Folks at Virtual-Hideout has some nice pictures from Intel Hawthorn Farm Campus and some images of Intel Skull Trail motherboard.

Over the last couple years, I've been attending various LANs and tech events looking for that other side we rarely get to see. InfernaLAN is just one of the many events sponsored by INTEL and wide variety of vendors and integrators including Patriot Memory, Corsair, BFG, S3 Graphics, IBuyPower, PowerPC, and Alienware.

It was here that I met many of Intel's finest incognito. These guys take their personal systems as seriously as any enthusiast, cooled with the latest DangerDen water cooled blocks and assembled in some of the sweetest cases created by man. I thought that if they are this much fun and cared enough about what they do to show off all these demo systems, then I really need to see what it is they do.

Source: Virtual-Hideout

Sam & Max: Season 2, the latest in Telltale's flagship episodic series, is now available on Steam, a leading online platform for the distribution and management of PC games.

The complete Season 2 set is available for just $34.99, and the Season 1 and 2 complete sets are available in a collection for just $59.99.

DigiTimes has some information about VIA's 45 and dual core processor plan. It is set to be released in 2009.

VIA has also revealed more details of its initial-launch Isaiah-based processor, which will feature a core frequency of 2GHz, a V4 Bus speed from 800-1333MHz, and two 64KB L1 cache and 1MB L2 cache pairs with 16-way associatively. The CPU will be manufactured by Fujitsu adopting a 65nm process. The CPU is pin compatible with the company's C7 processors.

Source: DigitTimes

Creative has finally released the high-end PCIe X-Fi sound card. The SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro Series as it's called. It features all the goodies from the PCI version of the X-Fi and even incorporate the looks of the Asus Xonar. It features EAX 5.0, CMSS 3D, dolby digital, and 64MB of X-RAM.

Source: Creative

CPUs, RAMs, Mobos

• DFI LanPartyDK X38-T2R Motherboard Review at Ninjalane
• Alienware Area-51 ALX System Review at HardwareLogic.com
• G.SKILL vs. Crucial: high-speed DDR showdown at HEXUS.net
• Asus C90S Laptop Barebones review at Techspot
• Asus Eee PC 4G at APH Networks
• abit I-N73HD GeForce 7100 Motherboard at Tweaktown

Video Cards

• VisionTek HD3870X2 OC at Neoseeker
• Albatron GeForce 9600GT-512X Video Card Review at Legit Reviews

Cases, PSUs, Coolers

• Thermaltake DuOrb CPU Cooler Review at OCC
• Lian Li PC-A09B Classical Series Mid-Tower Case at BmR
• In-Win Metal Suit GD Mid-Tower Case Review at OCIA.net
• Antec TruePower Quattro 850 W Power Supply Review at Hardware Secrets
• OCZ Vendetta2 at Technic3D
• Nexus HOC-9000 Real Silent CPU Cooler at DreamWare Computers
• Enermax Pro 82+ (385W) PSU at Driver Heaven
• NZXT Tempest Mid-Tower ATX Case Review at Bigbruin.com

Peripherals

• Vantec NexStar eSata/USB Hard Drive Dock Review at Futurelooks
• TomTom ONE XL S GPS Review at Digital Trends
• LaCie Mini Hub 500GB USB 2.0 FireWire External Hard Drive Review at ThinkComputers.org
• Lite-On DX-401S Blu-ray USB2.0 ROM Drive at Tweaktown
• Honeywell Airlite 700 Wireless Bluetooth Headset Review at Hardware Secrets
• SonicGear i-Steroid 1 at InsideHW
• Hyundai W241D PVA 24in Widescreen Monitor at TrustedReviews
• Western Digital 1 TB Caviar GP Serial ATA Hard Drive Review at Tech ARP
• Agfaphoto AP2300 Photo Printer at BIOS REVIEW
• Seagate's Barracuda ES.2 1TB SAS Hard Drive at HotHardware.com
• Noiseblocker NB-X-Swing HDD Noise Reducer at Tech-Reviews.co.uk
• ViewSonic VP950b Professional Monitor at BIOS REVIEW
• Nokia 6500 Classic at BIOS REVIEW

Misc

• Ubuntu 8.04 KVM (Virtualization) Benchmarks at Phoronix
• Hard Drive Performance Comparison Guide at Tech ARP

Just as ASUS issues a statement on its website stating that Gigabyte made false claims to media at a press event held last week regarding some of its new technology, the ASUS EPU vs. Gigabyte DES power saving wars battle on. I think personally we are in for a good show as both motherboard giants battle it out.

Source: Tweaktown

Even though it’s a P45-based Republic of Gamers board, it’s curiously not fallen under the Blitz branding that was used for the P35-based RoG boards – Asus is changing things around slightly by slotting all Intel-based boards under either the Rampage or Maximus nomenclature, with the Striker branding saved for Nvidia chipsets on Intel platforms.

Source: bit-tech

Expands Line with Bus-Powered, Plug & Play Models with Just One Cable
No Additional External Power or Secondary Cable Required

May 15, 2008 Woodstock, IL -- Other World Computing (OWC) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today the lowest cost line of OWC Mercury On-The-Go FireWire + USB 2.0 storage drives, with 500GB capacity priced at only $329. The new line of OWC Mercury On-The-Go high-performance FireWire 400 + USB 2.0 drives are fully bus powered with no additional external power or secondary powering cable required.

Immediately available and priced starting at $95.99, the Mercury On-The-Go portable drive is a palm-sized performer with a huge capacity up to 500GB that fits in a shirt pocket. Built with the latest reliable, high-performance drive mechanisms and interfaced with OWC’s custom bridge solution featuring the Oxford chipset, the Mercury On-The-Go is the portable solution you can count on.

Tom's Hardware has a rather interesting review. They run a bunch of tests with a group of graphic cards ranging from Geforce 6800 GT, 7950 GT, 8800 GT, 8800 GTS 512, 9600 GT 1024 and 9800 GTX and put it in combination with different speed of processors, the E2160, E6750, Q6600 and X6800EE. The result shows that graphic cards generally are having a much better performance increase in each generation. In addition, current games will benefit greatly with current graphic cards at higher resolution. However, in order to really take the advantage of the graphic cards, the processor needs to be able to keep up with the work and they recommend that the CPU should be between 2600 to 3000 MHz. Also, they have found at the current games does not take the advantage of quad core yet.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Sony today released its fourth quarter and full-year earnings for the fiscal period ended March 31, and thanks to increased sales of the PlayStation 3 (and a reduction of PS3 losses), the group as a whole saw Q4 profit of $277 million while full-year profit nearly tripled to a record $3.5 billion. LCD TVs, digital cameras and Vaio computers also contributed to the bottom line.

Although the PS3 business has yet to record a profit for Sony, the company did sell 9.24 million units of the console in the last fiscal year. For the current fiscal year (ending March 2009), the company is projecting sales of another 10 million units.

Source: Gamedaily