DirectX 10 on Windows XP ?

It seems it will be done...
The Alky project is working on Dx 10 compatibility libraries that wiil enable you to run those games on XP.
The cherry on that is you won't need a DX 10 GPU!!!
Nice indeed...

New Forceware and Catalyst drivers out

Ati posted there unified; Xp/Vista 7.4 drivers.
While nvidia released a couple of beta drivers since there 8600/8500 are out,
including there most recent Beta 158.19
In these drivers they are intruducing yet another control panel, wich is much like the previous one.
You can still roolback to the classic one with the little reg hack..although now you need to go into the new cp/edit ; use classic cp...

Nvidia 8600 and 8500 shipping

nvidia is shipping it's mid-range Direct X 10 compatible card they go around 200$ for the 8600 GTS..and around 100$ for the low end 8500 GT.


The 8600 GTS seems to be faster than the X1950 pro.
nVidida continues with it's dx 10 line-up while ATI keeps delaying it's R600
Not very good for the consumer..
The line up goes like this;
8500 GT-8600 GT-8600 GTS-8800 GTS 320mb-8800 GTS 640mb- and the beloved 8800 GTX
AMD/ATI, are you still there...?

More ATI R600 pics!

It looks pretty long although this seems to be the oem version.



Or if you would lke to call it the X2800...
**Edit** Apparently it will be called Radeon HD 2900 XT

Battle of the Processors

Intel is shipping it's new Core 2 Extreme QX6800 quad core.
It runs at 2.93 ghz. Get a nice review HERE

Meanwhile, AMD has cut it's prices on a couple of there CPU's

The sub 1000$ gaming PC build

So you've got a grand hitching in your pocket... let's build a kick-ass gaming PC!
Prices comes from newegg.com as the time of writing.

CPU
First off, we need a powerful, multicore all around CPU and Intel Core 2 Duo's are all the rage right now. And because we are on a budget we won't get an extreme version.
I went with the 2.13 Ghz 2mb L2 cache E6400.
I originally wanted to go with the E6600 but our budget is restraint.
It ships for about 200$


Motherboard
So we want a Core 2 duo board (obviously), that has a 1066 FBS since the next generation of Intel CPU's, Penryn, will need it. We also need SLI upgrade path, overclocking features and more.So for this build I wanted to go with the EVGA 680i SLI but the budget was not there.
I choose the bang for the buck, nVidia 650i chipset, dual 16x pci-e Asus P5N-E SLI.
It's about 125$, nice price tag!
Don't forget memory!
I had to it...
So we want 2gig since more and more games needs it. We also want DDR 800mhz with low latency's. So I went with Corsairs flagship XMS2's.
They come in a dual 2x1gb package at 168$.

Hard Drive
We need a massive Hard disk to install all those space hungry...games.
And we are pretty lucky as prices are dropping.
A 500gb, yep 500 gig Western Digital Caviar SE 16mb cache S-ata II 3gb/s will do the job.134$
Graphics Card
It's a gaming PC we're building so we will need a beefy GPU to cope with our Core 2.
I wanted it to be DX10 ready, so uncheck ATI from here since the haven't realesed there R600 yet and since Nvidia just resealed a 320mb version of there Geforce 8800GTS, and they haven't released there mid-range part, I went with th EVGA Geforce 8800GTS 320 mb.
At 279$, it's not cheap but the cheapest DX10 part right now.
DVD drive
So since not all games are online buyable, you still need a dvd drive !
I went with the LG Black 18X light scribe.
It burns and read all formats and DVD's at 18X, no HD-DVD/Blue-ray support here...32$



Power Supply
You need something to power up those power-hungry parts and you want reliability and stability.The Antec True power trio is SLI ready with three 12v rails, 650 watts of power and all the bling bling at 109$ pretty awesome!

Case
Last but not least, the most important part, the case.
You need good airflow and cooling, lots of space, solid , good looking case well
the Antec nine hundred is all the rage right now with LOTS of cooling and space
It's easy to work with and looks great!124$ not bad!

This is it! You might have noticed that there is no sound card as are budget was tight but for 69$ more you get the Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme gamer. The onboard audio does a great job.
The E6400 is easily overclockable, even with stock cooling, you can get past the 3Ghz bar without a sweat!
So it comes around 1200$, not bad for a Dual core, DX 10 ready (Crysis oh yes), 500gb, 2 gigs of ram PC!!

nVidia forcware 97.94 out

nVidia just released new official Geforce 8800 series Windows XP drivers
It was about time since the last one was in february.

Download it HERE
Release note .pdf
I'm currently writing an sub 1000$ PC article,
it'll be posted by the end of the week.