Sunnyvale, CA—April 17, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled a blazing fast DDR3 addition to the new Flex II memory series. These premium modules run at incredibly fast 2000MHz speeds at CL8-8-8 timings for added performance to high-end systems with integrated water-cooling. Designed to the very core to offer enthusiasts the thermal management innovation of hybrid water and passive cooling, the new PC3-16000 Flex II Series offers rock-solid stability and performance for your high-end gaming or overclocking system.

The OCZ Flex II heat management solution enables high-frequency memory to operate within an optimal balance of extreme speeds and low latencies without the high temperatures that inhibit or damage the module. Each PC3-16000 Flex II memory module features this breakthrough thermal management technology from OCZ that combines an effective new heatspreader design with integrated liquid injection system and dedicated channels directly over the module’s ICs to effectively dissipate heat produced by high-speed memory. This sophisticated series was engineered with a unique “flexible” design to give enthusiasts the option to run the modules passively or water cooled via the thick array of aluminum fins, and the concurrent use of both options promotes maximum heat dissipation.

“A data rate of 2GHz was unthinkable only a year ago,” commented Dr. Michael Schuette, VP of Technology Development at OCZ Technology. “Power consumption and heat generation directly follow the operating frequency; therefore, the thermal dissipation of these modules exceeds any specifications of the original design and requires the most advanced thermal solution that will reliably work under any conditions. Whether in a water-cooling environment or else under air-cooling conditions, the legacy of the Flex series continues with the Flex II design as the most advanced memory cooling solution for the fastest modules out there.”

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is first to offer high performance, low-latency DDR2-667 SO-DIMM notebook memory to the world. Offering greater performance options for existing mobile platforms, the HyperX DDR2-667 CL4 SO-DIMM kits in 2GB and 4GB capacities are the first in a new line of memory innovations Kingston plans to release over the next few months to the notebook market.

“Kingston customers asked about higher performance memory for current notebooks and our new DDR2-667 CL4 low-latency SO-DIMMs are the first in a series of new HyperX memory offerings to support this market,” said Ann Bai, Product Manager, DRAM Memory, APAC Region, Kingston. “We will continue to expand the product line, including developing a 3GB memory kit.”

Sapphire Technology is pleased to announce that the new high end, 125W Phenom CPU’s just released by AMD (Model numbers 9750 and 9850) are fully supported across the latest range of SAPPHIRE mainboards, including the high end PC-AM2RD790 - PURE CrossFireX 790FX, the new mainstream CrossFire board PC-AM2RX780 - PURE CrossFireX 770, and the microATX Hybrid CrossFire board with integrated graphics, PI-AM2RS780G - Hybrid CrossFire 780G.

The PI-AM2RS780G and PC-AM2RD790 will require a BIOS update to recognise the new CPU ID’s correctly. The new BIOS are already posted in the driver section of the SAPPHIRE web site www.sapphiretech.com

Of particular note is that SAPPHIRE has full support for these new CPU’s on its 780G product, PI-AM2RS780G. This is NOT the case for the majority of competing 780G designs as they have used a far less capable configuration for the power sections and will only be able to support the earlier 95W CPU’s. (9500, 9550, 9600, 9650)

The first 2 models from the GeForce 9900 series will be 9900 GTX and 9900 GTS instead of 9900 GT we reported earlier. It seems Nvidia has decided to launch them as early as July to counter RV770 and steal the performance crown away. Nvidia has earlier confirmed GT200 existence and revealed that the GPU has about 1B transistors. Our sources are suggesting a 512-bit memory interface with GDDR3 memories for GeForce 9900 GTX using P651 PCB and a 448-bit memory interface for the GeForce 9900 GTS.

WD® (NYSE: WDC) announced today that it is now shipping WD VelociRaptor™ hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA "Raptor" series of drives. Designed with an enterprise-class foundation, the new WD VelociRaptor hard drive is modified specifically for PC and Mac® enthusiasts and professional workstations. Destined to become the new high-performance favorite of these groups, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive comes packed with twice the capacity and a 35 percent performance increase over the previous generation.

From the bloodlines of the WD Raptor, the most popular hard drive for high-performance enthusiasts who demand the ultimate SATA drive, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive is built with enterprise-class mechanics and packs 300 GB of storage capacity into a 2.5-inch enterprise form factor. The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drive is enclosed in the IcePack™, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink -- a customization that fits the drive into a standard 3.5-inch system bay and keeps this powerful drive extra cool when installed in a high-performance desktop chassis.

"Demand for ever-higher PC performance continues to increase and WD is the leader in this category with the WD Raptor. We created WD VelociRaptor hard drives to lead PC enthusiasts into the next era of PC and Mac storage performance and satisfy their insatiable thirst for computing speed," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise business unit. "The new WD VelociRaptor delivers the greatest performance and reliability of all SATA hard drives currently on the market."

WD VelociRaptor is the next step up for the speed-craving PC enthusiast, and as with all WD drives, attention to detail in features, performance and reliability is a top priority. Features of the new WD VelociRaptor hard drives include:

Killer Speed - Built on the performance of the WD Raptor, these 10,000 RPM drives, with SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and 16 MB cache deliver mind-bending performance.

Rock-solid Reliability - WD VelociRaptor drives are designed and manufactured to business-critical, enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. The design results in the highest available reliability rating of any SATA drive at 1.4 million hours MTBF.

IcePack Mounting Frame - The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drives are enclosed in a 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with a built-in heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive extra cool when installed in high-performance desktop chassis.

Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF™) - Optimizes performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.

SecurePark™ - Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface, resulting in improved long-term reliability and increased drive protection when the chassis is moved.

AMD today releases it's new B3 revision Phenom X4 processors. Solved and free's of the nasty TLB issues, the new and new, old CPUs are set to finally give Intel some reasonable competition and offer customers parts with a good performance-price ratio.

Coming in AM2+ form, the Phenon 9050 series CPUs go from 2.2 GHz (Phenom 9550), 2.3 GHz (9650) through 2.4 GHz (9750), and 2.5 GHz (9850 Black Edition) and all feature HyperTransport 3.0, a DDR2-supporting memory controller and 2MB of shared L3 cache. These B3 processors have 95W (9550, 9650, 9750) or 125W (9750 and 9850 BE) TDPs and are set to become widely available in April.

In the 8000 series we now spot the tri-core Phenom as well. The tri-core CPUs includes two Phenom parts that are set for "gamers and digital media enthusiasts" who want a good performance per price ratio and they are basically quad-cores with one busted and disabled core. Codenamed Toliman, the triple-core Phenom 8400 and 8600 are clocked at 2.1 GHz and 2.3 GHz respectively.

In terms of prices, the Phenom 9550 will be $209, the 9650 $215, the 9750 still $215 while the only B3 and highest-end Black Edition Phenom, the 9850 will cost $235, in 1000-unit tray quantities. The prices of the last three CPUs will go live on April 7 so that's probably the day they will start hitting the stores in sufficient numbers.

We're also expecting to see a 9850 Black Edition as well as the 9950 clocked at 2.6GHz, but these parts aren't listed yet.

Toshiba announced it started mass production of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND memory based solid state drives. The first models to begin shipping this month have a capacity of 128GB and will feature a lightweight, 15 gram embedded module form factor.

To achieve performance levels of 100MB/second read and 40MB/second write in these first generation drives, Toshiba utilized a SATA II interface and an innovative MLC controller supporting fast read-write speed, parallel data transfer, and wear-leveling. As a result, Toshiba SSDs achieve overall PC Benchmark scores that are better than 5400 rpm and 7200rpm HDDs and comparable to selected SATA SLC NAND SSDs.

The SSD drives excel in Windows Vista boot speed, application loading, general usage and virus scan operations. Compared to hard disk drives, SSDs realize a number of advantages that address needs in the mobile computing market for performance, ruggedness, and lightweight, compact form factors.

Gigabyte is going to make its entry in the gamer peripheral market with a mechanical gaming keyboard. The non-click Cherry MX-linear keys will have a life cycle of 60 million keystrokes.

It does have a lot of features but to summarize some of the features – it has 10 programmable gaming hotkeys that supports up to 103 customizable profiles. These profiles are also able to be setup and changed with the included 512KB onboard memory through the GHOST Engine software suite. If that is not enough for you, the GK-K8000 even includes the C-Media 6300 single audio chip for USB stereo audio for microphone in & earphone out.

The Gigabyte GK-K8000 keyboard will be available by the end of April. Am I the only one who thinks that's a butt ugly looking device though ?

To be able to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GTS in price and performance, AMD will launch a new model in the HD 3800 series with a more modest configuration than its two older counterparts.

AMD's Radeon HD 3830 is a spin-off chip based on the RV670 core and will feature a 128-bit memory bus, potentially providing roughly half the memory bandwidth of the HD 3850 and 3870 depending on the type and speed of memory used. All other features of the 55nm RV670 core are still included: DirectX 10.1, PCIe 2.0 and UVD. The GPU still features 320 stream processors like the HD 3850 and HD 3870 revisions.

According to recent reports, the HD 3830 will feature up to 256 MB of memory and come with 320 stream processors as well as 16 texture filtering units and 16 raster operators to match the HD 3850/3870 models. This is compared to the 32 stream processors, 16 texture filtering units and 8 raster operators of the 8600GTS's G84 core.

S3 Graphics today announced the S3 Graphics Chrome 430 GT desktop cards, now available at online retail affiliate GStore. The first of the S3 Graphics Chrome 400 Series to market, the Chrome 430 GT combines advanced 3D graphics and incredible HD multimedia performance with extreme power-efficiency and rigidly low thermal specifications, breaking new ground in the highly competitive graphics industry. Based on the low profile PCI Express Gen 2 graphics card specification, the Chrome 430 GT is ideally suited for small form factor PC designs and energy-conscious PC users who wish to upgrade their PC to provide incredible HD playback and the latest DirectX 10.1 graphics engine.