHDs) designed for space constrained devices, such as Ultrabooks and ultra-thin laptops. The new drives are nearly half the size of traditional mobile drives and around 35 percent thinner than the most popular smartphones, WD claims.

"With the launch of our new WD Blue 5mm ultra slim hard drives and our WD Black SSHD products, currently shipping to OEMs, WD is delivering to our customers a variety of solutions that maximize storage capacity and volumetric efficiency, as well as performance and system responsiveness, for consumers," said Matt Rutledge, vice president of WD's client computing business unit. "Our engineering team took a clean-sheet approach with 5mm to deliver an ultra-thin hard drive that enables a world of possibilities and applications for mobile computing and beyond."

WD's Blue 5mm ultra slim hard drives are currently available in 500GB ($90 MSRP) capacities. They offer up to a 36 percent reduction in weight compared to regular 9.5mm mobile drives and are apparently adept at handling shock due to WD's effort to maximize the mechanical sway space.

The upshot of what WD's done here is to provide a means for OEM system builders to offer increasingly thin laptops without sacrificing storage space or cost.

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Newegg Daily Deals: AMD FX-6300 CPU, Corsair TX750 PSU, and More

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 08:01 AM PDT

Corsair TX750Newegg

Top Deal:

The power supply is probably the most under appreciated component. it's not a glamorous piece of equipment, though a reliable PSU can mean the difference between a PC that boots properly and one that suffers instability. Today's top deal falls into the former category and is for a Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W PSU for $94 with free shipping (normally $140 - use coupon code EMCXSWL36 plus additional $20 mail-in-rebate). This thing packs plenty of wattage for a high-end setup and is 80 Plus Bronze certified to boot.

Other Deals:

AMD FX-6300 Vishera 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Six-Core Desktop Processor for $130 with free shipping (normally $140 - use coupon code: EMCXSWM25)

ASRock 990FX Extreme9 AM3+ AMD SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS for $155 with free shipping (normally $190)

MSI N660TI PE 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card for $290 with free shipping (normally $310; Free Gift: NVIDIA Coupon Metro: Last Light Game)

Rosewill Blackhawk Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case for $70 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code: EMCXSWM45)

CPUBoss Creators Launch SSDBoss for Storage Shoppers

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 07:45 AM PDT

SSDBossA quick and easy way to compare solid state drives.

The same people who brought you CPUBoss and GPUBoss have now launched a similar comparison website for solid state drives. SSDBoss.com is nearly identical in form and function to the other two sites, offering storage shoppers an easy way to compare the performance and value of different SSDs. You can also look up full spec comparisons of various drives, all under the hood of a single site.

"We're confident that we've created a better way to compare SSDs by enabling people to easily sort through a massive amount of product specs and benchmarks, as well as see what people are saying in reviews," CPUBoss product manager Jude Fiorillo told Maximum PC in an email. "Our goal is to make it easier for people to compare SSDs head to head and see the pros and cons of each solid state drive, as well as find the best SSD by criteria (e.g. capacity per dollar or fastest read times)."

Fiorillo tells us he's seeing over a million unique visitors to his CPUBoss and GPUBoss websites since launching over the last three months. Expanding the same functionality over to SSDs was the next logical step.

Give the site a glance and let us know what you think.

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Nvidia Reportedly Prepping GTX Titan Ultra and Titan LE SKUs

Posted: 23 Apr 2013 12:38 AM PDT

Nvidia GTX Titan

Not one, but two new Titans said to be in the works

With AMD's answer to the the $1,000 Nvidia GTX Titan expected to hit the market later this week, you need something special to prevent AMD's upcoming dual-chip beast, the Radeon HD 7990 "Malta", from hogging each and every ray of the spotlight that the tech media has reserved for graphics cards. The two-month-old GTX Titan has managed to do just that thanks to rumors that it is about to be turned into a mini graphics card brand.

Talk of a budget version of the two-month-old GPU, dubbed the GTX Titan LE, is nothing new, but German site 3DCenter.org is now reporting that a third, more powerful SKU, likely to be called either Titan Ultra or Titan II, is also on the cards and is expected to debut during the fourth quarter of 2013.

This SKU will reportedly utilize all of the GK110's 15 SMX clusters, giving it an edge over the regular Titan which has one cluster disabled with a total of 2,688 CUDA cores and 240 TMUs. As as result, the Titan Ultra will boast the full quota of 2880 shader cores and 256 texture units. Further, as opposed to the original's 837 MHz clock speed and 206-Watt power appetite, the Ultra will have a 950 MHz clock speed and a 225W TDP. 

As for the Titan LE,  it will reportedly have 2496 CUDA cores, 208 TMUs, 40 ROPs, 320-bit DDR memory interface, 5 GB of GDDR5 and a 180-190W TDP. As per the German site, the Titan LE is likely to come out sometime during "summer 2013."

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