The Official System Requirements for Codemasters “Dirt 3″ have been revealed on Steam. It was already confirmed that the game would feature DirectX 11 Support but a Core i7 CPU is listed in the Recommended System Specs which would make it hard for some PC users to run the game on max detail. The Recommended GPU support is the AMD’s latest HD 6000 Series. The previous Dirt 2 featured marvelous graphics and we can expect the same from Dirt 3. You can check out the requirements below:

Minimum:

• OS: Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or Windows
• Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 2.8GHz, Intel Pentium® D 2.8Ghz
• Memory: 2GB
• Hard Disk Space: 15GB
• Video Card: AMD Radeon™ HD 2000 256MB, NVIDIA® GeForce® 8000 Series 256MB
• DirectX®: DirectX® 9
• Sound: DirectX® compatible soundcard

Recommended:

Enhanced for DirectX 11

• • OS: Windows Vista® or Windows® 7
  • Processor:AMD Phenom™ II or Intel® Core™ i7
  • Memory: 3GB
  • Hard Disk Space: 15GB
  • Video Card: AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series
  • DirectX®: DirectX® 11
  • Sound: DirectX® compatible soundcard

The game is set for launch on April 24th 2011 on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. You can Pre-Order it right now on Steam as its available for 10% off at a price of 44.99$ here.

Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread ROM Update has been leaked and now available to download. The ROM Update is available for Samsung Galaxy ACE (S5830) users, It’s good to see the Galaxy ACE users getting the update much sooner than the Galaxy S users. You can check out the pic below which shows a Samsung Galaxy ACE running on Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread:

The Build version of the ROM is S5830XXKP8 which is considered for the European model of S5830 (Samsung Galaxy ACE), Other than that the ROM has been considered genuine by SamFirmware. You can download it from here.

Source

Microsoft’s latest and greatest has only been around for less than a year and already it has generated favorable response from critics and users alike. The chart above depicts manufacture share using Windows Phone 7. No surprises there. HTC clearly leads the pack with a plethora of WP7 devices. Samsung is second with only one phone in USA and one in Europe ( Focus and Omnia 7).

The graph below shows share by device model with HD7 enjoying a massive 30% share.

Source: NickHarris

Tons of new info of Bioware’s upcoming RPG “Mass Effect 3″ have been revealed which details new characters, locations and plot of the game. We already posted detailed info of the new game along with two new exclusive screenshots here. The details are posted below:

Characters:

The new characters list show new confirmed squad mates as below:

-Tali: Has unfinished business with Shepard.
-Jack: Had a character redesign. Was a popular romance option.

Confirmed Part of Squad:
-Liara
-Garrus
-Kaiden/Ashley (Has achieved Spectre status)
-James Sanders

Present:
-Admiral Anderson
-EDI
-Joker
-The Illusive Man
-Mordin (The plot dictates that he stays close to Shepard)
-Legion
(And, from Game Informer earlier, Wrex)

Locations:

Confirmed Locations:

-Salarian Homeworld
-Quarian Homeworld Rannoch (The Geth Occupied One)
-Mars (A human-mining operation)
-A human mega city that formed when Vancouver and Seattle merged.
Add: That’s where you’ll spend your time on Earth. So not London or New York like previously mentioned. Describes the planet: ‘It’s curved, futuristic buildings bathe in beautiful light as the sea laps into the waterfront and docks.’ They also saw the aftermath in which the Reapers decimate it.

Additional Details- Combat and Plot Info

Heavy Melee Attacks

-Class based one hit kill melee move.
-There is a new charged-up melee attack where Shepard uses his Omni-Tool to inflicting a big burning hit.

Additional Details:

-Casey Hudson says, the game will have some epic moments, as well as ‘smaller, more personal moments’ that exceeds the previous 2 games. The player will start realising things from Shepard’s personal life. He will have to deal with the consequences of the sacrifices he’s had to make.
-Obvious: Your choices will all have an impact in ME 3 such as the genophage, the collector base, your LI choices etc.
-New enemy type: The Cannibal. Part Batarian, part Human and part Reaper. Consumes other enemies in combat to gain strength.
-The Turret that Engineers can use won’t kill enemies, but distract them.
-Gunfights are quicker and more deadly (confirmation).
-Visually it’s tapping the heels of games such as Killzone 3 and Crysis 2, with 6 months development time left.
-The Rachni decision may haunt you in ME 3.
-Character customisation will be as extensive as ever.
-The action, rather than the all-linear affair of ME 2, will be more along the lines of Uncharted.
-New Cerberus troops are called Phantoms and Assassins.
-Shepard faces full-on bosses in the game’s story. Some are really huge. One part, you have to lure a Reaper up to a Thresher Maw so they can duke it out.
-”Many of the core story levels are built around the largest, most dramatic moments in the galaxy.”
-The Mass Effect series has sold over 7 million copies.

Source

EVGA has revealed its new P67 motherboards lineup which will support the Current Gen LGA 1155 Compatible Sandy Bridge Processors from Intel. The motherboards are built with high end components which deliver outstanding performance out of your Core i5 and Core i7 based Sandy Bridge Processors. The boards are targeted towards the Hardware Enthusiasts and Die Hard PC Gamers as they allow top of the line overclocking performance.

The lineup includes the following Motherboards:

• EVGA P67 FTW w/ EVGauge and ECP V4 – 279.99$
• EVGA P67 FTW – 229.99$
• EVGA P67 SLI – 199.99$

All of the motherboards come equipped with the latest SATA III/6G and USB 3.0 connectors which allow for high performance computing. The FTW Edition boards come with 6 PCI-e Ports while the P67 SLI comes with Tri PCI-e Ports and three Mini Pci-e Ports. All the boards come with Dual Ethernet connectors and Multiple USB 2.0/3.0 ports in the rear.

“With the EVGA P67 SLI, EVGA further proves its dedication to providing exactly what the performance user demands,” said Bob Klase, VP of Sales at EVGA. “This 2nd generation Intel® architecture offers faster and smarter performance!”

“We are pleased that EVGA continues to deliver innovative solutions supporting the performance enthusiast & gaming PC segments,” said Steve R. Peterson, director of desktop chipset & strategic marketing at Intel Corporation. “With their new Intel® P67 chipset based motherboards, featuring support for Intel’s new 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ microprocessors, including multi-GPU support, this platform will deliver great performance, flexibility and value to those overclockers, gamers & media enthusiasts that demand blazing speed & uncommon responsiveness from their desktop PC.”

One of the great features of the board is that they come with Right angled 24-Pin connectors for better cable management and easier routing of the power cables Along with a Onboard Compact Flash Port for storage needs.

Following are the key features of the motherboards:

Bonus Storage (P67 FTW)

• Integrated Flash Storage
  Use as storage, swap file, anything!
• 12 Phase PWM (P67 FTW)
  Pulse Width Modulator
  Cleanest possible variable power switching
• EVGA Vdroop Control
  What you see is what you get
  Set your voltage in the BIOS and this is what you will get under load booted in your OS
• EVGA Dummy OC
  Overclock at the touch of a button
  Automatically overclock your system with one simple setting in the BIOS
• EVGA E-LEET Tuning Utility
  Overclock your motherboard from inside your OS
  Use E-LEET to test your OC settings without having to constantly restart into your BIOS
• EVGA EZ Voltages read points
  Simple voltage points
  Easily read voltage levels using a voltmeter with several dedicated read points
• Onboard Clear CMOS, Power and Reset Buttons
  System essentials at the touch of a button
  Troubleshooting and bench booting are simple with these controls
• 300% More Socket Gold + Low ESR/ESL Film Cap (P67 FTW)
  Socket bling
  The highest quality materials means you will get the absolute cleanest power to the CPU
• Onboard CPU Temp Monitor
  Monitor your temps quickly and easily
  Accurately and instantly see your CPU temperature once your system has completed POST without any other software.
• Passive Chipset Heatsink
  No fans: lower noise and longer lifespan
  More than enough cooling wattage to keep those chips well within specs
• Triple BIOS Support (P67 FTW)
  Backup, compare and more!
  No matter what you do to one BIOS, you will always have two more backups instantly available
• Solid State Capacitors
  Higher quality, longer lifespan
  These high quality 100% solid state capacitors will just keep going and going
• EVGA ECP Support
  External debugging
  You never again have to open your case to see your debug code, disable PCIe jumpers and overclocking options too
• PCIe Disable Jumpers (P67 FTW)
  Instantly troubleshoot
  Test a multi-card system instantly and water cooling systems without having to disassemble the loop

Specs and Prices can be seen from the links (images) given below:

Source

IGN just posted tons of new details of Nintendo’s Upcoming Project Cafe (Wii HD) which include system’s estimated pricing, release, console design, processing architecture, and name. Nintendo’s going to name the new console “Stream”, The name isn’t final yet and could be called something else on release.

The pricing estimates of the console show that it would range in between $350 and $400 price depending on manufacturing costs and would be shipped from Taiwanese manufacturer, Foxconn. Shipping will take place in October which makes the possibility of retail availability by Mid- October/November. Nintendo can also opt to ship it by Early 2012 by when it would have seized a larger supply of the console, Also gaining more time for software and game development.

The technical specs of the console have also been revealed which show that it would use a revised version of AMD’s R700 GPU architecture instead of AMD’s Fusion chip as rumored earlier. The new graphics processor would out perform PS3′s Nvidia 7800GTX GPU. The CPU would be custom-built triple-core IBM PowerPC processor like the Xbox but would come with faster clock speeds. The console will be able to support 1080P output and early reports show that 3D Stereoscopic support would also be available.

The console will measure similar to a Xbox 360 and will look like a mordernized version of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The console will use controllers with embedded touch screens for easier navigation.

You can check out more details on the IGN link here.

I’m sure many of you, like me, thought Sony Ericsson has laid the Walkman brand to rest for good. Well it looks like it’s going to be resurrected with the new W8 Walkman Android phone. For all intents and purposes this is basically a re-branded X8. It comes with a 3.0 inch LCD screen, 3.2MP camera and just when you thought Sony Ericsson has learnt a hard earned lesson with the X10, they release a phone with Android 2.1 aka Eclair; so no flash for Walkman lovers. It also comes bundled with a stereo headset which if the pictures are to be believed should be quite mediocre. So it’s essentially a music oriented phone with no focus being given to music. Someone remind me why the Walkman brand died in the first place?

The phone will be available in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam from Q2 2011 in three different colours (Azur, Metallic Red and the iconic Walkman Orange).

Source: Xperia Blog

Codenames of AMD’s upcoming Southern Island based HD 7000 series have been leaked today through a changelog of the HWiNFO32 v3.73 tool. The Codenames are Tahiti, New Zealand, Thames and Lombok. The new Radeon based cards will be built on a 28nm Process which will allow more room to include streaming units.

Thames as we already posted is a Lower end HD 7000 series chip built on the 28Nm process and comes with a 128-bit wide memory interface. Other than that Mobility Radeon 7000 series were also leaked which you can check out here.

The cards are expected to go in mass production by May and will be available by Q3 2011. Lower end models as posted in the roadmap will be released by Q4 2011.

Source

Another Slide has been leaked by donanimhaber.com which shows that the Intel’s Upcoming LGA 2011 Platform (X79) won’t consist of 8 Core CPU’s. A slide leaked a few hours ago detailed that the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E Lineup would consist of Fully/Limited Unlocked variants of 6 and 4 Core Processors.

The Sandy Bridge-E (Codenamed – Waimea Bay) will compete against the AMD’s Bulldozer based Zambzei Platform which consits of 4, 6 and 8 Core Processors. Intel is also releasing a 6 Core Extreme Edition Sandy Bridge-E CPU with unlocked multiplier and a L3 cache of 15Mb, Speed – 3.33Ghz.

The leaked Slide also details the key features of the upcoming platform:

Key Features:

• 32Nm Sandy Bridge Architecture
• 6 and 4 Core Processors
• Large Intel Smart Cache
• Integrated PCI-e I/O to control discrete graphics
• Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology
• Intel Hyper Threading Technology
• Advanced Encryption Standard Acceleration
• Intel Advanced Vector Extensions

Socket:

• LGA 2011 Socket

Power:

• 130W TDP

Chipset Compatibility:

• Patsburg chipset

More Info on Sandy Bridge Processors here.

Source

Another Intel roadmap has been leaked which reveals Intel’s upcoming Sandy Bridge-E Processors. The new Sandy Bridge chips will make use of the LGA 2011 socket featured in its X79 chip based motherboards. The lineup consists of two CPU types with one being “Fully Unlocked” for overclocking and the other “Limited Unlocked” with little or no overclocking potential.

First up is a 6 Core based chip which comes with a 15Mb L3 Cache, 3.33 Ghz Clock speed and a fully unlocked BClk multiplier with vast room for overclocking. The chip will fall under the Extreme Edition CPU badge and would be priced around 1000$ which is the same as the other Extreme Edition processors. A Premium chip based on 6 Cores is also available which comes at a 100mhz less clocks speed of 3.2Ghz and 12Mb L3 Cache (Overclocking potential is same). This chip is likely to fall under 600$ price range.

The late processors are locked which means they offer limited overclocking headroom. However the come with high stock speeds ranging from 3.60Ghz and being a Quad Core chip with 10Mb of L3 Cache. The chips also feature quad-channel DDR3 integrated memory controllers (IMCs) and integrated 32-lane PCI-Express 2.0 hubs which are able to support up to four graphics cards without the need of external bridge chips.

Here’s the complete list of CPU’s included in the leaked roadmap:

• New non-XE Core i7 980 “Gulftown” LGA1366 six-core chip clocked at 3.33 GHz, with 12 MB L3 cache, 6.4 GT/s QPI, very soon, in Q2 2011
• Core i7 995X Extreme Edition in Q3 2011
• Non-XE Core i7 990 around the same time as 995X
• New Core i7 >2600K, new LGA1155 chip faster than 2600K in Q3
• Core i7 970 could get more affordable in Q3

A huge Intel Roadmap detailing “Sandy Bridge-E”, “Ivy Bridge and More was also leaked a few weeks ago which you can check out here.

Source