Some brief details have been revealed about Futuremark's next installment of their popular 3DMark benchmarking software, this to be called "3DMark Next".

Up until now we've not heard or seen anything about the new badboy to bring the most extreme of systems to their knees, but what is now confirmed is that it will be based around DX10 / Shader Model 4.0, thus will require Windows Vista to run.

All you folks out there with 8800GTX/Ultra graphics cards looking to spruce up the cooling capabilities without the cost of more noise, you may like to look into a new aftermarket cooler designed for these cards from Cooler Master, they call this the Hydra 8800.

This cooler is particularly interesting due to the fact that it is designed to use both air and water for the removal of heat. The block itself is made out of aluminum with an all-copper base and the fan is rated for a lowly 1800RPM, dishing out a noise level of just 19dBA.

Nokia has finally started to ship the 8GB version of its N81 as well as the standard version of the N81 globally. Both handsets features a wide range of multimedia features and Nokia even goes as far as calling them multimedia computers which we can't quite agree with. None the less, the N81 series has support for audio and video playback and supports a wide range of formats such as MP3, AAC, ACC+, WMA, WAV, RealVideo 8/9/10, MPEG4, H.263 and H.264.

But one of the big sellers is the inclusion is Nokia's gaming platform, N-Gage and the handsets ship with Space Impact Light and demo versions of Fifa soccer 2007 and Asphalt 3: Street Rules. More games will be available for download later this year. The N81 series also uses a new 3D multimedia menu system which Nokia claims will make it easier to use digital content and internet services on the N81.

Although AMD announced its HyperFlash technology some time ago, no products have appeared as yet and it looks like we'll have to wait for the SB700 south bridge before anything will happen in terms of real products. The reason for this is because some new features had to be added to support HyperFlash, something that couldn't be strapped onto the SB600.

HyperFlash uses an open standard and AMD doesn't charge any royalty fees, unlike Intel with its Turbo Memory technology which has proven to be more expensive than upgrading the system memory which in many cases seems to have a better overall effect. HyperFlash will come in three different sizes, 512MB and 1 and 2GB.

Just recently the hotly anticipated ASUS Eee PC has gone on sale here in Taiwan and we were one of the first to snap up one of the new low cost notebook devices.

It is a product designed for ultra portability weighing in at only 920 grams and affordable costing anywhere from $12,000 - $15,000 NTD (up to about $460 USD) in Taipei at the moment.

After hunting through many Taipei backstreets, we managed to find one for $13,900 NTD - more expense than usual, since these things are almost as rare as gold at the moment. After contacting a company official at ASUS, the Taiwanese company expects shortage issues as the device is so popular.

We haven't heard from these guys in a fair while but they seem to stay alive and continue to dish up some interesting alternatives in the graphics card market to what we're used to seeing from the likes of NVIDIA and AMD/ATI.

Today Matrox pave the way for a new series of fanless graphics cards, these called the "Millennium P690" series. Making up the lineup is a range of cards with different form factor sizes, each with low enough power consumption that passive cooling is made a breeze.

Another interesting feature about these cards is the ability for them to be quad-upgradeable meaning they can support up to four analog displays with the right configuration. Pair two P690 Plus cards together and you have the ability to output to four DVI or eight analog monitors.

Intel's upcoming graphics drivers which should be out in the not to distant future will add hardware vertex processing to the G965, GM965 and G35 chipset, but not for all games. Apparently, Intel has found after rigorous testing that some games benefit from having software vertex processing, such as you can see from the picture below which shows F.E.A.R. running with software vertex processing on the left and hardware vertex processing on the right.

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Intel also showed of an overclocked version of its upcoming Penryn based Quad Core Extreme Edition XQ9770 which has 12MB of cache, a default clock speed of 3.2GHz on a 1,600MHz bus. It was paired to an X38 based motherboard, some DDR3 memory and a GeForce 8800 Ultra for some performance testing.

The processor was overclocked by Charles "Fugger" Wirth to a "mere" 5.4GHz for the presentation, although he'd hit 5.6GHz the day before. He still managed to break his own SuperPi world record by 0.1 seconds from 8.5 to 8.4 seconds. He also scored some 281,000 points in Aquamark 3 and apparently broke the world record in Cinebench 10, but happened to forget to tell the audience how quick it was, although all four tests were run in 1min 43seconds.

Continue reading: Intel shows quad core QX9770 at 5.4GHz (full post)

We've got one more video for you, of Intel integrated GM965 graphics and in all honesty, it seems like Intel graphics isn't as bad as it used to be. There are several demo's running in the video, but the first two are on Intel integrated graphics powered by the GM965 chipset.

Intel was talking a lot about graphics and with its new programmable graphics core it appears that the company can add features as it goes along. It will add hardware accelerated geometry shaders in its next generation of integrated graphics as well as adding more video decoding and possibly even encoding into hardware as fixed functions.

Power saving was also big on the agenda and we'll talk more about this tomorrow as well as some other interesting features about Intel's upcoming graphics architecture. For now, enjoy the somewhat dark video of a range of Intel powered notebooks.

Calling all FPS gamers and UT fans, you guys will be glad to know a polished beta build demo of Unreal Tournament 3 has been distributed around the web for everyone to download and try out. If your weekend plans were a bit on the boring side before, they certainly won't be now.

The demo includes three levels; a vehicle-based capture the flag map called VCTF-Suspense along with two deathmatch maps, DM-Heatray and DM-ShangriLA. The download size weighs in at a reasonable 740MB and you'll find it available for download over at FileShack or possibly one of your other favourite game demo/news sites.

Epic VP Mark Reign recently commented that they are pushing to get the full game ready for a November release, though this isn't yet confirmed.