OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and flash-based storage as an alternative to hard disk drives (HDDs), today unveiled the OCZ Onyx SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive (SSD) Series, an ultra-affordable MultiLevel Cell (MLC)-based solid state storage solution designed for consumers looking to take advantage of flash-based storage technology. Offering a faster and more durable alternative to traditional hard drives in a cost-efficient SSD, the Onyx delivers reliable performance without the high price normally associated with SSD drives.

"As new technologies become available, OCZ continues to expand both our enterprise and consumer SSD lines, and one of our goals is to make SSDs more affordable to end-users. Our new Onyx series SSD does exactly that and is a perfect solution for netbooks, laptops, or home desktop PCs," commented Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. "Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the new OCZ Onyx SSD delivers the speed and reliability of solid state storage to mainstream consumers at an aggressive price point that makes the technology more accessible to customers who want to take advantage of all the benefits of the SSDs without incurring the high cost normally associated with the solution."

Buffalo Technology released its newest line of portable hard drives, the HD-PVRU2 series. While the drive looks like almost any other portable hard drive from Buffalo, for a change it has a rugged matte finish. The HD-PVRU2 comes in capacities of 320 GB and 500 GB. It measures 81 (W) x 16 (H) x 130 (D) mm, and weighs 190 g. It draws power from, and connects to the system using USB 2.0 interface. A proprietary Turbo USB technology aims to squeeze the most out of USB 2.0, with some higher transfer speeds. The bundled ecoManager software spins down the drive when idle. The 320GB and 500GB models will be priced at $100 and $150, respectively, in Japan.



Source: TechConnect Magazine

Other World Computing, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today its OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini is the first 2.5" 1TB "Quad Interface" bus powered portable storage solution on the market and available for immediate ordering with 10 models priced from $119.99. Featuring a "Quad Interface" of FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0, and eSATA interface connectivity for data transfer speeds up to 300MB/s, the fanless Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini delivers high performance storage/backup to Mac or PC users in a portable, brushed aluminum, no AC adapter required Plug and Play footprint.



In addition to the new 1TB model, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini is available in nine other "Quad Interface" models offering a variety of speed, capacity, and drive type options:

ASUS announced the launch of the ASUS Cine5 PC speaker which provides accurate 5-channel surround sound in personalized spaces such as study rooms. With its all-in-one design, the Cine5 delivers realistic and dynamic surround sound to satisfy consummate gamers and personal entertainment users. To deliver exceptionally full sound from a compact form factor, ASUS drew on its expertise in high-performance audio cards during the development.

The Cine5 is the first PC speaker in the world to offer leading surround sound presence with the new "Embracing Sound Theatre HD" technology. This patented technology leverages on a discrete 5-channel output to deliver full audio surround, which users can experience whenever they are directly in front of the speaker. In a First Player Shooter game, the Cine5 provides precise sound location that improves shooting accuracy and heightens gaming thrills. The Cine5 also revives 5-channel audio from any down-mixed 2-channel source-for a high-fidelity, multi-channel sound during PC gaming or movie sessions.

Czech technology website PCTuning confirmed a few details about NVIDIA's upcoming performance graphics accelerator, the GeForce GTX 470. It was found out that a beta driver by NVIDIA, GeForce 196.78 supports GeForce 400 series accelerators, and was able run a qualification sample of GeForce GTX 470. The card was using A3 revision GF100 silicon. The driver's System Information dialog revealed that the card indeed has 448 CUDA cores (SIMD units). Further, it has 1280 MB of memory, and a 320-bit wide memory interface. NVIDIA also changed the way it represents memory clock speeds. Since it is using GDDR5 memory, while the memory has an actual clock speed of 1000 MHz, the data rate (DDR speed) is represented first, as 2000 MHz, and "effective speed" next, which is 4000 MHz.

Given these speeds, at 1000 MHz GDDR5, the GPU has a memory bandwidth of 160 GB/s. Without compromise on looks and quality, NVIDIA kept the cooler design basic. It has a matte finish. Display outputs include two DVI-D, and one mini HDMI. It supports NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround (a technology competitive to ATI Eyefinity, to span a display head across multiple physical displays), just that NVIDIA requires at least two accelerators in SLI to use it. NVIDIA's GeForce 400 series graphics accelerators will be launched on the 26th of this month.



Source: PCTuning

For those with the passion to discover, imagine and create the future, "on-the-go" access to workstation-class computing provides the freedom to work wherever inspiration strikes. This passion to create is why Dell continues to push the boundaries of workstation performance and mobility with the announcement today of the world's most powerful 15.6-inch mobile workstation¹-the Dell Precision M4500.

The Dell Precision M4500 joins Dell's family of mobile workstations, which includes the world's most powerful 17 inch mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M6500. The new mobile workstation is designed to liberate creative professionals, designers, animators, engineers and research scientists from their desks. The M4500 also supports the missions of defense customers who require mobile workstation performance and security, including authentication and data encryption, when in the field.

The controversy surrounding Newegg's shipment of counterfeit Intel Core i7 920 processors to some customers has finally met its logical conclusion, with Newegg disposing facts and making great headway in resolving the issue with affected customers. In a statement to HardOCP.com, Newegg said that it is conducting a thorough investigation in collaboration with Intel and law-enforcement agencies, to get to the bottom of how counterfeit merchandise could get into its supply chain.

Another major revelation here is that Newegg named IPEX as the supplier behind the merchandise, and not another supplier called D&H Distributing, which the media was fairly confident in alleging for this controversy. The said company earlier issued cease and desist orders to those media sources for misinformation and wrongfully dragging it into the issue.

The supplier, IPEX, had initially told Newegg that it had accidentally shipped "demo boxes", a keyword Newegg adopted in its initial press statement and communications to affected customers. In course of time, it was found out that these so-called demo boxes indeed were counterfeits. Newegg has terminated its business relations with IPEX. Sections of the media which named D&H Distributing in the controversy tendered their apologies.

Source: HardOCP.com

Silicon Power, one of the world's leading flash memory manufacturers announced today (3/9) the "Metal Aesthetic" Touch 830. The design of Touch 830 inherits Silicon Power's Touch series good looks, class and ultra thin design. However, the new Touch 830 has been given an extra touch of Northern European flavor. Combining art and technology, its design features icy-silver casing, natural looks and simplicity, it complies with Europe designer's conception of "A Mature Design is the Perfection Design". The simplicity and humble design of Touch 830 reflects the Northern European's way of life, attracting just the right amount of attention while keeping it simple and elegant.

For the perfect combination of looks and function practicality, the Touch 830 utilizes a reinforced one-body stainless steel casing construction. The one body construction allows for a small and rugged design. Practicality wise, the Touch 830 is plug and play compatible, users need not push lids, slide lids or supply additional power to operate. It is light, ultra small and comes with a jewelry lace for users to carry. Especially suited for people constantly on the go, Silicon Power's Touch 830 is available up to 16 GB of storage space so users can store data at will. For users who fancy the Northern European styling, Silicon Power's Touch 830 is the perfect storage you just got to get your hands on.

Following the successful launch of the ultrathin and light Vostro V13, Dell is offering business customers even more choice with the stylish Vostro 3000 series - a range of new thin, lightweight and durable laptop computers. Featuring powerful processors, high-end graphics and built-in security, the Vostro 3000 series is designed for small businesses that require robust mobile computing solutions.

Today's SMBs and entrepreneurs want notebooks that are powerful and attractive, and the new Vostro 3000 series was designed to meet and exceed both those needs. For the most demanding tasks, the Vostro 3000 series sports the latest powerful Intel Core processor technology, including, the optional, Core i7 Quad Core processor available on the Vostro 3700. For those that demand portability and productivity, the Vostro 3300 is one of the industry's thinnest commercial 13" laptop with an integrated optical drive. For those that can't afford to be chained to their desks, the 14" Vostro 3400 offers a full day of mobile productivity with up to 8 hours of battery life with an optional 9-cell battery.

A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., the worldwide leader in DRAM memory and Flash application products, today announced the addition of microSDHC Class 10 memory cards to its product lineup. Besides high capacity, this new Class 10 card further brings users with unrivaled data transfer performance, providing a total upgrade solution ideal for the latest generation of mobile phones that come with a card slot.

Compliant with the SD Association Specification v3.00 to meet Class 10 requirements, A-DATA microSDHC Class 10 memory cards outperform others by delivering up to 16 MB/s in read and 10 MB/s in write, which is 1.6 times faster than the preceding Class 6 cards. Such impressive performance allows users to be able to enjoy the versatility and advanced multimedia features of the prevailing smartphones; recording continuous high-definition videos, transferring music files or running multiple applications on mobile devices cannot get any easier with the new speed class offered by A-DATA.