[H]ardNews 5th Edition

[H]ardForum [H]appenings:

Welcome to [H]ardForum [H]appenings for Friday, Feb. 25th. Building a case out of plastic toys should be fun to watch. Makes you wonder who will be the first to make a case from Bionicle parts. Don’t have Bionicle parts laying around? Mod your old Dell case…this guy did. Don’t have an old Dell? There are several in the For Sale & Trade forums. Deal of the day is that ATi Radeon X800XL that is selling for MSRP. Runner up in the DotD category is this thread with links to discounted Dell laptops. Some are as much as $500 - $700 off. I’m off to hang out in the forums for a bit, come on in and join the fun.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

More MPAA Lawsuits:

Another round of lawsuits was launched by the MPAA again. Hollywood studios are seeking…get this…$150,000 per downloaded movie file in the suit. Wow. Blame Blair for this one.

Hollywood's major movie studios filed a new round of lawsuits across the United States on Thursday against people who trade illegally copied films and TV shows on the Internet.

Total Immersion 3D:

There is a video of this total immersion 3D technology being demonstrated that is pretty damn impressive. We have read articles on it over the last year, but seeing it in action is pretty cool. Thanks to Royal for the linkage.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

Silverstone SST-FP53 HDD Cooler @ FastLaneHW - Logisys All Copper VGA Cooler @ ExtremeMHz

Etc.:

GamerzStuff GearGrip LCD Shield Harness @ LANmaniac - nTrensound 128mb MP3 Wrist Watch @ Tech-Mods - iRiver H10 MP3 Player @ Cool Slice - TTGI 600W Modular ATX/BTX PSU @ Legit Reviews - What Is BlueTooth @ BigBruin

Cases & Modding:

Silverstone Lascala 11 Designer Case @ Planet3DNow

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

MS Closes Activation Loophole:

MS is clamping down on product keys that have been stolen from large OEMs that are being counterfeited and resold on other PCs by smaller vendors.

Microsoft is closing a loophole that enabled unscrupulous resellers to use Windows XP product keys that were stolen from large OEMs. The result: customers who purchase Windows on a new PC will not be able to activate, nor reinstall their operating system without first calling Microsoft.

Firefox 1.0.1:

All you alternative browser folks should head over and grab the new Firefox 1.0.1. The download is a dial-up friendly 4.7MB so there is no reason not to get it. So grab it if you want it…try it if you haven’t.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - Press Releases

VIA Announces K8N800A Mobile Chipset:

VIA today announced the VIA K8N800A, a high-performance, low-power IGP chipset optimized for the upcoming AMD Turion™ 64 mobile technology, as well as the complete range of Mobile AMD Athlon™ 64 and Mobile AMD Sempron™ processors. Delivering all the performance, connectivity and advanced power management needed for next generation thin and light, high-performance notebooks, the VIA K8N800A would be ideally suited to support notebook PCs powered by the forthcoming AMD Turion™ 64 mobile technology.

Intel To Acquire Oplus:

Intel Corporation today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Oplus Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of video processing products and technologies for digital television and digital displays. The acquisition would provide Intel with access to valuable technology, expertise and products that complement the company's offerings of standards-based silicon and software for the growing consumer electronics market segment.

NVIDIA Unleashes 6800 Go Ultra:

NVIDIA Corporation, a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, today introduced the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra mobile GPU. Available immediately, the Dell Inspiron™ XPS Gen2 is the first notebook with the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra mobile GPU and features unprecedented notebook gaming performance—achieving more than two times the performance of the previous Inspiron XPS, based on industry-standard benchmarks .

[H]ardNews 11th Edition

NVIDIA GeForce Go Ultra:

HotHardware has one of the new Dell XPS notebooks on the test bench today that happens to be sporting the new NVIDIA GeForce Go Ultra. Hit the link to see what they think. Heh…I’m a poet.

We were impressed by the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra, and with the Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 in general. As a gaming platform, the combination of a fast Pentium M processor, the Intel Mobile i915 Express chipset, and a high-end GPU like the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra is a force to be reckoned with.

The Planet Adds ISS RealSecure Server Sensor:

Our friends at The Planet (our bandwidth provider) have added ISS RealSecure Server Sensor to their product line up. RealSecure Server Sensor is designed to provide automated, real-time intrusion protection and detection by analyzing events, host logs and inbound and outbound network activity on critical enterprise servers to block malicious activity from damaging critical assets.

The PlanetSM today announced the addition of Internet Security Systems, Inc.’s, (ISS) RealSecure® Server Sensor to its product lineup. The host-based, automated intrusion detection system monitors activity across computer systems and networks in real-time, allowing instant response to security breaches. It will be a fully-managed service available to all customers of The Planet, standard with its Total ControlSM and Focus SeriesSM products and at a minimal charge with Server MatrixSM customers.

LokiTorrent Suit A Hoax?

We linked a News.com story last week that claimed that the LokiTorrent site had been taken over by the MPAA. Today, there is an investigated piece over at Earth Reactor that asks a lot of questions about LokiTorrent, the site owner, and asks if it was all just a hoax? This is definitely an interesting read. Here is a clip:

"It seems that the owner of LokiTorrent decided to take the donation money and run, and to cover his tracks, scare the hell out of the entire p2p community. The scare tactic was probably nothing but a decoy to convince intelligent people not to ask the right questions".

Of course this is just my opinion but I think there should always be full disclosure whenever possible and it is a pretty good idea to provide court documentation as well to keep your readers informed. It may be annoying to see court papers posted on your favorite website but at least you could avoid situations like this one…if this does in fact turn out to be a Hoax.

[H]ardNews 10th Edition

Free Stuff For YOU!

The great guys over at Red Storm sent me a bunch of autographed Ghost Recon 2 stuff, posters, Xbox games, PS2 games, hats and shirts for me to hand out to you guys. If you want to put your name in the hat for an awesome collectors item signed by the team at Red Storm, enter here.

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

512MB X850 Pictures :

EliteBastards have a few pictures of what they say is a 512MB Radeon X850. Looks like every other 256MB version of the X850XT out there, so who knows.

We've just received the first images of the 512MB variant of ATI's Radeon X850 board - Nothing too exciting if you've seen a lot of 256MB Radeon X850s, but here they are nonetheless.

*Update* Apparently you guys killed the link to the pictures (some of you can't access the site). Thankfully Hexus also has some smaller versions of the same pictures posted too.

ATi Radeon X850XT PE:

While we are on the subject of X850XT cards, have a look at this ATi Radeon X850XT PE review posted at ClubOC. You can see our review for comparison purposes here

Looking back at our tests on the X800XT, X800 Pro, 9800XT and so on, it's easy for me to say that the X850XT Platinum Edition is the best and the fastest video card we have ever seen. The card has everything any computer enthusiast could ever want.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

New Unreal Engine Features:

ShackNews has posted a press release from Epic Games that talks about new Unreal Engine 3 features and their plans for this year’s Game Developers Conference in March. Here is a small clip from the press release:

Seamless World Support allows the creation of virtually unending environments through background management of game levels and assets. Even titles not requiring open world support will benefit from these memory management techniques on next-generation console platforms.

Apple Buying TiVo?

The rumor on the street is that Apple wants to buy TiVo. Even though this is mostly speculation, the rumors caused TiVo’s stock to jump 17%.

TiVo's chief executive, Michael Ramsay, has said the company is not for sale. But with a market capitalization of only $300 million, analysts figure the company might be an easy target, perhaps from consumer electronics makers to media companies looking to bolster their video services.

Motherboard Market Overview:

DigiTimes has a detailed Taiwanese motherboard market overview. The report includes motherboard revenue growth, diversification, overall revenue growth, profit trends, motherboard shipments: 2005 forecast, 2004 estimated results, major vendor strategies and much more.

This overview is divided into two main parts. The first part provides a general outline of the main Taiwan players in the global motherboard market, and the changing dynamics these makers have faced over the past few years. Much of the focus of this part of the overview is on trends in the market, including the growth of the low-end segment and product diversification.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

MSI NX6600GT-TD128E SLi:

PCStats posted their thoughts on a pair of MSI NX6600GT-TD128E running both in SLi and a single slot configuration against a host of other video cards. Good stuff.

On PCStats test bench today are a pair of MSI Computer NX6600GT-TD128E videocards that are literally made for each other. Based around the GeForce 6600GT core, both cards are backed up with 128MB of memory on a 128-bit bus.

For more 6600GT SLi performance numbers you can refer to our NVIDIA SLI Upgrade Guide here as well as our recent BFG Tech review.

MSI NX6600GT-VTD128:

Speaking of MSI 6600GT video cards, all you guys looking for the AGP version aren’t left out in the cold today thanks to this MSI NX6600GT-VTD128 review at ViperLair.

Everything performed flawlessly. Image quality was excellent, and while nobody will mistaken the 6600 GT for a 6800 Ultra, the performance is very good considering the price point.

Soltek SL-K890Pro-939:

If you want a K8T890 powered motherboard for your next system upgrade or case mod and black & purple tickles your fancy, check out this Soltek SL-K890Pro-939 review at Ninja Lane.

Throughout the review process the general impression of this board has been very favorable. Soltek has made quite a few improvements with the SL-K890Pro-939 that compliment the new chipset and make the motherboard very enthusiast friendly.

Gateway Selects NVIDIA 6200 W/ TurboCache:

Gateway has chosen NVIDIA’s GeForce 6200 with TurboCache technology as its default graphics card for the 9310S Series. The 6200 with TurboCache can also be ordered in the Gateway 7310 series.

The NVIDIA GeForce 6200 graphics processing unit (GPU) with TurboCache technology is the default GPU for the new Gateway 9310S personal computer and is also available in the Gateway 7310 Series. TurboCache technology continues NVIDIA’s rich tradition of technology leadership. NVIDIA TurboCache is a new, patented hardware and software technology, which allows a GPU to render directly to system memory, instead of using local memory on the graphics card.

[H]ardNews

Be on the Lookout:

I just got a mail that looks to obviously be a virus, but Norton is not picking it up yet.

Attached to it is a file named scan_check.jpg.exe. The file name appears to be truncated to hide its exe identity. Anyway, I just saw this in my inbox. As always, be careful out there.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

[H]ardForum [H]appenings:

Thursday [H]ardForum [H]appenings is here! Here is a good question, what do you do with old PC hardware? Put it in a closet? Build a second box for folding? Build a nice HTPC system for your house? Or do you simply hit the For Sale & Trade forum and make a little extra cash? Regardless which path you chose, this smoking hot Logitech X-530 5.1 speaker deal for under $45 shipped. Runner up in the deal of the day category is this Radeon XL selling for MSRP at CompUSA. Now that you have decided what to do with your spare PC part, get in the forums and see what others do with theirs. We’ll see you in the forums!