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We have just published our review of the Abit AX78. This is their budget AM2+ motherboard, which does fully support Phenom processors and Crossfire X. For just around $90, it performs pretty well, and overclocks.. well, read for yourself ;)
The major issue with the AX78 is that it uses what is essentially a flawed Southbridge chipset to begin with. The years-old ATI SB600 has always had problems with USB and SATA performance, and AHCI is essentially broken. Once you get past that though, it’s a pretty good effort by Universal Abit.
Abit AX78 Review
Filed under: PC Hardware
Tags: Abit, HCW, Motherboards
If you’d bought a Playstation 3 in Hong Kong last week, you would have picked a 40gb model up for the MSRP of $2680 HKD ($348 USD) in any store (as long as you bought a game to go with it - one of the many things that makes shopping in Hong Kong unique).
However, starting this week, the official MSRP is $2880 HKD. That is a blatant price increase - no bundles, no hardware revisions, nothing. The same black, silver, or white PS3 with a 40GB hard drive and nothing else. That price increase is about $25 USD.
Update: The price also went up in Singapore; MSRP is now $599 Singapore dollars, while it was $559 last week, an increase of over $30 USD (unlike HKD, Singapore’s dollar is not tacked to the US dollar’s rate). I imagine the price also went up in Taiwan, although their regional site doesn’t list the MSRP for the 40GB model, only the discontinued ones.
In a time where consoles are dropping in price in various regions (such as the $100 USD price drop of the XBOX 360 in Canada a while back) it’s pretty frustrating to see the price going UP in other regions, just in time for the PS3 to really get its best exclusives. There’s no telling whether other regions such as North America or even Japan will receive a similar increase, but perhaps it’s a sign of things to come. 2008 is looking to be “The Year of the PS3″, especially with the HD format war being won.
It should be noted that even with this price increase, the PS3 is still a good $25 cheaper in Hong Kong than the MSRP in North America. In Singapore, it’s about $44 more than in USA, so this recent price increase made it even more expensive, when it was close to par recently. You can find all the original launch prices for various PS3 SKUs on this page at Wikipedia.
Filed under: PC Gaming, Video Game Hardware
Tags: Playstation 3, shopping, Sony
I spotted this on Digg this morning. If you were wondering just how much of a case the lunatics like… I dare not say his name… we’ll call him “Jack”… have against video games, a user on Digg has put it in nice chart form. Using data from the US Department of Justice, the chart graphs the rate violent crime trends over the past 30 years or so. Yup, about since videogames were invented. Check it out:
Filed under: Video Games
It all started a few weeks ago when Asus claimed to have full DirectSound 3D support on their Xonar DX and D2X soundcards, including EAX 5. Creative immediately rebutted, saying that NOBODY can do true EAX 5 (or in fact anything over EAX 2, which dates back to Soundblaster Live) except them.
However, Asus stuck by their guns, and with a combination of driver optimizations and software tweaks, they were able to manage DirectSound 3D in Vista (something Creative offers on their X-Fi cards using software that converts D3D calls to OpenAL, which still has access to hardware functions on soundcards) as well as EAX 5, using the CPU to process the audio.
Tech Report have the first review of this card, and the results are impressive. At just $90 or so, there really is no reason to get an X-Fi over a Xonar.
I have been working on a “X-Fi in Vista” article for a while (the software isn’t easy to use, so it’s been a long time coming), and I can see why Tech Report was so impressed. I’ll try to get a hold of one of these to do a full review of our own. In the mean time, go ahead and read TR’s review, knowing that they are the 2nd best hardware review site on the net ;)
Filed under: PC Hardware
Tags: asus, creative, soundcards
When Sony’s DualShock 3 controller hits shelves next week, it will be sitting alongside the old SixAxis controllers. But not for long. MTV’s Multiplayer Blog reported that as of now, Sony is no longer manufacturing the SixAxis controller. The controller that Sony insisted was the “next generation of controllers” is now being replaced by… rumble. Well to be fair, motion-controls are still there, but the addition of what Sony was calling ‘old technology’ is pretty funny. In fact, Level Up has a collection of quotes from Sony execs that seemed completely obtuse at first, but are now just beyond hilarious.
Filed under: Video Game Hardware
Tags: Playstation 3, Sony
The default installation of Windows Vista doesn’t support Canon’s RAW codec - CR2. Thankfully, Canon does offer a CR2 codec for Vista. Unfortunately, it only supports the 32-bit flavour of the OS.
For a 64-bit version, we have to rely on a third-party provider. Ardfry Imaging have notified us that they have a CR2 codec for 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and XP. They are in beta right now, and it looks like it will eventually be a retail product. However, if you are using a 64-bit OS and are frustrated by not being able to preview your RAW images, this looks to be the only solution for now! Canon is showing no sign of ever making 64-bit drivers.
Filed under: Consumer Electronics, PC Software
Tags: 64 bit, digital cameras, windows
Sometimes, justice does exist.
This time it took place a few weeks ago, in front of a GameStop store in Texas about 2 hours before the official midnight launch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
ScrewAttack was there, filming a webcast where they attempted to publicly auction their copy of Brawl. They had hoped to raise some money for their friend, who has recently fallen ill.
All was going well, when some guy - who ScrewAttack described as “right on par with the Duck Hunt Dog” started harassing them, saying that he didn’t want to be filmed. Their response was a lot calmer than mine would have been; they simply tried to convince him that if he didn’t want to be on camera, that he should just walk away. Instead, he took swings at the cameraman, I guess forgetting that he was on camera.
Eventually, he got so worked up that he decided to call the police (the host, Stuttering Craig, assissted him by giving the address of the GameStop). The police arrived, got both sides of the story, and (after, I assume, seeing footage from the video) arrested the “Duck Hunt Dog”! Justice is SERVED~!
Filed under: Video Games
Tags: Nintendo, ScrewAttack, Video
