Date: March 14, 2010 Time: 1:20:56 Hosted by Jordan Drake Co-Hosts: Scott Wasson, Geoff Gasior Download: MP3 (58MB) m4a (79.8MB) Subscribe: RSS | iTunes
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Show notes
Join us this week for a classic TR Podcast episode—sans our lovable French news jockey Cyril. Scott, Geoff and Jordan kick off the episode with a follow-up to our recent ".5" episode, which discussed AMD's Eyefinity and the new Radeon HD 5870. Scott gives us his updated take on day-to-day Eyefinity gameplay after tweaking the monstrous six-display rig. Moving across the graphic aisle, Nvidia brings us both good and bad news as the next-gen Ion takes flight amid reports that the latest ForceWare graphics drivers are causing GPU overheating. And there's more from the snafu department; Newegg has dropped a major supplier following the recent fake Core i7-920 debacle. Our news roundup concludes with a flurry of gaming stories, including some sexy Crysis 2 screenshots, Portal 2 goodness, and much to Jordan's delight, the news that Steam is coming to the Mac.

This episode's hardware reviews start with the crazy-fast Intel Core i7-980X Extreme CPU, a chip that has it all: headroom, value, efficiency, and speed. Geoff gives us the scoop on AMD's new 890GX integrated graphics chipset, and Scott gives the shortest GPU review we've every aired, succinctly summing up the disappointing Radeon HD 5830. Finally, Scott gives his thoughts on the issue of ad blockers, and the harm they do to publications like TR.

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Tech discussion:

Podcast follow-up; Six-display Eyefinity rig lands in Damage Labs (0:01:43)- Read more

Nvidia pulls 196.75 drivers after overheating complaints (0:05:00)- Read more

Next-generation Nvidia Ion takes flight (0:06:07)- Read more

Newegg ditches distributor over Core i7-920 'demo units' (0:15:11)- Read more

Epic brings 3D to Unreal Engine... wait, what? (0:19:40)- Read more

Steam, Valve games will hit Macs next month (0:23:41)- Read more

Valve announces Portal 2 (0:29:52)- Read more

First official Crysis 2 screenshots released (0:32:24)- Read more

Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme processor (0:35:45)- Read more

AMD's 890GX integrated graphics chipset (0:52:27)- Read more

AMD's Radeon HD 5830 graphics card (1:05:57)- Read more

Scott talks about adblockers (1:06:58)- Read more

That's all, folks! We'll see you on the next episode.