Today Xbox Live Arcade has four new releases hitting the virtual shelves of market place, Rock Of Ages, Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon and finally The Baconing.

Rock Of Ages is a strategy based game in which you and your rival own castles with defences the aim of which is to take down the rivals stone haven with a giant boulder but their aim is the same so one will be headed your way too, the game is priced at 800 points.

Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is the original three side scrolling fighting games Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 with the added benifit of online play, leaderboards, and achievements, need i say more ? kick it old school for just 800 points (might have to purchase this one myself).

Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon is based on the TV series and is your chance to prevent the end of days, play as Leonard (the drunken wizard,) Grimes (the tough cop,) Callie (the hot demon chick,) or Mark (the lucky human), you can equip your charecter with up to 30 weapons and collect demon babies to level up whilst taking on hordes of demons, zombies, man birds and giant boss battles, again selling for 800 points.

In The Baconing You are DeathSpank, the ultimate Dispenser of Justice. Destroy the Anti-Spank and his Cyborques, before they cast an evil shadow over Spanktopia. Explore unique locations like The Forbidden Zone and Rainbow’s End in a pop-up book, over 100 quests including boss fights and puzzles, this one is priced at 1200 points.

Also to hit the Arcade Live shelves is Burnout Crash which is due on the 20th of September this game is a re-invention of the fan favourite crash mode where players are rewarded more based on the amount of damage and carnage caused, it will also offer support for controller free operation with Kinect and again at just 800 points.

Cases:

• Corsair Carbide 400R @ techPowerUp
• Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E Evolution Case Review @ Ninjalane
• SilverStone TJ08-E Micro-ATX Chassis @MissingRemote

Cooling:

• Zalman CNPS7X LED CPU Cooler Review @ Hi Tech Legion
  
• Corsair Hydro Series H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler Review @ TweakTown
  
• Cooler Master GeminII S524 CPU Heatsink @ Benchmark Reviews
  
• Thermaltake Frio OCK CPU Heatsink Review @ APH Networks
  
• Enermax ETS-T40-TA CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets
  
• Zalman ZM-SF2 Case fan @ Rbmods
  

Graphics:

• Gigabyte HD 6770 Silent Cell 1GB GDDR5 DirectX11 Video Card Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• ZOTAC GeForce GTX 550 Ti AMP! Edition Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

Memory:

• Corsair Dominator GT 1.5v PC3-17066 8GB Kit Review @ TweakTown

Miscellaneous:

• SilverStone EC03 USB 3.0 PCIe Card and Front Bay Panel @ Pro-Clockers
• Asus U36JC Laptop Review @ Tech-Reviews.co.uk
• MSI CX640 Back to School Laptop @ Madshrimps
• TP-LINK TL-WN822N USB Wireless N Adapter @ DreamWare Computers
• Battle of the SATA 3.0 Controllers @ Techgage

Motherboard:

• Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD Mainboard @ Allround-PC.com
• Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68 Motherboard Review @ Hi Tech Legion
  
• Gigabyte Z68XP-UD5 Socket 1155 Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers
  

Peripherals:

• Roccat Valo Gaming Keyboard @ Pro-Clockers
  
• Wacom Intuos4 Medium Professional Pen Tablet Review @ Real World Labs
• Thermaltake eSports Meka G1 Gaming Keyboard Review @ Legit Reviews
• Lexar Echo MX 32GB Backup Thumb Drive Review @ Techgage
  

Power Supply:

• Thortech Thunderbolt 850 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
• SilverStone Strider Plus 500 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets

Storage:

• Western Digital Elements 2TB USB 2.0 Desktop External HDD @ BCCHardware
• QNAP TS-559 Pro II Network Attached Storage Review @ APH Networks
• OCZ Technology RevoDrive 3 X2 PCI-E 480GB SSD Review @ TweakTown
• SilverStone SST-DC01B Network Data Center Review @ Legit Reviews

Amazon has decided it will be launching its own brand of Tablet PCs. The first will be a 7″ Tablet which will be launched in October, this Tablet will be made by Quanta Computers. The second Tablet will be a 10.1″ design and this is going to launch in Q1 of 2012 these Tablets are being mass produced by Foxconn who recently won the contract to produce them. Foxconn already produces Amazon’s highly successful kindle.

Amazon plans to agressively market this new android-based tablet range much like it did for its Kindles and analysts are expecting 5 million unit sales by the end of the year.

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Zotac has announced its ZBOX Nano AD10 mini PC series. The tiny PC measuring just 127mm by 127mm by 45mm is based off AMD’s Brazos core, the E-350 to be exact, which is a dual core 1.6GHz processor with onboard HD 6310 graphics that is capable of decoding BluRay and HD video streams for fantastic playback quality. It is aimed primarily at the HTPC market with it having been designed for mounting behind TV screens as the below picture shows:

Customising the ZBOX is really easy, it comes with one DDR3-SODIMM slot which can be upgraded as necessary (comes shipped with one 2GB Module) and it comes with a pre-installed 320GB hard drive which is also replaceable, note you can also order this with an SSD if you would rather have quick boot up times and link this unit up to a NAS server via a home network. And finally it comes with an infrared remote and reciever so the unit can be used like a TV from the comfort of the sofa.

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HP has confirmed that one final run of the WebOS TouchPad tablets is going to happen. This was confirmed by the PR manager Mark Budgell. The reason for this is the massive stock clearance HP did on their TouchPad selling them at $99 a piece created huge demand for them and now they have a solid market reputation as being a good reliable tablet PC maker.

Apparently, this next run of TouchPad’s will be made from existing parts that were expected to be used but never were because production stopped. Therefore, HP has an obligation to its suppliers to clear stock that they agreed to use so expect that these TouchPads will still be cheap but probably not still $99 since HP cannot afford to make a loss on what is believed to be another 100,000 TouchPads (according to how many parts they have left over). The WebOS which the TouchPad uses is currently under offer from Samsung as they are looking to buy or license it for some of their products so it would appear the TouchPad maybe does have a future still.

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World respected motherboard maker MSI has added a new board to its Llano range of motherboards. The A55M-P35 is based off the A55 chip set (not the A75) and therefore has no native SATA III or USB 3.0 support on it at all. So with regards to its position in the market it is aimed at the very lowest end of the market, definitely an entry level board only but it still has some fantastic features. It comes with MSI’s OC Genie II technology which intelligently sets an overclock through pre determined clock and voltage settings to give you extra performance out of your FM1 APU package. You get two DDR3-1866 slots for high frequency memory supporting up to 16GB.

The board uses the click BIOS or UEFI BIOS which allows for the easier use of your BIOS and altering BIOS settings such as boot order priority and CPU multiplier changes. You get MSI’s mFlash BIOS technology which stores your BIOS safely with it backed up and without the need for several BIOS chips to be attached to the motherboard. AMD’s Dual graphics technology or Hybrid CrossFireX between the APU and a discrete card is also supported which is good for the more gaming orientated consumer. Finally the USB ports are protected from damaging USB devices or the mainboard when short-outs occur and they have been adapted to provide more power when a USB device is attached and needs charging.

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Lancool is Lian Li’s budget branch of the PC chassis market and today Lancool have released the PC-K9 mid tower case. Designed for ATX, mATX and mITX motherboards this case is a solid, well designed and functional mid tower case. The case has been manufactured with easy installation of hardware in mind, all the hard drive bays come with anti-vibration housing and there is adequate cooling for a decent gaming system with a pre-fitted 140mm front fan and 120mm rear fan.

The Lancool PC-K9 boasts a tool-less environment:

• Tool-less PCI Cardholder that holds up to seven PCI add-on cards; installation involves simply locking the arm into position.
• Tool-less PCI card clips are made of steel, guaranteeing a reliable grip and saving the parts from wear and tear.
• Tool-less optical drive mounting that supports standard 5.25″ optical drives
• Tool-less PSU holder that allows users to insert the PSU into position, and then just close the aluminum PSU holder.

The exterior is made from brushed aluminium as is kind of traditional with all Lian Li designed cases. The HDD cages which we mentioned earlier support up to 6 drives which is cleverly designed: two cages which can take 3 hard drives each and are removable allow for the user to remove a tray to create space for an extremely long expansion card. USB 3.0 motherboard headers are also equipped with this case which is a nice feature for a mid range PC chassis. There is also a removable air filter on the PSU fan area. Cable management is done nicely too plenty of room and cable tie down points around the motherboard area show Lancool has really thought about this case.

There are three versions of this case which only have variance in colour, the PC-K9A is a standard steel colour, the PC-K9X has all black interior and exterior and PX-KX9W has an all black interior with a window.

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Razer have released two updated versions of their BlackWidow mechanical keyboards the Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Edition and the Razer BlackWidow Stealth Edition, both models have been refitted with quieter key sets requiring less actuation force at 45g, both keyboards are now also in a matte black finish.

The Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Edition offers the same rapid fire key press as the original only a lot quieter and with less force involved and has anti-ghosting on the entire key set allowing up to six keys to be pressed together so multiple commands or actions can be activated at the same time, the Ultimate is also packed with backlighting, on the fly macro recording and additional macro keys.

Product Features:

• Full mechanical keys with 45g actuation force
• Extreme anti-ghosting
• Individually backlit keys with 5 levels of lighting
• 1000Hz Ultrapolling/1ms response time
• Programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording
• Gaming mode option for deactivation of the Windows key
• 10 customizable software profiles with on-the-fly switching
• 5 additional macro keys
• Multi-media control keys
• Braided cable
• Audio-Out/Mic-In jack
• USB-passthrough
• Approx size (mm): 475(l) x 171(w) x 30(h)
• Weight: 1.5kg

The Ultimate stealth is priced at USD $139.99 / EU€139.99

The more affordable Razer BlackWidow Stealth Edition offers the same low force quieter new key set with five additional macro keys and also offers the on the fly macro recording.

Product Features:

• Full mechanical keys with 45g actuation force
• 1000HZ/1ms Ultrapolling response time
• Programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording
• Gaming mode option for deactivation of the Windows key
• 10 customizable software profiles with on-the-fly switching
• 5 additional macro keys
• Gaming optimized key matrix for minimized ghosting
• Multi-media controls
• Braided cable Approx size (mm): 475(l) x 171(w) x 30(h)
• Weight: 1.5kg

The stadard Stealth is priced at a more pocket friendly $79.99 / EU€79.99

Both of these keyboards are exclusive to the Razer store !!

The Taiwanese computer case manufacturer Lian Li has announced a new PC case, the PC-90. It is also known as “The Hammer” and like all Lian Li cases it will be an all aluminium case. The case has a different hard drive mounting system to standard conventions: the hard drives are mounted vertically on the left side panel supporting up to 12 hard drives. You can see what that unique design looks like below:

What this means is since the hard drives don’t obscure the main part of the case extra large motherboards are supported such as the HTPX form factor ( a server motherboard standard) which means this case is being targeted at premium business in addition to the usual enthusiast gamer clientèle. USB 3.0 is natively supported through motherboard headers NOT a USB pass-through cable.

Two front 140mm fans are equipped as well as a back 120mm exhaust fan and airflow is improved due to the removed obstruction of the hard drive cage area. All fans come with washable air filters too. Video cards of up to 400mm are supported (15.75″ inches) and they are mounted through a tool-less mechanism. To see more about this new case you can watch the short video clip below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaNX5FzffRA[/youtube]

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Scythe will be releasing their Scythe Ninja 3 Silent Edition as of the 2nd of September, they’ve modified the Ninja 3 to operate at a much quieter volume whilst still keeping things nice and cool, the original model comes fitted with a PWM controlled fan operating from 470 to 1.900 RPM something that has been changed to bring down noise levels.

The new Ninja 3 Silent Version is fitted with a Slip Stream 120 mm fan which spins constantly at 800 RPM operating at just 10.70 dBA whilst still managing to create an airflow of 40,17 CFM.

The heatsink has not been modified still hosting 8 heat pipes and a nickel plated copper base plate and includes the Scythe Flip Mount Super Backplate 2 (F.M.S.B.2) seen in the standard version and the M.A.P.S. (Multiple Airflow pass-through structure) is a fin structure for better cooling performance also seen in the standard version is also here, the fan is a 3pin connector with a 4 pin adapter included.

Compatibility:

Intel®:
Socket T / LGA775
Socket LGA1155
Socket LGA1156
Socket LGA1366

AMD®:
Socket 754
Socket 939
Socket AM2
Socket AM2+
Socket AM3
Socket AM3+
Socket FM1
Socket 940

The package include back plate, mounting screws, mounting clips, pair of fan clips and thermal grease, the unit weighs in at 1040 g or 37.04 oz with the fan attached.

As i said at the beginning the Silent Version of Ninja 3 (SCNJ-3000-SV) will be available on the market as of September 2nd 2011 and will be selling for 37,90 EUR (MSRP, excl. VAT/Tax).

It has been reported that Modern Warfare 3 will have Steamworks support. Steamworks is a program that allows integration of all aspects of steam into a game including multi player, game matchmaking and valve game security support. This is the complete opposite of EA’s Battlefield 3 which you may know will not be sold on Steam or have any Steam support.

Apparently, Modern Warfare 3 will be shipped with dedicated server support but there has been no clarification from Activision as for what this actually means for gamers. Modern Warfare doesn’t arrive until November the 8th but you can still pre-order your copy from Steam now from here.

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The memory making company Transcend has reportedly been showing off a 2TB USB 3.0 drive in Taiwan over the past weekend. The drive is very thin and like most other USB pen drives except a tad on the longer side. However, the engineers at Transcend have managed to get 2TB of storage via USB 3.0 on this tiny USB device: a very impressive feat of engineering.

As far as availability is concerned you will have to wait a few months. Transcend has stated that these drives are in the early phase of production and everything still needs to be standardised. Also the new range of USB drives that contains this 2TB beast will have smaller versions. The range starts at 16GB and goes all the way up to 2TB. No word on the price, probably best kept that way, don’t expect them to be at all cheap.

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Recently, we learned that HP would be selling the computer making part of its business in a quite shocking move to the market. It was apparently in the best interests of shareholders and the board room. However, now it has become apparent that selling the PC branch of HP is no longer a possibility since a sale has not been made this could either be due to a lack of offers but it is speculated that it is because HP could not get the asking price they wanted.

An HP spokesperson told Reuters that the outfit would prefer a spin-off as a separate company and the working hypotheses is that a spin-off will be in the best interests of HP’s shareholders, customers and employees. She also said that HP is still investigating to see if that is true and the outfit still has to understand the “dis-synergies in separating the PSG business from HP”.Apparently, the whole process could take 12 months to 18 months, but a final decision on the unit is expected by the end of this calendar year.

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Active Media Products (AMP) have launched its SaberTooth M1 mSATA drives for notebook upgrades. The drives aren’t blisteringly fast in fact they offer only read speeds of 160mb/s and write speeds of 80mb/s but they are fully compliant with the JEDEC MO-300B mSATA specification so will appeal to a lot of laptop, motherboard and NAS vendors for their uniquely small size.

The tiny drives measure just 51 x 30 mm and run on the SATA II interface. They require no additional power other than that given through the mSATA port (which is a modified PCI-E lane and therefore provides enough power). The controller used is the JMF605 and the flash used is standard NAND flash memory chips. The drives will come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities and cost $75, $90 and $190 respectively. These drives are available from Amazon and you can also get more information from the product page.

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Insomnia i43 – As we get prepared for i43, we take a look at the queue that starts building of gamers ready to take on the huge weekend of gaming.

Not only is an area devoted to gaming and extreme LAN action, but also a small exhibition area where some of the top brands and retailers on the market are able to showcase their latest products, as well as talking directly to the consumer public.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKRVp2JZgxA[/youtube]

Corsair have announced the availability of the higher capacity models of the Force GT solid state drives. The 180GB and 240GB models are now available alongside the current 60GB and 120GB models. For a quick recap of what they are, they are SATA III 6GB/s solid state drives using the new SandForce controller supporting read speeds of up to 555MB/s and write speeds of up to 525MB/s. Up to 85,000 IOPs are support for an ultra responsive system.

Corsair: “Force Series GT is our fastest, most flexible line of SSDs, The new 180GB and 240GB models are ideal for premium systems which require large amounts of high-performance storage.”

They are all backward compatible with SATA II 3GB/s as standard and come with a 3.5″ to 2.5″ adapter for those who want to mount in a 3.5″ bay in a desktop PC case. Pricing is $379 for the 180GB model and $489 for the 240GB model.

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Sharkoon has developed a new mid tower PC case called the Tarea. The case is quite sleek and well designed, the front has a large emphasis on expansion, nine 5.25″ inch bays from the top to the bottom all supporting 3.5″ and 2.5″ drives with the provided adapters. The entire case maintains a smooth black lacquer finish and has meshed front panel 5.25″ drive bay covers.

In terms of cooling there is room for an optional 120mm front fan which makes the bottom three 5.25″ bays only usable from inside the case so therefore ideal for putting the 3.5″ hard drives in. There is also room for two 120mm fans on the sideand one 80 or 120mm fan at the rear A tool less quick locking mechanism is used for most of the 5.25″ bays. Behind the motherboard tray is large CPU cut out for after market CPU coolers and plenty of room for good cable management. The front panel has a microphone and headphone jack plus two USB 2.0 ports and an eSATA port.

The case measures 475mm x 200mm x 440mm (L x W x H) and weighs 6.2kg when empty. CPU coolers up to 160mm and graphics cards up to 300mm are supported. The case is very cheap, available for €36.49.

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Microsoft has apparently brought about some tweaks in the way files are copied which will improve the user experience. For example users who are transferring multiple files can pause or cancel any of the current copying files from the list. So if a certain set copying task is of higher priority you can cancel or pause the others to make the highest priority task speed up.

In addition to this Windows 8 will also give a graphical representation of the file transfer and information such as the average transfer speed, the transfer speed on a time graph and of course the size and number of items remaining.

And finally the copying conflict function gets a little revamp too showing you the size and a thumbnail of both files and giving you the option to keep both or keep one.

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Dell has started shipping its new Ultra Slim 21.5″ monitor, the S2230MX monitor is just 9.9mm at its thinnest point. The monitor is slim because it uses LED back-lit technology as opposed to a CCFL tube technology. It also runs of an external power brick instead of having the power onboard behind the screen. The Dell S2230MX uses a TN panel that provides 82% color gamut coverage. A native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Full HD), the Dell S2230MX panel offers 2 ms (GTG) response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio with 8 million to 1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio, and brightness of 250 cd/m². While display inputs on the panel include DVI and VGA, a HDMI to DVI adapter is bundled. Backed by a one-year warranty, the Dell S2230MX is priced at US $219.99.

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EA Games has altered its EULA agreement after the discontent showed last week about its ability to collect information on users computers and sell or distribute it without the need for consent. EA’s new EULA agreement now states that it knows users care about how their information is used and shared and it made this statement:

“EA would never sell your personally identifiable information to anyone, nor would it ever use spyware or install spyware on users’ machines. We and agents acting 37683v1 on our behalf do not share information that personally identifies you without your consent, except in rare instances where disclosure is required by law or to enforce EA’s legal rights”

So it would appear although EA is not backing down on its right to scan people’s computers it is promising to never exploit the power it has and to only ever use the information for its own purposes and to help develop its own services and products.

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Halo developers 343 industries have confirmed that next years Halo 4 release will indeed be a direct sequel to the storyline of Halo 3. This was an official announcement made by 343 industries at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) and they also said that the new series would be called the “reclaimer trilogy”.

The new trilogy will heavily emphasise master chief as the main character in the story and Cortana was also said to feature heavily in the new storyline which will feature and unique and never seen before relationship between the two characters.

You can check out some of the Halo 4 videos that were revealed at PAX below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH25u8-fubw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAKmu2yn3Fk[/youtube]

LG electronics didn’t wait for the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA) on September the 2nd to announce its new upcoming monitors. LG has announced the “E91” and “D237IPS” both from LG’s “Flatron” range of screens measuring in at 23″ with full HD (1920 by 1080) resolutions.

The E91 is the more pleasing of the two models in terms of looks. With an acrylic finish and an extra thin bezel of just 4.35mm this is certainly a stunning monitor. Also equipped with a full HD 1080p resolution and a typical response time of 2ms-5ms. A dynamic contrast ratio of 10 million : 1 shows the LEDs in full action. Brightness is 250cd/m2 and with an 160/170 degree viewing angle.

The D237IPS monitor uses FPR (Film Pattern Retarder) 3D technology and an IPS panel. The panel comes with a 2D to 3D conversion function on its full HD 1920 by 1080 resolution. The dynamic contrast ratio is half of the previous E91 monitor at 5 million : 1 with the same brightness of 250cd/m2 in 2D mode (normal monitor mode) an 100cd/m2 in 3D mode. This monitor is also LED backlit. Neither have official pricing yet.

The creator of JailbreakMe and Spirit_Tools “Comex” or by his real name Nicholas Allegra has joined Apple as an intern to assist with the programming department. Apple have probably finally realised that it is much easier to hire their software nemesis than it is to try and take him on. It is unlikely that he will show Apple how to stop Jailbreaking of its devices occurring but he will certainly be expected to help repair some of the security vulnerabilities in the Apple iOS at the minimum otherwise hiring him is a waste of time and money.

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It would appear after taking the computer, phone and tablet market by storm Apple is now looking to move into the TV market. TVs equipped with iOS and an optional iOS set-top box to go with those are planned. Apple is also tinkering with the Idea of getting a subscription service online much like what Sky and Virgin offer. Apple also seems to be choosing a good time to come in as the prices of large high end TVs has started to fall dramatically as worldwide production has increased a lot. It is also planned that these iOS TVs will be touch screen and remote control operated for a more interactive TV experience. However, don’t expect to see these until Late 2012 at the very earliest, most analysts are speculating early to mid 2013 as the most likely time for release.

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AMD is set to release its new 28nm graphics cards this year for both the desktop and notebook market. The line up for the Notebook market has been discovered. The new HD 7000-series of 28nm notebook graphics will have six different models all relatively high-end since any low-medium graphics units are likely to come in an APU format.

First up is the Chelsea Pro / Chelsea XT graphics chip, this one is the lowest end HD 7000 series chip. Both variants come with a 128bit memory bus and 2GBs of GDDR5 video memory. The TDP is also relatively low 25W for the Pro and 35W for the XT. These chips wil give a 3D Mark Vantage score of P9000 and P11000 respectively.

Next up is the Heathrow Pro / Heathrow XT graphics chip this is the middle of the HD 7000 range still coming in on a 128bit memory bus with 2GBs of GDDR5 VRAM but with faster cores. The Pro uses 35W while giving a score of P11000 and the XT uses 45W whilst posting a P12000 score. All of the Chelsea and Heathrow cores will have engineering samples out by early September and will hit the shelves in December.

Finally the fastest of the HD 7000 series is the Wimbledon Pro / Wimbledon XT chip. With a substantial 4GBs of GDDR5 VRAM (the same amount as a HD 6990) on a 256bit memory bus these two chips are the cream of the crop. The slower “Pro” version uses 60W whilst scoring P14000 and the faster “XT” version uses 80W of power whilsting posting an impressive score of P16000. These faster chips will be shipping in January a month later than the Chelsea and Heathrow chips.

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