Looks like EA's about to cash in on all that "can it run Crysis" chatter -- Crysis Warhead will be accompanied by the launch of a $699 Ultra-built gaming tower that should manage a consistent 30fps. Crytek has been testing on the so-called "Warhead PC" since early on the dev process, tweaking the engine to make sure the game ran well on the 2.66GHz E7300 Core 2 Duo, 512MB GeForce 9800GT and 2GB of RAM-- the rule was "if it sucks on this, the whole thing sucks" -- and it apparently cranks out consistently solid framerates at high quality settings. No word on an exact release date, but for $699 it's not a bad deal -- and hey, it plays Crysis.

[Via CNET]

Read - Article on Warhead PC's development
Read - Tiger Direct info page

Ultra Products, Inc. is trying its hand at that most glorious of corporate traditions: suing the pants off one's competition. The maker of computer components is taking 22 -- yes, twenty two! -- of their competitors to court, claiming to have a patent for modular power supplies since November of 2006. Ultra says they sent several warnings to the companies about the violations and is asking for the legal maximum of three times the damages. The suit actually doesn't accuse the companies of violating the patent, but of being an accomplice to end users who are violating the patent. Oh, and unless we're missing something here, Hewlett Packard filed a modular power supply patent in 2000 -- we certainly recall Screen Savers covering the devices way back in '99.

[Thanks, Mack]

Maybe it's just us, but the image pictured above sure looks a helluva lot sexier than the blurry depiction we saw of Samsung's G810 just last week. Along with just about everyone else in the mobile world, Samsung is making its striking do-it-all slider official at Mobile World Congress, and it's packin' quite the specs list. We're talking HSDPA, a 5-megapixel camera with face detection, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) and image stabilization, a 2.6-inch QVGA display, built-in GPS / WiFi, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack and a 12.9-millimeter-thick frame. All that's for sure is a March 2008 release for those in Europe, but word on the street pegs it right around €580 ($840).

The bits, they just keep coming -- now that 16GB SDHC cards are old hat, SanDisk's gone and upped the ante with these new 32GB cards. That matches Toshiba's record, but you won't be able to get your hands on one until April, when they ship for $349. A 16GB version and a new 8GB Ultra II SDHC Plus with flip-out USB connecter will also hit in March for $179 and $99, respectively -- but you know you want the big'un, don't lie.

What better way to kick off 3GSM than with a shotgun blast of second generation Samsung Ultra Editions. Don't worry, it won't hurt... much, these are Ultra IIs which means they're ultra slim. All the phones start with tri-band GSM, Bluetooth, and that new 3 megapixel shooter we've been expecting. The thinster of the bunch is of course the "world's thinnest" 5.9-mm U100 candybar we've already seen. Next up is 9.6-mm U300 clamshell which packs a 2.2-inch, 240 x 320 TFT internal display (98 x 16 OLED external) and 70MB of on-board storage. Bumping things up by a millimeter comes what Samsung calls the "crown jewel" of the pack, the 10.9-mm U600 slider (pictured second from the left). It ships in sapphire blue, garnet red, platinum metal and copper gold. Get it, "crown jewel!" Uh hem. The U600 comes brandishing a fourth band, a 3.1 megapixel camera, 2.2-inch 240 x 320 TFT display, Bluetooth 2.0, and 60MB of on-board storage with microSD expansion. Last up is the 12.1-mm U700 3G slider (far right) whose biggest claim to fame is 3.6Mbps HSDPA data and microSD expansion. All are expected to hit Europe before March with some hope of that quad-band U600 coming Stateside.

Eek! Must restore... cardiac function... ahh, there we go. Samsung's Ultra Editions seem to get classier, glossier, and more far-fetched with every subsequent iteration -- and if they haven't already jumped the shark, they have now with the rather breathtaking Ultra Smart F700. The candybar with a slide-out QWERTY 'board makes do with 7.2Mbps (yes, we said "seven point two") HSDPA plus EDGE for those occasions when 3G towers are out of reach, a 2.78 inch touchscreen sporting no fewer than 440 x 240 pixels, microSD expansion, full HTML browsing, Bluetooth, and a whopping 5 megapixels of snapping power on the backside. Per protocol, America is left squarely out of the equation with GSM 850 and WCDMA 850 / 1900 all coming up missing, but at least folks in the greater Barcelona area should get a shot at it next week when it bows all official-like at 3GSM.

We're all about watching new "world's (insert adjective here)" gizmos become a reality, and we certainly don't mind the occasional dash of overkill, but Ultra Products' forthcoming power supply takes "insane" to another level. In what's presumably the world's largest, most powerful PSU to call an ATX case home, the 2000-watt Modular X3 comes in at 10.25-inches in length and will reportedly fit "wherever a PC Power & Cooling 1000-watt version will". The +12V rail alone is rated at 1800-watts, which means that it can purportedly handle a 150A load, and just might cause some sort of small disaster if actually achieved. Nevertheless, the smorgasbord of connectors allow for more power connections that most could even fathom needing, but Ultra believes that this PSU should remove all worry over whether or not your rig "has enough juice." While it's easy to brush this off as completely absurd, the latest AMD scorchers combined with a few NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI R600 cards could easily eat up a good bit of the supplied power, so if a ginormous power supply was the only thing missing from finishing up your energy-sucking rig, Ultra's X3 should be available sometime this quarter for "less than $499."

[Via Digg]

Contrary to previous beliefs, it looks like neither Orange nor HTC will have a part in producing the first "Googlephone," and instead it seems that Samsung is slipping in the back door to steal the limelight. When the Ultra Edition 13.8 (formerly known as the Z720) got official a few days back, we noticed the relatively unexpected suite of Google apps swarming the mobile's innards, and aside from the handset not exactly abiding by the Opera agreement that is supposedly falling into place, it seems a good fit for the first Google-infused mobile. Of course, the programs that come loaded are all available as free downloads on supported handsets, but it seems the European-bound 13.8 will be numero uno in what's likely to be quite a lengthy list of Googled mobiles.

Ok, you've seen plenty of 8GB SDHC cards right? And this one from Ultra Products is only class 2, SDHC's rock-bottom 2MB/sec data transfer rating. But get this, it's only $150, and it hails from good ol' Fletcher Ohio! Ok, it's likely OEM'd elsewhere, but Ultra's reselling it for just a Benj-and-a-half for 8 freakin' gigabytes of waffer-thin flash storage, about half that of same-spec'd cards already announced. Just remember, it's SDHC which means it will only work in the limited number of SDHC compliant devices currently available. You're also taking your chances with Vista's ReadyBoost smart caching -- ReadyBoost does support SD just as long you slot-in natively; external, USB 2.0 card readers are not supported. Already outed and on-line, so why not take a chance?