PC market refuses to die, rises again in Q1 2012
Market research firm IDC has released its quarterly figures for computer sales in the first part of 2012. It’s surprised some pundits by claiming that far from the traditional PC era being over, worldwide shipments are up. They’re even showing growth in debt-saddled, austerity shackled and market saturated Europe, of all places.
In a release accompanying the info, the firm describes buyers as ‘still cautious’ and possibly waiting on Windows 8, but highlights problems in the hard drive supply chain following flooding in Thailand as the most significant factor holding back purchases. Despite these problems, it says that while it was predicting just 0.9% growth worldwide the actual market expanded by 2.3%
Windows 8 line up simplified, renamed
Remember trying to figure out which version of Windows 7 you owned or needed to install if you were putting it on a fresh hard drive? With six different variations to choose from, you wouldn’t have been the only one who got confused between Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Professional, for example. You would be unusually proficient if you could remember exactly what the differences between each one were, however.
Apparently Microsoft has learned something from the criticism. In a blog post yesterday, Brandon LeBlanc from the Windows team revealed that there will be just three versions for x86 systems, and one for ARM devices.
EVGA introduces Android overclocking
EVGA has announced its latest Z77-touting motherboards and at the same time unveiled a vision for our ubiquitously computed future. It’s got PC and phone working together in perfect harmony, the one symbiotically adapting and informing the other. Just as happy computers should be.
Thanks to an Android-friendly version of its Precision X tuning software, you can have your games running their beautiful virtual worlds in immersive high resolution on your PC screen. On your phone, meanwhile, there’s a touch sensitive interface for tuning your CPU and graphics clockspeeds without flicking back to the desktop.
Lian Li launches littlest (ATX) mobo, lovely for LANs
What with all these new sub-30nm, highly power efficient processor designs from Intel, AMD and NVIDIA launching lately, the days of the big box PC must surely be behind us. Why set aside all that space for internal airflow and cooling when you can pack everything closer together and still get Battlefield 3 running at more than 60 frames per second?
Which is why next PC might well look like this: Lian Li’s latest case, the PC-V700.
Nvidia drivers boost Skyrim, add FXAA shaders, adaptive Vsync and other fancy bits
If you have a GeForce card you might want to grab the latest batch of beta drivers from the Nvidia site. Nvidia say they’ll deliver a performance boost in Skyrim of up to 20%, which is nice, but the Nvidia FXAA functionality is perhaps a more interesting addition. That’ll allow us to force a faster form of anti-aliasing across hundreds of games from the Nvidia control panel. The new shader-based antialiasing function should help to smooth out edges at speeds “60% faster than 4xMSAA.”
Intel intros series 7 motherboards
Easter Sunday. Depending on your ethical proclivities it was a day for church, chocolate or just chilling out playing some games safe in the knowledge that you don’t have to work tomorrow. Or, if you’re Intel, it’s a day for launching your new range of motherboard chipsets and a swanky example of their kind to go with it.
Nope, timing beats me too. Still, I’ve had one of their new Z77-type boards in the office for a few days now, which is long enough to be suitably impressed with it.
Awesome Aztec mod seeks Tomb Raider types
Ever looked at that big black box under your desk and thought it looked a little bit too modern for your Chocola-themed games room? Does it rather spoil the ambience of your human sacrifice chamber? How about turning it into something a little more traditional, like a stone shrine to Q’uq’umatz or other god of your own choosing?
That’s what Dan McGrath did when he turned an already bonkers Thermaltake Level 10 GT chassis into AzTtec, a PC worthy of the ancients.
Cooler Master joins mechanical keyboard club
Once upon a time a mechanical keyboards seemed to be typing their way into extinction. Their loud and bouncy buttons appeared very old fashioned and expensive against a legion of slender Apple clones. Now, no serious peripherals company can be taken seriously without a mechanised letter rack to its name, and barely a week goes by without another one joining the fray.
The latest firm to do so is Cooler Master. Better known for its cases and power supplies, it’s been slowly building up its Storm gaming brand over the last couple of years, and just like Corsair before it has announced a Cherry MX Black-toting keyboard as its premiere gear du guerre.
Google glasses just got real
According to a post over on Google+ (remember that?), engineers from the top secret Google[x] laboratory have just confirmed one of tech’s most interesting rumours. They’re working on a pair of glasses that includes a heads-up display for augmented reality information.
There’s little in the way of detail on the Google+ landing page, but The New York Times has some interesting extra information, including a few quotes from someone who claims to have used the glasses in question.
Valve actively seeking Linux devs
Oh happy day. As someone who resents leaving the safety of his Ubuntu desktop every time I want to play a game or do some benchmarking, today’s headline from Phoronix.com is frankly the news I’ve been waiting for for years.
Valve has been recruiting for at least one Linux specialist to help port Windows games with this job ad since January. But it looks like they’re getting very serious, and keen to push on with the project. Phoronix’ Michael Larabel has received an email from Gabe himself asking for help head hunting.
‘Like’ to have a left handed MMO mouse?
In these days of equal opportunity and well enforced rights of access laws, it seems almost unforgivable that one group of gamers is still unconsciously discriminated against. But then, it wasn’t until I’d worked with a particularly militant south-paw dep ed that even liberal’ole me came to realise just how few of our toys take left-handedness into account. This realisation grew stronger every time a right-handed mouse was thrown in my direction.
You’ve been able to get left-handed guitars, left-handed golf clubs, left-handed hammers and even left-handed pencils on almost every high street since 1968, but only Razer makes mice suited to the one in ten people for whom ergonomics is a backward science. And they only released their first DeathAdder lefty two years ago. Which is great for FPS player, but what about MMOers? Won’t somebody think of them?
Help Hubble, win an iPad
It’s not a PC game as such, but it does involve your PC and there’s an element of competition, here’s something to occupy a few hours of free time between now and the end of May. Take those sharp powers of observation and image analysis you’ve honed through play and put them to some sort of productive use.
Join the hunt for Hubble’s Hidden Treasures. You can help to find new galactic objects, make some of those of colourful ‘artists impressions’ pictures of nebula that grace box art and maybe win an iPad too. Not bad for what is, to all intents and appearances, a browser based game. It’ll help kill time until the next Mass Effect 3 DLC comes out.
Digital Storm’s sub-zero system revealed
I’m not hugely familiar with US system builder Digital Storm, since they don’t have an outlet on this side of the Atlantic, but the ’boutique’ PC maker has just added an impressive looking new case to its line up that rather makes me wish they did.
It uses the first case that the company has designed itself, apparently, something which is almost unheard of for an independent shop, certainly since Alienware and VoodooPC were bought out by Dell and HP respectively. The ‘Aventum’, as Digital Storm’s new range is known, may not have the catchiest name and it certainly has a bleeding eye price, but it’s intriguing, nonetheless.
The PC Gamer Rig: A graphics upgrade… or is it?
You can always hold off upgrading until the next big thing has been announced, so offering it as some sort of advice is a little bit weak. But the thing is, right now, there really is a good reason to hold off putting together a new machine or upgrading your old one. I’ve updated the PC Gamer Rig this week, but I’m not so sure you should.
Here’s why.
Nvidia unveils the GeForce GTX 680: massively multicore, insanely powerful
You’ve known it was coming, but you are not prepared. Until now you’ve known it only as “Kepler,” but after today you’ll know it as the GeForce GTX 680—the fastest and most efficient GPU that Nvidia has ever built, and one of the sexiest we’ve ever laid eyes upon. (There’s also the matter of their new 600m series of mobile GPUs that are capable of running games like Battlefield 3 smoothly off an slim, 9lb laptop with eight hours of battery life, but that’s a whole other story to come shortly.)
So let’s get right down to it.
First things first, here’s the specs on the GeForce GTX 680. I hope you’ve got an extra set of pants available.
