IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (Overclockers Club) 02/04/2010

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NVIDIA Goes Green

The green camp is about to get even greener. Sure to please practically everyone, NVIDIA has announced a new line of energy efficient cards, dubbed GreenForce. NVIDIA says that GreenForce cards will utilize 25-50% less power than its GeForce counterparts. NVIDIA plans on starting with the 400 series and higher-end 200 series cards, but will introduce more GreenForce cards if demand warrants it. One can also speculate that there will be GreenForce versions of the 500 series as well, when those are released later this year.

Unlike in the past when NVIDIA has tried to confuse everyone with its naming scheme, the company is taking a user-friendly approach to GreenForce. The GreenForce version of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 will be the NVIDIA GreenForce GTX 480.

Imagine a GTX 480 that uses 25-50% less power! I, for one, cannot wait to see these new cards!

Happy April Fool's Day from OCC

Today is April 1st, also known as April Fool's Day, a day celebrated around the world by preying on the more gullible amongst us with jokes and tricks designed sucker us into to believing something that just isn't true. The tradition dates back as far as 1392 where you can find references to it in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. While the Internet has not been around quite that long, there is a rich tradition of pranks and stories being foisted off as true and many an unwary reader has been taken in. So today, while perusing the interwebz, be sure to judge what you read with a wary eye and take a moment to post your best April Fool's stories in the OCC forums.

Danger Den Prepares GTX 480 Water Blocks

Danger Den is busy preparing its upcoming range of water blocks for the GTX 480. The new water blocks will cover all the vital cooling areas, such as the GPU, memory chips and the VRMs for maximum overclocking potential. The GTX 480 water block will be available in three variants: all-copper, a nickel top and copper base and all-nickel. All models will include a mirror-finish, and are expected to retail between $140 and $150. The all-copper version will be available by the end of this week, which means that it will be available well ahead of the GTX 480 release. The remaining models will be available at a later date.

NVIDIA Announces GTX 580

Less than a week after the launch of the GTX 480, NVIDIA has announced that the next series of graphics cards based on the Fermi architecture is already in the works - the 500 Series. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 will be the first to launch and will feature 580 CUDA cores to go along with its "580" moniker and have a whopping 2560MB of 384-bit GDDR5 memory. The rest of the specifications are unknown at this time, but NVIDIA is promising the fastest single-GPU card on the market.

"Although we're very proud of the GTX 480," NVIDIA President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said, "the 400 series is merely a tease for what Fermi can really accomplish. When we release the 500 series later this year, I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised."

After the rather lukewarm reception of the GTX 480, this is certainly welcome news to fans of NVIDIA. Even more welcoming is that the GTX 580 is expected to launch before the end of the year. In fact, Huang said that he's hopeful it'll be on the market by this summer. But what about a price? A separate NVIDIA source who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons let us in on a little secret - the GTX 580 will launch with the GTX 480's current price. The best part of that tidbit may be the obvious implication - a price drop on the 400 series! So if you're in the market for a new video card, it may be wise to wait until the summer...if you can hold off that long.

Happy AF Day :)

ATI Announces Quad-GPU HD 5999

You didn't actually think ATI would sit back and watch NVIDIA grab a chunk of the graphics market with its recent launch of the GeForce 400 series, did you? Just one week after NVIDIA's newest cards hit the market, ATI announced its new HD 5999, a quad-GPU single-card graphics card. You read that correctly - a single graphics card featuring four graphical processing units! As if that wasn't shocking enough, the most shocking piece of information may be its expected release date - next month! According to ATI, HD 5999s were shipped out to reviewers yesterday, and thus should be arriving at their doors as you read this.

ATI decided to keep mum about this new card and didn't even inform reviewers ahead of time. So hopefully when our beloved ccokeman receives an unexpected, nondescript box from AMD, he doesn't call the bomb squad over to investigate. Instead, he better tear that bad boy open and post a review, ASAP!

Happy AF Day :)

Epic Games to Debut Next Game on Late Night

For everyone eagerly awaiting the third Gears of War game, your wait may possibly be over. Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski is set to appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, April 8th, to discuss a new game. The producer of the Late Night show confirmed that Bleszinski is set to appear on the show but did not give any details as to what game will be discussed. The studio People Can Fly, which is owned by Epic, is set to make a game tentatively called Bulletstorm, set for a 2011 launch, which could be what he will discuss. Or Bleszinski is going to talk about Gears of War 3 which has been rumored to be launching in April 2011. It is known that Epic Games will not release anything this year so whichever game Bleszinski is going to debut next week, everyone will have to wait just a little bit longer to get it.

Noctua Offering Free Upgrade Kit for NH-U12P SE2 / NH-U9B SE2 Users With AMD Boards

Noctua has long been a company to stand behind its products and provide outstanding customer service to its users. Way back in 2007 Noctua wanted to make sure AMD users were able to use its NH-U12P cooler by offering a free mounting kit. Flash forward a couple of years and the venerable NH-U12P has been upgraded to the NH-U12P SE2 and has been joined by the NH-U9B SE2. Both units have received numerous awards from review sites and now Noctua once again is supporting its AMD users by offering the NM-A90 Upgrade Kit which makes it possible to install the heatsink turned by 90° on AMD motherboards.

"We've received excellent customer feedback on our new SE2 coolers", says Mag. Roland Mossig, Noctua CEO, "but some AMD users expressed the wish to have the possibility to change the alignment of the coolers on AMD motherboards. We've always been convinced that premium quality products and premium quality service should go hand in hand, so we're responding to this demand by offering the new NM-A90 kit as a free upgrade."

Users can check out the upgrade on the Noctua site. It's really heartening to see a company offering a good product and backing it up with outstanding customer service like this.

CoolIT to Expand Availability of ECO A.L.C. Cooler

CoolIT Systems today announced the immediate availability of its ECO A.L.C. cooling system through major online sellers including Tiger Direct, CompUSA.com, CircuitCity.com, FrozenCPU, Amazon, Performance-PCs, NCIX, Fry’s Electronics retail locations and online at Frys.com. The ECO A.L.C. is an ultra low profile thermal solution positioned at an economical price point. The cooler is compatible with the majority of PC cases that can fit an 120mm exhaust fan and offers a closed-loop, maintenance-free cooling solution. The unit is available now at a suggested price of $74.99.

Microsoft Confirms 64GB Zune HD

Earlier this week, we published an article on the spotted 64GB Zune HD. Microsoft has now informed SlashGear.com that they indeed will be releasing a 64GB model of the Zune on April 12 2010. The device will feature a OLED screen and 64GB of storage capacity. With this release Microsoft will lower the price of both the 16GB and 32GB models down to $169.99 and $269.99 respectively. The device will come in Platinum, Black, Blue, Red, Green, Purple, and Magenta, and have the same specifications of the original models. The release price has been set at $349.99. Microsoft promises to release further information later this week.

New ASUS Eee PC Sports Carbon Fiber

If you are not a fan of all the glossy case lids netbooks have, ASUS may have something for you. ASUS has just announced its newest netbook, the Eee PC 1001PX, will have a carbon fiber-like lid. The Eee PC 1001PX will have the same specifications as the 1001P - Intel Atom N450, 1GB RAM, and a 160GB hard drive - just in place of the glossy lid, you get a nice, carbon fiber look-alike. The pricing for the Eee PC 1001PX will be fairly cheap with the Windows 7 Starter version priced at $299 and the Windows XP version at $279. ASUS also has plans to make a version of this netbook with built in 4G and will call it the Eee PC 1001PG, although in the U.S. it should also work just fine with 3G.

Availability for the Eee PC 1001PX will be starting in May.

Want an iPad? Enroll at Seton Hill University

Seton Hill University has announced a new policy that could entice new students, and will surely excite current students. Starting with the next academic year, Seton Hill will provide all full time students with a free iPad. This comes as part of the Griffin Technology Advantage Program, which intends to aid in the academic process. Students will be able to download their books to their iPad and will also be able to take notes. Seton Hill already has a program in place where all students receive a 13” MacBook when they first arrive at the school. Based on the intended use of the device by the school, the iPad actually makes sense to me in this case.

Gigabyte H55 Mini-ITX Board Packs a Lot into a Small Space

Both VR-Zone and SemiAccurate have had the opportunity to get a few pictures of the upcoming Gigabyte H55-USB3 Mini-ITX form factor board, which crams features you would expect from regular ATX boards into compact 17cm x 17cm square. The board sports an LGA1156 socket (a Foxconn part by the looks of it) and Intel's H55 chipset, which means you get the opportunity to make use of Core i3 or i5 processors with integrated GPU cores. There is also a x16 PCIe slot should you opt for an i7 or i5 chip without graphics capabilities or simply if you want extra clout for a compact LAN party build. Gigabyte has also thrown in USB 3.0 support via an NEC controller and its 3x USB power feature that will allow you to use more high drain devices be they USB 2.0 or 3.0. Other features include two full size DDR3 DIMM slots, dual BIOS, four SATA ports and the usual array of I/O connectors including VGA, DVI and HDMI video, eSATA, four USB 2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet.

The H55-USB3 is due for a late April release, with a supposedly sub $100 price point. If what SemiAccurate say about Intel encouraging its partners to produce more ITX boards is correct, we should see a number of similar products from other manufacturers popping up this year.

Activision Blizzard Divides Itself

Without telling the general public, Activision and Blizzard has split itself into four different levels, fired fifteen workers, and also shuffled its senior management team. One unit will be handling the entire Call of Duty series, one will be handling Tony Hawk games as well as Guitar Hero titles, another will handle licensed properties, and Blizzard Entertainment is the fourth unit, which will remain a separate division technically and continue to work on its separate titles. This reshuffling of management and different divisions signifies the first restructuring that Activision has done since it merged with Vivendi Games roughly two years ago, which created Activision Blizzard.

Friday, April 2, 2010

IT News HeadLines (Overclockers Club) 02/04/2010

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