Since ATI's announcement this morning about their own solution for PC game hardware physics seemed to us to be a challenge to AGEIA's PhysX hardware, we decided to contact AGEIA to get their side on things. Here is AGEIA's response via their vice president of marketing Michael Steele:

FiringSquad

I have a little bit of a treat for you guys today. ATI used the first day of Computex to announce its strategy for GPU-based physics processing. Radeon X1000 series graphics processors will be capable of accelerating the Havok FX physics API as a part of what ATI is calling a "boundless gaming" experience.

ATI and NVIDIA have been briefing power supply manufacturers in Taiwan recently about what to expect for next year?s R600 and G80 GPUs. Both GPUs will be introduced in late 2006 or early 2007.

Make no mistake, physics acceleration is going to be the next big thing in game visuals, much like when GPU's first arrived, so you may as well get used to it! ATI appear to mean business with their offering for physics acceleration and are strutting around rather confidently claiming they will hold a major performance advantage over the competition. If it does turn out to have a performance edge over Nvidia and AGEIA it will surely boost CrossFire sales. It may be just what ATI needs to get CrossFire in every enthusiasts home.

On Wednesday, Seagate announced its first hybrid hard drive that uses flash memory: the Momentus 5400 PSD. It incorporates 256 MB of flash memory that serves as a fast cache for booting and saving data. When booting the PC, the operating system loads data from the flash memory first, speeding bootup times and negating the need to quickly spin up the drive, a power-consuming process.

PCMag.com

So you thought the GeForce 7950 GX2 was performance shattering? Just wait till you see the performance potential of going Quad SLI with a pair of these beauties. Though not officially ready for end-users, that didn't stop us from bridging two of the highest-performing graphics card solutions. Read on.

You know those Intel Core benchmarks floating around the internet, posted by sites that benchmarked systems prepared by Intel, supervised by Intel? Yeah, we didn't do that. Instead, we bring you independent results from Computex.

FiringSquad

If you've wondered if it's possible to run two systems with a single power supply unit, then the answer would definitely be a YES. We took it further with Intel's Core 2 Duo processors and running them silent with passive heatsinks. Find out more about this Computex Taipei 2006 technology demo at MSI's booth right here.

HardwareZone

Intel is expected to disclose its launch plans for its next-generation Core 2 microprocessors, as well as a new low-voltage Core Duo chip that will be featured in thin-and-light notebooks from Dell and HP. Of longer-term importance will be the introduction of the Intel P965 or "Broadwater" chipset, marking the end of older parallel ATA disk drives and IDE storage within the PC.

ExtremeTech

We got our hands on a Core 2 Extreme X6800 and an Athlon 64 FX-62 while in Taiwan. You can probably guess what we did next.

The battle between AMD and Intel is heating up. While AMD still has the performance lead with its Athlon 64 FX-60 and FX-62 processors, and also offers better performance per watt, Intel is determined to reclaim the processor market with its upcoming Core micro architecture. The countdown has begun, and we are only a month away from the Core 2 Duo launch. This processor will replace the complete Pentium 4 and Pentium D family, targeting the Athlon 64 family in the desktop space.

Both the AMD FX and Intel processors were clocked at 2.6GHz. The AMD machine scored 138 frames per second while the Intel Core 3 Duo machine returned a whopping 177 frames per second. A full 39 fps better comes out to over a 25% increase in gaming performance clock per clock.

[H]ardOCP

ATI had a demo system running a pair of Radeon X1900s in CrossFire with a third X1900 card dedicated solely to physics processing. This configuration was appropriately referred to as the "meat stack," and while it produced silky frame rates in a number of demos, it's not the only Radeon configuration that will support GPU physics. In addition to supporting three-card configs, ATI will also allow a pair of its graphics cards to split rendering and physics between them.

The TechReport

We have teamed up with our friends at GIGABYTE in Taiwan to giveaway THREE of their brand new GA-965P-DQ6 motherboards based on Intel's brand new 965P Express chipset for the CPU formerly known as Conroe - Intel Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duo as well as Intel Pentium D processor.

TweakTown

We have spent some time with an Intel Conroe system - today we're bringing you some initial benchmarks as a 'performance preview'. Check in for a look at how Conroe performs against Intel's current flagship Pentium Extreme Edition 965 CPU.

Quad SLI technology is almost here, and Brandon whips up some benchmarks of the GeForce 7950 GX2 in this preview. Results from F.E.A.R., Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Oblivion, Quake 4 and more lie within.

We build a tower of cup coasters so that you can make an informed purchase: Join us as we take a closer look at four dual-layer DVD burners to compare their performance, features, bundled software, and overall value.

Details of 4x4 were quite sketchy to be honest, but it's clearly designed to take our minds off Conroe. The counter-attack is a new dual-socket desktop platform called 4x4 which will allow end-users to run two dual-core socket AM2 processors in tandem.

PureOverclock

5 new monitors join the 20?? monitor survey (13 in total) published last month by Behardware.com. They all deserve a good look:

Asus PW201 : MVA 8 ms panel, zero bright dead pixel warranty (ZBD)
Dell 2007WFP : just released, we know that this monitor will be one of the best sellers in the world.
Fujitsu-Siemens S20-1W : P-MVA 8 ms panel in an impressive metal bezel.

Have a Fourth Generation iPod? Is it dead? The first ones shipped almost a year and a half ago, so chances are it might be. Sad iPod, faint clicking noise? Turns out, the problem may not be with the hard drive after all.