Daily News Brief: Mac Got Game

Paul Lilly — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:18:56 -0500

Who Says Macs Are Second Rate Gaming Platforms?

Proving once and for all that Macs are every bit as worthy for video gaming as their PC brethren, Macgamestore.com has released Cooking Academy, a gripping simulation challenging gamers to chop, flip, fry, and more! With over 5 different recipes to master and a scant $19.95 asking price, we can't think of a reason for gamers not to trade in their PC for a Mac.

Cooler Master Wins the Silver

PC Power & Cooling; Seasonic; Antec. All are generally touted as top-tier power supply manufacturers, but none of them have earned the 80 Plus Silver certification for a retail PSU. No one has, until now. Cooler Master's new UCP (Ultimate Circuit Protection) 900W unit achieved an 88 percent efficiency rating, making it the highest rated 80 Plus retail power supply to date and earning the 80 Plus Silver Certified badge, the company announced yesterday.

Modding News

Ever imagined what it would be like to connect a Dual Shock controller to a PSP? With a little ingenuity (and risk to your PSP), you can, as demonstrated by Acidmods.com forum member Blizzard. Catch the full scoop and accompanying video here.

Asus Gears Up for Computex

According to DailyTech, Intel is still on target to launch its P45 chipset next month at Computex, with motherboard maker Asus ready to showcase no less than six models based on the new chipset. All boards in the P5Q family will come with the new Express Gate feature that promises boot up to online in 5 seconds without using Windows. Included in the mix will be the P5QC, a hybrid DDR2/DDR3 board. But perhaps the most intriguing product planned for display is a triple GPU videocard dubbed Asus EAH3850 Trinity. Much more details here.

Gigabyte, Asus Kiss and Make Up

In what looked like an impending legal battle between two top tier motherboard makers has instead turned into a public apology. The whole fiasco started when Asus took exception to comments and comparisons Gigabyte made in an internal document, which challenged the merits of Asus' EPU energy saving technology and Gigabyte's own DES equivalent. Gigabyte still maintains that its DES technology is the superior option, but did acknowledge grievances raised by Asus and has agreed to issue an official apology to be published in Taiwan newspapers on June 1. That's enough to satisfy Asus, who in turn agreed to drop all proceedings related to the issue.

Breaking (into) Wind

MSI has begun shipping production samples of its Wind, a low power ultra-portable meant to compete with the Asus Eee PC. VR-Zone got their hands on one and compared the two side-by-side before dissecting the Wind. Popping the hood reveals an 80GB SATA drive, Intel 945GMS chipset, Intel's Atom processor, and other geek pr0n. Take a peek here.