The Open Source Linux Community and Gaming: A New Era Begins

There's a lot of excitement surrounding the Open Source Linux community, particularly when it comes to gaming. With the rise of independent game developers and publishers, the traditional 800-lb gorilla of the gaming industry is starting to feel the pressure. The once-mighty Valve Corporation, which has been a dominant force in PC gaming for years, is now being challenged by a new generation of gamers who are looking for alternative options.

The Shift towards Open Source Gaming

One of the key factors driving this shift towards Open Source gaming is the desire for greater freedom and flexibility. With many games now available under open-source licenses, players have access to the source code, allowing them to modify and customize their experience in ways that were previously impossible. This has led to a proliferation of community-driven projects, such as mods and remakes, which are breathing new life into classic games.

The Role of Corsair in Gaming

Corsair is another company that's been making waves in the gaming industry with its latest product lineup. The company has partnered with Hot Hardware to give away an incredible bundle of gaming hardware, including a brand-new Corsair graphite 600t case, an HX 850 watt power supply, an h80 cooler, Dominator Platinum memory, a Force GS 180 gig SSD, a Vengeance M90 Mouse, the k 90 keyboard, and a Vengeance 2000 headset. This is just one example of how companies like Corsair are getting in on the action, providing gamers with the tools they need to take their gaming experience to the next level.

The Upcoming Contest

But what's really exciting about this latest giveaway from Corsair is that it marks the beginning of a new era for PC gaming. The contest is just one part of a larger plan to bring PC gaming into the mainstream, with more contests and giveaways on the horizon. It's an opportunity for gamers to get involved, show their support for the community, and potentially win some amazing hardware.

Hot Hardware: Your One-Stop Shop for All Things Gaming

For those looking to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in PC gaming, there's no better resource than Hot Hardware. With news, reviews, videos, and more, this website has become a go-to destination for gamers around the world. From the latest hardware announcements to in-depth guides on how to build your dream gaming rig, Hot Hardware has it all.

But that's not all - Hot Hardware is also working on a new design for its website, one that promises to be faster, sleeker, and more user-friendly than ever before. With an all-flash site on the horizon, gamers can expect even quicker loading times and a more responsive experience.

What's Next for PC Gaming?

As we look ahead to the future of PC gaming, it's clear that things are going to get exciting. With Corsair and other companies leading the charge, the possibilities seem endless. Whether you're a seasoned gamer or just starting out, there's never been a better time to get involved in PC gaming.

For those looking for more Hot Hardware content, there are plenty of options available online. You can head over to YouTube.com/HardwareVids for video reviews and guides, or check out H hardware.com for news, articles, and more. And if you're feeling social, be sure to follow Hot Hardware on Twitter (@Hardware), Facebook (facebook.com/HotHardware), and Google Plus (Google+).

The Future of Gaming is Now

In conclusion, the future of gaming is looking brighter than ever. With the rise of Open Source Linux and the growing influence of companies like Corsair, PC gaming is poised to experience a revolution that will change the way we play forever. Whether you're a hardcore gamer or just looking for a new hobby, there's never been a better time to get involved in PC gaming.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: encoming up on two and half Geeks we're talking the Google Nexus 7 apps apps apps and Windows 8 apparently will kill video gaming dead at least on PCS and more the bar has been set wicked fast it rocked in the benchmarks we're going to up the Annie a little bit processing power I kind of understand this welcome back to two and a half Geeks I'm is actar alongside Dave altavilla a newcomer to this show you might not have seen yes and Marco chapeta how you guys doing how's Marco doing that's what I want to know oh I'm I'm doing okay how you doing I'm not bad for a what is it Tuesday it's a Tuesday yeah new recording day very exciting because a lot of schedule and changes for myself and these two gentlemen have been very busy uh they've been you know putting together contest details we're actually going to talk about that later they've been testing out equipment uh there's a beta site that we can't even talk about yet o all kind of things uhoh I think we just shh you didn't hear that so never happened so let's change the subject entirely let's talk about the Google Nexus 7 tablet now hot Hardware took a look at this 7in Jelly Bean running Google only device Wi-Fi only too what did hot haror think Dave we liked it and our um editor uh editor at extraordinaire Jen Johnson um actually gave it the editor's choice award uh wouldn't you know so um yeah very fond of this new 7in slate from Google manufactured by Asus and um you know actually well put together device from a hardware standpoint uh I don't want to say standard issue but it's a you know it's a quality 7-in display 1280 by 800 resolution um under the hood is what makes it a little bit different than probably any other 7-in tablet on the market right now uh quadcore tgra 3 processor by Nvidia um so lots of um horsepower there um you know multi-core processor with good uh Nvidia Graphics a gig of RAM and eight or 16 gig storage options um and it's uh about as thin as the uh Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 which is about the thinnest 7inch slate on the market and a little bit thinner than tablets like the Kindle Fire um so good stuff um at uh 8 gig uh options run at 199 uh MSRP and the 16 gig option is $249.99 now this version I mean this tablet's running the latest version of Android uh Jelly Bean that's Android 4.1 now some people are calling calling it effectively a glorified phone because the home screen cannot be put into landscape I find it to be a minor quibble how did you find uh Jelly Bean cuz I mean Google put a lot of effort into this they had that thing called Project Butter it's supposed to be very very smooth how what did you guys think well you know you you did touch on something there that um takes a little bit of getting used to as they say um when I first picked up the device and I actually spent some time with it before Jen did uh that's exactly what um I sort of struggled with you know automatically you pick up a tablet you expected to auto rotate uh with the you know the gyroscope gyroscope and accelerometer uh horizontal landscape uh the the home screen is set up in portrait mode um but um apps depending on the app will auto rotate for you um so it's just one of those things where you you kind of just have to get used to that that home screen only being available in portrait mode but a 7-inch tablet it's it's a little bit less important in my opinion 10-inch slates really lend themselves to uh you know reorientating the the home screen it's sort of almost a necessity with a 10-in slate not so much with a 7-in slate um and jelly bean really brings some some nice features and what we came to appreciate um increased performance um and so you get things like Google Now which is a nice additional new widget uh built in that um sort of lets Google get their hooks in a little bit deeper might creep you out a little bit it uses things like your browsing history your location time of day uh and all that stuff to serve you up content um you know maybe it's things things that are near and dear to your heart whether it's sports headlines the weather um but it will it will gather this information from multiple sources apps that are installed on this the Slate um from your your web browser history as well as your geolocation the time of day you know and it starts to learn your preferences so maybe you're comfortable with that maybe you're not but uh it does bring you relevant content uh in uh in the process with that as well so what what do you think about that what have you heard anything about Google Now yourself I have heard about Google now I actually use Google Now I have I bought the Nexus 7 myself and I'm enjoying the heck out of this Google Now I think is really beneficial if you have an always on connection and you are constantly using your device I think it's probably much more useful on a on a cell phone but since this is a Wi-Fi only device it doesn't exactly have all my searches there uh it will tell me the weather widget it'll show me a nice little card for that I find it to be a nice feature that will basically telling me hey look this is a little sampler you might want an Android phone in the long run because it's a really neat feature and predicting it was I was looking up some locations it's like oh would you like to know your commute time to this place it's like well I don't live in erville but thanks for guessing because I was looking around but it's it's it's a work in progress and I think it's getting there I I want to go around on the horn real quick and wonder okay now it has no rear camera no no ability to expand unless you decide to use the micro USB in a fashion that is not necessarily touted by Google Mar of the fact that they didn't put a camera on the back because they said either we put a crappy one back there or nothing we decided to go with nothing and then they said no expandability so the camera on a tablet I think is a minor issue I don't know very many people that use their tablet to take photos and if they do it's it's in a pinch because the photos basically stink on most tablets and when you see people walking around using them for photos it just looks funny especially you know the Olympics are going on during the opening ceremony some of the athletes were walking around with tablets it just looks funky for lack of a better word as for the expansion I'm kind of on the fence if it wasn't a Nexus device it would probably wouldn't be a big deal but since it is and it's kind of lends itself to modding and the Enthusiast community and you know the development Community I would think having expansion would be beneficial um people would really like to have that since it's not there you know maybe it hinders some activity in that scene but again not a huge deal I don't know many people filling up their tablets and for $199 device for the 8 gig 8 gig model I don't think it's a huge issue what about you i' I'd beg to differ on the on the expansion slot thing I think one of the things you have to remember uh that people use for this uh for that slot is you know just getting media onto the tablet whether it be pictures or maybe it's uh downloadable content music what have you um it just allows more portability uh and access to to the device versus you know having to download or or tether it via USB so I mean I think that's a that is definitely a small drawback why couldn't they have squeezed that in there the camera thing definitely makes sense to me I mean you you're trying to reduce cost uh this device it's $199 and it's 8 gig form you got to drive cost out of it and you hit the nail on the head not many people really care all that much about a camera on a on a tablet um but what the flip side of that is what what's what's interesting to me uh and and I think to to you as well to to enthusiasts performance Enthusiast that we are at hot Hardware um this is a 7in slate that really has some nice horsepower under the hood and and this thing along with the performance enhancements uh that jelly be Jelly Bean brings um and and optimized JavaScript and web performance are key performance enhancements in Jelly Bean uh this thing scored top of the pack for uh just about any 7in slate we've ever tested and outperformed in certain tests some of the 10in slates uh Tegra 3 10-in slates with with Jelly Bean uh uh you know running on that teg with 3 so you got Lim pack performance on this device top of the top of the pack uh SunSpider performance um right at the top of the pack right next to the iPad 2 and and traditionally uh that's a JavaScript Benchmark Apple has been very strong there here Google is closing the Gap again with the help of uh Nvidia Hardware but uh with Jelly Bean right wear browser Mark top of the pack score the the fastest tablet we've ever tested and right where's brow browser mark bench Benchmark and that's indicative of of browser performance so really nice performance in this slate for what we really have to accept is kind of Bargain Basement pricing I mean the Kindle Fire you know everybody kind of Knocked at it for um you know Amazon taking a a loss leader on this thing just to get their their tablet out in the mainstream and get people to to their content stores but Google kind of w up them in the hardware department uh at least for in terms of the processing power and the hood so so good stuff with that let's move on from the hardware world to the software world now hot Hardware had a big feature about open source and apps for every operating system now I'm running Windows 3.1 constantly so I can't wait to dig my my hooks into this and find out what great applications I can get for Windows 3.1 I know Marco is going to smack me with something through the internet for making that joke digital dope slap yeah not not going to smack you I'm just I'm just really feeling sorry for you to be honest just kidding so this uh this article is actually pretty cool we have a a really smart Forum member who contributes articles from time to time um in the Forum he goes by the the name evil uh spelled in Le speak of course but the author's name is Jesse lton he's a really smart guy frequent visitor to hot hardware and he's a longtime open- Source Linux Enthusiast so he figured hey guys let's share some of the the best open- source free apps that are across platform so Windows OSX Linux um and let's you know teach the teach the audience about all this kind of stuff so we featured the usual things like free browsers everybody's going to be familiar with that but we also covered you know uh content creation stuff office type apps uh animation professional apps and Jesse goes through each category and and outlines a few of the standout apps in those particular categories you know we featured stuff like like and in uh ink space um and Libra office and audacity audacity is an audio editing program just lots of cool information and as we mentioned the apps are all free and they'll work on any modern OS modern OS I that that's that's a slight dig at Windows 3.1 I think maybe slightly no I I I haven't used Windows 3.1 in about jeez how long ago was 1995 a lot a long freaking time that was a very long time any any surprises I know a lot of people when they think open source software they think look I there's no way I'm going to get a video editor there's no way I'm going to get an audio editor sure I can get an office thing but I mean what what applications do you think people would be surprised to find that that are free and open source Marco some of the surp as far as you know shocking surprises to people not in the scene is there's free open source games and pretty cool games at that you know Jesse featured a game called zero ad graphics look great free and another game called alien Arena the graphics look kind of funky but hey free open source multiplatform really cool stuff I also think people would be surprised at the the depth of some of the applications you know sometimes you think free you think you know limited feature availability you got to pay for the pro version you know it's only it only works for you know X number machines just you know basic limitations but some of this stuff is is really feature Rich you know you have Libra office doesn't quite have all the features of Microsoft Office but I think it would cater to 95% maybe higher 90 98% of the users out there you know and you also have something like the which it's very comparable to photoshop can it do everything Photoshop does no but it's free and it'll You Know cover what 90% of the people are going to use Photoshop at home maybe professionals aren't going to want to go for it but really really a great free app something that I think everybody should check out especially if you're limping Along on Ms paint right now the other thing is if you don't like the apps you haven't lost anything it's free try them out if there's a lot of resources out there when it comes to learning how some of these applications work uh I know there's a bit of a learning curve compared to photoshop but I definitely suggest if you're willing to give it a try I know the is pretty awesome Libra office is awesome uh audacity I've used audacity forever so I I highly suggest a lot of these things uh let's move on to the world back to the to the world of Hardware let's move to a speculative thing this reminds me of uh Tech news today that show I do uh apparently a Taiwan semiconductor might be building a whole part of its business around Apple now this is not a company that Apple works with right now as far as I know Taiwan semiconductor works with I think Qualcomm and I think atheros if I'm right about that and a whole bunch of other companies Dave look at this what what's the actual story what's what's going on yeah and it's interesting I actually spent uh 18 years in the semiconductor industry so I've got a little bit of background in the space and uh tsmc uh Taiwan semiconductor um as you noted uh is a Fab uh a manufacturing plant uh of semiconductor Wafers you know and that's from you know growing silicon right on up through slicing and dicing those chips and they are the biggest Fab in the world uh there's lots of other Fabs out there it's semiconductor Fabs companies like Charter uh and and a few others um and but but these guys have customers from across the planet um whether it's Apple Nvidia I mean you the list goes on uh and on and on you mentioned a Theos I mean I'm sure there's even joint relationships between Intel and spots and AMD and tsmc certainly we know there are and certainly for the graphic side of the AMD house uh the ATI folks have used tsmc for a long time so their model they interesting ly enough their whole model tsmc was born out of the need to for Semiconductor manufacturers in the in the uh in the early days um the cost of developing higher complexity chips on Silicon was just exponentially growing as uh manufacturing uh Technologies and die geometries got smaller and smaller and you hear you know uh dietry is going from uh 5 nmet you know way back in the day on down to 28 nanometer now and 20 20 nanometer and and and smaller um 22 nanometer is where Intel is at right now um you're you're talking about just the cost to develop the mask set alone this is the the um the geometric map of what they place on a wafer is millions of dollars just for a mask and that's before you even print the wafer right you actually etch on the wafer to to get uh the design and the circuit mapped out and laid on the on the wa for itself so what what we realized what what happened over the course of the years was that uh semiconductor companies like you know all these guys that go to them whether it be a Theos or AMD or or ATI that Nvidia goes to them started figuring out gez we can't keep you know building Fabs to make chips we got to design the chips and then have somebody else do them an Outsource and that's where tsmc comes in they're an Outsource model they're Manu ufacturing plant for a ton of the world's chip design companies that are what they call fabulous and so um what's interesting is they've got customers from across the globe they sell to literally everybody and now the model seems to be shifting back a little bit to where um certain oems like apple are getting so big that they would consume an entire Fab's capacity an entire TSM C plants capacity so it's an in interesting sort of paradigm shift in the whole model and the way it evolved over the years now if Apple did take up a bunch of tsmc's resources wouldn't that just kind of irritate all the other partners for tsmc I mean is Apple enough of a of a player to the point where tsmc is willing to potentially irritate its previous Partners oh yeah and you know what uh it's one of those things where if you can pay to play you will and um there isn't much anybody else can say about it certainly you'll see opportunity for smaller Fabs to capture some market share from tsmc I'm sure they'll struggle with that but really this game is about bleeding edge technology and when you talk about customers like an apple that can come in and help you Pioneer a process technology uh to help you blaze a trail you know it takes more than just fab equipment and and Fab Engineers to get to the next Next Generation die geometry to to compete with the likes of an Intel that has endless resources and and Fab uh uh capacity as well as technology you know next Generation technology if you have a partner that can help you Pioneer that um that technology like apple with all the resources they have tsmc would almost be foolish as long as the deal set up right not to to take advantage of that now you've got a company like apple with the PO the Deep pockets they have will help them get an edge in in driving that technology because they can help them invest in it and so tsmc's customers the smaller customers that don't have dedicated Fab capacity will eventually as a result of that benefit sort of in a trickle down I hate to use that that uh that phrase but sort of in a trickle down uh um you know result of that is you know other customers will benefit so it's a it's sort of a it's a little bit of a win-win but it's definitely a challenging I'm sure for the tsmc sales team moving forward uh as they sort of embrace that yeah you could you could buy a whole plant if you want it um so I think it'll be very interesting to see I think you'll see um I think you'll see more of this perhaps dedicated Fab capacity dedicated Fab lines for uh the biggest players in the markets uh it makes sense actually let's move on to an unsung hero that's always in pretty much everyone's home at this point you know it's there and you never notice it until it's down let's talk about routers because you know they're just sitting there in a closet usually you don't even think about them until they're missing it's like it's like um it's like something you take for granted but it looks like Western digital's gotten into the game now Marco aren't all the internals effectively the same is this this Western Digital thrown on their logo on effectively every other router that's out there uh yes and no so there there's two main chipset providers for routers it's a broadcom and a Theos but the real difference with with many routers out there today it's in the firmware and in the customizations so Western digital's actually done some really cool stuff for this first batch of of wireless devices they came out with so the first story is you know Western Digital is not just about storage anymore they kind of were creeping into the living room with the WD Live for the last few years but these uh WD minet routers are now you know their entry into the the wireless networking space and we took a look at the the minet and 900 HD dual bound router and now first let me just get some quick specs out of the way that kind of differentiate it so it's a 802.11 abgn router um dual band 450 megabits on both so it's an N900 router um two USB ports on there to use for storage or for you know wireless printer sharing but what's kind of what stands out on on this device on at least the one we looked at there's 8 gigb lamp ports one for the WAN connection and seven for the internal Network that that's more than any other router out there and now Western Digital also differentiates really differentiates in the firmware the firmware on this device has a really easy to use menu super easy to navigate even for first timers everything is well laid out everything looks good big icons easy to follow menus all of the items are explained properly but the real standout feature in the router is something called a FastTrack Plus qos so lots of routers have q or quality of service capabilities but you have to customize it yourself Western Digital went ahead and optimized these routers for streaming and for VoIP and gaming duties so you plug it in set it up turn it on turn on the FastTrack feature and now your streaming media gets priority over your network so it's not going to drop if you're doing something else on the network so you're saying that it has a more userfriendly interface when it comes to routers I mean you kind of have to know what you're doing first you got to know what a qos is and you got to have to know what exactly is going over what protocol and it's kind of annoying to have to figure that out so the the the user interface is really simple Marco yeah really simple super easy to use and you don't have to kind of figure out the qos the most popular Services Western digital's already taken care of it for you so we tested it out with Netflix and had a 3 gig file being downloaded over the broadband connection at the same time and Netflix never drops a frame it stays the priority on the network it you know keeps its bandwidth and Netflix just keeps working but it works with Hulu other services as well and it's literally you go into the router setup and you turn it on and it's explained what it does so even if you're a beginner and you have no idea what qos is it's you could still figure it out with this router I believe definitely sounds like something that you would probably want for gaming which apparently by the way you're not going to want on your PC because that'll be dead at least on Windows 8 uh according to uh valves Gabe Newell he's saying that window Windows 8 is going to be the death of uh PC gaming entirely and as far as I know he thinks Linux is the future what on Earth is this guy talking about who so you want me to start go for it Marco so yeah that's you kind of gave the the gist of what what Newell said he called windows8 a catastrophe he thinks Windows 8 is going to come um we're gonna lose oems it's going to kill OEM it's going to kill margins uh it's going to it's going to hinder gaming uh it's the coming of the Apocalypse for PC gaming according to Gabe new as much as I think that guy is brilliant I've met him I've sat at a table and talk to him I'm friends with him on Facebook super smart guy he's an ex Microsoft employee as well I sort of think he's dead wrong on this one maybe he's got a you know a little animosity because the the Windows store and Xbox Live is going to be integrated perhaps there's going to be some more competition for steam there eventually and you know he's kind of taking it out on Microsoft but I I just don't see it happening you know in the one of the most recent posts on the building Windows 8 blog Microsoft just explained how everything's going to be accelerated in Windows 8 GPU acceleration for for tons of different stuff it's also dx11 if you kind of sit back and think about that it's going to force GPU manufacturers to have really perfect drivers because if you're going to get wickle certification or get Microsoft certification um and have 3D acceleration throughout the OS and other acceleration throughout the OS the driver is going to to be solid you're also going to have new features with dx11 I don't see how that's going to hurt gaming now the Metro interface it's I think it's ugly um at least on a big desktop I think it's ugly but once you have your shortcut who cares I I really don't think it's going to hurt gaming at all what do you guys think Dave what do you think of the This Disaster is it a disaster is Windows 8 a catastrophe or is this just sour grapes because yeah the Windows App Store the windows Market wherever they're calling it Windows store that's what they call it uh is that going to just take away from Steam and gabes a little bit myff yeah I I think that's exactly what we're talking about here uh to some degree uh I don't know if that's the complete motivating force behind Gabe statements and and and who was the other um game developer blizzard yeah blizzard that came out and said the same thing I think everybody's very much afraid of their pocketbook everybody's very much afraid of their business model with uh Microsoft uh and and Windows 8 and what it means to the marketplace because that's that's really I mean it's built in it's part of the hook and and let's face it they're going to be competitors they're going to be fierce competitors at some point right now uh games for Windows and and all that stuff um you know the stuff that Microsoft has out for the current platform Windows 7 is just not that good and steam really doesn't have that uh much competition um I think it's coming with with Windows 8 and I think you know Marco hit the nail on the head uh you you you put an icon a tile whatever it is in Windows that invokes the game once you invoke the game you're in the game UI it's not it's not Windows 8 you're dealing with anymore you're now in the game environment and so I cannot see how it can really affect uh the game experience all that much at all I think it may affect very much how games are distributed moving forward and I think that's what uh that's what some of this means you know and you know the comment about OEM is going to go out of business you know there's going to be some churn especially when you think about um Microsoft Surface and and and Microsoft getting into Hardware well guess what the OEM manufacturers have been kind of riding it for too long with you know sort of cookie cutter um you know designs that you know people sort of copy and tweak and there's no real there's not a lot of innovation they got to start innovating more to compete in the market with the likes of apple and now Microsoft Microsoft saying hey guess what you know Apple's having a lot of fun here we need to replicate this and I'm not sure we're going to wait around for our OEM uh Partners to to make that happen they're kind of making it happen themselves so I think a lot of this kind of you know uh is evolving around that um that situation with Microsoft and the competitive landscape I think that's what it's really all about and why some of these folks are coming out of the woodwork uh against Windows 8 I I can't see it being a you know a nail in the coffin for Windows gaming just doesn't make any sense to me at all there was a line about oems going out of business like you said Dave their but their margins are really narrow right now it's not like they're making a lot of money it's one of the reasons why Dell and HP are really more Enterprise focused and less consumer based I mean HP is still consumer based but Dell kind of moved very very far away from catering to to just I guess regular people and worried about Enterprise because their margins are so low so it's kind of interesting to say oh yeah the OEM a bunch of them are going to leave well they're leaving now already because there's already a small margin on these PCS I I still think the Linux line is much more interesting that that steam's going to try to get all it stuff on Linux and there's been a rumor like floating around that valve is working on a steam box its own piece of hardware and if it was Linux based that would make a lot of sense I know they're porting over Steam and I believe Left 4 Dead 2 to Ubuntu that's the first uh versions of the Linux that that will have uh everything ready you guys think there's a steam box coming maybe that's that's what this is about forget PC gaming you're going to want a steam box I'm I'm not sure about this steam box they've they've they've denied it it could happen I'm pretty sure they're exploring the idea I I wouldn't bet on that I I do think that they're well Gabe mentioned how much of a focus they're going to put on Linux and I think that's a good idea even if it's just to to kind of push the Linux ecosystem having good quality games is a big deal for a lot of people and if people can get their steam library on Linux I think some people would switch to to add another wrinkle to what you guys were both saying when you look at oems that innovate guys like like a main gear I'm going to use as an example they're much smaller than the Giants but when you innovate and you have a good product you can have higher margins and the proof is in the market it's just the the guys racing to the bottom are the ones that have no margin and then I want to go another step further and discuss surface for a second if surface is successful and Microsoft kind of pushes oems to innovate in the tablet space as well I think we're Max a generation or two away from having tablets with powerful potentially discret Graphics you know Nvidia Kepler class graphics and ivybridge CPUs you now have a whole new class of gaming machines for PC Gamers technically so I think uh game developers need to to think about that possibility as well you're mention here frightened me because cuz I'm thinking about uh there were other companies like that Alienware and Voodoo and then the two big companies bought them and destroyed them well they what's the word they didn't destroy them they swallowed them whole and well yeah I well I think that's interesting I was going to mention that I I think you know Marco you know hit the nail on the head with Innovation there um you look at you look at Dell they still have the Alienware business unit it is doing very well um and we still get lots of releases from the folks at Alienware and they still sell a bunch of those no books and and desktops um HP didn't do so well with Voodoo um I don't know why that is um but I can tell you that um there's lots of folks you know making high quality you know PCS and differentiating and um you know and even in the tablet space as well uh versus apple and and and they're able to make a good a good living on it it's just one of those things where you just can't make the average gray box anymore you've got to really um wrap up value in in a total solution and in uh and and the thing with with Linux it makes perfect sense guys right Gabe new's looking at Microsoft saying yeah you know we got this thing called Windows 8 and guess what we're going to have our Marketplace on it well what do you do how do you how do you address shrinking market share as a result of a big 800 PB gorilla walking into the room you go to another platform and you expand your Market footprint over there it's it's additional footprint that it makes perfect sense I I would have done the same thing if I was not get get it on Linux man cuz there's a lot of Open Source Linux folks out there and they just love to have those games good stuff going from 800 lb gorilla to like a little tiny chimp I don't even know the name of a name one of these things I don't know if that's tiny chimp that's he's really pissed off when he fights on a really angry tiny chimp that's the future of gaming if you've been wondering let's get off of our valve and steams and monkeys and primates and talk about a contest detail maybe some details about a contest Marco what the heck is going on we got lots good stuff going on first B let's let's talk about what's happening right now I have a few more days left um we hooked up with Nvidia to give out a bunch of beta keys for end of Nations I still have maybe 40 of the 100 original keys left so if you want to get in on that hit the site we'll put the link in the description come by the site send us a note I will get you a key first come first serve we have a few left now finally we can announce a big contest finally we have hooked up with Cor and we have an awesome giveaway coming so Corsair is going to hook us up with the brand new Corsair graphite 600t case in this hot new silver color it looks awesome an HX 850 watt power supply an h80 cooler they are brand new Dominator Platinum memory um we're also going to have a force GS 180 gig SSD and Vengeance Vengeance M90 Mouse the k 90 keyboard and the Vengeance 2000 headset so basically every class of Corsair accessory and we're going to wrap those around a z77 motherboard and core i7 2600k and a Radeon 6970 graphics card I'm going to build it do the build video and send it out to a lucky winner all you have to do we're going to keep it simple become fans of us in Corsair on Facebook share out the contest and do tons of commenting on hot hardware and you have a chance to win that sounds fantastic and yet another thing I can't win you guys you viewers are freaking lucky I got to say that Marco Bill's beautiful machines and this is loaded this is ABS loaded oh that's going to be fun and you know what you still probably could play PC games on it because they're still gaming on PCS so don't worry about that yeah games will probably work and as excited as I am about this contest um we actually had a bunch of stuff fall into place and and the next two contests are already lined up so we're going to be rocking for a few weeks here going to be a flurry of them I wonder where you could find out all kinds of information about this I I would bet hot harbor.com would have details and and tell you exactly how uh you could be a winner of something like this or maybe you're like that's great uh I I don't want to win a contest I don't want to get great Hardware I I I don't know why you'd want to think that but I guess you could but you want to read about everything we talked about you can do that that's also at H hardware.com you got news reviews videos everything you could think of in one amazing site which I hear is going to change slightly Dave is getting you can see him getting slightly angry cuz we did not approve this this little leak no no not angry we just can't tell too many too many Secrets but we got uh we have a new design in the works and it's going to be beautiful and I I I like I've said before my bet is an all flash site and the color will change from Blue to Pink for hot Hardware that's my I was G to go I was going to go asky characters wouldn't that be better that's interest I bet it load fast fast always looking for the bright side no no it's going to be a very slick redesign from what I understand and I understand very little so let's uh talk about where else you can get hot Hardware content around the web you can go to H hardware.com like I said or you can go to uh youtube.com/ Hardware vids for videos because maybe you're tired of reading uh or you can go to dig.com Hardware twitter.com Hardware or facebook.com/ Hardware or even Google Plus do a search for hot hardware and and uh you can plus one them or you can Circle them or whatever it is Google says you can do two hot hardw things is it both put us in your friendly circle thing yes yes you can put them in a circle round circle of goodness I think that you can tell that this episode has absolutely broken me because I'm talking gibberish by now uh thanks for stopping by we'll see everybody sooncoming up on two and half Geeks we're talking the Google Nexus 7 apps apps apps and Windows 8 apparently will kill video gaming dead at least on PCS and more the bar has been set wicked fast it rocked in the benchmarks we're going to up the Annie a little bit processing power I kind of understand this welcome back to two and a half Geeks I'm is actar alongside Dave altavilla a newcomer to this show you might not have seen yes and Marco chapeta how you guys doing how's Marco doing that's what I want to know oh I'm I'm doing okay how you doing I'm not bad for a what is it Tuesday it's a Tuesday yeah new recording day very exciting because a lot of schedule and changes for myself and these two gentlemen have been very busy uh they've been you know putting together contest details we're actually going to talk about that later they've been testing out equipment uh there's a beta site that we can't even talk about yet o all kind of things uhoh I think we just shh you didn't hear that so never happened so let's change the subject entirely let's talk about the Google Nexus 7 tablet now hot Hardware took a look at this 7in Jelly Bean running Google only device Wi-Fi only too what did hot haror think Dave we liked it and our um editor uh editor at extraordinaire Jen Johnson um actually gave it the editor's choice award uh wouldn't you know so um yeah very fond of this new 7in slate from Google manufactured by Asus and um you know actually well put together device from a hardware standpoint uh I don't want to say standard issue but it's a you know it's a quality 7-in display 1280 by 800 resolution um under the hood is what makes it a little bit different than probably any other 7-in tablet on the market right now uh quadcore tgra 3 processor by Nvidia um so lots of um horsepower there um you know multi-core processor with good uh Nvidia Graphics a gig of RAM and eight or 16 gig storage options um and it's uh about as thin as the uh Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 which is about the thinnest 7inch slate on the market and a little bit thinner than tablets like the Kindle Fire um so good stuff um at uh 8 gig uh options run at 199 uh MSRP and the 16 gig option is $249.99 now this version I mean this tablet's running the latest version of Android uh Jelly Bean that's Android 4.1 now some people are calling calling it effectively a glorified phone because the home screen cannot be put into landscape I find it to be a minor quibble how did you find uh Jelly Bean cuz I mean Google put a lot of effort into this they had that thing called Project Butter it's supposed to be very very smooth how what did you guys think well you know you you did touch on something there that um takes a little bit of getting used to as they say um when I first picked up the device and I actually spent some time with it before Jen did uh that's exactly what um I sort of struggled with you know automatically you pick up a tablet you expected to auto rotate uh with the you know the gyroscope gyroscope and accelerometer uh horizontal landscape uh the the home screen is set up in portrait mode um but um apps depending on the app will auto rotate for you um so it's just one of those things where you you kind of just have to get used to that that home screen only being available in portrait mode but a 7-inch tablet it's it's a little bit less important in my opinion 10-inch slates really lend themselves to uh you know reorientating the the home screen it's sort of almost a necessity with a 10-in slate not so much with a 7-in slate um and jelly bean really brings some some nice features and what we came to appreciate um increased performance um and so you get things like Google Now which is a nice additional new widget uh built in that um sort of lets Google get their hooks in a little bit deeper might creep you out a little bit it uses things like your browsing history your location time of day uh and all that stuff to serve you up content um you know maybe it's things things that are near and dear to your heart whether it's sports headlines the weather um but it will it will gather this information from multiple sources apps that are installed on this the Slate um from your your web browser history as well as your geolocation the time of day you know and it starts to learn your preferences so maybe you're comfortable with that maybe you're not but uh it does bring you relevant content uh in uh in the process with that as well so what what do you think about that what have you heard anything about Google Now yourself I have heard about Google now I actually use Google Now I have I bought the Nexus 7 myself and I'm enjoying the heck out of this Google Now I think is really beneficial if you have an always on connection and you are constantly using your device I think it's probably much more useful on a on a cell phone but since this is a Wi-Fi only device it doesn't exactly have all my searches there uh it will tell me the weather widget it'll show me a nice little card for that I find it to be a nice feature that will basically telling me hey look this is a little sampler you might want an Android phone in the long run because it's a really neat feature and predicting it was I was looking up some locations it's like oh would you like to know your commute time to this place it's like well I don't live in erville but thanks for guessing because I was looking around but it's it's it's a work in progress and I think it's getting there I I want to go around on the horn real quick and wonder okay now it has no rear camera no no ability to expand unless you decide to use the micro USB in a fashion that is not necessarily touted by Google Mar of the fact that they didn't put a camera on the back because they said either we put a crappy one back there or nothing we decided to go with nothing and then they said no expandability so the camera on a tablet I think is a minor issue I don't know very many people that use their tablet to take photos and if they do it's it's in a pinch because the photos basically stink on most tablets and when you see people walking around using them for photos it just looks funny especially you know the Olympics are going on during the opening ceremony some of the athletes were walking around with tablets it just looks funky for lack of a better word as for the expansion I'm kind of on the fence if it wasn't a Nexus device it would probably wouldn't be a big deal but since it is and it's kind of lends itself to modding and the Enthusiast community and you know the development Community I would think having expansion would be beneficial um people would really like to have that since it's not there you know maybe it hinders some activity in that scene but again not a huge deal I don't know many people filling up their tablets and for $199 device for the 8 gig 8 gig model I don't think it's a huge issue what about you i' I'd beg to differ on the on the expansion slot thing I think one of the things you have to remember uh that people use for this uh for that slot is you know just getting media onto the tablet whether it be pictures or maybe it's uh downloadable content music what have you um it just allows more portability uh and access to to the device versus you know having to download or or tether it via USB so I mean I think that's a that is definitely a small drawback why couldn't they have squeezed that in there the camera thing definitely makes sense to me I mean you you're trying to reduce cost uh this device it's $199 and it's 8 gig form you got to drive cost out of it and you hit the nail on the head not many people really care all that much about a camera on a on a tablet um but what the flip side of that is what what's what's interesting to me uh and and I think to to you as well to to enthusiasts performance Enthusiast that we are at hot Hardware um this is a 7in slate that really has some nice horsepower under the hood and and this thing along with the performance enhancements uh that jelly be Jelly Bean brings um and and optimized JavaScript and web performance are key performance enhancements in Jelly Bean uh this thing scored top of the pack for uh just about any 7in slate we've ever tested and outperformed in certain tests some of the 10in slates uh Tegra 3 10-in slates with with Jelly Bean uh uh you know running on that teg with 3 so you got Lim pack performance on this device top of the top of the pack uh SunSpider performance um right at the top of the pack right next to the iPad 2 and and traditionally uh that's a JavaScript Benchmark Apple has been very strong there here Google is closing the Gap again with the help of uh Nvidia Hardware but uh with Jelly Bean right wear browser Mark top of the pack score the the fastest tablet we've ever tested and right where's brow browser mark bench Benchmark and that's indicative of of browser performance so really nice performance in this slate for what we really have to accept is kind of Bargain Basement pricing I mean the Kindle Fire you know everybody kind of Knocked at it for um you know Amazon taking a a loss leader on this thing just to get their their tablet out in the mainstream and get people to to their content stores but Google kind of w up them in the hardware department uh at least for in terms of the processing power and the hood so so good stuff with that let's move on from the hardware world to the software world now hot Hardware had a big feature about open source and apps for every operating system now I'm running Windows 3.1 constantly so I can't wait to dig my my hooks into this and find out what great applications I can get for Windows 3.1 I know Marco is going to smack me with something through the internet for making that joke digital dope slap yeah not not going to smack you I'm just I'm just really feeling sorry for you to be honest just kidding so this uh this article is actually pretty cool we have a a really smart Forum member who contributes articles from time to time um in the Forum he goes by the the name evil uh spelled in Le speak of course but the author's name is Jesse lton he's a really smart guy frequent visitor to hot hardware and he's a longtime open- Source Linux Enthusiast so he figured hey guys let's share some of the the best open- source free apps that are across platform so Windows OSX Linux um and let's you know teach the teach the audience about all this kind of stuff so we featured the usual things like free browsers everybody's going to be familiar with that but we also covered you know uh content creation stuff office type apps uh animation professional apps and Jesse goes through each category and and outlines a few of the standout apps in those particular categories you know we featured stuff like like and in uh ink space um and Libra office and audacity audacity is an audio editing program just lots of cool information and as we mentioned the apps are all free and they'll work on any modern OS modern OS I that that's that's a slight dig at Windows 3.1 I think maybe slightly no I I I haven't used Windows 3.1 in about jeez how long ago was 1995 a lot a long freaking time that was a very long time any any surprises I know a lot of people when they think open source software they think look I there's no way I'm going to get a video editor there's no way I'm going to get an audio editor sure I can get an office thing but I mean what what applications do you think people would be surprised to find that that are free and open source Marco some of the surp as far as you know shocking surprises to people not in the scene is there's free open source games and pretty cool games at that you know Jesse featured a game called zero ad graphics look great free and another game called alien Arena the graphics look kind of funky but hey free open source multiplatform really cool stuff I also think people would be surprised at the the depth of some of the applications you know sometimes you think free you think you know limited feature availability you got to pay for the pro version you know it's only it only works for you know X number machines just you know basic limitations but some of this stuff is is really feature Rich you know you have Libra office doesn't quite have all the features of Microsoft Office but I think it would cater to 95% maybe higher 90 98% of the users out there you know and you also have something like the which it's very comparable to photoshop can it do everything Photoshop does no but it's free and it'll You Know cover what 90% of the people are going to use Photoshop at home maybe professionals aren't going to want to go for it but really really a great free app something that I think everybody should check out especially if you're limping Along on Ms paint right now the other thing is if you don't like the apps you haven't lost anything it's free try them out if there's a lot of resources out there when it comes to learning how some of these applications work uh I know there's a bit of a learning curve compared to photoshop but I definitely suggest if you're willing to give it a try I know the is pretty awesome Libra office is awesome uh audacity I've used audacity forever so I I highly suggest a lot of these things uh let's move on to the world back to the to the world of Hardware let's move to a speculative thing this reminds me of uh Tech news today that show I do uh apparently a Taiwan semiconductor might be building a whole part of its business around Apple now this is not a company that Apple works with right now as far as I know Taiwan semiconductor works with I think Qualcomm and I think atheros if I'm right about that and a whole bunch of other companies Dave look at this what what's the actual story what's what's going on yeah and it's interesting I actually spent uh 18 years in the semiconductor industry so I've got a little bit of background in the space and uh tsmc uh Taiwan semiconductor um as you noted uh is a Fab uh a manufacturing plant uh of semiconductor Wafers you know and that's from you know growing silicon right on up through slicing and dicing those chips and they are the biggest Fab in the world uh there's lots of other Fabs out there it's semiconductor Fabs companies like Charter uh and and a few others um and but but these guys have customers from across the planet um whether it's Apple Nvidia I mean you the list goes on uh and on and on you mentioned a Theos I mean I'm sure there's even joint relationships between Intel and spots and AMD and tsmc certainly we know there are and certainly for the graphic side of the AMD house uh the ATI folks have used tsmc for a long time so their model they interesting ly enough their whole model tsmc was born out of the need to for Semiconductor manufacturers in the in the uh in the early days um the cost of developing higher complexity chips on Silicon was just exponentially growing as uh manufacturing uh Technologies and die geometries got smaller and smaller and you hear you know uh dietry is going from uh 5 nmet you know way back in the day on down to 28 nanometer now and 20 20 nanometer and and and smaller um 22 nanometer is where Intel is at right now um you're you're talking about just the cost to develop the mask set alone this is the the um the geometric map of what they place on a wafer is millions of dollars just for a mask and that's before you even print the wafer right you actually etch on the wafer to to get uh the design and the circuit mapped out and laid on the on the wa for itself so what what we realized what what happened over the course of the years was that uh semiconductor companies like you know all these guys that go to them whether it be a Theos or AMD or or ATI that Nvidia goes to them started figuring out gez we can't keep you know building Fabs to make chips we got to design the chips and then have somebody else do them an Outsource and that's where tsmc comes in they're an Outsource model they're Manu ufacturing plant for a ton of the world's chip design companies that are what they call fabulous and so um what's interesting is they've got customers from across the globe they sell to literally everybody and now the model seems to be shifting back a little bit to where um certain oems like apple are getting so big that they would consume an entire Fab's capacity an entire TSM C plants capacity so it's an in interesting sort of paradigm shift in the whole model and the way it evolved over the years now if Apple did take up a bunch of tsmc's resources wouldn't that just kind of irritate all the other partners for tsmc I mean is Apple enough of a of a player to the point where tsmc is willing to potentially irritate its previous Partners oh yeah and you know what uh it's one of those things where if you can pay to play you will and um there isn't much anybody else can say about it certainly you'll see opportunity for smaller Fabs to capture some market share from tsmc I'm sure they'll struggle with that but really this game is about bleeding edge technology and when you talk about customers like an apple that can come in and help you Pioneer a process technology uh to help you blaze a trail you know it takes more than just fab equipment and and Fab Engineers to get to the next Next Generation die geometry to to compete with the likes of an Intel that has endless resources and and Fab uh uh capacity as well as technology you know next Generation technology if you have a partner that can help you Pioneer that um that technology like apple with all the resources they have tsmc would almost be foolish as long as the deal set up right not to to take advantage of that now you've got a company like apple with the PO the Deep pockets they have will help them get an edge in in driving that technology because they can help them invest in it and so tsmc's customers the smaller customers that don't have dedicated Fab capacity will eventually as a result of that benefit sort of in a trickle down I hate to use that that uh that phrase but sort of in a trickle down uh um you know result of that is you know other customers will benefit so it's a it's sort of a it's a little bit of a win-win but it's definitely a challenging I'm sure for the tsmc sales team moving forward uh as they sort of embrace that yeah you could you could buy a whole plant if you want it um so I think it'll be very interesting to see I think you'll see um I think you'll see more of this perhaps dedicated Fab capacity dedicated Fab lines for uh the biggest players in the markets uh it makes sense actually let's move on to an unsung hero that's always in pretty much everyone's home at this point you know it's there and you never notice it until it's down let's talk about routers because you know they're just sitting there in a closet usually you don't even think about them until they're missing it's like it's like um it's like something you take for granted but it looks like Western digital's gotten into the game now Marco aren't all the internals effectively the same is this this Western Digital thrown on their logo on effectively every other router that's out there uh yes and no so there there's two main chipset providers for routers it's a broadcom and a Theos but the real difference with with many routers out there today it's in the firmware and in the customizations so Western digital's actually done some really cool stuff for this first batch of of wireless devices they came out with so the first story is you know Western Digital is not just about storage anymore they kind of were creeping into the living room with the WD Live for the last few years but these uh WD minet routers are now you know their entry into the the wireless networking space and we took a look at the the minet and 900 HD dual bound router and now first let me just get some quick specs out of the way that kind of differentiate it so it's a 802.11 abgn router um dual band 450 megabits on both so it's an N900 router um two USB ports on there to use for storage or for you know wireless printer sharing but what's kind of what stands out on on this device on at least the one we looked at there's 8 gigb lamp ports one for the WAN connection and seven for the internal Network that that's more than any other router out there and now Western Digital also differentiates really differentiates in the firmware the firmware on this device has a really easy to use menu super easy to navigate even for first timers everything is well laid out everything looks good big icons easy to follow menus all of the items are explained properly but the real standout feature in the router is something called a FastTrack Plus qos so lots of routers have q or quality of service capabilities but you have to customize it yourself Western Digital went ahead and optimized these routers for streaming and for VoIP and gaming duties so you plug it in set it up turn it on turn on the FastTrack feature and now your streaming media gets priority over your network so it's not going to drop if you're doing something else on the network so you're saying that it has a more userfriendly interface when it comes to routers I mean you kind of have to know what you're doing first you got to know what a qos is and you got to have to know what exactly is going over what protocol and it's kind of annoying to have to figure that out so the the the user interface is really simple Marco yeah really simple super easy to use and you don't have to kind of figure out the qos the most popular Services Western digital's already taken care of it for you so we tested it out with Netflix and had a 3 gig file being downloaded over the broadband connection at the same time and Netflix never drops a frame it stays the priority on the network it you know keeps its bandwidth and Netflix just keeps working but it works with Hulu other services as well and it's literally you go into the router setup and you turn it on and it's explained what it does so even if you're a beginner and you have no idea what qos is it's you could still figure it out with this router I believe definitely sounds like something that you would probably want for gaming which apparently by the way you're not going to want on your PC because that'll be dead at least on Windows 8 uh according to uh valves Gabe Newell he's saying that window Windows 8 is going to be the death of uh PC gaming entirely and as far as I know he thinks Linux is the future what on Earth is this guy talking about who so you want me to start go for it Marco so yeah that's you kind of gave the the gist of what what Newell said he called windows8 a catastrophe he thinks Windows 8 is going to come um we're gonna lose oems it's going to kill OEM it's going to kill margins uh it's going to it's going to hinder gaming uh it's the coming of the Apocalypse for PC gaming according to Gabe new as much as I think that guy is brilliant I've met him I've sat at a table and talk to him I'm friends with him on Facebook super smart guy he's an ex Microsoft employee as well I sort of think he's dead wrong on this one maybe he's got a you know a little animosity because the the Windows store and Xbox Live is going to be integrated perhaps there's going to be some more competition for steam there eventually and you know he's kind of taking it out on Microsoft but I I just don't see it happening you know in the one of the most recent posts on the building Windows 8 blog Microsoft just explained how everything's going to be accelerated in Windows 8 GPU acceleration for for tons of different stuff it's also dx11 if you kind of sit back and think about that it's going to force GPU manufacturers to have really perfect drivers because if you're going to get wickle certification or get Microsoft certification um and have 3D acceleration throughout the OS and other acceleration throughout the OS the driver is going to to be solid you're also going to have new features with dx11 I don't see how that's going to hurt gaming now the Metro interface it's I think it's ugly um at least on a big desktop I think it's ugly but once you have your shortcut who cares I I really don't think it's going to hurt gaming at all what do you guys think Dave what do you think of the This Disaster is it a disaster is Windows 8 a catastrophe or is this just sour grapes because yeah the Windows App Store the windows Market wherever they're calling it Windows store that's what they call it uh is that going to just take away from Steam and gabes a little bit myff yeah I I think that's exactly what we're talking about here uh to some degree uh I don't know if that's the complete motivating force behind Gabe statements and and and who was the other um game developer blizzard yeah blizzard that came out and said the same thing I think everybody's very much afraid of their pocketbook everybody's very much afraid of their business model with uh Microsoft uh and and Windows 8 and what it means to the marketplace because that's that's really I mean it's built in it's part of the hook and and let's face it they're going to be competitors they're going to be fierce competitors at some point right now uh games for Windows and and all that stuff um you know the stuff that Microsoft has out for the current platform Windows 7 is just not that good and steam really doesn't have that uh much competition um I think it's coming with with Windows 8 and I think you know Marco hit the nail on the head uh you you you put an icon a tile whatever it is in Windows that invokes the game once you invoke the game you're in the game UI it's not it's not Windows 8 you're dealing with anymore you're now in the game environment and so I cannot see how it can really affect uh the game experience all that much at all I think it may affect very much how games are distributed moving forward and I think that's what uh that's what some of this means you know and you know the comment about OEM is going to go out of business you know there's going to be some churn especially when you think about um Microsoft Surface and and and Microsoft getting into Hardware well guess what the OEM manufacturers have been kind of riding it for too long with you know sort of cookie cutter um you know designs that you know people sort of copy and tweak and there's no real there's not a lot of innovation they got to start innovating more to compete in the market with the likes of apple and now Microsoft Microsoft saying hey guess what you know Apple's having a lot of fun here we need to replicate this and I'm not sure we're going to wait around for our OEM uh Partners to to make that happen they're kind of making it happen themselves so I think a lot of this kind of you know uh is evolving around that um that situation with Microsoft and the competitive landscape I think that's what it's really all about and why some of these folks are coming out of the woodwork uh against Windows 8 I I can't see it being a you know a nail in the coffin for Windows gaming just doesn't make any sense to me at all there was a line about oems going out of business like you said Dave their but their margins are really narrow right now it's not like they're making a lot of money it's one of the reasons why Dell and HP are really more Enterprise focused and less consumer based I mean HP is still consumer based but Dell kind of moved very very far away from catering to to just I guess regular people and worried about Enterprise because their margins are so low so it's kind of interesting to say oh yeah the OEM a bunch of them are going to leave well they're leaving now already because there's already a small margin on these PCS I I still think the Linux line is much more interesting that that steam's going to try to get all it stuff on Linux and there's been a rumor like floating around that valve is working on a steam box its own piece of hardware and if it was Linux based that would make a lot of sense I know they're porting over Steam and I believe Left 4 Dead 2 to Ubuntu that's the first uh versions of the Linux that that will have uh everything ready you guys think there's a steam box coming maybe that's that's what this is about forget PC gaming you're going to want a steam box I'm I'm not sure about this steam box they've they've they've denied it it could happen I'm pretty sure they're exploring the idea I I wouldn't bet on that I I do think that they're well Gabe mentioned how much of a focus they're going to put on Linux and I think that's a good idea even if it's just to to kind of push the Linux ecosystem having good quality games is a big deal for a lot of people and if people can get their steam library on Linux I think some people would switch to to add another wrinkle to what you guys were both saying when you look at oems that innovate guys like like a main gear I'm going to use as an example they're much smaller than the Giants but when you innovate and you have a good product you can have higher margins and the proof is in the market it's just the the guys racing to the bottom are the ones that have no margin and then I want to go another step further and discuss surface for a second if surface is successful and Microsoft kind of pushes oems to innovate in the tablet space as well I think we're Max a generation or two away from having tablets with powerful potentially discret Graphics you know Nvidia Kepler class graphics and ivybridge CPUs you now have a whole new class of gaming machines for PC Gamers technically so I think uh game developers need to to think about that possibility as well you're mention here frightened me because cuz I'm thinking about uh there were other companies like that Alienware and Voodoo and then the two big companies bought them and destroyed them well they what's the word they didn't destroy them they swallowed them whole and well yeah I well I think that's interesting I was going to mention that I I think you know Marco you know hit the nail on the head with Innovation there um you look at you look at Dell they still have the Alienware business unit it is doing very well um and we still get lots of releases from the folks at Alienware and they still sell a bunch of those no books and and desktops um HP didn't do so well with Voodoo um I don't know why that is um but I can tell you that um there's lots of folks you know making high quality you know PCS and differentiating and um you know and even in the tablet space as well uh versus apple and and and they're able to make a good a good living on it it's just one of those things where you just can't make the average gray box anymore you've got to really um wrap up value in in a total solution and in uh and and the thing with with Linux it makes perfect sense guys right Gabe new's looking at Microsoft saying yeah you know we got this thing called Windows 8 and guess what we're going to have our Marketplace on it well what do you do how do you how do you address shrinking market share as a result of a big 800 PB gorilla walking into the room you go to another platform and you expand your Market footprint over there it's it's additional footprint that it makes perfect sense I I would have done the same thing if I was not get get it on Linux man cuz there's a lot of Open Source Linux folks out there and they just love to have those games good stuff going from 800 lb gorilla to like a little tiny chimp I don't even know the name of a name one of these things I don't know if that's tiny chimp that's he's really pissed off when he fights on a really angry tiny chimp that's the future of gaming if you've been wondering let's get off of our valve and steams and monkeys and primates and talk about a contest detail maybe some details about a contest Marco what the heck is going on we got lots good stuff going on first B let's let's talk about what's happening right now I have a few more days left um we hooked up with Nvidia to give out a bunch of beta keys for end of Nations I still have maybe 40 of the 100 original keys left so if you want to get in on that hit the site we'll put the link in the description come by the site send us a note I will get you a key first come first serve we have a few left now finally we can announce a big contest finally we have hooked up with Cor and we have an awesome giveaway coming so Corsair is going to hook us up with the brand new Corsair graphite 600t case in this hot new silver color it looks awesome an HX 850 watt power supply an h80 cooler they are brand new Dominator Platinum memory um we're also going to have a force GS 180 gig SSD and Vengeance Vengeance M90 Mouse the k 90 keyboard and the Vengeance 2000 headset so basically every class of Corsair accessory and we're going to wrap those around a z77 motherboard and core i7 2600k and a Radeon 6970 graphics card I'm going to build it do the build video and send it out to a lucky winner all you have to do we're going to keep it simple become fans of us in Corsair on Facebook share out the contest and do tons of commenting on hot hardware and you have a chance to win that sounds fantastic and yet another thing I can't win you guys you viewers are freaking lucky I got to say that Marco Bill's beautiful machines and this is loaded this is ABS loaded oh that's going to be fun and you know what you still probably could play PC games on it because they're still gaming on PCS so don't worry about that yeah games will probably work and as excited as I am about this contest um we actually had a bunch of stuff fall into place and and the next two contests are already lined up so we're going to be rocking for a few weeks here going to be a flurry of them I wonder where you could find out all kinds of information about this I I would bet hot harbor.com would have details and and tell you exactly how uh you could be a winner of something like this or maybe you're like that's great uh I I don't want to win a contest I don't want to get great Hardware I I I don't know why you'd want to think that but I guess you could but you want to read about everything we talked about you can do that that's also at H hardware.com you got news reviews videos everything you could think of in one amazing site which I hear is going to change slightly Dave is getting you can see him getting slightly angry cuz we did not approve this this little leak no no not angry we just can't tell too many too many Secrets but we got uh we have a new design in the works and it's going to be beautiful and I I I like I've said before my bet is an all flash site and the color will change from Blue to Pink for hot Hardware that's my I was G to go I was going to go asky characters wouldn't that be better that's interest I bet it load fast fast always looking for the bright side no no it's going to be a very slick redesign from what I understand and I understand very little so let's uh talk about where else you can get hot Hardware content around the web you can go to H hardware.com like I said or you can go to uh youtube.com/ Hardware vids for videos because maybe you're tired of reading uh or you can go to dig.com Hardware twitter.com Hardware or facebook.com/ Hardware or even Google Plus do a search for hot hardware and and uh you can plus one them or you can Circle them or whatever it is Google says you can do two hot hardw things is it both put us in your friendly circle thing yes yes you can put them in a circle round circle of goodness I think that you can tell that this episode has absolutely broken me because I'm talking gibberish by now uh thanks for stopping by we'll see everybody soon\n"