DotA Guide: Morphling - The Morphling Introduction

DotA is one of the most popular custom-made maps for Warcraft 3. To offer players a better understanding of this complex and sometimes complicated game, here is a hero guide. Being able to "adapt" to almost any situation, this hero can prove very powerful, specially in middle and late-game. You can recruit him from the Sentinel Agility Tavern. A mysterious character, this hero has an even more mysterious past, as the following story will show you: "The Morphling, nature's magnum opus, the pinnacle of evolution, can force his liquid body to flow over opponents in a massive wave, forcibly moving himself as well as injuring his enemies. At a whim, he may change the composition of his body, trading strength for agility and vice versa.  Capable...

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Intel Ivy Bridge Xeon E3-1200 v2 CPU Specs Leaked

Outside of the Xeon E5 server processor series based on the Sandy Bridge-E architecture, the first half of this year will also mark for Intel the introduction of its E3-1200 v2 CPU line that is designed around the soon to be unveiled Ivy Bridge microprocessor design. The Xeon E3-1200 v2 family will include 11 CPU models which will closely resemble the current E3-series chips based on the Sandy Bridge architecture, but will feature slightly improved operating frequencies and lower TDPs. As CPU-World reports, only one model out of the 11 processors to be launched with use a dual-core design as the rest of the chips were built to include four computing cores. This CPU however, which is dubbed the Xeon E3-1220L v2, is the only one to fit inside...

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ASUS Mini-ITX Motherboard Makes Any Home Server Fancy

Some information surfaced about a small form factor motherboard that ASUS is working on and which is supposed to help build both servers and industrial applications. The D25NM10-I/CSM mainboard features the mini-ITX form factor and, like most of its kind, comes complete with its own processor. More specifically, the central processing unit (CPU) it houses is the Intel Atom D2500. So far, nothing is too out of the ordinary, but the rest of the spec sheet makes it clear that ASUS isn't aiming for the regular target of such platforms. Mini-ITX motherboards commonly serve the industrial sector, but ASUS took into consideration the requirements of home servers as well. Basically, the D25NM10-I/CSM, as it is called, can serve on both fronts. Unfortunately,...

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EK Readies AMD Radeon HD 7970 Water Block

Even though the Radeon HD 7970 is not yet available for purchase, EK has already started working on a water block for AMD’s high performance GPU. The company has posted its new creation on its official Facebook page where it was spotted by Legit Reviews. From the look of it, the Radeon HD 7970 water block seems to be in the final stages of its design and will be called the EK-FC 7970 once it arrives on the market. Outside of the acetal top featured in the above picture, a plexi version of this copper water block will also be available. Sadly, right now we don’t have any info regarding the price of the availability of the EK-FC 7970, but this definitely look like a great way to unleash the full overclocking potential of your Radeon HD 79...

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AMD Radeon HD 7970 Overclocked to 1700MHz Using Liquid Nitrogen

AMD’s soon to become available Radeon HD 7970 graphics card seems to be a beast of an overclocker as recently two enthusiasts have managed to increase the card’s GPU clock from the standard 925MHz, to an impressive 1700MHz. The graphics card, which was provided by Asus, reached this 83% GPU overclock by being cooled with liquid nitrogen and was put through a run of 3DMark Vantage. With the overclocked graphics core and the 3GB of GDDR5 memory working at 1980MHz (from the regular 1.375GHz) Shamino and Andre Yang, the enthusiasts behind this feat, managed to reach a score of P54725. Furthermore, with the Radeon HD 7970 clocked at 1700MHz core and 2000MHz on the memory they hit P15063 in 3DMark11. Both of these scores are truly impressive for...

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Huge Leak Reveals All Sapphire HD 7970 Cards, Even the 1,335 MHz Ones

There are small information leaks and then there are truly huge ones, like the one that showed how Sapphire means business.  The year 2012 is already kicking things into high gear, even though the real product launch festival will be held at CES.  Sapphire just became the major player on the scene of leaks and rumors.  It slipped details not just on one of its upcoming AMD-based high-end video boards, but on all of them.  The ones that stand out the most are the super-fast Radeon HD 7970 Atomic RX and Atomic WC.  The RX and WC monikers may suggest the type of cooling (air and liquid-based, respectively).  Whether this is true or not, both beasts are bound to cause a fuss with their memory clock of 5,735 MHz...

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4GB DDR3 RAM Selling for $16.5, Stable but Low Price

After over a year of troubling price decline, random access memory chips and, by extension, modules, may finally experience a respite. That is to say, the companies that produce RAM won't have any more reason to bemoan their ailing finances. Though low prices are only a motive for happiness as far as customers are concerned, they are also an indication that those very same customers aren't buying memory in too great capacities. Supply has been much higher than demand for many months, with episodes of slight improvement few and far between. Due to this, prices fell almost constantly, in many cases by more than 50%. At the moment, many 8 GB kits sell for sums on par with those that 4 GB products sported the same time last year, or even less. Now,...

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Triple AMD Radeon HD 7970 Setup Scores Big

If you thought the AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card was overpowered on its own, you were probably right.  That doesn't mean people can't push it into overdrive just to see how far it could go.  It also can't actually stop people from doing something of the sort to three of them at once.  This is precisely what VR-Zone did: took three HD 7970 cards, set them in crossfire, clocked them at 1,100 MHz and put them through as much benchmarking stress as they could.  That happened after they took just one of them and, upon replacing the BIOS and boosting the voltage from 1.15V to 1.25V, bypassed the the normal upper clock limit of 1,125 MHz.  Ultimately the card operated at 1,267 MHz and made short work of several benchmarks,...

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VIA Intros VB7009 Mini-ITX Motherboard with Nano X2 CPU Support

VIA keeps updating its range of embedded motherboards and recently has unveiled a new mini-ITX solution that is built around the company’s processors and was designed to be used for POS and kiosk applications. Dubbed the VIA VB7009, the motherboard can be equipped with a wide selection of VIA CPUs ranging from a fanless 1.0GHz VIA C7 chip to more powerful options such as the 1.6GHz VIA C7-D or 1.2GHz dual core VIA Nano X2 processor. No matter the CPU that one goes for, the chipset used for the board is the same VX900H media system hub that also includes an integrated GPU with hardware acceleration for various HD video formats, including MPEG-2, H.264, VC-1, WMV9 and HDCP for Blu-ray content. The VB7009 mainboard also sports support for up...

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Nokia Lumia 900 for AT&T Gets Detailed

Mobile phone carrier AT&T is gearing up for the release of Nokia Windows Phone on its airwaves, none other than the long rumored Nokia Lumia 900, which has just got detailed.  The handset should become available for purchase via the United States wireless carrier in the next few months. At the same time, it should be released in other markets around the world, though no specific info on the matter has emerged so far.  In the US, the handset sports the codename of Eloko and includes LTE connectivity capabilities, Pocketnow reports. Internationally, it is known as the Nokia Ace and lacks the feature.   When launched, the Lumia 900 will become the flagship Windows Phone from Nokia, and its hardware specifications say nothing...

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Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus Officially Unveiled

Shortly after the first press photo showing the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus leaked, the Korean handset manufacturer officially announced the upcoming availability of the Android-based smartphone. Aside the phone’s full specs sheet and pictures, the company did not reveal anything else like price tag and release date. However, there’s a high chance that the Galaxy Ace Plus will be launched on the market in Q1 2012, probably right after Mobile World Congress trade fair, which is held in Barcelona at the end of February. As for the handset’s price, the Galaxy Ace Plus seems to be a mid-tier smartphone, so it should be priced accordingly. The device runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread operating system and Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface, allowing users...

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