The guys over at OCZ constantly update their RAM modules, but we know that this is only one part of OCZ’s business. Every once in a while, OCZ updates its other product lineups and one of these is represented by the gamer-oriented power supplies.

The latest power supply coming form OCZ is dubbed ModXStream Pro, and it is advertised as a superior gaming-grade power supply that offers consumers a combination of OCZ’s cutting-edge PSU architecture and an efficient modular cable management system. According to the press release, the ModXStream will be available in 400W, 500W, 600W, and 700W configurations, and will also offer improved stability and optimal high-performance power to the latest GPUs and CPUs.

The ModXStream Pro Series is built to support the latest NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFire modes. The compact form factor and the modular design will help improve the air flow inside your PC case. The new power supplies are kept ultra-cool with a load-controlled 120mm fan, being engineered as the quietest PSU available and eliminate distracting noises from your PC. Power efficiency is as high as 86% at typical load and up to 82% at full load.

“Global market presence for OCZ high-performance power supplies continues to grow rapidly due to our ability to remain on the cutting-edge of both efficiency and stability,” said Ryan Edwards, Director of Product Management. “With the introduction of the ModXStream Pro line of PSUs, end-users can have the whole package – efficiency, stability, low noise, clean high-performance power, and the increased air flow and convenience of modular cables. With a power output to fit every need, the 400 – 700W MXSP are an exciting addition to the extensive range of PSUs offered by the OCZ Technology Group.”

The Radeon HD 4870X2 has been around for only one week and we can already spot some overclocked versions boasting water coolers or non-reference coolers. Diamond is among the first GPU integrators to come with a superclocked version of the fastest graphics card on the market.

The new HD 4870 X2 card coming from Diamond is, of course, water-cooled and will be branded as the Diamond Radeon HD 4870 X2 - XOC³ H2O edition. According to the press release, the card will be cooled by a Koolance branded water block. This version comes overclocked to 800MHz for each GPU, while the 2GB of GDDR5 memory are overclocked to 1,100MHz (4.4GHz effective). Although the size of the water block is pretty compact, this card is still a dual slot solution due to its back plate. However, it does look thinner than the reference design.

Diamond claims that the card can be further overclocked when connected to a high performance water-cooling system. As with previous Diamond cards, there is a special feature I the BIOS that unlocks the GPU to be overclocekd at up to 990MHz and up to 1,200MHz for the memory.

The card will be available separately in just a few weeks, but you can already buy these models with every PC system from Smoothcreations.

Yes, 4870X2 is out and I want one. Not now necessarily. I can wait a bit longer, ‘till ATI’s partners release good overclocked versions, or I could get a water cooler and overclock a standard version.
Asetek was first to release a water cooler for the new 3D king, but CoolIT now comes with a cheaper, still effective, water block which allows users to overclock their GPUs as much as 13.5%. Moreover, the CoolIT solution is marketed to consumers not just OEMs.

Recent tests have proven that the 4870X2 gets really hot, at around 90 degrees Celsius, but CoolIT worked with AMD to develop a liquid cooling system that would make overclocking the X2 both straightforward and stable. This allowed for frequency increases for both GPU and memories of around 13.5%

“We recently benchmarked this card using 3D Mark Vantage and increased the Graphics score from X7125 at stock settings to X8148 which represents a performance increase of well over 10%” Geoff Lyon, CEO of CoolIT Systems.

Preliminary test have shown that a liquid cooled card can be overclocked up to 880MHz (13.5% increase) core clock speed and the GDDR5 memory slightly over to 1GHz (11% increase). The cooler occupies one bay so the entire setup takes up two in total.

According to Slashgear, the CoolIT solution is expected to hit the shelves in mid September. No price for now.

The Radeon HD4870X2 was launched earlier this week and most of the specialized sites agree it is the fastest card on the market at this moment. AMD was quite confident that the 4870X2 card would emerge victorious against NIVIDA’s GTX280, but now, AMD tends to become overconfident stating that even the soon-to=be-released 4850X2 will prove to outperform the GTX280.

According to Fudzilla, the 4850X2 card would benefit from a performance lead between 8 to 34 percent in current titles against the GTX280. We can’t really be sure of these claims, but at least the card will end up cheaper than the GTX280, at around $399. The GPU should run at 625MHz and it will feature 2 GB of GDDR3 which also determines the lower cost.

AMD/ATI partners could be making a 1GB version, and the price would drop even more. With this price, the 4850X2 will feature the most attractive price/performance factor in the high-end sector, While the 4870X2 flagship still costs around $50 more than the GTX280, the 4850X2 may slightly outperform the GTX280 while selling for around $100 less.

The Radeon HD 4850X2 is going to be released in the second half of September, so those of you who can’t afford buying an 4870X2 could wait a bit more and get a cheaper card that performs quite similar.

With the latest Forceware 177.83 driver, NVIDIA has finally introduced support for physics acceleration to the owners of GeForce 8,9 and 200 series. The new driver has the physics part based on Ageia’s PhysX driver, but it looks like NVIDIA packed a few surprises with this new release.

The guys over at Fudzilla went ahead and tested the new PhysX Pack which includes the driver and several technology demos, plus the free full game Warmonger and find out that NVIDIA’s efforts to integrate physics acceleration yielded some strange results. They compared an old Ageia card with a 8800GT and noticed that the Ageia card wasn’t even able to render half the amount of fluid particles rendered by the 8800GT in one benchmark. While this sounds to be a great improvement over the old PPU, it was later revealed that the CPU usage greatly differed between the two.

When the benchmark was running, the Ageia card only used between 30 to 40 percent of the CPU, while the Geforce 8800GT CPU usage was boldly rising to 75-80 percent and at times even higher. The strange thing is that not even the pure software mode got to use as much CPU as the Geforce PhysX option, although the demo is vastly slower using the software mode, which relies purely on the CPU. Another peculiarity is presented by the fact that the software mode would produce the same amount of fluid particles as the Geforce card, no matter if the Geforce or Ageia option was ticked in the drivers.

What we have to determine now is whether NVIDIA rushed the integration of the PhysX acceleration in its cards. Does the GPU actually do all the PhysiX calculations or is it somehow offloading an important part of calculations onto the CPU? Since this is only a driver integration and there is no actual PPU in the GeFOrce cards, I’d say it could be a coding bug or it could be related to the demo benchmark itself. We’ll let NVIDIA explain, if they ever care to.