[H]ardNews 1st Edition

9700 Pro OCing:

No doubt that this could be a good start at getting those near 9800 speeds out of that "old" 9700 Pro. Chris Hinton has put together a tutorial that outlines his experience and what he found out along the way.

On most Radeons the shim prevents the heatsink from making direct metal (hs) to core contact because the top of the shim is slightly higher than the top of the GPU. To address this issue (which may or may not have been by design) ATI uses a thick thermal pad between the GPU and the stock heatsink. Unfortunately, due to manufacturing imperfections, many installations of the heatsink have been insufficient and there are numerous reports of Radeon owners who experienced overheating GPUs due to insufficient contact.

Just to correct a myth surrounding this, ATI did in fact place that shim there for a reason and is engineered to spec.

Music Pick:

Alternative metal band, Scratching Post, has some nifty tunes. And like the 9700 Pro, they hail from the Great White North. You can grab a couple of tunes for free from MP3.

Do You Ubi?

If you are a Rainbow Six fan or think you might want to be, they have two minutes of ingame play for download. The video is taken from the meat packing plant mission if you are wondering about the file name. Kinda reminds me of the coed dorms in college. About 25MB. Shhh, the password is "beef".

Ti4400/4800:

And you will of course need a video card to play that Rainbox Six on. Sadly, the one reviewed at ReviewNation is not the one you will want to buy most likely. I suggest picking up a 9500 Pro should you be looking for new sub-$200 card.

This card has very little lacking with its cooling and overclocking capabilities, and for the price, it simply can't be beat!

Uh...yes it simply can, and you will notice they did not compare it to the competition.

AMD in Your Phone:

Our buddy, Nocturnal Angel, sent in a picture of a cell phone cracked open with an AMD chip inside wanting to know exactly what it is.

AMD has a big flash memory biz and that is what the chip is. In fact, you are likely to find AMD flash memory in lots of different electronic devices.