MSI P55-GD65 Review
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NVIDIA: GT300 Will Launch in 2009; Beats 5870
NVIDIA revealed the specifications of its new Fermi architecture a few days ago leaving some people wanting more information, such as when the first Fermi cards will be available and how they stack up with ATI's latest offerings. Today we get partial answers to both of those questions.
An unnamed senior employee at NVIDIA has confirmed that the long-awaited GT300 will ship by the end of this year, according to Fudzilla. This means we have a definite time-limit on when us, the consumer should be able to get our hands on NVIDIA's next-gen cards although there is no information available on an exact launch date.
It has also been confirmed that Drew Henry, the General Manager of the GeForce and Ion product lines has said that the Fermi range will be faster than any video card available including the ATI Radeon 5870. This is not surprising based on the Fermi's specifiations on paper. Aditionally, NVIDIA has stated that it has a Fermi GX2 variant in the works and that the single and dual card TDP should be similar to that of the single-core GTX285 and dual-core GTX295 respectively.
It seems that NVIDIA has the upper hand over its red competitors in light of these new scraps of information and hopefully the red faction is concocting a counter-attack in terms of performance.
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MSI Launches "Afterburner" Graphics Card Tweaking Utility
MSI has announced the launch of its new "Afterburner" graphics card tweaking utility. Afterburner was co-developed by MSI and Rivatuner to provide an interface for overclocking, tweaking and monitoring of graphics cards. Some features of the Afterburner software include up to an 85% overclocking capability (MSI managed an 85% overclock with the MSI N275GTX), advanced fan speed control, over-voltage technology, real-time hardware monitoring and up to 5 overclocking profiles according to MSI. The Afterburner utility is compatible with both ATI and NVIDIA video cards and is available to download for free from the MSI Afterburner website. Our affiliate, Bjorn3D has evaluated the MSI Afterburner software for those who are thinking of trying out MSI's new utility as detailed in yesterday's Hardware Roundup. I think it's good to see a new overclocking utility with open support for both the red and green factions.
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More Lucid HYDRA Talk, Still no Performance Figures
If you pay attention to our daily hardware roundup (and I'm sure you do), then you have probably already read Legit Reviews look at Lucid's HYDRA 200 chip, as well as the discussions they had with AMD and NVIDIA about the technology. Looking at the demo systems Lucid had on display both at IDF and behind closed doors, it is clear that HYDRA works largely as claimed, at least from a basic functionality stand point. Using MSI Big Bang motherboards, it was shown running NVIDIA and AMD cards together without need for bridge connectors. You will need to run Windows 7 to use cards from the different GPU vendors together though, as it is the only OS that allows the necessary drivers to be installed alongside each other. Being able to select the card which outputs to the display from the desktop is handily straight forward however.
When it comes to performance when compared with SLI or Crossfire, Lucid are still being very cagey, stating that they are unwilling to release numbers at this time. The furthest they were prepared to go was to say they expected "competitive performance". The reaction from AMD and NVIDIA is also somewhat predictable, defending their own technologies and generally towing the company line. They did however both say that if HYDRA delivers a substantial improvement for gamers then the industry as a whole would win (high performance and more straight forward multi-GPU gaming would likely lead to increased GPU sales). Take a look at the full article if you haven't already. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have to wait for motherboards featuring HYRDA to be released before we get some real world performance figures.
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Google Wave Invites Show Up On eBay
The ultra-exclusive Google Wave beta, only 100,000 invites were given out, is now underway. However, if you are an internet user who may have wanted to use it, odds are that you didn't receive an invite. Just as all other new technology releases, Google Wave invites started to appear on eBay. Some eBay users aren't quite as honest as others, as one tried to sell a phantom Wave invite. The highest bid before being taken down was reportedly $27,000. As with other new Google products, I'll be more than happy to wait until it is available for free.
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Transformers 3 Officially Announced
Transformers 3 was officially announced on the blog of Micheal Bay, director of the first 2 movies. Bay was unsure if he was going to sign on for the third installment in the series as he has other projects he would also like to work on, hopefully Bad Boys 3 is one of them. The movie is scheduled for release on July 1, 2011, meaning moviegoers will need to wait nearly 2 years to get more giant robot action. Bay said that he was meeting with Industrial Light and Magic today, and that he was also meeting with lead writer Ehren Kruger. Bay has also stated that there will be a “great story,” so this movie is definitely something to look forward too.
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ASUS Announces First 'Marine Cool' Motherboard
Back in March, ASUS showed a new high-performance motherboard concept it had been working on called 'Marine Cool'. That concept utilised things like a ceramic cooling backplate that covered the rear of the board and opted for SO-DIMM slots rather than the more traditional DIMM slots usually found on desktop boards. With the recently announced Sabertooth 55i, ASUS brings some of the ideas from that concept, but thankfully ditches the SO-DIMM slots for four DDR3 DIMM slots instead. ASUS does use some of the ceramic technology in the Sabertooth 55i's heatsinks, which it claims enables heat to be dissipated faster. It also features a frame that allows a 40mm or 50mm fan to be mounted for memory cooling and "military grade" capacitors and VRM MOFSETs, which it claims should provide more resilience to heat. There are no details on pricing or a release date, but you can check the full specs in the official announcement.
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British High Court Serves Injunction via Twitter
Twitter already provides support to individuals or organisations experiencing problems with impersonation accounts on the service (they break Twitter's ToS agreement). However if you wish to take out a legal writ over the issue but don't know the true identity of the account holder, what do you do? Right-wing blogger Donal Blaney found himself in this position, and through his solicitors firm Griffin Law sought an injunction against Twitter user @blaneysblarney. The UK High Court then decided that the best course of action was to issue the writ to the anonymous Tweeter via the service itself, with UK law allowing injunctions to be served through electronic means should more traditional methods be unavailable. Andre Walker at Griffin Law said "Whoever they are, they will be told to stop posting, to remove previous posts and to identify themselves to the High Court via a web link form." The decision sets a precedent that could give others pursuing litigation a path of action to follow.
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ICANN Begins New Era of Independence
The governing body that oversses the domain name system (DNS) is embarking on a new chapter in its life as it moves out from under direct controll of the U.S. Department of Commerce for the first time in eleven years.
In an agreement dated yesterday, the DOC gave up some of its control over Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that paves the way for more international participation in the decisions made that affect how the Internet is run. In an agreement dating from 2006 that expireed yesterday, the U.S. becomes a member of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and gives up primary control over ICANN.
That should ease some of the criticism directed toward ICANN and the U.S. claiming the U.S. had a stranghold on the Internet. As a member of the GAC, the U.S. joins over 100 other countries at the table with ICANN no longer reporting to the U.S. government. As the Internet has become more prevalent world wide over the past decade, U.S. control had become a sore point for many, with some countries such as China threatening to build their own version of the Net if some accomodation on the matter could not be reached.
"This reflects the globalization of the Internet," said Rod Beckstrom, chief executive of the body, called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann. "By America relaxing some control and inviting other countries to have an active hand, that increases the possibility that the global Internet will remain unified," Mr. Beckstrom said in an interview.;
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Apple to compete with Google by means of a Map Service?
There has been a bit of confusion about why Apple would reject Google Latitude as an App, but rather restrict it to a Web-App. Apple's intentions are becoming clearer though, as news resurfaced that Apple has bought PlaceBase, a map service that is a direct competitor to Google Maps. Apple has not been very open about this, but there are a few clues. In July, Fred Lalonde, owner of Openspaces.org, a company that used PlaceBase's software, tweeted a message reading "Apple bought PlaceBase - all hush hush. Pushpin site taken offline. Hyperlocal iPhone?". The next clue came from Jaron Waldman, the CEO and founder of PlaceBase, when he listed PlaceBase as his "past experience" on his LinkedIn page. As his current occupation, he is a member of Apple's "GEO Team". Apple's move to compete with Google in more areas (Map Services and Operating Systems for example) also gives another reason for the resignation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple's board of directors in August (OCC News).
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