Asus has recently released a new Republic of Gamers product based on AMD’s AM2+ socket. Thus, the new Crosshair II Formula motherboard is compatible with AM2+ Phenom FX / Phenom X4 / Phenom X2 / Athlon X2 / Sempron and legacy AM2 processors and integrates HyperTransport 3.0 technology, allowing the latest quad-core system to achieve 5200 MT/s.

Crosshair II Formula also includes several new features that can instantly boost up particular components. ASUS CPU Level Up technology improves the CPU performance without additional costs. Users are now able to enhance their CPU performances in three simple steps: first of all, you need to enter the feature-packed BIOS, then you have to choose the processor you wish to overclock from a predefined CPU list, and finally you reboot and the BIOS applies the best and most stable overclocking specs.

If you feel your graphics card doesn’t quite provide the extra edge you need in the latest games, feel free to use the Hybrid SLI support with HybridPower and GeForce Boost features. The Hybrid SLI is a dual-graphic solution that utilizes the integrated graphics processor to assist discrete graphics cards for boosted performances. It can even save power by switching off discrete graphics while running lower requirement games. Moreover, you also get support for NVIDIA's 3-way SLI configurations in PCI-E 2.0 mode.

On the hi-fi sound side, Asus introduced the SupremeFX II separate sound card, which features unique virtual surround audio innovations for gamers' headphones, allowing them to easily spot enemies in 3D environments during game play.

No word on the actual price, but from what we’ve seen with previous RoG products, these mobos aren’t cheap at all.

As time passes, flash drives get cheaper and cheaper, and even as we speak, prices are ridiculous, but they keep going down. When I say "ridiculous," I think about those days, not so long ago, when a 128Mb USB drive was worth a little fortune. Now, for that price, you can get a 8GB drive, and also get drunk. Anyway, instead of getting drunk, maybe you could also consider buying a...32GB drive?


A few days ago, A-DATA Technology, a worldwide leader in high performance DRAM modules and flash memory products(thumbs up for their awesome DDR2 kit I have inside my computer!), announced its largest USB flash drives, the 32GB PD2 and PD9!

The 32GB PD2 and PD9 have the same size, exactly 69.6mm x 17mm x 10mm (L x W x H ), so you can carry them anywhere without breaking a sweat (well, I guess you don't want to SWIM with one in your pocket!).

I know you must be asking yourselves about the pricing, so I Googled a while for you, and here's what I found: $123.99 at Newegg, after mail-in rebate. Obviously, there are also other merchants having them in stock, so if you still have an old 128Mb flash drive, or your brand new 2GB one is not enough... you know what to do!

I always enjoyed the codenames chosen by AMD for its products, but when I heard "Bulldozer," I wasn't really thrilled. For me, this word suggests a very low speed, but since a bulldozer is a very powerful machine, it could be more about power, than speed. Anyway, that's the truth as we speak too, because AMD's clock speeds are lower than Intel's. Leaving this aside, it seems the Bulldozer is going to be completely different from the Phenom, so let's take a closer look...


In an interview for Custom PC, AMD's European Technical Director of Sales and Marketing, Giuseppe Amato, said "if you look at the next-generation architecture of our CPU, then it will definitely not be comparable with the Phenom. It will look completely different."

Unfortunately, he didn't give any clue on the changes we should expect, but he added that this new architecture "would solve problems that today we think can never be addressed by hardware." What kind of problems? Well, no clue about that, either.

Anyway, he's probably talking about the upcoming Bulldozer core, which is expected to be the first architecture to integrate a GPU core, since some inside sources from AMD hinted that the 780G is the last AMD integrated graphics chipset. First, they managed to integrate the memory controller on the CPU die and gain an advantage in the battle with Intel; now, if they manage to integrate the CPU and GPU on the same die, AMD may gain a significant lead, ahead of Intel and NVIDIA alike!

Unfortunately, these are only rumors and speculations, and some time should pass until we get to be sure about what and when will happen. Hopefully, not too much time, for everyone's sake...

Until now, the world of electronics had only three passive circuit elements - the capacitor, resistor, and the inductor. While the fourth one, the memristor, was predicted and described way back, in 1971, by UC Berkeley's Leon Chua, this never went beyond the theoretical status. This week, researchers at HP Labs reported a major breakthrough, being the first ones to turn the memristor from theory to practice!


The team of researchers at HP Labs' Information and Quantum Systems Lab, led by R. Stanley Williams, published a paper in Nature magazine, in which they mentioned that, apart from coming up with a physics-based model of the memristor, the team managed to build nanoscale devices that prove to have all the required characteristics of the theoretical concept."To find something new and yet so fundamental in the mature field of electrical engineering is a big surprise, and one that has significant implications for the future of computer science. By providing a mathematical model for the physics of a memristor, HP Labs has made it possible for engineers to develop integrated circuit designs that could dramatically improve the performance and energy efficiency of PCs and data centers," said Stanley Williams.

In the future, this breakthrough may lead to completely different computers, with incredibly low power requirements and better performance, even paving the path for future computers able to "think." Anyway, I am sure we won't get to see these things happening in the next 4-5 years but, by the end of the decade, the landscape of the industry may be completely different to what we see today, and all thanks to the breakthrough made by a small team in the spring of 2008...