AMD Announces FirePro 2270 and V5800 DVI Professional Graphic Cards

AMD today introduced the AMD FirePro 2270 and ATI FirePro V5800 DVI professional graphics cards. AMD designed these new offerings for professionals in the medical, financial, design and engineering fields who require the ability to view and interact with multiple applications simultaneously.

“Because of their superior power consumption and multi-display capabilities, solutions based on the AMD FirePro 2270 and ATI FirePro V5800 DVI deliver strong value for financial, medical and corporate workstation environments,” said Janet Matsuda, general manager, AMD Professional Graphics. “With the AMD FirePro family, we continue to demonstrate our focus on enhancing productivity through an enhanced visual experience.”

As AMD’s only low-profile, passively cooled, dual-display, triple set support solution graphics card, the AMD FirePro 2270 delivers multi-display capabilities for increased efficiency, longevity and compatibility. For example, the AMD FirePro 2270 features a fan-less, energy efficient design that consumes 15 watts maximum power and less than 10 watts on average. Additionally, the AMD FirePro 2270 enables efficient multitasking across multiple applications, including graphics intensive applications, helping to prevent system slowdowns. Legacy support for DisplayPort, DVI and VGA connectivity allows for seamless integration into existing installations.

The ATI FirePro V5800 DVI delivers professionals the graphics performance needed to drive two high-resolution dual link DVI displays while offering users the ability to stretch one image or application across both screens for expanded field of view and enhanced productivity. Support for DVI, the most common digital interface, makes setting up dual-display configurations easier than ever. The ATI FirePro V5800 DVI professional graphics delivers a full 30-bit display pipeline to enable increased color reproduction and superb visual fidelity and supports packed pixel mode to support dual 5MP medical displays.

With AMD FirePro 2270 starting at $149 US SEP and ATI FirePro V5800 DVI starting at $469 US SEP, both cards are available from professional graphics retailers worldwide.

For more information, visit the product pages of FirePro 2270 and FirePro V5800 DVI.

Thermaltake Announces the Shock One USB Gaming Headset

Tt eSPORTS are proud and excited to release the next edition of their Professional Shock Gaming Headsets, the "One" which is the most advanced headset in the range, which has many amazing features including DTS 5.1 Virtual Surround Sound and Dynamic 40mm Speakers that allow for high quality Bass Enhancement.

The "One" has been designed to produce immense sound quality in-game as well as being able to offer a comfortable solution for gamers with it's multiple Ear-Pad Cushions and leather headband pad to allow for multiple hours of wear for continuous periods of gaming.

The Shock "One" offers gamers a professional gaming headset with USB connectivity, a fully configurable user interface and an illuminated Tt logo so you can be the "One" who stands out in the crowd at gaming events all around the world.

When Tt eSPORTS created the Shock "One" gaming headset the idea behind the product was to fulfil the requirements of ALL professional and casual gamers who are enthusiastic about the equipment they use. The Shock "One" has been developed to enter a highly competitive market but by combining a visually fashionable design with high and exciting performance the product is sure to bring a smile to any gamer who invests.

Features:

• DTS 5.1 Channel Virtual Surround Sound
• Dynamic 40MM Speaker Driver with BASS Enhancement
• Fully Configurable User Interface
• Noise Cancelling Microphone
• In-Line Volume Control Box
• 10 Level Adjustable Headset Band
• Multiple Ear-Pad Cushions: Leather and Velvet
• Gold Plated USB Connector

Specifications:
Headphones:

• Driver unit: 40mm
• Frequency Response: 20Hz~20 KHz
• Impedance: 32 ohm
• Sensitivity: 114+/-3dB
• Max. input: 100mW
• Cable length: 3m
• Connector: USB

Microphone:

• Directivity: Bidirectional with noise cancellation
• Impedance: 2.2 k ohm
• Frequency: 100~10KHz
• Sensitivity: -45dB+/-3dB

For more information, visit the product page.

Nvidia Developing Subpixel Reconstruction Antialiasing to Fight with MLAA

NVIDIA is developing its own antialiasing (AA) technology to rival morphological antialiasing (MLAA). The subpixel reconstruction antialiasing (SRAA) NVIDIA is currently conducting research on aims to provide better image quality with minimal performance penalty. It "combines single-pixel (1x) shading with subpixel visibility to create antialiased images without increasing the shading cost," as NVIDIA puts it in its research abstract. SRAA is suited for rendering engines that don't use multisample antialiasing (MSAA) since they use deferred shading. For such renderers, SRAA works as a post-processing layer, just like MLAA.

Where SRAA defers from MLAA is that the new algorithm can better respect geometric boundaries and has a fixed runtime independent of scene and image complexity. SRAA benefits shading-bound applications. "For example, our implementation evaluates SRAA in 1.8 ms (1280x720) to yield antialiasing quality comparable to 4-16x shading. Thus SRAA would produce a net speedup over supersampling for applications that spend 1 ms or more on shading; for comparison, most modern games spend 5-10 ms shading. We also describe simplifications that increase performance by reducing quality," claims NVIDIA.

Source: NVIDIA Research

The New Sony PlayStation Portable (NGP)

The New Sony PlayStation Portable.

- Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor
- 5-inch touchscreen OLED display with 960 x 544 resolution
- dual analog sticks
- 3G, WiFi, GPS
- a rear-mounted touchpad
- it has the same accelerometer / gyroscope motion sensing as in the PlayStation Move
- an electronic compass
- cameras on both front & back of the device.

Codenamed NGP and will revolve around five key concepts: Revolutionary User Interface, Social Connectivity, Location-based Entertainment, Converging Real and Virtual (augmented) Reality. It will be compatible with the PlayStation Suite and is backwards-compatible with downloadable PSP games and content from Sony's PlayStation Store.

Games will come on "new media," not UMD anymore, but unclear on what sort of flash memory is being used. Sony's rather proud of the fact it's offering the world's first dual analog stick combo on a portable device.

That touch panel on the back is the same size and positioned directly under the front OLED touchscreen, which allows for some pretty sophisticated controls when using the two simultaneously.

The new console's UI will be called LiveArea, which has a bunch of vertically navigable home screens and built-in social networking through PlayStation Network. You can jump between games and the LiveArea without losing your progress and comment on your buddies' great feats of mobile gaming.

AMD Released Catalyst 11.1 WHQL And 11.1a Hotfix Driver Suite

AMD today formally introduced Catalyst 11.1 WHQL software suite and Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix update. AMD Catalyst installs drivers and system software for ATI/AMD Radeon graphics processors (HD 2000 series and above), AMD chipset integrated graphics, and other ATI multimedia products. The Catalyst 11.1 WHQL finalizes the new Catalyst Control Center (referred to so far as CCC2), as the default control center, which simplifies control for mainstream and advanced users. It also formally introduces support for OpenGL 4.1. Catalyst 11.1 WHQL adds performance updates to F1 2010 and Left 4 Dead 2, the performance increments are more for the HD 6000 series GPUs. Next up is the 11.1a Hotfix update, which packs all the features of 11.1, plus performance improvements for Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs. It also adds new tessellation level controls. A number of Catalyst AI texture filtering updates are also added.

DOWNLOAD:

AMD Catalyst 11.1 WHQL
Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Update

A list of changes follows.
Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.1 Windows release include:

New Features:

• The new Catalyst Control Center
o The new Catalyst Control Center enables a simplified user experience to help users get the most out of their AMD product
o Easily enable 3D settings to enhance game image quality
o Setup multiple displays to increase productivity
o Adjust power settings to increase battery life
o Supports two unique views – designed for mainstream and advanced users
o User Interface dynamically updates based on available AMD hardware

• Support for OpenGL 4.1
o New features introduced in OpenGL 4.1
o Full compatibility with OpenGL ES 2.0 APIs for easier porting between mobile and desktop platforms
o The ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time
o The capability to bind programs individually to programmable stages for programming flexibility
o 64-bit floating-point component vertex shader inputs for higher geometric precision
o Multiple viewports for a rendering surface for increased rendering flexibility

Performance highlights:

• F1 2010:
o Performance increases up to 12% on AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series single card configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
o Performance increases up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single card configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.

• Left 4 Dead 2:
o Performance increases up to 17% on AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series single and Crossfire configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
o Performance increases up to 8% on AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series single configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix include:

• Performance improvements for the AMD Radeon HD 6800 & HD 6900 series in a number of applications
• Catalyst Control Center – New Tessellation controls
• Gives users full control over the tessellation levels used in applications
• Catalyst AI Texture Filtering updates
• The Quality setting has now been improved to match the High Quality setting in all respects but one; it enables an optimization that limits tri-linear anisotropic filtering to areas surrounding texture mipmap level transitions, while doing bilinear anisotropic filtering elsewhere. This optimization offers a way to improve filtering performance without visibly affecting image quality
• The Performance setting has also been updated to address comments about the sharpness of the default Quality setting causing shimmering in certain cases. It now provides a smoother filtering option that eliminates most shimmering while preserving the improved detail provided by anisotropic filtering.

The New Nvidia GTX 560 Ti !

Last summer, NVIDIA astounded gamers with the introduction of the GeForce GTX 460 GPU, which editors called "an incredible value". Flash forward 5 months later, and NVIDIA is set to do it again with the immediate availability of the new GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU. With average performance that is 33% faster, overclocking headroom that is off the charts, and a performance per watt that puts competitive products to shame, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is further proof as to why GeForce GTX GPUs are favored by PC gamers worldwide.

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is the newest addition of the Company's "Fermi" line of consumer GPUs that were designed to deliver stunning DirectX 11 (DX11) performance for PC gaming platforms. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti brings a new level of DX11 price/performance to the performance PC gaming market while maintaining super quiet acoustics and minimal power requirements.

Like all NVIDIA "DX11 Done Right" GPUs, the GTX 560 Ti delivers the world's fastest performance for DX11 games in its class. When compared to the closest competitive product, the GTX 560 Ti is up to 65 percent faster(iii) in today's newest DX11 tessellated games, and 30 percent faster(iv) in previous-generation DX9 and DX10 games. With a superior design that includes a default graphics core clocked to 822MHz, 8 tessellation engines and 384 CUDA cores that were architected for next-generation DX11 games, the GTX 560 Ti is even up to 46% faster than the competition's product offerings that cost upwards of 20% more!

"The GTX 560 Ti GPU has it all: awesome DX11 performance, terrific overclockability, and ultra quiet operation -- attributes of the perfect performance GPU," said Drew Henry, general manager of GeForce GPU business at NVIDIA. "With the GTX 560 Ti under the hood, and an awesome library of DX11 titles coming in the very short future, it is truly a great time to be a PC gamer!"

With full support for NVIDIA 3D Vision and NVIDIA Surround technologies, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU also provides the graphics horsepower and video bandwidth needed to experience more than 500 games and high-definition Blu-ray movies in eye-popping stereoscopic 3D on a single display or spanning across three screens for an immersive gaming environment. And with NVIDIA SLI technology, the industry's most scalable multi-GPU platform, gamers will be delighted by the sheer increase in gaming performance by adding a second GeForce GTX 560 Ti to their PC.

With an estimated selling e-tail price starting at $249 USD, the GTX 560 Ti is available starting today from the world's leading add-in card partners, including ASL, ASUS, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, Jetway, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, PNY, Sparkle, Zotac and others. At launch, there will be a wide assortment of GTX 560 Ti cards available, including those with stock clocks of 822MHz and others that are clocked much higher, including some at 1 GHz.

For more information about the GTX 560 Ti, please visit www.geforce.com.

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Intel Chipset to Finally Embed a USB 3.0 Controller

Nothing in the PC platform really becomes an industry standard before Intel embraces it. Same is the case with USB 3.0, which, over an year after its entry into the industry, has seen limited market adoption and motherboard integration, driven mostly by 2-port PCI-E controllers. Internal presentation slides sourced by Heise show that the Panther Point chipset, which drives Intel's Ivy Bridge processors, embeds a 4-port XHCI compatible USB 3.0 SuperSpeed controller. The controller sits aside two EHCI USB 2.0 controllers, and shares 4 ports over a USB hub. So, out of the 14 USB ports from the chipset, 4 will be SuperSpeed capable.

Panther Point is the codename of Intel's 7-series platform controller hub (PCH) chipset, which could carry the common market model names P77 and H77. The chipsets will drive Intel's Ivy Bridge processors. Ivy Bridge is a die-shrunk Sandy Bridge, which will be fabricated using the 22 nm lithography. It will form the back bone of Intel's 3rd generation Core processors slated for release at CES 2012.



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AMD Introduces New Multi-GPU Technology for Llano APUs

After a well-received launch of the Fusion "Zacate" accelerated processing unit (APU) for nettops and entry-level PCs, AMD's higher-performance APU, codenamed "Llano", is just around the corner. Llano is intended for use on mainstream desktops, business PCs, and all-in-one PCs, it is better geared for higher-resolution, visually-intensive computing. Its competitors include Intel's Core i3 and Core i5 dual-core processors. AMD is backing up this launch with a new multi-GPU technology which is both similar and different from Hybrid CrossFireX. The similar part is that the GPU embedded in the Fusion chip will work in tandem with a discrete AMD Radeon graphics card, the difference is that it can work with any HD 6000 series graphics card, and multiply the available display connectivity.

The Fusion Llano APU will be part of AMD's Lynx mainstream desktop platform. The Llano APU embeds two x86-64 processing cores that feature the latest SIMD extensions, a DirectX 11 compliant GPU, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller, a PCI-Express 2.0 hub, and an interconnect to the Hudson M1 chipset. The APU gives out a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 port, which is configurable using external switching. AMD also ran its own internal tests to show the performance advantage the new multi-GPU technology will give. AMD's Lynx mainstream desktop platform is expected to launch a little later this year.



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Sapphire Announces HD 6870 Toxic and Vapor-X Edition

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new high performance model in its latest series of graphics cards - the HD 6870 TOXIC Edition with Vapor-X cooler. The SAPPHIRE HD 6870 TOXIC Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 1120 stream processors and 56 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 970MHz for the core and 1150Mhz (4.6 Gb/sec effective) for the memory giving users a considerable boost in performance. The same SAPPHIRE exclusive cooler will also be offered on a model with the standard clocks of 900MHz core / 1050MHz memoy (4.2Gb/sec effective) – the SAPPHIRE HD 6870 Vapor-X Edition.

The SAPPHIRE exclusive Vapor-X cooler ensures that the card runs quietly and efficiently. Together with other special hardware features including on-board 10-phase power control and SAPPHIRE’s highly efficient, cool running patented second generation Black Diamond chokes this ensures there is a good margin for performance tuning (overclocking) by enthusiast users. SAPPHIRE’s overclocking tool for these models - TriXX - is available for users to download from the SAPPHIRE Select Club – free for SAPPHIRE enthusiasts to join online.

Eyefinity and Eyespeed
The SAPPHIRE HD 6870 TOXIC Edition has the versatile output configuration of two DVI, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort connectors. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs as well as the two DisplayPorts enables this card to support up to four monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode. With the release of the DisplayPort v1.2 drivers, it will be also be possible to daisy chain additional DisplayPort v1.2 monitors from each DisplayPort output.

In the HD 6870 TOXIC Edition the third generation UVD (Unified Video Decoder) supports MVC (Multi-view Video Coding) for the smooth decoding of Blu-Ray 3D with reduced CPU load as well as other file formats. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are supported, and HDMI capability has also been upgraded to HDMI 1.4a. This now provides deep colour, enhanced high resolution output for Digital Theatre applications and 3D stereoscopic support as well as 7.1 high bit-rate audio.

The multiple stream processors of the HD 6800 series can be used to accelerate other applications such as video transcoding. The latest generation of web browsers can be GPU accelerated, and this is also supported for enhanced productivity in Microsoft Office 2010.

Second Generation DX11 support
The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series features the second generation of graphics technology from AMD designed to support all the features of Microsoft DirectX 11 and DirectCompute 11. The new GPU’s are built in AMD’s 40nm process to deliver high performance with low power consumption. Advanced hardware features include an enhanced Tessellation unit, dedicated HDR Texture compression, multi-threaded communication with system CPU cores, embedded support for many of the DirectCompute 11 instructions, 3D stereoscopic support, HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series is supported by AMD's DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 features required for enhanced gaming experiences as well as GPU acceleration of supported applications.

About Vapor-X
SAPPHIRE Technology was the first company to implement cooling for PC graphics cards based on Vapor Chamber Technology and has now implemented it in several successful product series. SAPPHIRE’s Vapor-X cooler technology was first introduced in 2007 with its HD 3870 ATOMIC Edition graphics card and then rolled out to the global market with the successful HD 3870 and HD 4870 TOXIC Editions and the Vapor-X series.

More recently Vapor-X cooling has been used on several highly successful HD 5000 series TOXIC Edition and Vapor-X models for the global market.

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Sapphire Introduces New Custom-Design Radeon HD 6970 2GB DDR5 Graphic Card

Sapphire is readying a new custom-design Radeon HD 6970 2 GB graphics card. The card uses a PCB that closely resembles the AMD reference-design PCB, but comes in blue color. It also uses a custom designed cooler that uses a traditional blower channeling air through a dense aluminum fin canal block. The most peculiar feature is a round rotary knob, which lets you switch between the two BIOS ROM chips on board, thereby letting you maintain two hardware-stored clock and fan profiles. This knob appears to be coin-turned. The Radeon HD 6970 packs 1536 VLIW4 stream processors, and connects to 2 GB of memory over a high-speed GDDR5 memory interface.

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At Last AMD Slips in Radeon HD 6770 and HD 6750 for OEMs

AMD implemented its plans to rebrand Radeon HD 5700 series to HD 6700 series, by listing up Radeon HD 6770 and HD 6750 on its website. For now, it's available only to OEMs. There are no changes between the 5700 and 6700 as far as specifications go, except HDMI 1.4a support. At most, you can see a different-looking cooler shroud on the reference-design graphics cards. Other than that, they're the same. The HD 6770 is based on the 40 nm Juniper silicon, with 800 VLIW5 stream processors, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 128-bit wide memory interface. The HD 6750 on the other hand has 720 stream processors. There's no information at present on when (or if) AMD plans to release this to the consumer market.

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Antec Introduces Six Hundred V2 Gaming Chasis

In its 25th anniversary year, Antec, Inc., the global leader in high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself markets, today announced the Six Hundred V2, the latest addition to Antec's line of gaming cases. The Six Hundred V2 occupies the mid-range space, both in terms of price point and performance attributes, and is designed for gaming purists looking for simple gaming design.

The Six Hundred V2 is equipped with several new features, including a front-loaded 2.5" hot swap hard drive caddy (SSD compatible) which allows users to access and swap their drives quickly and easily from the front panel. The Six Hundred V2 also sports a CPU cutout for installation of after-market coolers, a cable management compartment for tidier routing and a windowed top panel for unique "moonroof" visibility.

The Six Hundred V2 is designed to handle the heavy cooling demands of gamers, professional users and system builders with its hard-hitting cooling system: a 200 mm overhead TriCool blue LED fan, one rear 120 mm TwoCool blue LED fan and a perforated front bezel to maximize airflow. Additionally, up to three optional 120 mm cooling fans can be added to cool hard drives and graphics cards.

Additional features include a bottom-mounted power supply to isolate heat and noise, seven expansion slots and 11 drive bays (six internal 3.5" HDD bays, three external 5.25" HDD bays, one internal bottom-mounted 2.5" SSD drive and the built-in hot swap 2.5" SATA HDD caddy) for flexibility, as well as three front USB 2.0 and Audio (AC'97 and HDA compatible) I/O ports.

"The Six Hundred V2 is a pure, simple gaming case at its finest," said Scott Richards, senior vice president of Antec. "With this case, we're broadening our line of gaming cases to address the space between the products for value-minded and high-performance gamers, respectively. As a mid-range case, the Six Hundred V2 is designed for consumers who appreciate lean, gaming-focused engineering, and still expect innovative performance features of Antec gaming cases."

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HIS Introduce Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X Series Graphic Card

HIS started shipping two new models of graphics cards based on the AMD Radeon HD 6850 GPU, that use the company's in-house IceQ X design board and cooling solution. The two consist of a base model that sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, and a Turbo model that comes overclocked out of the box. The IceQ X cards use a standard length blue-colored PCB on which sits the IceQ X cooler. The cooler makes use of a slightly large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes, which is centrally ventilated by a 92 mm fan. The cooler is covered by a frosty-looking shroud. The base model uses 775/1000 MHz (core/memory actual) clock speeds, and the Turbo model runs at 820/1100 MHz.

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Lian Li's Lancool Brand Launching First Knight Series

Lancool, maker of mid to high-end computer chassis for over twenty years, has launched three, new, mid-tower PC cases: the PC-K57, the PC-K59, and the PC-K63. Utilizing their affiliation with high-end chassis manufacturer Lian-Li, Lancool has designed all three of these PC cases with anti-vibration, tool-less installations of components, all-black SECC steel exteriors, and superior thermal performance capabilities, while providing exceptional aesthetic appeal.

PC-K63
The extremely sexy PC-K63's blacked-out interior is visible through a transparent side-panel window. Blue LEDs illuminate the PC-K63's two 140mm front panel fans as well as the 120mm rear panel fan. Two, top panel 140mm fans improve airflow inside the PC-K63 as well.

PC-K59 & PC-K63
Users can mount ATX, Micro-ATX, and Mini-ITX motherboards in Lancool's new PC-K59 and PC-K63. Six 3.5” and four 2.5” HDDs (internal) can be mounted without tools, as well as graphics cards up to 285mm long. Both chassis also accept three 5.25” ODDs (external), mounted on the front panel with no tools needed. Air-filters in front of two 140mm front panel fans ensure users' equipment is protected from heat and dust. Both chassis also include one 120mm exhaust fan located at the top of the rear panel.

PC-K57
Tool-less installation of three 5.25” ODDs (external), three 3.5” HDDs (internal), and two 2.5” HDDs (internal), as well as PCI slots allowing VGA cards up to 415mm long make this an excellent PC case for gamers and enthusiasts alike. ATX, Micro-ATX, and Mini-ITX motherboards are all compatible in the PC-K57. One 140mm intake fan on the front panel (with air-filter for dust-protection) and one 120mm exhaust fan, located at the top of the rear panel, keep modified components from over-heating. For users who prefer, the PC-K57 has an additional 140mm front panel fan mount (fan excluded). With a unique front panel design, reminiscent of medieval armor, Lancool's PC-K57 looks every bit as good on the outside as it does on the inside.

Specialty Side Panel
On the side panel of the PC-K59 and PC-K57 there is venting directly over the the CPU. Behind the venting, on the inside of the chassis, is a protective cover with four pop-off sections, allowing for one or two, 140mm or 120mm, fans to be mounted. If fans are not desired, the protective pop-off panel can be kept in place to keep dust from entering the chassis.

All three chassis include eight tool-less PCI expansion slots, a cable management clasp running from the top of the case to bottom for increased organization, an air-filtered vent directly below the PSU (tool-less mount at the base of the case) to aid airflow, two rubber-lined holes on the back panel enabling LCS, one USB 3.0 port, one USB 2.0 port, and HD Audio ports. An e-SATA port is also included on the PC-K59 and PC-K63. The dimensions of the PC-K59 and the PC-K63 stand at 215mm x 530mm x 530mm (W, H, D) while the dimensions of the PC-K57 are 210mm x 472mm x 505mm (W, H, D).

For more information, visit the Lancool First Knight Series product page.

Cooler Master Ships 120mm Turbine Master Case Fan

Cooler Master shipped its Turbine Master 120 mm series fans. As the name suggests, the fan has many blades (16 in number), shaped to look like an aircraft turbine. This design allows the fan to achieve high air flow at lower rotation speeds. The Turbine Master 120 is available in three variants based on rotation speed: Mach 0.8, that spins at 800 rpm, Mach 1.2 with 1200 rpm speed, and Mach 1.8 with 1800 rpm speed. Of these, only the 1200 rpm variant is out now, with the other two slated for a little later.

The Turbine Master 120 Mach 1.2 with its 1200 rpm rotational speed pushes 56.5 CFM of air with a rated noise output of 21.1 dBA. The fan uses a round frame with holes for 120 mm spacing, with both rubber and metal screws bundled. The motor uses a barometric ball bearing with a high lifespan. It uses standard 3-pin fan input, but a Molex to 3-pin cable is bundled. The impeller is detachable to help clean better. The Cooler Master Turbine Master 120 Mach 1.2 fan is priced at US $16.



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Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 560 Ti Graphic Card Pictured

Here are the first pictures of a Gigabyte branded NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card. Carrying the model number GV-N560OC-1GI, Gigabyte's card is based on the 40 nanometer GF114 GPU, featuring 384 CUDA cores, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. The card itself doesn't look much different from some of Gigabyte's GTX 460 graphics cards. This can be attributed to the rumor that GF114 is pin-compatible with GF104, to minimize R&D costs partners have to incur. They would probably just have to use the new GPU and its appropriate BIOS.

Being an "OC" marked model, Gigabyte's card could feature factory-overclocked speeds. Taking this and the GPU itself into account, Gigabyte claims its GTX 560 Ti card to be competitive with Radeon HD 6950. The card uses Gigabyte's Ultra Durable VGA construction which combines a copper-rich PCB with high-quality components, and is cooled by the company's in-house design WindForce2X GPU cooler that uses a large aluminum fin heatsink using two fans.



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Gigabyte Released Nvidia GTX 570 Overclocked WindForce3X

Gigabyte released a new overclocked non-reference design GeForce GTX 570 graphics that makes use of its WindForce3X custom cooler. The GV-N570OC-13I from Gigabyte uses clock speeds of 780 MHz core and 1560 MHz CUDA cores, against reference speeds of 732 and 1464 MHz, respectively. The WindForce3X cooler keeps the beast cool. It makes use of a dense aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by a number of copper heat pipes, and ventilated by three 80 mm fans. The blue Ultra Durable VGA PCB by gigabyte makes use of top-quality components and 2 oz copper layer board. Other specifications are standard: 480 CUDA cores, and 1280 MB of memory across a 320-bit GDDR5 memory interface. Gigabyte did not give out pricing information.

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Socket Pin Burnout Returns to Haunt LGA1155 ?

Last year, credible reports of a design defect with LGA1156 sockets made by a certain component manufacturer in particular, made headlines. Reviewers found that extreme overclocking using increase voltages, in test cases, caused certain pins of the socket to burn out, damaging both the board and processor. The defect was found to be caused by shorting between the pins and the socket causing tiny electrical arcs. Motherboard reviewer from TechReaction.net discovered that his Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4 and GA-P67A-UD7 samples showed signs of socket burn. The publication is yet to receive a reply from the board manufacturer.

LGA1155 and LGA1156 are very similar in physical pin layout, chip package, and retention clips, although the pin-maps are significantly different. TechReaction comments that while only "extreme conditions" cause such pin burnouts, 24/7-stable overclocked settings could, over a period of time, create similar conditions. Only time, and extensive testing will reveal if burnouts are a cause for concern to enthusiasts.



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AMD Bulldozer 50% Faster than Core i7 and Phenom II

Here, take some salt. AMD reportedly gave out performance figures in a presentation to its partners, performance figures seen by DonanimHaber. It is reported that an 8-core processor based on the "Bulldozer" high-performance CPU architecture is pitched by its makers to have 50% higher performance than existing processors such as the Core i7 950 (4 cores, 8 threads), and Phenom II X6 1100T (6 cores). Very little is known about the processor, including at what clock speed the processor was running at, much less what other components were driving the test machine.

Taking this information into account, the said Bulldozer based processor should synthetically even outperform Core i7 980X six-core, Intel's fastest desktop processor in the market. Built from ground-up, the Bulldozer architecture focuses on greater inter-core communication and reconfigured ALU/FPU to achieve higher instructions per clock cycle (IPC) compared to the previous generation K10.5, on which its current Phenom II series processors are based. The processor is backed by new 9-series core logic, and a new AM3+ socket. AMD is expected to unveil this platform a little later this year.

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Newegg TV: ASUS Specialty Motherboards for Sandy Bridge P67 1155

Antec Updates Chasis at CES 2011

Antec, a company once known for their quiet, office-centric cases has really embraced the enthusiast market this past year, possibly more so than ever in their 25 year history. We had a chance to go through the company's line for 2011 at CES, which involves a few updates to existing lines as well as embarking on a whole new cooling quest.

Antec Sonata IV

While it was announced around Christmas 2010, CES was the first chance we've had to take a good look at the new Sonata IV, a chassis that has been the staple of the Antec line for many years. The case has always offered a simple, yet elegant design with a focus on low noise that works for just about any type of user, and the inclusion of a quality power supply really makes it the perfect combination for an everyday workstation. This is what made the Sonata an exceptionally well received case, and part of the attraction was a price tag that often put it below the cost of buying a good case and power supply separately.

Unfortunately, we can't help but feel that with the Sonata IV, Antec may have lost their way a bit with what the Sonata series is all about.

The Sonata IV keeps a nearly identical exterior design to the Sonata III with the piano black finish, covered external drive bays, and basic fronts ports, which now include a single USB 3.0 connector. In fact, aside from a few basic design and connector changes, the Sonata IV is an exact replica of the Sonata Elite, a case released in 2008.



An updated design to the internal drive bays which now sit vertically and perpendicular to the case necessitate a new protrusive air venting system for dual 120mm fans on the back side panel. This not only means more potential noise from hard drive cooling fans, but likely more sound leakage from components inside the case.

Antec has moved to a 620W Neo ECO Power Supply which is 80 Plus Standard certified and as far as the interior layout goes it is nearly a spitting image of the Antec Sonata Elite.

Antec has quoted an MSRP of $199 USD for the Sonata IV, which feels a little excessive given that the previous generation Sonata III and Elite can be regularly seen at under $100. Hopefully this changes as the chassis hits retailer shelves.

Antec One Hundred

Expanding on the Antec gaming series is the new One Hundred, a very simple chassis with a focus on compatibility and airflow.

It features 10 available drive bays, 3 x 5.25", 6 x 3.5", and a single 2.5" SSD at the bottom, expanded CPU backplate opening, 8 PCI expansion slots, 5 potential fan placements (ships with two) and a bottom mounted power supply location with plenty of cable management options.

The case is marked for an MSRP of $69.99 and unlike many competing cases in this price category, the One Hundred also has a fully black interior.

Source