WHQL-Certified GeForce R275 Drivers Out Now

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Martin Murphy

Significant performance gains in R275 Nvidia just rolled out their latest WHQL certified GeForce drivers for GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs.

The R275 driver suite is all about performance gains. On 400 and 500 series GPUs in particular there are quite a number of bumps in FPS for Crysis 2, Civilization V, Portal 2, Bulletstorm and Batman Arkham Asylum.

There are also a number of bugs ironed out from the previous beta, thanks to the savvy Nvidia community; see below:

Bug fixes in R275

If you’re running GeForce drivers V270.51 or higher then you should have received the update notification via your taskbar, if you have the ‘auto-update’ feature enabled. For everyone else you can download the drivers here.

For a full list of fixes and changes head on over to Nvidia’s blog.

Nvidia announce $99 3D Vision glasses

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Gary McKeon

New 3D Vision Wired Glasses Only $99 3D gaming on the PC has quite a way to go before it reaches widespread adoption, but Nvidia hope to entice the budget conscious gamer in with new, cheaper 3D Vision glasses coming in June.

The company made the announcement over on the Nvidia blog. The new 3D glasses will be wired, connecting to the PC via USB 2.0. There’s not a whole lot of detail available about the specifics, only the focus on bringing a cheaper 3D experience for gamers on a budget.

Nvidia’s Andrew Fear:

There’s a brand new product coming to the 3D Vision lineup this June – 3D Vision wired glasses. These glasses will deliver the same great 3D Vision features and quality you have come to know and love, at a more affordable price of $99 US MSRP.

A bit more about the glasses: They connect via USB 2.0 to a PC or notebook, and work with all the existing 3D Vision content, displays and other devices. A notch in the USB connector enables you to use a standard cable lock system too – like those from Kensington – to secure the glasses to a PC or table. It’s a great feature for LAN parties and iCafé gaming centers.

Nvidia confirms new GTX 560 for May 17th

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Nvidia confirms new GTX 560 for May 17th Nvidia today confirmed May 17th as the official release date of their upcoming GTX 560 graphics card.

Sandwiched somewhere in between last Summer’s GTX 460 and the current Nvidia mid-range Kingpin, the GTX 560 Ti; the GTX 560 will be hoping to win the hearts and minds of budget gamers looking to have a reasonable DX11 experience at a 1920 x 1080 resolution.

Nvidia uploaded a few videos of the card running (as of now) unreleased PC games; Duke Nukem Forever, Alice: Madness Returns and Dungeon Siege III. According to their benchmarks the upcoming GTX 560 should have enough graphical grunt to keep most of today’s modern titles at bay. Basically the idea of the article is to show gamers they don’t need to re-mortgage their house in order to get a decent high-definition experience on their gaming rigs.

In their article Nvidia draws parrallels between the GTX 560 and 2008′s 9800GT, in terms of price-to-performance ratio. According to Steam statistics the 3-year old 9800 GT is the most popular card right now. Nvidia hope to repeat the success of the 9800 GT, with the same bang-for-buck marketing attributed to the GTX 560.

The advent of GPU technologies like NVIDIA 3D Vision, Surround, and advances in PhysX coupled with the emerging popularity of high-resolution monitors have provided exciting, new GPU-intensive features. This, however, does not mean that high-end PC gaming needs to cost gamers an arm and a leg. The GeForce GTX 560 delivers high-quality 1080p visuals with rock-solid gaming performance at a sweet-spot price point.

Amazon has the card listed from a few different GPU makers; MSI ($249.99), PNY (239.99) and a few others.

How often do you build a PC?

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Upgrading RAM. For most avid PC types, it’s less about re-building than it is upgrading along the way. But what about everyone else?

Crucial, makers of SSDs and RAM conducted their own survey of PC users in the US, UK and France earlier this year. They have been spitting out the results over the course of the day; and these are their findings so far:

53% of people think their PCs should last much longer than 3 years.
Nearly half of Brits surveyed said “slow-speed” was their number 1 pet peeve with their PC.
49% of Brits believe a RAM upgrade would inject some performance into thier current rig.
Meanwhile 39% of Brits fear even opening up their PC, let alone upgrading parts.

Personally, I feel a decent investment in a $1,000 PC should see you through at least a few years of gaming, without having to be thinking about upgrades. But then of course there are a plethora of different desires and expectations out there, particularly when it comes to PC gaming.

What about you. Do you upgrade every time Intel blows their horn with the announcement of a new CPU, or whenever Nvidia or AMD announce a relatively beefier graphics card? Or are you more realistic and conservative with your PC buying budget?

PCMark 7 available now

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Richard Cahill

PCMark 7 out now PCMark 7 is available now, having been initially slated for a May 3rd release.

The popular PC benchmarking suite from Futuremark is designed for Windows 7. Basically if you want to put your entire PC through a broad gamut of performance tests this program will give you an indication of how well your hardware is performing. You can even check and compare your score online with people who have similar or identical PC hardware.

Futuremark are offering 3 variants of PCMark 7; including a free edition which allows unlimited runs of the main test. You can download the free-edition or order the advanced or professional versions directly from the PCMark website.

PCMARK 7 BASIC EDITION – Free

Free PC test offering unlimited runs of the main PCMark test suite
Browse, search and compare results online
Store one result online

PCMARK 7 ADVANCED EDITION – $39.95 – ORDER NOW

Includes all 7 PC tests with more than 25 individual workloads
Browse, search and compare results online
Unlimited online results storage
Hide results from public view
Offline result management
Advert-free online service

PCMARK 7 PROFESSIONAL EDITION – $995.00 – ORDER NOW

Licensed for commercial PC system testing
Includes all 7 PC tests with more than 25 individual workloads
Command line automation
Browse, search and compare results online
Unlimited online results storage
Hide results from public view
Offline result management
Advert-free online service
Priority support

AMD add Catalyst Update to latest drivers

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Gary McKeon

AMD adds Catalyst Update to latest drivers. New Catalyst drivers have been released for Radeon HD 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000 series graphics cards.

Catalyst 11.4 resolve a whole host of game issues, while bringing to the table a few new features; like new task based display management controls, a refreshed Eyefinity setup and AMD Catalyst update, which is similar to what Nvidia added to their drivers back in March. AMD’s Catalyst Update informs you when new drivers are available.

There are also some performance improvements in Call of Duty: Black Ops, Battleforge, Batman Arkham Asylum and a few others, see below:

Performance Enhancements
A number of performance enhancements are seen with the AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

Call of Duty Black Ops – gains of up to 15% with Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering on single GPU configurations.

Battleforge – gains of up to 15% with Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering on single and multiple GPU configurations.

Batman Arkham Asylum – gains of up to 20% with Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering on single and multiple GPU configurations.

Aliens vs. Predator – gains of up to 8% with Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering on single and multiple GPU configurations.

Civilization 5 – gains of up to 15% on single and multiple GPU configurations.

Far Cry 2 – gains of up to 6% on single and multiple GPU configurations.

Just Cause 2 – gains of up to 9% on single and multiple GPU configurations.

Lost Planet 2 – gains of up to 10% on single and multiple GPU configurations.

Download the new Catalyst drivers here.

Nvidia giving away Duke Nukem Forever PC

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Martin Murphy

Duke Nukem Forever 3D PC Nvidia is teaming up with Maingear to give away a Duke Nukem Forever, 3D-capable PC.

In anticipation for the launch of the long, long, long awaited Duke Nukem Forever, Nvidia and Maingear are giving away a 3D-capable, i7, multi-GPU, water-cooled dream machine to one lucky winner. The fortuitous participant will also get a free copy of Duke Nukem Forever, naturally.

Unfortunately entry is only open to residents of the US and Canada; if that’s you visit this page. Entries will be taken until May 31st.

Duke Nukem Forever is coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on June 10th internationally, and the US 4 days later on June 14th. You can pre-order the game on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 from Amazon.

Radeon HD 7000 hitting mass production next month

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Gary McKeon

AMD Just when you thought you couldn’t get more confused trying to remember all the names of the vast quantities of graphics cards being pumped out by AMD and Nvidia this past year, AMD are bringing out 3 more that fall squarely in the entry-level to mid-range section of their 6000 series.

The 6670, 6570 and 6450 will be launched in 7 days time on the 19th of April.

But wait, if you’re holding out for the latest and greatest you might want to hang on to your cash for a little longer. According to a source close to DigiTimes AMD’s 7000 series a.k.a. ‘Southern Islands’ is scheduled for mass production in May. The 7000 series is based on the 28 nm manufacturing process.

With its Radeon HD 6000 series product lines fully filled, AMD is already in preparation for the next generation Radeon HD 7000 series (Southern Islands) GPUs and is set to mass produce the GPU in May this year.

No details have been leaked that clarify any specifications of the 7000 series cards.

AMD’s 6790, the new mid-range sweet-spot

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Gary McKeon

AMD's 6790, the new mid-range sweet-spot AMD today launched their new mid-range graphics card, the HD 6790.

Looking to gain market share back from Nvidia’s GTX 550/560 Ti the company is enticing gamers who want a 1080p capable card without a financial meltdown. The HD 6790 is aiming at the $150 sweet-spot, offering up a well-priced GPU from the same 40 nm “Barts” architecture as the previous 6800 cards; 6970, 6870 and the 6850.

The HD 6790 will feature 800 stream processors, 40 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide 1 GB GDDR5 memory interface. The core clock/memory speed is 840/1050 MHz.

You can find the card’s full specifications here.

Nvidia prepping new GTX 560

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Nvidia Girl If the team over on EXPreview have it right, we can expect another mid-range graphics card from Nvidia this month or next.

Back in January Nvidia launched the mid-range GTX 560 Ti. This card replaced the GTX 460 using a refined GF114 GPU. The upcoming (allegedly) GTX 560 (non-Ti) card will sport the same GPU, only it will have fewer cores and a slower clock-speed bringing the price down from its ‘Ti’ big brother.

According to the source, the card will feature 336 CUDA cores, 56 texture units, 32 ROPs and a 256-bit 1GB memory interface (GDDR5). The card’s retail price will reportedly be around the €180 mark.

AMD is also planning a cut-back mid-range card soon, in the form of the HD 6790. So it looks like the never-ending war between camp green and camp red is only just heating up.

One thing’s for certain there has never been a better time to build a PC. Graphics cards are in abundance, from the low-end right up to dual-GPU paradise.

Nvidia shakes up GeForce drivers with auto-update and more

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Nvidia Nvidia today released beta drivers for their 6-series and above GeForce graphics cards, updating CUDA, PhysX, 3DVision and HDMI audio drivers. But probably the biggest change in V270.51 is a new feature that prompts you when your drivers are out-of-date linking you to download the latest version for your particular card. It works in pretty much the same way as Microsoft’s Windows Update, in that you’ll receive a pop-up dialogue box in your taskbar.

‘Nvidia Update’ is an optional install when you download and run the latest beta, but I’m sure most Nvidia users will welcome this addition, saving the avid gamer from constantly checking the website for updates.

The drivers also include a wrath of performance updates for the GTX 560 Ti and GTX 580. In Dragon Age II alone Nvidia boast “6.2 times faster in a GeForce GTX 580 SLI configuration, 5.6 times faster in a GTX 560 Ti SLI configuration, 4.5 times faster on a single GTX 580, and 3.6 times faster on a single 560 Ti.”

Release 270 highlights:

Boosts gaming performance by as much as 6x.
Enables NVIDIA Update, an easy way to stay up-to-date with the latest GeForce drivers.
Fully integrates all 3D Vision drivers – including the 3D Vision USB Controller driver – for easy 3D Vision installation.
Expands 3D Vision window mode to include support for 3DTV Play, Windows Aero, and 3D Vision Notebooks.
Dramatically boosts 3D Vision and 3D Vision Surround performance in DirectX 9 games with SLI enabled.
Better 3D Vision performance when using Half-Life 2 games in 3D.
Adds support for applications using the new CUDA 4.0 features.

This is one of Nvidia’s biggest releases in long time and there are too many improvements to list here. You can find a rundown on all the changes with graphs and performance info over on Nvidia’s GeForce website.

AMD wages war against Nvidia’s midriff

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Gary McKeon

AMD It looks like AMD is seeing the GTX 550 Ti as a threat and wish to compete directly with Nvidia’s mid-range graphics card. According to Nordic Hardware the company is readying a new mid-range GPU based on AMD’s 40 nm Barts GPU, slated for an April 5th release.

The HD 6790 will consist of a memory interface of 256-bit wide GDDR5 VRAM, a core speed of 840 MHz, and 1050 MHz RAM speed. The card will have a low-power draw of 150W derived from 2 6-pin power connectors.

As the HD 6790 is based on the same architecture as the 6950/6970 the specs are very similar. Nordic Hardware has the low-down:

6790 specs revealed

Kingston announce critical firmware update for V100 SSDs

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Certain drives are hanging and failing to boot. A number of users are having issues with Kingston’s SSDNow V100 solid-state drives, although Kingston claims it’s a very small percentage. The problem is a failure to boot and hanging at the bios screen which can lead to drive failure.

The company released a firmware upgrade they recommend people apply immediately.

If you’re being affected by this issue or not, head on over to Kingston’s website and grab the updated firmware.

From Kingston:

We have discovered a technical issue with our SSDNow V100 which could result in drive failure. While we have observed this issue in only a small percentage of drives, Kingston strongly recommends that a firmware update be applied to all V100 drives to prevent possible failure.

The firmware update to fix the technical issue is available via Kingston Technical Support. As with any firmware update, we recommend that you back up your data prior to applying the firmware revision.

EVGA announce GTX 590 ‘Hydro Copper Edition’

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Water-cooling a graphics card, especially one with a $700 price-tag is not something for the faint-hearted. But if you want to squeeze every Mhz out of your shiny new GTX 590 Nvidia and EVGA bring you the GTX 590 ‘Hydro-Copper’ Edition, a liquid-cooled variant of their standard GTX 590.

Water-cooling a graphics card can have many benefits, including lower temps on the core, better overclocking capability and a big reduction in noise.

The Classified Hydro-Copper GTX 590 is available from EVGA’s website priced at $879.99. Full specs here.

AMD taunts Nvidia, challenging their ‘fastest card’ declaration

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Gary McKeon

It looks like the GPU wars haven't even begun Both AMD and Nvidia recently released dual-GPU graphics cards. AMD launched the HD 6990 nearly 3 weeks ago and Nvidia brought us the GTX 590 4 days back. The problem now is that both companies seem to want the moniker of ‘world’s fastest graphics card’.

In an aggressive claim to the throne AMD’s Public Relations Manager Dave Erskine is calling Nvidia on their claim and asking them to “prove” the GTX 590 is the fastest. According to Erskine AMD can back up what they say with solid benchmarks and asks Nvidia to Do the same (if they can), and not just simply state that their card is the world’s fastest.

So it looks like an all-out graphics card war. The challenge issued by AMD is simple:

So now I issue a challenge to our competitor: prove it, don’t just say it. Show us the substantiation. Because as it stands today, leading reviewers agree with us here, here, here, and here that the AMD Radeon HD 6990 sits on the top as the world’s fastest graphics card.

Nvidia’s GTX 590 is smokin’, literally

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Gary McKeon

According to Swedish overclockers over on Sweclockers.com the new dual-GPU flagship card from Nvidia overheats when using the drivers that were initially given to the press. In some cases (as seen in the above video) the card can even blow up. This happens when a person tries to overclock or overvolt the GTX 590 with driver version number 267.52.

The problem with these older drivers seems to be that they fail to activate a safety feature which protects the card’s power components.

Nvidia today released an updated driver for the GTX 590 which everyone should upgrade to.

Meanwhile the company is trying their best to reassure customers that the cards are completely safe, but stress caution when overclocking or overvolting the card:

In the web release driver of GeForce GTX 590, we have added some important enhancements to our overcurrent protection for overclocking. We recommend anyone doing overclocking or running stress apps to always use the latest web driver to get the fullest protection for your hardware. Please note that overcurrent protection does not eliminate the risks of overclocking, and hardware damage is possible, particularly when overvoltaging.

We recommend anyone using the GTX 590 board with the reference aircooler stick with the default voltage while overclocking, and avoid working around overcurrent protection mechanisms for stress applications. This will help maintain GTX 590′s great combination of acoustics, performance, and reliability. NVIDIA has worked with several watercooling companies to develop waterblocks for GTX 590, and these solutions will help provide additional margin for overclocking, but even in this case we recommend enthusiasts stay within 12.5-25mV of the default voltage in order to minimize risk.

Nvidia shows off “engineering marvel”, the GTX 590

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Gary McKeon

As promised by the GPU maker 2 days ago, Nvidia’s Tom Petersen is back to show us all what was hiding inside that black and green box. Tada! It was the GTX 590. O.K. I’m sure most people with their ear to the ground already knew what to expect.

In this next YouTube video Peteren goes through in detail the technical specs of their new dual-GPU graphics card, and compares the design to previous dual graphics cards. You get to see the card in action with Crysis 2 and Homefront, and also how quiet the GTX 590 runs even while under full load.

If you’re contemplating buying one of these cards you can find the full list of specifications and features here.

EVGA selling Crysis 2 Edition GTX 560 Ti

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Gary McKeon

In a bid to cash in on the Crysis 2 fever, EVGA has released a special edition of Nvidia’s GTX 560 Ti graphics card.

The Maximum Graphics Edition Crysis 2 comes with an out of the box overclock of 900 Mhz on the core (default 822 Mhz). The VRAM also weighs in at 4212 MHz (default 4008).

What do you get in the box? Well you get a copy of the ‘Limited Edition’ of Crysis 2 (naturally), a free copy of 3DMark 11, a Crysis 2 t-shirt and a snazzy Crysis 2 poster.

You can purchase the card directly from EVGA’s website for $299. Apparently they’re in short supply (sounds like a sales pitch, right?). If you’re not sold on the jazzed up Crysis 2 edition Amazon stock the standard version from other manufacturers for as low as $229.

The EVGA card comes with a Limited Lifetime warranty and free-shipping for for contiguous U.S.

Nvidia set to announce “next gen” graphics card on March 24th

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Nvidia uploaded a very short video on their YouTube channel with the announcement of an upcoming “next generation” graphics card. According to Nvidia’s Tom Petersen this is “a top secret project we’ve been working on for the last 2 years.”

Since we already know the GTX 590 is coming on the 24th, it’s safe to say this is what’s inside that mysterious looking black and green box.

Nvidia’s GTX 590 coming March 22nd

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Nvidia

Expreview seem to have it on good authority that Nvidia is all set to release the GTX 590 on March 22nd. Yesterday saw AMD roll out their dual-GPU HD 6990, taking the performance edge from Nvidia albeit for a while. But it seems Nvidia is almost ready to announce to the world their counter-attack on AMD.

We’ve been expecting Nvidia’s answer to ‘Antilles’ for many months, and now that AMD’s horse has bolted Nvidia doesn’t want to be second-rate in the high-end department.

The GTX 590 is a dual graphics card based on the GF110 core, sporting 1024 CUDA cores and 3 Gb of GDDR5 VRAM. The card will also need dual-8pin external power connectors, just like the HD 6990.

MSI press release reveals new R6990-4PD4GD5 graphics card

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Gary McKeon

R6990-4PD4GD5 graphics card

Yesterday saw the official launch of AMD’s new dual-GPU graphics card, the HD 6990. Other companies have been stepping up to the plate to introduce their take on the gargantuan GPU.

MSI yesterday announced its Radeon HD R6990-4PD4GD5. Their first variant of AMD’s 6990 doesn’t feature MSI’s famous Twin Frozr cooler, though this may be added to a future card.

From the press release:

Number One Performance with Revolutionary 4GB Memory
An advanced 40nm graphics architecture design on the dual-GPU R6990-4PD4GD5 allows superior visual computing power with improved process efficiency, maximizing performance when compared to a single core graphics card. The revolutionary 4GB GDDR5 memory on R6990-4PD4GD5 raises not only the smoothness of high resolution gaming, but also efficiency of multi-display image processing. R6990-4PD4GD5 has powerful specification that exceed the demand hardcore gamers and power users, achieving No. 1 performance on the planet.

MSI’s R6990-4PD4GD5 supports AMD exclusive Eyefinity multi-display technology, with 4 mini DisplayPort 1.2 outputs that offer a maximum 5 display outputs from a single graphics card. Each output supports display resolution up to 2560×1600, greatly raising the visual real estate available to professional users and game players. Also, DisplayPort 1.2 enables the transmission of Stereoscopic 3D and 7.1 channel sound in the lossless TrueHD and DTS-HD sound formats for the ultimate in audio-visual experience. MSI’s R6990-4PD4GD5 graphics card carries the latest DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 graphical standards, allowing users to take advantage for the ultimate gaming experience.

MSI Afterburner overclock utility supported w/ all-new Predator video capture
MSI is entrenched in the hearts of power users after recently releasing the most complete utility for graphics card monitoring and overclocking. The newest Afterburner 2.1.0 release not only supports adjustment of GPU/memory/PLL voltages, advanced fan-speed control, information monitoring, and 5 customized profile setting are also featured. Afterburner 2.1 also introduces the new Predator in-game video capture function, allowing exciting gaming moments to be recorded . Gamers can bask in their glory and share them with the world using online video hosting sites. The popular graphics card testing utility Kombustor V2.0 provides graphics card stability test, and the new KMark mode measures a graphic card’s true performance using several different display effects.

All-Solid Caps for High Stability and Performance
The MSI R6990-4PD4GD5 graphics cards implements an all-solid capacitor design. Under high load environments over an extended period of time, the aluminum core can still maintain extremely high stability, reducing the uncertainty due to system instability or hardware component failure. This ensures the optimal user experience under mission-critical performance scenarios.

Western Digital set to buy Hitachi Global Storage for US$4.3bn

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Western Digital

Hard drive giant Western Digital is set to buy Hitachi Global Storage for a cool US$4.3bn. The company will be paying US$3.5bn in cash along with US$750m worth of Western Digital shares.

This means Hitachi, Ltd. will then own approximately 10pc of Western Digital shares. And 2 of Hitachi’s representatives will be added to WD’s board of directors.

The companies say the proposed combination will result in a customer-focused storage company, with significant operating scale, strong global talent and the industry’s broadest product lineup backed by a rich technology portfolio.

Based in Irving, California Western Digital was founded in 1970 by Alvin B. Phillips as General Digital. Since then it has gone on to become the 2nd largest hard drive manufacturer in the world, next to Seagate.

Source.

AMD announce 6990, GPU Kingpin of 2011

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Gary McKeon

AMD 6990

We’ve been expecting it for quite some time now but AMD’s 6990 a.k.a. ‘Antilles’ is finally here. In a press release AMD announced the immediate availability of their new dual-GPU graphics card.

The successor to the still relevant and very powerful 5970 is based on the same 40nm process. The 6990 comes with a whopping 4GB of ultra-fast GDDR5 memory, and two 6900 series GPUs powering the card. Just like the 5970 one of the GPUs will be slightly underclocked but at least in the case of XFX customers are being offered a dual-bios if they wish to try their hands at overclocking the card to full dual-6970 speeds.

What about performance? AMD are claiming a 3DMark 11 ‘performance’ score of P11865. You can find the card’s full specifications over on AMD’s product page.

What do you need to power such a behemoth? Well you’ll want at least a 750W power supply (or greater) with two 150W 8-pin PCI Express power connectors. AMD recommends choosing a ‘Certified’ PSU from their list to ensure enough power is available for long-term stability.

Full system requirements:

750W Watt or greater power supply with two 150W 8-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (1000W and four 8-pin connectors recommended for AMD CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode. 1200W recommended for optimal performance).
Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products
Minimum 1GB of system memory
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive, a keyboard, a mouse, and a display
DVD playback requires DVD drive and a DVD
Blu-ray™ playback requires Blu-ray drive and a Blu-ray disc
For an AMD CrossFireX™ system, a second AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 Graphics card, an AMD CrossFireX™ Ready motherboard and one AMD CrossFireX™ Bridge Interconnect cable is required
Use of 3 or more displays with AMD Eyefinity technology requires a DisplayPort-capable panel or an AMD Eyefinity validated dongle. See http://www.amd.com/EyefinityDongles for a list of validated DisplayPort dongles.

Although AMD say the cards are immediately available from retailers worldwide, neither Amazon nor Newegg have them listed as of yet. AMD’s new flagship dual-GPU monster will set you back a minimum of $699, on selected models.

Gabe Newell so confident in Steam Guard, publicly announces his Steam password

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Steam Guard, the new security feature in Steam that allows a user to tie their account to a hardware profile has just gone beta. After you first verify your email address, any attempt to login on another computer will require a seperate code that you will get via your email.

Steam Guard

If you wish to use Steam Guard all you need to do is login to your Steam account and open up the ‘Account’ tab, then choose to opt-in to the beta.

Gabe Newell has said that the biggest support issue they have at Valve is account phishing and hijacking. The Valve CEO is so confident in Steam Guard he has publicly revealed his own password and login details for Steam, enticing anyone to try login to his account.

Care to give it a shot?

username: gaben@valvesoftware.com
password: moolyftw

Valve announces Steam Guard, wants to use Sandy Bridge technology

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Intel Inside Core_i7

Valve has plans to use Sandy Bridge’s Identity Protection Technology to help protect Steam user accounts from phishing and other scams. According to Gabe Newell their “number one support issue” is account phishing and hijacking.

Steam Guard is a service that allows PC users to restrict access to their Steam account based on their hardware profile. For example, a user would receive a messege in Steam if someone tried to log in on another system.

Valve’s Doug Lombardi sees technology like this having widespread adoption in the future:

If as a customer you are buying movies, music, games, or digital goods, you want to know that they are more secure than your physical goods.

Source.

Unigine updates Heaven benchmark, adds Professional Edition

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Unigine Heaven 2.5 Benchmarking Suite

The team that brought us the ‘Heaven’ DirectX 11 benchmark are now providing an updated and improved version of their popular bechmarking application.

Apart from an updated GUI Heaven 2.5 adds support for more of the recent GPUs from Nvidia and AMD since the last build was released. There is also support for indirect occlusion (SSDO) and a host of bug and stability fixes. See below:

Added the Professional edition (see details below)
Improved support of various GPUs
Added support of indirect occlusion (SSDO) to simulate real-time global illumination
Improved the stability during multi-hour running
Fixed Windows GUI launcher compatibility issues
Improved the quality of ambient occlusion
Fixed minor content glitches
Added a user manual
Improved an installer for Windows

Unigine are also now giving companies the option to buy a professional version of their DirectX 11 bechmark, which provides command-line automation, reports in CSV format, stress testing mode and technical support. It’s aimed mostly at OEM companies and hardware review sites and will set you back $495. But you can still download the free version which is sufficient for most users.

Corsair adds H60 to their cooling line-up

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Corsair H60

Corsair announced it has started shipping its new CPU water-cooling solution, the H60. The comapny has been offering an easy-setup solution for water-cooling a processor for a few years now, and already has a H50 and H70 model.

This latest iteration of the company’s ‘Hydro’ cooler features a new micro-channel cold plate and a split-flow designed manifold and also brings to the game a new custom-designed fan for better cooling.

The Corsair Hydro Series H60 is a fantastic choice for cooling. With a new micro-channel cold plate and a split-flow designed manifold, the H60 brings remarkable new technologies to an affordable price point. If that weren’t enough, the H60 also features an all-new fan, custom designed to offer enhanced static pressure, which means better cooling.

The H60 is listed on Amazon for $80 making it an attractive option for anyone looking to overclock their CPU.

Intel announce 510 Series SSDs

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Today Intel officially announced the details of its next-generation of SSDs.

According to Intel the 510 series is being aimed at “gamers, media creators and other performance-intensive users..”. The 510 series takes full advantage of the SATA 6Gb/s connection to offer whopping speeds of “up to 500 megabytes per second (MB/s), the Intel SSD 510 doubles the sequential read speeds, and at up to 315MB/s more than triples the sequential write speeds of Intel’s current 3Gbps SSDs, to transfer more data in less time.”

But what about the price? The 250Gb version will set you back $584, while the 120Gb flavour is a little more tempting at $284. Both versions come with a 3 year warranty.

Check out the video above for a demonstration of load times when compared to a mechanical hard drive.

From the press release:

The Intel SSD 510 offers the fastest sequential read and write speeds of any consumer SATA SSD available today, providing industry leading performance that beats a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) by more than 50 percent.¹ In addition to better overall system responsiveness when compared to a mechanical hard drive, SSDs have no moving parts so are more rugged, consume less power and run quieter and cooler than HDDs. SSDs reduce boot times, launch applications and files faster and recover from sleep mode quicker, resulting in noticeable improvement. Conventional HDDs are also unable to effectively take advantage of 6Gbps platform technology, since HDDs fail to maximize even the current 3Gbps SATA interface.

MSI bringing Twin Frozr III to new AMD 6950

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Twin Frozr 6950

If you’re a fan of MSI’s Twin Frozr graphics cards you’ll be pleased to know the company has a new 2Gb version of AMD’s 6950 en route, that will sport their popular aluminum cooling solution. The card will come with 2Gb of GDDR5 VRAM and a slight 50Mhz overclock on the GPU core, giving you an 850Mhz clock speed from the get-go.

The Twin Frozr style cooling solution from MSI is popular among overclockers and hardcore gamers alike because of how cool these cards run at idle and under heavy load. MSI also co-developed MSI Afterburner, a powerful overclocking software tool for both Nvidia and AMD cards, so for many it’s a match made in Gamer’s Heaven.

Based on the 40 nm Cayman silicon, Radeon HD 6950 packs 1408 VLIW4 stream processors, is DirectX 11 compliant, and makes use of a high-speed GDDR5 memory controller with 256-bit bus width. Display output connectors include two DVI, two mini-DisplayPort 1.2, and one HDMI 1.4a. AMD-exclusive technologies such as Eyefinity and HydraVision are supported. The card can pair with up to three more Radeon HD 6900 series GPUs for 4-way CrossFireX multi-GPU operation. MSI’s new Radeon HD 6950 2 GB Twin Frozr III Power Edition graphics card is priced at around 300€.

Le Comptoir de Hardware Via Tech Power-up

Irish PC users get less viruses than other EU countries, survey finds

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Gary McKeon

Unhappy PC

According to figures released by the EU’s statistics office, about one third of European PC users have contracted a PC virus of some kind in the year 2010. The numbers that were released to highlight Internet Safety Day also show Ireland and Austria as the safest of the 30 countries surveyed.

At the other end of the spectrum is Bulgaria with a whopping 58% infection rate; with Slovakia, Hungary, Italy and Estonia not far behind. According to the survey most people infected had some kind of security software installed, which means they either lapsed in keeping it up-to-date, or failed to keep their OS up-to-date (or both).

Percentages of phishing scams were also revealed. About 3% of countires within the 27 EU states felt financial loss due to being scammed with some kind of phishing attack.

The EU statistics office wasn’t putting a positive spin on any of this news, stating that the numbers are likely to be much higher as the infections only include people who realised they were infected.

Microsoft is all too aware of this problem. They have been providing free antivirus software since late 2009 and it’s available to all Windows users on XP Service Pack 2 and upward (Vista, Windows 7 etc). It’s simple to install and runs seamlessly in the background. So you don’t even have the excuse that antivirus software is too expensive for your budget. MSE provides free, regular updates and best of all is made by the some company that constructed your OS.

In related news, Microsoft announced yesterday that the first service pack for Window 7 will be released to the public on the 22nd of February. The service pack will mostly be a round-up of previously released security updates. So if you’re planning on building a PC for someone any time soon or re-installing your OS it would be worth having that handy.

Igniq.com

Category Archives: PC hardware

WHQL-Certified GeForce R275 Drivers Out Now

Nvidia announce $99 3D Vision glasses

Nvidia confirms new GTX 560 for May 17th

How often do you build a PC?

PCMark 7 available now

AMD add Catalyst Update to latest drivers

Nvidia giving away Duke Nukem Forever PC

Radeon HD 7000 hitting mass production next month

AMD’s 6790, the new mid-range sweet-spot

Nvidia prepping new GTX 560

Nvidia shakes up GeForce drivers with auto-update and more

AMD wages war against Nvidia’s midriff

Kingston announce critical firmware update for V100 SSDs

EVGA announce GTX 590 ‘Hydro Copper Edition’

AMD taunts Nvidia, challenging their ‘fastest card’ declaration

Nvidia’s GTX 590 is smokin’, literally

Nvidia shows off “engineering marvel”, the GTX 590

EVGA selling Crysis 2 Edition GTX 560 Ti

Nvidia set to announce “next gen” graphics card on March 24th

Nvidia’s GTX 590 coming March 22nd

MSI press release reveals new R6990-4PD4GD5 graphics card

Western Digital set to buy Hitachi Global Storage for US$4.3bn

AMD announce 6990, GPU Kingpin of 2011

Gabe Newell so confident in Steam Guard, publicly announces his Steam password

Valve announces Steam Guard, wants to use Sandy Bridge technology

If as a customer you are buying movies, music, games, or digital goods, you want to know that they are more secure than your physical goods.

Unigine updates Heaven benchmark, adds Professional Edition

Corsair adds H60 to their cooling line-up

Intel announce 510 Series SSDs

MSI bringing Twin Frozr III to new AMD 6950

Irish PC users get less viruses than other EU countries, survey finds