|  |  |  | | | | | Maximum PC - All Articles | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Intel's new Z68 chipset brings SSD caching and switchable graphics On the surface, it's easy to shrug your shoulders and say "meh" at Intel's new Z68 chipset. It doesn't, for example, add any more than the two SATA 6GB/s ports that the P67 had nor does it add native USB 3.0. The single x16 PCI-E 2.0 isn't improved either (nor can it be because those are within the CPU). But that's doesn't mean the Z68 isn't an important step forward. In fact, the improvements it brings to the table are actually uniquely compelling. The top new features are: 1) The ability to overclock the graphics core in the Sandy Bridge CPU. 2) An Identity Protection Technology feature that essentially integrates a hardware token in to the PC. 3) Optional support for switching graphics between a discrete GPU and the integrated graphics processor in Sandy Bridge. 4) SSD caching that greatly improves the responsiveness of a system. We'll discuss them in order as introduced: While the Sandy Bridge graphics core is much improved, enthusiasts are unlikey to ever need to overclock it as no amount of overclocking will make it supersede a discrete graphics card for gaming. So, yay, you can overclock the graphics processor, but meh, who cares? We're not so bearish on IPT. Much like those key fobs that people carry that generate random numbers, the capability now exists in a consumer chipset and processor. Up until now though, IPT has only been offered in the Q67 chipset aimed at boring corporate boxes. With Z68, IPT could hopefully mitigate some hacking and identity theft situations. Valve has already said that it will support IPT to help prevent account hijacking. Of more interest to consumers is the ability to switch between integrated and discrete graphics. On P67, even though all Sandy Bridge chips included a fairly powerful graphics processor, end users had no access to it because the P67 chipset had no output — those were only available on the H and Q-series chipsets. With Z68, Intel now includes the Flexible Display Interface that will connect from the processor graphics to the Z68 chipset. Some boards that we've seen, such as the Asus P8Z68-V Pro include both DVI and HDMI ports so you can run just integrated if you want to. But here's where it gets interesting – board vendors are also including Lucidlogix's Virtu. Virtu lets you virtualize either of the GPUs. There are two modes available: i-mode and d-mode. In i-mode, you set the board to initialize the integrated graphics port first in the UEFI. Then you connect your monitor to the motherboard's graphics port. You'll need to install graphics drivers for both the Intel integrated part and the discrete part. For our testing, we used a GeForce GTX 580 card. Lucid actually says the best results will come from an ATI card, but we opted for the nVidia card to see how much of a monkey wrench we could throw in it. For a just out of beta product it surprisingly worked well. Would we run it in this mode? Probably not, at least at this point. When running in i-mode, you are primarily using your integrated graphics and only kicking on the discrete card for gaming. The main sticking point here is that you'll need Lucid to create profiles for any game that you run in the Virtu mode. Most gamers that we know can't wait that long when a new game is released. The other issue is power savings. As one of the key points of i-mode you'll likely see only moderate to minimal savings. That's because unlike a mobile solution's switchable graphics, the discrete card doesn't completely power down. Even idling, today's beefy graphics cards still drink too much power. We'd prefer it if vendors could find a way to power down the discrete card when not in use. I-mode is also currently incompatible with dual-GPU cards and SLI too. 
We used an Asus P8Z68-V Pro board for our testing The Asus P8PZ68-V Pro will also support a similar technology from Nvidia called Synergy. At press time, it wasn't ready for consumption but leaks on the web indicate the technology will be free (Lucid charges board vendors for Virtu) and it will leverage the profiles Nvidia has already developed for its Optimus technology on laptops. Virtu has a second mode available that's likely to be more handy: d-mode. In this mode, you set the UEFI to boot to initialize the PCI-E graphics adapter first and hook the monitor up to a port on the graphics card. In this mode, the discrete graphics card is in control and any game you run will run without the need for profiles to be created by Lucid. So what would ever use d-mode for? To access the Quick Sync technology in Sandy Bridge. Yes, Sandy Bridge's graphics performance will never best a serious GPU, but believe it or not, the transistors that Intel has dedicated in Sandy Bridge for encoding and transcoding are mean mothers. How mean? We took an Asus P8Z68-V Pro board, plugged in a Core i7-2600K, 8GB of DDR3/1333, a 1TB Western Digital Black drive and a GeForce GTX 580 card. Running in d-mode, we used CyberLink's MediaEspresso 6.5 to transcode a single VOB file to a generic WMV file suitable for playback on an HTC smart phone. Using the GeForce GTX 580 card took 142 seconds. We then used Virtu to allow us to access the QuickSync mode on the Core i7-2600K chip which took 109 seconds. That's about a 30 percent faster for the integrated grapics. Now think about a transcode that would take three hours. Would you rather use the GeForce GTX 580 or the Core i7-2600K's Quick Sync? 
Lucid's Virtu control panel lets you switch on the fly between the discrete card or the onboard graphics. The coolest new feature of the Z68 isn't switchable graphics or anti-hacking features though, it's going to be the Smart Response Technology that's built into the, umm, Rapid Storage Technology drivers (Intel, who seriously comes up with these names?). SRT allows the Z68 chipset to use an SSD to cache often used data from a hard disk. This, in theory, offers up to a 4x improvement in performance over a hard disk drive alone. Setting up SRT Normally, setting up new technology is pretty self explanatory. That's not the case with the SRT. With Intel's new 20GB Larsen Creek in one hand, and a 1TB 7,200 RPM Western Digital Caviar Black drive in the other, we weren't sure how to set up SRT initially. The process is actually quite simple. All you have to do is attach both drives to the board – an Asus P8Z68 V Pro board. Boot the system and go into the UEFI and set the Intel controller from its default of AHCI to RAID. Now boot to your install disc and install Windows 7 to the hard drive as normal. You can't enable the SRT until after you've installed all of the drivers. Once you do, you simply go to the RST driver and click on the Accelerate button. 
From there, you select the drive you want to use as the cache drive, pick the disk you want to accelerate (normally C:) and then pick the mode: Either enhanced or maximized. 
Enhanced is the safer of the two and ensures that all data is written to the HDD. In this mode, read performance is improved but write performance will be no better than the hard drive in use. Think of Maximized mode as write caching. Data is written to the SSD first and then synced to the hard disk as time allows. If there is a power outage, or a blue screen before all of the data can be synced – poof your data is gone. The maximized mode, however, does offer write times close to what the SSD should be able to write to. Ideally, SRT is intended for people who can't afford massive 240GB SSDs but want "SSD-like" performance. Using SRT, these folks can buy smaller SSDs and get that SSD-feel. In fact, Intel is hawking its new Larsen Creek SSD to these people. A 20GB SSD, the 311-series drive offers reads up to 190MB/s and writes up to 100MB/s all for $110. For our testing, we used the aforementioned Asus P8Z68-V Pro board outfitted with a Core i7-2600K, 8GB of DDR3/1333, a GeForce GTX 580 and a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black. We used 64-bit Windows 7 Professional with SP1 installed and latest Nvidia drivers available. We ran PC Mark Vantage 64-bit and CrystalDisk 3.01 with just the 1TB drive initially. We then turned on SRT in maximized mode using the 20GB Larsen Creek Intel SSD and reran both tests. We didn't want to be gated by the Intel drive so we also used OCZ's Kick-Ass 240GB Vertex 3 in the mix. We ran the same tests using the Vertex 3 in Maximized mode and Enhanced mode. Since the Vertex 3 is SATA 3Gb/s, we also made sure it was running off of the Intel PCH's SATA 6GB/s controller. One thing to know: the SRT mode has a maximum cache size of 64GB. The rest of the space on the SSD can then be partitioned into a separate drive. For this test, we opted for the 64GB partition which could contribute to the performance difference. We suspect, however, that's really the exemplary performance of the Vertex 3 that's really to be credited. The results speak for themselves. 
The hard drive trace tests in PC Mark Vantage as well as the synthetic tests in CrystalMark show that the SRT mode is pretty phenomenal. The best results came from the very fast and very expensive OCZ Vertex 3. But even the $110 Intel SSD yields very good results. You can't benchmark "OS feel" but we can tell you that using the 1TB 7,200 RPM drive as our primary device – even with 8GB of RAM and the Core i7-2600K – was teeth gnashing slow. We've just forgotten how slow hard drives are compared to SSDs. With SRT and the Intel drive in place, the drive noise was greatly reduced as we no longer had to listen to the heads clattering all over the platter and it "felt" faster. To get a feel for how much you give up in maximized vs. enhanced modes, we ran the Vertex 3 in both modes. As expected, generally the write speeds suffer greatly in enhanced mode while read speeds are mostly intact. 
The Upshot Overall, we're very pleased with Z68. We agree that it doesn't give chipset fanatics the red meat they want: USB 3.0, more SATA 6 and more PCI-E, but there is a lot of good here that shouldn't be overlooked. The IPT is good feature that we'd want once more vendors begin supporting it. And obviously, the switchable graphics mode has some maturing to do. While we didn't have any show stopping problems, it's not the best documented feature nor easy to understand. And, frankly, it is tough to justify using it. But we honestly think that as Virtu matures and once we see Nvidia's own Syngergy take on it, switchable graphics could become the standard on desktops for those who want to save power. One disclosure though: The current Sandy Bridge graphics does not support dual-link display for use high resolution 30-inch panels. With the H-series chipsets that was never a serious issue for us because few would drive a 30-inch panel with integrated graphics. With Intel pushing Z68 towards mainstream/enthusiasts, it has now become a problem. The big hit for us is the Smart Response Technology. It works, and it works well. The best performance will always come from a dedicated SSD. But as all of us have learned from trying to live on small SSDs (and small VelociRaptors before that) you sometimes end up spending more time freeing up space than computing. With SRT and a very fast and even big SSD you can get the best of both worlds. You could use a portion of the SSD for cache, and store your games and other files that need speed on the remaining partition of the SSD. With a 2TB as your primary drive, you can be freed of the need to manage your data. Would we upgrade if we had a P67 board? No. Yes, Z68 is good, but it's not worth the upgrade from P67. However, if we were out to build a new system for Sandy Bridge we would opt for Z68 over P67 just for the SRT mode alone. 
As you can see, Z68 adds very little in terms of hardware over its processor, the P67 
Intel is introducing a new 20GB 311-series drive codenamed Larsen Creek at $110 just for those who want to use the Z68's Smart Response Technology SSD caching technology. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Patch Tuesdays usually tend to be a lot quieter during odd-numbered months like this one. Take this month's shipment of patches, for instance. If in April Microsoft delivered a record 64 fixes, this month's Patch Tuesday release is restricted to just a couple of security bulletins that address only three vulnerabilities. Hit the jump for more.
Rated "critical" by Microsoft, security bulletin MS11-035 patches a privately reported vulnerability in the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS). Operating systems affected by the vulnerability, which can be used for remote code execution, include Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. "The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user received a specially crafted WINS replication packet on an affected system running the WINS service. By default, WINS is not installed on any affected operating system. Only customers who manually installed this component are affected by this issue," reads the executive summary of the security bulletin. "This security update is rated Critical for servers running supported editions of Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 (except Itanium), and Windows Server 2008 R2 (except Itanium), on which WINS is installed. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section." The other security bulletin, MS11-036, is rated "important" and addresses a couple of vulnerabilities affecting all versions of MS Office Power Point save for Office 2010. The concerned vulnerabilities are also capable of being exploited for remote code execution. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Asus has now begun shipping the 10.1-inch Asus Eee PC 1015PX netbook to the United States. Built around the 1.6GHz dual-core Atom N570 processor that Intel launched a couple of months back, the dual-booting 1015PX is available in two variants and four colors.
Apart from the dual-core Atom N570, the 1015PX features a 10.1-inch LED display (1024x600), a 250GB/320GB/500GB hard drive, and up to 2GB of RAM. Windows 7 Starter and Express Gate instant-on OS are the two operating systems that come preinstalled on it. The two variants of this new Asus netbook, 1015PX-PU17 and 1015PX-MU17, are identical save for their different batteries. The 1015PX-PU17($320) comes with a 56W/h battery capable of lasting 11 hours on a single charge. On the other hand, the 1015PX-MU17 ($340) packs a 48W/h battery that lasts an hour less on a single charge. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google positions itself more strongly than ever as a cloud-based operating system, building the needed infrastructure. But what about privacy? The biggest news coming out of Google IO, the company's annual tech conference, is Google Music, it's cloud-based music service which isn't supported or licensed by any of the music publishers. Much like Amazon's announcement of its cloud-based music service, Google's service positions itself as a single-user experience. Google Music is a storage medium for playing music you already own. 
The key difference between Google Music and Amazon's is re-download. Once you upload your tunes to Google Music, you can't download it to your current PC or any other PC. After uploading, Google Music becomes streaming only, unlike Amazon, which will allow you to re-download tunes you own. Google believes this will protect it from litigation from the studios, but this entire arena is still developing, and the studios may want to see this play out in the courts. More than Music One of the more interesting aspects of Google IO were all the sessions on 3D graphics and gaming in the Chrome browser or on Android. Pushing gaming on Android is understandable, given the success of gaming on Apple's iOS platforms. In addition, there were interesting sessions on WebGL, including taking better advantage of 3D hardware, developing games with Google Web Toolkit and building game development tools. 
Note that Google didn't merely suggest that new games get built in browsers. They pointed to Activision's integration of Youtube API integration into Call of Duty: Black Ops. What's clear is that the line between the web and desktop games will steadily be blurring as we go forward. Adding more capability to the browser also means more potential exploits; one of the side articles that came out during the day suggested that WebGL could become the next security challenge, as hackers exploit shader code through graphics drivers to gain access to your system. You'll also be able to rent movies through Youtube. Typical prices will be $2.99, with some recent releases going for a buck more. Most of these will likely be available in HD. It's no surprise that Google would jump into the movie rental game, given the success of Netflix, iTunes, Amazon and Hulu. Unfortunately, no one service seems to have access to all shows, so it will be interesting if the inevitable aggregation service appears – along with the inevitable litigation. 
Google: the Platform One aspect of many of the sessions was the tacit, if unspoken, acknowledgement of the gradual convergence between Google platforms. Sure, we'll have Android on tablets, phones and maybe some ARM-based laptops. But the real platform is the web – and preferably some flavor of Chrome. The announcement of the next generation Android OS, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, looks more like an OS, including aspects like host USB support. Google also showed some interesting augmented reality apps, but those were demos rather than apps in development. Perhaps more interesting was Android@Home, making the home into a giant peripheral for Android devices. This is not new – system integrators who build home control systems have been using iPhones and iPads for this, but Google is looking to make this ubiquitously built into hardware, rather than require custom installer support. It's been suggested for the past couple of years that Google is positioning itself as an alternative to device-based operating systems, like Apple's MacOS and iOS and Microsoft Windows. Given the push to games, music, movies and Android@Home, this year's Google IO makes that position crystal clear. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google has always tried to keep a very open policy with the general public, but it can't always be entirely forthcoming, as is the case with Google Maps. Google has very little say in what gets censored and what doesn't, be it for personal privacy or national security. Finding censored objects on Google Maps isn't the easiest task, as most look like imaging anomalies, rather than some big black bar with "CENSORED" written in large text. 
But does Google Maps really need to be censored? In the era of open and available information, nobody likes to be left in the dark, but in the case of Google Maps and other aerial photographs, is there really much need to censor anything? Air bases and military installations certainly have the argument of national security, but they really shouldn't have their secret projects just sitting out in the open. Perhaps just as interesting as the things being censored on Google Maps are the things that used to be censored (but that's a whole other story). | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  According to an investigation by Symantec, innumerable Facebook applications have been leaking your personal data for years. The issue, just discovered by Symantec, has been reported to Zuckerberg and company, but advertising and stat tracking companies may have already had access all this time.
The issue stems from the use of older authentication schemes for Facebook apps. The site uses OAUTH2 now, but many applications still use older methods. When an app asks for permission to access user data, it is possible that the IFRAME app is making use of one of the deprecated APIs. That means the access tokens could be leaked to un known third-parties. This could happen if the app requests an external URL. The token will be sent to the server in question. According to Symantec, Facebook has closed the loophole, but that doesn't mean you're in the clear. The access tokens give third parties the same access to your data as the application had. Unfortunately, many of these tokens could be stored in server logs at advertising or analytics companies. Changing your password will invalidate any leaked tokens, which we suggest you do. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  A new report reveals some startling statistics about the world's most popular online playground known as Facebook. The social networking service with over 500 million members is being overrun by kids under 13 years old, and even under 10 years old, many of which were harassed, threatened, or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on the site in the past year.
Consumer Reports posted the results of a new survey, in which it found that of the 20 million minors who actively used Facebook in the past year, more than a third -- or 7.5 million -- were younger than 13 and were not supposed to be using the site. Even more disturbing, more than 5 million accounts belong to kids 10-years-old and younger and "were largely unsupervised by their parents," Consumer Reports said. Signing up for Facebook as an underaged child doesn't take much effort. Facebook screens users by asking for a birth date, so all an underage user has to do is lie about his or her age. Who would have thought that kids aren't always honest? Regardless, parents don't seem to care. "Parents of kids 10 and younger on Facebook seem to be largely unconcerned," Consumer Reports says. "Only 18 percent made their child a Facebook friend, which is the best way to monitor the child. By comparison, 62 percent of parents of 13- to 14-year-old did so. Only 10 percent of parents of kids 10 and under had frank talks about appropriate online behavior and threats." Consumer Reports says that parents believe younger kids are less likely to take risks, but that isn't necessarily true. "Those parents would be mistaken. Ten-year-olds need protection from other hazards that might lurk on the Internet, such as links that infect their computer with malware and invitations from strangers, not to mention bullies," Consumer Reports says. Image Credit: smosh.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Should you find a hard drive that fits your needs at a price you can afford, consider pulling the trigger rather than putting it off until later. Reports are coming that Japan's earthquake back March is still wreaking havoc with the hard drive supply chain, and that this will continue throughout the month of May. As it stands, both Western Digital and Hitachi -- two of the top 5 HDD makers -- are operating on tight supplies.
News and rumor site DigiTimes says upstream chip suppliers Texas Instruments and Renesas Electronics have kicked things into high gear trying to restore capacities after the earthquake, but even so, sources within the HDD industry say the supply gap of hard drives isn't likely to fully recover in the second quarter. At issue is the fact that the primary chip suppliers for HDDs had their production lines thrashed by the earthquake, leaving it up to secondary suppliers to step in and save the day. However, these secondary chip suppliers are ill equipped to produce the number of parts HDD makers need. This all translates into higher prices at the register. Some HDD prices have already gone up 10-15 percent, DigiTimes says, and they probably won't come back down until assembly lines are running smooth again. On the bright side, most hard drives are dirt cheap to begin with, so even a 10 percent increase isn't likely to have you cutting corners in other parts of your build. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 
A few weeks ago, we took a not-so-fond look at the console portion of the grotesque, unruly mass (in some circles known as a "family") that is the gaming world. As we often do with those with whom we share any sort of relation, we proceeded to list off all the ways they've wronged us. We find it to be a good ice-breaker. Now, though, we've been struck with some strange and debiltating malady that top scientists are calling "civility," and we've realized there's plenty of good mixed in with the bad. No, seriously. Consoles, we may not always get along, but we'd be remiss if we didn't give you due praise for having our backs every once in a while. Now go! Jump past the break before we change our minds. Massively Multiplayer Paradise 
The past few years have seen the emergence of an odd phenomenon: an MMO gets announced – often with a decadent press release full of words like "highly anticipated" and "a videogame" – for PC and consoles. Then time rapidly passes via the slow-moving montage that is life, and the game finally comes out. Problem is, something's missing. Yep: the console version. For example, even the mighty Conan couldn't drive consoles before him and hear the lamentations of their women, nor could Champions Online. And of course, Blizzard's said on multiple occasions that it has no intention of getting in on the console war action with WoW – despite potentially huge profits waiting in the wings. But why? Well, input devices are obviously a big part of it. The lack of a mouse-and-keyboard setup makes traditional skill mapping difficult and communication quite the hassle. There's also console certification infrastructure to consider. On PC, pushing out a quick patch (an MMO's lifeblood where stability is concerned) is only as difficult as you make it. On the other hand, consoles (especially the Xbox) give developers a minotaur maze of red tape, which renders any sort of quick fix nearly impossible. When It Was Still Underground 
Consoles have something of a burgeoning indie scene, but that's nothing compared to PC. Ours is thriving, and is it any wonder why? Huh, it is? Oh, we suppose you'll be wanting details, then. How pedestrian of you. At any rate, this is another instance of consoles' red tape maze (and associated minotaur – you have no idea how thrilled we are to mention minotaurs twice in the same article) rearing its ugly (and minotaur-shaped – that's three!) head. Getting a game onto a console takes money, some form of publishing deal, dev kits, etc. Sure, initiatives like the Xbox's indie channel are easing the process a bit, except, you know, when they're not. At the end of the day, then, it's simply more appealing to develop on PC and skip all the hassle. The end result? Mountains of amazing games waiting just around the corner to (pleasantly) surprise the hell out of you. Don't believe us? Go to IndieGames.com and never be sad again. Strategery 
Ever tried controlling an RTS with a gamepad? Did you enjoy it? Hah, that was a trick question. If you said "yes," then you don't exist. Again, given the current state of console input devices, there's only so much developers can do to keep their game's fun factor intact during the frightfully bumpy transition. New input devices like Kinect, Move, and the Wiimote could – in theory – present a solution given their pointing prowess, but even then, it's hardly optimal. As a result, we get the Shogun 2s of the world – tailored to our platform of choice, no less – while console gamers won't even touch the genre when Master Chief's leading the charge. Anything You Can Do... 
With the exception of a console cycle's earliest days, PCs tend to have at least a slight technological advantage (if not the 30 million lightyear lead we're currently enjoying), and developers understandably take advantage of that. Granted, for a while, they just threw us little, dust-coated bones here and there; slight graphical upgrades, higher resolutions, half of an extra player in multiplayer matches – that sort of thing. Now, though, the trend appears to be turning around. At the head of the pack is Battlefield 3, with its 64-player matches (compared to consoles' 24), dedicated server support, and PC-first mentality. Similarly, games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution are touting DirectX 11 support and even AMD Eyefinity, which is the silliest name we've ever heard for a really cool (and expensive) technology. Big-budget PC exclusives may be few and far-between, but we think having the absolute cream of the crop is an adequate console consolation prize. Wouldn't you agree?
Giving Our Favorite Developers Money 
Why do formerly PC faithful developers turn to the dark side? Greed, right? Based on chatter 'round these here Internets, you could be forgiven for thinking so. But the reality of the situation is that big-budget game development is – shockingly enough – expensive, and we'd much rather have something slightly "dumbed down" from our favorite developers than nothing at all. Plus, recent developments have seen console gamers slowly exposed to the PC side of things, via initiatives like Steamworks on PS3 and mods in games like Unreal Tournament 3 and (hopefully) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As for allegedly "consolized" games like Crysis 2 and Portal 2, we have three words for you: get over it. They're still great games, and – as we discussed one entry ago – there's a whole mess of PC-centric releases waiting in the wings. This is a good time to be a PC gamer. Why waste it splitting hairs and picking nits when you could be having fun? Shiny New Toys (For Us to Hack) 
What do Kinect, Move, and the Wiimote have in common? Did you say "a million-billion things, most of which are bad minigame collections"? Well, that's technically correct, but not quite the answer we were looking for. See, all three motion controllers have been hacked by intrepid PC techno-wizards, transforming them from ugly ducklings into geese that lay all manner of golden eggs. Kinect, for instance, has been turned into a 3D radar, a gesture-based Roomba controller, and hundreds of other (typically strange) things. So, who's winning the motion control wars? Easy: us. STFU, Noob 
OK, we know this isn't an ordered list, but if it was, this would be number one. And also number three. And numbers 89-81, because no one pays attention to those anyway. So, we'll just put it out there: Xbox Live. It's a hive of scum and villainy – a minefield of name-calling and tea-bagging where sane members of society fear to tread. But hey, for all the racial slur-spewing 12 year-olds of the world, it's a place to congregate, socialize, and maybe even learn a thing or two about themselves in the process. But, more importantly, it keeps them the hell out of our hair. As a result, PC gaming communities are comparitively more civil, enjoyable, and mature. Sure, there are certainly exceptions to that rule, but we're still incredibly thankful that many of the bad eggs are in a single, easily avoidable carton. Count Your Blessings 
There's something to be said for perspective. Sure, as PC gamers, we encounter our fair share of technical issues, but at least we haven't entirely lost our ability to play online games – possibly for more than a month. PC gaming's decentralized online infrastructure may lead to a lack of consistency, but there are certainly perks. Similarly, we've never had to deal with 54.2 percent failure rate or whatever the Gamecube was. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Popping up over the weekend is a somewhat blurry photo (cleaned up as best we could) of a completely naked dual-GPU prototype of AMD's Radeon HD 6870. The full frontal snapshot shows two Barts GPUs positioned in the middle of a long slab of PCB. Each GPU boasts 1,120 stream processors for a total of 2.240, and each with its own 1GB of GDDR5 memory, also visible in the picture.
According to Semiaccurate.com, which posted the pic, the concept card that has yet to receive a name belongs to Powercolor. You can see that it has a pair of 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors, which means you'll need a sturdy power supply. The dual power connectors also bode well for would-be overclockers. And that's it for the details. Powercolor doesn't seem willing to divulge any more information ahead of Computex, so until then, take a peek and wipe your chin. Image Credit: semiaccurate.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The influence and demands of console gaming weigh heavily on Dragon Age II. For PC gamers this is not a good thing. I feel like the word "streamlining" must have appeared in every design memo. You can almost hear BioWare thinking, "These kids today, they can't be bothered to move their rogue behind a target in order to properly execute a backstab. Let's do all that for them!" Part of me gets it. Positioning party members can be a little fussy, so why not just cut that stuff out in order to get right down to the combat? The other part of me thinks: Where does that end? Party management is one of the pleasures of party-based RPG combat. Once you remove the tactical aspects, what's left? 
Not bloody much, it turns out. It ends with combat encounters that are little more than button-mashing cluster-frakking affairs sapped of any depth or nuance. It ends with the death of tactical role-playing at the hands of the company that perfected it. But role-playing is more than combat. It's also character and narrative, and in those categories BioWare continues to do wonderful things. The richness of the dialogue engine and the way choices shape the narrative are amazing. Dragon Age II almost becomes a kind of lavish, fully voiced, wholly animated text adventure, with real people and events emerging from decisions that matter. The shift from the epic questing of Dragon Age: Origins to the compressed political and urban intrigue of Dragon Age II is jarring, but it also allows the designers to explore characters and choices in a more focused, fulfilling way. It's a different kind of role-playing experience. 
I'm still not sure if I like it. The combat seems to have been stripped of complexity purely to satisfy console gamers with short attention spans, not out of some high-minded decision to emphasize narrative choice. It's as though they're trying to create an action/RPG hybrid that appeals to a type of gamer who might not even exist. Thomas L. McDonald is an editor at large for Games magazine and blogs at sopgaming.blogspot.com. You can follow him on Twitter at StateOfPlayBlog. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Word on the web is that Google later today is going to launch a music service, but not as originally intended. After being unable to hammer out agreements with record labels, Google is said to be following in Amazon's footsteps with a digital music locker service without any licensing deals in place. Music Beta by Google, as the search giant plans to call it, will let users upload their tracks to a storage locker in the cloud where they can be streamed and downloaded to any Internet connected devices.
"We've been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results," Zahavah Levine, Google director of content partnerships, told Billboard. "[But] a couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms." So it usually goes, and so Google will go at it without the support of major music labels. According to Billboard's sources, it was Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group that ultimately wouldn't budge. What Google originally wanted to do was offer a scan-and-match locker service, so instead of uploading tracks, the service would scan a user's library and match the songs they own to a centralized server. Rights holders would have been compensated for each stream. Google has yet to announce the beta service, which will reportedly be by invite only, but several details are already available. For one, audio quality for streaming files can be as high as 320kbps if the device and network supports it. It's going to be optimized for Android 3.0, though any Android device version 2.2 or above can support it. Also, devices will display all available music in a single view, rather than one list for music stored on the device and another for music stored in Google's locker. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  If Lian Li's new PC-U6 Cowry case is the funkiest thing you've ever seen, then you didn't catch our review of the company's PC-777 Memorial Edition chassis five years ago to the month. We awarded the PC-777 a 9 verdict and Kick Ass designation for its exotic looks, "old school huge" design (as Senior Editor Gordon Mah Ung described it), and quiet operation. Lian Li has brought the "seashell" design back (we think it looks like a snail) with a modern makeover.
As with most computer cases released these days, the PC-U6 Cowry mid-tower sports an all black design, inside and out. There's room for three 3.5-inch and two 2.5-inch internal hard drives, all of which are tool-less and come with anti-vibration thumb screws with rubber suspension. Cooling has been upgraded with two side-panel 120mm fans, each with a washable air filter. There's also a fan-speed control switch and plenty of ventilation holes on the front and rear panels. Rounding out the makeover are two USB 3.0 ports and an eSATA port (HD audio ports also included) on the front panel, which is inexplicably located inconveniently on the base of the case. But that isn't the only quirky design decision. There's only a single external 5.25-inch optical drive bay, so you can forget about mounting both a Blu-ray reader and dedicated DVD burner. And finally, there are only four PCI slots on the back. As with any product, we'll reserve judgement until we spend some hands on time with it, but on paper, we're skeptical this sequel will be as good as the original. Product Page and Video Image Credit: Lian Li | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Mosaid Technologies, an intellectual property and technology licensing firm based out of Canada, has filed a lawsuit against DRAM makers Eplida Memory, Buffalo Inc., and Axiontech in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. In the lawsuit, Mosaid accuses all three firms of infringing on six of its semiconductor memory patents.
"Elpida is the only major manufacturer of commodity DRAM products that is currently unlicensed to Mosaid's semiconductor memory patents," said John Lindgren, President and CEO of Mosaid. "We have been in active negotiations with Elpida, but have now concluded that we are unlikely to reach a fair settlement within a reasonable timeframe. As a result, we have filed suit to protect the Company's intellectual property rights and to advance the interests of our shareholders." Mosaid didn't go into great detail about the six patents Eplida and others are allegedly infringing on, saying only that they're in violation by making, using, importing, offering for sale, and/or selling DRAM and other products containing DRAM in the United States. No other company produces more commodity DRAM products than Elpida, which holds a 16 percent share of the market on total revenues of $6.3 billion (in 2010). Image Credit: Elpida | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, announced today it has inked an agreement to purchase Skype Global for $8.5 billion in cold, hard cash. This ranks as Microsoft's biggest acquisition ever, and the Redmond software giant hopes its money will be well spent as it looks bolster its voice and video communications, and go up against Google and other rivals. Still, at $8.5 billion, the obvious questions is, did Microsoft overpay?
That depends on what Microsoft does with it. Microsoft says the acquisition will increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, which it will pitch in some form or another to both home consumers and enterprise users. And with Microsoft now owning the VoIP service, expect to see Skype support shuttled across Microsoft's entire portfolio, from devices like the Xbox and Kinect, to Windows Phone, Lync, and Outlook. "Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients, and colleagues anywhere in the world." Still, Microsoft has its work cut out for itself. As The New York Times points out, Skype generates most of its income from a small subset of users who pay for long distance calls to telephone numbers, and in 2010, Skype reported a net loss of $7 million. The high price tag makes it easy to criticize Microsoft on this one, though not everyone agrees it's such a bad move. Forbes wrote a lengthy piece in defense of the $8.5 billion deal, saying that both Facebook and Google were interested in the service, and even if Microsoft never makes any money with this, "they've weakened Google a little from taking this asset from them." Microsoft also has the option of licensing Skype software to Facebook, which would make both companies more valuable (and remember, Microsoft is already invested in Facebook). And at the end of the day, it's not like Microsoft had to beg, borrow, and steal money to get this deal done. The deal costs Microsoft $8.5 billion, or 17 percent of the cash they had on their balance sheet at the end of the quarter, Forbes says. What are your thoughts on this deal? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Is your business saddled with old equipment and bloated software? Hewlett Packard feels your pain. The OEM today rolled out its new "HP Get Thin Guarantee Program" designed to help clients reduce storage capacity requirements by 50 percent or more when they replace legacy equipment with HP 3PAR Utility storage. And in addition to cutting your storage footprint, HP says you'll save power and costs, too.
"Clients are looking to the next generation of storage arrays to curb data center sprawl and reduce both capital and operating expenses," said Tom Joyce, vice president, Marketing, Storage, HP. "The HP Get Thin Guarantee Program allows clients to very quickly experience the significant difference that deploying highly virtualized storage can make in the enterprise." There isn't any black magic involved with HP's program, just good old fashioned optimizations. By combining HP's 3PAR Storage Systems with the OEM's 3PAR Conversion Software, HP is able to reduce enterprise storage needs by identifying and removing unused pockets of disk capacity. According to HP, traditional storage volumes end up being reduced by at least 50 percent and converted into thin provisioned volumes on the 3PAR array. More information can be found here. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Instead of stepping outside for a coffee break when there's a lull at work, YouTube wants you to grab a bag of popcorn and plop yourself in front of your PC. The Google-owned video sharing site today rolled the dice with online rentals and added thousands of of full length feature films from major Hollywood studios to its catalog, provided you reside the U.S. And it's not just old movies that you've seen a hundred times already on VHS.
"In addition to the hundreds of free movies available on the site since 2009, you will be able to find and rent some of your favorite films," YouTube said in a blog post. "From memorable hits and cult classics like Caddyshack, Goodfellas, Scarface, and Taxi Driver to blockbuster new releases like Inception, The King's Speech, Little Fockers, The Green Hornet, and Despicable Me." YouTube says "movies are available to rent at industry standard pricing," which breaks down to $3.99 for new releases and $2.99 for older flicks. Rentals are available for 24 hours and can be watched on any PC. YouTube Movies | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  They sure do grow up fast, don't they? We're not talking about kids, but solid state drives, and in particularly those in OCZ's family. The former memory maker who's now all in with flash based storage devices today announced the Agility 3 and Solid 3 SATA III SSD product lines. Both drives boast support for the SATA 6Gbps interface and are built around the SandForce SF-2200 controller, so what separates the two?
It comes down to raw numbers. OCZ says that both the Agility 3 and Solid 3 "are designed to cater to speed-seeking enthusiasts in search of the best value for performance," but the Solid 3 will end up costing a bit less than its more agile brother. OCZ rates the Solid 3 at up 500MB/s reads, 450MBs writes, and 20,000 4KB random write IOPS, while the Agility 3 kicks things up a notch with 525MB/s reads, 500MB/s writes, and up to 60,000 4KB random write IOPS. Both product lines will ship in a new boot-drive size 60GB capacity as well as 120GB and 240GB flavors. Pricing and availability was not announced. Image Credit: OCZ | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
