Computer Hardware Reviews Daily Tech News

The OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator has been out for seven months, but just now has OCZ released 64-bit drivers. Late last night I got an e-mail from one of the engineers at OCZ giving me the good news and I thought I'd pass it along this morning. If you need them download them here. Make sure you get both the 64-bit beta driver and the 64-bit beta driver patch. For some reason there is already a patch for something that was just released last night. I'm not even going to ask!

“Advances in hardware and software allow today’s games to offer consumers an exceptional entertainment experience, and we wanted to take the next step by immersing gamers into these environments with the innovative new NIA,” stated Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. “The NIA radically changes the ways that gamers can interact and control elements within games, and can be configured in a matter of minutes for any game that is already published or will be released.”

Thermal Solutions specialist GELID Solutions launches its first CPU Cooler of its SILENT product line. The Quad heatpipe CPU cooler “Silent Spirit” uses 4 sintered high performance heatpipes for optimum heat transfer from copper core to aluminum fins. The fins are built in a unique architecture to ensure an equal air flow distribution to the heatsink. The “Silent Spirit” cooler will be available in November 2008 and has a MSRP of $35 USD or Euro 23.

This Top-flow cooler “Silent Spirit” follows an open frame structure concept whereby both design and dimensions have been improved to eliminate humming and buzzing noises while maintaining a compact overall size. Precise software calculations were made during the development stage to simulate both airflow and cooling performance in order to create a prototype that would live up to the expectations of a true silent aficionado. In order to cool down the Northbridge heatsink (chipset) and surrounding voltage regulator module close to the CPU, the heatsink has been tilted specially to an angle for this purpose.

Kingston Technology announced today that they are adding a new high capacity 32GB USB drive to its product line. The DataTraveler 150 (DT150) USB Flash drive allows users to conveniently combine work-related content and personal digital content on the same drive with plenty of room to spare. Users can now transport and share entire libraries of music, photos, large business documents, and even video without ever having to change USB drives or search other portable storage devices containing specific content. The MSRP on the 32GB DataTraveler 150 is $139 USD and should be shipping now.

“The new DataTraveler 150 has broken through storage barriers by allowing users to store all their digital files ― business or personal ― all under one roof,” said Mark Akoubian, Flash business manager, Kingston®. “As file sizes increase especially with content such as music and photos, the need for small form factor storage drives with high capacities will continue to go up. The DT 150 certainly addresses those needs today.”

Foxconn just released their G45MG motherboard based on Intel G45 Chipset. This is the second model launched in their GREEN Series. Not only does this model brings users high multimedia performance (BlueRay, HDMI, Integrated Graphics X4500, Dual DDR3, and more), but combined with Foxconn's properietary 3G Technology (energy efficient features),an average PC system will have a power savings of more than 68% depending on PC usage. The Foxconn G45MG GREEN series motherboard should be available around end of October to early November in North America.

The G45MG is a highly capable integrated HD graphics platform, ready to play Blu-Ray and HD DVD content without upgrading the onboard graphics. The integrated Intel GMA 4500HD graphics processor not only includes encoding/decoding technologies for HD video, but also provides DirectX 10 graphics for the latest games titles. With 3.0X the 3D performance of the Intel G33 chipset and and 1.7X the 3D performance of the Intel G35 Express chipset graphics, the list of playable games has grown significantly, saving many home users the additional cost of installing a dedicated graphics card.

I just got word from our friends at Toshiba that they have announced a brand new freshly designed Satellite laptop PC — the Toshiba Satellite E105, developed in collaboration with Best Buy and its customers. The Satellite E105 is one of the first products to be offered under Best Buy’s exclusive Blue Label program. With a starting price of $1,249.997, the Satellite E105 is available Best Buy retail stores nationwide or online.

“Toshiba’s aim is to produce high quality laptops with features that consumers look for, and our combined effort with Best Buy has helped us further realize this goal,” said Carl Pinto, vice president of product development, Digital Products Division, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. “The Satellite E105 is a special laptop, and we are delighted with the result and the opportunity to bring this impressive machine to market.

Beginning with the venerable N4100 to the legendary N5200, Thecus NAS devices have established the company as a worldwide leader in digital storage. Today, Thecus is proud to release details about its latest NAS breakthrough – the N7700. Bringing together the cutting-edge technology and years of NAS experience, the N7700 is an enterprise class 7-Bay NAS server that makes no compromises.

To address the needs of business, the N7700 comes with a few more outstanding features. The N7700 supports iSCSI initiators, making it easy for users can centrally manage and deploy storage for their entire network. In addition, the N7700 is also stackable, enabling users to connect their unit with up to five additional N7700s and manage them via a master system. To manage all of that storage, users can look forward to multiple RAID modes on the N7700, including RAID 0, 1, 5,6,10, and JBOD. What’s more, the N7700 also features RAID expansion and RAID level migration, which means that users can add larger hard disks to available slots and join an existing RAID without having to power down the system, cutting productivity-killing downtime to zero.

EVGA took the original overclockers dream; The EVGA 790i SLI FTW; and made it even more extreme with the addition of Digital Power Management (Digital PWM - Pulse Width Modulation), once again improving upon the voltage stability and efficiency. In addition, the EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM includes solid state capacitors, an 8-Phase Power design, on-board all ferrite core chokes, an enhanced enthusiast BIOS, Vdroop control and much more. The EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM is said to be the ultimate platform for those who demand the best and want to run SLI!

• Innovative chipset fan design directs airflow away from the graphics card.
• Reach extreme overclocking speeds supporting 1600MHz FSB and beyond
• 8 phase power design for superb stability and performance
• Solid state capacitors and ferrite core chokes allow for better overclocking and stability.
• Convenient layout with on-board Clear CMOS, Power, and Reset buttons.
• Friendly system BIOS features with easy to use overclock and voltage settings.
• Extreme DDR3 speeds of 2000MHz and beyond.

Albatron Technology has just announced the KI780G Mini-ITX mainboard featuring the AMD 780G chipset. This is one of the few mini-ITX boards on the market that support this chipset, which means it offers support for powerful 4-core, 3-core AMD Phenom processors with AMD AM2+ socket. Not only does the KI780G define a new class of performance Mini-ITX mainboards, it boasts the most complete set of functionality on par with many ATX boards on the market. The board looks pretty nice and if you are building a system with a mini-ITX platform, then be sure to give this board a look.

As for serious 3D gaming, the KI780G provides a PCIe X16 slot which employs four of the lanes but can still accept any PCIe X16 VGA card. As the 4-lane bandwidth is not as important as having a good GPU for 3D gaming, the KI780G has been shown to handle hardcore 3D games as long as it is used with an adequate VGA card.In addition to the great graphics facilities, the KI780G has everything you need to build your Home Theatre PC; a complete set of monitor connectors including HDMI; full 8-channel audio capabilities plus SDPIF in/out; and up to 10 USB 2.0 channels for the rest of your hi-tech gadgets.

Western Digital just announed an update in GreenPower technology, with the launch of the new WD Caviar Green 1 TB drive. This new drive is a 333/GB per-platter hard drive with 32 MB cache. WD’s latest WD Caviar Green hard drives consume up to 20 percent less power and offer a 10 percent increase in performance over the previous version. The MSRP for the WD Caviar Green 1 TB hard drives (model WD10EADS) is $219.00 USD and are available now.

As an innovative leader in green storage technology, WD has ramped up its successful GreenPower technology-based hard drives to greater than 10 percent of its 3.5-inch hard drive shipments in the initial twelve months of production, making low-power technologies one of WD’s fastest growing segments and WD Caviar Green one of the most successful new products in the company’s recent history. WD’s latest WD Caviar Green hard drives consume up to 20 percent less power and offer a 10 percent increase in performance over the previous version , while continuing to provide the market with hard drives enabling quieter and cooler-running desktop PCs and external storage devices.

AMD today announced the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 4550 and ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics cards, the latest additions to the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics line up. These feature-rich graphics cards deliver exceptional gaming and HD multimedia performance at value prices. Both cards are based on the same technology found in the celebrated ATI Radeon HD 4800 series, including support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games and superior HD multimedia capabilities.

Delivering mainstream-class performance at a value price, the ATI Radeon HD 4550 graphics card plays demanding game titles previously unplayable by cards in this price segment, and for less than USD $59 for a 512MB memory configuration. An even more incredible value, the ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics card is the ideal introduction to the ATI Radeon HD 4000 series, priced for less than USD $39 for a 256 MB memory configuration, giving gamers and multimedia enthusiasts more features than products available from the competition today.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today launched a pair of new high quality SATA-II SSDs that shatter previous price barriers. The new drives are both part of the Super Talent MasterDrive LX series and offer an incredibly low price point; the 64GB model will retail for about $179, while the 128GB unit is expected to retail for under $300. Both models will begin shipping this week.

Backed with Super Talent’s 1-year warranty, the MasterDrive LX is built with NAND flash and uses a SATA-II 3Gbps interface that makes it 100% interchangeable with hard disk drives. These SSDs support sequential read speeds of up to 100 MB/sec, and sequential write speeds of up to 40 MB/sec. Integrated ECC, wear leveling and bad bit management functions dramatically improve the reliability and lifespan of these SSDs.

Corsair announced today that it is expanding its best selling Flash Voyager USB family lines with a new 64GB capacity offering. The new 64GB USB Flash Voyager has enough capacity for a library of DVD-length movies and tens of thousands of high-resolution digital images. Corsair 64GB USB Flash Voyager drives will be available immediately at a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $249.99.

"Corsair is always developing new and exciting flash products, and the 64GB USB Flash Voyager is no exception," said John Beekley, Vice President of Applications at Corsair. "With more storage space than most laptops, we can offer a full suite of features – whether it be backing up data, building a portable media library, or simply transporting huge amounts of data." added Beekley.

Toshiba Corporation today announced enhancements to its line-up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the addition of an industry-leading 256-gigabyte (GB) SSD and the launch of a series of small-sized Flash Modules for netbook computers ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) and other mobile and peripheral applications. The new drives will be showcased at the CEATEC in Makuhari, Japan, from September 30 to October 4.

The new 256GB SSD mounts NAND flash memory on a 70.6mm (L) x 53.6mm (W) x 3.0mm (H) platform. The drive offers performance characteristics essential for today’s mainstream notebook PCs: highly reliable, high density data storage and support for fast data transfer rates, with a maximum read speed of 120MB a second and maximum write speed of 70MB a second, via a high speed SATA 3.0Gb/s interface.