The Zone

And its not the R600!!!!

Although we would like to call the R600 a monster, judging from all the spy shots that we see from Vr-zone (wasn't the whole issue under NDA? boo hoo) this Asus 8800GTX takes the cake for size - its not as long, but once installed, you can't SLI your whole setup! Unless, of course, you extend the tubings to make 'em fit outside the case.

Oh yeah, the cooler is OEM-ed from Thermaltake if anyone's asking. That gives us somewhat of a clue on its thermal dissipation performance. 

Normally we don't blog about the products that we're going to review for the magazine but this new Asus notebook that we just got for our test labs this month is worth mentioning. What's cool about it? It supports Windows Vista Sideshow, so there's a little lid on the top to quickly view little details and info like time, battery life, the current song playing and mini image slideshow. Pretty neat stuff. Read more to see a few more pics of the Windows Sideshow in action.

Happy Chinese New Year~! HWM Malaysia won't be updating the blog during the holidays as most of us will be back in our hometown ushering in the Year of the Boar. We wish all our readers and clients happy holidays and may everyone have a safe balik kampung trip! Cheers~!

You know you'll want one. The culmination of Philips.LG technologies and over eight million pixels, this Zenview Powerscape Ultra HD system lets you watch your Hi-Def p0rn many times more efficiently. Not to mention, it gives power users a kick in their pants when their friends' jaws go-a-dropping.

Yours, from USD5499

Petrolheads who live their mondays to fridays as geeks can now experience a transverse blending of their lifestyles - thanks to the upcoming Shuttle CarPC which boasts a storage solution that does not lose or corrupt data when you turn your car off (we're thinking SSDs and flash memory) The other interesting thing about this PC is that unlike any other custom-built car PC, the whole unit is a heatsink, effectively cooling the rig off - in your boot or something.

(image credits goes to TT) 

Head over TweakTown for the heads-up, we only hope Shuttle actually delivers on their promise 

To drop or not to drop? That is the question? When we were told that the  Twinhead Durabook is durable enough to resist shock, drops, and water spillage, we couldn't resist putting the rather beefy notebook to the test.

So did the Twinhead Durabook notebook survived our torture tests? Find out in next month's HWM issue. :D

Hitachi Data Systems just announced the appointment of Johnson Khoo as its new managing director for Malaysia, and to commemorate the event they held a drifting session!

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Like WTF does data systems have to do with drifting??? But it was undeniably cool and getting a light taste of drifting felt great! The only drifting I've ever done was in racing video games, and the experience was both nerve-racking and cool at the same time.

They got an experienced drifter, Sean Khoo, from drift.com.my to be our driver. He was pretty cool, since he took us on a wild spin a number of times. Halfway through the session they had to switch tyres as bits and pieces of the tyres were already being spat out by the harsh tarmac.

Check out the video of the drifting session after the pics below! :D 

Want to win this? Then make your way to PCFair07 this April 13 - 15 at KLCC! Purchase any PowerColor graphic card (PCI-e or AGP) from any dealer at PCFair next weekend, drop by the HWM booth, and you'll not only entitled to a free T-shirt but you'll be in the running to win a PowerColor X1950Pro card! (PCI-e version only) 

So if you pick up a PowerColor X1950Pro card at PCFair next weekend, you stand a chance to win another PowerColor X1950Pro card to pair your existing  X1950Pro card and make it an X1950Pro CrossFire system! Now how sweet is that? :3

See you guys down at PCFair07! 

This morning I wasn't able to listen to the NVIDIA's GeForce update briefing, so I missed out on some good stuff ;_; However, DailyTech has a summary of the launch dates and prices. Some sites have apparently gotten their review units of the latest cards, so we should get ours soon.

Check out Hardware Zone's 8600GTS preview, which they posted a couple days ago. Not exactly mind-blowing results, though, but they should prove to be a decent card for mid-range consumers who want to brag of owning a DirectX 10 card...even though no games at the moment supports DirectX 10. Still, I'd rather go for an X1950Pro for now.

Still crossing my fingers for ATI's R600 though. :3

This is what happens when you drink too much beer at a LAN party!

Not really, actually but with a system like that starting from USD 5000, you'll be betting your ass that they throw in some gold wallpaper to match the exterior. Sure, its a whole system, but gold? Sure is tacky. 

More over here

Leaked onto The Inquirer, ATI's brand new HD 2600 was snapped and installed by a chinese forum member over at PCInLife. While its surprising that it did not apparently have an external power connector, despite the claims made by ATI that it sucks juice like mad, it only needs a single slot cooler to keep things cool. Pics over at Engadget showed that ATI's catalyst driver correctly id'ed the card, and while it had only 256MB of GDDR4 memory, we sure hope that the higher end cards can wipe the smirks from NVIDIA's 8800GTX camp.

Heya, how’s everyone? Hope you guys enjoyed the long May Day weekend break. We’re all back in the office and it’s back to work, work, work.

I wanted to update the blog last Thursday about my trip to China but due to technical errors I was unable to do so. I’ll later update that day with part 1 of the trip, so don’t be surprised to find a new backdated entry when browsing the blog entry archives later. :3

In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of NVIDIA’s latest high-priced big boy card to rule all current video cards in the market – the NVIDIA 8800 Ultra. It’s basically an overclocked 8800GTX with a slightly higher overclock of 615MHz for its core clock and 2.15GHz memory clock (effective).

So how much will it cost you? Well, pretty much nearly a whole new desktop system. The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is US$829. That’s right, a whopping US$829 for a slight bump in clock speed and readjusted fan cooler. Sure it may boast better overclockability but for a reported increase of only just 10% – 15% over the standard 8800GTX, the 8800 Ultra doesn’t really sound like it offers much value for money, considering that when it arrives in Malaysia it'll probably cost more than RM3K.

But if you absolutely want the best performing card in the market and/or you live in a gold-plated mansion, the cost of an 8800 Ultra may seem like peanuts to you.  Expect availability of the 8800 Ultra card by May 15th 2007 in limited quantities.  

One thing I really love about this job is the opportunity of traveling overseas for events and media familiarisation trips. Case in point, last week electrical goods giant Haier brought a bunch of us IT journalists and writers to check out their headquarters in China.

To be honest, most of the members of the media (including yours truly) on the trip never really thought much of the Haier brand until we saw the scale of their operations in China and worldwide did we realize the magnitude of their corporations; fly-by-night factory they aren’t. You will read more about them in next month's HWM special feature. In the mean time, check out the pics I took of the Canton Fair after the jump!

I'm now at the HP Mobility Summit in Shanghai, where HP is now showing off their latest lineup of notebooks, iPAQs, and mobile video solutions. One of the main stars of the show were their new HP Pavilion HDX notebook, aka "The Dragon". More pics after the jump!

Well, I'm finally back from Shanghai and not surprisingly I find myself surrounded with work that has piled up since I was away. First on my agenda is the 2nd part of the Haier media trip that took place last month. Check out more photos (17 of them, to be exact) of the Haier showroom and surroundings after the jump.