NVIDIA GTX 680: Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04

For those of you wanting to know how well NVIDIA's GX 680 runs on Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04, this is your article.

Following up on the performance comparison earlier this month of comparing Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge graphics between Windows and Linux, up today are the results of a comparison of Windows 7 to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS when using a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 "Kepler" graphics card.

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General Motors To Drop Facebook Ads

General Motors says it is dropping Facebook ads due to low consumer impact. I guess the only ads that get traction on FB are the ones that advertise some sort of "Ville" game.

General Motors Co said on Tuesday it will stop advertising on Facebook, even as the social networking website prepares to go public, with a source familiar with the matter saying the automaker had decided Facebook's ads had little impact on consumers.

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Thermaltake Level 10 GTS Snow Edition

The crew at Overclockers Club spent some quality time with the Thermaltake Level 10 GTS Snow Edition today and, quite frankly, they seemed a bit surprised by what they found. Here's a quote:

Well shame on me, and so much for forming preconceived notions. I somewhat discounted this case at first because it is so far removed from the ideals of the original case. What I should have done was look at this case for what it is. Frankly, it is a successful run at designing a case that is 1/7th the price of the original but still a very fluid and nicely finished mid-tower with one of the best hot swap systems in the industry. The GTS does all these things while managing to retain a wee bit of the Level 10 'cool' factor.

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Intel's Dr. Genevieve Bell Inducted into WITI Hall of Fame

Dr. Genevieve Bell, director of user interaction and experience at Intel was named by WITI (Women In Technology International) as one of the the recipients of the 17th Annual WITI Hall of Fame Awards. The Women in Science and Technology Hall of Fame Awards are considered among the most illustrious honors for women in science and technology as noted by Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group.

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Xbox 360: #1 Selling Console for 16th Consecutive Month

Xbox 360 continues to hold the number one spot in the U.S., selling more units in April than any other console. This marks the 16th consecutive month that XBox 360 has been the best-selling console in the U.S. Holding 47 percent share of current-generation console sales, Xbox 360 sold 236,000 units in April, maintaining the number-one console spot in the U.S. This marks the 14th consecutive month Xbox 360 has held more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share.

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Dell Apologizes For Hiring Sexist Summit Moderator

Damn, we miss out on all the cool shows.

Last week, I wrote about a Dell summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the moderator of the event, Mads Christensen, "entertained" the crowd of IT professionals with a barrage of sexist jokes, and exhorted them to go home and tell their wives to "shut up, bitch."

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[H]ardware Round-Up II

Virtual Flight Over Asteroid Vesta

Yeah, I know it is only a virtual fly over but they did actually use real images and height data to create it.

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Chrome Now Syncs Tabs Across Devices

This is interesting, Chrome now syncs your tabs across all your devices.

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Fiat Photo Bombs VW On Street View

Don't ask me how Fiat pulled this one off (search for Volkswagen Group Sverige AB) but it is damn funny!

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Unbelievably Stupid Criminals Of The Day

Just FYI, if you are going to rob the internet cafe you are casing...you might want to log off Facebook before you make your big move.

Two men robbed an Internet cafe at gunpoint and proceeded to make a clean getaway on a motorcycle recently. One of them got caught anyway though — because he forgot to log out of his Facebook account ... which he'd checked before committing the crime.

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NVIDIA Unveils Cloud GPU Technologies

NVIDIA today kicked off the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) by unveiling its third industry-shaping innovation since its founding 19 years ago -- technologies that accelerate cloud computing using the enormous computing capabilities of the GPU. Five years in the making, NVIDIA's cloud GPU technologies are based on the company's new Kepler GPU architecture, designed for use in large-scale data centers. Its virtualization capabilities allow GPUs to be simultaneously shared by multiple users. Its ultra-fast streaming display capability eliminates lag, making a remote data center feel like it's just next door. And its extreme energy efficiency and processing density lowers data center costs.

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If This Game Studio Collapses, Taxpayers Will Owe $112.6M

There seriously needs to be some ass kicking going on here...starting with the governor.

With Rhode Island politicians and 38 Studios silent on the precarious financial condition of the developer, the potential cost of the doomsday scenario to taxpayers has come to light. WPRI reports that if 38 Studios can't pay the bonds it received from the state, taxpayers will actually be responsible for paying back $112.6 million through 2020.

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Corsair Enhances GS Series Power Supplies

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced major upgrades to the GS Series line of high-performance power supply units (PSUs). A new improved design boosts energy efficiency, enabling the new GS Series PSUs to achieve 80 PLUS® Bronze certification while also providing quieter, fanless operation at low power loads. The newly enhanced models are available in three wattage models: the GS600, GS700, and GS800.

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Corsair Hydro H100 Liquid CPU Cooler

FrostyTech has just put the finishing touches on its review of the Corsair Hydro H100 liquid CPU cooler. You can see our evaluation here.

The Hydro H100 heatsink ships fully assembled, filled with a propylene glycol based coolant and plumbed. The waterblock is connected by 24cm of flexible FEP tubing to the heat exchanger which measures about 274x120x25mm in size. Two 120mm fans are included, these operate at 2600-1300RPM and create a fair bit of noise at full tilt. Corsair's Hydro H100 is a no fuss, self contained CPU liquid cooling solution for use on Intel socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775 and AMD socket AM3/AM2/FM1 processors.

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Infinity Ward Gets $42M in Royalties From Activision

I hate to say it but I am actually siding with the attorney on this one. I think Activision is trying to "look good" by paying out $42 million in royalties, especially considering that amount is millions less than they owe employees for 2009 alone.

The group's attorney calls the payment a "cynical attempt to look good before the jury trial," and "although it is a meaningful payment it is only a small portion of what we are seeking in litigation. It is outrageous that they made us wait, they obviously knew they owed the money and this just shows that they breached the contract."

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Gaming [H]eadlines

MSI Z77A-GD65 LGA1155 Motherboard

For those of you looking to upgrade to an Ivy Bridge based motherboard, our evaluation of the MSI Z77A-GD65 LGA1155 motherboard should be of interest. This board is very efficient, stable and a solid overclocker too. Hit the link for the complete rundown.

MSI has been on a roll with its motherboards as of late. It’s because of this that our expectations for MSI’s foray into the world of Z77 chipset based motherboards are so high. MSI’s "GD65" series of motherboards have been an especially solid value and the Z77A-GD65 looks to be no different.

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[H]ardware Round-Up

Google+ is A Ghost Town

According to a new report, Google+ is literally a ghost town. To be honest, if the stats provided are accurate, it would be hard for Google to argue that it isn't.

According to RJM's report, the average post on Google+ has less than one +1, less than one reply, and less than one re-share. Roughly 30% of users who make a public post never make a second one. Even after making five public posts, there is a 15% chance that a user will not post publicly again.

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Poll: Half of Americans Call Facebook a Fad

Only fifty percent of the country thinks Facebook is a fad? That number seems a bit low doesn't it? Must've been a Facebook poll.

Half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad, according to the results of a new Associated Press-CNBC poll. And, in the run-up to the social network's initial public offering of stock, half of Americans also say the social network's expected asking price is too high.

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AMD A10 'Trinity' APU Review Round-Up

AMD has launched the second generation A-Series APUs today and reviews are coming in from around the internet. We've rounded up as many reviews as we could find and posted links to them below for your convenience. As always, we'll add more reviews to the list throughout the day as we find them.

AMD today announced the widely anticipated launch of its 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) for mainstream and ultrathin notebooks, All-in-One and traditional desktops, home theater PCs and embedded designs. The 2nd-Generation A-Series APU, codenamed "Trinity", is a grounds-up improved design over the previous generation, enabling a best-in-class PC mobility, entertainment, and gaming experience. New features of the product design include:

• Double the performance per watt of the previous generation;2

• The AMD HD Media Accelerator with a unique set of technologies designed to optimize video quality available with premium and Internet video content, and accelerate video file conversion;

• An increase in CPU performance of up to 29 percent3 with higher processor speeds thanks to the next-generation AMD "Piledriver" CPU core with 3rd-Generation AMD Turbo Core technology, where power is dynamically shifted between the CPU and GPU depending on application needs, effectively providing a more responsive experience that can boost CPU frequencies to up to 3.2 GHz;

• AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series graphics for an increase of graphics performance up to 56% over the previous generation.4 Combined, the CPU and GPU cores deliver more than 700 gigaflops of computing performance5 – several times more than the fastest x86 CPUs – to boost performance of hundreds of applications;

• Up to 12 hours of battery life through CPU and GPU power enhancements, with clear battery life leadership in notebook form factors.

Antec GAME ONE Mid-Tower Case

The Antec GAME ONE mid-tower case has been reviewed by the folks at NikKTech today. If you are on a budget and need a new case, this might be just what you are looking for.

With the GAME ONE midi tower Antec is aiming at entry level, casual users and gamers who purchase most things based solely on a price/performance (in this case price/features) ratio and i have to say that it seems they're walking on the right path (not surprisingly since they've been around for over 25 years already).

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Facebook Raises IPO Price

Facebook has increased the price range for its stock from $28 - $35 to the $34 - $38 range. The company expects to raise more than ten times as much as Google's IPO in 2004.

The Menlo Park, Calif. company said in a regulatory filing that it now expects to sell its stock for between $34 and $38 per share, up from its previous range of $28 to $35. At the upper limit of $38 per share, the sale would raise about $12.8 billion. The IPO is expected to be completed late Thursday and begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday under the ticker symbol "FB."

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Noctua NH-L12 Low Profile CPU Cooler

Need a low profile cooler for your next HTPC / SFF build? ThinkComputers has the Noctua NH-L12 on the test bench today and they sure seem to like it.

Today we are checking out one of their latest CPU coolers the NH-L12. What is interesting about it is that it is a low-profile cooler made for home theater PC’s and smaller systems. Will this cooler still provide the great cooling power we are used to seeing with Noctua CPU coolers?

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Help A Fellow [H] Reader Kickstarter His Game

Long time [H] reader and forum member "pyromaneyakk" is trying to fund development of his game Realm Explorer via Kickstarter and they need your help. Just $5 gets you the game when it is done and, if everyone pitches in, we can help them hit their $250k goal. Here is some pre-alpha footage of the game's character customization:

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Blizzard Helping People That Pre-Ordered Diablo III From GAME

Apparently Blizzard heard about the people that were screwed over by GAME filing bankruptcy (no game, no refund) and decided to come to the rescue! Thanks to Jesse and Doug F. for the heads up.

We're aware that some Australian GAME customers have been left out in the cold on what should be the hottest night of the year -- the launch of Diablo III. To help with this situation and get these players into the game as soon as possible, we've put the following process in place.

• Australian GAME customers with a valid preorder/prepurchase receipt dated before May 15, 2012 can do the following:

• Purchase the digital version of Diablo III from http://www.diablo3.com now or anytime before May 21, 2012.

• Download and start playing when the servers go live!

• Submit your GAME Australia preorder/prepurchase receipt to us before June 30, 2012.

• Receive a credit from Blizzard, for the amount you paid in advance to GAME Australia for Diablo III. This credit will be applied to the payment method used for the digital purchase.

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Intel Strengthens Security, Boosts Performance

Today's IT managers face a range of challenges from complex business processes to sophisticated security threats. Additionally, a number of industries such as retail, healthcare and industrial are turning to technology to develop innovative solutions to solve the unique challenges facing them in an increasingly connected world. To address these challenges, Intel Corporation has announced the availability of its 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ vPro™ processor-based platforms for business and intelligent systems.

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Cloud Computing Security Benefits Dispel Adoption Barrier for SMBs

Research released today by Microsoft Corp. shows that small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are gaining significant IT security benefits from using the cloud, according to a new Microsoft study in five geographies. The study shows that 35 percent of U.S. companies surveyed have experienced noticeably higher levels of security since moving to the cloud.1 In addition, 32 percent say they spend less time worrying about the threat of cyberattacks. U.S. SMBs using the cloud also spend 32 percent less time each week managing security than companies not using the cloud. They are also five times more likely to have reduced what they spend on managing security as a percentage of overall IT budget.

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