Microsoft recently aspired to steal some of the Nintendo Wii's thunder by creating a low cost counterpart of their console with the Xbox 360 Arcade, and Sony quickly followed suit with the 40GB PS3. However, Microsoft may be working on another version of the Xbox360: one with an HD-DVD player built in. If this is true, and Microsoft does release an HD-DVD Xbox360, then Toshiba will officially be getting paid by two console manufacturers: Sony will pay Toshiba for the Cell, and Microsoft will pay for the HD-DVD player. This rumored HD-DVD Xbox360 may also bring new features to the table, such as a larger hard drive, an HDTV tuner, and a "port for MP3 players".

While the Xbox360 Arcade package was just pictured yesterday, it may not be as fun as initially thought. Rumor had it that there would be five games pre-loaded on that console: Pac-Man Championship, Uno, Boom-Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, and Luxor 2. However, one of the guys that got their hands on the Xbox360 Arcade console got a nasty surprise: there were indeed five games packaged with the game, but they were all just demos. However, this was a version of the Xbox360 that has not even been officially announced by Microsoft yet. Hopefully, Microsoft will put the full versions of the games in the retail version of the Xbox 360 Arcade.

While ATI CrossFire technology was introduced in early 2005, delays and the wide adoption of NVIDIA SLI platforms prevented CrossFire from really catching on. AMD hopes to change that by introducing a little ace-in-the-hole that's currently nicknamed 'CrossFire X'. The CrossFire X initiative aims to increase scalability, performance, reliability, and flexibility of CrossFire platforms with the help of the AMD 790 chipsets, PCI Express 2, and new graphics cards. The most noticeable things CrossFire X will do are listed below.

• 3/4 way CrossFire
• Allow for two or more completely different cards to be combined under the same CrossFire Platform
• CrossFire Overdrive, which allows for the dramatic increase of graphics clocks across a CrossFire platform, regardless of how many cards said platform may consist of.
• CrossFire Hybrid, which allows for the combination of integrated/onboard graphics and graphics card rendering, disabling the latter when it is not needed to reduce power consumption.

According to some "highly ranked sources", the RV670 is beating NVIDIA's G92 in preliminary benchmarks. When the two reference boards are pitted against each other in an epic battle of 3Dmark06, the RV670 earns 11,400 3DMarks, and the G92 earns 10,800 3DMarks. If these benchmarks are even remotely accurate, this would prove that the new mid-range parts from both companies will be worthy competitors to the high-end parts. As comparison, the current 8800Ultra, which retails for about $600USD now, gets 12,500 in 3DMark06. Hopefully, with driver optimizations and finalized retail board designs, we will see a feisty fight for the 3DMark06 crown, and marked performance increases.

According to someone who works in Bungie, as of yesterday, Bungie is no longer working for or with Microsoft. Their proof of this lies within Bungie's global address book. If you ask any employee of Bungie to find any Microsoft contacts in that address book, you will find nothing. If this is true, Microsoft will post the press release on October 6th, to avoid affecting quarterly results. Microsoft is also rumored to keep the entire Halo franchise. The same Bungie employee has this to say regarding why Microsoft and Halo may have split:

Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingie they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity. They'll probably make Halo 4 for Microsoft, however hey are also free to create new intellectual properties for whatever system they want. (Even though they prefer the xbox platform)

Neither company has confirmed or denied any of this. We will have to wait until October 6th to see anything official.

When gamers heard that the original R600 had a TDP of over 200W, gamers who wanted to play at respectable resolutions and settings went out and bought new power supplies capable of handling such a load, and dealt with the noise that comes with dissipating such a high TDP. Fortunately, these problems are not going to be associated with the RV670, AMD's next high-end graphics card. The RV670XT has a TDP of 132W, and the RV670Pro boasts a modest 104W TDP. Hopefully, these lower heat yields will allow for a quieter cooling solution for these cards. AMD attributes these lower TDPs to a 55nm manufacturing process.

In what he claims was a fit of boredom, an intrepid user of 1Up stumbled upon the original script for the Halo movie. The 127 page script was drafted in 2005, and was only ditched because of studio problems with making the actual movie. Anyone who is truly obsessed with Halo and wants to read what would have been the Halo movie, please follow the source link.

While Intel is preparing to move on to a 45nm micro-architecture, AMD is preparing true quad-core processors, and working on a quad-graphics card solution. The technology that will allow for four graphics cards to be stuck in one system will be called "QuadFire", and there are no major details out at this time, other than the name and pictures of supporting motherboards. The chipset supporting "QuadFire" is AMD's own RD790, which is pictured below in MSI's K9A2 motherboard. The RD790 is designed to work with a Phenom processor, has six SATA ports, and two E-SATA ports.

Pictures courtesy of OCWorkbench.

Intel's next big thing is 45 nanometer architecture, which it has applied to their new Penryn micro-architecture. On November 11, Intel will release seven Xeon processors containing the new micro architecture. Among the seven processors are the 2.00GHz E5405, the 2.33GHz E5410, the 2.50GHz E5420, the 2.66GHz E5430, the 2.83GHz E5440, the 3.00GHz E5450 and the 3.16GHz X5460. All seven chips operate on a 1333MHz frontside bus. No official prices are available at this time, and we will see more Penryn processors in Q1 2008.

We've heard plenty about how PCI Express 2 is going to start surfacing in motherboards and graphics cards all across the world starting in Q3 2007. The PCI Special Interest Group has begun considering what they're going to do for the next version of PCI Express. Currently, they think that PCI Express 3 will be ready for a finalized version of the specifications by 2009, and we can start seeing products utilizing PCI Express 3 in 2010 (giving PCI Express 2 three years to shine, much like PCI Express 2 gave PCI Express three years to shine).

Regardless of when PCI Express 3 is released, the current rumor has it that we will see transfer speeds of eight gigatransfers per second. A spokesperson for the PCI Special Interest Group claims that by 2009, such incredible speeds will be easily achieved with low cost materials with a negligible impact on performance/compatibility.

The wonderful people with a strange abundance of spare time over at 1Up have found a very interesting title in the German game rating system: a request to rate a certain "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (GC-Demo)". The (GC-Demo) part could possibly stand for "Game Convention Demo", which would make perfect sense considering the upcoming Leipzig Games Convention and Blizzcon.

If this is a formal expansion, it will almost surely be announced at Blizzcon this weekend. Wrath of the Lich King is currently rumored to open up the Northrend section of the World of Warcraft, where Arthas and the Lich King were last seen in Warcraft 3.

Yesterday, we pointed out that Circuit City might be planning to cut the PS3 price by $100 USD. Unfortunately, if this price cut actually happens, it's only temporary. The president of Sony Corporate Entertainment America (SCEA) has formally/officially announced that Sony plans no world-wide price cut of this sort. While Sony was considering a price cut to help bolster sales, which developers have been calling for for quite some time, Sony is stone-walled on this issue.

The Circuit City advertisement may yet be legitimate. We'll keep you posted as to whether or not the PS3 will really be $500 USD on the week of July 15th at Circuit City.

Ever since the PS3 price of $600 USD was announced, critics have felt that a price drop was all but necessary. There is a pre-release flyer circling the bowels of the internet with an interesting rumor: a $500 PS3 the week of July 15th. At first, Sony merely scoffed at the $500 PS3, putting it down as just another rumor. However, once this "rumor" became pixelated, Sony was caught flat-footed, and did not have any comment on this situation.

Even if this price drop is legitimate, it could just be a simple Circuit City exclusive sale, and will end the following Sunday. The only thing we can really do is wait until July 15th for the $500 PS3. Regardless of whether or not the flyer is legitimate, you can read it below.

It seems that PCMagazine has gotten their hands on a "special" version of the Radeon HD 2900XT in a Crossfire setup which nearly DOUBLES performance across some games and benchmarks over NVIDIA's 8800 GTX SLI.

The systems they used were direct from Falcon Northwest and so the question is... what about the rest of us? The folks over at Dailytech provide their insight into this interesting find in an editorial.

AMD has recently denied the rumor that Phenom would be delayed. AMD says that they will have Phenom released during Q4 2007, despite motherboard manufacturers saying otherwise.

However, any Phenom launch before Q1 2008, according to AMD, will be a mere paper launch, not unlike the HD 2x00 series. Motherboard manufacturers claim that this delay is give AMD enough time to make enough Phenom processors for a heavy AMD fanbase. This is also a move designed to make Phenom more competitive with Penryn.

Seems like AMD still has some aces up their sleeves. After the lackluster performance of the R600 based cards, a very interesting Radeon HD 2600XT has been spotted. The card features 512MB GDDR4 at 0.7ns which runs at 1430 MHz, which is a large bump when compared to the standard 1100 MHz of a "normal" HD 2600 XT. The core runs at the usual 800 MHz. In addition to this, the card features one DVI and one HDMI port.

Nvidia got a license from Intel to produce 1600MHz FSB products. This is quite logical, since Intel themselves never really made the gaming community happy. With Nvidia making the chipsets Intel makes sure this market stays satisfied. Secondly, just like Intel used ATI chipsets on their boards some time ago Intel will now use Nvidia chipsets in their products.
More surprisingly Nvidia also got a license to use CSI and produce Xeon chipsets. This is quite a major thing since the Xeon chipset market never has been really big. The current platform has some downsides like the memory subsystem and no official SLI/Crossfire support. If the memory issues get fixed by NV (ie dropping FB-DIMMs) is just wishful thinking at the time being, SLI support sounds very obvious though.

The new Intel P35 chipset will make its debut soon. Hardspell has tested the performance of the chipset against Intel's own P965 and NVIDIA's 680i. Their findings show that the P35 chipset exhibits a similar level of performance to the P965 chipset. However, when it is paired up with DDR2-1066 modules, the performance is boosted and exceeds the NV-680i in games.

On May 14th, six days from now, the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) regarding AMDs HD 2000 graphics card lineup will be lifted and everyone will be informed about it by various websites and print magazines. As this day comes closer and closer more and more bits of information and misinformation get published around the internet. The VR-Zone seems to have a comprehensive article in the works right now, judging on the traces they left on their website. There you will find headlines but no pictures or additional text about HD 2400, HD 2600 and HD 2900 products and even one about mobile graphics solutions called Radeon Mobility 2000 Series. Furthermore there is evidence about DirectX 10 demos, special antialiasing modes, Overclocking and 'UnReal Overclocking' - whatever that means. Interestingly there isn't a chapter dedicated to a HD 2900 XTX yet.
Of course we here at techPowerUp! will have a decent review online by May 14th, but don't expect us to come up with a similar approach like the VR-Zone in the meantime.

Uwe Boll, known for producing and directing video game movies like Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead, will start filming on the movie Far Cry next month. Contrary to what you would have guessed and what was planned earlier, to start shooting on Hawaii, Boll instead chose Vancouver, Canada as it's primary setting. It's unknown so far if Far Cry the movie will take place in a tropical environment like the game or if Boll chose a completely different plot.

After losing out to Google in a bidding war to buy online advertising company DoubleClick, Microsoft could be about to acquire Yahoo!, a site best known for its search capabilities. The deal is being reported to be worth as much as $50 billion, and would allow Microsoft a stronger market position to compete with Google in the growing business of online searching. Earlier this week Yahoo! announced that it would be buying a further 80% share in advertising firm Right Media for a sum of $680 million, leaving it in full control of the company, a move which probably increased Microsoft's interest in such a deal. Yahoo!'s shares rose to $32.25 from $28.18 after news of this merger, which could change the face of online searching over the coming years - and may have a significant impact on free online email services considering that Microsoft is in control of MSN Hotmail.

Equipment makers are reporting that the Xbox 360 will be equipped with a 65nm-made Xenos GPU in the fall and that corresponding foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will see benefits. Supposedly an engineering version of the 65nm-made Xenos has been sent out. Production is to start in May.

TSMC projected sales contribution from 65nm would amount to 5% during mid-2007. On a separate note, TSMC announced the introduction of 65nm-made embedded DRAM in March. Embedded DRAM is one of the two dies that comprise the Xenos. In the 90nm version of the Xenos, embedded DRAM is manufactured by NEC.

Some of you may have heard about Wal-Mart's plans to buy 2 million HD DVD players. Wal-Mart has recently stepped up to the plate and denied all rumors. The manufacturing company had posted what looked like an order for $300 million worth of HD DVD players, but in reality, that form is nothing more than a price-check, a figure to see how much it would cost to get that many HD DVD players. So, in short, Wal-Mart is considering getting a gazillion HD DVD players, just not from the supplier that posted an "order".

At this point, it seems like the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray high-definition media war looks a lot like a game of chess. And right now, that game of chess is locked in a stalemate. In an effort to break the stalemate in favor of HD DVD, Wal-Mart has made a cunning move. They are attempting to make HD DVD the first affordable HD medium. They have placed an order for 2 million $299 USD HD DVD players. While a noble effort on Wal-Mart's part, we won't be seeing any of these players until at least late 2008. By then, Blu-ray may have come down in price enough to win the HD media war.

After impressive benchmark results for the Radeon HD 2900 XT, the Radeon HD X2900 XTX (AMD's flagship DirectX 10 card) has failed to impress in the same way. When compared to NVIDIA's 8800 GTX, the 2900 XTX is lagging behind in frames per second when it comes to games such as Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., Half Life 2: Episode 1 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. You can see the results for yourself (as well as pictures of the card) by clicking the images below - all tests were run on an ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard with a Core 2 Extreme QX6800 processor and 800MHz Corsair XMS2 RAM. The HD 2900 XTX is based on the same GPU as the HD 2900 XT, but uses GDDR4 memory running at 1010MHz instead of GDDR3 memory running at 800MHz. There aren't any comparisons between the cards when they are overclocked, nor is there any data on DirectX 10 performance, but at present it looks like NVIDIA could be a step ahead of AMD. The card used by DailyTech was a sample released to board members in the second week of April, and the benchmarks were made with the drivers AMD plans to provide when the new cards hit retail.