DotA Guide: Pudge - Butcher Introduction

DotA is the most popular custom made map for Warcraft III. To give players a better comprehension of this complex and sometimes complicated game here is a hero guide. One of the most evil, horror looking heroes in DotA is also one of strong. Alone, or ganking Pudge will always cause terror into the enemy that he grabs. You can recruit him from the Scourge Strength Tavern. Of course, this monster has a terrifying story: "An undead behemoth seemingly impervious to even the most potent magic, this starving abomination roams the battlefield, continually in search of unwary prey.  It is said his victims catch only a glimpse of his monstrous frame as they are dragged them through the shadows, bleeding profusely as a jagged hook etches deeper...

Read more »

Phanteks Cooler for AMD and Intel CPUs Appears in Europe

There is definitely no shortage of CPU coolers in the world, but that didn't stop Phanteks from making and releasing one anyway, the company having even decided to go all the way and offer more than one color option.  The PH-TC14PE was announced some while back, but only now it is arriving in Europe, aiming for high-end systems based on either AMD or Intel CPUs.  For those interested in the complete list of supported chip sockets, it is not much different from that of the Thermaltake Frio Advanced, to give one example.  Basically, the newcomer can chill Intel LGA 775, 1155, 1366, 1566 and 2011 socket chips, as well as AM2, AM2+ and AM3 / AM3+ central processing units from Advanced Micro Devices.  There are two features...

Read more »

AMD Gets Ready to Refresh its Llano APU Lineup

By the end of this year AMD plans to refresh its A-Series mobile APU lineup with new chips based on the same Llano architecture as their predecessors but featuring slightly higher operating frequencies. The refresh will include seven new APUs from the A4, A6 and A8 product ranges and the names as well as the specifications of these were unveiled by HP in a recently revised PDF file spotted by CPU-World. The document in question is titled "HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC Maintenance and Service Guide," and it confirms a previous AMD mobile roadmap which made its appearance a while ago. Judging by their name and specifications, only one of the seven APUs to be introduced by the Sunnyvale-based chip maker will be a new part, the A4-3305M, as the...

Read more »

Windows 8 Beta Already Being Tested, Suggest Leaked Screenshots

A prerelease development milestone of Windows 8 belonging to the Beta stage is already being tested by some early adopters, seem suggest some recently leaked screenshots. One of the images included with this article, courtesy of MDL, has been snapped during the boot process, when the tester needed to select which operating system to launch, Windows 8 Beta, or Windows Server 8 Standard Beta.  The second screenshot reveals that Windows Media Center will be included into Windows 8 Beta.  Just a reminder, Windows Media Center is one of the Windows components that was not packed into the Windows Developer Preview Microsoft released at BUILD. The software giant did this deliberately, but stressed that the feature would make a comeback...

Read more »

White Nokia N9 Goes Official, Arrives Soon

Nokia will bring to the market before the end of the ongoing year a new flavor of its MeeGo-Nokia N9, one that is dressed up all in white. The company already made available for purchase other flavors of the high-end device, and will bring the new version to shelves during the fourth quarter of the ongoing year, starting with the 64GB version. “Nokia is happy to announce a new addition to the Nokia N9 family with the arrival of the white version of the highly acclaimed device,” the company announced.  Apparently, the company needed some more time for the development of the white flavor of the new device, although white smartphones are the trend these days.  Frank Zillikens, who heads up the product marketing for Nokia N9, explains:...

Read more »

Intel Sandy Bridge-E CPUs Can Reach 5GHz on Air

Expected to be released in mid-November, Intel's Sandy Bridge-E processors seem to be capable of great overclocking feats, as one recent report has just unveiled that these CPUs can reach speeds of 5GHz using only air cooling. This information comes from OCWorkbench which witnessed such a processor reaching 4.92GHz using what the publications calls it to be just a “regular” air cooler. The chip's temperature remained at about 45°C when in idle, with 1.51 Volts being pushed to it. In order to achieve this frequency, the processor's BCLK was set at 120MHz, while the multiplier was raised to 41X. The memory used was DDR3-2400 with CAS latency of 10T. Sadly, we don't have any further information regarding the processor utilized for the overclock,...

Read more »

Nokia Goes Official with Its First Windows Phones

Today, Nokia made an important step in its evolution as a mobile phone maker by making official its first two handsets that will arrive on shelves with Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system on board, namely the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710.  Both running under the Windows Phone Mango OS flavor, these devices are expected to mark the beginning of an ascending trend for both Nokia and the mobile OS.  The anticipation for Nokia's Windows Phones was great, fueled by various leaks and rumors, which culminated with the availability of press photos and specs of these two devices even before they were brought to stage at Nokia World.  However, both these handsets seem aimed mainly at the mid-level market, and are not...

Read more »

ECS Also Unveils the X79R-AX Black Deluxe LGA 2011 Board

Together with the Black Extreme version of the X79R-AX we detailed at the start of this week, ECS also unveiled a much simpler version of its LGA 2011 motherboard that is known as the X79R-AX Black Deluxe. The board takes a lot of its design cues from its older brother and it sports the same four DIMM slots that are placed around the LGA 2011 socket. These work in a quad-channel mode and support DDR3 speeds of up to 2400MHz, while to the left of these ECS has placed four PCI Express x16 slots, which are driven by the 40 lane PCIe controller integrated inside Sandy Bridge-E processors. Just two of these slots are able to provide graphics cards with the full PCIe x16 bandwidth, as the other two have only eight PCI Express lanes routed to them,...

Read more »

New Info on BBX-Enabled BlackBerry Colt Available

In the coming months, Research In Motion should unveil to the world its first devices running under the newly announced BBX mobile operating system, and BlackBerry Colt is one of the devices that should be included in the series, most probably the first of them. We already had the chance to learn some info on the upcoming mobile phone, and now we can have a closer look at the new device, courtesy of a series of details that emerged over at n4bb.  The forthcoming BlackBerry Colt smartphone should arrive on the market with a large 4-inch or larger touchscreen display, and with a fast 1.2GHz application processor beneath it.  Apparently, this would be the same 1.2GHz Snapdragon MSM8655 chip as the one available on the BlackBerry 7-powered...

Read more »

ADATA Launches SandForce-Based XM13 mSATA SSD

ADATA has been doing quite well in the SSD market lately thanks to the introduction of a series of powerful mSATA drives, and the company has recently announced the launch of another such solution which is known as the XM13. The drive was first spotted at this year's Computex fair together with other mSATA solid state drives the company has to offer. The XM13 is however the most powerful of these as its built around a first generation SandForce SF-1200 controller which supports a SATA 3Gbps interface. In ADATA's latest creation, the SF-1200 is paired together with four 25nm multi-level cell NAND Flash memory chips manufactured by IMFT (a joint venture between Intel and Micron). This setup can provide either 30GB or 60GB of storage space,...

Read more »

Nokia Lumia 800 Now Official

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has just made their first handset running under the Windows Phone platform official, none other than the Nokia Lumia 800.  Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has just made the device official, stating that this is the first “true Windows Phone,” which takes full advantage of “the design sensibilities of Windows Phone.” The new device will arrive on the market with the same looks as the Nokia N9, and should be released in three color flavors, namely Cyan, Black and Magenta.  The phone packs premium features and capabilities, being described as a beauty in the outside, and as a beast on the inside, bring also capable of great performance capabilities, just as one would expect from this handset.  It comes...

Read more »

Nokia Lumia 710 Also Official

In addition to the Nokia Lumia 800, Nokia also unveiled the Nokia Lumia 710 smartphone running under Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system.  The new device will arrive on shelves in black and white with black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow back covers, and should include features similar with those packed inside Lumia 800. It will include the same 1.4GHz application processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, so as to offer great performance capabilities at an affordable price tag.  The new device is expected to arrive on shelves with replaceable back covers that will range from all Windows Phone theme colors.  “The purposely built, no-nonsense Nokia Lumia 710 can be personalized with exchangeable back covers and thousands of...

Read more »

Office 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3) RTM Available for Download

Office 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3) RTM is now available for download from Microsoft. For the time being, office 2007 customers will need to head over to the Microsoft Download Center and manually install the upgrade.  It’s worth noting that SP3 is just a standard service pack release for Office 2007, meaning that there are no new features or functionality introduced.  Instead, the software giant focused on resolving a range of issues that still impacted Office 2007 following the advent of SP2.  For example, Office 2007 SP3 brings to the table all the cumulative updates and public updates released after SP2. This means that customers which deployed all Office 2007 refreshes already have the vast majority of SP3 improvements.  Here...

Read more »