ECS' A75F-A motherboard gets pictured

Although ECS didnt provide a picture with its announcement earlier today pertaining to its AMD socket FM1 boards, a picture of the A75F-A motherboard has now turned out via a German website. This is the first picture of a production AMD FM1 motherboard to appear and we cant say that were entirely sold on ECS design choices.

Its amazing how much more information you have at your fingertips once a picture is posted of a new motherboard and now we can do a much more detailed breakdown on whats coming. The most obvious part is the CPU socket with the 950-pin FM1 socket and this is also what seems to be the main reason for AMDs change to its CPU cooler retention mechanism. We saw the split design being demonstrated by ASRock at CeBIT earlier this year and it now makes a lot more sense, as the FM1 socket and the AMD3+ will be sharing the same CPU coolers.

The PWM design is really basic, to the extent that were almost surprised had we not seen AMDs in-house testing board already. Were looking at what appears to be a 4+1 phase design. The board has a simple 4-pin +12V connector rather than the now almost standard 8-pin one which together with the PWM design is suggesting that were looking at a fairly power frugal set of CPUs.

The board has a single x16 PCI Express slot, a single x4 PCI Express slot, two x1 PCI Express slots and three PCI Slots. Were not quite sure why ECS has placed them as it has, as if you want to use a dual-width slot in the x4 slot at the same time as using a dual-slot graphics card, then youre out of PCI Express expansion slots.

The board has as we mentioned in our previous news story, five SATA 6Gbps ports and there are also pin headers for what appears to be two USB 3.0 ports, six USB 2.0 ports and a serial and parallel port. Around the back were looking at a PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and of course an HDMI, DVI and D-sub connector. Theres also a clear CMOS button located here.

Despite being part of ECS Black Deluxe series the A75F-A only has solid capacitors located near power regulation circuitry and elsewhere on the board were looking at traditional electrolyte capacitors, somewhat disappointing on a higher-end board these days. Apparently there support for DDR3 memory up to 1866MHz, at least judging by the silk screening on the PCB. Overall we have mixed feelings about this very first AMD FM1 board, but wed expect better things to come.

Source: PC Games Hardware

Diablo III Breaks Multiple Sales Records

It may have taken them twelve years to make, but it appears that Activision Blizzard have hit the jackpot with Diablo III. According to the company, the long-anticipated game shattered release day records for PC sales, with more than 3.5 million copies sold within the first 24 hours. That totals to roughly $210 million in revenue, but that’s not the end of the story.

Including players that got the game as a tie-in for purchasing a World of Warcraft annual pass, the number of players jumps to 4.7 million worldwide on the first day. Continuing on, Diablo III has sold more than 6.3 million copies in its first week, bringing revenues to an absolutely staggering $378 million.

With numbers like these hammering their servers, it’s no wonder that Blizzard has been struggling with connection issues. Mike Morhaime, Blizzard’s founder and CEO, had this to say about the game’s first week: “Regarding today’s announcement, we recognize that setting a new launch record is a big achievement. However, we’re especially proud of the gameplay feedback we’ve received from players worldwide. We’re pleased that Diablo III has lived up to players’ high expectations, and we’re looking forward to welcoming more players into Sanctuary in the days ahead.”

The full press release can be read here: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?id=5967868

ELSA GLADIAC 880 Series

The well-known graphics boards manufacturer, ELSA Technology Inc. justannounced the new generation graphics boards – ELSA GLADIAC™ 880GTX and ELSAGLADIAC™ 880GTS, powered by lastest generation NVIDIA Geforce™ 8800 graphicsprocessing units.

World’s first DX 10 graphics board
The new generation graphics boards – ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 GTX and ELSA GLADIAC™880GTS fully support Microsoft® DirectX® 10 with Shader Model 4.0 to deliverunparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects. ELSA GLADIAC™880 series support several new technologies. For example, NVIDIA unifiedarchitecture dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex,physics, or pixel shading operations, delivering up to 2x the gaming performanceof prior generation graphics boards.

ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 series with NVIDIA Lumenex™ Engine which support 16xAnti-aliasing and 128-bit floating point HDR, deliver stunning image quality andfloating point accuracy at ultra-fast frame rates. One more special technologyis NVIDIA Quantum Effects™ which enables a new level of physics effects to besimulated and rendered on the GPU so that CPU is able to run the game engine andAI. In the new generation, such lots of new technologies are created fordelivering incredible image quality and improving overall gameplay toward users.ELSA would like to through ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 series bring you an outstandingtrue-to-life gaming experience.

Ultimate home theater experience on PCs
With NVIDIA PureVideo™ technology, ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 series have hardwareacceleration for decoding H.264, VC-1, WMV and MPEG-2 movies that can deliverlifelike images and up to six times the detail of standard DVD movies. Dedicatedvideo processor offloads the CPU and 3D engine of complex video tasks, andprovides a higher quality movie experience. Moreover, post-processing supportincluding advanced de-interlacing, scaling, noise reduction and edge enhancementprovides spectacular picture clarity and detail.

ELSA GLADIAC™ 880GTX and ELSA GLADIAC™ 880GTS provide world-class TV-outfunctionality via Composite, S-Video, Component, or DVI connections and supportHD resolutions up to 1080p depending on connection type and TV capability.Through these new technologies and advanced components, ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 seriescan let you experience enjoyment of home theater on your PC.

Dell 3007WFP Dirt Cheap In Canada Again

Dell Canada has announced another 12-days of deals, which Dell has now become famous for. Among the deals available is yet again the 3007WFP, Dell's mammoth 30" LCD. The deal requires a coupon code, which is available here and time is limited. The 3007WFP is going for $ 1499 CAD, and available to Canadians only. Start making those Canuck friends again!

Dual 3007WFP anyone?

Asus continues the TUF series with the Sabertooth Z77

As far as going after niche markets, Asus TUF series is one of those peculiar products that isnt necessarily selling towards its intended target market, nor does the product range really fit in as it sits on its own as a side-line to many of Asus other board ranges. The latest addition is the Sabertooth Z77 which builds on previous TUF boards and then adds a few features of its own.

As you can see, the Sabertooth Z77 features Asus unique Thermal armor, a plastic shield that encases the entire board, although this time around Asus has made a few tweaks to the design. For one the company has added a pair of 50mm fans this time around, one just below the CPU socket and one as part of the rear I/O that draws in cool air from outside the chassis to help cool the MOSFETs. The other addition is dust protection covers for all of the PCI Express slots as well as for two memory slots and some of the pin headers. These are simple plastic covers that prevent buildup of dust in the slots over time.

The general board design is fairly conservative with two x16 PCI Express 3.0 slots in dual x8 mode, one x16 PCI Express 2.0 slot which is operating in x4 mode and three x1 PCI Express 2.0 slots. You also get the standard four SATA 3Gbps ports and two SATA 6Gbps from the Intel chipset as well as a pair of additional SATA 6Gbps ports. The board also has a USB 3.0 header for two ports and what should be headers for an additional six USB 3.0 ports.

Around the back were looking at four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out, a DisplayPort and HDMI connector and a CMOS reset button. The rear fan is recessed behind the CMOS reset button, but even so it prevents any additional rear ports to be fitted to the board. If you feel the extra cost for a five year warranty is worth it, then maybe this is the board youve been waiting for, but otherwise wed say other models from Asus offer more in terms of features for what has at least in the past been a lower cost.

An unlikely home for Windows 8 Return of the budget PC

During the holiday shopping weekend, low-end budget PCs running Windows 8 were all the rage at shopping chain Walmart. HP, Gateway, and Toshiba have all teetered recently due to the decline of the desktop and rise of mobile computing. All three companies started to return to form this weekend though, as their low cost Windows 8 running notebooks were a hit.

The notebooks in question ran from $248 - $328, which pitted them in direct competition with netbooks/Ultrabooks and were only a little more expensive than your average tablet computer. Of course, when using a tablet with a keyboard a dock is usually your best choice, so the notebook offerings worked out cheaper than a $200 tablet + $100-$150 dock. The notebooks had average 2GB memory, 300GB HDD, and 1.3GHz dual-core AMD processors. Some models like the Toshiba Satellite C855D were marked from their usual price for more than $300.

While the tablet boom certainly is booming, it still seems some sensible shoppers just want a regular device to do chores on and write the occasional word. Touch screen technology is a great marketing device, but in reality fails to be practical for anything more than a plaything. As computing takes up more of our lives, a media-consuming device like a tablet just doesn’t cut it in some areas.

Either way its good news for Microsoft, whose latest operating system Windows 8 runs on both notebooks and tablets, and is a cunning strategy by the Redmond developer to ensure they get a cut of whatever trend takes hold over the next few years.

It’s not all pie in the sky for Microsoft, as the Microsoft Surface saw far less popularity than the Apple iPad. Fortune columnist Philip Elmer-Dewitt commented that Microsoft’s Store saw 47% less foot traffic than Apple at one particular mall. Most of the items purchased at the Microsoft Store were also Xbox360 games, not Surface tablets.

While official numbers have yet to be released, eye-witness accounts don’t exactly convey a sense of popularity for Microsoft’s tablet that previous iPad launches have had. Perhaps the notebook isn’t dead after all.

Source: geekwire