The winner is:

Patheticcockroach

Congratulations, and remember to check back for a new competition soon.

Congratulations once again and i hope you enjoy the XFX Radeon HD 5770 graphics card.

This case uses the small form factor (SFF) and is from a not so well known brand. It has a fantastic interchangeable front fascia that will be a hit with anyone wanting to give a custom look to their chassis.

The box is informative, with lots of pictures, mainly showing the possibilities of how it could look with the interchangeable front fascia’s (of which 2 come supplied).

Be sure to check out eTeknix.com very soon for the full video review on this product.

I received this question asking what games i play and where i normally get them from.

This video shows you the answer.

It supports the latest DirectX 11 technology as well as having support for ATI Eyefinity and ATI Stream technology.

• Discuss in forums
• Product Page
• Supplied by HIS
• Watch Unboxing Video

Images

eTeknix.com Rating

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars.

This motherboard is packed full of features and is from a reliable manufacturer. It supports DDR3 and the latest AM3 processors including the Phenom II series cpu’s.

The motherboard comes supplied with:

• 2 x Molex to Series ATA power adapter
• 2 x SATA data cables
• IDE cable
• Floppy drive cable
• eSata bracket
• Driver installation disc
• I/O panel shield plate
• Users manual
• Motherboard

The box is informative, with the front highlighting the main features including the support for DDR3 and AM3 processors. There is a bar code sticker on one side showing the main specifications of the motherboard, and the back of the box lists some of the exclusive benefits of the Foxconn brand

Be sure to check out eTeknix.com very soon for the full video review on this product.

eTeknix and Asus UK have teamed up on this competition.

This is your chance to win an Asus AM2+ motherboard.

The prizes on offer are:

• First prize – Asus M3A78 PRO
• Runner up – Asus M3N78 PRO

The competition has officially started today (10th February 2010) and ends on 10th March 2010.

How do we win i hear you ask?

1. Sign up to the eTeknix forum.
2. Make sure that you have 10 posts on the eTeknix forum.
3. If you don’t have one already, sign up to a Twitter account.
4. Add the eTeknix Twitter account to your follow list.
5. On your Twitter account, post a tweet about the contest and link back to this page.
6. Once done, leave a comment here with a direct link back to your Tweet.

Here are two examples of an appropriate entry:

• Win an Asus M3A78 PRO and Asus M3N78 Pro motherboard eTeknix.com – http://www.eteknix.com/news/competitions/win-an-asus-m3a78-pro-motherboard-and-m3n78-pro-motherboard

or

• Win a AMD Athlon II X2 255 CPU Processor at eTeknix.com – http://voi.qlnk.net/

Obviously the second example is for Twitter due to its maximum character per tweet.

Want more chances to win?

1. Share the link on Facebook
2. Become a fan of eTeknix on Facebook
3. Become a fan of Asus UK on Facebook
4. Add the link as a Del.icio.us bookmark
5. Digg the link
6. Stumble the link
7. Add the link to another blog.
8. Add the link to another forum.

To be able to use the bonus entries, you must follow the above 6 core entries first with regards to Twitter. For every bonus entry that you fulfill, you will be given another entry, so you could end up with 9 entries to one competition, obviously giving you more of a chance to win than someone with just 1 entry.

This competition is open to the UK ONLY and email addresses will be shared between eTeknix and Asus UK for marketing purposes ONLY.

Terms and Conditions

• Once the competition ends, a winner will be picked by random from the qualifying entries.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email and name broadcast on eTeknix.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is 10th March 2010 at 10pm GMT.
• Multiple accounts will not be accepted.
• This competition is open to the UK only.
• Courier costs will be covered by Asus UK.

Good luck!

I received this question asking which resolution do I game at on my computer systems.

This video shows you the answer.

This graphics card is aimed mostly at HTPC users with a passive cooling solution and the ability for Eyefinity with its VGA, DVI and Display Port connections. By offering a lot for the money, it’s going to be a big hit all around.

The graphics card comes supplied with:

• DVI to HDMI adapter
• Driver installation disc
• Installation guide
• PCI expansion bracket
• Graphics card

The box is bright, crisp and gives a lot of information about the cards features including ATI Eyefinity. You can find the bar code sticker on one side, and the back of the box lists the benefits and features as well as the system requirements.

Be sure to check out eTeknix.com very soon for the full video review on this product.

I received this question asking which sound card I use in my systems.

This video shows you the answer.

This particular board comes with an Intel Atom 330 dual-core 1.6GHz processor, has 2 DDR2 slots supporting upto 8GB of DDR2 memory modules of speeds upto 800MHz. It uses the Nvidia ION chipset and has integrated graphics that supports DirectX10. This board also has integrated HD sound and Gigabit Lan.

A perfect board for HTPC users.

• Discuss in forums
• Product Page
• Supplied by Jetway
• Watch Unboxing Video

Images

eTeknix.com Rating

We have rated this 3 out of 5 stars

There is just 6 days left to enter this competition!

eTeknix.com and XFX have teamed up to offer you the chance to win a XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB graphics card.

The review of this graphics card can be seen here.

There is just 6 days left to enter this competition, and you can find all of the details here.

Here are the details to refresh your memory:

***Win a XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card***

This is your chance to win an *XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card*
This competition is JUST for the forum members and will hopefully get the forums more active.

The competition will close on 13th February 2010 and all prize(s) are provided by eTeknix.com and XFX.

What’s included is as follows :

• XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card* – A review of this product will be available shortly (Wednesday).
• One year free premimum membership to the eTeknix.com Forums

For your chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is:

Be a registered member of the forum.
Create as many posts (threads and replies) as you possibly can until closing date (Not Spam!).

Terms and Conditions

• The draw which will take place on 13th February 2010 where the winner will be chosen as the person with the most posts from now until then.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email and name broadcast on the forum.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is 13th February 2010.
• Multiple entries/accounts will not be accepted.
• The competition is open WORLD WIDE.
• Courier costs will be covered by eTeknix.
• Email address will be given to XFX for future updates.

Forum discussion on this competition is here.

Thanks and get posting.

Andy

Good luck, and get posting!

Andy

• Discuss in forums
• Product Page
• Supplied by Bacatá

Images

eTeknix.com Rating

We have rated this 3 out of 5 stars

I received this question asking which operating system i use on my systems.

This video shows you the answer.

This week’s fun fact is that the names of the first two graphics cards based on the new GF100 GPU will be called the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470.

What happened to the model numbers after GTX 295? It seems that Nvidia could be giving early indications on how fast this GPU really is, and hence why have skipped a few model numbers to give ATI’s Radeon 5000-series card a wide berth whilst they get ready to take the market by storm.

This was announced on the Nvidia Facebook page, but typically being Nvidia, no specifications, power consumption figures or release dates were announced, but we didn’t expect them to announce that anyway, did we?

Luckily, there is footage available displaying the new Fermi based GF100 at CES which shows you the size of the card, the supposed fact that it has three billion transistors  and that the card can draw up to 300watts using its 6 pin and 8-pin power connectors.

Facebook, being the new outlet for Nvidia, they previously announced the new Anti-Aliasing mode, but it’s unclear on exactly what the sample rate will be, and how it will be achieved.

One thing I’m interested in, and this will serve purpose if the model numbers mean something, but should we be expecting double the performance compared to the 200-series cards? Let’s just hope that it’s not double the price too.

I received this question asking how and what we use to record the videos for eTeknix.

This video shows you the answer.

This motherboard sports an Intel Atom 330 dual core CPU, has 2 DDR2 800 memory slots and is perfect for an array of different applications, including as a Media Centre HTPC with it’s VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs as well as HD sound.

The motherboard comes supplied with:

• I/O Panel Shield Plate
• 4 SATA data cables
• COM port cable
• Instruction Guide
• Motherboard

The box is simple and doesn’t give a lot of information. You can find the barcode sticker on the back of the box which tells us the main features of the motherboard

Be sure to check out eTeknix.com very soon for the full video review on this product.

Ask any webmaster out there, whether they run a simple striving blog or the next big thing since Facebook or Twitter, they want to be the first to have it, and that means knowing what to give.

What are you rambling on about Andy, I hear you say. Well, let me tell you.

What was the biggest new thing in 2009?

• The iPhone 3Gs?
• DirectX 11 capable graphics card?

How about Windows 7?

I mean yeah, the iPhone 3Gs was great, but simply put, the iPhone 3G was out and it worked, and before that the iPhone 2G. So all that Apple did, was improve on something that was already great.

DirectX 11 was a milestone in gaming graphics, but DirectX 10 was out and it worked, and before that DirectX 9 capable cards were out. So once again, an already great technology was improved.

Windows Vista though, where do I start? It looked good. That’s all I can pretty much say about it, and that’s only because I refuse to swear.

Simply put, it was terrible, slow, bloated, flawed and any other word that you can see fitting for an operating system that should have never been released.

Windows 7 came along and simply gave Microsoft a new lease of life, only problem being the fact that a lot of users were stuck with Windows Vista, and from our research still are. We at eTeknix can’t sleep at night, knowing that people out there are still using Windows Vista, so we want to give you something back.

We want to inform you that Microsoft are still giving you the chance to try out, test, evaluate Windows 7 Enterprise for 90 days. Being the Enterprise version, it is designed for IT professionals, but what is a computer enthusiast if not an IT professional?

This 90-day trial will give you the chance to evaluate Windows 7, to become familiar with its key features that work, unlike Vista and to test out any software or hardware that you may be unsure of functionality due to the heartache of Vista.

You can obtain the trial by going to following link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx?ITPID=sprblog

Once there, you can choose whether you want to download the 32-bit or 64-bit version in a variety of different languages.

We have shown you the light, now walk towards it and listen to that voice.

Windows 7…..Windows 7…..Windows 7…..Windows 7.

A hidden “GodMode” feature can be enabled in Windows 7 as well as Windows Vista.

By enabling this feature, it will let you access the operating system’s control panel all in one single folder.

To enable “GodMode” create a new folder on your desktop and rename it to the following:

GodMode.{ed7ba470-8e54-465e-825c-9971204 3e01c}

There has been a lot of talk of this feature making Windows Vista 64-bit crash. I have tested this on both Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit editions and can safely say that it has worked flawlessly.

All features within the “GodMode” are sorted by category and alphabetically for ease of use.

Good luck, and may God be with you

The PCS+ RADEON HD 5670 comes with a custom Arctic Cooling dual-slot cooler having a 92mm fan which leads to a low-noise working environment measured under 30dBA at full load.

Compared to the PowerColor HD 5670, the PCS+ version shows little improvement to the core clock, having it overclocked to 785 MHz, a 10 MHz win over the original 775 MHz version, with its 512 Mb of GDDR5 working at 4 Gbps, on a 128-bit memory interface.

Also we can see that the VGA output was replaced, enabling ATI Eyefinity to work on up to three displays connected through 1xDVI output, 1xHDMI output and 1xDisplayPort. In addition, the ATI Stream technology accelerates daily applications, enhancing work and entertaining efficiency, for an increased productivity.

Although we can see the clock boost and special cooling solution, the PCS+ RADEON HD 5670 consumes less than 75 Watts, having no need for any external power connections and has a price tag estimated at below €90 ($100).

This is your chance to win an AMD Athlon II X2 255 CPU Processor.

The competition has officially started today (1st February 2010) and ends on 1st March 2010.

How do we win i hear you ask?

1. Sign up to the eTeknix forum.
2. Make sure that you have 10 posts on the eTeknix forum.
3. If you don’t have one already, sign up to a Twitter account.
4. Add the eTeknix Twitter account to your follow list.
5. On your Twitter account, post a tweet about the contest and link back to this page.
6. Once done, leave a comment here with a direct link back to your Tweet.

Here are two examples of an appropriate entry:

• Win an AMD Athlon II X2 255 CPU Processor at eTeknix.com – http://www.eteknix.com/news/competitions/win-an-amd-athlon-ii-x2-255-cpu-processor

or

• Win a AMD Athlon II X2 255 CPU Processor at eTeknix.com – http://kci.qlnk.net/

Obviously the second example is for Twitter due to its maximum character per tweet.

Want more chances to win?

1. Share the link on Facebook
2. Add the link as a Del.icio.us bookmark
3. Digg the link
4. Stumble the link
5. Add the link to another blog.
6. Add the link to another forum.

To be able to use the bonus entries, you must follow the above 6 core entries first with regards to Twitter. For every bonus entry that you fulfill, you will be given another entry, so you could end up with 5 entries to one competition, obviously giving you more of a chance to win than someone with just 1 entry.

This competition is open to anyone in the world and all costs (except Import TAX if any) are covered by eTeknix

Terms and Conditions

• Once the competition ends, a winner will be picked by random from the qualifying entries.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email and name broadcast on eTeknix.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is 1st March 2010 at 10pm GMT.
• Multiple accounts will not be accepted.
• This competition is open WORLD WIDE.
• Courier costs will be covered by eTeknix.

Good luck!

Being a black edition card, it is a limited edition card with XFX claim to be faster than any card in the XFX lineup, or any card on the planet for that matter.

The black edition card is a hand picked GPU with membership to the XFX exclusive club, giving live RMA support, priority for black edition owners with a chance to get hold of products before their launch, and a chance to go to XFX open days.

XFX state that its the best of the best, the GPU is picked and tested throughly before releasing.

• Discuss in forums
• Product Page
• Supplied by XFX
• Watch Unboxing Video

Images

eTeknix.com Rating

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

You can comment on this review below.

There are TWO weeks left to enter this competition!

eTeknix.com and XFX have teamed up to offer you the chance to win a XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB graphics card.

The review of this graphics card can be seen here.

There are TWO weeks left to enter this competition, and you can find all of the details here.

Here are the details to refresh your memory:

***Win a XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card***

This is your chance to win an *XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card*
This competition is JUST for the forum members and will hopefully get the forums more active.

The competition will close on 13th February 2010 and all prize(s) are provided by eTeknix.com and XFX.

What’s included is as follows :

• XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card* – A review of this product will be available shortly (Wednesday).
• One year free premimum membership to the eTeknix.com Forums

For your chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is:

Be a registered member of the forum.
Create as many posts (threads and replies) as you possibly can until closing date (Not Spam!).

Terms and Conditions

• The draw which will take place on [B]13th February 2010[/B] where the winner will be chosen as the person with the most posts from now until then.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email and name broadcast on the forum.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is [B]13th February 2010[/B].
• Multiple entries/accounts will not be accepted.
• The competition is open [B]WORLD WIDE[/B].
• Courier costs will be covered by eTeknix.
• Email address will be given to XFX for future updates.[/LIST]

Forum discussion on this competition is here.

Thanks and get posting.

Andy

Good luck, and get posting!

Andy

We are a month into the new year and the tablet PC buzz has already accumulated. January 7, 2010 HP announced their tablet PC, dubbed the HP Slate, which will run Windows 7 and have Multi-touch capabilities. Rumors of Apple’s tablet have been floating about for weeks, month, even years. And today January 27, 2010 those rumors become reality, because Apple unveiled it’s much hyped iPad, yes you read that right the Apple iPad!

In the iPad press release video, Steven Jobs claims the iPad to be “the most advanced piece of tech that [he’s] ever worked on at Apple.” And we’ll see whether this holds true when it becomes available to the public, but until then let’s talk specs. Now to start off, it looks like a giant iPhone; including the “Home” button at the bottom of the screen.  It’s a half inch thick and weighs in at a very low 1.5lbs. The iPad features a beautiful 9.7 inch screen. The screen is an in-plane switching (IPS) panel with the same capacitive multi-touch capabilities that we have all come to love from the iPhone. The IPS panel greatly improves diagonal viewing angles when compared to the more popular TFT LCD technology, and it can reduce response times for a quicker pixel refresh rate.

On to the heart of the iPad! Apple powered the tablet with its own A4 1 GHz processor. Not too much is known about the A4, but what we do know is that the A4 is a system-on-a-chip with a CPU, GPU, I/0 and memory controller. It is a single core, ARM Cortex 8 based chip. And according to Fudzilla, the Nexus One and the HTC HD2 have the same amount of processing power as the iPad. The chip is said to have a high-performance, low-power design. Steven Jobs boasts that the tablet can achieve 10 hours of battery life.

For all your connectivity needs, every iPad includes 802.11n 300mbps, Bluetooth 2.1 +Enhanced Data Rate, and some will even contain 3G capabilities.  Apple will sell the iPad with 3 different hard drive capacities; 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB, with and without 3G for a total of 6 models. The iPad also contains all the normal internal hardware:  an accelerometer, a compass, speakers, microphone, a dock connector, and optional 3G radio + assisted-GPS (available for select models).

Pricing for the Apple iPad starts at $499 and goes up to $849. Note that consumers purchasing a 3G model of the iPad will also subject to data charges.

Driver highlights:

New in Version 196.34

• Fixed a bug with v196.21 that prohibited GPU overclocking

New in Version 196.21

• Adds SLI and multi-GPU support for many top new gaming titles including Avatar Demo, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, City Bus Simulator, Dirt 2, Ferrari Virtual Race, GREED: Black Border, Mass Effect 2, Mortal Online, Ninja Blade, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Demo, Planet 51, RUSE, Serious Sam HD, and Wings of Prey.
• Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.09.1112.
• Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.

Existing Support:

• Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with the new Adobe Flash 10.1 beta.
• Supports OpenCL 1.0 for all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
• Supports OpenGL 3.2 for GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
• Supports CUDA Toolkit 3.0 features and performance enhancements.
• Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9 and OpenGL.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. This driver installs PhysX System Software version 9.09.1112.
• Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.

Being a customized version of the 196.21 driver, it also supports the GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, and 200-series desktop GPUs and ION desktop GPUs

nVIdia Graphic Card users can download this driver from here.

This is one of the newest graphics card from ATi and incorporates the latest DirectX 11 technology. It also comes with ATI Stream technology and ATI Eyefinity. Asus have also made sure that this particular card has a dust-proof fan which will increase lifetime by up to 25%.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer – AMD
• Engine Clock – 775MHz
• Memory Clock – 4.0GHz (1GHz DDR5)
• Memory Size – 1GB
• Memory Interface – 128-bit
• Memory Type – GDDR5
• RAMDAC – 400MHz
• Bus Standard – PCI Express 2.1

Images

Conclusion

This graphics card utilises the latest technologies from ATi, but also has a few tricks up its sleeve from Asus. With its patented dust-proof fan claiming to improve life span of the product by anywhere up to 25% and having fuse protection technology, you know that this card is going to be safe for a long time to come. Couple that with a 3 year warranty, plenty of GDDR5 and the ability to monitor and protect the card using ASUS Smart Doctor, and overclock and benchmark using Asus Gamer OSD. This card will be up anyone’s street. It’s perfect for the mainstream user wanting to havea piece of the action in the latest games, without spending too much money. It would also be perfect for the general HTPC user with it’s ASUS Splendid technology enabling you to watch movies on your PC in as good a quality as a top of the line consumer television. Even the benchmark scores speak for themselves. There is no other score i could give this graphics card, but 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Sub £100
• Latest technology including DX11 architecture
• 51 watts
• No extra power needed
• Low profile
• Dust-proof fan
• 3 year warranty
• Fuse Protection technology

Cons

• None

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to ASUS for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Luckily the folks over at ASUS have heard the cries of many of us who are running out of book shelf space and have decided to bring us an Electronic Book reader. Some of you may have heard of the new fashion craze, where you can now carry and purchase your books so you can read them without the need of a piece of paper (unless you consider the manual applicable).

With a 9 inch screen your fingers will have room to run across the screen… Oh yea and the best part, you don’t need a stylus of any sorts to operate this book just a simple scroll of your thumb will do, and within the built in wifi and HSDPA modem users will be able to almost virtually download any book they want want if they have access to a mobile tower or wifi signal.

Just to give you an idea about the difference between size of the iPhone and ASUS eBook reader, this pictures references screen size. The 9 inch screen on the eBook reader really shines as the champ between the 2 great devices.

Not only is the screen larger and better for the eyes when reading a book but the device is thinner too. A win win for the ASUS eBook reader. The ASUS DR-950 is expected to retail around $390 and be available in April of 2010.

Listed below are some specs on what to expect with the device:

The first of the five new chips is the Phenom II X2 255. This is clocked at 3.1 GHz with a 65W thermal design power (TDP). AMD released another dual core as well, the Phenom II X2 555. This chip is AMD’s fastest available dual core with a clock speed of 3.2 GHz, and it is available for $99.

AMD also introduced a new CPU to its tri-core family, the Athlon X3 440. It comes clocked at 3.0 GHz, a 95W TDP, and is priced at $84.

And if you must have four cores, say for all the multi tasking you do or multithreaded apps you use,  well, AMD has also released two new quad cores, the Athlon II X4 635 and the Phenom II X4 910e. The $119 Athlon X4 635 is clocked at 2.9 GHz and has a TDP of 65W.  The Phenom II X4 910e chugs along at a clock speed of 2.6 GHz, but features a reduced TDP of 65W. And you will be able to find the 910e at a price of $169.

According to Fudzilla, the company will soon roll out the Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition, at 3.6 GHz and a Phenom II X4 820 clocked at 2.8 GHz in addition to a new 800 series chipset. The launch dates for these have not been set, but you can expect to see them in a few months.

I received this question asking if i prefer AMD or Intel processors.

This is the graphics card from ATi’s newest range of graphics cards, the 5xxx seires. It features the latest DirectX 11 technology, ATI Stream technology and ATI Eyefinity. Being a black edition card, it is a limited edition card with XFX claim to be faster than any card in the XFX lineup, or any card on the planet for that matter.

The black edition card is a hand picked GPU with membership to the XFX exclusive club, giving live RMA support, priority for black edition owners with a chance to get hold of products before their launch, and a chance to go to XFX open days. XFX state that it’s the best of the best, the GPU is picked and tested throughly before releasing.

It comes supplied with:

• DVI to VGA adapter
• 2 x Molex to PCI-Express adapters
• CrossFire bridge
• XFX Black Edition case badge
• Graphics card driver CD
• An installation manual
• Quick install guide
• Dirt 2 game voucher
• “Do Not Disturb” door hanger
• Radeon 5850 graphics card

The box talks through some of the main features including DirectX11 support. It tells us the exact model of the card, including the fact that it’s the Black Edition.

The back of the packaging tells us about the key features, a bit of information about Black Edition and the 5 star support that XFX give.

On the bottom of the box is the system requirements, what’s included in the box and the relevant series numbers.

Be sure to check out eTeknix.com very soon for the full video review on this product.

The report, well, reports that Q4 revenue for AMD was up 42 percent over the same time the previous year to $1.646 billion. Of that, $1.288 billion was reported to be their operating income. However, perhaps disturbingly, the report goes on to suggest the vast majority of that cash (a sum to the tune of $1.224 billion) is from a “net favourable impact” largely due to the recent legal settlement with rival giant Intel.

Fiscal 2009 net income attributable to AMD common stockholder was $304 million, a far cry from the $3.129 billion it lost in 2008. But with well over a billion of that coming from Intel, it’s clear that AMD is not out of trouble just yet and still has a long way to go before its shareholders can rest easy at night.

Their next report will no longer list results for its new fabrication venture, Global Foundries, but rather simply put, its rather large investment in the company using the equity method. Recent rumours also suggest that AMD’s partner in the company, ATIC, wants full ownership.

The report also notes that the company moved into 2010 as somewhat of a reformed beast, now totally fabless and with no ongoing legal disputes, at least not with Intel. While they expect Q1 2010 revenue to be seasonally down, they appear upbeat and hopeful of the future, with their products going from strength to strength.

Some decent competition is always a good thing, so we hope the future is as bright as they seem to believe it will be for them.

This is a modular power supply from leading manufacturer BFG. It comes with quad 12v rails and conforms to the latest ATX/EPS certifications whilst being juicy enough to power the latest power hungry intensive systems on the market today including Intel Core i7 processors and multiple graphics card configurations.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Model – EX-1200
• Type – ATX12V 2.2/EPS12V 2.91
• Quad +12V Rails
• Silent 135mm Intake Fan
• Efficiency: > 80% Typical
• 1200W Continuous Rated at 40°C
• PCI Express Ready

Images

Conclusion

As you can see from the review, this is a fantastic power supply and will be perfect for anyone with an extreme gaming rig, especially if you have a Core i7 processor and a multiple graphics card setup. I have always tried to tell people to buy a reliable power supply and not to skimp on it. The main things when buying a power supply to look for is buying one from a trust brand such as OCZ, Corsair and BFG to name a few, you also want to find a power supply that has enough wattage to power the rest of your system. Thankfully, this power supply is a 1200 watt power supply, so will be more than enough for all systems. You will also want to find a power supply with a good efficiency rating, this power supply features an 80 plus efficiency rating. Price wise, this power supply is around the price that someone would pay for one of this calibre, and the only downside i can really see is that BFG advertise this with a silent fan, but it is far from silent, in comparison with other PSU’s I’ve used in the past. That’s why I’m giving this power supply 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Realiable manufacturer
• Good efficiency rating
• Powerful
• Quad 12V rails
• Stable rails

Cons

• Silent fan isn’t silent
• Specialist target user

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to BFG for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

I received this question asking if i prefer ATI or Nvidia based graphics cards.

I get emails and questions via the eTeknix forums asking various different questions.

I will now be publishing a video response to these questions.

Please comment if you think this is a good idea.

Only time will tell, but if they are real, the results clearly show how the performance on the GTX 380 beats the top ATI 5970 card by quite a margin.

These are the pictures that everyone has been hoping would leak out sooner rather than later.

This is the newest graphics card from ATi and incorporates the latest DirectX 11 technology without breaking the bank. It also comes with ATI Stream technology and ATI Eyefinity. Asus have also made sure that this particular card has a dust-proof fan.

It comes supplied with:

• Multi-language manual CD
• An installation manual
• Graphics card driver CD
• Radeon EAH5670 graphics card

The box talks through some of the main features including a dust-proof fan and DirectX11 support. It tells us the exact model on the card and includes the relevant serial numbers.

The back of the packaging talks about the powerful features and exclusive innovations from Asus. System requirements and refresh rate table are also on the back of the box.

This graphics card seems to have some fantastic features for the user that it’s aimed at.

Be sure to check out eTeknix.com very soon for the full video review on this product.

This is a modular power supply with quad 12v rails and conforms to the latest ATX/EPS certifications whilst being juicy enough to power the latest power hungry intensive systems on the market today.

It comes supplied with:

• An installation guide
• Set of 4 mounting screws
• Fabric cable ties
• Modular cables
• Power cable
• 1200 Watt modular power supply

The box talks through some of the main features including a lifetime warranty and 24/7 tech support. It also comes with six PCI-Express connectors for multi-graphics card support and features the new 8-pin PCI-Express connectors.

Seems this power supply is great for powering the latest and greatest, powerful machines, as well as future proofing your system for a long time to come.

Be sure to check out eTeknix.com very soon for the full video review on this product.

eTeknix.com and XFX have teamed up to offer you the chance to win a XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB graphics card.

The review of this graphics card can be seen here.

There are 3 weeks left to enter this competition, and you can find all of the details here.

Here are the details to refresh your memory:

***Win a XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card***

This is your chance to win an *XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card*
This competition is JUST for the forum members and will hopefully get the forums more active.

The competition will close on 13th February 2010 and all prize(s) are provided by eTeknix.com and XFX.

What’s included is as follows :

• XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card* – A review of this product will be available shortly (Wednesday).
• One year free premimum membership to the eTeknix.com Forums

For your chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is:

Be a registered member of the forum.
Create as many posts (threads and replies) as you possibly can until closing date (Not Spam!).

Terms and Conditions

• The draw which will take place on [B]13th February 2010[/B] where the winner will be chosen as the person with the most posts from now until then.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email and name broadcast on the forum.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is [B]13th February 2010[/B].
• Multiple entries/accounts will not be accepted.
• The competition is open [B]WORLD WIDE[/B].
• Courier costs will be covered by eTeknix.
• Email address will be given to XFX for future updates.[/LIST]

Forum discussion on this competition is here.

Thanks and get posting.

Andy

Good luck, and get posting!

Andy

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer – AMD
• GPU – Redwood
• Core Clock Speed – 775MHz
• Stream Processing Units – 400
• Memory Clock Speed – 1.0GHz
• Memory Size – 512MB
• Memory Interface – 128-bit
• Memory Type – GDDR5

Images

Conclusion

This graphics card is perfect for anyone living in the past, possibly with an ATI or nVidia based card, and wants to see what all the fuss is about with DirectX 11, and these new fangled graphics cards in the 5xxx series from ATI. This card has all of the premium features (ATI Eyefinity, ATI Stream technology and DirectX 11) whilst maintaining a valueable pricing point. With the 512mb version sitting at a very low £72, and the 1gb version at £85, this card really is singing out to enthusaists hearts (and their wallets). Also with this card, no extra power is needed, and it runs at a extremely low 51watts at load and with the ability for a multi-monitor setup and the ability to play the latest games, i can’t give it anything else but 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Sub £100
• Latest DX11 architecture
• Low power output
• No extra power needed
• Latest technology
• Low profile

Cons

• None

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to AMD for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Just several months after the official release of Windows 7, Microsoft will soon be releasing Windows 7 Service Pack 1 to the market.

The above screenshots were taken by someone at muycomputer.com showing that Service Pack 1 is now in a test stage. While there is no certainty about the exact date for release of service pack 1 for Windows 7, this writer believes that day will come soon. While some sites state that it won’t be getting released until early summer, it is very possible the release may be just weeks away. So keep an eye out for Service Pack 1 to pop up on your list of Windows Updates.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is expected to include:

• All security and software updates, as well as full USB 3.0 support.

Maingear Computers have launched a new gaming PC which shows off its power and luxury.

Welcome the F1X Series.

The F1X Series currently includes three extreme systems, the F1X 200, which is based on the famous P55 platform, the F1X 500 and F1X 750 which are both running on the X58 Intel platform.

Specifications of the F1X 200 include a Core i5 750 (overclocked to 2.93GHz) processor, 8Gb of Kingston DDR3 1333MHz memory, a Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB hard drive, dual ATi Radeon HD 5750’s in ATi CrossFire, a 22x dual-layer DVD Re-Writer with lightscribe and Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit edition operating system preloaded. An ample system for extreme gaming. Price of this unit is $2,249.99. Can you say value for money?

Specifications of the F1X 500 include a meatier Core i7 960 (overclocked to 3.46GHz) processor, 12GB of Kingston triple channel DDR3 1333MHz memory, a Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB hard drive, dual ATi Radeon HD 5770’s in ATi CrossFire, a 22x dual-layer DVD Re-Writer with lightscribe and Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit edition operating system preloaded. Show me the money! Price of this unit is $3,099.99. I’m sure they wife would let you, no?

Specifications of the F1X 750 include an extreme set of components. Includes are a Core i7 975 Extreme Edition (overclocked to 3.66GHz) processor, 12GB of Kingston triple channel DDR3 1333MHz memory, a 80GB Intel X-25M Gen2 SSD and a 1.5TB Western Digital Green SATA hard drive, dual ATi Radeon HD 5870’s in ATi CrossFire, a Blu-ray burner and 22x dual-layer DVD Re-Writer and Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit edition operating system preloaded. Sounds SWEEEEEEEEEET! Price of this unit is $5,159.99. Time for a second mortgage I think.

All of the above packages include a one-year warranty, which for the extra money (if you have any left) an extended warranty of up to $999.98 for an extended 3 year, 4 hour onsite warranty which begins on day one.

All units also come with the X29 Series liquid cooling system for extreme performance and stability. Sounds brrrrrrrrrrrrilliant!

These PC’s are clearly not aimed at the mass consumer market, as I can hardly imagine a double glazing windows operation running 70 of these machines. Just like Alienware, these are aimed at a specialist market.

Availability is currently only showing at US stockists – TigerDirect.com, CircuitCity.com and CompUSA.com. Seems us fellows on this side of the pond will have to wait, or pay extortionate shipping costs. Should be worth it for a set of mighty systems though?

The card wasn’t anything spectacular, but it did keep Nvidia’s feet in the water for a brief stint. It was aimed at mainstream users and featured the general array of technologies and specifications at the time of release. Nothing too special at all, especially being an Nvidia based card, that is.

A lot of users were hoping for a passive model, this would surely be a god send for HTPC users everywhere and would open a plethora of possibilities for other vendors . Thankfully, this isn’t up to Nvidia to do, as they wouldn’t even be at the design stage, judging from their work flow as of late in regards to Fermi.

Inno3D have come to the rescue with one of the first passive GeForce GT 240s. The passive version falls under their “EXtreme” range. Sounds simply tantalising.

One picture is floating around the internet, expreview.com have pictured the GeForce GT 240 in all its glory.

Specifications of the card include a GPU operating at 550MHz, 96 stream processors at 1340MHz and the choice of either 512MB or 1GB of memory running at a speed of 3400MHz.

The passive heatsink consists of around 50 aluminium fins, four copper heat pipes and a full copper base for extreme cooling. Sounds perfect in regards to noise and heat dissipation, but judging by the size of the cooler, it may not be the solution that HTPC users were screaming out for.

Connections on the card are nothing out of the ordinary, which include VGA, DVI and HDMI.

No word on availability or pricing as of yet, but this reporter hopes it’s out before Fermi, otherwise it’s going to be a big flop, and a terrible move for the green brigade.

Key Features of the Bravura 7.1 include:

• Supports 7.1 channel playback up to 24-bit/96kHz for speaker outputs
• Supports stereo playback up to 24-bit/192kHz with 120dB DAC for Headphone output
• All output OPAMPs (x5) are replaceable by the end-user
• Exclusive Hi-Fi headphone amplifier supports professional headphones with 1/4″ phone jack
• Stereo/Balanced mode microphone pre-amplifier supports professional microphones
  Premium quality audio parts
• I/O Mode Control, Pointing Ground Design, X-Balance Power Generation System
• Optical/Coaxial combo connector for S/PDIF output
• Intel HD Audio 10-1 pin front panel connector
• Supports Creative technologies – CMSS 3D, Crystalizer, EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD, Bass Management and 10-Band, Multi-channel Equalizer

Auzen is a company that has a rich history of releasing sound cards with innovative technology, and the Auzen Bravura 7.1 builds upon this tradition with the I/O Mode Control and X-Balance Pointing Ground Supply. What does I/O Mode Control do? Well, it provides presets for analog I/O and this allows the user to adapt the sound card to the environment.  Now X-Balance Pointing Ground Supply is Auzentech’s Pointing Ground Design ™ and it shares one point for the Digital to Analogue Converters (DAC), the Operational Amplifiers (OPAMPs), power supply and to the output jack stopping noise from interfering with the signal, and outputting a signal with far less distortion. The design has been improved in the Bravura 7.1 for more output filtering. This basically means is that your audio will be free from all power supply noise.

Auzentech design their sound cards for optimized audio output, both digital and analog. They do this in the Bravura 7.1 by placing the Creative X-Fi PCI Express Core Interface audio processor on the back of the circuit board while the analog circuitry is on the front.  And this gives greater signal differentiation and a better performing analog circuit design.

The Auzen X-Fi Bravura 7.1 is available now in the US for a price of $129.99. No UK availability as of yet.

As we’d expect, there are 4 dual channel DDR3 slots which can take up to 16gb in total running speeds of up to 2133mhz. We can see an array of expansion slots including 2 pci-express graphics slots, 1 being 16 times and the other 8 times. Also included are 2 legacy PCI slots and 2 PCI-express 1 times slots.

Drive connections on this board are plenty with 2 SATA 3.0 ports and 7 SATA 2 ports with the ability to provide RAID in 0, 1,5 and 10 configurations including JBOD.

The rear of the board has many various connections including 2 USB 3.0 ports, 5 USB 2.0 ports, coaxial and Optical SPDIF and analog audio ports, a 1394 firewire port, an eSATA/USB combo port and dual gigabit lan ports. It also has a clear CMOS button on the back too.

This board is currently available in some European e-tailers and should be avialable more and more as the week goes on.

Prices range from £160-£180 dependant on retailer.

The Asrock A330ION features an Nvidia ION chipset, supports the first generation Intel Atom CPU’s including the famous Dual-Core Atom 330 1.6GHz CPU and is the first board with DDR3 support.

The A330ION has 2 dual channel DDR3 slots, supporting upto 4Gb of memory at speeds upto 1066MHz.

Full specifications are as follows:

Benchmarks clearly show the dramatic increase of performance with the A330ION compared to an ION DDR2 setup using 800MHz modules.

Watch the above video for more information on the Asrock A330ION.

No pricing or availability as of yet.

A more interesting piece of news; not only have some of the specifications been released, but the GF100 has also been benchmarked and it has no problem running Far Cry 2. The card ran Far Cry 2 at a resolution of 1920×1200 with 4x AA and all other settings at Ultra high and it got up to 84 frames per second. The reference card hovered around 50 frames per second with the same settings. And these cards (the Fermi and the reference) were run with an i7 960 CPU with 6gb of memory. Note that it was early rumored that the reference card was a 5870, however later rumors suggested that the reference card was a GTX 285 instead. The true identity of the reference card has not been confirmed.

This early benchmark suggests that the Fermi is doing a great job, but because this is only one test and the added confusion of what the reference card was, it is hard to tell the extent of its performance. So whether or not the card can reclaim Nvidia the performance crown has yet to be seen, and let us not forget that the elusive Fermi has yet to be seen as well.

Check out the video of the benchmark above.

The PowerColor LCS HD 5970 2GB GDDR5 is a beast of a card with a beast of a cooling solution. It features PowerColor’s award-winning EK cooling solution.

Due to the extreme cooling solution, the LCS HD 5970 gives fantastic overclocking potential whilst maintaining a cool and quiet operation

Even at stock speeds, the LCS HD 5970 with its lightning fast GPU gives the user an unforgettable gaming experience.

The PowerColor LCS HD 5970 features a full mounted water block, with a copper base covering over the memory as well as the power regulator chip. Due to the copper base, and its fantastic cooling properties, it is designed to reduce temperatures by up to 30°C when compared with the reference version. This should get enthusiasts and the like excited about the overclockability it will hold.

Barbs include a high-flow 3/8″ and 1/2″ fittings to maximize water flow.  To prevent leakage, captured o-rings are also included. This gives the flexibility to customize an already existing liquid cooled setup.

This HD5970 also comes with a few tricks up its sleeve with a slightly clocked GPU running at a speed of 750MHz and featuring an astounding speed of 4200MHz out of its 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

As with all PC components, they work better at cooler temperatures and PowerColor believe that the most efficient cooling should be used with the fastest GPU which will in turn offer stability and coupled with ATi Stream technology, ATi Eyefinity and DirectX 11, give an outstanding gaming experience.

Word on the interweb is that Dirt2 will be bundled with the LCS HD 5970, so that this card can really show off the latest DirectX 11 technology in all its glory, offering super high frame rates and fluid game play. Dirt 2 is the most popular racing game in the shops and offers an array of extreme driving in real world locations. Expect some of the most realistic graphics and immense game play you have never seen with this game and graphics card package.

The PowerColor LCS HD 5970 is due to hit the shelves on 21st January 2010, but no word on pricing has been announced as of yet. Let’s hope it’s cheaper than buying an aftermarket water block.

Not had the money to upgrade yet?

DirectX 11 is all about the experience. At least, PowerColor seem to believe so, taking it to the extreme.

It’s a technology that you can’t be told about, you have to breathe it, smell it, taste it, feel it, sleep with it, caress it……..Err, I’ve gone too far.

World leading graphics card manufacturer PowerColor is hosting a competition giving you the chance to win a PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 graphics card as the first place prize, whilst three runner ups will receive a PCS+ HD5770 graphics card each.

PowerColor have tried to make this competition fun and exciting, they claim the rules are simple and just involve you submitting a picture of your first DirectX 11 experience. They want to see your reaction, the way you’re feeling, the emotion harnessed into a picture. I mean, everyone has a camera on call when they buy a product with new technology, right? No? Just me then.

PowerColor have also allowed pictures that show your view of DirectX 11 in the most artistic way possible. I can only imagine what some people are going to come up with using their mad Photoshop skillz.

The contest starts today (18th January 2010) to 31st January 2010. Communities will then cast their votes between 1st February 2010 and 3rd February 2010 and the winner will be announced after the worldwide voting on 12th February 2010

As a teaser, we thought we would show you PowerColor’s very own picture to give you an idea of what they are looking for. I guess i can’t rent the Apache any more, as they already did my idea.

You can find full details on the competition here.

It’s core is essentially the same thing you’ve seen in the 5800 series, except it’s been cut down twice leaving only 1/4th of the computational power.

The 5670 features GDDR5 with a 128bit-rate, 512MB-1GB of memory, 400 Stream Processing Units, 20 Texture Units, 8 Raster Operator units, 1x HDMI, DVI, and 1x VGA or Display port. As for the core & memory, it checks in at 775 and 1Ghz respectively. The reference boards manufacturers are selling are using unique heatsink/fan setups, in single or dual slot configuration.

Like the bigger brothers, (or sisters, if you prefer) it has DX11, OpenGL 3.2, bit streaming audio, and can do ATi Eyfinity. However, due to the performance, it’s not recommended to run a game on more than a single monitor.

As for performance & power, it can land anywhere between the 9600GT to a bit below the 4850; for power it will be roughly 15 watts on idle and 60 on load.

Newegg states the price for the majority of 512MB cards to be $99 USD, and the 1GB variant at $115-120. Ebuyer shows a decent price at £70-75 GBP for 512MB and £85-90 for 1GB models, and Alternate.de giving a low price of €80 Euros for 512MB and €100-110 for 1GB.

However, being a good card with great features, AMD’s own HD 4850 competes in that it can claim more performance if at the cost of power, size, and less features.

The offer gives you a 20% discount coupon for purchasing one of the following graphics cards:

• Asus ENGT220/G/DI/1GD3(LP)
• Asus ENGT220/G/DI/1GD2(LP)
• Asus EN210/G/DI/512MD2(LP)

The offer was originally set to expire on 31st December 2009, but has now been officially extended to 30th April 2010.

Minimum specifications are:

Desktop PC (Windows XP + SP2):
CPU: 2ghz Pentium4 Processor or Amd Athlon 2000+ Processor
RAM: 1 GB of RAM
GPU: 128mb Video Card (GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9500)

Desktop PC (Windows Vista + SP1):
CPU: 2ghz Pentium4 Processor or Amd Athlon 2400+ Processor
RAM: 1.5 GB of RAM
GPU: 128mb Video Card (GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9500)

Laptop (Windows XP + SP2):
CPU: 2ghz Pentium4 Processor or Amd Athlon 2000+ Processor
RAM: 1.5 GB of RAM
GPU: 128mb Video Card (GeForce Go 6200 or Radeon 9600)

Laptop (Windows Vista + SP1):
CPU: 2ghz Pentium4 Processor or Amd Athlon 2400+ Processor
RAM: 2 GB of RAM
GPU: 128mb Video Card (GeForce Go 6200 or Radeon 9600)

The third part of this award-winning set of games has gamers at the ready and is creating a high buzz around forums and gaming sites.

The game is officially released and is available in any good games store.

More information on the game can be found on the official Sims 3 website here.

The vulnerability affects versions 6, 7 and 8 of the browser, which together boast a market share of over 60%. The bug allows a malicious user to run programs on the victim’s computer remotely and there are reports that many anti-virus software packages cannot detect it.

Microsoft suggests that setting the browser security zone to high will protect users, a claim that the German government doesn’t entirely agree with. Using such settings also severely limits the functionality of the software making some sites unusable. The problem is that until the flaw is corrected thousands if not millions of computers around the world are open to attack, an issue that has been further highlighted since the method of exploiting the bug was released publicly.

Microsoft is aware of the bug and although the way to exploit it has been released there is no patch and currently no news on when there might be one. Usually patches are released monthly, with the next update being on February 9^th, but there is growing speculation that Microsoft might release a patch earlier in order to limit the damage caused to its reputation as much as it can.

We suggest simply switching to a better browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

The MSI HD 5670 stands out from the quickly crowding market of its competitors because of the Over Voltage feature. This feature when used with MSI’s overclocking utility (Afterburner) allows the user to push the voltage and add an extra bit of juice. Afterburner also allows the user to tweak GPU and memory speeds. The rest of the specifications are in tune to the many other 5670’s appearing on the market. Its core runs at 775MHz and the 1GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 4050MHz. MSI choose not to go with the standard Radeon cooler, instead they slapped on their very own orb-like cooler and this provides sufficient cooling for the GPU. MSI’s HD 5670 supports DirectX 11, Eyefinity, and CrossfireX. At the back you’ll notice the companies name stamped out of the back plate and the card features DVI, HDMI, and Display Port outputs. Prices start around a low 90€ ($130.29).

Have you ever wanted to play with your graphic card a little and never found a good piece of software to do just that? Well, EVGA’s software will be designed to integrate with EVGA Precision, turning it into an overclocking utility giving the user access to overclocking tools, voltage tuner, and many more in just a single program. However it is said that this software will be mostly for nVidia graphics card owners, but it has not yet been confirmed, so ATI fans out there can still have a glance of hope. What we do know is that the software is not made specifically for EVGA cards, so it should work on all brands with nVidia chipset.

Looking deeper into the future, EVGA also plans to enable multi-GPU support which will make this particular software one of the first SLI stress testing utilities, which no doubtly some people around the world are just dying to use.

We published a preview of the Radeon HD 5670 yesterday of which we showed you a teaser picture and some lovely do dally benchmarks. The response that we got from this was fantastic, and there is ONE reason why………Value For Money. Simply put, most graphics cards appeal to the inner child, the heart of gaming if you will. The 5670 however, appeals to our wallet and most likely, our significant other.

Lucky for us, ATI’s partners know this, and everyone from Asus to HIS, from MSI to XFX are working their socks off to show us what they have tucked up their sleeve.

Normally you’d expect the standard ATI reference with the same cooler, with a fancy design on it. Not with HIS though.

HIS have announced its own Radeon HD 5670 that will be available in both flavours, whether you want the 512MB or the 1GB version. Pretty standard stuff, yeah?

There is a twist, and like all great stories, i love a twist. The HIS Radeon HD5670 brands something of a unique selling point, compared to its competitors. It comes fully equipped with HIS’ famous Dual slot IceQ+ cooler.

Both variants of the card (memory wise) work at the standard core clock speed of 775MHz and an astonishing 4000MHz memory clock speed. Still maintaining the original specs from the preview, it comes complete with 400 stream processors, ATI Eyefinity, ATI Stream technology, DirectX 11 compatible, a 128-bit memory interface and low power output.

You will also see many various different connections on the Radeon HD 5670 as it crops up from different vendors. HIS have decided to go with a D-Sub, HDMI and DVI output.

The HIS branded cards should be available in any good e-tailer shortly, but do expect to pay a bit more than other brands, due to its award winning IceQ+ cooler.

You may have seen the article we posted that gives you the chance to win an XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card, if not, here is a refresher for you so that you don’t miss the chance to enter this fantastic competition.

This is your chance to win an *XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card*

This competition is JUST for the forum members and will hopefully get the forums more active.

The competition will close on 13th February 2010 and all prize(s) are provided by eTeknix.com and XFX.

What’s included is as follows :

• XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card* – A review of this product will be available shortly (Wednesday).
• One year free premimum membership to the eTeknix.com Forums

For your chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is:

Be a registered member of the forum.
Create as many posts (threads and replies) as you possibly can until closing date (Not Spam!).

Terms and Conditions

• The draw which will take place on [B]13th February 2010[/B] where the winner will be chosen as the person with the most posts from now until then.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email and name broadcast on the forum.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is [B]13th February 2010[/B].
• Multiple entries/accounts will not be accepted.
• The competition is open [B]WORLD WIDE[/B].
• Courier costs will be covered by eTeknix.
• Email address will be given to XFX for future updates.[/LIST]

Forum discussion on this competition is here.

Thanks and get posting.

Andy

Happy posting!

Andy

These new DDR3 kits will be available up to speeds of 2000MHz and are designed to work on Intel’s LGA 1156 and 1366 platforms.

The top model is the dual-channel 4GB kit with a clock speed of 2000MHz whilst holding timings of 9-11-9-27.

Next in line is another dual-channel kit, this time 8GB comprising of two 4GB models running at a speed of 1600MHz with even tighter timings of 7-9-8-24 very cool 1.65V.

The last set in the series is a triple-channel 12GB (3 x 4GB) kit working at 1600MHz with the same tight 7-9-8-24 latencies.

All kits only need a very cool 1.65V to operate at the speeds and latencies set by the SPD.

As you can see from the picture, all 3 kits include Mushkin’s Frostbyte black heatspreaders and include a lifetime warranty.

Availablility should be any time soon.

Sadly, upon speaking to Asus’ marketing manager Iain Bristow to ask which model this is for the purpose of this article, we were told “Sorry, I’m unable to release which model name at this time”.

So for now, we just thought we’d wet your lips with some pictures.

Enjoy!

We can also see from the pictures that it has a PS2 keyboard connector, an array of USB ports, HDMI, optical out, D-SUB VGA, DVI, e-SATA, LAN, and Analog audio jack ports. Plenty of connections for the avid user.

Also featured in the pictures are a set of buttons for power and reset, as well as DRAM_LED, and what looks to be plenty of PCI-Express slots.

This looks to be a promising board for Asus, and can only mean good things, it’s something I’m looking forward to.

Could it be the Asus M4A89GTD-V EVO or M4A89GTD-M EVO dependant on ATX or MATX form factor.

“Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore Art Thou” graphics card…
AMD has now been leading the way in graphics card performance which started with their 58xx series lineup. Their 5970 is currently AMD’s power horse, but does not appeal to much of the masses with its high price point of $699.99… Besides it does not take more than an HD5870 ($399.99) to beat out the competitions beloved Nvidia GTX 285, with the HD5850 ($299.99) falling just a smidge bit behind in performance numbers. So what is the point here exactly? It is kind of like the Capulet and Montague feud, however in a way it is happening just inside of AMD.
Ok just follow me here… AMD started out with a series that completely reamed Nvidia with no sense of return after the 58xx series. However AMD did not stop there, they went on to make a more expensive card, the HD5970 and a less expensive series of cards, being the HD5700 series. However all three of the current 5000 series are still heavily geared towards gaming and not as much an all around budget card.

This is where the HD5670 comes into play. The HD5670 is for more of us that are money conscience and cannot afford the Capulet man or woman that we truly desire. Geared towards those of us that are stuck in the Montague house, however powerful enough to fight off the shoddy Capulet men and women in which we are in rivalry with everyday. Besides this Montague card is getting released today… KEEP READING
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,” as where AMD just does it all.
Ok so what does this quote have to do with anything? Think about it. This is AMD once again relating back to Shakespeare. Shakespeare said this, but this quote reflects well on our beloved AMD. Showing that they were not only born great, achieved greatness, but they also thrust that greatness among their consumers at an affordable price. THE HD5670 launches today as a sub $100 card at the price of $99.
Alright, alright I know what you are thinking. $99 does not buy you a decent video card, however AMD made sure this one did. Here are just a couple of statistics that are relevant to gaming in today’s modern age.
• Most people have a video card that is a sub $100 graphics card
• 15 Million Users have Steam accounts
• 11 ½ Million people play World of Warcraft
• Most people have a display resolution smaller than 1920×1200

So is this in a sense creating an entirely new market for those that do not play too graphic intense games? In fact that is exactly what AMD is doing with their new 56xx series. They are creating a card that is reasonably priced for the majority of consumers while giving them a 20% increase in performance over the competitors GT 240 (Nvidia). The HD5670 is also the first budget card with DirectX 11, and guess what no power connector. Thank you AMD for another great card that is energy efficient and does not require us to upgrade our power supplies just for our video card. What does this mean for Nvidia? Since the HD5670 is a DirectX 11 card, Nvidia fans are still stuck in DirectX 10 lala land until the release of Fermi. Enough about Nvidia though, how about we see the power this card has within.

Specifications:
• Compute Power 620 GigaFLOPs
• Core Clock Speed 775MHz
• Stream Procesors 400
• Memory 512MB/1GB @ 4.0 Gbps
• Typical/Idle Power 61W / 14W
• Max Displays Up to 4 simultaneously (3 at launch)

Benchmark Examples

As we can see from the above photos this card is up to 20% faster in some games over the Nvidia GT240 and fairs quite well over 30 frames per second in most games.

“But this denoted a foregone conclusion”

In the end this writer can see that the AMD ATI Radeon HD5670 will be a very popular card for the budget gamer and the general population. Who knows, maybe manufactures will begin to use this card in some of their more mainstream budget computers. Either way AMD has their phasers set to WOW and Woo us with another great product from AMD. The HD5670 will come in both a 512MB version of the card and a 1GB version. The 512MB card should run around $99 as where the 1GB version should run around $119. Either way, I am sure we could all benefit from either version of this card. Way to go AMD!

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Model – W0133
• Type – ATX 12V 2.2 Series Specialty PSU
• Power Good Signal – 100-500 ms
• Hold Up Time – 16ms
• Input Current – 15A
• Input Frequency Range – 47 ~ 63Hz
• Input Voltage – 115 VAC ~ 230 VAC
• Operation Temperature – 10 ? to 50 ?
• Cooling System – 140mm Fan, 2300RPM ± 10?
• Noise – 16 dBA at 1300 RPM
• Efficiency – Up to 87%
• Safety Approval – GOST, CE, CB, TUV, FCC, UL, CUL, and BSMI certified
• Certification – 80 Plus NVIDIA SLI-Ready Certified PSU

Images

Conclusion

I have always tried to lecture friends, family and even members of eTeknix about power supplies. This is mainly due to the fact of when i was growing up, my expertise wasn’t as great as it is now, and i foolishly went a bought a 550watt Qtec Gold power supply. I had heard a few bad things about them, but it has the word “gold” in the title so it must be good, right? Wrong. Within 2 days, it had blown up, and then upon researching i found a lot more bad press. I then had to buy another power supply, and ended up buying an Enermax 600watt and at that point, i realised that you should NEVER skimp on a power supply. The Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management is no exception. If you have a power hungry machine like a Core i7 running multiple heavy duty graphics cards, then this PSU is one to add to your shortlist. It has multiple 12V rails, overload protection and is from a brand that you can trust. As well as being modular, it operates at nearly silent, Anyone would be pleased with it, but remember it is a specialist PSU, as most consumers wouldn’t need more than 650watt. Therefore making this a power supply for a niche market due to the expensive price tag. Due to its high price point and specialist target user, i’m giving this power supply 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Realiable manufacturer
• Quiet
• Good efficiency rating
• Twin 12V rails

Cons

• Specialist target user
• Very expensive

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Thermaltake for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

OCZ attempted at adding to their product line-up by launching mice, keyboards and other non-memory related products like the NIA which whilst is a nice product, is something that went very sour, very quickly.

From taking a look around, OCZ have stated that 2010 is all about going back to their roots and focussing on what they make best, Memory.

OCZ are really excited about the focus they have on SSD’s, and they expect a big opportunity in the market to bring many SSD products to the helm in 2010 whilst still maintaining a main focus on overclocking memory, which is where their skill set really falls into.

They are also a manufacturer of some of the best PSU’s on the market, and are wanting to keep hold of this part of the market too, and believe there is space for them to stay within this sector.

Another exciting sub product range will be USB drives now that USB 3.0 is becoming the new standard, they are said to have drives capable of read speeds of over 200MB/s.

OCZ’s director’s believe that 2010 is going to be a good year for business for them, and if they stick to what they know best, I’d agree with them.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer – AMD
• GPU – Juniper
• Core Clock Speed – 850-875MHz
• Stream Processing Units – 800
• Memory Clock Speed – 4800-5200MHz
• Memory Size – 1GB
• Memory Interface – 128-bit
• Memory Type – GDDR5

Images

Conclusion

You may remember the review that we did on the XFX Radeon HD5750 1GB graphics card a few days ago, and now we have taken a look at it’s bigger brother, the HD5770. In many ways it’s similar due to having the latest technologies and the same GPU as the 5750, but with a little bit more raw power squeezed out. It features a fully covered heatsink design and uses one PCI-Express power adapter as it has low power consumption. It also gives the ability for multiple graphics card configurations in CrossFireX. This card is perfect for the average gamer, giving fantastic looking graphics and performance to boot, and with not much of a price difference between this and it’s sibling (the HD5750), value for money is spot on and you’d be a fool not to put this in your short list when upgrading your graphics card. That’s why i’m giving this graphics card 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Latest DX11 architecture
• Fantastic performance
• Latest technology
• One PCI-Express power adapter needed.
• Low power output

Cons

• None

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to XFX for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

AMD says no to the above, and says yes to another DirectX11 card that is more geared towards the budget conscience gamer.  You may remember the news article posted here at eTeknix about a new card unveiled at CES this year. On January 25^th 2010, AMD is planning on releasing the HD5830 to narrow down performance margins between the 5770 and 5850. After all the performance gap here is quite large, so it would seem that a new card should be in order to narrow this bridge.

The new HD5830 will probably be a down clocked version of the HD5850 without GDDR5 memory, meaning that it will only have a 128-bit memory bus with GDDR3. This is where this writer believes that this card will have a bottleneck occur if it does at all. However some other sources state that it will be a down clocked version of an HD5850 with performance around that of an HD4890. So this quite possibly might be the DirectX 11 version of an HD4890 with GDDR5. The HD5830 should be Nvidia’s GTX280 competitor with a much smaller price tag.

Possible Aftermarket Cooler made by Thermalright for the HD5830

With prices of the 5000 series as of right now starting at $299.99+, the 5830 should allow the budget conscience to not feel so burdened by the costs of their graphics card. Some sources believe that the card might be available at sub $200 costs or a little bit above $200. Either way, the HD5830 is closer to being in reach for many more users than the HD5850.

As with the Zotac NM10, the AT5NM10-I features the same Atom D510 dual-core processor which operates at a core clock speed of 1.66GHz, uses the new NM10 chipset and supports 2 single channel 240 pin DDR2-667MHz memory modules. Other features include a single PCI expansion slot, two SATA II-ports, as well as an array of I/O connections including 5.1 channel analog audio, 10/100 Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, D-Sub VGA connection and for some mystical reason, legacy serial, parallel and PS/2 ports. I didn’t know Asus were going back in time?

It’s quite sad that Asus are resorting to using a PCI slot, as opposed to a PCI-Express slot and keeping this ancient set of connections on the I/O panel. Due to this though, there is a low amount of power consumption (13 TDP in fact), which in turn results in low heat production. Due to the low heat production, a single, albeit very large heatsink is the only cooling the board needs which spans across the dual-core Atom CPU and Northbridge chipset.

So i hear you all shouting at me, asking what this board is for, and who it’s aimed at. Well to be honest, i have no answer for you as surely it can’t be aimed at media centre and HTPC users, can it? Surely not, it hasn’t even got a HDMI port for HD playback, let alone the ability to put a PCI-Express graphics card with HDMI capabilities. What were Asus thinking when they brought out this relic?

It is said that this board is to rival the nVidia Ion platform, but from this reporter’s point of view, i don’t think it would rival an Amstrad PCW 9512!

Price and availability hasn’t been officially mentioned, but the news on the block is that it will be available at the end of January 2010 with a price point of around €80 (£71). If this is the case, then go buy the Zotac NM10, at least it’s from the 21st century.

Ok… So I’ve been working with computers ever since I was about 7 years old. I remember the first thing my dad introduced me to was MS-DOS… Ok at 7 years old, let’s be honest, MS-DOS is not that impressive, but that is not why I would spent hours of my time on the computer. I would use MS-DOS to play games on my floppy disks. Yes real floppies that were 5.25″ and could be thrown like a light weight Frisbee. Ok, so I miss those days… Where am I going with this you may ask?… Alright, so one night my dad’s computer got a virus and he had to spend some time reinstalling the MS-DOS operating system. Floppy after floppy after floppy he would have to go through to install this text based operating system that could play my awesome 2D games. The only problem was, after he got done reinstalling MS-DOS, all my save games were gone, nothing was backed up and all the software (games) that I used to have installed were now gone…

Have you ever gone through the above situation after a fresh install of Windows and just wanted an easier solution to multiple installer for things such as Firefox, Opera, Pidgin, i-Tunes, and many of your other software fetishes? Well the other day a friend showed me a link to a much simpler solution. The folks over at http://ninite.com/ have created an installer that runs in a temporary folder that can install a plethora of your favorite programs that make your life not only easier but a whole lot more fun. While all the more merry the application does not install to your hard drive and take up any valuable space whatsoever. It even runs the typical installer settings of all the programs taking out the next, next, finish (OOO!!! My Carpel Tunnel is Acting Up) pains of the install. Enjoy =D

The applications the installer can download and then install are:

Web Browsers

Chrome         Safari        Opera             Firefox

Skype    Messenger    Pidgin    Digsby    Google Talk    Thunderbird    Yahoo!

Media

iTunes     Songbird     Hulu     VLC    KMPlayer     AIMP

Winamp     Audacity     Spotify     GOM

Documents

Office    OpenOffice    Reader    Foxit Reader    CutePDF

Security

Essentials    Avast     AVG     Malwarebytes     Spybot

Runtimes

Flash     Flash (IE)     Java

.NETMicrosoft .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1     Silverlight

File Sharing

uTorrent     eMule

Other

Dropbox Evernote   Google Earth Steam

Utilities

ImgBurn CCleaner Launchy Revo Defraggler RealVNC

TeraCopy CDBurnerXP Recuva

Compression

7-Zip WinRAR

Developer Tools

Python FileZilla Notepad++ JDK WinSCP PuTTY Eclipse

With the Zotac board, connectivity is far from being a problem sporting Wi-Fi, 10 USB and Gigabit Ethernet so you’re far from short on connections . There is also a HDMI port however this only supports HD content at the rate of 720p, hence that is where the PCI-Express 16X slot would come in handy, having its uses for people looking to play high definition content including Blu-ray movies.

The Graphics as standard are running DirectX 9 and OpenGL 1.5 technologies and the connections available are a HDMI port and a VGA port. The board also has two single channel DDR2 240-pin DIMM memory slots that allow the board to take up to 4GB running a maximum speed of 667/800 MHz. The integrated sound drivers run 5.1 channel high definition audio, and include analog, optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs.

It also has a plentiful setup of disk drive connections including 2 x SATA 3.0Gb/s ports, 4 SATA 3.0GB/s ports with RAID technology and an eSATA port too.

The Zotac Pineview is set to release sometime near the end of the month for around £90 (€100) and is available in Mini ITX and Mini DTX form factors.

More information on this product can be found here and the product page for this board can be found here.

This is your chance to win an *XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card*
This competition is JUST for the forum members and will hopefully get the forums more active.

The competition will close on 13th February 2010 and all prize(s) are provided by eTeknix.com and XFX.

What’s included is as follows :

• XFX Radeon HD5770 1Gb Graphics Card* – A review of this product will be available shortly (Wednesday).
• One year free premimum membership to the eTeknix.com Forums

For your chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is:

Be a registered member of the forum.
Create as many posts (threads and replies) as you possibly can until closing date (Not Spam!).

Terms and Conditions

• The draw which will take place on [B]13th February 2010[/B] where the winner will be chosen as the person with the most posts from now until then.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email and name broadcast on the forum.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is [B]13th February 2010[/B].
• Multiple entries/accounts will not be accepted.
• The competition is open [B]WORLD WIDE[/B].
• Courier costs will be covered by eTeknix.
• Email address will be given to XFX for future updates.[/LIST]

Forum discussion on this competition is here.

Thanks and get posting.

Andy

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer – AMD
• GPU – Juniper
• Core Clock Speed – 700-740MHz
• Stream Processing Units – 720
• Memory Clock Speed – 4600 – 4800MHz
• Memory Size – 1GB
• Memory Interface – 128-bit
• Memory Type – GDDR5

Images

Conclusion

This graphics card is perfect for the avid user who doesn’t want to spend a mass amount of money whilst getting great value and performance. You may remember the ATI Radeon HD5750 1GB graphics card review that we did a week ago, this card is using the same GPU but has a bit more power squeezed out of it, and slightly better benchmark results. XFX are a trusted brand in the graphics card world and a card with great performance, amazing value, and the latest technologies coming from them is bound for greatness. That’s why i’m giving this graphics card 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Latest DX11 architecture
• Low profile
• Amazing value for money
• Latest technology
• Lightning fast
• Low power output

Cons

• None

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to XFX for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Sony is now showing that their Bravia lineup of televisions will now have the exclusive feature added to certain models and will include 2 pairs of 3D glasses (not the cheap paper ones either). So get ready to kick back relax enjoy your snacks and watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in Full HD 3D capacity.

Ballmer made it clear that this tablet computer fused by 2 of the biggest brand names in computer history was created to bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops and also to help the end user get more involved with their day to day usage.

No pricing  or availability dates were announced but rumours are floating around the interweb with mid-2010 being hot topic.

A lot of promotion of Microsoft’s consumer cloud strategy was spoken about including the company’s software interface being ported across different platforms including PCs, televisions and smartphones. There is simply no getting rid of Mr Gates and his posse.

Other manufacturer’s including Apple are reported to be getting ready to show their hand in this new fad for the touch screen tablet computer market. The only problem this reporter can see with that, is that he clearly doesn’t get paid enough to warrant a regular Apple product, let alone an all singing, all dancing touch screen tablet computer.

Who knows, the prices might be cheaper than we expect. Did I ever tell you about the time I saw a flying pig?

– ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5870 graphics processor breaks the teraFLOPS barrier to become World’s Fastest Mobile Graphics¹ –

Las Vegas, Nev. (International CES 2010)— Jan. 7, 2010 — AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced its lineup of next-generation DirectX 11-capable ATI Mobility Radeon™ Premium graphics, including ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5870 graphics, the highest performance graphics for notebooks in the world.¹ The entire family of DirectX 11-capable graphics consists of  ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5800, ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5700, ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5600 and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5400 series graphics. This top-to-bottom family of Direct 11-capable notebook graphics introduces compelling new features including ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, bringing powerful visual gaming and computing innovation to the notebook PC. Notebooks featuring the new graphics technology are previewed at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the VISION Experience Center, located in the Grand Lobby (GL-8 and GL-10) of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“Six months ago AMD claimed the title of undisputed technology leader in desktop graphics, and now we also offer powerful mobile graphics processors for notebooks to go with our market leadership in that segment,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. “Once again, AMD changes the game both in terms of performance and experience. AMD innovations now give notebook users full DirectX 11 support, eye-opening ATI Eyefinity technology, superb HD

multimedia capabilities, and ATI Stream technology designed to help optimize Windows^® 7 notebook performance.”

The next-generation family of DirectX 11-capable ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphics represents a powerful upgrade for OEMs to existing and upcoming 2009 AMD Mainstream and 2^nd Generation Ultrathin notebook platforms, as well as next-generation “Danube” mainstream and “Nile” ultrathin notebook platforms scheduled to launch in the first half of 2010. These graphics innovations are designed to let you:

Accelerate your mobile performance:

· The DirectX 11-capable ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphics lineup is the first and only notebook graphics technology to support DirectCompute 11, allowing users to take full advantage of Windows 7, the first compute-capable operating system.²

· Enjoy new features, functionality and improved performance in top media, entertainment and productivity applications made possible by ATI Stream technology.³

· ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5400 series (and higher) graphics fully support both DirectX 11 and OpenCL™, enabling broad application acceleration support today and tomorrow.

Maximize your mobile lifestyle

· ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology enables super high resolution panoramic computing for notebooks, allowing mobile users to seamlessly harness up to six monitors for improved gaming, productivity, and entertainment.⁴

· Enjoy enhanced multimedia capabilities through Unified Video Decoder 2 technology, for upscaling beyond 1080p and dual 1080p decoding of Blu-ray video and HD streams.⁵

· Benefit from state-of-the-art home theatre entertainment technologies including HDMI 1.3a Dolby^® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™, and

advanced display quality from HDMI 1.3a Deep Color & x.v.Color for a theater-class entertainment experience.⁶

Dominate your games with DirectX 11:

· Enjoy intense gaming performance, unrivalled visual quality, and an overall superior HD gaming experience on HD-capable monitors with DirectX 11 (as compared to DirectX^® 10.1).

· Realize the ultimate in game compatibility, as the DirectX 11 API was developed on AMD graphics hardware and all initial DirectX 11 games were developed or continue to be developed on AMD’s DirectX 11-capable hardware.

· More than 20 DirectX 11 games are currently in development, with gamers already enjoying the incredible DirectX 11 experience offered by titles such as EA Phenomic’s BattleForge™, GSC Gameworld’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat™, and Codemasters’ Colin McRae™: DiRT^® 2™.

· The next-generation DirectX 11-capable family of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphics is two generations ahead of DirectX^® 10.0 support found in competing mobile graphics solutions.

Exceptional Power Efficiency:

· Benefit from four times the performance-per-watt efficiency over the last two generations of ATI Mobility Radeon Premium graphics thanks to improved processor design and a new 40nm process⁷

· Experience  dramatically lower idle power, saving battery power when the graphics processor isn’t needed

· Next-generation Vari-Bright™ technology used for optimizing notebook display brightness delivers up to 50 percent power savings over the previous generation’s software based approach ⁷

· Platform independent graphics switching technology helps to save power while offering efficient switching options⁸

· GDDR5 Advanced Memory Support delivers double the memory bandwidth over previous generation AMD discrete graphics⁹

Industry Quotes:

“ASUS has worked closely with AMD for years to ensure that we’re collaborating to bring the newest and most compelling notebook technologies to our customers first, and with the DirectX 11-capable family of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphics and the ASUS G73 and new N series of notebooks, we’re continuing that leadership,” said P.C. Wang, Corporate Vice President & General Manager, Notebook Business Unit, System Business Group, ASUS.

“Today’s consumers demand more of their notebooks, and to meet those changing needs, MSI continually strives to offer a wide variety of notebooks infused with leading technologies,” said Sam Chern, Notebook Marketing Director, MSI.  “Next-generation ATI Mobility Radeon Premium graphics are a perfect solution, introducing industry first features such as DirectX 11 gaming support that help us better address the full range of customers at affordable prices.”

Notebooks with DirectX 11-capable ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphics are scheduled to be available in the first half of 2010.

Supporting Resources

· AMD @ 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show:

—    For AMD press meetings please contact Sarah Vella at Bite Communications, sarah.vella@bitecommunications.com or (416) 217-0777

—    VISION Experience Center: Grand Lobby (GL-8 and GL-10) of the Las Vegas Convention Center

—    Facebook: AMD @ 2010 International CES

—    On the Web: http://www.amd.com/ces

· Product Page: Next-generation DirectX 11-capable family of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 graphics

· Blog: ATI Eyefinity’s Panoramic Future, on the AMD at Home blog

· Blog: AMD@CES 2010: Bringing the ultimate entertainment experience to the Entertainment Capital of the World

· Twitter: Follow AMD graphics news on Twitter at @ATIGraphics

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

Copyright 2010,  AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, Mobility, Radeon, Vari-Bright, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

1. Based on tests conducted on  November 3, 2009, the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5870 3DMarkVantage score is 6568 which is the highest score reported to date by any notebook graphics card. As of January 7, 2010, only ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5850 break the teraFLOPs Barrier. Calculations: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (700MHz*800 (shaders) *2 = 1.12 TeraFLOPs), ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 (625MHz*800*2= 1.0 TeraFLOPs.

2. As of December 5, 2009, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800, HD 5700, HD 5600 and HD 5400 series graphics cards are the only notebook graphics processors to support DirectCompute 11.

3. Requires application support for ATI Stream technology.

4. Driver version 8.66 (Catalyst 9.10) or above is required to support ATI Eyefinity technology. Actual number of attachable monitors will vary by notebook model.

5. Dual 1080p stream capabilities available with the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5800, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5700, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5600 Series GPUs. Picture-in-picture is displayed in SD and is available on the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5450 and ATI Mobility Radeon 5470.

6. 10-bit monitor required for full feature enablement.

7. 50% LCD power saving is in comparison with the previous generation (SW Vari-Bright) when tested on the same system. Vari-Bright™ is a technology platform that includes a broad set of capabilities offered by certain ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD GPUs. Not all products have all features and full enablement of some capabilities and may require complementary products.

8. ATI PowerPlay™, ATI PowerXpress™, ATI™ Switchable Graphics, and Vari-Bright™ are technology platforms that include a broad set of capabilities offered by certain ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD GPUs. Not all products have all features and full enablement of some capabilities and may require complementary products.

9. Doubling the memory bandwidth with GDDR5 memory.  Calculation based on: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5750 (51.2Gbps) vs. ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4670 (25.6Gbps).

Throughout the creation of a review site, it involves liasing with PR companies and the companies marketing managers and directors. You start to build a rapport and get the latest industry breaking news. Among this, you recieve periodical press releases and sometimes, occassionaly a contradication will arise.

Today happens to be one of those days.

You may remember a world exclusive that we ran on nVidia alter benchmarks for fastest mobile GPU crown and the followup nVidia respond to benchmark claims. This was a situation which caused controversy between the 2 biggest rival GPU creators. However this time, it’s the battle for the USB 3.0 certification from usb.org between the 2 biggest rival motherboard manufacturer’s Asus and Gigabyte.

Upon our daily tasks of publishing press releases and the latest news, we were greeted with this press release titled “GIGABYTE First With USB 3.0 Motherboard Certification” on 4th January 2010. On 5th January 2010 we were greeted with a press release titled “ASUS Leads the Industry with the First USB 3.0 Certified Motherboard“.

A simple check on the usb.org compliance website should clear things up, right? Wrong. By checking on the usb.org compliance website here for superspeed products only, reveals both the Asus and Gigabyte boards.

The two boards in question are the Asus P6X58D PREMIUM and the Gigabyte GA -P55A-UD3 which this reporter has first hand knowledge of the Gigabyte board only being published on the compliance site today (8th January 2010)

So i hear you all shouting at me saying “Andy, what does this mean?”.

Simply put, it either means that Asus are lying and technically weren’t first, or Gigabyte are lying and technically weren’t first. Or could it be that usb.org are the perpetrator and both motherboard manufacturer’s were indeed first.

An official statement from Gigabyte reads:

The timing was as follows:

31 Dec – we received information by email from USB-IF about our mobo passed their tests

04 Jan – we sent news to media about it

as far as i know Asus informed that

“(…) the P6X58D Premium was officially recognized for achieving USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed USB compliance on January 5, 2010″

An official statement from Asus reads:

Thanks for your enquiries regarding USB 3.0 official certification.

The ASUS P6X58D Premium is the first to receive USB 3.0 certification from USB-IF. Even though our competitor posted the news earlier than ASUS (January 4th versus January 6th), a check of USB-IF’s certified products list reveals that, as of January 7th, the ASUS P6X58D Premium was the only motherboard listed. A capture of this is available below:

As you can see from the screenshots above (supplied by Asus), Gigabyte are no where to be found, an update to the usb.org website clearly shows that Gigabyte are listed now. Gigabyte contacted us this morning with this quote:

Our MB has appeared on this website finally:
http://www.usb.org/kcompliance/view/view_item?item_key=7d0b4ddb36b12f78e15a0dbcf6c45ca24c729b40&referring_url=/kcompliance

So the question is, who is telling the truth in this world exclusive story of being the first for USB 3.0 certification? Maybe it was just one big mix up on usb.org’s behalf? We will update you soon.

Discuss this article in our forums.

External Graphics Platform, or XGP for short was born and in it’s simplicity, it was a HD3870 in a box. The purpose of it, was to offer extra performance for notebooks compatible with the XGP platform. Sounds very simple right? Wrong.

The problem that it had, whilst being a good product, it never really hit the market by storm and consumers as well as manufacturer’s just let the wind take it by and out of our lives. There was one company who liked it and decided to support it. None other than Fujitsu Siemens, who were the only vendor to offer a XGP compatible notebook.

Since the summer of 2008, ATI have been looking at where they went wrong, and trying to rectify it.

Announcing the NEW XGP platform. Instead of a shoddy 3870 that no one wants, they have now given the offering of the XGP platform using the HD 5830 DirectX11 capable graphics card with the latest technologies and concepts. It features the latest PCI-Express 2.0 connector for simplicity of connecting it to a notebook, features DVI as well as HDMI digital outputs and of course other technologies that the 5xxx series card’s support including ATI Eyefinity, low power output and the latest GPU architecture.

We are still unsure as to how the revised XGP platform is going to hit the market, and how the vendors will take to it this time round. We at eTeknix.com sure have more hope for it this time around.

We also found a brief video explaining the technology which you can see above.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer – AMD
• GPU – Juniper
• Core Clock Speed – 700MHz
• Stream Processing Units – 720
• Memory Clock Speed – 1.15GHz
• Memory Size – 1GB
• Memory Interface – 128-bit
• Memory Type – GDDR5

Images

Conclusion

This graphics card is great if you’re the type of person who wants to dabble in some of the latest games, or who prefers to play some of the favourite oldies with great performance. ATI seem to have made a product with the latest technology whilst maintaining an eco friendly design and having price in mind. It’s the best bang for buck for graphics cards and incorporates a single 6 pin PCI-Express adapter and low power output. It supports ATI Eyefinity for the use with a multi-monitor setup and has the latest DX11 architecture. That’s why i’m giving this graphics card 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Amazing value for money
• Latest DX11 architecture
• Latest technology
• Low power output
• Low profile

Cons

• None

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to AMD for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

These new DDR3 kits will be available up to whopping speeds of 2400MHz and are aimed at enthusiasts like ourselves.

• F3-19200CL9D-4GBPIS 2400 MHz CL 9-11-9-28
• F3-18400CL8D-4GBPIS 2300 MHz CL 8-11-8-28
• F3-16000CL6D-4GBPIS 2000 MHz CL 6-9-6-24
• F3-16000CL7D-4GBPIS 2000 MHz CL 7-9-7-24
• F3-16000CL8D-4GBPIS 2000 MHz CL 8-9-8-24

  

With Intels Core i5 750 and Core i7 860 and 870 processors taking the market by storm, these memory modules have been specifically designed for the,

The top model memory works at a speed of 2400MHz with timings of 9-11-9-28 running at a very cool 1.65V. Other models include the kit that runs at 2000MHz whilst maintaining timings of 6-9-6-24.

G.Skill ahve been working closely with performance motherboard companies to ensure the best compatibility and fantastic stability. Bearing in mind, that you will need to update your motherboard to the latest BIOS version for best results.

To this date (6th Jan 2010) the only qualified motherboard is the Asus P7P55D Deluxe (Since BIOS 1207)

As with all G.Skill products, they come with a lifetime warranty as standard and come supplied in their easily recognizable black PI-Series heatsinks.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Model – A2328
• Dimensions – 20 x 55 x 190mm
• Net Weight – 450g
• Color – Silver
• Material – Aluminium body and acrylic panel
• Drive Bays – 5.25 Drive Bay
• Multimedia Kits – IR remote control/2 AAA type batteries/Media LAB application CD/USB cable/Internal USB EXT cable/MB PWR SW Cable/MB PWR EXT cable

Images

Conclusion

This VFD panel is great for a HTPC user who is just starting out. Someone who is interested in testing the water in regards home theatre pc. It has an IR remote control with tons of features that pack a punch and a fully customizable backend where you can sync your favourite applications ranging from DVD to music players including iTunes and PowerDVD. It is simple to use with direct instructions and also comes in a choice of 2 stylish brushed metal designs. At the price point of £61.04 I do find it quite expensive, but it does depend on how much use you will be getting out of it. Similar panels are used in the Thermaltake HTPC cases like the DH202 that we reviewed recently. These can be had for around £100 more, so it all comes down to how much you want to spend, including looking at bang for buck. Due to these reasons, i’m giving this product 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Sleek looking
• Stylish
• Choice of colours
• Good functionality

Cons

• Expensive

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Thermaltake for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Since the dawning of time, Microsoft has been an innovator which has been a force to be reckoned with, within the geek and nerd society alike. Just like the beginnings of the gasoline powered motor vehicle by Henry Ford in 1908, Microsoft has made many improvements since MS-DOS which was released in 1981. Some of us may even remember having to type out commands to create directories, delete files, and check how many Megabytes of hard drive space we had left. As hard drives once used to be in the form of 5.25″ drives with only Megabytes of storage space to spare. Yet alone, some of us remember arming ourselves with our 5.25″ floppy disks whereas today we would carry around our flash drives on a key ring with over a million times more space on such a tiny device. However you do have to admit for those of us who remember our floppy disks; they were a lot of fun to bend and throw like a Frisbee.

Do you remember back to the days when text was your friend? I hope it still is, considering you are reading this article (otherwise this writer may just have to go on strike). OK I understand, it has been a long time since I’ve last posted an article, but school was kicking my arse therefore my sabbatical was justified. So no using “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” my way or.. Sorry… This isn’t English class… Back to the Article…

]]> http://www.eteknix.com/news/windows-7-part-3-the-rolls-royce-of-microsoft/feed/ 2 http://www.eteknix.com/reviews/notebooks/virgin-media-freedom-netbook-video-review/ http://www.eteknix.com/reviews/notebooks/virgin-media-freedom-netbook-video-review/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:09:54 +0000 Andy Ruffell http://www.eteknix.com/?p=3783 Today we are looking at the Virgin Media Freedom netbook. This particular netbook comes free when you sign up to a Virgin Media broadband package and comes supplied with an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1gb ddr2, 120gb hard drive and integrated sound and graphics. It’s perfect for travelling with but be warned it’s quite small.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer – Intel
• CPU – Atom N270
• Clock Speed – 1.60GHz
• Memory Size – 1GB DDR2
• Memory Speed – 533MHz
• Hard Drive – 120GB SATA Hard Drive
• Graphics – Integrated Intel Graphics
• Audio – Intel High Definition Audio (Stereo output)
• Built in 0.3 megapixel webcam
• Screen Size – 10.2″ (1024×600)

Images

Conclusion

This netbook is great if you’re the type of person who does work on the go as its very light and small so is easily transported. This does however have its downsides. It can be quite fiddly for the builder type chaps with chubby fingers and for people with bad sight, the 1024×600 resolution is going to be limiting. Speaking of the resolution, we found that some of the system windows (computer properties and display properties) were cut off and the “ok”, “cancel” and “apply” buttons were missing. Also, after using the netbook for some time, it kept rotating the screen by 90 degrees or sometimes 180 degrees. This proved very annoying and tedious to change back. Maybe it’s a keyboard or mouse shortcut? Either way, this netbook is free with Virgin Media’s broadband package, so you can’t complain too much, and if you do, you can always sell it? Due to this, i’m giving this netbook 3 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Sleak looking
• Free with Virgin Media broadband packages
• Easy transported

Cons

• Keys are fiddly
• Screen rotates
• Quite slow as its single core 1.6GHz

We have rated this 3 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Virgin Media for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA®
• GPU GeForce® GTX 275
• Core clock 633MHz
• Stream Processors 240
• Shader Clock 14042 MHz
• Memory Clock 2268MHz
• Memory Size 896MB
• Memory Interface 448-bit
• Memory Type GDDR3

Images

Conclusion

This card is a great (what we’d call mid-range) card that does its job very well. Has great cooling properties, great performance, and comes with a free copy of the game GRID. Also coupled with Zotac’s standard 5 year warranty, this is going to be a buyers choice for nVidia fans. Sadly the price is a bit expensive compared to ATI’s new 5xxx series cards, but hopefully prices will settle nearer christmas, but we should be seeing nVidia’s hand at DX11 cards by then. If you are a hardcore gamer and want a stop gap card, then i’d recommend this, or personally go for the AMP! edition from Zotac’s 275 range. Sadly, for me, the price is  a bit off putting, and that’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Performed well in benchmarks
• Good cooling properties
• Fantastic warranty
• Good brand

Cons

• Stiff competition
• Other cards can be had cheaper
  

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Zotac for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured and Supplied By:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

Specifications

Images

Conclusion

I’ve always dreamed of having a desktop style case since the very first time i started dabbling with computer, as i think they are unique and offer something a tower case never can. I’ve always had an idea of having my computer housed in a HTPC style chassis with my games console underneath, V+ box and amplifier, it just seemed the logical way of having my whole home cinema system set up and now i have the ability to do this. This case is perfect for the avid home theater user who wants to watch and record their latest tv shows, show of the latest family picture album and listen to the latest songs all from their HTPC. With the LCD display module and multimedia control, this all becomes a dream come true. Being coupled with a great built quality and realiable brand, the Thermaltake DH202 was bound to be a hit for me. Shame it’s not available in the UK yet, but hopefully in the next coming months, we will see this case flying off the shelves. That’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Robust
• Reliable manufacturer
• Stylish
• Tons of features

Cons

• Lack of availability in the UK

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Thermaltake for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured and Supplied By:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Capacities: 2Gb – 16Gb
• Dimensions: 32mm x 15mm x 3mm
• Weight: Less than 2 grams
• Water Resistant
• Interface: USB
• Up to 30MB/s
• Supports ReadyBoost

Pico Mini drives are available in 2GB to 16GB capacities

• Pink (2GB)
• Green (4GB)
• Blue (8GB)
• Black (16GB)

Images

Conclusion

As USB drives go, there isnt a lot to say about them. Mainly, you will want to find the best performance for the cheapest price. As mentioned in the video, the price of this for it’s size in terms of capacity is fairly good, and with their funky style and colours, it is one drive not to be snarled at. The only problem is that being so small (which is also a good thing) it might be easily lost, and therefore we are giving this 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Funky colours
• Inexpensive
• Water Resistant
• Tiny

Cons

• Tiny and could get lost easily.
  

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Super Talent for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Welcome to Part 2 of my Windows 7 series. In this article you will learn if you can upgrade to Windows 7, and how to custom install Windows 7. You will also learn of some general benchmarks of Windows 7 through time it takes to install, shutdown, and reboot versus Windows Vista SP2 and Windows XP SP3. Through this article you will learn how to put the  evil Vista dragon of Microsoft to bed with Windows 7.

Between the years of Windows Installation processes, Microsoft has tried to make their installers easier to use. This has been apparent between both Windows Vista and Windows 7. When Windows Vista was first released, Microsoft had made their installer more graphical and appealing to the consumers eye. With this they also added in mouse functionality so a user did not just have to use the keyboard to get Windows installed. Now a user was given the option of using a mouse to set their partition tables, set their language and click next, next finish like they were installing any other piece of software out there. Pretty simple right?

Well for those of you who have never installed Windows before, Windows 7 just like Vista is graphical and easy to install. However for those of you who are new to the installation process and are scared of messing something up, never fear, here shortly I will walk you through the process of installation of Windows 7 through a custom install process.

So before we begin with a custom install, lets talk about the upgrading process. Am I eligible you may ask? Continue to page 2 to find out!

This is your last chance to win a *HIS Radeon HD 4830 Graphics Card*

There are only ***THREE*** weeks left for you to be within the chance of winning this fantastic card.

The competition will close on 20th November 2009 and all prize(s) are provided by eTeknix.com

Original competition article.

What’s included is as follows :

• HIS Radeon HD 4830 Graphics card and accessories (Fully Boxed) – As reviewed here.
  

For your chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is answer 2 simple questions.

1. How many stream processing units does the HD 4830 have?
   
2. What is the engine clock speed of the HD 4830?
   

Terms and Conditions

• To enter, participants must answer the questions above and submit their answers to eTeknix via the official entry form below.
• All correct entries will be entered into the draw which will take place on 21st November 2009 where the winner will be chosen at random.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is 20th November 2009.
• Multiple entries will not be accepted.
• The competition is open worldwide
• Courier costs will have to be covered by the winner of the prizes unless in the UK.

Tip: All of the answers can be found on this page of eTeknix
Any questions feel free to discuss it in the forums here.

[contact-form]

Note: Not all computers support booting from a USB device, so make sure the computer you wish to install Windows on can support it before continuing through these steps. You should find this option in your BIOS. Please note that altering some settings in your BIOS could cause your computer to stop working properly or worse, so be careful.

There are 3 sections to this guide, the first if you are running a Vista or 7 PC, the second if you are running XP and finally the process of making your USB drive bootable for all operating systems.

Note: Make sure you backup anything on your USB drive first, as you will be required to format it.

What you will need:

• A working comouter with Windows Vista, 7 or XP installed
• Flash Drive of at least 4GB in size, unless installing 64bit  then you may need 8GB
• Windows Vista or Windows 7 installation media or folders from the DVD

For Windows Vista or Windows 7

Now that you have the above we can continue down the road of a faster installation through USB stick. As an added bonus, installing Windows from a USB device is much faster than via DVD. Here’s how you do it.

Step 1: First you will want to insert your USB drive into a Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer and wait until it is detected. It should be labeled as a Removable Device under Computer. Make a note of the drive letter of your flash drive, this is important in a later step.

Step 2: Now go to start and then in the search field type cmd but don’t press enter. In the menu that appears above the search box you should see cmd.exe, scroll over this and right click it then select “Run as administrator”. After the command prompt has loaded with administrator rights you are ready to continue on to the next step.

Step 3: Now in the command prompt you will need to find some important information about your USB drive and execute a series of commands so it can be used correctly as a Windows Vista or Windows 7 boot drive. In the open command prompt type DISKPART. This should execute the Vista DISKPART utility and should leave you with a DISKPART prompt, as below.

Step 4: Now you need to type the following commands. The first, LIST DISK will give you an idea of what DISK you need to select for the DISKPART utility. You will be presented with a list of disks on your computer. You will want to select the one that looks like it is your flash drive. Generally a 4GB will report right around 3822MB in size, could be more could be less. In my example, my flash drive is disk 1.

Now these steps below you will want to type one by one pressing enter after each line.

LIST DISK (see above for explaination)

SELECT DISK x (where x is the number of your USB drive)

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS (note that the format process could take some time to complete)

Step 5: Now after you are done running these steps go ahead and close the command promt, or type exit to leave DISKPART and minimise it as you will need it later. See the making your USB installation drive section below.

For Windows XP

Step 1: Windows XP does not have the DISKPART utility needed to make your USB drive bootable , so you will have to download a third party tool called MBRWizard! Once downloaded you need to extact the file. In this example we will extract the folder to the desktop.

Step 2: Format your USB drive by finding it in My Computer, right clicking it, then selecting format. Ensure NTFS is selected and the quick format box is ticked and click ok.

Step 3: Open the command prompt by going to  Start > Program > Accessories > Command Prompt, or by clicking run on your start menu and typing cmd then clicking ok.

Step 4: Type the following commands

cd Desktop/MBRWiz2.0/
MBRWiz /list

Find your USB drive in the list that appears. If you only have one hard drive in your computer, it will usually be Disk 1, as in this example.

Step 5: Make your USB drive active by typingthe following, where X is the number of your disk from step 4 then close the command prompt.

mbrwiz /disk=X /active=1

Making your USB installation drive!

Step 1: You will now want to insert your media for Windows Vista or Windows 7 into your DVD drive, or if you have an image make sure it is mounted.

After this is done locate what drive letter your virtual drive or your media drive is. Generally the DVD drive is listed as D on most computers, however this could vary, so to be sure to go to Computer and find the drive with the Windows Vista or Windows 7 media pictured.

You will need to find the drive letter of your USB drive, you can find this in My Computer.

On my computer, my installation media is located on my F drive and my USB drive is G.

Step 2: Now follow the steps below, pressing enter after each line:

F: (this is the drive letter of the drive with Windows installation files on it)

CD BOOT

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 G: (this is the drive letter of your USB drive)

Step 3: Now go into my computer and copy everything from your Windows Vista or Windows 7 media drive to your USB drive and you will now have a fully functional bootable version of Windows Vista or Windows 7 on your USB drive.

Step 4: If you have made it this far congratulations as your drive should be fully functional. The last step is to enter your computers bios that you plan to install Windows Vista or Windows 7 with from the USB drive and change the boot device order to the USB drive or Removable Media/Removable Device. If everything worked for you, give yourself a pat on the back you deserve it!

Originally posted by killap4oc here: http://forums.eteknix.com/showthread.php?t=1418

Edited and expanded by Thinharder (David McCann)

In order to capitalise on Windows 7s improved performance on lower specification machines, Nvidia have recently released the ION platform, which includes the Intel Atom processor and a GeForce 9400M graphics based MCP79 chipset. The ION is fully DirectX 10 compatible, something that Windows XP can’t support, and this would be something that Microsoft and Nvidia will be using to help push Windows 7 netbook sales.

It seems Nvidia, however, didn’t want to see the end of their XP based sales just yet, so have also released the ION LE, a DX9 but otherwise identical version of the platform. This is presumably to keep within the licensing terms Microsoft sets down for their cut price version of Windows XP.

There has been some talk as to why Nvidia would go to the lengths of making a separate chip for what is essentially a dying market, with some suggesting it is simply a full ION with DX10 disabled. It now seems that this is true and better yet it can be reversed easily via software.

Users of the new ION LE based HP (Compaq) Mini 311 posting on the myHPmini.com forum, led by “runawayprisoner”, have found that by using drivers intended for the full ION, either by modifying the INF to trick it into thinking it’s not an LE, or by forcing it via device manager the result is a fully DX10 ION LE. Reports suggest that performance is slightly increased in most games and benchmarks tested under DX9 as well, though these cannot be confirmed at this stage.

So it seems that the conspiracy theorists were correct this time round. Nvidia has indeed not made a separate chip, but has instead simply disabled DX10 on the LE model. How the will respond to this remains to be seen, but with DX10 working even with the latest drivers on their website our guess is they will just quietly let it pass.

Source: http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2571

My Mini Review of the 311: http://eteknix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1405

Manufactured And Supplied By:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

Images

Conclusion

AMD have shown us all that they are still very much a market leader for lightning fast products, whilst maintaning a tasty price tag and keeping EXTREMELY cool. Also with rumours of the ability to unlock a 4th core surrounding chat rooms, blogs and forums, this could be one very very worthwhile purchase. That’s why i’m giving it 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Good bang for buck
• Low power output for its speed
• Good for multi-tasking
• EXTREMELY cool

Cons

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to AMD for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

October 22, 2009 is a day that will go down in history for computer users around the world. On this day, Microsoft released their newest version of Microsoft Windows. However fear of using the capitalistic monopolistic product still remains in some people’s minds as Vista was something that just sucked up resources and spat them on the ground for the user to somehow admire. What was it exactly that Vista even brought to the people besides Aero, UAC and several different versions of Windows that users would have to contemplate getting because they might be missing out on features with one product over another.  It brought a whole world of confusion to the average computer user and a whole world of hurt for those who could not afford to build or purchase a computer that was efficient enough to run Vista.

Speaking of efficiency and being green,  I am pretty sure this is not what Microsoft had in mind with Windows Vista, as it just continually sucked up resources and aided computer companies and hardware manufactures in making faster processors and larger sticks of memory with even faster memory speeds. What exactly happened to the old DDR standard, or the DDR 2 Standard or the old Pentium 4 I had lying around. They became obsolete as they no longer seemed to keep up with Windows Vista (ok so maybe not DDR 2). I am not saying change is a bad thing, but as landfills begin to fill with our old computer hardware, who is to blame for this problem? MICROSOFT, anytime Microsoft wants to make a buck they release a new Operating System to try to appease the masses; however this was a total failure with Vista. Ok, yes people bought into this scam of an operating system but so many were displeased with it and went back to XP which was practically a Millennia type of Operating System. Something that was older, but just worked for most of everyone! Even Microsoft had to extend the length of time for Windows Updates to be available to Windows XP as a massive amount of people never changed over to Vista (ok, so fine change is a bad thing, at least when it comes to your operating system). However Microsoft has been working hard to make some change to make life easier with a transition to a new operating system!

]]> http://www.eteknix.com/news/windows-7-part-1-microsofts-liberation/feed/ 1 http://www.eteknix.com/how-tos/how-to-install-a-graphics-card/ http://www.eteknix.com/how-tos/how-to-install-a-graphics-card/#comments Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:00:50 +0000 Andy Ruffell http://www.eteknix.com/?p=2654 Ever wanted to update your graphics card so you can play the latest games including Crysis Warhead, GTA IV, and GRID.

Installing any type of PCI card can be a daunting task for a novice user.

In this video will show you exactly how to put the card in. Whether it be ATI or nVidia, we will show you which slot to put it in and and about various power adapters if your particular graphics card requires it.

Enjoy!

Manufactured By:

Supplied By:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

Specifications

Images

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a suitable hard drive for storage, and are constantly on the go, then this is going to be a worthwhile product to look at. It’s sleek, its funky, its small and lightweight. Coming in various different sizes, various different colours and with a fantastic 5 year warranty. What more could you ask for? The only downside to this drive is the interface that it uses. I would have loved to have seen this as an e-sata interface, but due to the market it’s aimed at, USB was the choice. Being USB obviously means the transfer rate and speed is quite slow. That’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• 5year warranty
• Reliable manufacturer
• Stylish
• Quiet operation

Cons

• Slow USB interface
• Blister pack packaging

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Seagate for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured and supplied by:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA®
• GPU GeForce® GTX 285
• Core clock 702MHz
• Stream Processors 240
• Shader Clock 1512 MHz
• Memory Clock 2592MHz
• Memory Size 1GB
• Memory Interface 512-bit
• Memory Type GDDR3

Images

Conclusion

This card does exactly what it says on the box, and performs extremely well in the latest games. It has excellent cooling properties and comes with a fantastic warranty. When we started reviewing this card, the new 5xxx series cards were just a whisper, but now that they are out, it has sadly made this card take a back seat in regards to having a powerful card for a good price. AMD’s radeon 4890 still out performs this card, as well as the new 5xxx series pushing it to one side and taking it’s place on the podium. That’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Good cooling properties
• Faired well in benchmarks
• Good brand
• Fantastic warranty

Cons

• Expensive
• Stiff competition
  

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Zotac for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured By:

Supplied By:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• 36″w x 18″h x 1/8″ (914mm x 457mm)
• Sure Grip rubber backing
• Cloth mousing surface
• Designed in the USA
• Made in USA

Images

Conclusion

It seems that gaming has gone to a new level. Especially when people stop buying mouse pads, and start buying desk pads. It seems we have the need for something that our keyboard and mouse both sit on, and to be honest, i get it. I’m a bloke, so the bigger the better, and it doesn’t get much bigger than the Ripper XXL from XTracPads. With it’s rubber backing and soft, comfortable textile material. It is the perfect home for your mouse to glide across. The only problem i can see is that, whilst a lot of retailers stock various products in this range, none in the UK seem to stock any XTracPads products, let alone the Ripper XXL, but there is a market for it, and i hope XTracPads realise this and that’s why i’m giving it 3 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Frey resistant edges
• Soft and comfortable
• Rubber backing
• Extra heavy duty

Cons

• Lack of availabilty
  

We have RE-rated this 5 out of 5 stars. We originally rated it 3 out of 5 stars, but have since been informed that they do a lot of sale directly, and i have put them in touch with some UK retailers.

Thank you to XTracPads for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured By:

Supplied By:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• Supports Intel® Atom 330 Processor
• Intel®945GC Express Chipset + ICH7 Chipset
• 533MHz FSB
  
• Dual Channel DDR2 533/400MHz (2 x 240 pin)
  
• 2 x 32-bit PCI Slots
• 1 x PCI-Express x1 slot
• 2 x Serial ATA 3Gb/s connectors
• 1 x Ultra DMA 100/66 IDE connector
• Realtek ALC662 HD Audio Codec with 6-Channel
• Realtek RT8103EL PCI-E 10/100m LAN
• Embedded 8 x USB 2.0/1.1
• Micro ATX Form Factor (228mm x 180mm)

Images

Conclusion

I am completely amazed by this board. I never thought that something so cheap and so small could pack so much of a punch. Just looking at the video and seeing the benchmarks, you can see that for a fully integrated on board component, it has some brilliant results. The thing i am pleased with the most, has to be the integrated graphics, as it quite happily ran 1920×1200 with Windows Vista Aero enabled, and did it, without a hitch. The only downside to the board is the lack of availability in the UK, but im sure in the near future that will change, when people realise the demand for products like this. That’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Small
• Powerful
• Good reputable brand
• Uses little power
• Cheap

Cons

• Lack of availabilty
  

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Jetway for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured By:

Supplied By:

Specifications

Product page can be located here.

• DDR2
• Cas Latency – 5-5-5-15
• Voltage – 2.0v – 2.1v
• Speed – DDR2-1066 (PC2-8500)
  
• Unbuffered
• Non-ECC
• 240-pin DIMM
• Lifetime Warranty

Images

Conclusion

I’ve always been a fan of G.Skill, since the very beginning, when they came onto the scene with their super fast DDR memory. Since then, G.Skill have gone from strength to strength and have manufactured this lightning fast DDR2 memory. It comes in the patented blue heatspreaders that G.Skill have sported since their early days. For people who want good value for money as well as keeping tight timings and quick responses. This memory is going to be perfect for you. The only problem i can see is that, whilst a lot of retailers stock G.Skill products, it is generally only one or two of their product range. Other than this, i think this memory is amazing and that’s why i’m giving it 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Tight Timings
• Lifetime Warranty
• Fairly low voltage
• Cheap

Cons

• Lack of availabilty
  

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to eTeknix for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

***Competition Closed***

This is your chance to win a *HIS Radeon HD 4830 Graphics Card*

The competition will close on 20th November 2009 and all prize(s) are provided by eTeknix.com

What’s included is as follows :

• HIS Radeon HD 4830 Graphics card and accessories (Fully Boxed) – As reviewed here.
  

For your chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is answer 2 simple questions.

1. How many stream processing units does the HD 4830 have?
   
2. What is the engine clock speed of the HD 4830?
   

Terms and Conditions

• To enter, participants must answer the questions above and submit their answers to eTeknix via the official entry form below.
• All correct entries will be entered into the draw which will take place on 21st November 2009 where the winner will be chosen at random.
• Winner(s) will be notified by email.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Competition closing date is 20th November 2009.
• Multiple entries will not be accepted.
• The competition is open worldwide
• Courier costs will have to be covered by the winner of the prizes unless in the UK.

Tip: All of the answers can be found on this page of eTeknix
Any questions feel free to discuss it in the forums here.

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Specifications

Product page can be located here.

Processor

Memory

Hard Drive(s)

Optical Drives

Laptop Chassis

Images

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for a simple laptop to fulfill your needs of general desktop work, web surfing and facebooking, but also including the functionality to edit photos, play games and edit video, then look no further than the atractively priced Xplora E16 home laptop. It’s perfectly equipped with it’s 15.6″ widescreen high definition tft screen, 250gb hard drive, 1.6Ghz AMD processor and 2gb of super fast DDR2 memory. It will allow you to do all of your favorite tasks with ease. If you do see yourself as a budding video editor or the next David Bailey and photo editing is your new found passion, then this laptop from Novatech packs enough grunt to take care of this without lockups or freezing. The only downsides that i can see is the fact that Novatech aren’t a well known brand in manufacturing laptops so this may put some people off, but the main downside to this laptop is the feel of it. For the price, you can’t expect it to be cased in special metals from the moon, but i would expect a few metal parts to it, but the whole outer casing is made from plastic, which admittedly feels quite cheap. That’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Sleek design
• High definition screen
• Affordable
• Excellent value for money
• Dedicated customer support team

Cons

• Unknown brand
• Feels cheaply made
  

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Novatech for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

In this preview we will be looking at what to expect from AMDs Radeon HD 5700 series cards, aimed at consumers who don’t want to spend £300 on a single graphics card but still want impressive single card performance and full DX11 compatibility. I’m sure that many 4800 series users will be keeping a keen eye on the 5700 series, it could well be an inexpensive upgrade route which gains them DX11 support.

Key Features of the HD5700 Series

Models

In the same vein as the 5800 series, the 5700 cards will come in two flavours with a numbering system that everyone should be familiar with. The first two digits denote the series the card belongs to and the last two digits denoting the performance of the card. So the 5700 series will have the 5750 and 5780 with the latter offering the best performance out of the two. This is a helpful if predictable system that allows an easy way to see which will offer the best performance, the higher the numbers the higher the performance. AMD are clearly sticking to what they know works, so anyone familiar with the previous generation of cards should have no problem grasping where each card sits in the model line up things.

Specifications

5750

Codename: Juniper LE
Computing Power: 1.008 TeraFLOPs
Transistor Count: 1040 Million
Fabrication Process: 40nm
Stream Processors: 720
Texture Units: 36
Core Clock: 700MHz
Memory Clock: 1150MHz
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory Size: 512MB or 1024Mb
Memory Bus Width: 128bit
Memory Bandwidth: 73.8 GB/s
Memory Bandwidth: 4.6Gbps
Idle Power Consumption: 16W
Max Power Consumption: 86W
Bus Interface: PCI-E 2.1 x16
Target Price: $109USD 512MB $129 1024MB

5770

Codename: Juniper XT
Computing Power: 1.36 TeraFLOPs
Transistor Count: 1040 Million
Fabrication Process: 40nm
Stream Processors: 800
Texture Units: 40
Core Clock: 850MHz
Memory Clock: 1150MHz
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory Size: 1024Mb
Memory Bus Width: 128bit
Memory Bandwidth: 76.8 GB/s
Memory Data Rate: 4.8Gbps
Idle Power Consumption: 18W
Max Power Consumption: 108W
Bus Interface: PCI-E 2.1 x16
Target Price: $159USD

Well I’m sure you will agree that these are some impressive specifications for cards with Target prices of under $200USD and the 5770 appears to have the raw power to exceed performance of the current 4800 series, all but the x2 cards of course. As we’ve seen in the past, raw power isn’t always enough so we will have to wait for some benchmark results before drawing any conclusions, but once the drivers reach maturity I can see these cards being the budget and mid range choices for some time to come. From the pre-order prices that I’ve seen, UK retailers appear to be pricing the 5700 series very keenly, even with the poor exchange rate. Pre-Order prices are £115 to £120 for a 1GB 5750 and £130 to £145 for a 1GB 5770. With the minimal price difference of around £15 between the cheapest 5750 and 5770 it would be wise to go for the 5770, as it is unlikely that dormant stream processors and texture units on the 5750 could be unlocked and for such a small extra amount of cash not really worth the hassle of trying.

Conclusion

Although it is not clear yet if DX11 is anything more than marketing hype, it is clear that these two new graphics cards have the potential to become very popular upgrades for the mid-range user. They offer an impressive amount of hardware and performance for very little money, although this may not be enough for some 4800 series owners to take the plunge. Many users will however see these cards as an affordable route to DX11, which regardless of the near complete lack of compatible games currently released will still be very attractive. So assuming they are priced as keenly as the pre-order target prices suggest and the drivers mature quickly enough nVidia could well have some serious problems breaking into the mid range market that these cards are aimed at. We should see their response to the 5870 and 5850 in December 2009 and a response to the 5700 series in Q1/Q2 2010, but for now it appears that AMD have a good footing in the market. If the benchmarks are as impressive as the hardware and pricing, AMD appear to be onto a winning formula with the 5700 series.

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Specifications

Product page can be located here.

Chipset

ASIC

Pixel Pipelines

Vertex Engines

Manu. Process (Micron)

Images

Results

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a budget to mid-range card, then the 4830 is worth considering, though you will have to bare in mind, that HIS isn’t the most heard of manufacturer around, especially in the UK, only being able to find one online retailer stocking this particular card. Price is also a factor with this card, at just over £100, the price is a lot higher than the card’s status of a low end to mid-range card. Overall, the benchmarks are quite impressive for the card, but the price and lack of availability will put me off buying this particular card. For around the same money you could purchase a 4850 from a more well known brand such as Sapphire, but it’s all down to personal preference, and what you want from a graphics card. All of these reasons helped me to come to a conclusion, and that’s why i’m giving it 3 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Good benchmark results
• Quiet operation

Cons

• Lack of availability
• Price
  

We have rated this 3 out of 5 stars

Thank you to HIS for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Check out another HD 4830 review on bonafidereviews.com

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Specifications

Product page can be located here.

Specifications

Images

Results

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a suitable hard drive, either for storage or for your operating system, then look no further than the Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA II hard drive. This set of hard drives from Seagate have used a tried and tested method for storage. This is the latest 7200.12 model encorporating the latest technology for including the fastest SATA speed, and 16mb cache buffer. For the money, this is fantastic value and is an extremely fast drive whilst maintaining a quiet operation. That’s why i’m giving it 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• 3 year warranty
• Reliable manufacturer
• Quick performing drive
• Quiet operation

Cons

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to eTeknix for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

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Images

Results

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a high end card from nVidia, this will be perfect for you. It’s branded from a realiable manufacturer, who give a fantastic warranty period, great customer service, and sufficient cooling for the card. You will be able to play the glatest games, including GRID, Crysis Warhead and many more on the highest settings, whilst maintaining a fantastic frame rate. It has the functionality for dual monitor support and HDMI. Although it does cost a pretty penny, if you specifically want an nVidia based card, then look no further. In comparison with it’s AMD competitor, you will find that the Radeon equivalent will come out slightly cheaper. That’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Fantastic lifetime warranty
• Reliable manufacturer
• HDMI audio pass-through connector
• Solid built card

Cons

• Pricey compared with AMD equivalent

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to BFG Tech for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

Manufactured By:

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Images

Results

Conclusion

If you’re simply looking for a budget card, or even one for a HTPC, this will be perfect for your needs. It’s cheap as chips and will allow you to dabble in some of the latest games including GRID, Crysis Warhead and FarCry2. Even if it means at the lowest settings, it will take a load off of your system from an integrated setup, but don’t expect fantastic results. It includes the ability for HDMI audio passover and features 2 DVI connections as well as Video Out. With a 5 year warranty to boot, this card is the best of the lower end cards. That’s why i’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Small single slot card
• Cheap
• HDMI audio pass-through connector
• 5 year warranty

Cons

• Entry level card isn’t perfect for newer games
  

We have rated this 4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Immacula for supplying eTeknix with this product.

You can comment on this review below, or can discuss it more in depth here in our forums.

The new AMD / ATI HD5xxx range of GPUs are of a 40-nm design, will be fully Microsoft DirectX11 compliant and, if you believe AMD’s marketing and PR machine, will fundamentally redefine the PC graphics industry.

While the US based company has not shown off much of their highly anticipated hardware yet, expect to see it in action at the upcoming QuakeCon 2009 and GPU Technology Conference events.

Source: http://techpulse360.com/2009/08/12/amd-directx-11-evergreen-graphics-chips-you-wont-believe-your-eyes/

HP shipped around 4.86 million consumer notebooks in the second quarter with Acer trailing closely behind with shipments of 4.75 million units. Consumer segment market shares were separated by only 0.5pp, the sources noted, citing figures from research firm IDC.

Compared to HPs enterprise notebook sales however, Acer are weaker in the business market, so while their consumer sales may overtake HP’s, their overall sales are unlikely to exceed HP during 2009.

WD are certainly not new to world firsts when it comes to both capacity and performance, having released the World’s first 2TB desktop 3.5″ hard drive earlier in the year and of course releasing the first 10,000 RPM consumer desktop hard drive, the “Raptor” which kick started the desktop performance drive trend we have today. This new milestone is very impressive and WD has achieved this using industry leading 2.5″ 333GB platter technology.

These new huge Scorpio Blue drives feature industry standard SATA 3 GB/s connectivity with 8 MB Cache, they also feature a 5,200RPM spindle speed and as many of you will notice this is slightly slower than the 5400RPM found on most drives. These Blue drives however are designed to strike the balance between performance and energy use, very important on increasingly powerful laptops running on batteries. We would guess that the reduction of 200RPM, reducing air drag and therefore motor power drain, won’t impact performance like it would on 3.5″ drives, largely due to the lower number of platters found inside smaller laptop hard drives.

Although Western Digital have packed a huge amount of storage into these tiny drives, it is worth pointing out that they are 12.5 mm thick, as opposed to the 9.5mm standard, so they may not be compatible with all laptops. But even with this in mind breaking the 1TB barrier on a 2.5″ sized drive is very impressive. This is also not only great news for laptop users with large storage requirements, but also anyone after a huge amount of external storage in a very tiny package, as these 2.5″ drives will be used in WD’s popular range of USB Passport external drives. We can expect most of these products arriving in the next few months.

So is this really is just another storage milestone? Yes, but an incredible one at that, only a few years after 3.5″ 1TB drives were released! Not to mention these drives will bring down the price of smaller sized drives, which is always welcome in these cash strapped times.

Another board from Asus in this series is the P7P55D Deluxe, which we have pictured below.

The newly appointed president for the Windows division, Steven Sinofsky confirmed that Windows 7 has reached the release to manufacturing status in a blog. This could mean some OEM and manufacturing partners could receive the code next week, allowing them to prepare for its introduction on new machines and to get new and old products ready for this latest Windows OS. The blog which can be visited here: Engineering Windows 7 goes on to thank everyone who helped get to this stage:

“This is a milestone we could not have achieved without the broad participation across the PC Ecosystem we have talked so much about on this blog. Windows 7 is a product not just of Microsoft, but of a whole industry of partners of all kinds. Throughout the development of Windows 7 we’ve seen an incredible engagement from so many people that have contributed to making the Windows 7 engineering project one we, collectively, feel good about. The feedback and collaboration throughout the development of Windows 7 has been outstanding and valuable beyond measure.”

It is however worth mentioning that the work for Microsoft and for all its OEM and Manufacturing partners, is far from over:

While we have reached our RTM Milestone, no software project is ever really “done”. We will continue to monitor and act on the real world experience with Windows 7—we’ve used the Beta and RC process to test out our servicing and we have every intent of doing a great job on this important aspect of the product. Hardware partners will continue to provide new devices and improve support for existing devices. PC makers no doubt have quite a bit in store for all of us as they begin to show off PCs specifically designed for Windows 7’s new APIs and features. Software developers will have lots of new software to show off as well. All of this is yet to come and is very exciting.

Many of the eTeknix staff have be involved in the Beta and RC, we’ve all been very impressed with Windows 7, myself so much so that I’ve not gone back to Vista. So all we can say is roll on October 22, 2009!

However, many suspected that they would go on to produce rival Blu-ray devices and leaked information even suggested it was well on their to-do list. Some remained unsure though, as it would not only be further admitting defeat but also agreeing that Sony’s alternative was the better solution. Indeed they went back to quietly supporting the ageing DVD format and no one really questioned it.

Now though it seems that Toshiba has decided it wants to move on from the entire format war fiasco. According to Japanese newspaper Yomiuri, they have announced they are going to be releasing a Blu-ray player in time for Christmas.

This news is not a surprise, after all no electronics company would want to miss out on the HD market altogether and with Toshiba struggling along with only up-scaling DVD players in their product range, it’s move they desperately need. It also shows that Toshiba has faith in the Blu-ray platform moving forwards, which is something that will please the likes of Sony, the main company behind Blu-ray, as well as silence some critics who feel we should be moving towards digital downloads sooner rather than later.

The device itself is likely to be a middle of the range affair, designed to grab back as much of the estimated $1bn they lost from the format war as they can. Also expect some kind of unique or distinguishing features as Toshiba go on the hard sell, trying to convince us that their offering is the best for your cash. There are also rumours of a Blu-ray recorder being in the works, but if true this is unlikely to be out this year.

As usual, they have offered no real explanation for the cut, but today’s current financial instability may have played a role.  High-end units such as the i7 and server chips have not received a cut, along with mobile units, suggesting that Intel is trying to push sales of lower and middle specification machines in an effort to stem the downturn in sales currently plaguing almost every market.

It has also been suggested that they are trying to get rid of their stocks of 45 nanometre units so they can move on with their production of newer, more energy efficient and cheaper 32 nanometre chips later in the year.

Here is the list of chips receiving a price cute. Note that these prices are based on a retailer buying them in 1,000 unit trays in US dollars and so the price you pay will end up being significantly more.

Core 2 Quad LGA-775 processors:

• Q9400 (2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 6M L2 cache, 4 cores, 4 threads, 45nm) was $213, now £183, down 14%
• Q9300 (2.50 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 6M L2 cache, 4 cores, 4 threads, 45nm) was $213, now £183, down 14%
• Q8400 (2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 4M L2 cache, 4 cores, 4 threads, 45nm) was $183, now $163, down 11%
• Q8300 (2.50 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 4M L2 cache, 4 cores, 4 threads, 45nm) was $183, now $163, down 11%

Core 2 Quad Low-Power LGA-775 processors:

• Q9400S (2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 6M L2 cache, 4 cores, 4 threads, 45nm) was $277, now $245, down 12%
• Q8400S (2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 4M L2 cache, 4 cores, 4 threads, 45nm) was $245, now $213, down 13%

Core 2 Duo LGA-775 processors:

• E7500 (2.93 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 3M L2 cache, 2 cores, 2 threads, 45nm) was $133, now $113, down 15%

Pentium LGA-775 processors:

• E6300 (2.80 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 2M L2 cache, 2 cores, 2 threads, 45nm) was $84, now $81, down 4%
• E5400 (2.70 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2M L2 cache, 2 cores, 2 threads, 45nm) was $84, now $74, down 12%
• E5300 (2.60 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2M L2 cache, 2 cores, 2 threads, 45nm) was $74, now $64, down 14%

Celeron LGA-775 processors:

• E1500 (2.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache, 2 cores, 2 threads, 65nm) was $53, now $43, down 19%

Xeon LGA-775 server processos:

• X3330 (2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 6M L2 cache, 4 core, 4 threads, 45nm) was $219, now $188, down 14%

Asus P7P55D Evo

Let’s first look at the board’s name, Asus P7P55D Evo, while it first may look like a mouthful it’s actually fairly simple. The P7 denotes that this board is a LGA-1156 socket board, Asus use P6 for LGA-1366, while the P55 refers to the new Intel P55 Express chipset that this board features. As for Evo; this is a new range of boards that Asus will be using in addition to the well known Deluxe and Standard boards we are all familiar with. Although Asus have not given us a release price being a mid range product we can expect this first 1156 socket board to be competitively priced.

The board itself, as with many recent Asus releases looks great, with its striking blue and black colour scheme certain to be a hit amongst enthusiasts. You will also notice that this board is completely passively cooled, with angular blue heatsinks around the CPU socket to cool the board’s power circuitry and a more conventional heat sink on the northbridge. This is perfect for a mid range system which is due to replace C2D in Intel’s product line up, while still giving enough cooling for all but the most extreme overclocking.

Sometimes even the most novice user to the most hardcore overclocker will at some point need to reset CMOS.

The most common way to reset CMOS, is using the JBAT7 jumper, this has been the same procedure for many years.

In this video, we show you the typical ways of resetting CMOS, and also some more advanced ways, depending on your motherboard.

Enjoy!

This does make things slightly simpler than the current setup, with a simple sliding scale for the Core products, the higher the number the more powerful and more expensive the range. While we feel this is a good move we still don’t see why Intel didn’t keep the i7 name reserved for just the higher end socket 1366 Bloomfield chips, this would of made it very easy to follow, with i3 and i5 using the 1156. But now we will soon have both socket 1366 and 1156 i7s, which really does seem like a very complicated way of simplifying the range!

The introduction of Core i9 may go some way to explaining that oversight as i7 in either socket 1156 or 1366 form won’t be the top dog for long. Intel’s new upcoming flagship processor, codenamed Gulftown will take its spot at the top of the range and will become Core i9 at the very highest end of the market. It will however still use the existing LGA-1366 socket and x58 chipset, so with a simple BIOS update should remain compatible with all current x58 boards, which is good news for those who have already made the jump to i7. These new Gulftown chips will take the current i7 series and improve on them; it will be a 6 core chip with a total thread count of 12 as each core can process 2 threads simultaneously. The i9 chips will also feature a 50% increase in L3 cache over Bloomfield, to a massive 12 MB and will have every performance boosting feature of the Core series. We can expect to see these chips arriving in Q1 2010.

These new products should really start putting pressure on AMD, which can only be a good thing from a consumer point of view. While the Core series will likely be more expensive than AMDs range of processors, as we saw with Socket 478 P4s against Socket A Althons many years ago, price isn’t the only factor and they should sell well. We will bring you more news and information on these new products nearer the release date.

Have you ever wondered how to install DDR memory modules into your motherboard? Whether you have an older system with DDR capabilities, or a new system supporting DDR2 or DDR3, the principle is the same for all.

Ever had a rough idea on installation, but always been to afraid to do it?

This simple video guide tells you exactly how to do it.

Enjoy!

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Conclusion

I can’t get over how huge this mouse pad is. It is amazing value for money at just £12 GBP and will suit your keyboard and mouse combination perfectly. If like me, you do photo editing, video editing or just gaming, you will find that by having a lot more space to move your mouse, that you can use your mouse so much easier. I have liked this product, ever since i first saw it released. It is perfect. That’s why i’m giving it 5 out of 5 stars.

eTeknix Rating

Pros

• Huge in size
• Good material
• Fantastic value for money
• Interesting concept

Cons

• None
  

We have rated this 5 out of 5 stars