2012-12-21-375

AC Ryan's Cool Clip Contest!

Think you got what it takes to make the coolest clip? We challenge you to express the Spirit of AC Ryan in a 10 to 30 seconds short clip. Not another run-of-the-mill corporate cliche video. Those will be fed to the dogs (if they do indeed eat digital media ;)). You gotta be creative, you gotta dare to be different, you gotta make an impact. Shock and awe? Stand out from the rest? show us what u got.

AC Ryan calls out to the Digital Media Community - yes you - the pro, the "working hard for your money", the semi-pro, the amateur, the hobbyist, the student - yes you, proud of your digital media works.

Digital Media - video, 3d animation, demoscene clip, animated, toon, mix-n-match... choose your weapon of choice! as long as it moves and its digital!

Your vids shown at Dreamhack Winter 07 Sweden the world's largest LAN party (Guiness Book of Records) with >10,000 attendance and without a doubt, the hottest new generation event.

Compete Internationally - match your talent against the world and watch the exposure and reaction! All vids will be publicised and exhibited once the deadline closes.

US$ 3000 worth of CASH & prizes! we did not forget the prizes. What's a great contest without CASH and cool gear!

Grand Prize US$ 1000 + cool gear with a total of 13 winners!

Promote the Contest and win too! yup put up the contest banner in your websites, blogs, profiles, forum sigs (if allowed in the forum), email sigs etc. Email the link to us and we'll pick random winners for cool prizes!

AC Ryan Contest! regularly runs contests to promote interaction and have fun in online communities. Once in a while we pull out a larger contest with cash prizes! So c'mon and take up the challenge, take it up in your favorite forum and we'll be there!

More information can be found regarding the contest at http://www.acryan.com/contest/thecoolclip/tcc-intro.shtml

2012-12-21-333

A quick look at Gigabyte's mainstream 7-series boards

We were fortunate enough to get a preview of Gigabytes high-end 7-series chipset motherboards ahead of CeBIT, but it turned out that the company had plenty more on offer at CeBIT. As such, heres a fairly quick run-down of the new models on display at the show, as there are far too many products for us to cover them all in detail.

First up we have the Z77X-D3H, the little brother to the Z77X-UD3H, although the boards arent as similar as youd think at first. For starters there are no eSATA ports on the Z77X-D3H, instead these ports are now internal SATA ports which makes a lot more sense for 99 percent of users. The PWM design and the heatsinks are somewhat simpler in terms of design and theres no 2oz copper PCB here. Theres no DisplayPort connector on this board either, but otherwise its a fairly well rounded board and we have a feeling this will be one of the more popular models in terms of price vs. features for Gigabyte, as it still includes support for SLI and CrossFireX among other things.

Moving down a step we are down to the blue PCB level and we find the Z77-D3H. Although the board has a pair of x16 PCI Express slots, the second slot only has four lanes of bandwidth via the chipset. As will all of Gigabytes new ATX boards, an mSATA slot is present for SSD caching. Whats surprising here though is that instead of using a VLI USB 3.0 hub, Gigabyte has added an Etron USB 3.0 host controller for the two extra rear USB 3.0 ports, for a total of six where two are via a pin header.

Next up we have the Z77MX-D3H which is a mATX Z77 chipset based board. Here we have three x16 PCI Express slots of which the first two operate in dual x8 and the third being connected to the chipset via four lanes of bandwidth. Theres really nothing out of the ordinary about this board, but it looks like a nice affordable board for a higher-end mATX gaming system as it offers SLI and CrossFireX support.

The little brother to the Z77MX-D3H is the Z77M-D3H which is a peculiar board as unlike all of Gigabytes other Z77 motherboards, this one doesnt have a switchable slot layout and as such theres no SLI support on this board. You do get a PCI slot though and the second x16 slot offers four lanes of bandwidth via the chipset and the board does as such support CrossFireX. At the rear of the board you end up with a pair of USB 2.0 ports less and 5.1-channal audio instead of 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out for the Z77MX-D3H.

2012-12-21-48

New iPhone Model To Come Out?

Engadget has reported of a possibility that a new iPhone model or maybe 2 new models will be coming out some time in June this year.

Possibilities of models that will come with a 3.2mp still/video camera, 802.11n WiFi, more storage is not zero as Commercial Timeshave given a report saying thatcomponents from Taiwan-based suppliers have begun shipments as Applereadies for a "June launch" along with said suppliers with claims toreach about 2-3 million units per quarter.

2012-12-21-460

A-Data Launches BN Series PSUs

A-DATA PRESS RELEASE

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today announced the launch of its latest series of power supply for personal computers. The BN Series is targeted towards consumer and professional users who are looking for economical solutions in energy efficient power.

With 80 Plus Bronze certification, the BN series offer up to 85% efficiency, while the 95% Active Power Factor Correction (PFC) minimizes power loss. The series comes in four wattage models to meet a wide range of individual user needs, and all models meet both the European Energy Using Products Directive (EuP) and The American Energy Star 5.0 standard. The units run quietly and emit extremely low levels of interference.

An interesting aesthetic touch on what is often a bland system component is the patented design pattern on the laminated steel shell. The innovative surface coating process yields an attractive textured appearance.

Features:

•Wattage: 400/450/500/550W
•Active PFC
•ATX12V Ver.2.3
•Meets EuP and Energy Star 5.0
•80 PLUS (Bronze)
•Low Ripple & Noise
•PCI-E Connectors
•Textured laminated surface

Availability

ADATA BN Series power supply units are now distributed through selected distributors and resellers. More information about ADATA BN Series power supply unit can be found on the companys website.

2012-12-21-128

[Rumour] Intel Core i7 970 arriving

Following Gulftown, Intel will be looking to update their Core i7line-up. One such CPU is rumoured to be the Core i7 970. However, theexact nature of this product is yet unknown. Some sources claim thiswill be a non-extreme version of the Core i7 975 at a lower price point.Fudzilla believes the Core i7 970 to be a slower clocked, non-Extreme,Gulftown CPU.

A look at Intel's nomenclature policy, however confusing it may be,would suggest the Core i7 970 should indeed be a Bloomfield CPU clockedat 3.33 GHz, replacing the Core i7 975 Extreme. With Gulftown, theExtreme end would move over to the six core Core i7 980X.

However, Intel's branding policy has been anything but clear this generation with often overlapping branding. Moreover, it is likely that Intel will release a non-Extreme Gulftown CPU in the future, though we might expect branding similar to Core i7 970X.

The Core it 980X releases on March 16th. Shortly after, Intel is planning to release faster versions CPUs for their entire Core i3/i5/i7 range. The legendary Core i7 920 is finally going to be replaced by the Core i7 930 on February 28th after a remarkably long life span at the very same price point.

Reference: Fudzilla, OCWorkbench

2012-12-21-278

55nm RV770 & G92b Die Sizes Comparison

Our good friend CJ told us some time ago about a die shrink on the G92 from65nm to 55nm codenamed G92b and it is evident from theinformation we gotten yesterday that Nvidia is preparing a shift to 55nm onsome of the upcoming mobile GPUs. However, we have yet to find out if there willbe a shift to 55nm for the desktop parts.

Assuming G92b has no architecturally changes, it will be 17% smaller than G92thereby it is cheaper to produce and better yield rate. Assuming the rumored diesize of RV770 of 250mm2 from Chiphell is correct, this will put itsdie size about 1.29 times bigger than RV670. That could due to an increase inthe number of stream processors and ROP and other architecturally enhancementsthat makes the die larger. In comparison, G92b die size is slightly larger thanRV770 by about 10%.

2012-12-21-219

24 monitors, FPS gaming for you sir?

Engadget has a scoop about a crazy set of systems, hooked to 24 LCD displays,with a total resolution of 10240 x 3072. With this sort of resolution, itrequires a set 12 Linux servers running distributed computing software to drivethe monster displays. But with this sort of power, it could only do Quake III atjust 15 to 30 fps. Mega displays are not meant for gaming, just yet. "Leadingthe life of an Engadget editor, you don't ever think you could come upon a rigor setup with too much screen real estate. Sure, you can overcompensate in anynumber of ways -- like, say, too much drive space (what, you really need8TB?)-- but pixel acreage never struck us as one of them. Until now. Say hello toVirginia Tech's 31 million pixel-pusher friends, their 24 display array"workstation" runs at 10240 x 3072. Apparently it takes 12 Linux servers runningdistributed computing software to operate, and can play Quake III at 15-30FPS.Well done, sirs, well done. We take it back, it's not too much. It's nevertoo much."