IXtreme 1.5 unlocks your Xbox 360 drive
We love a good hacker vs. hardware battle, and while Microsoft has thus far done a reasonably good job of keeping miscreants from diddling with the details of the Xbox 360′s firmware, applying patches and dropping ban hammers on those who don’t comply, as of this morning it seems to be losing the arms race. Team Jungle has released version 1.5 of its IXtreme firmware, allowing for (relatively) easy cracking and unlocking of Xbox 360 consoles containing LiteOn, BenQ, and Samsung DVD drives (i.e. the majority of them). That leaves only Hitachi owners out in the cold, but if that’s you don’t fret: your version is just a few weeks away. Happy homebrewing! Read
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NVIDIA reportedly urging customers to buy new problem-free GPUs
NVIDIA has yet to step in and confirm this publicly, but a purported leaked memo from the outfit has been posted over at VR-Zone. What’s it say, you ask? Only that the company “strongly recommends that customers transition to the latest revision of the NB8E-SET GPUs as soon as possible.” Said revision taps a new Hitachi underfill packaging material that “improves product quality and enhances operating life by improved thermal cycling reliability.” If you’ll recall, certain PC vendors such as Dell issued their own firmware updates to combat the weak packaging set in the chip maker’s faulty GPUs earlier this year, but it appears that NVIDIA’s solution is to just let bygones be bygones and get on with the new and improved. Read
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Dell’s XPS 730x H2C Core i7 gaming PC benchmarked and tested
If you thought the original XPS 730 H2C was boss, get a load of this. The incredibly diligent benchmarkers over at HotHardware have taken the Core i7-powered XPS 730x H2C under their wings for a fortnight of testing, and they’ve got a baker’s dozen worth of review pages to display their findings. We can’t even begin to cover the array of graphs, bar charts and triple-digit FPS numbers here, but we can tell you that critics were duly impressed with how well the Core i7 performance compared to older Core 2-based offerings. Gaming performance was predictably “fantastic,” and even the single GeForce GTX 280 that it was packin’ held its own under pressure. All in all, this fanciful machine was deemed “a worthy update to what [reviewers] thought was the best XPS 700 series system to date,” and if you’ve got the coin, you’ll probably be incredibly pleased with what it delivers. Dive deep (and we mean deep) in the read link.
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NVIDIA delivers 1.5GB QuadroFX 4800 workstation graphics card
NVIDIA‘s Quadro FX 4800 might not be nearly the beast that the 5800 is, but it’ll only run you an arm and three-quarters of a leg versus every limb you’ve got. The GPU gurus over at HotHardware were able to grab hold of the 1.5GB monster, complete with a GT200 graphics processor and a sticker price around half of that shown on the aforesaid 5800 ($3,499). The board features a 602MHz GPU clock speed, 192 stream processors, an 800MHz GDDR3 clock speed, 384-bit memory controller and a PCI Express 2.0 x16 connector. So, how does the $1,999 workhorse stack up? Hit the read link for the full report, but the gist of it is this: it’s a stellar piece, but ATI’s FirePro V8700 was found to provide “similar performance (and in some cases, more) with a roughly 25% lower price.” Choices, choices. Read
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 gets official
Read – HotHardware, “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Specifications Unveiled”
Read – bit-tech.net, “First Look: Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 295 graphics card”
Read – Guru 3D, “GeForce GTX 295 Preview”
Read – PC Perspective, “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Preview – Performance King Returns”
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New Sony gaming handheld in 2010/2011
According to Eurogamer, sources close to Sony say that sometime in the future, a new PlayStation Portable will be released. While there’s been no official word, the game site is reporting that there could be an update to the current PSP (which might be called the PSP 4000), and in the not-too-distant future (2010 or 2011), Sony will introduce a completely new model, confusingly dubbed the “PSP2.” David Reeves, SCEE president has recently been quoted as making vague, suspicious statements such as “there are currently no plans for a PSP2,” and “I go to Tokyo quite a lot and no one has referred to it – I think they have their hands full at the moment.” Nice try Reeves, but If you keep up these kinds of thinly veiled allusions to a new system, we suspect it’s only a matter of years till this cat’s out of the bag. Read
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Apple: "the iPhone is a gaming console"
According to Engadget’s sources, at an iPhone event held today, John Geleynse (AKA Director of Technology Evangelism at Apple) made some statements regarding the iPhone platform that should seriously raise a few eyebrows. During an ADC “iPhone Tech Talk” in San Jose, Geleynse apparently waxed excited about the potential for the handheld as a viable threat to the DS (and the PSP by proxy), calling the iPhone a “gaming console” and claiming that “it’s not a phone, it’s a console experience.” Pretty bold talk about a device that has yet to really prove its gaming mettle, but nothing new from the Apple camp as far as we’re concerned. Considering these comments alongside those from a recent interview in which Greg Joswiak compared the touch to the DS, it seems clear that the company is making a noticeable effort to push this angle. Adding some fuel to that fire is PR that just went out announcing a series of EA “sneak peek” events at Apple Stores around the US. In their words:
Throughout the month of December Apple Stores in New York, LA, San Francisco and Chicago will host special “EA Games Sneak Peek” events where Electronic Arts will discuss why the iPod touch and iPhone are amazing platforms for mobile gaming…
While there’s no question the iPhone and touch have made inroads when it comes to gaming, it still isn’t clear that there’s going to be anything beyond a casual interest for these devices. Then again, if the Wii’s success has proven anything, it’s that there’s plenty of cash in casual if you can make it appealing enough. And you know how Apple feels about appealing products and money.
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Twin-GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX295 expected at CES
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