Athlon 64 3400+CG Offers Better Overclockability

Athlon 64 and Athlon FX family will take a major silicon overhaul with the upcoming CG revision with Athlon 64 3400+ as the first processor with that new core. As it is known already, CG revision will allow better compatibility with memories especially for DDR400 SDRAM with its 2T DRAM timing enhancements . It also removes the requirement for use of identical DIMMs for 2nd and 3rd DIMMs in 3-DIMM boards. However, overclockers have something more to cheer about is that Athlon 3400+CG will offer enhanced performance over the current 3400+ and should be able to overclock more with increased in speed bin distribution to allow for higher clock speed. Production plans to begin in late Q1.

ASUS Enabled SLI On 4 GPUs

It seems like ASUS has successfully enabled SLI on 4 GPUs usingtwo EN7800GT-DUAL cards on ASUS A8N32-SLI board. It appears that no SLI bridgeconnector is needed but i would expect some slight degradation of performance inresult of that. ASUS is still in the process of debugging and hopefully we cansee it implemented soon.

Assassin's Creed III launch trailer is here!

Assassins Creed III, one of the hottest games to hit shelves this holiday season, is but days from launch. The PS3 and Xbox360 versions hit stores tomorrow in North America and the day after in Europe, with the PC and WiiU versions following in about a month. As such, Ubisoft has released the games launch trailer.

Check out the video above, and youll find out a lot about the protagonist, Connor, and his origins; what he fights for, and youll even catch a glimpse of George Washington shaking hands with him. It is slightly odd to see a Native American fighting with the colonists; but I guess the British are the greater evil in this case.

At the very least, the trailer has me bubbly with anticipation, and I dont seem to be alone. Ubisoft stated on October 25th, that ACIII is the most preordered game in the history of the company.

Arctic Cooling Unleashes Accelero XTREME 5870 amp; 5970

Accelero XTREME 5970

Swiss based Arctic Cooling has launched its Accelero XTREME 5970 and Accelero XTREME 5870 GPU coolers, targeting enthusiasts.


Accelero XTREME 5870

Measuring 290 x 104 x 58mm and weighing 692g, the Accelero XTREME 5970,customized for the dual-GPU Radeon HD5970, boosts eight copperheatpipes and 119 aluminum fins. The Accelero XTREME 5870 measures 290x 104 x 56mm and has five copper heatpipes and 84 aluminum fins. Bothcoolers feature pre-applied ARCTIC MX-2 thermal compound and areequipped with three 92mm PWM fans (900 ~ 2,000 RPM). Backed by a sixyear limited warranty, they can be purchased from authorized resellersand e-tailers at a MSRP of USD 76.95/ 56.95 Euro (Accelero XTREME 5970)in May and USD 67.95 and 49.95 Euro (Accelero XTREME 5870) in April.


News via [Tweaktown]

Arrival of the Uni-Wise, Gecube X800XL

Since the introduction of the newer generation X800 family of cards, we hadbeen seeing the same thing over and over again. The difference may only be PCBcolor, or even as mundane as the branding on the sticker on the fan. However,Gecube decided to be different. Introducing Gecube's X800XL Uni-Wise.

The packaging of this card. Gecube's packing seams to be much better thistime, as compared to their previous family of products. The fan is advertised tobe really quiet, at less then 20dB.

A picture of the card. Notice that the fan resembles the older X800Pro/XTseries, however, the heatsink comes with a heatpipe, that could conduct heataway from the core, to cooler regions of the heatsink. Fins are widely spacedapart, and soldered onto the base. Good job on Gecube's part!

Another view of the heatsink. The heatpipe is well soldered onto the basetoo.

The back of the card is well cooled by copper plate provided. Somethingthoughtful from Gecube since the rams run pretty hot after sometime.

*SRP for this is said to be in the early $ 700s. In limited quantities only.

AMD Socket 939 CPUs Delayed To End April

AMD has just informed its partners that the launch for Socket 939 processors initially slated for March 29th has been pushed back one month to end of April. However, it is still not clear if Athlon 64 FX-53 (2.4 Ghz) is still on track for end March launch.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer launching this week

On Friday Asus will hold a launch event in Taipei, Taiwan where the company will unveil its Eee Pad Transformer tablet, also known as the EP101. It’s not clear as to when the company will start to offer it outside of Taiwan, but this Tegra 2 tablet is looking to be a potential winner for Asus, although we still like the Eee Pad Slider more, but it seems like it’s not due quite yet.

There are a couple of pre-launch events going on for the Eee Pad Transformer on Facebook of which one is an interesting one, as it’s a counter that’s not only counting down until the actual launch event, but it’s also counting down the price based on how many Facebook users in Taiwan enters a prize draw. The starting price was NT$22,000 (S$941) and with 3d and 10h to go the price is at NT$21,109 (S$903), but we’re not sure if the end price will be a special promotion or the permanent retail price, as our Chinese is a little bit lacking.

That said Asus has a similar thing running on another Facebook page where it says “Until a lower price!!” with the same count down timer on top of it. It looks like Asus is revving up to make a really big launch for the Eee Pad Transformer as there’s a page titled the Eee Pad Story as well which has a place holder for a series of five videos featuring at least the Eee Pad Transformer in one of them, but possibly even all of them. VR-Zone will be attending the launch event on Friday and we’ll give you all the details of what’s going on then.

For now we’ll leave you with some detailed spec as to what to look forward to as you can see from the spec sheet above. It’s impressive that Asus has gone for an IPS panel here which means that the screen should be very similar to that of Apple’s iPad in terms of quality, although thanks to its higher pixel density, it might even end up looking better. Also keep in mind that the keyboard dock should double the battery life, as it features its own battery pack which has the same power density as the one in the tablet itself.

Source: Asus Club TW Facebook page

Apple experiences a slump in China iPhone out of China's Top 5

Apple enjoyed 2nd place in Chinas smartphone market in the first quarter of this year, but have started to see their foothold slip as they dropped down to No. 5 in the second quarter. The 3rd quarter sees a continuation of that trend as Apples iPhone slipped further down to No. 6. Samsung held their grip on the market, keeping 1st place with 14% of the market, and are closely followed by Lenovo who have 13%.

While Apples YOY shipment of smartphones in the 3rd quarter actually increased, it wasnt enough to hold onto their position against the fast pace of local makers, and their market share dropped 1 point from the previous quarter to 7%.

Analysts commented that Chinas electronics market operated on the principle of extreme price wars, and recent low-price high functioning smartphones produced by local makers has stimulated new growth at the bottom end of the market. People who werent interested in buying hi-tech cell phones at Apple prices jumped at the chance to get their hands on some nifty gear at an affordable price.

In the 3rd quarter of this year, Chinas total shipped smartphones amounted to 50,000,000 units. Thats more than 1/3 of all globally shipped units. 60% of these were made by Chinese manufacturers, and as time goes on an even larger percentage of these sales will be eaten up by local manufactures.

The average price for a smartphone in China is currently $70~$120 USD. Compare that to Apples iPhone 4S, which when bought without a contract in China will set you back a hefty $713 USD. Thats almost a full months wages for a lot of locals.

Will the iPhone 5 be Apples savior in China?

Things are not all bleak though, as Chinese sales of the iPhone have yet to feast on the spoils of the iPhone 5, which is scheduled for a December release in the region. Analysts expect the new revision to give Apple another boost in the 4th quarter. Whether or not this will be enough to hold off against the cutthroat competition of the Chinese electronics market though, is yet to be seen.

Apple to introduce its own proprietary version of USB3.0 and DisplayPort

Although USB3.0 and DisplayPort are interfaces which cater to very different needs, the basis for their design are completely identical; they are both standard interfaces which have been designed to facilitate the transfer of digital content from various electronic devices. And everybody knows how important standards are to our daily computing needs; that is the main reason we do not have to fiddle with cumbersome adaptors when it comes to dealing with various standard expansion and I/O ports found in our PCs today.

That being said, at least one OEM has a fond preference for doing everything its way and tossing out popular existing standards in the process, and it should come as no surprise that Apple is now attempting to do the same with USB3.0 and DisplayPort today. According to a patent which was only recently awarded to Apple, it seems that the Cupertino giant has plans to create an entirely new “hybrid port” which is reportedly capable of delivering both DisplayPort and USB3.0 signals in a single package.

Based on what we are able to understand from the patent filings, the hybrid port will feature a 30-pin connector, of which the various signal types each pin will transmit is shown in the patent illustration below.

Also, based on illustrations of the devices physical dimensions, it can be inferred that Apple might plan to implement this new hybrid port on mobile devices such as its line of iPods, iPhones and iPads first. This is due to the fact that the ports capability to deliver both USB3.0 and DisplayPort signals means that it greatly reduces the amount of space needed to feature dedicated ports for such highly mobile devices, where sufficient real estate for implementing additional I/O ports are a luxury. That being said, Apple does mention that the port may eventually find its way to desktop and notebook PCs.

Of course, with this being Apple we are talking about, it probably goes without saying that such an interface is going to be an Apple-exclusive, just like how the current line of iPods, iPads and iPhones all feature proprietary charging ports even though the micro-USB interface has already been recognized internationally as the standard port to be used for mobile devices.

Feel free to hit up on the source link for more information about the patent and its implementation.

Source: Patently Apple

Android Jelly Bean melts under California sun

Google’s Android Jelly Bean is hot, so hot that it melted. I’m not talking about the actual OS causing smartphones to melt, but rather the Android Jelly Bean’s head on the lawn of Google’s Mountain View campus melted due to extreme heat under the California sun. Although you can find an article on Samsungs recent Galaxy smartphone explosion here.

Orange cones along with yellow caution tape now surround the out-of-commissioned Jelly Bean statue, but prior to that, some passerby allegedly dipped their hands into the Jelly Bean’s torso and stole some of the flavorful organs.

Dan Morrill, an Android engineer, claims that the Google design team is “working on a bug fix.”

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Adobe Launches Creative Suite 5 Master Collection

Julian Quinn, Vice President ofAdobe APAC, was at the event to introduce the company's Creative Suite 5 Master collection.

"Regardless of whether you are a creativeprofessional, or in a SMB (small medium business),Adobe CS 5 hasthe abilitytocreate highly interactive documents which include motion, graphics, sound etc,and present the optimized contentto a whole range of devices.Shantanu Narayen (CEO of Adobe) talked about design -the abilityto create highly interactive content and to be able to do that without writing codes; to work after with good precision; rendering 3D images; taking advantage of 64-bit implementation; and to be able to do that with the Mercury Playback Engine as well as allowing users to render the 3D images and still work on other things," says Quinn.

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7 Intel CPUs Including Q6600 Phase Out By Q2 2009

For the month of February, we will see two Core 2 processors to be officially phased out by Intel and they are Core 2 Quad Q6700 and Core 2 Duo E4700. At the time of writing, Core 2 Quad Q9450, Core 2 Duo E8200, E8190, E6850, E6750, E6550, E6540, E4600 processors had all been phased out.

In Q2 2009, we will see 7 processors to be phased out including the good old Q6600. The rest of the processors are, Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and QX9650, Core 2 Quad Q6600, Core 2 Duo E8300, Pentium E2200 and E2180, as well as Celeron E1200. Lastly, Core 2 Duo E7200 and PentiumE2200 will be phased out by Q3 this year.