In now knowing when NVIDIA plans to unveil its GTX 400 Series (based on Fermi/GF100), which happens to be at PAX 2010 next month (March 26 to be exact), information is beginning to trickle out as to the underlying specs on the GTX 470 and 480 cards, in turn helping give a better perspective on the performance expectations of the models.

NVIDIAs next-gen GF100 silicon physically has 512 CUDA cores, 16 geometry units, 64 TMUs, 48 ROPs and a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface. GTX 480 will of course be without limits and make use of every bit of this power in all regards. GTX 470 is of course a cut-down lower priced variant, but we're not yet sure in which areas and by how much NVIDIA will restrict it.

DonanimHaber gets a hint by sources that the GTX 470 may be limited to 448 or possibly 480 CUDA cores and have a narrower memory interface, down to maybe 320-bit. Clock speeds on the core/memory will likely take a bit of a drop as well. This card is said to have a power draw of around 300W and perform somewhere in between the HD 5850 and 5870.

PC cooling specialists Thermalright have come out with a new mean looking VRM cooler for AMD's top-end ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards. The company has already released aftermarket VRM coolers for the HD 5800 series in the VRM-R3 and VRM-R4, but this new VRM-R5 improves on them both with superior cooling properties.

The VRM-R5 can cool passively or actively in conjunction with an 80mm fan of choice. It is designed for the purposes of cooling the graphics card's VRM chips as well as the components surrounding the GPU and memory chips. Thermalright has made it compatible for use together with some of its existing VGA coolers on the market including the Spitfire.

Measurements for this cooler come in at 118 x 117 x 122 mm with a weight of 140 grams. Two 6mm heatpipes assist in heat transfer to a large block of aluminum fins that are punched to improve heat dissipation. It is on this block that the 80mm fan can be attached to dissipate the heat at a faster rate, thus improving overall performance and giving better headroom for overclocking.

As we just heard the other day, NVIDIA finally let everyone know of its plans to unveil its next-gen GTX400 (Fermi) series graphics cards on March 26 (during PAX 2010). That's the big day most of us are holding out for so we can get a better perspective on just how well it'll deliver performance wise.

However, the company is certainly not in pause until such time. It is continuing to refresh its somewhat mundane GeForce 300 series of products and has just released some OEM-only cards in the form of the GeForce GT 320, 330 and 340. The folks at Hexus nabbed a picture of the GT 340, as seen below :-

Running over the GT 340s specs, its GPU is clocked at 550MHz with options of 512 and 1GB GDDR5 memory clocked at 3400MHz effectively, whilst the 96 stream processors are clocked at 1340MHz. Hexus ascertain from this information that the card is basically a re-branded GT 240 which was a 40nm DX 10.1 based card that launched in 2009.

USB 3.0 hardware was spotted in droves at CES in January and more of the gear will be coming to market this year. To take advantage of USB 3.0 you will need either a new computer or an add-in card for your existing machine.

Belkin has announced its new line of USB 3.0 gear for computer users that will all ship in the US in April. The line includes a new USB 3.0 PCIe add-in card selling for $79.99. A SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard for notebooks will sell for the same $79.99 price point. Both will support up to 127 USB devices with enough hubs attached.

Belkin will also be offering a full line of USB 3.0 cables. The cables will come in 4 or 8-foot lengths with A-B or Micro to B connectors for $39.99 and $49.99. It's hard to stomach paying $50 for a cable when we all have gobs of USB cables lying around.

Lenovo has debuted several new notebooks today and easily the coolest, most interesting, and expensive of the bunch is the new W701ds. The ds notebook has two screens and is also available in a single 17-inch screen version.

The W701ds version has the 17-inch screen plus a slide out 10.6-inch WXGA screen on the right side of the main screen. CPU options include the Core i7-920 Extreme or i7-820QM quad core. Windows 7, Vista Ultimate, or XP Pro are the OS choices. Graphics options include the Quadro FX 3800M or FX 2800M.

Both notebooks have X-Rite color calibration and Wacom digitizers. Storage is up to 500GB with 80GB or 128GB SSD options as well. Connectivity includes a single USB 3.0 port, four USB 2.0 ports, VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort. The single screen machine weighs almost nine pounds. The W701 starts at $2,199 and the W701ds starts at $3,799.

Maybe it's just me, but If you swipe something from an Apple Store without the employees knowing it you might not want to post the item on eBay for sale stating that you liberated it from the store. An eBay auction has turned up for a stair from the Apple Store on 5th Ave in NYC.

The guy offering the stair says that it was cracked when someone dropped a bottle on it and was replaced by store workers. The guys states he took the stair before the workers could throw it away. What he should say is I took it before I thought they were going to trash it.

The dude claims that the stairs cost $10,000 new and he wants $2,500 for the stolen, cracked stair. I have to wonder how Apple will feel about this. The guy could be looking at serious jail time if Apple wants to press this and the $10K price is accurate. You are an idiot if you buy this, I'm just sayin'.

TweakTown's own video card guru, Shane Baxtor has acquired some more specific details about NVIDIA's upcoming Fermi powered GTX 470, one of their first two DX11-ready cards to hit the market in answer to AMD's top-end HD 5800/5900 series.

With the very active rumour mill giving a hint that NVIDIA plan to make a big announcement regarding Fermi within the next 12 hrs, Shane gets an early scoop on the pricing and PSU requirements for the GTX 470. He learns that the official launch price looks to be $299 USD which sits in line with AMD's HD 5850, though performance is expected to be more around HD 5870 levels.

Power wise, NVIDIA is apparently slapping on a minimum requirement of 550 Watt, up slightly from AMD's min requirement on the HD 5850 at 500 Watt. In any case, it shouldn't matter to most people wanting a card like this, knowing full well that a quality PSU with plenty of headroom makes for a much more stable gaming rig.

Rumors surface all the time in the tech world and some are more believable than others. Some rumors start out of the blue and others are based in at least a little bit of fact. The new Sony rumor circulating today has a bit of fact behind it.

The rumor started when a patent surfaced showing that Sony was at least thinking about creating a universal controller for game consoles. Universal would mean a Sony controller that would work on the Wii, Xbox, and PS3. That hardly sounds like something Sony would do.

The patent outlines a controller with an LCD screen that would be able to show the buttons for specific consoles the device was connected to. The big (BIG) issue here is that the buttons are mostly virtual. I can not imagine that many gamers would want to play with a virtual button control for long.

My DVR is one of the most important gadgets in my house. I use the thing daily, without it I would miss all the shows I really love, and even worse, I'd have to watch commercials again. TiVo has been granted a patent on technology commonly used in DVRs everywhere after filing the application way back in 1999.

The patent covers TiVO's Season Pass technology and sounds harmless enough on the surface. Look into it too closely though and the horror of what this patent means becomes clear. The patent covers software that sits on the DVR and allows the DVR to resolve conflicts with other shows over the course of a season.

For instance on Thursday night if you have three shows you want to watch, the software in question will let the DVR record the two shows that are the highest priority to you. Without the software, the DVR would not know what to record and what to skip. This is a feature that every DVR out there has today. TiVo has no problems filing suits against anyone that infringes on its tech, which after this patent is everyone making DVRs. The question now is when the inevitable suits come, will your DVR provider cough up the licensing fee or simply remove the feature and castrate your DVR in the process.

In offering support for the Haiti earthquake victims, custom PC builder MAINGEAR are now running their Relief for Haiti charity auction in which they are advertising a special edition verion of their award winning flagship SHIFT gaming system on eBay with 100% of the proceedings to be donated to the "Save The Children" charity organization.

This SHIFT system is one of a kind in that it makes use of one of AMD's rare Phenom II X4 TWKR processors of which only a handful were made. In a previous eBay sale for charity, one of these processors went for over $10,000 alone. They are said to be special hand-picked chips which promise unprecented overclocking headroom.

The below image gives light on the rest of the system configuration that's up for grabs :-