Source: Blue’s News

This trailer shows off F-15C: DCS Flaming Cliffs, an upcoming standalone release of the F-15C from the DCS: Flaming Cliffs 3 DLC for those who don’t want the full Monty. The DCS website has more details, and here’s word from the trailer’s description:

“As a DCS Flaming Cliffs title, F-15C focuses on ease of use without complicated cockpit interaction, significantly reducing the learning curve. As such, F-15C features keyboard and joystick cockpit commands with a focus on the most mission critical of cockpit systems.”

Bohemia Interactive is pleased to announce the release of update 1.63 for Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead.

Besides the numerous fixes and optimizations which were introduced during the 1.63 beta program which covered almost a 2 year period for this iteration of the engine, the update focuses on the transition of the multiplayer from GameSpy matchmaking to Steam.

As you may have heard, GameSpy is discontinuing its services and it was therefore of paramount importance to offer an alternative for the passionate Operation Arrowhead players who have supported our game and our company for so many years.

Due to the fact that Steam based matchmaking requires Steam to work, this update is only available through Steam. If you have purchased a retail copy of the game, please do not despair. As announced previously all Arma 2 (including DLCs and Operation Arrowhead expansion) keys may now be activated on Steam. Just follow this walkthrough (link), take your Arma 2 CD key, use it as a Steam product key, and the game will be added to your library.

For our other games affected by the GameSpy shutdown, but not updated to work with Steam (Arma 1, Arma Cold War Assault, Take On Helicopters), and also for those players who wish to stick with the older non-Steam version of the game, we have implemented a system to help host and connect to servers even without a functioning GameSpy – http://master.bistudio.com/. Here server owners may add their servers and players may use the listed IP addresses to connect to them. Also to help players overcome difficulties we have added a number of articles for each game to our FAQ (link) and as always our technical support staff is ready to help via [email protected].

For more information about Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead, please visit the official website at www.arma2.com.

Author: SKYMTL @ Hardware Canucks

AMD rolled out their long-anticipated R9 295X2. Not only did it take NVIDIA completely by surprise but it approached cooling in a new and innovative way (for a reference card that is); instead of sticking to a sometimes-inefficient air based heatsink, AMD incorporated a water cooling setup. As a result, its dual R9 290X cores were able to operate at full speed without the throttling and it demolished everything in its path.

PowerColor’s R9 290X Devil 13 goes back to basics by utilizing virtually the same specifications as the R9 295X2 but backing things up with an infinitely more adaptable fan-based heatsink. Ditching the water cooler wasn’t easy since the Hawaii cores and 8GB memory produce an astonishing amount of heat but the Devil 13 compensates by throwing a massive amount of thermal dissipation power at the problem.

Read The Review Here

By Marco Chiappetta @ HotHardware

In the past few weeks, we’ve seen a steady stream of new solid state drive releases, from the likes of Plextor, Crucial, and SanDisk. Our review of the Plextor M6M mSATA drive can be found here, and we covered Crucial’s MX100 series here. And reviews of some new SanDisk drives are currently in the works. Today, however, Samsung is unveiling something new we think you’ll really take interest in.

Up next for your reading pleasure, we have Samsung’s brand-new SSD 850 PRO series. The 128GB and 1TB Samsung SSD 850 PRO drives we’ll be showing you here are the company’s latest flagship solid state drives, targeted at client applications. Like the previously-released SSD 845 EVO series, the 850 PRO leverages Samsung’s MEX controller, but these drives are also packing bleeding-edge 32 layer, stacked, 3D V-NAND flash memory that purportedly offers better power, endurance, and performance than traditional MLC NAND.

Read The Review Here

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• AMD Unveils A10-7800 Quad-core Socket FM2+ APU
• Antec Announces the Availability of ErP Lot 26:2014 Compliant Power Supplies
• Iiyama Officially Announces the ProLite B2888UHSU 28-Inch 4K2K Gaming Monitor
• Aerocool Launching DS 200 Midi Tower PC Case
• EK Launches the X Series Liquid Cooling Kits
• Asetek Allowed US Patent Claims on Graphics Liquid Cooling
• AMD Tonga GPU Arrives in August, Replaces Tahiti PRO
• Samsung Introduces New Branded SSD Powered by 3D V-NAND
• TrendNet Ships High Gain Wireless AC USB Adapter

Death in the Desert

By Mikel Reparaz, IGN

Sniper Elite III is a celebration of extravagant carnage – and, less significantly, a big improvement over 2012′s Sniper Elite V2. Its predecessor’s stiff, linear gameplay has been swapped out for a more open-ended, creativity-enabling approach to stealth-shooting. But the big draw – the real draw – is the same pornographically violent X-ray-vision carnage that erupts whenever your bullets meet their targets.

Read on…

Source: Blue’s News

Kiss my aura, Dora! The Fighter Collection announces preorders are underway for DCS: Fw 190 D-9 Dora, the famed Focke-Wulf 190 World War II fighter for DCS World, their free-to-play digital battlefield. You can preorder from the DCS E-Shop, and they say the Dora should be ready for take-off on August 5th. Here’s a feature list:

• Unmatched flight physics that allow you to truly feel what it’s like to fly this legend.
• Highly detailed, six-degrees-of-freedom (6 DOF) cockpit.
• Interact with cockpit controls with your mouse.
• Accurate Fw 190 D-9 model, squadron markings, and weapons.
• Detailed modelling the Fw 190 D-9 instruments, weapons, engine, radios, fuel, and electrical systems.
• Battle the P-51D Mustang in single and multiplayer games.

Source: Blue’s News

Sniper Elite 3 is now available, with the sharpshooting simulation being sold through the Rebellion Gamestore, though all roads on this game will lead to Steam, where they have a concise write-up in their announcement:

“Sniper Elite 3 is a tactical third-person shooter that combines stealth, gameplay choice and genre-defining ballistics with huge, open levels and the exotic terrain of World War 2 North Africa.” Here’s a new launch trailer that celebrates the news.

By Kenny @ PureOC

Over the last few years we have seen ASRock gain movement in the motherboard arena. They have developed and revamped some rock solid motherboards at a very affordable price. In the past, we have seen many flagship motherboards from ASRock that have been top performers when it comes to overclocking and stability. Not only has ASRock performed well in the past, they have great aesthetic appeal too. Today, we have a chance to look at their newest variation from their already popular Fatal1ty series. This is the ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer Series Motherboard. With Haswell’s refresh chipset in full swing, we have tested a number of great performing motherboards. But today, the ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer Series has another advantage in this arena due to its aggressive pricing. So let’s move forward and put this motherboard to the test and see what it can do with our Intel 4770K Haswell Processor.

Read The Review Here

By W1zzard @ techPowerUp!

MSI‘s new GTX 780 Gaming 6 GB doubles the available video RAM over the reference design, which just has 3 GB. With the latest titles requiring 3 GB VRAM minimum for textures at Ultra, this 6 GB card could help provide a performance advantage. We will investigate this claim by using our brand-new VGA test suite.

Read The Review Here