[H]ardNews - In The News

Hosting A Game Server:

Joel Durham sounds off at Microsoft.com about doing your own thing when it comes to gaming. HardGaming's own Kevin Larkin gets a word or two in. Now days it has gotten a ton cheaper to have your own gaming servers as well. ThePlanet, the kind folks that handle our bandwidth needs, have some extremely inexpensive plans if you want to be master of your own domain. Literally. Thanks Sean Terrill.

Die Spammer Die:

Apparently this includes almost the entire country of Spain. Damn, those guys have been having a hard time lately. Thanks WickerBill.

A US anti-spam group has set its filters to block all email from Spain's government-run internet service provider Telefonica De Espana (TDE), which it accuses of failing to crack down on spam and other junk mail

Free Music:

CNet outlines the way it really is meant to be played. I hope that in my lifetime we see musicians grasp the power of the Net to self publish music and cut out the big record companies that control the little sliver of real talent that makes it to the masses. Thanks Joseph Alpert.

LOS ANGELES, April 26 (Reuters) - Online technology company CNET Networks Inc. (nasdaq: CNET - news - people) on Monday launched a free digital music service, allowing users to search and download what it said were thousands of songs contributed by independent and unsigned artists.

You Play Fatal1ty:

Here is your chance to get your ass handed to you publicly...and promote a whole new line of ABIT hardware at the same time!

Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel to Play Against E3 Attendees, Showcase New Fatal1ty Branded Products, Including a Gaming System and a new Fatal1ty Motherboard and Graphics Card, both from ABIT

[H]ardNews - Blair's Tech

90nm Integrity:

This is a very interesting article over at EEDesign on moving to 90nm process.

At Toshiba Corp., which has done more than 10 tapeouts at 90 nm, the biggest surprise in moving from 130 nm was "design changes caused by signal integrity," said Takashi Yoshimori, technology executive for system-on-chip design.

While this is specific to Tosh, we have been hearing rumblings of IBM problems recently as well although they are not confirmed.

No Viagra For You!

Get it while the getting is good...for those of you that need it. Not speaking from personal experience of course.

A major Internet pharmacy in Winnipeg issued layoff notices to more than 10 per cent of its staff this week, the first of many belt-tightening measures expected as the bitter war between Canada's cross-border drug sellers and multinational pharmaceutical giants begins to hurt the fledgling on-line business.

Laser Built Chips:

You have seen the thing at the mall where they "engrave" your likeness into a block of crystal. Pretty soon you will be able to take them a picture of a CPU you designed!

"The microelectronics industry is two-dimensional at the moment," says Mark Miodownik, materials scientist from King's College London. "Going up to three dimensions opens up the potential for faster chips and bigger memory."

PCI V3.0:

Damn the French:

Suing Google is just...un-American. That said, I can totally appreciate people highjacking trademarked names. The same was being done to us and everyone that we have nicely asked to remove "HardOCP" keywords has done so without legal action.

PARIS -- AXA, the world's number three insurer, is taking Google Inc. to court next month in the latest trademark challenge to threaten the heart of Google's business model -- advertising.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Return of Innovation?

Chris Morris with CNNMoney discusses game content developers and how the industry is starting to return to its roots.

Big name developers, with strong track records, have been breaking away from the companies they helped build and launching their own studios. And they're re-entering the industry with some fresh ideas – not only about the games they want to make, but how they want to make them.

Bigger [H] is Better:

Brian Hirth shares with us a PC of epic proportions. And of course he just happens to be an "[H] guy." Thanks for sharing Brian.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

New Video Technology:

We have an interesting read that will teach you some of the ins and outs of the new Shader Model 3.0 technology that NVIDIA is first to market with.

While we come away from this article with some real answers, NVIDIA's marketing integrity once again comes into question.

It seems that once again getting the exact truth out of NVIDIA can be a painstakingly complex exercise.

Interestingly enough, Wil Harris of BitTech fired off this email to us this morning concerning the above statement.

Ain't that the truth. Those of us at the European launch were shown those Far Cry screenshots you had (of the stairs and buddha) and were told they represented the difference between SM2.0 and 3.0 - which now turns out to be a complete lie. How can they create a big Powerpoint slide and have David Kirk stand up there and say "Look at the huge difference between Shader 2.0 and 3.0" when they, from reading your piece, knew full well it was Shader 1.1?

And from what it seems, it may not even be SM3.0.

TechReport NV Interview:

TechReport has a must-read interview with NVIDIA's Tony Tamasi posted this morning that covers a ton of great information about the GeForce 6 series GPU. Hopefully NVIDIA will not spend this year in "One step forward, two steps back mode," as they did last year.

[H]ardNews

Free Mag Monday

Manage your Windows Server System, Engineer your Desktop, then figure out what the EE Time it is. All for free in North America.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Dell & AMD:

A repost worthy of the HTML as Dell is believed to be last the AMD64 domino to fall as predicted by AMD's CEO Hector Ruiz.

"Dell will do what a great company always does," Ruiz said. "It listens to its customers. I believe Dell will be here when we have our two-year anniversary of Opteron."

Battlefield 2 Announced:

Fisofo points out that the successor of BF1942 and BFVietNam will pit the Americans against the Chinese and Middle Easterners.

Move out soldier! Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Digital Illusions today announced that development is underway on the sequel to the award-winning Battlefield 1942™ PC game. Battlefield 2™, scheduled for release in spring 2005, moves the franchise forward in time to invade the high tech frontlines of modern warfare.

PVR for Dummies:

OK, you don't have to be dumb to resort to this PVR solution, but it helps to be lazy, at least from the enthusiast perspective. Seriously, this could be a good solution for the TIVOless amongst us.

A few months ago, my father had asked me how he could turn his setup into a TiVO type PVR box. I sat there and thought about how he could do it the absolutely easiest way without having to crack open his PC nor have much setup time. I came up with the solution and it happens to be what we are reviewing today.

865PE Review:

It is getting to be a bit long in the tooth, but the Springdale is still going strong as shown by MBReview in this Chaintech review.

Over the last few weeks, we haven’t been having much luck with our “Prescott” supporting motherboards and their capabilities as far as the topic of overclocking goes. I’m more than happy to say that the Chaintech A865PE is the first motherboard to enter our graces in some time that is fully capable of running at a FSB frequency of roughly 1.10GHz.

[H]ardNews - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

MusketeerII Fan Controller @ ExtremeMHz - Titan HSF @ Shrimps - Arctic Cooling HSF @ Shrimps

Etc.:

Biometric Password Device @ DesignTechnica - Soltek SFF @ HardcoreWare

Modding:

Lian Li @ OCerCafe - Lighted ATA Cables @ RaptorMods - MicroATX Case @ ClubOC - ATX Case @ ShortMedia

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

NV40:

3DCenter says they have what is inside NVIDIA's new NV40 technology here. HardOCP's NV40 Tech article is here, with out preview of the GeForce 6800Ultra here. The 3DCenter article is centered on technology and not real world performance.

To recapitulate, we need to know how the chip performs, not how many "pipes" it's made out of. We will now detail a NV40-pipe and discuss subsequently how all this quad-stuff influences the real performance (that is, what most people care about.)

Contact Your Broker:

As a rule of ethics I shy away from buying stocks of the companies that we write about like ATI and Intel. And in general I stay away from tech stocks but I think this Google IPO may be my exception to the rule when/if it happens.

Google could finally be poised to file for a much-anticipated initial public offering, thanks to a fast-approaching deadline that requires the search leader to report financial information to federal regulators.

Better VIA IDE:

Put on your German reading goggles and head over to DarkTweaker as they are facing off VIA's Hyperion 4.51 and the 4.51Pro Beta and looking at IDE performance.

AMD Mobile Chips:

We have mentioned this a few times, and the guys over at PCPForums are proving it. AthlonXP Mobile CPUs kicks some serious ass. And the socket modding the guy did is sweet as well. This is where those hardcore Light Bright skillz come in handy. Thanks Scott.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

GeForce 6800 Retail:

Michael Ingram points out that the JS Custom retail website is listing a GF6800 for sale for $299.00. An ETA of 5/7/04 is given.

MSI nVidia 256mb GeForce FX 6800 AGP 8x graphics card w/ DVI & TV out RETAIL boxed w/ 10 Games & DVD Authoring Tools (MSI FX6800-TD256) ETA 5/7/04

This is the non-Ultra card, not the Ultra we previewed here.

Zone Alarm Rev:

I know that many of our readers are fans of the freebie ZA software firewall. FlexBeta has a review of the newest beta.

All in all, ZA 5 faired much better than ZA 4 when being tested with the same tools.

Opera Beta:

Some of you will find this to be worthy of singing about (I crack myself up!) The new beta from Opera is available for DL. The Three Tenors give it six thumbs up.

[H]ard|OCP has is Opera-friendly. Are you?

[H]ardNews - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

GlobalWin CompuNurse @ Crucible - Fan Controller @ HardwareHounds

Etc.:

5.1 USB Sound @ 3DVelocity - Lighted Keyboard @ TrueRev - PC3200 @ FastlaneHW - 450watt PSU @ ExtremeRev - Ram Comparo @ PCModding

Modding:

ExremeCase @ ExtremeMHz - Desktop Case @ SystemCooling - LanMoto Case @ LegionHardware

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

Asetek WaterChill:

Monster Hardware took a crack at the Asetek WaterChill H20 kit with fairly impressive results. With a proper planning and a little creativity, the WaterChill is a very nice kit. You can see our review here for comparison.

Asetek has a well designed kit that consists of high quality components. However, even the best instruction manual can’t hope to cover every possible situation. If you will do some basic planning and take note of the following tips, maybe you can avoid some of the minor pitfalls that I encountered.

Hardcore Kingmax PC-4000:

Here is a little hardcore action for you guys today. Legit Reviews has a few sticks of Kingmax Hardcore PC-4000 in house for a little review action. I don’t know about you but with a name like “hardcore” your memory had better be good.

With highly competitive prices the Kingmax DDR500 Hardcore series memory line is hard to pass up for SFF and HTPC users! These modules produce low amounts of heat, while running at aggressive timings at various frequencies.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

Microcool Northpole Chipset Cooler @ R&B Mods - Zalman Coolers @ Accelenation - Eudemon Fan Controller @ Hardware HQ

Etc.:

Modding Tools Editorial @ Gruntville - iRiver MP3 Player @ T-Break

Cases:

Silverston Temjin TJ03 ATX Case @ Virtual Hideout