Zuu111

Fair enough... but I still WANT to keep my fingers crossed, just in case... and probably ignore all evidence to contrary!

Hey, As one of those Kickstarter supporters, I was certainly unsure what to make of the announcement. But clearly, the folks at Oculus had to see some kind of logic here... beyond the money, presumably. They just released an announcement to Kckstarter supporters explaining their rationale. Here is an excerpt from that announcement: "At first glance, it might not seem obvious why Oculus is partnering with Facebook, a company focused on connecting people, investing in internet access for the world and pushing an open computing platform. But when you consider it more carefully, we’re culturally aligned with a focus on innovating and hiring the best and brightest; we believe communication drives new platforms; we want to contribute to a more open, connected world; and we both see virtual reality as the next step. Most important, Facebook understands the potential for VR. Mark and his team share our vision for virtual reality’s potential to transform the way we learn, share, play, and communicate. Facebook is a company that believes that anything is possible with the right group of people, and we couldn’t agree more. This partnership is one of the most important moments for virtual reality: it gives us the best shot at truly changing the world. It opens doors to new opportunities and partnerships, reduces risk on the manufacturing and work capital side, allows us to publish more made-for-VR content, and lets us focus on what we do best: solving hard engineering challenges and delivering the future of VR." Will be interesting to see where this goes, I think. Should note too, that, whether wishful thinking or just being positive, others have been noting in other discussion groups that an infusion on 2 billion dollars sure could take VR places it could not otherwise have reached, and far faster, had this not happened. So, maybe a bit of fingers crossed and whistling past the general ick factor of Facebook?

Jeez, Facebook buys Oculus, AND Nvidia releases a double Titan Black (Titan Z) for $3000... think I'll go play a game and stop reading tech news now, had enough for one day!

Thought the same thing!

I'm wondering how crowded those ssd plates on top of the gpu shroud would be with a second dual slot gpu in the board. And how well that second card would cool?

Wow, hard to see any of this as anything other than good news all around. With the GTX 780 price drop, and Nvidia holiday game bundle, theres is a legitimate competitive choice to make, either way. Then when you consider GTX 780ti to hit in just over a week, followed by the R290, AND after market coolers for the R290x now supposedly coming by end of November, plus further announcements from AMD re Mantle in November, folks like Linus, Tom Logan, and the rest out there will be very busy, and most gamers will have a ton of info to mull over... how nice to actually have real choice in deciding higher end GPUs! Congrats on AMD for getting back in the game, and to Nvidia for making it a game!

At a guess, swifty7, what happened was the Nvidia 700 series and Titan (sounds like we'll get to see the specs on the 770 tomorrow or Monday)... that would have been a LOT of commercial real estate to give up for the rest of 2013, otherwise!

So a few pages are reporting that AMD will be releasing their 8000 series GPUs, AND in the 3rd quarter of this year! The specs released really look like they are taking on NVidia's current salvos and will go head to head with the 780, 770, etc., with the flagship, the 8970, having 6 GB and a 1,100 MHZ CORE clock speed, and going for $599. These GPU wars seem crazy to me. I mean, the rapid to-ing and fro-ing are just goign to have Nvidia and AMD competing against their own products, eventually. Oh well, here's hoping these wars translate to some incredible price drops for the lower end/older models by the Fall. Here's the post at Maximum PC: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/amd_rumored_launch_radeon_hd_8000_series_third_quarter Cheers, Zuu111

Hey, Came across this article at HardwareHeaven.com. The folks there went to Taipei to visit Gigabyte, and were shown two Haswell motherboards, including the G1-Killer. Looks like they are really upgrading sound functionality, including allowing swappable Op-Amps. Lots of pictures and info here: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1733/pg1/gigabyte-next-generation-intel-preview-enhanced-audio-motherboards-full-article.html Cheers

Planning a build in August, and really at this point I know what I would put in, IF there was no Haswell. But I'm assuming I'll go with a Haswell motherboard and chip, so waiting for details that'll allow me to finalize specs is driving me crazy!

SSD Caching and whether it is still useful

Curious what the advantage would be of investing in a new mobo AND chip, especially if it is true that Broadwell, the next gen afterwards, will come in BGA (soldered onto the mobo) only. Currently planning a new build for the summer, and had been leaning to a mobo 1150 and 4770k. Now I'm wondering if it makes better sense to go for a 2011 mobo and current Sandy Bridge CPU. At least I could directly upgrade the CPU when the Ivy Bridge-E chips are released end of year. Seem to be stuck on ticks, Intel! Whoops! Saw on another thread the that other rumours are that IBE may never happen... and if that happens: "For those of you who purchased an LGA 2011 motherboard, cross your fingers for Ivy Bridge E -- word on the web is that Haswell E will require a new chipset (X99) and is unlikely to be compatible with existing X79 boards." (see article here: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/will_intel_skip_over_ivy_bridge_e2013) Crap! Time to stop reading news and just buy what's best and available at the time!