If you owned an Apocalypse 3d/3dx or Matrox m3D, you would've been one of many gamers that had bought a PowerVR Series 1 based 3D graphics accelerator and was both excited and underwhelmed at the same time. Released originally in 1996 and the PCX1 manufactured a 500 nm and a core clock speed of whopping 60 MHz, it was the only direct competitor of 3dfx's original Voodoo graphics card, which was technically slower at 50 MHz, but delivered a lot better in terms of 3D quality. Here we are in 2022 and Imagination Technologies, the company behind the PCX1 and the die shrunk PCX2 that was launched a year later, is releasing the drivers for both 3D accelerators as open source. Outside of a big nostalgia trip for those that might still have their card knocking around, there's questionable value in these drivers.

The second generation of PowerVR GPU's ended up powering the Sega Dreamcast with the third generation ending up in PC GPUs that were competitive with the NVIDIA GeForce 256, at least until NVIDIA changed from SDR to DDR memory. The most unique part of the PowerVR Series 1 was that the 3D accelerator could use the main 2D display cards memory as a framebuffer over the PCI bus. Sadly most games didn't support the PowerSGL API at the time and weren't able to take full advantage of the hardware when DirectX 3.0 was used. The open source drivers are provided as is and it seems like some libraries are missing for the Tomb Raider port for the PoverVR Series 1 3D accelerators, but beyond that, there should be no limitations.

Nostalgia is perhaps the most present feeling among many gamers across the globe, and someone is seemingly playing with ours as there is a Twitter account claiming the return of a company that has been dead for 20 years. 3dfx Interactive, once a giant in the graphics card industry, is allegedly returning after 20 years to give gamers a new choice of a graphics card. According to a Twitter account that claims that 3dfx Interactive is returning, we are seeing a massive amount of hype being built around the seemingly fake and bad attempt of playing with our nostalgia.

3dfx went bankrupt in 2000 and was acquired by NVIDIA, who took over the rights to trademarks and everything involved with the brand. In the latest tweet, the alleged resurrected company is claiming a return after 20 years. It says that Jansen Products, also an alleged investment firm, that we couldn't find in any database of registered firms, is now the owner of 3dfx Interactive brand and its trademarks. A simple Google search points towards a Belgian building firm, not an alleged San Francisco investment company.. Together, this is making the alleged return seem just like a joke, as someone must be playing with many gamers that used 3dfx's famous Voodoo lineup of graphics cards.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions, and high-performance storage, announces the launch of the GPU History Museum in partnership with NVIDIA. COLORFUL has recently relocated to Shenzhen New Generation Industrial Park. With that, COLORFUL is proud to announce the launch of the first GPU History Museum in China. The museum will showcase the beginnings of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), to the development and evolution of graphics cards up to the present generation.

Akasa also unveiled the third entry into its Venom series of CPU coolers, the Venom Medusa. This launch comes exactly an year after that of the Venom Voodoo. In the picture below, the Venom Medusa is shown between the original Venom, and Venom Voodoo. The Venom Medusa is a large aluminum fin dual-tower heatsink, with two symmetrical aluminum fin stacks. It is designed keeping in mind the thermal loads of the new LGA2011 processors.

Its design consists of a large base from which eight nickel-plated copper heat pipes pass, making direct contact with the CPU, and passing through the two aluminum fin stacks at ends. The Venom Medusa ships with two fans, a Viper 120 mm fan pushes fresh air through the first aluminum fin stack, while a larger 140 mm fan conveys air from the first stack to the second. There is provision for a third 120 mm fan, which pulls air from the second stack, for exhaust. The Venom Medusa supports nearly every modern CPU socket type, including LGA2011, LGA1155/LGA1156, LGA1366, AM3+/AM3, and FM2/FM1.

HP today redefines the premium notebook PC experience with the introduction of the HP ENVY sub-brand, which offers customers precision-crafted, high-performance models featuring HP Metal Etching and concierge service and support.

The new HP ENVY 13 boasts the brightest display in its class, and the HP ENVY 15 is the company's fastest consumer notebook PC ever.

"HP ENVY includes the latest in materials and technology inside and out and pushes the technological and performance boundaries of what can be done in sleek, powerful and lightweight notebook PCs," said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. "Discerning consumers will get a premium experience and performance."

In addition to the several new notebooks, HP today released the successor of the award-winning HP Blackbird 002, called HP Firebird. Designed for photo and video editing, music creation, gaming and other demanding tasks, the HP Firebird comes in an extremely sleek and original chassis, but that's not all. Inside this beautiful shell HP has integrated a complete watercooling system that cools the CPU, the two graphics cores and the motherboard's chipset. Speaking of CPUs and VGAs, the Firebird is partly customizable. It supports the latest Core 2 Quad processors (Q9400 - 2.66GHz or Q9550 - 2.83GHz), up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM, and comes with dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800S small form factor graphics cards in SLI configuration and two hot-swappable 320GB hard drives. Also, the Firebird ships with a 350W external power supply, to help keeping the system as cool as possible. The HP Firebird with Voodoo DNA will be available online at VoodooPC.com on January 9th starting at $1,799. Customers also can purchase the product in select retail stores nationwide starting on February 1st. Find more information here.

Due to show up at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in 2009, the new HP Firebird 803 designed by Voodoo has surfaced early with leaked photos and specifications. Unlike the previous firebird, this design is much smaller, however it does come with its draw backs. To get such a small design, the entire unit is custom built and appears to follow no standard layout or format, i.e ATX, BTX, etc. As such one would imagine that upgrading components would be very limited, so this is more like a laptop or games console in which what you buy is what your stuck with. The tower also appears to be watercooled, but to further reduce the size and heat output, the power supply has been made external and judging by the pictures it's roughly twice the size of a normal laptop power supply.