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Entries for July 22nd, 2008

July 22 News from Around the Web

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Review @ OCC and other reviews from around the web can be found by visiting our forums!

“Overclocking each processor is different. With five identical processors you will get five different results. With this Q9300, 456×7.5 was the point at which it was prime95 stable. It would run benchmarks at up to 470×7.5 but was nowhere near stable. Above 456 FSB, the amount of voltage to keep the chip running was significantly more than what other 45nm processors I have tested have taken at similar FSB and raw clock speeds. At 1.55 volts there was no point trying to even push further. The good news is that the CPU would do almost 450 FSB on the stock 1.215 volts. I left the volts at 1.34v during my testing just as a safeguard but have since lowered this to 1.31v at 456 FSB. Pretty low volts for the clock speeds I was able to pull from the little brother of the QX9770. Having a motherboard that will allow high front side bus speeds with a quad core processor is essential with the Q9300 CPU. Raw clock speed is limited because of the low 7.5 clock multiplier. In order to reach 3.6GHz you would need to hit 480FSB, something not all quad core CPUs will do, some, but not all.”

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Get Quickoffice 5.0 for S60 for $1

Quickoffice are offering the chance, for one day only (July 22nd), to buy Quickoffice Premier 5 for just $1. The usual price is around $70 (or less if you buy via your phone). Quickoffice enables the reading, editing and creation of Microsoft Office files on your S60 phone. You can read our full review of software here.

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Aeneon by Qimonda introduces DDR3 SO-DIMMs High Performance Memory for notebooks

Aeneon by Qimonda, the channel and retail brand of Qimonda, announced its new DDR3 SO-DIMMs (Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Modules) which provide power saving and high performance to the industry’s first DDR3 notebooks based on the Intel(r) Centrino(r) 2 processor technology.

Aeneon is among the first retail memory brands to offer 1GB and 2GB DDR3-1066 SO-DIMMs to the market. The modules use low-power 1Gbit DDR3 components and feature competitive latencies of 7-7-7-21 at standard DDR3 voltage of 1.5V - ideal for mobile computing. The DDR3 SO-DIMMs will be made available worldwide in single retail package from August 2008.

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OCZ Launches Fatal1ty Brand DDR2 and DDR3 Memory Kits

OCZ Technology has announced the first memory modules available in their Fatal1ty Series after the partnership was announced last month. These high-performance memory kits were co-developed with the expertise of Johnathan Fatal1ty Wendel, 12-time World champion, to meet the specific needs of fellow gamers. OCZ Fatal1ty Professional Series kits are the official memory modules of Championship Gaming Series (CGS), and feature incredible performance to power through the latest PC titles and contribute to the success of professionals and everyday gamers.

OCZ worked closely with Fatal1ty and his team to design new memory kits that pair perfectly with the top selling motherboards for a superior gaming experience, commented Alex Mei, Chief Marketing Officer of the OCZ Technology Group. Fatal1ty knows what it takes to win at the highest level of eSports, and these new kits deliver superior stability and performance to gamers whether you are a professional player on the Championship Gaming Series, or a weekend warrior looking to dominate when playing the latest titles.

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Lancool Announces K12 Midi-Tower Chassis

Lancool must be launching a dozen new cases as it seems I get a press release from them at least twice a week. This time around they have announced the K12 Midi-Tower Chassis. We asked Lancool when these would be available and they informed us that they would start shipping them from Taiwan at the end of July. When it comes to pricing the MSRP is $160, so start saving now if you want one in the coming weeks.

This is a Midi-Tower case with 9x 5.25 bays giving you plenty of options and tonnes of room. The strength of the Lancool series lies not only in the structure, but also in the features, which include support for the modular patented anti-vibration HDD cage, supporting 3x HDDs. Each HDD is mounted with a special thumbscrew and rubber grommet to ensure that HDDs are secure and vibration free. The modular cage can be secured as you see fit within the roomy interior of the case. It has a120mm fan mounted into the bracket, making sure that the HDDs are cooled and that air flow is optimal according to your needs. Incorporating outstanding quality and craftsmanship; the Lancool series have a steel inner-core, making them stronger than all-aluminum chassis, but also considerably cheaper.

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ATI Releases Catalyst 8.7 Video Card Drivers for Download

Any and all ATI graphics cards owners should take note that a new driver dropped late yesterday from the crew over at AMD. The latest driver is Catalyst 8.7 and there is a version for both Windows and Linux users that has a good number of fixes and improvements as well as some CCC enhancements. This version does include ATI's Folding@Home information, so if you are folding be sure to check it out and be sure to support Team #38296, which is the Legit Reviews Folding team!

The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst:

  • 3DMark Vantage: Performance increases of up to 20% is noticed in the Performance Preset on single card configured systems when using ATI Radeon™ HD 36xx or ATI Radeon HD 34xx products
  • Company of Heroes DX10: Performance increases of 3% to 12% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx product
  • Lost Planet DX10: Performance increases of 4% to 15% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx product
  • <all Of Duty 4 DX9: Performance increases of up to 4% in specific maps is noticed on single card configured systems when using an ATI Radeon HD 48xx product
  • Lost Planet DX9: CrossFire scaling improves up to 1.7x and performance increases up to 80% across all Radeon products when AA and AF is enabled

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Super Talent MasterDrive SSD Gets a Performance Boost Via Firmware

Super Talent Technology recently announced that the company has dramatically improved the write speeds of its MasterDrive DX, MasterDrive KX and MasterDrive MX solid state drives (SSDs) thanks to a minor firmware update. These three series of SSDs already boast exceptionally fast read speeds of up to 120 MB/sec. But, fast write speeds are important in applications such as video editing and encoding, image processing, compressing and extracting files, installing applications and copying files to the drive. These newly revised SSDs categorically outpace the fastest hard drives in the world.

Our expert engineering team is constantly discovering new ways to improve our products, and this is one improvement that will be well received by power laptop users, commented Super Talent Director of Marketing, Joe James. We continue our relentless drive to add performance, features and value to our SSDs while driving the price down, Mr. James added.

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N-Gage client queue gets hijacked

In a not unsurprising move, Nokia’s XpressMusic 5320, Nokia N78 and Nokia N96 are now listed as receiving a compatible version of the N-Gage games client ahead of the older Nokia N73, Nokia N93i and Nokia N93. Let’s hope the latter three don’t drop off Nokia’s to-do list completely…. [mutter]

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A dozen Real World Tasks - the Nokia N95 8GB takes on all-comers

Spec-sheet comparisons are all very well, but how good are the Nokia N95 8GB, the Apple iPhone 3G and the HTC Diamond in real life? The AAS team has come up with a dozen things that we all like to do with our phones and Steve was then set to accomplishing all of them on all three devices. Can the sheer usability and likeability of the iPhone triumph over Nokia’s N95 design and S60? Is the HTC Touch Diamond a competitor here? Find out in the full usability feature.

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AAS Podcast - Interview with Alfie Dennen from Moblog.net

It’s another interview podcast, this time with Ewan speaking to Alfie Dennen from Moblog.net, which launched a new version of the popular platform late last week. We cover the history of the Moblog company, how to deal with upstart services such as Ovi(!) and what makes a service like this ’sticky’ in podcast #85.

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