Intel is set to announce an addition to its new single-core Atom series, with the Atom N470. The new chip falls in the same lineup as the Atom N450 (single-core), and targets netbooks. It features a single core with HyperThreading, on-die single-channel memory controller that supports DDR2-667 MHz memory, on-die graphics, and is built on the 45 nm manufacturing process. The processor core 512 KB of L2 cache. Compared to the N450 which operates at 1.66 GHz, the N470 runs at 1.83 GHz. It features Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3150 for basic display functionality at resolutions of up to 1366 x 768 pixels. The new chip is expected to be launched on March 1. One of the first netbooks that use it is Lenovo's IdeaPad S10-3t.

ASUS today launched the EAH5000 Series, a new range of self-conceived graphics cards boasting an innovative thermal design that enables extreme overclocking. This makes these cards the instant choice of discerning DIY PC buffs and champion overclockers everywhere.

For PC-building enthusiasts worried about cooling, ASUS EAH5850 and EAH5830 graphics cards feature DirectCU technology, with specially-flattened copper heat pipes that dissipate heat up to 20%* more efficiently during gameplay and enable up to 35%* quieter operation in idle mode.

The ASUS EAH5770 packs new CUcore technology, integrating a distinct copper rod weighing up to 5.8oz within the fan assembly to better absorb and disperse heat.

Without making much noise, HIS released a custom-design ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card with its coveted IceQ moniker. The HIS HD 5770 IceQ 5 graphics card comes months after the company released the HD 5750 IceQ. The two differ in design and features sharply. The HD 5770 IceQ 5 features a longer PCB, a more complex cooling unit that makes use of 8 mm thick heatpipes (earlier used for HD 4870 based cards), 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and reference clock speeds of 850 MHz (core) and 1200 MHz (memory). A "Turbo" variant that comes with higher clock speeds out of the box cannot be ruled out at this point. The Radeon HD 5770 features DirectX 11 support, has 800 stream processors, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The IceQ family of graphics cards from HIS are known for higher cooling performance, and are usually quieter. The PCB is characteristically blue, and the cooler-shroud is reactive to UV case lighting. Pricing and availability are not known as yet.

Sapphire is readying a bundle of interesting new graphics products to be unveiled at this year's CeBIT event. Two such products that stand out include a non-reference design Radeon HD 5970 accelerator with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory (2 GB per GPU), and the HD 5870 Eyefinity6 2 GB. The HD 5970 model is particularly interesting, as its rival in the field, ASUS, will be showing off a similar accelerator called the ROG Ares "dual HD 5870" accelerator. Sapphire however, prefers to call its creation a custom Radeon HD 5970. It is expected to feature custom cooling, increased clock speeds (and probably overclocking headroom), and twice the amount of memory. There is a likelihood that Sapphire designs this along the lines of its high-end "Atomic" series that includes watercooling, and other exclusive features.

The other offering by Sapphire of course is the HD 5870 Eyefinity6. Probably sticking to AMD's reference design, the Eyefinity6 card is optimised for ATI Eyefinity setups with up to six physical displays. The card has six mini DisplayPort connectors, with which it can connect to each of its display heads. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide interface. Using AMD Cypress GPU, it packs 1600 stream processors, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. At the same event, Sapphire will show off several other of its new creations, such as the N450 netbook, Mini Projector 101, and mini-ITX form-factor motherboards supporting socket AM3.

Dell gave its Pine-Trail based Mini 10 netbook a specifications update to create a variant, called the "Performance Plus" option. The variant includes Broadcom's Crystal HD chip, that accelerates HD video on the netbook's 720p capable display. The Crystal HD chip also helps playback of full-HD 1080p video. It also includes a 10 inch screen with a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. The audio controller packs SRS DSP for audio effects. HDD space is also upped to 250 GB (vs. 160 GB on the base-model). The 56WHr 6-cell battery maintains high rated battery life with these new components integrated. The Performance Plus pack can be opted for on Dell's online store. The Mini 10 with this pack sells for around $410.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to launch the latest in-house designed GIGABYTE GV-R5800 series graphics cards featuring GIGABYTE's own Ultra Durable VGA Technology which can provide outstanding overclocking capability, lower GPU temperature, and excellent power efficiency. Building on the ultimate kernel of ATI Radeon HD 5800 art-of-the-state single-GPU architecture and advanced GDDR5 memory technology, the GIGABYTE GV-R587UD-1GD, GV-R585OC-1GD and GV-R583UD-1GD deliver seamless frame rates with massive graphics processing muscle for any tomorrow's demanding applications. In addition, the GIGABYTE the GIGABYTE GV-R587UD-1GD, GV-R585OC-1GD and GV-R583UD-1GD feature a wide range of the latest graphics technologies, including native DispalyPort, native Golden-Plated HDMI, TeraScale graphics engine, ATI CrossFireX, and ATI Stream, to deliver supreme scalability so gamers can take their games to new heights.

EVGA made public its 25th release of the EVGA SLI Enhancement (version 02.25.10), a software patch that adds SLI profiles to NVIDIA's GeForce display drivers. SLI profiles are application-specific bits of software that optimise it to make use of multiple NVIDIA GPUs. The new release is based on NVIDIA GeForce 196.21 driver, and adds SLI optimisations for the following games:

• Supreme Commander 2 Demo
• Aliens vs. Predator, in all DirectX Modes
• Mass Effect 2
• Zombie Driver

Registered EVGA users (registration is free) can get the SLI Enhancement patch from here.

TUL concern VTX3D has come up with a new custom-designed graphics card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5830 GPU, aimed at a value-performance price-point. The VTX3D HD 5830 1GB GDDR5 (model no: VX5830 1GBD5-DH), sports a hot-red custom-designed PCB and cooler not seen till date on PowerColor's graphics card (another of TUL's brands). It features 1120 stream processors, 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface, reference AMD clock speeds of 800 MHz (core) and 1000 MHz (memory), and connectivity that includes one each of DVI-D, HDMI, and DisplayPort - sticks to basics. The VTX3D HD 5830 should be priced on par with most base-model graphics cards: around the $220-$230 mark.

GlacialTech rolled out its new IceLight series of illuminated case fans. Available in 80 mm and 120 mm sizes, these fans come with transparent frames, fans with gloss-coated blades, and LEDs of various colors to give multicolored illumination. The IceLight 8025 (80 mm) has a speed of 1700 rpm, 19 dBA of rated noise output, and pushes 24.5 CFM of air, while the IceLight 12015 (120 mm) spins at 1000 rpm, with 20 dBA noise output, pushing 45.8 CFM of air. Both have rated MTBF of 30,000 hours. The blades are detachable, for cleaning. Their pricing isn't known as yet.

The much talked about 'value' addition to Intel's Core i7 series in the LGA-1366 package, the Core i7 930, has begun being listed on online stores. The quad-core upper-performance segment chip is listed on popular European retailer, Home of Hardware (HOH.de), for 254.82 €, around 25 € higher than the price of Core i7 920 (D0 stepping) on the same store. Company roadmaps suggest two things about the positioning of this SKU: 1. that it will displace the Core i7 920 from its price-point, and eventually replace it; and 2. that February 28 could be the date when this SKU becomes official to markets worldwide.

The Core i7 930 is based on Intel's 45 nm Bloomfield D0 core. The quad-core chip comes in LGA-1366 package, and operates at 2.80 GHz (133 MHz x 21), with a Turbo Boost speed of 3.06 GHz (133 MHz x 23). It has HyperThreading technology enabled, to provide the operating system with 8 logical CPUs to deal with. It has 256 KB of L2 cache per core, and 8 MB of shared L3 cache. The QuickPath Interconnect between the chip and the X58 chipset operates at 4.80 GT/s. It features a triple-channel on-die memory controller. Most existing LGA-1366 motherboards should support it, some requiring BIOS updates.

A day after releasing the HD 5830 iCooler V series, HIS implemented the same design on the Radeon HD 5870 series. The company is out with HD 5870 iCooler V series graphics card with and without the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 bundle (the only thing that differentiates the model with this bundle, and the base-model). Factory-overclocked variants of these two are designated with a "Turbo" suffix in the model name. The HIS HD 5870 iCooler V uses a custom-designed cooler that's improved from the iCooler IV HIS used on some graphics cards of the previous generation Radeon HD 4890. The cooler makes use of an aluminum fin array cooled by a large centrally-located fan.

While the non-Turbo variants use reference AMD clock speeds of 850 MHz core and 1200 MHz memory, the Turbo models up that to 875 MHz and 1225 MHz, respectively. The cards feature 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and display connectivity identical to AMD's reference design: two DVI-D, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort. The pricing and availability aren't known. This goes on to show that with flexibility in design, AMD's AIB partners can come up with common designs to implement across the board with all Radeon HD 5800 series SKUs.

Sharkoon has now expanded its specifically designed for gamers "Rush" product series to mouse pads: The Sharkoon Rush Gaming Mouse pad in its large size defines itself with precise sliding qualities and also with a new, strainable textile surface in particular for demanding PC gamers.

Exceptional tightly woven fibers and an elaborate manufacturing process ensure the texture is abrasion resistant and water proof. Dust, crumbs, and liquids will not penetrate into the fabric and can simply be wiped off. Ruinous and unattractive coffee or sweat stains are a thing of the past. In addition, the granular texture ensures fast and precise mouse movements with the rubberized base keeping the pad in place even in the most hectic situations.

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the addition of the Reactor Series and Nova Series to its family of solid-state drives (SSDs). Both the Nova Series and Reactor Series provide the performance benefits of solid-state technology at an attractive cost per gigabyte.

The Reactor Series, including 60GB and 120GB drive capacities, is built using the new JMicron JMF612 controller. This second-generation controller from JMicron incorporates 128MB of DDR2 cache memory for stutter-free performance. The 120GB Reactor Series SSD delivers speeds of up to 250MB/s read and 170MB/s write, while the 60GB Reactor Series SSD features speeds up to 250MB/s read and 110 MB/s write.

Shuttle Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of multi-form-factor solutions such as the world-famous XPC Mini-PC-Barebones, will be unveiling at this year's CeBIT in Hanover a new, ultra-compact PC platform which, at just 3.3 cm wide, is already HD-compatible.

The Shuttle Barebone XS35 is a Mini-PC in the 1-litre class which, thanks to its shape and the standardised VESA mounting interface, can be easily fitted behind flat panel displays and therefore does not take up any space. Intel's Atom D510 Dual Core Processor (2x 1.66 GHz) and the NM10 Express Chipset serve as the energy-saving hardware platform. A high-performance NVIDIA GT218 (ION2) graphics card provides streaming 3D and video playback. The HDMI connector allows for excellent sound and picture quality and connects the device to modern flat panel displays and large televisions easily.

Outside its monthly driver release cycle, AMD released a WHQL-signed driver based on ATI Catalyst 10.2, which adds support for the Radeon HD 5830 graphics processor. It retains the feature-set and bug-fixes packed in Catalyst 10.2, with support for the new GPU being just appended to it. The driver supports Windows XP, Vista, 7, and Linux.

Released yesterday, the ATI Radeon HD 5830 is the cost-effective member of the Radeon HD 5800 series. It is based on the Cypress LE GPU, with 1120 stream processors, 56 TMUs, 16 ROPs, 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface to connect to 1 GB of memory, apart from the entire feature-set of the Radeon HD 5800 series.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Radeon HD 5830 driver based on Catalyst 10.2 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista | Windows XP

At CeBIT 2010, Team Group Inc will launch two novel 2.5-inch external hard disk drives, TP1021 and TP1022. In addition to high-capacity up to 640GB, the TP1022 is equipped with the future-trend interface USB 3.0 to significantly enhance data transfer speed. These two stunning external hard disk drives will shock the viewers and enrich the product ranges of Team.

The Team TP1021 equipped with the USB2.0 interface delivers a maximum data transfer speed up to 480Mb/S. The Team TP1022 equipped with the latest USB 3.0 interface renders a maximum data transfer speed even up to 4.8 Gb/S, allowing users to freely enjoy the superb sense of speed in data transfer. Both models support hot swap and PnP. Without restarting the computer or using an external power supply, users can connect the Team 1021 and 1022 directly to the USB port on the computer, making it convenient to use and energy saving. Both models have high capacity up to 640GB for storing up to 180,000 pictures and 160,000 songs in the MP3 format. Whether it is movies, pictures, music of documents, you can always bring the complete database with you at all ease.

One of the industry's first solid state drives that use the new SATA 6 Gb/s interface - probably the only devices that can truly benefit from its bandwidth, the Crucial RealSSD C300 series has gone on sale, on the company's online store. The 128 GB variant (CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1) is priced at US $499.99, while the 256 GB one (CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1) goes for $799.99. Backed by expertise from IM Flash Technologies, the RealSSD C300 high-speed Synchronous NAND chips to achieve read speeds of 355 MB/s, something the device cannot achieve over SATA 3 Gb/s taking its natural bandwidth and protocol overhead into account.

Providing SATA 6 Gb/s controllers is a growing trend among motherboard manufacturers with upper mid-range and high-end motherboards. Many of these use Marvell 88SE9123-NAA2, a two-port controller that uses a single PCI-Express 2.0 lane for system interface. AMD's new SB800 series southbridge chips that will feature in motherboards with AMD 8-series chipset, which release next month, have native SATA 6 Gb/s support. This is where RealSSD finds its support base.

One device, two integrated interfaces: with the new Combo Portable Hard Drive, Verbatim is combining the advantages of a Powered eSATA high-speed connection with the user-friendliness of a USB drive. The truly Portable Hard Drive comes in a rugged aluminium enclosure weighing only 205 grams and delivers ultra fast eSATA data transfer speeds up to 3Gbit/sec. The new Verbatim eSATA/USB 2.0 Combo HDD 500GB is available from specialist retailers now and costs £89.99 (RRP).

Verbatim's new portable hard drive delivers ultra fast data transfer on the go. With USB 2.0 and powered eSATA connectivity it is extremely versatile. Data can be transferred via the powered eSATA port at a maximum speed of 3Gbit/sec, providing the other device also features eSATA connectivity. In terms of data transfer, the powered eSATA port is six times faster than USB 2.0.

MSI, the global leading brand in All-in-One PC, today announced the launch of two new energy-saving, low-noise, entertainment-oriented models in MSI's Wind Box mini-PC series: the Wind Box DE220 and Wind Box DC220. Using a 2L design, the Wind Box DE220 and DC220 have inherited the ultra-slim good looks of the earlier generation of A4-sized mini-PCs, but with the addition of improved energy-saving and noise reduction capabilities. The two mini-PCs use the latest Intel Pine Trail platform, which provides energy consumption around 90% lower than that of a conventional desktop PC. This, plus their outstanding noise reduction performance (under 24dB), makes them ideal for continuous use over long periods of time.

The Wind Box DE220 and DC220 can be attached to the back of any LCD monitor (or even an LCD TV) to create a space-saving "All-in-One PC." The Wind Box DE220 also features an ATI Radeon HD 4300 graphics processor and HDMI output, ensuring outstanding performance for both high-definition video content viewing and 3D gaming. Products in the Wind Box series all use environmentally-friendly coating materials; both the Wind Box DE220 and the DC220 conform to the new EuP (Energy using Products) environmental directive that is being introduced by the European Union in 2010. Combined with their low energy consumption, this makes both Wind Box models first-class examples of environmentally-friendly products.

A PCB shot of the upcoming ASUS ROG Ares dual GPU graphics accelerator made it to the media this day. The picture reveals what could be a very complex single-PCB dual-GPU board, with perhaps the strongest VRM to drive the CrossFire-on-board setup. The ROG Ares uses two AMD Cypress GPUs that run at high clock speeds, with even more overclocking potential on offer. The picture reveals that ASUS has made extensive use of digital PWM circuitry, giving each GPU a 4-phase vGPU, 2-phase vMem, and uncore phases. Each zone has its own voltage controller. Power is drawn in from three inputs: two 8-pin and a 6-pin, though the tracks show that the PCB is capable of using three 8-pin inputs. At source, the inputs are fused as a surge-protective measure.

Each GPU is wired to 16 GDDR5 memory chips, 8 on each side of the PCB. The PCB itself is roughly an inch taller than full-height addon-cards. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI-D, DisplayPort, and HDMI connectors. The lone CrossFire finger provides CrossFireX support with another Ares card - or probably other Radeon HD 5800 series products. ASUS in a statement says that all heat-producing components other than the GPU - VRM chips and memory - will be cooled by a copper heatspreader that covers almost all such components. Each VRM chip gets its own copper heatsink. These parts will be anodized in red for the black+red livery characteristic to the ROG series. Earlier, a CAD drawing of the cooling assembly made news.

A little earlier this month, NVIDIA tweeted that it would formally unveil the GeForce GTX 400 series graphics cards, NVIDIA's DirectX 11 generation GPUs, at the PAX East gaming event in Boston (MA), United States, on the 26th of March. That's a little under a month's time from now. In its run up, sources that have access to samples of the graphics cards seem to be drawing their "performance expectations" among other details tricking in.

Both the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 graphics cards are based on NVIDIA's GF100 silicon, which physically packs 512 CUDA cores, 16 geometry units, 64 TMUs, 48 ROPs, and a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface. While the GTX 480 is a full-featured part, the GTX 470 is slightly watered-down, with probably 448 or 480 CUDA cores enabled, and a slightly narrower memory interface, probably 320-bit GDDR5. Sources tell DonanimHaber that the GeForce GTX 470 performs somewhere between the ATI Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870. This part is said to have a power draw of 300W. The GeForce GTX 480, on the other hand, is expected to perform on-par with the GeForce GTX 295 - at least in existing (present-generation) applications. A recent listing by an online store for a pre-order, put the GTX 480 at US $699.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, announced a factory overclocked graphics solution addition to the HD5000 series: the PowerColor PCS+ HD5830. The newest addition fills the market demand for great performance at a reasonable price. The new HD5830 embraces the PCS+ series, equipped with superior factory overclocked ability that clocks in at 825MHz core / 1050MHz memory speed, delivering the immersive gaming performance.

The PCS+ HD5830 also features a superior silent and efficient cooling solution. With a 92mm ultra cooling fan and 4 pure core heat pipes, this special cooling design can easily dissipate heat from its cooper base that fully covers the GPU in a lower fan speed, efficiently cools down the temperature in a silent setting.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just released two Special Edition graphics cards bundled with the highly acclaimed game Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5830 is a new graphics card based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. It features 1120 stream processors and 56 texture units. With its core clocks of 800MHz and DDR5 memory with speeds of 1000MHz (4GHz effective), it represents a new value proposition in the successful HD 5800 series.

Club 3D B.V. today introduces the Radeon HD 5830 graphics cards as the most affordable addition to award winning Radeon HD 5800 series. The Club 3D Radeon HD 5830 fills the gap between HD 5850 and HD 5770 graphics cards to fulfill the demand for HD 5800 series features at a lower price point.

Club 3D Radeon HD 5830 graphics card features DVI, HDMI and Display Port output to support ATI Eyefinity Technology for an incredibly immersive HD gaming and computing experience and a maximized field of view with up to three displays. Perform tasks on your PC faster with ATI Stream technology and accelerated everyday applications. Step now into the world of DirectX 11 gaming and play the first available games, with unrivalled visual quality, astonishing realism and ultra-fast frame rates to dominate the competition.

ASUS is excited to be an NVIDIA launch partner in introducing the new NVIDIA Optimus technology for its latest range of notebooks in coming months. These include the powerful multimedia N Series, several slim and light U/UL Series models and versatile mainstream K Series notebooks.

The ASUS N Series notebooks represent the latest in mobile multimedia entertainment technology, combining optimized graphics performance and long-lasting battery life that will satisfy even the most discerning of multimedia fans. Its capabilities are due to the new NVIDIA Optimus technology, which intelligently monitors applications, and then summons the right amount of graphics performance for the job. It uses the discrete GPU for multimedia, games, and GPU computing applications, and integrated graphics for the Internet, emails and documents. It does so automatically and without the need for user intervention, delivering both convenience and a seamless computing experience for users on-the-go.

The world leading graphics card and mainboard brand-manufacturer, MSI, today officially releases its R5830 Twin Frozr II graphics card. MSI R5830 Twin Frozr II uses ATI Radeon HD 5830 GPU with 1120 units of stream processors and 1GB GDDR5 high speed memory to provide the latest DirectX 11 games with stunning visual effects to gamers. Equipped with excusive Twin Frozr II Thermal design, R5830 Twin Frozr II is 12℃ cooler thanks to dual 8CM PWM fans and quad Heatpipes. The most powerful Afterburner overclocking software supports over voltage function of GPU on R5830 Twin Frozr, tweaking the GPU's voltage to have better overclocking performance. In addition, to have better stability and lifespan, R5830 Twin Frozr II chooses the high quality Military class components to build the best HD 5830 card.

For heat dissipation, the MSI R5830 Twin Frozr II graphic card uses the advanced Twin Frozr II thermal design. This is supplemented by dual 8CM PWM fans and quad heat pipes to draw and dissipate waste heat away from the graphics card. Real-world tests show that MSI's proprietary Twin Frozr II cooling can reduce temperatures by up to 12℃ when compared to the reference cooler, making it quite an advanced cooling system.

World-renowned graphics card and mainboard brand-manufacturer MSI has officially launched a new generation of the Lightning series, the R5870 Lightning. Not only are top-quality components used in the design, but the following features are also included: exclusive all Hi-c CAP for GPU power, 15-phase power design, two 8-pin external power connectors, special PCB design called LPL (Lightning Power Layer), Twin Frozr II Thermal design with 8mm SuperPipe technology…etc. These outstanding features boost overall performance and reliability to a whole new level. This can be described as a top-performing product specifically designed for the extreme gamers and built to be perfect.

The new MSI R5870 Lightning features the industry's first 15-phase (13+2) power supply design; comparing to the reference-design 7 (5+2)-phase power supply module, it provides more than twice the power required by the GPU; It also features two 8-pin external power connectors, allowing more ample power supply for the R5870 Lightning; In addition, the design of the new R5870 Lightning has also incorporated a dedicated LPL (Lightning Power Layer) design, which is designed for GPU and memory power. This helps to increase the stability of power supply and also reduce noise.

Today HIS unleashed the revolutionary new HIS Radeon HD 5830 iCooler V 1GB GDDR5 Turbo and Standard version. Combined with the high performance dual slot iCooler V and stellar overclocking performance, it delivers most affordable high performance graphics with ATI Eyefinity technology supported. Prepare to plug in for a ridiculously immersive HD gaming experience unlike anything you've ever seen.

iCooler V features a high performance dual slot cooler. It comes with excellent cooling setup, which transfer heat effectively from the GPU to the internal fins around the central fan. Thanks to the elegant design and smoothness of iCooler fan shroud, massive amount of cool air is drawn from the central cooler to cool down the internal fins directly.

AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card, bringing gamers the cutting-edge features and performance of the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 5800 series at a lower price than ever before at less than $250 USD. With the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5830, gamers have another great choice in graphics hardware, with full support for DirectX 11 gaming, ATI Eyefinity technology, and ATI Stream capabilities.

"The ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card makes enthusiast-level performance even more accessible to gamers, adding another compelling choice to the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 5800 series," said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Division. "Cutting-edge features such as full DirectX 11 support, ATI Eyefinity multi-display capabilities and ATI Stream technology position the ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card to become a favorite with the gaming community."

About a month ago, it surfaces that ASUS was working on a limited-edition extreme high-end graphics accelerator that uses two Radeon HD 5870 GPUs, in essence an overclocked custom-design Radeon HD 5970, called the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Ares. The Ares builds on the legacy of the ROG Mars. It uses two AMD Cypress GPUs with 1600 stream processors, each, core and memory clock speeds on par with that of the Radeon HD 5870 (850 MHz / 1200 MHz), and double the amount of memory (2 GB per GPU, 4 GB on the card).

A CAD drawing of the Ares surfaced on Plaza.fi, which shows a single-PCB accelerator. The cooling design borrows a little from that of NVIDIA's second edition GeForce GTX 295, in having a centrally located blower that drives air onto copper GPU blocks on its either sides. The cooler assembly, however, seems much larger at 2.5 slots' thickness. ASUS also claims that the fan will be quieter on load than AMD's reference HD 5970 leaf-blower. A table given out lists its important specifications, which shows it to have the same clock speeds as the single-GPU Radeon HD 5870 (850/1200 MHz), versus those of the HD 5970 (725/1000 MHz), twice the amount of GDDR5 memory, and results of an internally conducted 3DMark Vantage benchmark which shows a 28.2% increment over the HD 5970 on the Ares. The card is powered by three PCI-Express power connectors (8-pin + 8-pin + 6-pin), and may have significantly higher power draw. It has also been designed for record-setting scores in graphics benchmark competitions. Being a limited edition product, we expect productions in the tens of hundreds only. If the price of ROG Mars is anything to go by, this one will be an expensive product, too.

Nexus announces the VCT-9000 CPU cooler. The Nexus VCT-9000 cooler combines some of the most advanced technologies in the market used for CPU coolers: heat pipes directly on the CPU core, SkiveTek and 3 types of ultra-thin fins combined with a real silent PWM controlled 12cm fan at a 25 degree angle. This type op performance has never been this quiet before.

The 120mm fan is PWM controlled and the speed varies between an utterly low 500 and 1600 RPM creating the lowest possible noise-output. Further more the fan is fitted with for blue LED's. The 5 heatpipes - one of 8mm and four of 6mm diameter - are fitted using the advanced Heatpipe-On-Core technology to guarantee the fastest heat dissipation possible.

American retailer Newegg.com has started listing Gigabyte's GA-890GPA-UD3H motherboard, one of the first motherboards based on the AMD 890GX + SB850 chipset. This socket AM3 motherboard boasts of native SATA 6 Gb/s support, USB 3.0, Radeon HD 4250 integrated graphics, at a price of $139.99. The GA-890GPA-UD3H supports socket AM3 AMD Athlon II and Phenom II series processors, including support for the upcoming Phenom II X6 six-core processors. It also supports dual-channel DDR3 memory at speeds of over 1866 MHz by overclocking. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), three PCI-E x1, and two PCI, bringing CrossfireX support. The SB850 gives out six SATA 6 Gb/s ports with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10, and JBOD modes. An NEC-made USB 3.0 controller also provides two USB 3.0 ports. The IGP connects to displays over D-Sub, DVI, and HDMI. Presumably, this could be the starting point for more AMD 890GX based motherboards to reach stores world over.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first low-power (green) four gigabit (Gb) DDR3 devices using 40 nanometer (nm) class process technology. The high-density memory is expected to bring significant power savings to data centers, server systems and high-end notebooks.

"When our 40nm-class DDR3 was first introduced last July, we were well ahead of the curve for high density, high performance DDR3," said Dong-Soo Jun, executive vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Now, in just seven more months, we have introduced an ultra-low power 'Green Memory' - the 4Gb DDR3, which is double the density of its predecessor. At a module density of 16-gigabyte (GB), the 4Gb based module can save 35 percent in power consumption, to support customer requirements for more energy-efficient designs."

LaCie announces next generation line of network storage devices for small to medium-sized businesses: the LaCie d2 Network 2 (single disk), LaCie 2big Network 2 (two disks) and LaCie 5big Network 2 (five disks).

Delivering superb data access of up to 70 MB/s, these professional, reliable central storage devices allow users to share files instantly or back up any PC or Mac on a network. These complete backup solutions are Time Machine compatible and include Genie Backup Manager Pro (Windows) and Intego Backup Manager Pro (Mac). With these applications you can make encrypted, compressed backups, restore office files, and even perform disaster recovery.

A couple of months after releasing the VRM-R3 and VRM-R4 VRM heatsinks for the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards, Thermalright is back with yet another HD 5800 series VRM heatsink, the VRM-R5. The new heatsink offers passive or fan-assisted cooling dedicated the the graphics card's VRM chips - major heat-producing components next to the GPU and memory chips. Cooler VRM chips could mean better electrical stability, affecting overclocking headroom.

The VRM-R5 makes the main block portion of the heatsink elaborate, with complex, branched metal ridges. From here two 6 mm aluminum heat pipes conduct heat to a block of aluminum fins. The fins are punched to improve heat dissipation. An 80 mm fan can be attached to this block for active cooling. The heatsink measures 118 x 117 x 122 mm, and weighs 140 g. The heatsink is compatible with some VGA coolers by Thermalright, notably Spitfire. It will reach stores next week at a price of 23 EUR.

AMD has started shipping its 8-core and 12-core "Magny Cours" Opteron processors for sockets G34 (2P-4P+), and C32 (1P-2P). The processors mark entry of several new technologies for AMD, such as a multi-chip module (MCM) approach towards increasing the processor's resources without having to complicate chip design any further than improving on those of the Shanghai and Istanbul. The new Opteron chips further make use of third-generation HyperTransport interconnect technologies for 6.4 GT/s interconnect speeds between the processor and host, and between processors on multi-socket configurations. It also embraces the Registered DDR3 memory technology. Each processor addresses memory over up to four independent (unganged) memory channels. Technologies such as HT Assist improve inter-silicon bandwidth on the MCMs. The processors further benefit from 12 MB of L3 caches on board, and 512 KB of dedicated L2 caches per processor core.

In the company's blog, the Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation products, John Fruehe, writes "Production began last month and our OEM partners have been receiving production parts this month." The new processors come in G34/C32 packages (1974-pin land-grid array). There are two product lines: the 1P/2P capable (cheaper) Opteron 4000 series, and 2P to 4P capable Opteron 6000 series. There are a total of 18 SKUs AMD has planned some of these are listed as followed, with OEM prices in EUR:

TechPowerUp today released GPU-Z version 0.3.9, our graphics subsystem information and monitoring utility. The new version brings with it some important user-interface changes that make it accessible to various locales and language settings. It adds support for over 32 new graphics processors by AMD and NVIDIA, and a host of new technical improvements that make it more stable and accurate.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.3.9

A list of changes are as follows:

AMD's ATI add-in-board partners (AIBs) will be ready with non-reference design graphics cards based on the Radeon HD 5830 GPU as soon as the GPU is announced, on the 25th, later this month. A few of them are pictured below. Not all of them seemed to be factory-overclocked, but do seem so come with impressive GPU coolers. To begin with, Gigabyte reused its Radeon HD 5870 SuperOverclock design for its HD 5830 card, which boasts of Ultra Durable VGA construction (2 oz copper layer PCB, ferrite core chokes, low RDS (on) MOSFETs, and "Tier 1 GDDR5 memory chips").

Next up, is the Sapphire HD 5830. Its board design resembles non-reference design HD 5850 accelerators. PowerColor joins the league with a PCS+ HD 5830 right away. Again, a reuse of its PCS+ board for HD 5850 and HD 5870. While the card by HIS isn't pictured, its box shot shows that the company will offer a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game bundle with its HD 5830. XFX also has its box pictured.

MAINGEAR Computers, award-winning builders of high performance custom computers, is proud to announce the Relief for Haiti Charity Auction in benefit of Save the Children to help support the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. This special edition SHIFT will feature one of the last remaining AMD Phenom II X4 TWKR processors, of which only a few dozen were made. The last time one of these processors went up for sale on eBay for charity, it went for over $10,000 - just for the CPU. For this charity event MAINGEAR is building a whole computer around it with signed hardware and software from industry partners including Microsoft, Valve, SilverStone, Kingston, and Psyko Audio.

"We're thrilled that so many of our industry partners leapt at the opportunity to support this cause." said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of MAINGEAR. "With AMD's TWKR, this is truly a special system and it should generate a significant donation to Save the Children's worthy cause."

AMD's new performance graphics card that targets an upper-mainstream price-point, the Radeon HD 5830, is slated for February 25. A set of company slides sourced by IT168.com shows the GPU's specifications are in tune with what we expected. The HD 5830 is based on AMD's Cypress 40 nm GPU. It has 1120 stream processors, a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, 16 ROPs, 56 TMUs, and clock speeds of 800 MHz (core) and 1000 MHz (memory). The memory bandwidth on the card is 128 GB/s, on par with that of the Radeon HD 5850. The core clock speed is slightly higher, too.

With a GPU of these specifications, AMD targets the market price-range of $200-$250, where there's room for a DirectX 11 generation graphics card to be positioned between the Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5850. The maximum board power of the card is slightly higher than that of the HD 5850, but we think that's because reference designs - if there are - might not use high-grade digital PWM circuitry. That typically shouldn't affect overclocking headroom a big deal.

NVIDIA built a fair bit of hype over the weekend on Twitter, when it said that come Monday, it would make a "major announcement". It turns out that the company will unveil its GeForce GTX 400 series graphics card at the PAX East gaming event to be held in late March, on the 26th, 31 days away at the time of preparing this report. The PAX East event will be held in Boston, United States.

NVIDIA will unveil two of its high-end, next-generation graphics cards based on the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470. Being DirectX 11 compliant marks that generation shift. An American online retailer listed the GeForce GTX 480 for US $699 on pre-order.

Seagate is now shipping its 3.5-inch Constellation ES drive, the industry's first 2TB enterprise-class drives featuring 6Gb SAS, to customers worldwide. Designed specifically for multi-drive nearline storage environments, the Constellation ES drive has been qualified by leading enterprise OEMs and system builders who demand storage solutions of the highest capacities with increased power efficiency, enterprise-class reliability, and data security that their customers demand. The Constellation ES drive leverages Seagate's 30 years of leadership in meeting large enterprise customer needs in product development, qualification, and support.

The fourth-generation, 3.5-inch Seagate Constellation ES drive family for 7200-RPM enterprise environments enables cost-effective, highly efficient storage with capacities of 500GB, 1TB and 2TB. Supporting up to 76TB per square foot, it offers best-in-class reliability, leading 6Gb/s SAS or SATA 3Gb/s performance, PowerChoice optimized power and cooling technology, and a government-grade security option - all backed by Seagate.

Thermaltake, leading brand manufacturer of power supplies, cases and cooling solutions, today announced their latest additon to the Litepower series of entry-level power supplies. The Thermaltake Litepower 350W, 450W and 550W are specifically targeting energy efficient PC systems with lower overall power consumption in application fields such as HTPCs, office and entertainment computers. While out-of-this-world high-end PC configurations freuquently require a nuclear power plant of your own in the living room, small form factor setups simply don't. In fact for HTPC-like computers it is important to have shorter and fewer cables to easier keep order within the case and maintain as much open space as possible for an optimized air flow. The Thermaltake Litepower series now offers you all these characteristics.

The new 350W (W0363 & W0367),450W (W0361 & W0362), and 550W(W0369) PSUs comply to the latest ATX 12V V2.2 Standard for utmost reliability and compatibility supporting state-of-the-art Intel and AMD processor and graphics technologies. With Over Voltage, Over Power and Short-Circuit protection the Litepower series offers industry grade protection. Furthermore Japanese made capacitors for mission-critical device parts improve overall solidity. Energy efficiency is improved and power current load on the AC delivery systems is reduced through the implementation of active Power Factor Correction (PFC).

Shuttle Inc, a leading developer and manufacturer of multi-form-factor solutions such as the XPC Mini-PC Barebones, today announces the XPC Barebone SG41J1 in Europe. The first offspring of the J-series is the pioneer of different other Mini-PCs to be introduced in the upcoming weeks.

The chassis of the XPC Barebone SG41J1 is almost re-signed from scratch. Developed for most versatile use, the SG41J1 maintains the advantages of previous XPC models while incorporating many improvements. The J-series represents the next step in the evolution of Shuttle Mini-PCs that has begun in 2001.

MSI launched the latest 16" entertainment model GE600 for its G series notebooks. This new model uses Intel Core i5 processor with built-in ATI Radeon HD5730 discrete graphics card (including 1GB DDR3 VRAM) and SRS Premium Sound audio. Moreover, bearing the 720p HD webcam also takes the lead in the industry. The high-end video/audio equipment provides you with the experience of all-round multimedia entertainments.

Sam Chern, MSI Notebook Marketing Director, stated that to satisfy customer needs, MSI 16" entertainment model - GE600 - was developed to introduce the most advanced software/hardware devices characterized by all-new exterior design, HD webcam, sub-woofer and leading SRS Premium Sound audio, all of which enables customers to enter a new era of mobile video/audio enjoyment experiences.

EKL brand Alpenföhn unveiled its newest CPU cooler, the Matterhorn. This cooler measures 138 x 100 x 158 mm, and weighs 1067 g (2.35 lbs). The construction is similar to that of several coolers in its category. A pre-lapped copper base draws heat from the CPU. From this, six heatpipes pass, conducting heat to a block of aluminum fins. The fins have notches that help heat dissipation over the air being blown by an attached Föhn120 Wing Boost 120 mm fan, which spins at 500 to 1500 rpm, with a max noise output of 24.8 dBA. The Matterhorn supports most current CPU sockets including LGA-1366, LGA-1156, LGA-775, AM3, AM2(+). Its price and availability are yet to be known.

An online PC hardware store, SabrePC.com, has listed a graphics card based on NVIDIA's upcoming DirectX 11 compliant GeForce GTX 480 GPU. And the price: $699 before a $20 rebate. The listing is of a graphics card by NVIDIA partner XFX.

The specifications known at this point in time are that the GeForce GTX 480 is based on NVIDIA's GF100 graphics processor. It is DirectX 11 compliant, and has 512 shader units (dubbed CUDA cores), a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, and multiple tessellation units. NVIDIA is expected to announce the card along with a cheaper variant, the GeForce GTX 470, later this quarter. By early Q2, the company expects healthy inventories.

Club 3D B.V. today announced factory overclocked Radeon HD 5800 series. Club 3D's latest offer out of the award winning Radeon HD 5000 graphics cards series, the Radeon HD 5800 Overclocked Edition raises the performance bar into new dimensions.

Prepare to experience a riveting high-definition gaming experience with factory overclocked Club 3D Radeon HD 5800 graphics cards. Expand your visual real estate across up to three displays and get lost in the action with revolutionary ATI Eyefinity Technology. Using ATI Stream technology, accelerate even the most demanding applications and do more than ever with your PC. The first to deliver full support for Microsoft DirectX 11, The Club 3D Radeon HD 5800 graphics cards enables realistic and explosive HD gaming.

Active Media Products, manufacturer of SSDs and innovative USB drives, today announced immediate availability of their endangered species series of USB drives in a new 32GB capacity. These flash drives are made of non-toxic silicone rubber and are completely free of PVC, lead and mercury, poisons commonly found in other USB drives.

"Our original endangered species drives are crafted in minute detail after the features of each animal. Our design goal was to preserve the natural beauty of the beast in a functional two-inch storage device." stated Jerry Thomson, VP of Sales at Active Media Products. The drives range from 2.2 to 2.6 inches in length - small enough to carry on a keychain. All three models feature a red activity LED that makes the animal glow bright red when plugged in.

RaidSonic is ready with three new external storage solutions that make use of USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface, in its Icy Box series. To begin with, the Icy Box IB-230StU3 is a compact enclosure that makes for a portable, pocketable solution that can house a single 2.5 inch SATA HDD or SSD. It gets a healthy dose of brushed metal and aluminum overalls that keep it light and sturdy. It uses USB 3.0, and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0. It will ship next month for 27 EUR a piece.

Next up, is the Icy Box IB-330StU3 enclosure, which although portable, is fit for the desktop. It can house a single 3.5" HDD or SSD. It has silicone inserts for noise dampening. Again, it uses USB 3.0 for connectivity. This one is slated for an April 2010 release, and will be priced at 39 EUR.

Lastly, there's the Icy Box IB-RD4320StU3-B desktop enclosure. It can house two 3.5" SATA drives with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and JBOD support, and USB 3.0 interface to let you make use of the transfer speeds. Its release date and price are not known at the moment.

Combining the highly successful HD 5000 series graphics architecture with its award winning Vapor-X cooling technology, SAPPHIRE Technology is now shipping two new graphics cards - the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition and the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 Vapor-X model.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition and the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 Vapor-X models are both SAPPHIRE original designs based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. Both models feature 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units delivering the fastest performance in class as well as supporting ATI Stream technology. They support the advanced graphical features of DirectX 11, and deliver spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects, including over multiple monitors whilst working at lower operating temperatures and significantly more quietly because of the SAPPHIRE award winning Vapor-X cooling technology.

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the availability of its new Flash Padlock 2 secure USB flash drive. This unique USB flash drive is very cleverly and comprehensively designed to protect your critical business or personal data from unwanted exposure.

The Flash Padlock 2 employs two security technologies for superb data protection. The first of these technologies is a user-definable personal identification number or PIN. To unlock the drive and access the data, this PIN is entered using the drive's integrated numeric keypad. The Flash Padlock 2 cannot be accessed without correctly entering the PIN for that individual drive. The second technology used is secure 256-bit AES data encryption of the drive contents. 256-bit AES is recognized worldwide by both corporations and governments as the premier standard for data protection, and its use in the Flash Padlock 2 ensures that data protection cannot be compromised by disassembling the drive to gain access to the flash ICs.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of DataTraveler 310, the first 256GB USB Flash drive in the United States. The DataTraveler 310 replaces the 256GB DataTraveler 300, released in July 2009 to the Asia/Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa regions.

"We saw an opportunity to push the capacity envelope for USB Flash drives in the marketplace. Customer feedback and our research determined that this is a great solution for designers, engineers and architects who have a need to easily store and transport large data files," said Andrew Ewing, USB business manager, Kingston. "For the enthusiast who wants easy access to their full media library, the DataTraveler 310 can store up to 365 CDs, 54 DVDs or 51,000 images*. This device makes an entire collection of data easily portable."

Quality-enthusiast Corsair is ready with its second PC case, the Obsidian 700D. The new 700D is positioned slightly lower than the 800D which the company debuted last year. Information on the 700D surfaced from a leaked company brochure. It shows the case to be an ATX full-tower, with black overall. There is no side-panel window like on the 800D, but is said to inherit most of the interior features of the 800D. There are six internal drive bays for HDDs or SSDs, five exposed 5.25" and one exposed 3.5" bay. Interiors are said to retain cable-management holes, three-zone cooling, and pre-drilled vents for a triple-120mm fan radiator.

The case measures 24" (H) x 24" (L) x 9" (W) / 609 mm x 609 mm x 229 mm, weighs 34.8 lbs / 15.8 kg, and makes use of steel for the internal frame, and aluminum for its panels. There's room for three 140 mm and up to four 120 mm fans. There are eight expansion slots, so it makes room for a double-slot video card seated on the bottom-most slot of the motherboard. There's room for ITX, m-ATX, ATX, and EATX motherboard types, the motherboard tray has a cutout at the CPU socket area for easy handling of certain types of coolers. The front-panel has four USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, and the FP audio connectors. Corsair ships this case with a two-year warranty. Its price and availability remain yet to be known.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and flash-based storage as an alternative to hard disk drives (HDDs), has unveiled the highly anticipated Vertex Limited Edition (LE). Based on a cutting-edge new architecture, OCZ's Vertex LE is the epitome of innovation for power users seeking to integrate a new class of SSD in their Windows-based systems. For early adopters, a Vertex LE drive can take a high-end computing experience to the next level. OCZ will offer Vertex LE through its extensive network of distribution partners over the next few weeks.

"OCZ has an excellent reputation as a leader in solid state drives, and as new technologies become available, we are continually expanding our solution portfolio to bring enhanced performance benefits to the complete spectrum of our client's applications," commented Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. "The new Vertex Limited Edition SSD is our fastest, multi-level cell (MLC), performance-based drive yet and delivers both exceptional speed and reliability for customers demanding a superior storage solution including intensive applications such as audio/video editing, mobile computing, and even use in workstations."

NVIDIA Corp. reported revenue of $982.5 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 ended Jan. 31, 2010, up 9 percent from the previous quarter and more than double the $481.1 million reported in the same period a year earlier. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $3.3 billion compared with $3.4 billion for the fiscal year ended Jan. 25, 2009, a decrease of 3 percent.

On a GAAP basis, the company recorded net income of $131.1 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, compared with a GAAP net loss of $147.7 million, or $0.27 per share, in the same period a year earlier. GAAP net loss for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2010 was $68.0 million, or $0.12 per share, compared with a net loss of $30.0 million, or $0.05 per share, for the fiscal year ended Jan. 25, 2009.

AMD's Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition, a special variant of the Radeon HD 5870, is slated for release on the 11th of March, according to a recent report. The Eyefinity6 Edition makes use of the six TMDS signal lines of Radeon HD 5870 to drive six display-heads. On the connectivity front, there are six mini-DisplayPort connectors. Using the included dongles, the card can connect to six displays with full-HD resolution, which can then be merged using the ATI Eyefinity technology to form one or more Eyefinity display-heads. The GPU and memory use reference clock speeds of 850/1200 MHz (core/memory), while there is 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on board.

The other AMD product that AMD will be releasing a little sooner is the Radeon HD 5830, a performance-segment graphics card that aims at a sweet-spot price of somewhere between $150~$250, delivering performance in existing applications on par or better than the Radeon HD 4890, but with a lot more future-proofing, DirectX 11 compliance, Eyefinity support, and lower target energy draws. We expect the Radeon HD 5830 to have 1120 stream processors, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and clock speeds of 800/1000 MHz (core/memory). The market release of Radeon HD 5830 and Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 are strategically timed to coincide with those of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 400 series graphics cards.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced its participation at Digital Signage Expo 2010, Feb. 24 - 25, Las Vegas. Join VIA at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Hall C1-2, Booth 1240 and experience the latest technologies for next-generation signage systems, including a demonstration of the forthcoming S3 Graphics Chrome 5400E x2; a dual GPU add-in-board aimed at advanced, multi-display digital signage applications.

The S3 Graphics 5400E x2 is a highly integrated and flexible video card that features dual graphics and multimedia processors. Boasting extreme hardware acceleration of the latest HD video codecs, the S3 Graphics 5400E x2 uses S3 Graphics' PanoChrome technology to provide up to four independent HD video streams at resolutions of 1080p on up to eight displays, employing a variety of display modes and configurations.

AMD released the ATI Catalyst version 10.2 driver suite, as promised in a press release earlier today. Catalyst 10.2 is one of two important releases by AMD that add to its products' overall feature-set, among the usual baggage of application-specific and generic fixes. Feature additions are as follows:

• ATI Catalyst application profiles for ATI CrossFireX supported configurations
• ATI Catalyst support for PowerPlay on ATI CrossFireX technology supported configurations
• Support for DisplayPort audio
• Support for ATI CrossFireX on Eyefinity configurations

In addition, there are application-specific performance improvements:

NEC Corporation (NEC) and NEC Electronics Corporation (NECEL) announced today the development and successful demonstration of LSI technology for next-generation high-speed serial communication interfaces. This new technology allows inter-chip communication that is three times faster than modern communication interface standards, such as USB 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0, without using complicated transmission modes like multilevel transmission.

In recent years, due to the appearance of high-definition (HD) TV and 3D video content, the volume of data being processed for personal use has rapidly grown. This growth has resulted in greater demand for high speed transmission of data both between and within a wide variety of equipment. In order to provide for this demand, various types of sophisticated transmission schemes have been proposed to compensate for the large waveform distortion of input signals fed to the receiver, and to reach high-speed communications of more than 10 Gb/s to facilitate next-generation USB and PCI Express.

AMD today announced several new ATI Catalyst graphics driver features designed to enable higher performance, industry-leading stability and an even more intuitive computing experience for ATI Radeon graphics customers. Two ATI Catalyst driver updates unlock the new features, the first coming today in ATI Catalyst update, version 10.2, and the second scheduled for release in March. The releases represent AMD's ongoing commitment to providing regular driver updates focusing on stability, performance and innovation for users of ATI Radeon graphics processors.

"As the first and, to date, only company to provide DirectX 11 technology and ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, AMD continues to demonstrate our commitment to innovation in graphics," said Ben Bar-Haim, corporate vice-president, Software, AMD. "Our monthly ATI Catalyst driver updates further illustrate that commitment as we focus on continually enabling greater performance, even more rock solid stability, and intuitive, innovative features."

Toshiba Corporation, the industry pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced a new high-performance, low-power HDD product line for enterprise applications that draws on synergies achieved by the integration of Fujitsu Limited's enterprise-directed magnetic drive business into Toshiba HDD business.

The new MBF2600RC family brings 2.5-inch drives into the enterprise space, with no compromise in capacity or performance. The line-up features a 600GB drive, currently the industry's highest[1] capacity for 2.5-inch enterprise-class HDD, and rounds out the range with 300GB, and 450GB capacities, all offering maximum rotation speeds of over 10,000RPM.

Mushkin Enhanced, a global leader in high-performance computer products, announced today the release of an incredibly fast DDR3-2000 Channel Blackline Kit for Intel's LGA1156 platform.

Offering CL7 performance at DDR3-2000, the 996829 memory kit provides an elegant solution for the PC3-16000 specification while simultaneously boasting Mushkin Enhanced's unparalled quality level.

"Our newest DDR3-2000 kit is a real accomplishment for us. It offers the best of both worlds: top-tier performance with the reliability and stability our customers expect." - Brian Flood, director of product development.

Two short years ago, Thecus Technology shook up the world of enterprise storage with the release of the 1U4500 - a rackmount storage server which utilized SATA technology. Today, Thecus is pleased to announce a follow up to this groundbreaking device: the 1U4600 Rackmount NAS Server. Offering increased system performance and complete security and flexibility, the 1U4600 is an excellent storage solution for the growing enterprise.

Business users need to access data as quickly as possible, which is why the 1U4600 is built for speed. Powered by Intel Celeron technology and 1GB of DDR memory, the 1U4600 delivers tremendous data transfer performance and quick system response even with multiple client access. For organizations that require cloud computing applications, the 1U4600 fits the bill nicely with its cloud networking ability. This feature allows multiple 1U4600 units to be accessed by a master system, forming a huge data pool. Being a Thecus product, data security is also top-notch, featuring multiple RAID modes, including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD. Best of all, administrators can take advantage of online-RAID volume management to handle such tasks as RAID expansion or migration with zero downtime.

Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Duo USB3.0: Dual docking station for SATA Hard Drives with USB 3.0 ports / direct PC connection for two external supported SATA hard drives in 2.5" and 3.5" format / MSRP 59.90 Euros.

USB 3.0 has seized the market. Since Sharkoon was the first provider to introduce a USB3.0 controller and equip the Sharkoon SATA QuickPort USB 3.0 hard drive docking station with this terminal as a standard port, the accessory specialist now introduces a USB 3.0 variant model to its popular QuickPort series:

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, announced the release of its JetFlash 620 USB flash drive. The JetFlash 620 features compact portability, fast transfer speeds and built-in 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) security, making it ideal for carrying, storing and securing important digital files against unauthorized access.

The JetFlash 620 comes bundled with Transcend's exclusive JetFlash SecureDrive software that helps safeguard users' confidential data by creating a private, password-protected area on their JetFlash drive. Once enabled, nobody but the password owner will be able to see or access files stored within the secure Private Zone. For extra convenience and security, the JetFlash 620 also allows users to easily resize the Private Zone and frequently change their password, ensuring that their sensitive data never falls into the hands of hackers, nosy co-workers, curious family members or identity thieves.

Buffalo Technology introduced its newest portable solid state drive, the MicroStation SHD-PEU2 series. These portable SSDs come in 32 GB and 64 GB capacities, measure 57 x 13 x 98 mm, and connect to the host using USB 2.0 interface. The enclosure itself has a piano-black surface. The drive's software bundle includes Memeo Autosync and Secure Lock Ware data synchronization and protection software.

"The SSD technology incorporated into Buffalo's latest drive is truly innovative and has allowed us to combine style and portability with efficiency and reliability, making it a pleasure to use," said Paul Hudson, Northern European Sales Director, Buffalo Technology. "Still not a mainstream consumer product, the MicroStation SSD portable drive is ideal for early adopters," he added. Backed with a two-year warranty, the MicroStation SSDs will reach stores later this month, with prices starting at 115 EUR.

The new Acer Aspire One 532G sets the netbook trend in the digital world where Hi-Def viewing online is growing dramatically. Acer presents the world's first netbook with dedicated next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics acceleration enabling users to enjoy Hi-Def content online as well as playback at 720p; alternatively, connect through HDMI output to a secondary Hi-Def TV/LCD monitor for sharing Hi-Def content with friends at a larger 1080p resolution.

With up to 10 hours of battery life, integrated Wi-Fi, 10.1" Hi-Def LED backlit display and optional 3G, the Aspire One 532G matches outstanding performance with an ultra-compact design, offering all the power you need. Netbook users can now enjoy flawless Hi-Def web content streaming and multiple Internet applications with ease.

HighPoint Technologies is announcing the RocketRAID 640 series- the industry's fastest SATA 6Gb/s RAID host adapters powered by PCI-Express 2.0 x4 bus speeds. The industry's first 4 port native SATA 6Gb/s RAID host adapters allow users to upgrade to the fastest SATA hard drives and scale to higher storage capacities.

The RocketRAID 640 series is the newest edition to the RocketRAID SATA 6Gb/s host adapter portfolio. This series offers 4 independent SATA 6Gb/s ports for internal or external storage connectivity. A PCI-Express 2.0 x4 bus technology and is also backward compatible with PCI-Express 1.0 for legacy systems. HighPoint hardware assisted RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD offers a balance of storage performance or protection.

Active Media Products, manufacturer of SSDs and innovative USB drives, today launched the new Aviator-2 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 external 2.5-inch SSDs, which offer a 400% performance gain compared to USB 2.0 external HDDs.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 supports transfer speeds up to 4.8Gbits/sec -- ten times faster than USB 2.0. Aviator-2 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 external SSDs take advantage of USB 3.0's massive bandwidth, delivering unprecedented performance in a mobile flash storage device. Measuring just over 3 x 5 inches, the Aviator-2 is slim enough to slip into a jacket pocket.

ASUS seems to be ready with one of its first motherboards based on the AMD 890GX chipset. This socket AM3 series of motherboards seems to come in two variants: M4A89GTD Pro and M4A89GTD Pro USB3 (with the latter having support for USB 3.0 SuperSpeed connectivity. An early development version of this motherboard was displayed at this year's CES event. Fresh pictures show a production-grade model, complete with chipset and VRM cooling, as well as a box design.

The M4A89GTD Pro / USB3 is a socket AM3 motherboard with a 10-phase CPU VRM supporting future AMD CPUs with 140W TDP, 2-phase memory VRM powering the four DDR3 DIMM slots, AMD 890GX chipset with faster DirectX 10.1 compliant graphics, and AMD SB800 southbridge. The SB800 provides six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, while an additional JMicron-made controller gives out the IDE connector (and possibly the lone eSATA port). Expansion slots include two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 when both are populated), two PCI, and one each of PCI-E x1 and PCI-E x4. Connectivity includes 8+2 channel HD audio with optical SPDIF output, gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 ports (on the USB3 variant), FireWire, and display connectivity including DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. The M4A89GTD Pro / USB3 is expected to be launched a little ahead of AMD's launch of its six-core Phenom II X6 processors.

AMD's upcoming six-core desktop processor, the Phenom II X6, will introduce a new feature to the Phenom II series, currently known as "C-state performance boost". The feature gives the processor control over individual cores' power states, and the ability to gate power down completely a core. The remaining active core(s), will then be overclocked beyond the normal clock speeds, so that low-power operation with reduced parallel computing load goes on with much lesser energy consumption.

Features such as C-state performance boost and 'power-gating' is relatively new for AMD processors. The two were originally expected to be introduced with AMD's 32 nm "Llano" Fusion APUs. AMD's Phenom II X6 is expected to be released in May 2010, its architecture is derived from the six-core "Istanbul" Opteron processors, albeit in the socket AM3 package that supports dual-channel DDR3 memory. There are as many as four models in the works for an initial release. Known details of these can be found here.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of a 16GB microSDHC Class 10 card. The high-capacity card complies with the SD Association Specification 3.00 to meet Class 10 requirements. The 16GB microSDHC card has a minimum data transfer rate of 10MB/sec. and ships either as a stand-alone microSDHC card or with adapters.

"With the new speed class, host devices such as high-definition cameras or the latest smartphones are being designed to optimize their write performance to take advantage of the more responsive memory card speeds," said Wendy Lecot, Flash card business manager, Kingston. "Now that the Class 10 card specification is five times faster than a Class 2 card, users will see swifter copying and transferring of photos, music, videos and e-books when using a multi-format card reader such as the Kingston Media Reader or MobileLiteG2 with a PC.

Transcend Information, Inc., a global leader in storage and multimedia products, today announced a radical redesign of its 2.5-inch solid state drives (SSD). The updated SSDs now offer a superior outer casing and additional tamper-resistant features, making them the most reliable and secure alternatives to conventional hard disk drives.

Designed to deliver the highest level of quality, the new versions of Transcend's 2.5-inch SATA and IDE Solid State Drives provide customers with extra peace of mind, incorporating innovative tamper-resistant features, including an anti-counterfeit Transcend logo security hologram and tamper-evident seals. These new features assure the end-user receives a 100% genuine Transcend product that has never been tampered with or opened by unauthorized third parties or other customers, thus further guaranteeing the SSDs' authenticity and quality.

At the 2010 Mobile World Congress, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM today unveiled new details on their leading-edge System-on-Chip (SoC) platform technology for powering the next generation of wireless products and applications. The new chip manufacturing platform is projected to enable a 40 percent increase in computing performance, a 30 percent decrease in power consumption, and a 100 percent increase in standby battery life. The new platform includes collaboration on two GLOBALFOUNDRIES process variants: 28nm super low power (SLP) for mobile and consumer applications and 28nm high performance (HP) for applications requiring maximum performance.

"The success of the next generation of mobile products will be increasingly dependent on their ability to deliver PC-class performance, a highly integrated rich media experience and longer battery life," said GLOBALFOUNDRIES chief operating officer Chia Song Hwee. "These demands are going to require a strong technology foundation and close collaboration between industry leaders to enable an increasing number of design companies to unlock this innovation. We are working closely with ARM to optimize the physical IP and implementation of the Cortex-A9 processor with our proven manufacturing experience in high-volume, advanced technology products, to deliver a fully integrated platform for leading-edge wireless products and applications."

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly announced the new Calibre X240/X240G graphics cards with dual-layer fan blades cooling system, providing incredible DX 10.1 3D performance to mainstream users plus better cooling effects.

Triple strengths to build Calibre Dual-layer fan blades cooling system to bring extreme cooling. SPARKLE breaks restraints of traditional conception, bringing the Calibre dual-layer fan blades cooling system. The Calibre dual-layer fan blades cooling system has several amazing features for DIY users.

LaCie today announced the Rugged eSATA, the first mobile external hard drive on the market that features a Power eSATA interface. The Rugged eSATA offers major storage capacity and a cost advantage over eSATA SSD solutions, and is one of the only portable, bus-powered eSATA solutions on the market.

Bus-powered when connected to a USB-eSATA combo port, the LaCie Rugged eSATA combines superior transfer speeds of up to 90MB/s in a truly mobile form. The USB-eSATA combo interface, also known as Power eSATA, features a slightly different connector than eSATA and is frequently found on late-model laptops. The drive is also compatible with standard eSATA ports when the included USB power-sharing cable is connected.

Sapphire is making an addition to its Toxic series graphics card that feature non-reference design with out of the box higher clock speeds, based on the ATI Radeon HD 5850 GPU. The Toxic HD 5850. It features what appears to be a non-reference blue PCB by Sapphire, a non-reference cooler with a dash of racy blue graphics, and higher clock speeds. Its GPU is clocked at 765 MHz and memory at 1125 MHz (4500 MHz effective), against reference clock speeds of 725 MHz and 1000 (4000 eff.) MHz, respectively. The Radeon HD 5850 GPU is DirectX 11 compliant, has 1440 stream processors, and a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface. There's 1 GB of memory on board. It is expected to be released on or before 15th Feb. Online store Overclockers UK has listed this card before its announcement at £269.99 including applicable tax, though we expect the price to come down after release.

NVIDIA partner Albatron released a GeForce 210 based graphics card that uses the PCI-Express x1 interface. This low-profile card is passively cooled, and draws all its power from the slot. Its GeForce 210 (codenamed GT218) GPU is DirectX 10.1 compliant, has 16 unified shaders, and a 64-bit wide memory interface. It is built on the 40 nm process. The card has 512 MB of DDR2 memory. Its clock speeds are set at 589/1402/500 MHz (core/shader/memory). Connectivity includes one each of DVI-D, HDMI, and D-Sub. Albatron hasn't announced its price yet.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced the new USB 3.0 Express Drive. Available in 16GB and 32GB capacities, this new drive supports USB 3.0 speeds of up to 125 MB/s. Downloading a 600MB movie takes a mere 12 seconds with this new drive. And the company expects to improve this performance even further in coming weeks by applying their advanced driver technology.

"This product underscores Super Talent's continued leadership in the USB 3.0 storage market.", said Super Talent COO, C.H. Lee. "We've listened to our customers and responded with a USB 3.0 product that not only meets the market needs but hits the balance point between price and performance."

Lenovo today announced three new PCs for consumers - the Lenovo G455 and G555 notebooks and the Lenovo C315 all-in-one desktop - all based on the AMD platform featuring innovative Lenovo software to improve the overall computing experience. Designed for mainstream consumers, they support up to the latest AMD Turion and Athlon processors and ATI graphics. With Lenovo applications such as OneKey Rescue System and Energy Management on the G455 and G555 and IdeaTouch multitouch applications on the C315, these new PCs deliver affordable, dual-core, worry-free computing.

"Our new G series notebooks and C series all-in-one desktop are designed for users who want a simple but powerful computing experience without any headaches," said Dion Weisler, vice president, Business Operations, Lenovo. "By working closely with AMD engineers and leveraging AMD advanced technologies, we have created products that offer superior performance in the areas of graphics and power efficiency at an affordable price point."

ASUS continues to lead in high performance optical storage devices with a full range of top quality products, from mainstay DVD-RW drives to Blu-ray Disc combos that have become the standard for high-end professional storage environments. Powered by USB 2.0 connectivity, the new ASUS SBC-06D1S-U and the ASUS SDR-08D1-U slim-type external optical disc drives are designed to provide optimized reading and writing capabilities. Both are tailored to discerning users keen on award-winning design, meticulous craftsmanship, enhanced multimedia capabilities and environmentally-savvy operation.

ASUS external slim drives are recognized worldwide for outstanding functionality and fetching looks. The SBC-06D1S-U sports the same progressive design philosophy that has garnered the company's range of optical drives prestigious accolades, including the iF Design Award 2010, the Taiwan Good Design Product Award and the Taiwan Excellence Award.

Synology UK, leaders in open source network attached storage solutions announced today the DiskStation DS710+ aimed primarily at SMB and home enthusiast users. Shipping with Synology's award winning DiskStation Manager 2.2 web-interface, the DS710+ can be set up and configured within minutes without the requirement of extensive technical knowledge.

"As far as a small or medium business is concerned, the DS710+ ticks all the right boxes," exclaimed Victor Chiang, Sales and Marketing Director, Synology UK. "Smaller than the size of a shoe box, the DiskStation is powerful, secure and reliable enough to cope with the majority of a company's backup, IT and internet requirements at a low initial cost outlay and on-going running costs."

The new ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) G73Jh is like no other gaming notebook. Eschewing the flash and gimmicks typical of gaming notebooks, the G73Jh instead boasts an understated, subtly aggressive design inspired by a stealth fighter. At its heart lies the most powerful components available today, including the latest Intel Core i7 processor, DirectX 11-capable ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics, and up to 8 GB of DDR3 system memory.

The G73Jh sports a striking angular design inspired by the iconic F-117 Nighthawk. Far from being merely cosmetic, every facet of the G73Jh's design reflects a conscious effort to improve the user experience. For example, the placement of all the heat and noise-generating components at the rear of the notebook and the implementation of a unique twin rear venting system keep the heat and noise as far away from the user as possible. The innovative placement of components also allows the palm rest to be exceptionally thin, just like a desktop keyboard. Furthermore, the keyboard plane is inclined 5 degrees, improving ergonomics and thus ensuring optimal comfort while gaming and typing.

ASUS' Republic of Gamers MATRIX series of graphics cards is getting a new member, the EAH5870 MATRIX. This model, based on the ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU has high-end construction, cooling, and voltage regulators, out of the box higher clock speeds, overclocking headroom, and twice the amount of memory: 2 GB. The cooler and backplate design resembles that of ASUS' GeForce GTX 285 MATRIX.

The clock speeds on this card stand at 900 MHz (core) and 1225 MHz (memory, 4900 MHz effective). The card seems to have a stronger VRM circuit that supports higher clock speeds. It draws power from two 8-pin PCI-Express connectors. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI-D, HDMI, and DisplayPort.

Overclocker-friendly features may include ASUS' VoltageTweak software voltage control, a "safe mode" button that falls back to failsafe clock speed and voltage settings, among other things. There is no word on its availability, though we expect to learn more about this card at the upcoming CeBIT event.

TechPowerUp is a leading contender at the PowerColor DirectX 11 Experience Contest. Our community has churned out a winning design, but requires your support to make it through, at PowerColor's public voting, to compete with other contenders.

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HIS unveils the HIS Radeon HD 5570 Fan 1GB DDR3, offering the most features and functionality in its class. Loaded with complete DirectX 11 support and ATI Stream technology, the Radeon HD 5570 graphics card delivers a state-of-the-art HD multimedia and gaming experience at a value price point. Built as a low-profile capable single-slot design with both ATX & low profile brackets included, it will fit into both a full-height and half-height PCI-Express Chassis, which makes the HIS Radeon HD 5570 the ultimate media center companion at a value price.

The HIS Radeon HD 5570 Series is designed to give you stunning high definition entertainment from your PC, whether Blu-ray/HD DVD discs or other HD sources. Gamers will get an uncompromising Microsoft Windows 7 experience, play the most popular games online and watch HD video with incredible realism. It also consumes less than 75 Watts under full load, eliminating the need for an external power connection and making installation extremely simple.

Lian Li Industrial Co. Ltd Ltd today has launched the PC-A77F Full Tower chassis ideal for PC power users and server systems. Incorporating USB 3.0 functionality with 4x new USB 3.0 ports as well as the standard e-SATA x1 and HD+AC97 Audio. The hair-line brushed all black aluminum chassis features three Blue LED fans on the front (3x 120mm@1200RPM), and 2x Top 140mm fans @1000RPM, as well as 1x 120mm rear fan (1500RPM). The 8x PCI expansion slots enable CrossFireX and three way SLI graphic card setups. The chassis front panel clips off conveniently as needed. The inlet fans have filters that are washable. The entire chassis is designed for tool-less implementation, so installing your hardware a nd getting your system up and running is extremely quick and easy. The dimensions stand at 220mm x 572mm x 590mm (W, H, D) for the PC-A77F.

The Lian Li patented Power Supply Bracket which allows the PSU to be secured using only the tool-less clasp is very useful to hold the PSU without the need for securing screws. The 9x internal HDD 3.5" bays have a tool-less bracket mounting system where the HDD's are secured along secure rails. The rails lock fast to ensure all HDD's are held in place with rubber grommet struts to prevent movement and vibration from today's fast moving and highly specialized HDD components. The locking mechanism slides into place and secures all the HDD's simultaneously. The PCI securing brackets are made of aluminum and have a special tool-less clip with rubber padding to secure your graphics and daughter cards with the utmost of ease. The front panel and top panel are easily detachable for access to fans and air filters. The PC-A77F chassis have all the functional and user friendly design aspects users have come to expect in high quality Lian Li cases.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it will ship its second generation SSDNow V Series solid-state drive (SSD) on February 15. Targeted for mainstream consumers and small and medium businesses, the new Kingston SSDNow V Series offers higher performance than its predecessor and supports Windows 7 TRIM functionality while maintaining pricing. Capacities are 30GB, 64GB and 128GB and the drive comes as a standalone unit or with a bundled solution for desktop or notebook systems.

"Kingston has really increased the performance on the new second generation SSDNow V Series drive without raising the price. A first-generation SSDNow V Series 64GB bundle upgrade kit can be found for about $150 (U.S.) at retailers and e-tailers so maintaining pricing will be huge for our customers," said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager, Kingston. "By bundling together all of the software, hardware and step-by-step instructions with the drive, we make it easy for everyday users to upgrade with an SSD. The addition of TRIM support is a key benefit because it enables the SSD to maintain optimal performance throughout its lifespan."

ASUS is readying a new factory-overclocked, custom-design graphics card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU, likely named the EAH5870-TOP. The company is also readying the Radeon HD 5850 based EAH5850 DirectCu. While the EAH5870-TOP is expected to have high out of the box clock speeds, a higher performance sporty-looking cooler, the EAH5850 DirectCu relies on a more function-centric cooler design that boasts of being 35% quieter and 20% cooler [than reference AMD cooler]. Further details, such as clock speeds are not known, but it is expected that ASUS will release these during CeBIT 2010, later this quarter.

AMD today announced that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, under which the Ministry will award a five-year grant of $56.4 million CAD ($52.8M USD) to AMD Canada under Ontario's Next Generation of Jobs Fund. The grant is expected to fund R&D activities by AMD's Markham-based engineers in the development of its upcoming AMD Fusion family of processors, related software infrastructure and integrated computing platforms. Ontario expects to make its initial investment of $11.2 million CAD to AMD upon signing the formal agreement, with periodic payments occurring thereafter throughout the grant period.

In turn, AMD will commit to substantially invest in AMD Fusion processor-related R&D activities in Markham, and retain and create hundreds of high-value R&D jobs during the grant time frame. AMD also plans to increase collaborative activities with local universities.

Micron Technology, Inc., and Numonyx Holdings B.V. announced today that the companies have signed a definitive agreement under which Micron has agreed to acquire privately held Numonyx in an all-stock transaction valuing Numonyx at approximately $1.27 billion USD.

Under the terms of the agreement, Micron will issue 140 million Micron common shares to Numonyx shareholders, Intel Corporation, STMicroelectronics, N.V. and Francisco Partners. Up to 10 million additional Micron common shares will be issued ratably to Numonyx shareholders to the extent the volume weighted average price of Micron shares for the 20 trading days, ending two days prior to the close of the transaction, ranges between $7.00 and $9.00 per share.

Mushkin Enhanced released two new DDR3 memory kits based on its enthusiast-grade Redline memory modules, the triple-channel 998805, and dual-channel 996805. Both use the same Redline module with runs at PC3-12800 specs (DDR3 1600 MHz), with timings of 6-8-6-24, and module voltage of 1.65V. These Redline modules feature Muskin's Frostbyte Red heatspreaders. The Redline triple-channel 998805 is priced at 190 EUR, and dual-channel 996805 at 130 EUR. The kits come backed with a lifetime company warranty.

SilverStone rolled out its latest mid-tower aimed at being cost-effective with superior cooling, the Precision PS03. The case as an all-black exterior and interior, with a perforated metal front panel. It measures 200 mm(w)x 472mm(h) x 471mm(d). Of the seven 3.5" drive bays, two are external. There are four 5.25" bays. All internal bays and 5.25" bays have tool-free drive retention mechanism. The motherboard tray has an opening behind the CPU socket area, for easy management of CPU coolers with bolt-through or back-plate based retention mechanisms.

Cooling includes a 120 mm fans on the front, bottom, and rear, and room for an optional 140 mm fan on the top. Apart from the case buttons and LEDs, the user panel on top has two USB ports and a storage compartment. SilverStone will release the Precision PS03 later this month. The pricing however, isn't announced yet.

NVIDIA Corp., announces NVIDIA Optimus technology, a breakthrough for notebook PCs that chooses the best graphics processor for running a given application and automatically routes the workload to either an NVIDIA discrete GPU or Intel integrated graphics - delivering great performance while also providing great battery life.

"Consumers no longer have to choose whether they want great graphics performance or sustained battery life," said Rene Haas, general manager of notebook products at NVIDIA. "NVIDIA Optimus gives them both - great performance, great battery life and it simply works." Just as a Hybrid car chooses between the gas-powered and electric car engine on-the-fly and uses the most appropriate engine, NVIDIA Optimus technology does the same thing for graphics processors. NVIDIA Optimus Technology instantly directs the workload through the most efficient processor for the job, extending battery life by up to 2 times compared to similarly configured systems equipped with discrete graphics processors (GPUs). When playing 3D games, running videos, or using GPU compute applications the high-performance NVIDIA discrete GPU is used. When using basic applications, like web surfing or email, the integrated graphics processor is used. The result is long lasting battery life without sacrificing great graphics performance.

Club 3D announces the Radeon HD 5570 and Radeon HD 5550 graphics cards. Club 3D's newest offer out of the Radeon HD 5000 graphics card series delivers big performance into the mainstream market. Watch HD video content, play games, and accelerate demanding applications with Club 3D Radeon HD 5500 graphics card series. Get a multi-purpose graphics solution for maximum versatility with the most features and functionality in its class. The Club 3D Radeon HD 5500 graphics cards series consumes less power than previous generations graphics cards, eliminates the need for an external power connection and makes installation a snap.

Club 3D Radeon HD 5570 is available first in two different versions, 512MB and 1024MB model offering DDR3 memory technology. While the Radeon HD 5550 model will be available as 512MB and 1024MB model with DDR2 memory technology.

Seagate Ships World's Highest-Capacity, Most Reliable Small Form Factor Enterprise Drive: The Savvio 10K.4 Hard Drive Enterprise storage systems can now move to 600GB capacity, 2 million hour MTBF solution Seagate today announced worldwide shipments of its Savvio 10K.4 hard disk drive (HDD), the world's highest-capacity and most reliable 2.5-inch enterprise-class drive. Built for the demands of enterprise servers and to enable new levels of data density in external storage arrays, Savvio 10K.4 doubles the capacity of its nearest competitor to 600GB. It is also the first HDD to achieve an unprecedented 2 million hours Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) reliability rating.

As the industry's only fourth generation, field-proven, 2.5-inch HDD designed for the enterprise, Savvio 10K.4 also features Protection Information for enhanced protection of data-in-flight, a self-encrypting drive (SED) option for the ultimate protection of sensitive data-at-rest and PowerChoice, which allows the Savvio 10K.4 hard drive to deliver improved power savings during idle.

Flash memory module leader, Silicon Power today announces their brand new Helios 101 series USB flash drive. Available in apple green and ocean blue, the new Helios 101 series utilizes natural colors on polished aluminum casing that is sandblasted for the ultimate shine. This combination gives the Helios 101 an extraterrestrial aura feel only seen in the movies! Silicon Power's Helios 101 strives for a futuristic, fashionable, simple and finger-print proof design. It is thin, light and suited for the fashion conscious user!

Distinguishing itself from Silicon Power's four other product lines: Touch, LuxMini, Ultima and Unique series. The aim of the Helios series is to complement the existing product lines so Silicon Power can offer users a complete range of USB flash drives. Whether you are in the market to buy a USB flash drive for speed, looks, practicality or the ultimate flagship model, Silicon Power's got it all!

AMD, in its presentation at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2010, presented its plan to build its much talked about 'Fusion' processor platform, codenamed Llano, central to which, is the Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). AMD's APU is expected to be the first design to embed a multi-core x86 CPU and a GPU onto a single die. This design goes a notch ahead of Intel's recently released 'Clarkdale' processor, where Intel strapped a 32 nm dual-core CPU die and a 45 nm northbridge die with integrated graphics, onto an MCM (multi chip module) package. Llano is also expected to feature four processing cores, along with other design innovations.

Some of the most notable announcements in AMD's presentation is that the company will begin sampling the chip to its industry partners within the first half of 2010. The Llano die will be build on a 32 nm High-K Metal Gate process. On this process, each x86 core will be as small as 9.69 mm². Other important components on the Llano die are a DDR3 memory controller, on-die northbridge, and a DirectX 11 compliant graphics core derived from the Evergreen family of GPUs. The x86 cores are expected to run at speeds of over 3 GHz. Each core has 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache, taking the total chip cache size to 4 MB.

SAPPHIRE Technology is now shipping a new family of graphics cards in the highly successful HD 5000 series. The SAPPHIRE HD 5570 is a new low profile model aimed at the mainstream market, whist sharing many of the exciting features of the latest high end series.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5500 series is based on the latest graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, the second generation of GPU to be built in its 40nm process. It supports the advanced graphical features of Microsoft DirectX 11, and delivers superb video clarity and visual effects, whilst consuming very low power levels.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today introduces the graphics for HD gaming and advanced home entertainment: PowerColor HD5500 series. Compatible with all the latest features, HD5500 series takes advantage of DirectX 11 technology and makes incredible visual realism possible for all popular HD games and Blu-Ray. HD 5500 series will enhance your home entertainment experience and you can be environmentally friendly at the same time with a card that consumes less than 45 watts under full load.

Also, PowerColor includes a special version in the latest HD5500 series lineup, HD5570 low profile edition. With a single-slot low profile design, HD5570 low profile edition enables smooth frame rates at HD setting, delivers vivid HD experience while watching Blu-Ray videos and other HD contents. It is the best choice for small form factor and home theater PCs.

Leading graphics card and motherboard manufacturer, MSI, is launching today R5570-MD1G graphics card in low-profile design to meet the demands of home theatre personal computer (HTPC) users. Powered by ATI Radeon HD 5570 GPU supporting DirectX 11 and Dolby 7.1 channels loss-less surround stereo and equipped with HDMI output for Full HD movie playback, MSI R5570-MD1G is featured with the compact size benefited from the low-profile design, making the product the best-ever choice for building any HTPC.

The brand new MSI R5570-MD1G features as low-profile design to fit the HTPC conventionally with limited space, especially for smaller or slim cases. On the other hand, the low-profile design is good for thermal dissipation to facilitate interior air ventilation. Ultimately, the mini size of R5570-MD1G makes installation much easier and more convenient.

The newest in tool-less technology, the EZvault RFID is the pinnacle of stylish design and functionality. Made with the highest quality materials combined with outstanding design, the EZvault is vibration proof and excellent at getting rid of and keeping out any heat that could damage your hard disc or solid state data drive. Unique is the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) lock. This build in function enables you to lock and protect your data. The supplied RFID key is as small as a quarter and can be used as a key-ring. Your data is locked and save in the new EZVault RFID enclosure from Spire.

AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon HD 5570 graphics card, perfect for end-users seeking an energy efficient, low-profile DirectX 11 card for small form factor PCs. The ATI Radeon HD 5570 graphics card joins the award-winning line of AMD graphics that fully support DirectX 11, as well as ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology and ATI Stream capabilities. This latest offering completes a full DirectX 11 refresh of AMD discrete graphics products, bringing customers a choice of cutting-edge graphics cards to match every budget and form factor.

"AMD recognizes that small form factor PCs are becoming more popular and low profile graphics upgrade options have been limited to date," said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Division. "Customers purchasing small form factor PCs are looking for improved performance while gaming, watching HD video or working with the latest productivity applications. The ATI Radeon HD 5570 graphics card delivers all of this at a price that won't break the bank."

To cater to consumer demand for data transfer efficiency, renowned RAM and memory card manufacturer Walton Chaintech is officially launching its new CF card convertor - the Apogee SSD Convertor. Consumers may use the high speed, high capacity CF cards as SSD hard disks, using the Apogee SSD Convertor, to expand the capacity of hard disk while achieving blazing fast data transfer speed of conventional SSD. The Apogee SSD Convertor offers both performance and upgrade versatility. When paired with Walton Chaintech's latest CF 606X high speed memory card, users will achieve a perfect match in terms of product compatibility and performance and enjoy velvety-smooth storage and processing experience on their PCs.

The all-new Walton Chaintech Apogee SSD Convertor is built to a standard 2.5" hard disk form factor. It features the high speed SATA II transfer interface and can simultaneously support up to two CF cards on top of Raid 0 and Raid 1 disk array functions. Users can choose to combine the capacity of two CF cards or use them as mirror disks to achieve higher data security based on their own needs. The Apogee SSD Convertor is superior in function to the traditional SSD. The Apogee SSD Convertor is capable of reaching 55MB/sec in actual data read test, which is significantly faster than the 46MB/sec performance of current mainstream 5400-rpm hard disks in terms of transfer efficiency. By choosing high capacity CF cards, users will substantially increase storage capacity without having to replace the convertor, and this greatly boosts the product's scalability.

Club 3D unveiled a 'custom-designed' graphics card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5850 GPU, being sold as the Overclocked Edition. The design of this accelerator resembles that of PowerColor's PCS+ series HD 5800 series accelerators, pointing back at its source. The card features a custom PCB and cooling solution which makes some smart cost-cutting in return for out of the box higher clock speeds. The GPU and memory are clocked at 760 MHz and 1050 MHz (4200 MHz effective), respectively, against reference speeds of 725/1000 MHz.

The cooling system involves a large heatsink with aluminum fins, to which heat is conveyed by four heat pipes. A centrally-located fan blows air on to it. The Radeon HD 5850 GPU is DirectX 11 compliant, features 1440 stream processors, and connects to 1 GB of memory on this card, across a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface. The display connectivity, we presume, resembles that of the reference design, with two DVI-D, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. Club 3D is yet to announce its price.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, today announced the Samsung S2 Portable, a fully transportable external hard drive, pre-loaded with the movie 'Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT'.

Timed with the DVD and Blu-ray Disc release of 'Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT', the pre-loaded external HDD will be available at major European retailers from February 22, 2010.

"We are excited to present this movie starring Michael Jackson, the greatest entertainer of all time, pre-loaded on the Samsung S2 Portable," said H.S. Lee, Vice President, Storage Marketing, Samsung Electronics.

Koolance rolled out its newest CPU water-block, the CPU-360. The new block boasts of broad compatibility with all current CPU socket types, an advanced microfin cold plate with 0.25mm fins, 0.30 mm channels, and an optimized flow path. The cold plate is complemented with a brass top, all metal surfaces have nickel plating to minimize corrosion. The block measures 4.9" x 4.9" x 0.6" (12.5cm x 12.5cm x 1.5xcm), and weighs 411 g (14.5 oz). While the package excludes nozzles, it includes all the retention material needed for Intel sockets LGA-775, LGA-1156, LGA-1366, and AMD sockets AM3/AM2+/AM2. The CPU-360 is listed on Koolance website at US $84.99.

Active Media Products, manufacturer of SSDs and innovative USB drives, today announced the new MotKey key-shaped USB 2.0 drive. This key drive is available today in 4GB and 8GB capacities.

Styled after a car key, this key drive will blend in on any keyring while accommodating up to 8GB of data. "The MotKey is shock- and scratch-resistant, and will look cool on any keychain", commented Active Media Products' VP of Sales, Jerry Thomson. This product is compatible with Windows, Linux and OS X. It measures just 2.9 x 1.2 x 0.5 inches (73 x 30 x 13 mm). AMP includes a keyring and cord with the MotKey.

Intel Corporation today unveiled its 2010 Intel Core vPro processor family to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes for PCs with greater, more flexible performance, theft prevention and cost savings in a rapidly changing business computing environment. These and several other capabilities are at the heart of many new Intel-based business laptop and desktop computers beginning to roll out from computer manufacturers worldwide.

The Intel Core vPro processors arrive as business computing evolves with the emergence of video, Internet telephony, social networking and other heavyweight applications - in many cases running at the same time - making a computer's performance an even bigger priority.

ASRock is developing a new upper-mainstream socket LGA-1156 motherboard based on the Intel P55 Express chipset: the P55-Deluxe3. This motherboard builds on the chipset's feature-set, and offers USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity. It further borrows from a design ASUS innovated with its P7P55D Premium, which makes use of a PCI-Express 2.0 bridge chip, which connects to the P55 chipset over its PCI-Express 1.1 x4 link, and gives out PCI-Express 2.0 x1 connections to the USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers. The SATA 6 Gb/s controller gives out two SATA ports (color-coded white), and an IDE connector. The NEC USB 3.0 controller gives out two external ports color-coded blue.

Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8 when both are populated), a PCI-Express x1, and two PCI slots. Both NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFire, are supported. Other connectivity options include 8+2 channel audio with SPDIF connectivity, gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, FireWire, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The ASRock P55 Deluxe3 should be priced somewhere in the $180~$200 range.

Thermaltake Technology, leading DIY computer components and power supply brand, today announced a new edition of the award-winning "Toughpower XT" line of high-end PC power supply units. The New Toughpower XT with 25 watts more than other brands in the market. This added wattage is meant to enhance the system upgrade potential. Special features such as the DC-DC Converter Module, Double Forward technology and the new Active PFC circuit design increase the PSU's efficiency up to 89%, while at the same time improving system stability and reliability. The New Toughpowr XT utilizes high quality 105°C / 221℉ Japanese made solid state capacitors and latest PCI-E 6pin & PCI-E 6+2pin connectors to support latest multi-graphics solutions such as SLI and CrossFire X.

The four models of the new Toughpower XT series are all 80 PLUS Bronze certified, they come in four versions with 575W, 675W, 775W and for demanding power users and hardcore gamers with 875W. All of this ensures that even power-hungry setups run at highest efficiency, thereby helping you to effectively save real cash on your next electricity bill while at the same time doing something good for the environment.

NZXT, a company built on realizing the dreams of gamers worldwide, is proud to announce its new line of premium cables and performance fans for PC enthusiasts. The new lineup premium cables consists of VGA, PSU, and HDD cables that are individually sleeved in a black enclosure to provide a sleeker look that seamlessly integrates into the case's interior. The additional benefit from incorporating these premium sleeved cables into your rig is enhanced cable management which is crucial for optimal airflow. NZXT's line of high performance fans includes a 120mm, 140mm, and 200mm version. Each fan has rifle bearings and 9 blade fins.

"For the avid PC enthusiast, effective cable management is a significant, yet time consuming stage of the build" said Johnny Hou, Chief Designer at NZXT. "Our new line of premium cables eliminates the need to sleeve cables on your own and provides a simple solution that will enhance aesthetics, improve cable management and increase airflow so internal temps remain low . Additionally, our new high performance fans provide our enthusiast community additional options when choosing effective airflow for their rig."

The Wind U160, MSI's exquisitely designed small notebook PC, which has already won an Germany's iF product design awards and become a major talking point in the IT industry, has been formally launched onto the market! The Wind U160 is less than one inch thick, and weighs just 1 kg. It uses Intel's Pine Trail platform, with the highly-integrated N450 Atom processor. The laptop casing features MSI's unique color-film-print (CFP) technology with a two-color - Fancy Gold and Jet Black - color scheme. With its attractive external appearance, slim, lightweight design and painstaking attention to detail, the U160 is sure to appeal to any fashion-conscious consumer.

MSI Notebook Marketing Director Sam Chern explains that the Wind U160 is a hi-tech, high-fashion product of MSI's outstanding craftsmanship. The Wind U160's energy-saving 10-inch LED display boasts a reaction time of just 8 millisecond, twice as fast as any other comparable product. The U160 also incorporates MSI's unique Chiclet keyboard, a seamless touchpad and other innovative design features. Besides being attractive to look at and convenient to use, the Wind U160 has a battery run-time in excess of 15 hours, enabling users to keep working all day without having to worry that they may run out of power.

Club 3D B.V. today announced the newest offer out of the latest HD 5000 graphics cards series, the HD 5450 is your start into HD home entertainment. Designed to give you stunning high definition entertainment from your PC, and the best choice for low power consumption and noiseless PC systems. The Club 3D Radeon HD 5450 Noiseless Edition graphics card eliminates the need for an external power connection and makes installation a snap. Get an amazing entertainment experience with DirectX 11 and Windows 7. Club 3D Radeon HD 5450 Noiseless Edition offers the most features and functionality in their class.

Club 3D HD 5450 is available first in two different versions, a 512MB DDR2 and a 1024MB DDR3 model. Both models clock with 650MHz core speed and 800MHz memory speed (DDR2 model) and 1337MHz (DDR3 model). With a maximum power consumption of ~20 Watt, the Club 3D HD 5450 consumes less power than previous generation graphics cards, and makes it the best performance and features combination with the lowest power consumption ever offered in the market.

The XFX ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card offers everything you need for gaming and HD home entertainment in one package. Available in multiple low profile configuration options, including DisplayPort or HDMI, and passive or active cooling. Choose the model that's right for you. Enjoy the array of features the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5450 Graphics Card offers.

Do more on your PC with ATI stream technology, which accelerates even the most demanding applications. See more with ATI Eyefinity technology, providing the ultimate gaming experience by allowing up to three displays from a single graphics board.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, announces the latest HD5450 series and wraps with Go! Green features in this newest product lineup. PowerColor HD5450 Go! Green series offers environmentally friendly and power efficient for consumers. It features stealth like silence and low power consumption, providing a cost efficient and silent entertainment solution.

With full range support of DirectX 11 and Windows 7, Go! Green HD5450 series provides a stunning high-definition entertainment experience from Blu-ray playing or other HD resources. Also, with the support of ATI stream technology, Go! Green HD5450 allows GPU to work with CPU to accelerate applications beyond just graphics, but also enables a faster and easier daily application experience.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced its latest technology platform for fleet management device designs. The VIA EPIA-P710-D is a Pico-ITXe expansion module that allows system integrators to easily create cutting-edge fleet management devices that incorporate a range of the latest communication and intelligent management technologies.

Designed for easy integration into the dashboard of any vehicle, this new fleet management hardware platform provides the advanced x86 backbone necessary for today's advanced fleet and logistics management applications including fuel management, active scheduling, advanced routing, asset monitoring and the latest emergency, safety and rescue features.

World-leading graphics card and mainboard manufacture, MSI, officially launches the silent graphics card series, R5450-MD1GH and R5450-MD512H, to fulfill the demand from more and more home theatre PC (HTPC) users. Featuring ATi Radeon HD 5450 GPU and supporting DirectX 11 and ATi AVIVO HD technologies, these two silent graphics cards from MSI are the total solutions for gaming and audio & video playback. Furthermore, the fan-less, native HDMI and low-profile designs are customized for HTPCs, so that both models are prime choices for building a home theatre.

Today HIS unveils the HIS Radeon HD 5450 1GB/512MB DDR3 Series, offering the most features and functionality in their class. Loaded with complete DirectX 11 support, ATI Stream technology and ATI Eyefinity Multi-display technology (H545H1GDL - DisplayPort version only), the Radeon HD 5450 graphics card delivers a state-of-the-art HD multimedia and medium gaming experience at a value price. With the silent passive cooling heatsink implemented, HIS Radeon HD 5450 Series are your ultimate media center companion at a value price.

The HIS Radeon HD 5450 Series is designed to give you stunning high definition entertainment from your PC, whether Blu-ray/HD DVD discs or other HD sources. Gamers will get an uncompromising Microsoft Windows 7 experience, play the most popular games online and watch HD video with incredible realism. Besides, it consumes less than 20 watts under full load, eliminating the need for an external power connection and making installation snap.

AMD today announced the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card, the latest addition to the award-winning line-up of ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series graphics cards. The ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card delivers a state-of-the-art HD multimedia and game experience at a value price. Sharing the same leading edge features found in the critically-acclaimed ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series - support for DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology and ATI Stream technology - the ATI Radeon HD 5450 provides an uncompromising Microsoft Windows 7 experience.

Sapphire is ready with its entry-level DirectX 11 compliant graphics card based on the new ATI Radeon HD 5450. The design is a low-profile capable single-slot accelerator, with passive cooling for silent operation. This gives us a rough idea of how the move to 40 nm process helped AMD's lowest-end GPUs. This particular card has 1 GB of DDR2 memory across a 64-bit wide memory interface. As a first sighting, you can see ATI-branded memory chips on this card. Display connectivity includes DVI-D, HDMI (with 7.1ch audio), and D-Sub which protrudes out. A set of low-profile brackets is also bundled. The Cedar GPU bundles 80 stream processors and a 64-bit wide memory interface. Expect the card to be released soon, at a price targeting the sub-$50 segment.

MSI has announced the 15.6" models CX620 and CR620. CX620 equipped with a discrete graphics card, for its Classic Series notebook computers. Clad with MSI exclusive Color Film Print coating, along with an independent Chiclet keyboard and a seamless touchpad, these laptops were modeled in pleasant simplicity and full quality. The feature of lower power consumption offered by the latest Intel Core processor achieves even greater efficiency.

Sam Chern, MSI Notebook Marketing Director, claimed that the latest models of MSI Classic Series come equipped with the New 2010 Intel Core processor. CX620 is embedded with the ATi Radeon HD5470 discrete graphics card including 1GB DDR3 display memory. Via MSI exclusive GPU Boost and ECO power saving technologies, users can switch among different display modes and various scenes as necessary, which enables high-quality video/audio, processing efficiency and long battery life at the same time."

NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, announces today the 17-inch AS171 to the AccuSync Series, replacing the popular ASLCD73VX-BK display. Joining the recently introduced 19-inch AS191, AS191WM and 22-inch AS221WM, this standard-aspect ratio display is designed for small-to-medium-sized businesses and continues to promote environmental consciousness, a standard in the AccuSync Series.

The energy-efficient 17-inch AS171 display consumes 21% less power than its predecessor. It shares the certifications of its AccuSync siblings, an EPEAT Silver rating, and ENERGY STAR 5.0 and TCO 5.0 compliance, giving users confidence that these displays are environmentally preferable purchases. The monitor's 2-step ECO Mode technology allows users to maneuver between two energy-savings modes, while its ergonomic tilt function brings users flexibility and enhanced comfort.

Sharkoon introduces four new Midi-ATX housings, which provide plenty of room for hardware configuration and system cooling as well as multiple designs for different requirements and styling ideas. The Sharkoon Rebel9 Pro model inherits its optimized housing construction from the previous Sharkoon Rebel9. However, this housing top-seller from Sharkoon has undergone a dramatic revision. This successor comes with numerous improvements and still carries a nearly consistent market sales price. All housings are constructed from sturdy SECC-steel with black exterior and interior lacquer. Behind the synthetic front panel, consisting of screens and an air intake in the mesh design as well as a high-gloss, stainless steel frame edging, the Pro option offers nine possible optical drive bays. With help from enclosed, decoupled mounting angles or suitable installation frames, for example the Sharkoon HDD Vibe-Fixer, 3.5" drives can also be utilized. The upper six drives are provided with removable faceplates, however, before using the remaining three drives the bracket for the 120mm fan must be simply removed, if necessary. Removable 5.25" faceplates will be made available by Sharkoon shortly as an optional accessory set.

Patriot today announced the launch of its new Sector 5 Series Extreme Performance DDR3 memory. Designed specifically for overclockers and enthusiasts using Intel based platforms, the Sector 5 boasts an amazing 2250MHz with timings of 9-9-9-27. Individually hand tested on the Intel P55 chipset platform; the Sector 5 modules offer incredible performance for users looking to reach new heights in overclocking and benchmarking. Engineered for the gaming enthusiast and intense overclocker, the Sector 5 is one of the fastest modules on the market and will be offered as a 4GB kit (2 x 2GB modules) under the part number PVV34G2250LLK.

"Our goal is to provide the hardcore enthusiast with a performance module that is actually going to perform at the specified timing with stability", says Les Henry, Patriot's VP of Engineering. "Consumers can feel confident that what we advertise for our speeds and timing is true to the specifications. Additionally, users can expect headroom to reach faster speeds. We have been able to hit speeds over 2400MHz with these modules in our lab."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology today announced the F3EG, its new high-performance environmentally-friendly HDD (hard disk drive) for the desktop market. The EcoGreen F3EG, a higher capacity model from its predecessor the F2EG, features 2TB capacity with 500GB per disk that is capable of storing up to 880 hours of DVD video or 500,000 or more songs in MP3 format. With increased recording density, the EcoGreen F3 drive is more power efficient by supporting a capacity up to 2TB with four disks.

"Storage-hungry multimedia professionals, gamers and home PC users continue to increase the amount of video, music, photo and other personal data they store and back-up," said In Cheol Park, vice president, Storage Sales, Samsung Electronics. "The F3EG delivers all the benefits of a low-power drive yet features high performance and is environmentally friendly."

NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, announces the new MultiSync PA Series, successor to the critically acclaimed MultiSync 90 Series, by introducing the MultiSync PA241W. Designed for professional graphics applications, this 24-inch desktop display is ideal for digital photography, video editing, print production and any environment in which color accuracy is crucial.

The PA241W continues the MultiSync 90 Series' tradition of delivering crisp, accurate images while adding improved color coverage, sleeker industrial design and enhanced connectivity. The display features 102% coverage of NTSC and 99.3% of Adobe RGB, an increase from 72% in the MultiSync LCD2490WUXi². With a 38% smaller footprint size, the display provides users with more desktop space and decrease costs in shipping and storage. Improved cable management enables simpler setup of the monitor, while its new 10-bit DisplayPort and USB hub add to an already diverse set of input connectors.

What gamers request most is better control in-game, and today Microsoft Hardware launches the SideWinder X4 Keyboard, a keyboard designed to give gamers more control over their gaming experience with the industry's most advanced anti-ghosting technology. Developed by the Applied Sciences Group, this new technology ensures gamers' most complex key combinations will be recognized by the computer to keep the game in action. The new keyboard also offers other advanced gaming features such as macro recording, mode and profile switching, and adjustable backlighting.

The Applied Sciences Group, an interdisciplinary research and development team that works across the Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division doing applied research for Microsoft Hardware, Microsoft Surface and Xbox 360, developed the anti-ghosting technology with gamers in mind. The advanced technology takes anti-ghosting to the next level by allowing gamers to press up to 26 keys at once. Because each key is scanned independently by the keyboard hardware, each key press is correctly detected regardless of how many other keys are being pressed at the same time. The SideWinder X4 Keyboard excels where other keyboards fail, letting users execute key combinations and taking full advantage of their skill and speed.

A tweet on NVIDIA's Twitter account reveals that the company's first DirectX 11 compliant consumer graphics products will be named GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470, against popular opinion that they could make for the GeForce GTX 300 series. The most likely reason for this could be that the company has released mobile graphics products under the GeForce GT 3xx series which are based on its GT21x series GPUs which are DirectX 10.1 compliant. It would be hence easier to make out that DirectX 11 products start in the 400 series.

The two are based on NVIDIA's GF100 GPU which physically has 512 CUDA cores (shader units), a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, and DirectX 11 compliance. While the GTX 480 is likely the full-featured part, it remains to be seen how NVIDIA carves out the GTX 470 SKU. An enquiry by AnandTech confirmed the authenticity of the Twitter account.

Enermax launches revisions of its most popular PSU series Modu82+, Pro82+ and LibertyECO. Users can identify the upgraded PSUs by looking for the "II" name affix. On the 20th anniversary of the Enermax brand, all PSUs in the Modu82+ II, Pro82+ II and LibertyECO II series will also be delivered with a special add-on: a 12cm Twister fan.

Modu82+, Pro82+ and LibertyECO belong currently to the most famous and popular PSU series on the market. With the PC demands of 2010, Enermax has now upgraded these three series with several new and attractive features.

Intel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc. today announced the world's first 25-nanometer (nm) NAND technology, which provides a more cost-effective path for increasing storage capacity in such popular consumer gadgets as smartphones, personal music and media players (PMPs), as well as the new high-performance class of solid-state drives (SSDs).

NAND flash memory stores data and other media contained in consumer electronics products, retaining information even when the power is turned off. The drive toward smaller NAND processes enables the continued development and introduction of new uses for the technology. Not only is the 25nm process the smallest NAND technology, it is also the smallest semiconductor technology in the world - a technological accomplishment that continues the advancement of more music, video, and other data in today's consumer electronics and computing applications.

MSI is readying a new ATI Radeon HD 5770 based graphics card with its new "HAWK" branding. Its design will involve overclocking headroom, and a cooler superior to the reference design in terms of cooling performance. The MSI R5770 HAWK is said to feature "Military Grade" components, and a cooler which looks like a shrunk version of the Twin Frozr II found on many of MSI's Lightning series graphics cards. Another interesting feature is its voltage measure points that pop out by two wires. These let you measure vGPU and vMem voltages. The PCB features just one CrossFire finger. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI-D, HDMI, and DisplayPort. The AMD Juniper GPU powering it is DirectX 11 compliant, features 800 stream processors, and 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface, with which it connects to 1 GB of memory. There's no word on the release date or price yet, but we expect it to be out very soon.

Intel is poised to release new performance and high-end processors across its various Core family brands, within Q1 2010 and later. OCWorkbench, citing sources in Japan, released tentative release dates and information of new Core family processors. Among a few known names such as the six-core Core i7 980X, there are a few new ones. Details and dates are as follows:

• Core i7 980X "Gulftown": six-core, LGA-1366, 3.33 GHz (turbo: 3.60 GHz), March 16
• Core i7 970 "Bloomfield": quad-core, LGA-1366, 3.33 GHz (turbo: 3.46 GHz), Q3, 2010
• Core i7 930 "Bloomfield": quad-core, LGA-1366, 2.80 GHz (turbo: 3.06 GHz), February 28
• Core i7 880 "Lynnfield": quad-core, LGA-1156, 3.06 GHz (turbo: 3.73 GHz), Q2, 2010
• Core i5 680 "Clarkdale": dual-core, LGA-1156, 3.60 GHz (turbo: 3.80 GHz), Mid-May
• Core i3 550 "Clarkdale": dual-core, LGA-1156, 3.20 GHz, Q2, 2010
• Pentium E6700 "Wolfdale-2M": dual-core, LGA-775, 3.43 GHz, Q2, 2010

Although the Core i7 960 is available in its OEM form, the company doesn't plan to retail it with its retail packaging.

Acer America today debuts a new high-end, high-resolution display that features a 120Hz refresh rate. This display can also perform as a full HD 3D display when combined with NVIDIA 3D Vision active-shutter glasses, making it perfect for showcasing high-definition 3D games, Blu-ray movies and other multimedia.

"As 3D content becomes more widely available in popular games and videos, users desire computing products that can take advantage of these new capabilities," said Irene Chan, senior product marketing manager for peripherals, Acer America. "We are excited to offer Acer's first monitor to support 3D technology, enabling consumers to fully immerse themselves in leading-edge 3D games and movies at an affordable price."

The 17" CR720 is the newest model in MSI's Classic Series. Through the all-new 2010 Intel Core processor with the latest Intel HM55 chipset, it gives you powerful audio/video entertainment and processing performance in a stylishly minimalist exterior. The classic horizontal design lines on the outer up lid and palm rest areas are treated with MSI's exclusive CFP coating that protects against scratches and wear. With its spirited performance, fashionable exterior and friendly disposition, the CR720 is an exceptional entertainment, learning, and work companion!

MSI Notebook Marketing Director Sam Chern noted that the CR720 is MSI's latest offering and features Intel's newest Arrandale notebook platform and an all-new 2010 Intel Core processor with HM55 chipset. The CR720's exterior structure is based on MSI's exclusive "wedge craftsmanship" that uses 45 degree angles to give the notebook a distinctive unified feel.

SilverStone introduced two entry-level PSUs under its Strider Essential series, the 400W ST40F-ES and 500W ST50F-ES. The two are feature fixed (non-modular) cabling, ATX 2.3 compliance, and 80 Plus certification. Under the hood is a single +12V rail design with active PFC. The unit is cooled by a 120 mm fan with a noise output of 18 dBA. Connectors apart from the 24-pin ATX and 4+4 pin CPU power connectors include two 6-pin PCI-E (for the 400W model), one 6-pin and 6+2 pin PCI-E connectors (for the 500W model), four SATA, three Molex, and one Floppy. The ST40F-ES and ST50F-ES are priced at US $49.99 and $59.99, respectively.

ASUS has set a new standard in total motherboard protection with the launch of the ASUS Protect 3.0 Design based on Xtreme Design, which helps protect the earth, systems, and users. Equipped with intelligent anti-radiation shielding, the technology lowers the generation and transmission of harmful radiation by up to 50%-offering the lowest electromagnetic emissions from a motherboard in the industry. This lowers the adverse health impact to users and delivers more stable system operations. Additionally, active anti-surge protection helps enhance component and system longevity. Protect 3.0 also includes the ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit) chip to reduce system-wide power consumption by up to 80.23%* and to ensure a more environmentally sustainable operation.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, today announced that the industry's first 30-nanometer-class DRAM has just successfully completed customer evaluations, in two gigabit (Gb) densities. With DDR3 SDRAM becoming the predominant main memory this quarter, Samsung's aggressive advancement in process technology will raise productivity and expedite dissemination of high performance, 1.5V and 1.35V DDR3 for servers, desktops and notebook PCs.

"Our accelerated development of next generation 30nm-class DRAM should keep us in the most competitive position in the memory market," said Soo-In Cho, president, Memory Division, Samsung Electronics.

Transcend Information Inc., a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, is proud to announce its launch of 8GB DDR3-1066 Registered DIMM (RDIMM) and 4GB DDR3-1333 VLP (Very Low Profile) RDIMM modules. Featuring enhanced capacity, support for triple-channel memory configurations, and an onboard thermal sensor, these new high-density RDIMMs provide customers with cutting-edge support for higher data frequencies and significantly increase memory space.

As Transcend's highest density DDR3 module, the 8GB DDR3-1066 RDIMM is constructed with a robust ten-layer PCB that offers stable performance and durability, and also includes a high thermal efficiency aluminum heat sink to help maintain cool temperatures under load. Offering memory bandwidth up to 8.5GB/s and the flexibility to expand maximum capacity to 48GB (per processor), the 8GB DDR3-1066 RDIMM module allows administrators to create a robust infrastructure that runs memory-intensive applications such as virtualization and cloud computing with ease.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Video Players today expanded its Turbo NAS lineup with two new mid-range NAS servers targeted at SMB and corporate customers. The new TS-239 Pro II (2 drive model) and TS-439 Pro II (4 drive model) incorporate the new Intel Atom D410 single-core processor, which delivers up to 8TB of high performance, highly reliable networked storage coupled with the business-essential features of QNAP's ultra-high performance Business Series NAS servers.

The TS-239 Pro II and TS-439 Pro II NAS servers are compatible with VMware's vSphere4 (ESX 4.0) virtualization platform, ideal for departmental file sharing, storage, and advanced server applications in the office environment. VMware's vSphere is the industry's first cloud operating system that offers a way to reduce IT costs and increase responsiveness. Shared networked storage is an essential component of a Cloud Computing infrastructure. SMB and corporate users are able to enjoy the interoperability between VMware virtual machines and QNAP high performance, low power consumption certified storage.