GPU’s at CES

by Chris Willhite on January 11th, 2009 at 1:22 pm EDT - 315 views

There’s not much in way of inovation at CES for GPU’s this year, from Nvidia we have the GeForce 295, a dual-GPU version of the 280 which packs almost twice the performance. Also from AMD we have a new mobile 4000 series of graphics chips for laptops.

The Nvidia 295 graphics card goes back to one of Nvidia’s failed attempts at dual-GPU graphics cards, but this time they do it right. With the 9000 series of graphics cards Nvidia greatly improved upon their SLi technology, pushing GPU scaling to match ATi’s Crossfire. Now with the 295’s improved SLi scaling the dual-GPU card succeeds and is now the top-performing card on the market right now, only to be rivaled by two 280’s in SLi and in some occasions the 4870×2.

A list of Nvidia 295 reviews can be found on Bjorn3d under the “Video Cards” section.

AMD decided to stay where they are in the GPU market as of right now and focus more on improving laptops, perhaps to show up Intel’s newer mobile GPU’s. AMD now has the 4000 series of GPU’s for mobile laptops, greatly improving performance for the gamer-on-the-go.  If these GPU’s perform even 75% as good as the desktop versions it’s still a great improvement for laptops. Even better if the GPU’s manage to keep cool and not kill battery life.

More on AMD’s new mobile graphics chips at AMD.

Image courtesy of GPUComputing.eu

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USB 3.0 Expected in 2010

by Chris Willhite on January 11th, 2009 at 7:31 am EDT - 1,112 views

USB 3.0 was showcased at CES recently and it is looking good. The current benchmarks show it to be up to 10x faster than USB 2.0 which makes it able to transfer a 25Gb HD movie in 70 seconds as opposed to almost 14 minutes with USB 2.0.

The only drawback, however, is that the new revision won’t be seen on products until 2010. I personally think it’s worth the wait having up to 5Gbps transfers. It will also be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and even 1.1 devices (if anyone still has 1.1 devices) so you won’t have to pickup a new keyboard or mouse or whatever else you use with USB.

More on USB 3.0 here.

Image courtesy of blog.makezine.com

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List of Epic MMOs

by Andrew Kao on January 9th, 2009 at 11:13 pm EDT - 12,982 views

I first off would like to say this list is comprised of both free mmo games as well as store bought franchises. Most of the games I have tried myself as well as did some research on how others feel about these games, (many times I had to borrow the game or use a trial version). So I would like say that this list is composed of some MMO games, free and store bought, that you might to try playing these days. On behalf of myself and PCE I hope that this proves an asset. The following MMO’s and MMORPG’s are not in any particular order.

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GTA Hands DS First 18 Rating

by Taylor Flatt on January 9th, 2009 at 11:32 am EDT - 273 views

There is no surprise with the rating of GTA, however, what surprised me is that DS hasn’t had an 18 rating prior to this game. With GTA: Chinawars set to release this March, there is sure to be massive sales. With over 168 minutes of in-game cutscenes GTA has overdone themselves. Besides, who likes DS anyway? They should all be working on making the PC version actually playable rather than releasing it to a hand held console.

I for one, am hoping that Rockstar gets their stuff together and begins working harder on the PC title. Besides, they already messed up with the whole release time. They took so long for releasing the PC version that everyone has already bought it for PS3, played, beaten and thrown it away. Oh well, I suppose PC just isn’t as important to Rockstar as most other companies. By releasing so late, they have missed out on loads of money.

I am now wondering if other titles that usually carry such a rating will be be as bold as GTA was and try to go across all systems. Only time will tell I suppose.

Source: GTA HQ
Image courtesy of Codemonsters

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Phenom II, i7, and You

by Chris Willhite on January 9th, 2009 at 9:59 am EDT - 460 views

Well AMD’s Deneb processor now known as Phenom II has been released yesterday and I have taken the liberty of reading almost every review on Earth…At least the ones in English. So here is a basic overview of all of the reviews I have read and my thoughts on the new chip.

The new chips come in 2.8 and 3.0Ghz flavors with a 45nm manufacturing process and larger L3 cache, among other improvements. At prices ranging from $235 to $275 which, if cut even a bit, will likely put the pressure on Intel to lower their prices for the new i7.

Overview of the Reviews

There are tons of reviews on the web for the new chip (too many to list here) and all of them have been fairly consistent in their findings…

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Want Windows 7?

by Taylor Flatt on January 8th, 2009 at 11:04 pm EDT - 407 views

Windows 7 will be released tomorrow and only 2.5 million downloads available. I bet you are asking how can I get it and where. Well, it is quite simple really. 

1. You need Vista
2. Visit Windows 7 Website
3. Burn the file to a disk
4. Run

It is as simple as that. Now don’t worry, if you don’t have a dvd burner, you can get programs like Alcohol 120% or Daemon which runs a virtual drive (emulator) and you can just simply mount the .iso file rather than having to burn it to a disk and all that.

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Are You Worth a Whopper?

by Taylor Flatt on January 8th, 2009 at 8:56 pm EDT - 434 views

Earlier this week, Burger King has released an application that allows users to remove 10 friends for a free Whopper. The app is called Whopper Sacrifice and is no ordinary app. When you remove a friend, it not only removes them but alerts them and puts a message on your profile saying you did just that. They couldn’t let you get away that easily could they?

By essentially judging if your friends are worth a free hamburger, this plugin has not only powerfull effects online, but as well as offline too. With a lot of people having family and friends on their facebook, they might be their next “victim” and be rated “worth 1/10 of a hamburger”.

Burger King is basing this stretch on the new online “fad” that was said to be hot this year. The new trend is said to be that cutting Facebook friends is the in thing of ‘09. If you are interested in this new application published by BK, then visit their official website.

Are you worth a whopper?

Source: CW

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Steve Ballmer Microsoft Keynote Speech

by Taylor Flatt on January 7th, 2009 at 11:06 pm EDT - 451 views

Just hours ago Steve Ballmer, Microsofts CEO, gave the Microsoft Keynote speech which lays out the upcoming year. With this year so full of economic depressions I couldn’t way to find out what was in store for all of us consumers.

At the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas Ballmer announced a lot of interesting things like partnerships with Dell that will add preloaded Windows Live programs to Dell computers before shipment. Another partnership is with Verizon which will reload Windows Live on the cellphones before sale. Finally, another partnership with Facebook allows users to hookup their Facebook with MSN Live profile.

Alright folks, here is the biggest let down probably of the entire year. There will be no new Zune. Sadly, they decided to revamp their Live Search rather than come out with tangible items.

Windows 7 was also announced to be out this friday for Beta testing. Hurry and get it because they said they will be capping the downloads at 2.5 million downloads. The recommended hardware requirements are as follows:

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Baidu Sorry for Pornography

by Taylor Flatt on January 6th, 2009 at 10:57 pm EDT - 432 views

Earlier this week, China announced that it was taking action against the main search websites including Google and Baidu. Baidu has apologized for the published pornography on their website. They have announced they are taking measures to prevent such things from happening in the future while attempting to rid themselves of it in the present.

However, Google has yet to release an official statement on the matter. But has been reporting saying they are attempting to clean up their act by removing obscene content from their site.

I believe that China has the right attitude in matter, although, I do believe it is wrong to remove such things. The whole theory behind engines such as Google and Baidu is for indexing websites where you can find relevant information on the topic you are searching for. I am not saying these things should be advertised openly, however, they should not be excluded from such searches with the attempt of finding such a site.

These sites shouldn’t back down because a country doesn’t like their content. What happens when they or any other country doesn’t like having pictures or information on hurricanes displayed because it kills many people every year? Although not very practical, it is however theoretically possible since these sites are backing down quite readily.

Source: AP   
Image courtesy of noticastech 

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Famous Names Hacked on Twitter

by Nathaniel Ed on January 6th, 2009 at 11:23 am EDT - 294 views

33 famous people and organizations have been hacked on Twitter, a social networking site, including

• Barack Obama
• Fox News
• Britney Spears

Earlier today the hacked accounts spammed malicious messages; one among them, owned by CNN correspondant Rick Sanchez, saying “I am high on crack right now might not be coming to work today”.

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