Elite Bastards competition: Win a copy of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 for the PC
Following the launch of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 on the PC last week, we've managed to snag a potential early Christmas present for you in the form of a retail boxed copy of this game to give away to one of our lucky UK readers!
Entering our competition is simple - Just send an e-mail to competition@elitebastards.com with the subject line of DIRT 2, and leave us your name and a contact e-mail address within the body of the e-mail's text.آ The competition closes at 9AM UK time on Monday, December 14th, and we'll be announcing and contacting the winners shortly after.
Please note that this competition is unfortunately open to UK residents only, so if you're not from the UK then please, please don't enter!آ The winner of this competition will be shipped a retail boxed copy of DiRT 2 on the PC, so you'll also need to be prepared to provide your postal address if you're our lucky winner.آ You might also want to note the games minimum specifications to ensure your system is up to scratch:
OS: Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
Processor: Intel Pentium D 3.0Ghz, AMD Athlon 64 X2
RAM: 1GB (2GB for Windows Vista)
HDD Space: 10GB
Video Card: ATI Radeon X1500, NVIDIA GeForce 6800
If you want to know more about Colin McRae: DiRT 2, then be sure to check out the official web site, or alternately read our own review of the game.آ That aside, time waits for no man, so if you live in the UK send us an e-mail, and good luck!!
Read More ...
A brief look at USB 3.0 performance
With USB 3.0 supporting motherboards starting to hit the market, with more USB 3.0 devices doubtless to follow in 2010, The Tech Report have taken a quick look at just what this new version of the USB specification can offer in performance terms.
In the real world, you're lucky to push more than about 37MB/s through a USB 2.0 port. To give you an idea of just how slow that is, the latest crop of 500GB, 5,400-RPM notebook drives (which just happen to be popping up in all sorts of USB-attached external enclosures), can sustain transfer rates in the 67MB/s range. The 3.5" desktop drives that typically populate bulkier USB storage devices are even faster still. Heck, just about every hard drive we've ever reviewed is capable of saturating a second-gen USB link.
Making the most of the copious bandwidth available in USB 3.0 is going to be a little more challenging, though. The gen-three USB spec boasts a peak data rate of 5Gbps—roundabout 600MB/s, without taking overhead into account. Interestingly, this latest leap in USB bandwidth is proportionally smaller than the previous one. The original USB spec topped out at 12Mbps, making the jump to 480Mbps for USB 2.0 a forty-fold increase in available bandwidth. USB 3.0 only amounts to about a 10X increase over the prior standard.
Making the most of the copious bandwidth available in USB 3.0 is going to be a little more challenging, though. The gen-three USB spec boasts a peak data rate of 5Gbps—roundabout 600MB/s, without taking overhead into account. Interestingly, this latest leap in USB bandwidth is proportionally smaller than the previous one. The original USB spec topped out at 12Mbps, making the jump to 480Mbps for USB 2.0 a forty-fold increase in available bandwidth. USB 3.0 only amounts to about a 10X increase over the prior standard.
You can read their findings right here.
Read More ...
No comments:
Post a Comment