EVGA Announces Loaner Program for US and Canada Citizens

As of yesterday, EVGA is promoting its Loaner Program which gives you the opportunity to test out the latest EVGA hardware for two weeks right in your home for free. Here's how it works. First you need a free registration (free), then you need to choose the product you want to receive. The company will randomly select participants and then send out the product you wished for at no cost. Once your two weeks with the product are up, you simply pay the shipping cost to the next person on the list selected by EVGA. Sadly there's one more catch, you need to be living the US or Canada to be eligible for the program. For now the only two products available in the Loaner Program are the EVGA X58 Classified motherboard, and a 22" Samsung monitor with 3D Vision Glasses. If you meet the requirements, you can sign up for them at any time here.


Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/87941/EVGA_Announces_Loaner_Program_for_US_and_Canada_Citizens.html

Forza Motorsport 2

It's the best racing sim on Xbox 360, but is that really saying much?

Burnout is about speed; Project Gotham Racing is about looking cool; Forza Motorsport is about cars. No game has yet to take all three of these fundamental elements and merge them into one brilliant package. Though hopes were high for Forza Motorsport 2, it fails to give the sensation of blazing speed and there's almost no cool-like-the-Fonz elements in this $60 package. Like its predecessor, Forza 2 is about cars and in that area it does exceedingly well. So if you're a car nerd, prepare to have your tires popped by what Forza 2 offers.

If you love cars, you will likely love Forza 2. And if you're a wide-eyed child in the world of automobiles, Forza 2 may actually inspire a newfound appreciation for cars. With more than 300 cars included (and more likely to come through downloadable content), Forza 2 has a great variety of vehicles. Each class of car has its own unique feel, so that you can instantly tell the difference between racing in a muscle car or putting pedal to metal in a high-end plastic sports ride. There's a car for everyone.

So Forza 2 has brilliant physics, great customization options, and solid online play. So why isn't it earning greater esteem from IGN? As I said early on, a racing game is about more than just the cars. Much like its predecessor, Forza 2 lacks soul. The only personality you'll find in Forza 2 are the custom skins created by fans. While it's certainly an enjoyable and well-made game, it just doesn't have the spark of energy and excitement found in almost every other racer.

Cooler Master to Demo 20-Core Machine at CeBIT

Cooler Master seems to be showing keen interest in small-scale cluster computing, or at least the casing, power and cooling part of it. In a bid to flex its engineering muscle, the company that is known best for its coolers and PC cases, is coming up with an intensive cluster-computer dubbed "20 Cores PC". What might look like an overgrown PC case from the outside, with enough room inside to accommodate an enthusiast PC setup, water-cooling, massive storage, and still room left to hide things, actually is a modified ATCS 840 to perpendicularly stack up to five mini-ITX motherboards, in essence, five systems. Armed with decent skills in networking and virtualization, one can build a small cluster-computer out of those five sub-PCs.

The 20 Cores PC Cooler Master plans to demonstrate this CeBIT has five motherboards powered by an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 processor each (hence 20 cores). Each CPU is water-cooled by the cooling system in place. Each motherboard has all essential components connected such as dedicated memory (2 GB per board), and fixed-storage. Each PC additionally has its own optical drive. In the cooling efficiency tests conducted by the company, it was noted that after five hours of full-load, the hottest CPU reached only 66 °C, with an ambient temperature of 30 °C and chipset temperature of 38 °C. The temperatures seem impressive indeed, though credit goes to the three 200 mm ventilator fans, a 120 mm fan, and a water-cooling system consisting of five pumps and a large radiator. The entire unit is powered by a Cooler Master 1,200 W power supply.







Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/86340/Cooler_Master_to_Demo_20-Core_Machine_at_CeBIT.html

How to view videos in "High Quality"

Here are 3 simple steps on how to view the videos on this site in "high quality" since they'll be much sharper that way compared to "normal quality"

1. Click on the play button to play the video.



2. Click on that little button to bring up the option to view in "high quality" then click on it.



3. The video will now load in "high quality" and you can enjoy it without any distortion.