ECS Black Series X58B-A Motherboard

The Top-of-the-range Black Series X58B-A “Nehalem” Motherboard with LGA1366 socket support for Intel's all-new “Core-i7” processors, which has a QPI bus speed of 6.4GT/sec; as well as 6x Tri-channel DDR3 DIMM slots which support up to 24GB of DDR3 memory. The 2x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots bring together for the first time the dual graphics technologies of ATI CrossFire and Nvidia SLI officially on one motherboard. Its onboard 6x SATA II ports equipped with Intel Matrix Technology and RAID 0, 0+1, & 5 compatibility plus the 2x E-SATA connectors offer plenty of storage capabilities. The rear port has a unique clear-CMOS button for convenience as well as a single IEEE 1394 port and 6x USB ports. The MOSFETS and chipsets are cooled by the highly specialised ECS QoolTech II cooling system and Solid State Capacitors are found throughout the board which add both durability and longevity. In addition the X58B-A features Dual GigaLAN and Realtek 8CH HD Audio and OC tweaking is available through the M.I.B Overclocking utility essential for enthusiasts.This brings your choices of ultimate high-end motherboards down to one.

Official Page.

Web Promo (you can win the X58B-A).

Nerd Herd Wallpaper.

Source: http://chucktv.net/

Note: Click on the images to enlarge, then right-click and save as.

1024x768 (Typical)


1280x800 (Wide Screen)

ASUS Motherboards Now Supports AMD AM3 Processors to Provide Focus on Future Proofing

Source: http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=13405

Taipei, Taiwan, November 12, 2008 – ASUS, worldwide leader of motherboard production, has once again kept up with leading trends and technologies with the announcement to release a wide range of high-performance motherboards that will take advantage of the most high-end and upcoming AMD AM3 CPUs. This new generation of AMD CPUs will encompass the 45nm infrastructure; and will be equipped with C1E halt states for advanced power savings. The most distinguishing feature of the AM3 CPUs is the fact that they will support DDR3 RAM. In order to meet user demands for top-of-the-line CPUs that deliver advanced performance, the ASUS M3/M2 Series motherboards will offer the most completed product lines to fully support the upcoming AM3 CPUs.

AM3 CPU Ready Motherboards

The list below shows the ASUS motherboards that are currently AM3 CPU-ready. For users who have already purchased the M3 or M2 Series motherboards, a simple BIOS update is all that is needed to support future AM3 CPUs. The following list will be continuously updated and more AM3 CPU-ready ASUS motherboards are expected to be announced soon.

Patriot Extreme Performance Xporter Magnum USB Drive

The Patriot Extreme Performance Xporter Magnum USB drive is the perfect solution to transport your important data wherever you go. Optimized for fast transfer rates, the Magnum offers an ultra-fast 210x read speed; the fastest in the market. Magnum also boasts Microsoft’s ® certification, Certified for Windows Vista™. The certification guarantees maximum compatibility, including Vista’s™ Readyboost® feature. With the Patriot Exporter Magnum USB drive, users can transport their data with ease.

Official Page:
http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/detailp.jsp?prodline=4&catid=8&prodgroupid=64&id=769&type=11

PDF Download:
http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/specs/64GB%20Magnum%20USB.pdf

WING UV Blue Case Fan

The WING UV Blue case fans are premium quality, UV reactive, ultra- quiet, dust and water proof cooling fans for gaming enthusiasts.This series features a unique bearing with patented design, winglet fans blades and low starting voltage. Only the highest quality materials have been used to manufacture this state-of-the-art cooling fan. Control the fan RPM speed according to your desire using the supplied voltage regulator. To add to the silence fan mounts replace traditional screws and are made of high quality, ultra-soft silicone which stop vibrations from the fan motor from traveling into your PC case.

Specs (PDF)

Official Website: http://www.gelidsolutions.com/

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American animated television series based in part on the DC Comics "team-up" series The Brave and the Bold. Like the comic series, it features two or more super heroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain, but unlike the current comic, the cartoon focuses on Batman working with the different heroes. The series debuted on November 14, 2008 at 8:00pm (eastern), on Cartoon Network.

IMDB Entry:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213218/

Wikipedia Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=16757649

Hardware 2.0 “Best Kit List” for Oct/Nov 08

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2643&tag=nl.e539

Sun Studio Express 11/08 Now Available

The latest Sun Studio Express release with updated features and enhancements is now available for download. Sun Studio Software delivers a high-performance, optimizing C/C++/Fortran developer toolchain for Solaris, OpenSolaris, and Linux OSs, including support for multicore x86- and SPARC-based systems. The toolchain includes parallelizing compilers, code-level and memory debuggers, and performance and thread analysis tools. With a NetBeans-based IDE developing parallel applications for the mutlicore era has never been easier!

Supported on OpenSolaris 2008.05 and available on Solaris 10 and Linux (RHEL 5/SuSe 10/Ubuntu 8.04/CentOS 5.1), Sun Studio Express 11/08 features:

• Full OpenMP 3.0 compiler support
• Enhanced performance Analysis of MPI applications
• Updated IDE based on NetBeans 6.5
• Remote development and debugging capabilities
• New stand-alone lightweight GUI debugger, dbxtool
• Improved performance for Intel x86, AMD x86, UltraSPARC and SPARC64-based systems

Download a free unrestricted copy today!

Register your Sun Studio product and receive access to the following content:

• Sample chapter from the book Solaris Application Programming by Darryl Gove titled, "Correctness and Debug"
• Guide to selecting the best compiler options
• Booklet on using Sun Studio to develop parallel applications

For more information on this latest release of Sun Studio Express join Ikroop Dhillon, Product Marketing Manager for Sun Studio and Vijay Tatkar,Senior Engineering Manager in the Developer Tools Organization, both with Sun Microsystems, as they discuss the feature highlights of Sun Studio Express 11/08.

Listen to the podcast

AMD’s Extreme Makeover: What the new roadmaps reveal

The ZDNet Article:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/processors/?p=208&tag=nl.e539

LaMB (Animax)

Official Website: http://www.animax-lamb.com/

Synopsis:

The inhabitants of a harsh dessert planet called Cerra have perfected a system of imprisonment without walls. Called "Lamination", this system of virtual slavery ensures that those convicted of serious crimes remain productive, if not free, members of society. Prisoners are hence called LaMBs.

The system has made both jails and death penalty unnecessary in a world where human ingenuity, creativity, and labor continue to be precious commodities that cannot be replaced by robots or any form of "artificial intelligence". The system has sparked off philosophical debate among the citizens of Cerra on whether lamination is ethical...

CTL 2go Tablet - Intel Classmate Netvertible

The article:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/an-exclusive-look-at-the-ctl-2go-tablet-or-intel-classmate-netvertible

Related stuff:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/intel-unveils-tablet-style-classmate

Legend of the Seeker

Legend of the Seeker is a live-action weekly television series based on The Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind. Distributed in domestic syndication by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, ABC Studios is producing the series, which is its first foray into broadcast syndication, with Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, Joshua Donen, Ned Nalle and Kenneth Biller serving as executive producers. The show premiered on November 1, 2008.

The series follows the epic journey of a young woods guide named Richard Cypher (played by Craig Horner), a mysterious woman named Kahlan Amnell (played by Bridget Regan), and a wizard Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander (played by Bruce Spence) to stop vengeful wizard Darken Rahl (played by Craig Parker) from unleashing an ancient and terrifying power.

Mini Trailer:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1859671176?bctid=1883561139

Official Website: http://www.legendoftheseeker.com/

Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Seeker

IMDB Entry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844653/

The ATI Radeon HD 4830

The official ATI Radeon HD 4830 page and the press release.

This is a nice article from HardwareZone on the new ATI Radeon HD 4830 (RV770LE) GPU.

Read the full article: Plugging the Performance Gap...

... Before we embark on our benchmarking however, let us introduce this new Radeon HD 4830 GPU, codenamed RV770LE. First and foremost, if you guessed that it is a close derivative of the HD 4850 and HD 4870, you're right on the mark. In fact, it is really a stripped down HD 4850 with fewer stream processors and lower core and memory clock speeds....

Then the follow-up article, wherein techPowerUp (maker of GPU-Z), discovered the Stream Processor Mix-up - 560 vs. 640 SPs.

... Briefly, what happened was that while updating GPU-Z to include support for the new HD 4830, the good people at techPowerUp! noticed that some of the cards they have in hand had 560 stream processors instead of the advertised 640...

The respose from AMD:

.... AMD has identified that, in addition to reference samples of the ATI Radeon HD 4830 boards sent to media with a pre-production BIOS potentially impacting the card's performance, a very limited number of ATI Radeon HD 4830 boards were released to market with the same pre-production BIOS. This is in no way hardware related, and an updated BIOS fully resolves the performance limitation...

And lastly, the said 560 to 640 SP BIOS fix.