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U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 9 percent in August to $994.8 million, boosted by the popularity of the newly released “Madden NFL 09.” Americans bought $384.6 million in video game hardware, up 3 percent from a year ago, lead by sales of the handheld Nintendo DS, which sold 518,300 units, according to data from market researcher NPD Group.

Even amid the economic downturn, the video game industry has been faring well. This is in part because games cost about the same as they did a couple of decades ago, even as the prices of other consumer goods have increased sharply. In 1993, for example, Nintendo charged $60 for a game cartridge for its Super Nintendo Entertainment System today its “Mario Kart Wii” is available for $50.

First-tier notebook maker Quanta Computer has said netbook shipments were the main reason for its fall in revenues performance in August this year.
Looks like razor sharp margins on Netbooks are causing companies to not profit as much as they do off laptops for example.

Although Quanta's overall notebook shipments including netbooks in August reached 3.1 million units, higher than the 2.9 million units shipped during the same month in the previous year, revenues saw a sharp drop of around 18.5% on year. As for September, in addition to increasing Acer Aspire one netbook shipments, netbooks from Sony and Lenovo are also expected to start shipping. Although Quanta expects these orders to bring up its notebook shipments further, the company is conservative about its revenues performance during the month.

Find reviews from around the web by visiting our forums, including Gigabyte EP45-DS3R Review @ OCC!

“Overclocking this board felt exactly the same as overclocking the Gigabyte EP-45 Extreme. The only difference is that the multiplier had to be 6 on this DS3R whereas on the Extreme I could take it to 7. I was able to obtain a front side bus of 500MHz, which is quite good. I definitely could have gone further but the memory was holding me back. As much as I fought, I wasn't able to get anything higher than 500 x 6. I tinkered with the memory until it would finally pass MemTest and Prime 95 in Windows. Overall, it was easy to overclock but the memory was holding the motherboard back.”

Find reviews from around the web by visiting our forums, including Gigabyte EP45-DS3R Review @ OCC!

“Overclocking this board felt exactly the same as overclocking the Gigabyte EP-45 Extreme. The only difference is that the multiplier had to be 6 on this DS3R whereas on the Extreme I could take it to 7. I was able to obtain a front side bus of 500MHz, which is quite good. I definitely could have gone further but the memory was holding me back. As much as I fought, I wasn't able to get anything higher than 500 x 6. I tinkered with the memory until it would finally pass MemTest and Prime 95 in Windows. Overall, it was easy to overclock but the memory was holding the motherboard back.”

Guest writer Nick Anstee is pleasantly surprised by the audio quality from Nokia’s latest Bluetooth accessory - the pair of MD-7W speakers. Here’s his full review. We hope you’re enjoying seeing Nick’s writings - if you have acquired something interesting that you’d like to vent about in a formal review, do get in touch!

The Tritton AX Micro TRI-BH200 breaks the mold of traditional bluetooth earsets by providing innovative features in a discrete stylish design. The AX Micro incorporates a new design with flexible finger grips that rest on the in-curve rim of the ear. With 150 hours of standy battery life and 5 hours of dedicated talk time will this Bluetooth headset be enough to impress us?

Apple today introduced the new fourth generation iPod

MSI today unveils non-reference R4850-T2D512 graphics card with Quad Pipe
thermal design.
In order to allow the -T2D 512 Quad Pipe graphics card to provide better
stability and overclocking performance at full speed, MSI R&D team added a large
heatsink in the graphics memory and power module to enhance the cooling
performance. So that the overall cooling efficiency will substantially increase
by 107%, enabling gamers to enjoy the ultimate gaming experience of R4850-T2E512
Quad Pipe graphics card.