OCC TECH NEWS
We are proud to announce that DIY-Street has merged with Overclockersclub. This dynamic moment offers us an opportunity to broaden our wealth of experience by combining two great and knowledgeable communities into a single, stronger community of enthusiasts. We would like to enjoin you to welcome the staff and members of DIY-Street in their transition to OverclockersClub. We look forward to a bright and positive future together in our joint quest to become the number one spot for technology enthusiasts.
Alright here we go up for grabs is 5 Gigabyte 8800GT's. Thats right there is 5 cards up for grabs.
You can see the card and a review here
The rules are pretty simple and are as follows.
Send an email to contest@overclockersclub.com with a pic of your current video card, and in the message box your name and email address thats it.
Contest starts right now and ends June 1st.
If you have any questions let us know.
Good Luck everyone
It's time yet again for another OverclockersClub Contest! This contest is pretty simple, all you have to do is be a current forum member and send an email with "contest" in the subject line and your username in the message box to contest@overclockersclub.com and that's it! Of course, like any good contest, this one has a prize. Feel free to read the OverclockersClub review of the contest's prize: Rosewill RNA-7000W notebook cooler. Congrats to davidst for winning.
May 13, 2008
Reports surfaced yesterday indicating Google will begin incorporating solid-state drives (SSDs) in its servers. The SSDs will allegedly make use of Intel flash memory chips coupled with Marvell controllers. With Google's size and appetite for hardware, the sources speculated that this could lead to a shortage of 16- and 32GB flash memory. Google wouldn't comment on the report, but the move may be geared more toward saving energy rather than as a way to speed up searches. Two side effects of this move, if they prove to be true, would be to rejuvenate the flash memory market by helping reduce the current oversupply as well as kick start the move by other enterprise customers toward using SSDs in production servers.
Dell is set to eliminate several of its high-end XPS PCs in a bid to reduce costs and boost its Alienware brand of gaming machines. Dell is in the midst of a turnaround effort aimed at reducing costs and regaining ground it has lost to other makers such as Hewlett-Packard. After Dell acquired Alienware two years ago, it continued to market its own line of XPS gaming desktops that cannibalized sales from the Alienware lineup. Dell also plans to rejuvenate the Alienware image with updated designs and materials for the cases. There is still uncertainty over the ultimate fate of the XPS lineup as Dell has begun a marketing push of that line into the Asian market beginning in India. It may be that the cuts will only affect the Western markets. There was no indication about the fate of Dell's XPS notebooks.
May 12, 2008
Incensed by the seemingly senseless ruling of the British DVLA, Ian Taylor from Gloucestershire fired up his angle-grinder and cut his car in half. The car, a Ford Fiesta, was bought by Taylor's stepson and was meant to be a restoration project; the Fiesta was soon deemed to be beyond repair, and sat, undisturbed, in the family's driveway. Then one day, an officer of the National Car Parks service came by on a routine patrol and declared that two inches of the unregistered car was sitting on public property, and the vehicle was fitted for a boot. After numerous attempts to clear up the situation via official channels, Taylor was informed that the boot would be removed if he paid $390 U.S. - probably more than the car was worth - and promptly went off the deep end, using his trusty angle-grinder to cut the Fiesta completely in half. The boot was then removed by police, and Taylor was told that he could keep the car.
Back in April, I reported on an almost absurd rumor that Intel was planning to prevent overclocking on its upcoming Nehalem-based mainstream CPU's, and that they intended to create a high-priced "overclocking friendly" niche with the Bloomfield processors. Well, it's looking like that rumor will soon become a sad reality. When Intel releases its next-gen Socket 1160, the Lynnfield and Havendale CPU's scheduled to operate on the platform will include what's being termed as an "overclocking lock". Basically, because some traditionally Northbridge-based components - like the memory controller - will be on-die, Intel has significantly more control over how CPU clocks are generated. In fact, the chip giant is allegedly planning to use a "checks and balances" type system, where one clock generator will be inside the CPU, and another will reside in the PCH - and both will maintain OEM speed by referencing and mirroring the other. Thus, attempts to alter the speed of one clock generator will be nullified when it is being checked over by the other. Boo, Intel. Boo.
If you've ever been in a situation where you'd give anything to be able to add another monitor to your rig without needing to buy and install another video card, EVGA has an attractive solution. The self-powered UV Plus+ needs only a free USB 2.0 port to provide an additional display output, allowing you to mirror, expand, and even rotate your virtual desktop. The small, stackable UV Plus+ units come in two flavors - the UV Plus+ 12 is capable of resolutions up to 1440 x 900, and the UV Plus+ 16 can output at 1680 x 1050, and both models have a 60Hz refresh rate at maximum resolution. These Vista "Aero"-capable devices feature a GPU-less design, and are based on DisplayLink chips; both UV Plus+ models take advantage of a special virtual driver, some high-performance DDR memory, and Lossless Compression that allows them to transfer a crystal clear video signal to either a VGA or DVI output.
While the iPhone has enjoyed good popularity since its launch, there are still plenty of other phones out there with loyal followings. RIM's original Blackberry found wide spread adopters in the business world, so the launch of an updated version will be good news for many. The new Blackberry 'Bold' features tri-band support for HSDPA around the world, as well as integrated Wi-Fi and GPS. Other tech specs include a 624MHz processor, 128MB of on board flash memory and 1GB of storage, 480x320 LCD screen, quad-band EDGE support, Bluetooth 2.0 and 2MP camera with flash. The 1500mAh battery should net you 5 hours of talktime and 13 days standby according to RIM. Not bad.
When Microsoft announced in April that it would continue to allow XP Home to be installed on ULPCs until mid-2010, consumers and OEMs rejoiced - even though the move was clearly aimed at preventing Linux from gaining a larger foothold in the ultra-portable market. Initially, XP's stay of execution was interpreted by many to allow for its installation on any ULPC, but a recently leaked Microsoft document shows that the restrictions are far more specific - going so far as to use an ULPC's screen size as a means of qualification. Among other qualifying factors are the amount of RAM installed in the ultra-portable - limited to 1GB, and the size of the ULPC's hard drive - limited to 80GB.
When thieves broke into an apartment and made off with over $5,000 in electronics and other items, the victims probably thought they would never see their items again. What the thieves weren't counting on however was that one of the purloined items was a Mac laptop and its owner, Kait Duplaga, was an Apple store employee. After a friend called her up after the burglary to report her machine was online, Ms. Duplaga accessed her machine using its Back to My Mac program and activated the laptop's built-in webcam. As soon as the person using the Mac sat down, she had the computer take his picture. When she showed the picture around, one of her roommates recognized the alleged thief as having attended a party at the apartment a few weeks earlier. Once presented with the photograph and the name of the perpetrator, the police were able to make an arrest and retrieve most of the stolen items.
AMD is set to announce five new low-watt processors within its Opteron family of quad-core processors today. This will be the first time these processors have been available for purchase outside of systems offered by AMD's OEM partners. The new chips are part of AMD's 8300 and 2300 series. The new Opterons are all designed with a 55-watt TDP. The 8300 series processors will clock at 1.8- and 1.9GHz. The three CPUs in the 2300 series are being offered in speeds from 1.7GHz to 1.9GHz. All of the chips feature 512KB of L2 cache and 2M of shared L3 cache. Systems built around these processors are already available from HP and Dell with other major vendors expected to follow suit later this year. Prices range from $209 to $873 in 1,000-unit lots.
The confidential records of 6m Chileans found their way to a forum of a technology blog based in the country, only to be promptly removed by the sites administrators. The information posted included addresses, ID card numbers, academic records and telephone numbers and apparently came from servers based at the education ministry, the electoral service and the military. The hacker responsible supposedly also left a message to claim the aim of the attack was to show how poor the level of data protection is in Chile (I'm guessing that the point was successfully made). Police are launching an investigation into the incident.
May 11, 2008
Mom has always had a pretty thankless job - we got annoyed when she wiped our face, fixed our tie, and insisted on telling us she loved us in front of our friends. We protested when she made us clean our rooms, help with the dishes, and give Grandma a kiss. As we grew into adults, we started to realize that all of that stupid stuff Mom made us do was her way of preparing us for the world. Seriously, what girl is going to tolerate a guy who doesn't wash behind his ears, won't help out around the house, and refuses to act like an adult for at least one hour out of every week? Mom, thanks for the love, the quiet guidance, and the patience - without you, I wouldn't be who I am today. I  you, Mom.
May 9, 2008
Not long ago, sound card maker Creative decided to punish some of its customers for upgrading to Windows Vista. You see, Vista processes audio differently than XP did, and Creative's...umm...creative brain trust decided that, in an attempt to recoup some of the money spent developing drivers for Vista users, they would charge SoundBlaster Audigy/Vista users $10 for the privilege of restored functionality via their ALchemy driver - but they would not charge X-Fi users at all. Audigy users were outraged, but many still paid up. Fast forward to now - Creative is still reeling from the incredible customer backlash caused by the danielk fiasco, and needs to do something that will generate good publicity and warm fuzzy feelings. The plan is to stop demanding money from users who just want their sound cards to work, provide the ALchemy software for free, and offer customers who had previously paid a refund. Customers have until June 30 to visit this webpage and request the refund. Seriously, Creative - way to go. That was a smart decision.
As the result of a far-reaching investigation dubbed "Operation Cisco Raider", the FBI has announced the detection of 3500 counterfeit Cisco products already installed in vital U.S. military and utility networks, prompting fears that the fraudulent gear may have been a vehicle allowing an attempt to infect those networks with Trojan Horses and other malware. These fears almost certainly were further fueled by a recent discovery by the University of Illinois which indicated that processors are susceptible to backdoor programming that would enable practically undetectable intrusion into effected systems. Cisco views the fake equipment differently, offering an explanation that the counterfeiters' most likely motivation was simply to make a quick cash score. Either way, this is an unacceptable and frightening revelation that carries potentially devastating consequences for Americans.
In response to lawsuits filed in Canadian courts - one of which was granted class-action status - Apple Canada has offered a total settlement in the amount of $3.45 million to as many as 80,000 customers, which works out to $44 per angered person. The offer has been extended to buyers of first- through third-gen iPods before June 24, 2004 who felt that the Fruit company's advertisements pertaining to iPod battery life were misleading - Apple claimed that a fully charged MP3 player had a battery life equal to 8 hours' playing time, while the suits contend that battery life was more in the neighborhood of 3 hours. There is, however, a catch - the settlement will be paid as an Apple Store credit, and no cash or checks will be sent out. While that detail probably won't thrill many, it's certainly better than nothing...
It's a classic case of "out with the old, in with the new" at Intel, who is planning to EOL several products in the near future. Among the most popular CPU's that are being forced into retirement are the Core 2 Extreme QX6850 and QX6800 - who will be done as of July 2008, the Core 2 Duo E6850 and E6750 in Q1 2009, and the budget Pentium dual-core E2140 in June of this year. Also, it appears as if Intel plans on discontinuing the ultra-successful P35 chipset in December '08 to make room for its replacement, the P45 - which will feature PCI-E 2.0 expansion slots, FSB speeds up to 1600 MHz, and DDR3 support up to DDR3-1333.
While the gaming universe is certainly calmer after GTA IV’s release, there’s no definitely no shortage of important info this week. BioWare made headlines earlier this week with an announcement that they intended to require a secondary online-only Mass Effect activation 10 days after installation, and then smartly reversed that decision. Also, we’ve got very preliminary COD 5 news, a Ninja Gaiden II trailer, and some unfortunate news that claims that retailers are actually carding gamers for 17+ and M rated games. Oh, and M.O.R.E. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. N.E.W.S.
PC Gaming
More S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Clear Sky Release Details @ Voodoo Extreme
Call of Duty 5 on Six Platforms, New Military Theater @ GameLife
Doom 4 Finally Under Development @ Voodoo Extreme
Far Cry 2 Trailer, Screenies @ Kombo
Mass Effect, Spore Will Not Require Automatic Secondary Online Activation @ Shacknews
WoW – Wrath of Lich King Vids @ Voodoo Extreme
Bond: Quantum of Solace to Use COD 4 Engine @ Kombo
Did Nvidia Demand DX 10.1 Removal from Assassin’s Creed? @ N4G
Consoles
Ninja Gaiden II Gameplay Videos and Screenies (360) @ Voodoo Extreme
Gears of War 2 Trailer Available From Xbox Marketplace (360) @ IGN
Fight Night 4 to Feature Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali (360, PS3) @ Voodoo Extreme
Miscellaneous
FTC: Minors Having Trouble Buying M-Rated Games, R-Rated Movies @ GameSpot
Pirates/Caribbean Director to Make BioShock Movie @ IGN
Scandalous – Nvidia Claims Only British are Interested in AMD/ATI @ N4G
A few years back everyone into electronics and gaming wanted to go to E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), it had everything a geek/nerd/gamer could desire. Now with E3s decision to close the expo to the public and make it press only many developers are wondering why they themselves even show up. After all, these products are for the consumers and if the consumers can't get a first hand look at these products at E3 then why bother showing up? Quite a few of those companies have done just that and decided to not attend E3 and make their own events showcasing all of their products. E3 seems as though they're gonna have to fill the spots with third-rate companies or shut down all together.
May 8, 2008
Recently, Comcast has been the center of attention in many news stories detailing its alleged throttling of legitimate BitTorrent traffic - Steam users, for example, have complained about interference, Comcast's subsequent "deal" with BitTorrent to prevent throttling, and the FCC's investigation into numerous allegations of P2P-related throttling. As we have learned, Comcast has been less than honest about its activities, and may face serious regulatory penalties. So, what's an honest BitTorrent user to do? You can start by finding out whether or not your ISP is throttling your connection by using a neat browser-based BitTorrent emulation app named Glasnost, which currently offers two tests to determine if you're among the affected. I tried out the "Simple" four minute test, and found out that Comcast is indeed interrupting uploads from my computer, but my download service is fine. I did not experience any inappropriate content while I was on the Glasnost site.
CONTENT WARNING from Hot Hardware - Several users have reported that links on the Glasnost pages result in popup windows with inappropriate content. Visit these pages at your own risk, and at the very least make sure a popup blocker is active.
Continuing its effort to catch up to Intel, AMD is expected to release its first ever CPU that supports DDR3 memory sometime in the second quarter of 2009. Besides DDR3 support, we can expect the quad-core "Suzuka" CPU to take advantage of HyperTransport 3.0 - enabling bus speeds up to 2.6 GHz, and a maximum 20.8 GB/s full-duplex bandwidth - and AMD-V's virtualization technology. Suzuka is slated to operate with the RS780 Northbridge and the SB700S Southbridge, and is rumored to be making the jump to the yet-unreleased Socket AM3. I hope that someone at Team Green will notice the incredible success and longevity of Intel's Socket 775, and suggest developing and sticking with a platform for a good period of time. Considering AMD's many recent woes, I would think that building and maintaining some semblance of stability would be more beneficial than introducing a new CPU socket every year...
New car shoppers looking at a Hyundai or Kia vehicles will soon find that Microsoft has further penetrated the automotive entertainment market, hoping to build on the success of its SYNC technology partnership with Ford. While details on the Hyundai or Kia systems are unavailable, industry insiders generally believe that many SYNC features will be incorporated - including across the board MP3 player compatibility, voice actuated music playback and Bluetooth-enabled cell phone functions, and "read free" text messaging support - which uses a female voice to read incoming text messages to the driver, a feature I fully endorse because it decreases the likelihood of accidents caused by motorists who just aren't paying attention to the road. Expect to see this technology totally integrated into the Korea-based automakers' vehicles by 2010.
Most are familiar with the concept of a black hole - usually formed when a star collapses, black holes exhibit an astonishing gravitational pull that literally sucks up all surrounding matter, including light, and makes it disappear. Pretty simple stuff, right? Now, scientists are seeing for the first time the merger of two massive black holes - and the results of that merger are both catastrophic and astounding. According to researchers, as the black holes fuse, an enormous gravitational wave will be emitted in one direction - at the same time kicking the combined black hole in the other, similar to the recoil of a rifle. The resulting kick would send it hurtling through space, swallowing up anything in its path until it finally comes to rest at the center of a new galaxy. One can only wonder what happens to the matter once it has passed the event horizon - does it just disappear, or can a black hole actually be a portal to another dimension? I truly hope we find the answer in my lifetime...
Every astronomer dreams of finding Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars in deep space - whether they're searching for signs of extraterrestrial life, or trying to find a habitable world that may someday serve as Earth 2. Over the years, vast improvements in planet finding tools have enabled researchers to probe space faster, and with a better degree of accuracy. Now, scientists have developed a dime-sized ultra-high speed laser designed to serve as a frequency comb, which will analyze variations in the color of light emitted by stars to determine if Earth-like planets orbit them. In addition to astrological applications, the new laser may also be adapted to serve as a precision control for optical communications, and can serve as a gas sensor in atmospheric and medical situations.
There have been several interesting announcements n the world of supercomputing lately and there seems to be no limit to the need for ever-increasing amounts of computing power. Intel and SGI inked an agreement to work with the folks at NASA's Ames Research Center to begin development on a new supercomputer that will reach 10 petaflops (that's 10 trillion) when completed in 2012. The project, known as Pleiades, will start out at a mere 1 petaflop machine ready next year with a second machine being constructed at the 10 petaflop level. Meanwhile, researchers at UC Berkeley have proposed a 20 million CPU beast capable of reaching the 200 petaflop level. The estimated power consumption for this monster machine is estimated at 4 megawatts - enough to power a city of 100,000. That alone is somewhat ironic as the machine would be used to study climate change and to develop much more power cloud modeling. No estimates on the effects this computer and its power requirements would have on global warming were mentioned. Moving on, Purdue University decided to build its own supercomputer consisting of 812 Dell servers. Construction began Monday morning and was operational in time for lunch - the same day! At 60 trillion operation per second, Purdue's machine, nicknamed 'Steele', lands in the current top 40 of the world's list of supercomputers.
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