VR-Zone

"Creative Technology Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital entertainment solutions, today announced the PCI Express Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi® Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series and PCI Express Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound cards, unleashing the full power of Creative X-Fi hardware audio processing for PCI Express-based PCs.

“We’ve developed the PCI Express models of our Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi gaming sound cards to meet the specific requests that we’ve received from end users,” said Steve Erickson, VP and GM of audio and VLSI for Creative. “We have re-architected our X-Fi Processor so we can deliver even more performance and provide the best audio available on the PC today. You’ll know why it’s worth the upgrade to PCI Express the second you hear it. We’ve also added Dolby Digital encoding, for connection to a home theater system for an awesome gaming experience. We created an entirely new I/O drive with an innovative design that can fit either a 3 ½” or 5 ¼” drive bay. Plus, the Creative Sound Blaster Titanium series cards are optimized for Windows Vista with UAA-compliant hardware.”

Priced at $219.00, the PCI Express Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series features Dolby Digital encoding, for single-cable connection to home theater systems. The card leverages the power of the X-Fi processor optimized for PCI Express to deliver accelerated audio for improved game performance, with ultra-realistic EAX 5.0 effects and 3D positional audio. Hardware-powered 3D positional audio and EAX 5.0 effects provide stunning positional audio realism over headphones and speakers, for a much more immersive gaming experience than any motherboard audio solution can offer. The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series also vastly improves voice chat clarity in online games where collaboration is vital."

VR-Zone

"We have received some preliminary performance numbers from CJ for Radeon HD 4870 and 4850 vs the current GeForce 9800 series lineup. Apparently, RV770XT with GDDR5 (160W) will run 1.3X faster than RV770PRO with GDDR3 (110W). Two key factors that contribute to the difference in performance between the 2 cards: a 100MHz core clock difference and a faster GDDR5 at 1.96GHz vs GDDR3 at 1GHz. Interesting, RV770PRO will run 1.25X faster than Geforce 8800 GT/9800 GT while RV770XT will run 1.25X faster than GeForce 9800 GTX."

LINK

The INQ

CPU3D: Special Weekend Deals 

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 - Lian Li PC-A07A Aluminium Silver Case No PSU @ £59.18
 - Lian Li PC-A07B Aluminium Black Case No PSU  @ £59.18
 - XSPC Edge Acrylic CPU Waterblock  @ £34.99
 - Coolermaster 1100 Cosmos S Case  @ £140.50 

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 - D-Tek Fuzion V2 CPU Waterblock @ £40.54
 - OCZ DDR2 PC2-9200 Flex II 4GB Series @ £105.00
 - XSPC Edge Acrylic CPU Waterblock @ £34.99

DailyTech

"Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates got some hand time with a snazzy new creation, the TouchWall, which he debuted at the Microsoft CEO Summit.  Gates previously lauded so called "Surface" computers with tactile interfaces the future of computing, and has said that the upcoming Windows 7 will include features that focus heavily on the use of such interfaces.

Tactile surfaces are nothing new.  While Apple is much maligned for its creative pricing and less than friendly corporate policy, among other things, it can legitimately claim to have the most successful tactile computer to date -- the iPhone.  The iPhone was widely lauded for its ability to do things like file browsing, web surfing, zooming, and rotating pictures, all with simple finger movement.

Apple may not be the king of tactile for long, however, as Microsoft is looking not to just deploy the technology in portable devices, but in full size computers as well.  It already launched demo models of its Surface computer, a small coffee table style machine that users can touch and manipulate, to partner AT&T stores.

The progress continues with the TouchWall, which Bill Gates describes as an "intelligent whiteboard" and hopes will become an integral tool for use with Microsoft Office's next iteration.  In his speech, Gates first discussed the evolution of surface computers from simplistic interfaces like tablet PCs, to more complex interfaces like Microsoft's Surface and RoundTable tactile computers."

The Tech Report

"Not all Windows XP users enjoyed a smooth upgrade to Service Pack 3. Shortly after the patch appeared on Windows Update, folks were storming message boards with complaints about endless reboot loops and other show-stopping bugs. Microsoft exec Jesper Johansson later shed light on the cause for one issue: HP mistakenly pre-loaded its AMD-based computers with an operating system image containing an Intel processor power management driver.

eWeek now says Microsoft is working together with HP on a fix. An HP spokeswoman told eWeek, "We are of course working diligently with Microsoft on a software update and will be proactively distributing a patch to customers this week through our automated HP Update service that will prevent this error from occurring." Users will also be able to head to hp's website and search for patch SP37394. "When the update is available, the search results screen will list the update with instructions for downloading and installation," she added.

In the meantime, HP has posted an article in its Customer Care knowledge base with workaround instructions for users running into the problem. Those looking for a pre-installation workaround can check Johansson's post, too."

Link

The company will follow with the 4870 in the late June, with the same specification as the 4850 but will add support for GDDR5 memory. Expected pricing will be set around US$349. In the fourth quarter, AMD will launch the dual-GPU ATI Radeon 4870 X2 priced around US$529-549. Nvidia will counter with its new high-end GeForce GTX 200 (D10U) family in the middle of June, featuring a second generation Unified Shader architecture. Launch products will come in GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280 versions."

Link

Weekend Reviews from around the net ... original compilation supplied by TechReport.

Top Stories 

1. If your AMD-based computer keeps rebooting after installing XP SP3,
   here are details and a workaround
2. TweakTown reports EPU vs. DES power war wages on in Taipei
3. CPU3D and VR-Zone report Asus issues official statement refuting Gigabyte allegations
4. Study: Cox, Comcast Internet subscribers blocked
5. Florida seeks to fine Verizon for bad service
6. TG Daily reports RIAA hit with $107K in attorneys fees
7. DigiTimes reports Asus Eee PC 901 will have added features and launch on June 3
8. VR-Zone reveals RV770 preliminary performance numbers
9. Fudzilla reports RV770XT to e-tail for $229 and launch on June 16
10. TG Daily reports Intel cuts power consumption rating of “Skulltrail Xeon”
11. DailyTech reports Google finds that perks can't keep some employees from leaving
12. Interview with solid state leader Mtron: "SSD industry is exploding"

Software and gaming

1. Microsoft and OLPC partner to deliver affordable computing to students worldwide;
   trials of XO running Windows are planned to begin as soon as June
2. More on Windows XP Service Pack 3 from the Microsoft Update Product Team
3. Ars Technica's analysis: appeals court unlikely to fix software patent mess
4. Phoronix posts Ubuntu 8.04 KVM (virtualization) benchmarks
5. Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1
6. Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 RC2 SP1 update
7. Office Live update 1.1
8. USA Today on the top 10 selling video games for April

Systems

1. HardwareLogic reviews Alienware Area-51 ALX system
2. TechSpot reviews Asus C90S laptop
3. bit-tech reviews Asus P5Q3 and Maximus II Formula
4. TweakTown reviews Abit I-N73HD
5. HEXUS.net's G.Skill vs. Crucial: high-speed DDR3 showdown
6. HotHardware reviews 1TB Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SAS hard drive
7. Tech ARP reviews 1TB Western Digital Caviar GP Serial ATA drive
8. ThinkComputers reviews 500GB LaCie Mini Hub USB 2.0 FireWire external HD

Multimedia, power, casing, and cooling

1. AMDZone and Neoseeker review VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 OC
2. Tech ARP reviews Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 watercooled
3. Legit Reviews on Albatron GeForce 9600GT-512X
4. TweakTown reviews LiteOn DX-401S Blu-ray Disc USB 2.0 ROM drive
5. AnandTech on 64GB SSD on the desktop: Samsung and OCZ go mainstream
6. Hardware Secrets reviews Antec TruePower Quattro 850 PSU
7. Benchmark Reviews on Lian Li PC-A09B case
8. Big Bruin reviews NZXT Tempest case
9. Futurelooks reviews Vantec NexStar eSATA / USB hard drive dock
10. Overclockers Club reviews Thermaltake DuOrb CPU cooler
11. Björn3D reviews CoolIT dual drive bay NV ver. VGA cooler

Enjoy ...

Expreview

"XFX 790i Ultra SLI is a NVIDIA reference mobo, looks just like 780i and 680i, with the same color scheme and similar layout. The huge cooler and three PCIe X16 is the most appealing part, but just like what we said under the pic, some small details are just simply not good enough, and needs to be polished. The board based on top chipset from NVIDIA, nForce 790i Ultra SLI. It supports 800/1066/1333/1600MHz FSB, 45nm Yorkfield and Wolfdale supported. Four memory slot supports DDR3 up to 2000MHz and EPP 2.0."

Full Review Here