Solid State Disk Drives Are Coming

While a SSD would be extremely cost prohibitive at this point and time, just seeing a 32GB solid state disk drive that is the same size as a 1.8” hard drive is pretty damn cool. The other, not so obvious, benefit of having one of these drive would be being able to finally brag about SSDD.

The drive packs 32Gb of flash memory into a case the same size as a 1.8in, hard-disk drive. That capacity is double the 16Gb of a prototype device announced by Samsung last year and was made possible by the continuing miniaturization of flash-memory chip technology.

Budget Intel Overclocking

MadShrimps is doing a little budget Intel overclocking today and when I say “a little”, I mean the 4.2GHz and 4.8GHz on air cooling kind of “little”.

While everybody is waiting for Intel to release the next big thing, Conroe, the release of two new processors almost caught the enthusiast and media off-guard. The Pentium D 805 and Celeron D 356 are priced lower than the competition so are they interesting for the budget friendly overclockers out there?

Cooling Your SFF

If you have a Small Form Factor PC that gets a little too hot under the collar, our forums are a fantastic resource for anyone looking for help. Whether it is SFF general info or an all out cooling mod like this, the forums are a one-stop-shop for all the help / info / ideas you need:

Corsair Nautilus 500

A great way to add water cooling to your PC on the cheap? The Corsair Nautilus 500 and, according to reports, it performs pretty damn good too. The only disappointment (for me personally) is that no one ripped this thing open to look inside. This is like the 10th review I have seen of the Nautilus and no one has cracked the case so we can see inside.

Once we are up and running the Nautilus 500 provides very good performance which is light years ahead of air cooling and it does so with the addition of nigh on silence. Should the low speed performance not be enough for you there is always the option of using high fan speed to get the extra few degrees of cooling however in our opinion the low setting should be enough for most users most of the time.

New Battlefield 2142 Screenshots

Hot off the press we’ve got some new Battlefield 2142 screenshots for you. Battlefield 2142 will be coming to the PC later this year. Some of the screenshots are 1MB in size. If you want to head over to Fileshack you can view the trailer for this new game.

XFX 7900GTX XXX Edition

Guru3D has the triple X version of the XFX 7900GTX on the grill today. Overall this is a really nice card with good performance and a bad “XXX” name. Again, I highly recommend our 7900 series evaluation here.

Even at Cebit they had a "way" of communication and getting attention. Personally, they're one of my favourite manufacturers as they quite honestly do deliver some really impressive goods. Today's tested product is no different. The lovely GeForce 7900 GTX 512 MB, and this is the even lovelier XXX Edition. Yes XXX: Adult entertainment for games.

Yahoo Go for TV

On the surface, this free DVR software for your PC, called Yahoo Go for TV sounds pretty good. I have downloaded it (it’s under 10MB) and will give it a try and let you guys know how it turns out.

The software, Yahoo Go for TV, is free to download. After the software is installed, people plug their computer into their television's video and audio input connections. The computer can then record and play back shows on the TV just like with a standalone DVR. Consumers can also play DVDs, music, photos or other downloaded content.

MS Scanning Your PC?

Is Microsoft going to be spying on you starting today? I guess that all depends if you are a warez monkey or not A new pilot program will automatically check PCs for authenticity and, if the copy of Windows fails authentication a notice will pop up letting you know you got dirty Windows. Bill Gates then pops out of your PC and personally arrests you. I’m not 100% positive on that last part…I might have just made that up.

Starting today, however, Windows XP users in the United States who have set up automatic security updates will receive the anti-piracy tool. After installation and reboot, they may find their computers popping up an alert that reads: "This copy of Windows is not genuine; you may be a victim of software counterfeiting." Microsoft also is pushing the new tool out to auto-update users in Britain, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.

XFX GeForce 7900GT

BleedingEdge has the XFX GeForce 7900GT strapped to the review bench for a little review action today. For more 7900GT information, I highly recommend our 7900 series evaluation here.

If you liked the 6600 or 7800 series of Nvidia cards you're going to love this one. Availability can still be difficult but if you can find a 7900GT you won't be disappointed.

UMC 90nm NVIDIA G7 Chips

There is a brief story at DigiTimes today that says UMC will start sampling 90-nm NVIDIA G7 chips to vendors for volume production in May.

Sources at motherboard makers indicated that United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) will start sampling 90nm-made Nvidia G7 graphics chips in May to makers for validation with volume production to commence in the second half of 2006 at the earliest, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report

ABIT KN9 SLI Spy Pics

We have a little top secret info on the upcoming ABIT KN9 SLI socket M2 motherboard for you today, complete with a super secret spy picture featured below. The KN9 SLI sports the NVIDIA® MCP55P that features 2000MT/s HT, Dual DDR2 667, NV Dual SATA 3Gb/s RAID, Dual NV GbE w/ Firewall, 7.1 CH HD Audio, NVIDIA® SLI Tech. and ABIT Silent OTES. It should also be noted that the KN9 SLI also complies with the UK’s RoHS regulations. Here’s that spy pic we mentioned earlier:

ENlight EN-7473 HTPC Case

I have seen some clever HTPC cases in my time but the ENlight EN-7473 HTPC case takes the cake. A good HTPC case is designed to fit in with your other stereo components, this case takes that thinking one step further and mimics other home theater components. Seriously, go check this one out.

The EN-7473 MediaCenter is a vaguely retro looking chassis designed to mimic the look of a pair of stacked separates. Created by the case connoisseurs at ENlight, who incidentally have been making cases since around 1986, some 13 years after setting up shop stamping metal parts for industry, the EN-7473 has quite a pedigree to live up to.