MAD CATZ AMBX CES PRESS RELEASE

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Asus Z77 Roundup When doing all of our Ivy Bridge launch prep we spent a LOT of time benchmarking and testing a whole collection of boards. You guys have seen our reviews of the Intel and Gigabyte boards. When it came time to write about the four different Asus Z77 boards I realized that most of you are not going to want to read through a lot of information that we would cover over and over on each review. We decided to roundup all four of the boards and cover them together. This way we can get to the point a little quicker, saving you time, as well as giving us a chance to talk more about the differences between the variety of boards that we tested.

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ASUS P8 Z68-V/GEN3 Perhaps one of the most daunting tasks after making the decision that you do not wish to purchase an off-the-shelf computer is attempting to figure out which components go in the machine. There are fun aspects, like the graphics card and processor, and then there are the not-so-fun aspects, like the motherboard (at least in my opinion). Why do I think it is a whole lot of not fun? There are so many out there to choose from, with all sorts of features. When shopping you will likely come across the ASUS board that I am going to review today. Arguably, it is one of the better all-around boards out there, with features like good integrated graphics and killer sound. But to a gamer that generally does not mean squat. Does the ASUS P8 Z68-V/GEN3 board have what it takes to function as a serious gaming component? Read on to find out!

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XFX R7750 Black Edition DD Not everyone is looking to spend $500 on their video card, in some cases that is the total budget for a build. When you are up against a wall trying to pack the best performance you can get into a budget build you still want to get the most performance you can out of your video card. That’s where cards like the XFX R7750 Black Edition Double Dissipation come into play. XFX has taken the styling and cooling from their high end cards and combined it with the price of budget cards like the HD 7750. Today we are going to take a look at how those two things do combined in XFX’s R7750 Black Edition Double Dissipation.

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Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X Earlier this year when AMD introduced the HD 7770 we took a look at cards from both Sapphire and XFX. Although we were impressed with the cards performance it was a little ill-timed due to AMD still clearing out discounted back stock. Three months later we are able to revisit the situation with today’s release of Sapphires new HD 7770 Vapor-X. With Sapphires Vapor chamber cooling technology along with a nice overclock over the reference design, the Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X could be a great option for a gamer on a limited budget. Let’s take a look.

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Motherboard Sizing When we got in a few oddly sized dual CPU motherboards from EVGA and Asus I posted up a few pictures on our forums and on Facebook. The problem was that even though they looked large there wasn’t any prospective. So we tossed in a couple other boards to give everyone a little perspective. This lead us to digging out even more motherboards to put together all of the standard motherboard sizes all together for everyone to be able to see the differences. Along with the picture we also have a breakdown on the dimensions of each size standard; I hope this helps everyone as some point. Sometimes it can be hard to understand all of the different motherboard sizes and how they all relate.

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Android to the Maxx, DROID Razr Maxx The list of different Android based phones available at any time is both overwhelming and frustrating. It’s almost impossible to get good feedback from friends who have the same phone because of this. So it’s rare than you have any one phone that manages to stand out. Doing something different is the only way to do this normally, but most times this ends off coming off as gimmicky or just lame. When Motorola introduced the Droid Razr Maxx it caught my attention right away. This was just before our trip out to San Francisco for the GTX 680 Editors day, what a better way to put the Maxx’s proposed batter life to the test!

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Lian Li PC 100 “The Hammer” We have had a few different Lian Li chassis come through the LanOC Offices and there hasn’t been a time that we haven’t been impressed with the new and interesting features Lian Li always seems to slip in. When they wanted to ship over their new case “The Hammer” PC 100, we signed up right away. We had seen the case previewed from a few shows prior and this time around Lian Li took a new perspective with its design, I was very interested to see how their changes worked out. Let’s jump in and see what it’s all about!

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Nvidia GTX 670 When Nvidia launched Kepler with the GTX 680 I was impressed with the launch price of the card but even at such a great value it is still out of reach for some people. Just because you can’t afford the top card doesn’t mean you don’t want to experience Kepler’s performance. Of course it was only a matter of time before we saw Nvidia filling in the gaps in their product line, starting first with the GTX 690 then going to the next step down from the GTX 680, the GTX 670. Today we get to have a look to see how the performance compares to both the GTX 680 as well as AMD’s offerings. We are also very curious how it compares to the GTX 580, a card that has found its way into most of our office PC’s.

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ioSafe Rugged Portable So you do the smart thing, you backup your data from your laptop and your home PC to an external or network drive and go on with life feeling confident that you have gone well and above what most people do. For the most part, you did. What about when you’re traveling, have you seen how much abuse a device can take when on the go? For some people, and I know I’m one of them, some of the data you carry with you while traveling is more important than the laptop or device that you actually carry it on. In that situation you need a way to not have to worry about your data, no matter the situation, and to have a guarantee to back it up as well. The folks over at ioSafe focus specifically on this crowd. Not only do they offer products that are according to them build to handle almost anything, but they back it up with data recovery if something does happen. Today we are going to take a look at that Rugged Portable hard drive to see what all of the fuss is about, without any more buildup, let’s dig in.

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Cooler Master Storm Trigger Just two years ago the only mechanical keyboards you would find were from companies like DAS keyboard trying to create a nitch market. Over the past two years things have really exploded with every manufacture you can think of introducing their own mechanical keyboards. Cooler Master has been especially aggressive with multiple unique designs like their Quickfire series. What they did lack was a full featured mechanical keyboard with full backlighting, until now. Today they officially introduce their Storm Trigger, although it you look around the board was available Globally before now. With full backlighting it falls into a small category of Mechanical Keyboards with very little competition. I am excited to see how it performs.

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Cooler Master HAF XM The topic of cleaning your computer out came up last week on our forums and it got me thinking about how often I really need to clean out my computer. As it turns out it’s not very often anymore. All because of improvements in case design like fan filters. You don’t really see them on low end cases yet but they have been slowly trickling down. At CES this year we had a chance to get our hands on one of Cooler Master’s upcoming chassis, the HAF XM. A mid-range case packed with the features we have come to love from their high end HAF line. Today we are going to dig into the final product and see how it came out.

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Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Z77 boards come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and prices. Just about every manufacture has a whole lineup of boards covering the whole range to make sure you can find what you are looking for. Gigabyte is no different; they have a whole selection of boards that will fit your needs. Today we are taking a look at their Z77X-UD3H, one of their budget boards. It may not be a high end board but it is still packed with features. I am curious how it will perform now that the cat is out of the bag with Ivy Bridge. Let’s jump in and see what it’s all about.

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MAD CATZ AMBX CES PRESS RELEASE

Dynamic Lighting System Designed to Enhance the Gaming Experience with Interactive Ambient Lighting

San Diego, January 06. 2011

Mad Catz® Interactive, Inc. (“Mad Catz” or “the Company”) (AMEX/TSX: MCZ), a leading third-party interactive entertainment accessory provider today announced that it expects to ship the Gaming Lights with amBX Technology^,being released on PC under the Company’s Cyborg professional gaming brand by the end of January 2011.

amBX (short for "ambient experiences") technology delivers ‘sensory surround’ entertainment, enabling gamers to enjoy a more immersive experience by incorporating dynamic light and color effects into their game play. amBX hardware can be used with games, movies and music. Media comes to life when used with amBX scripted media to deliver a richer interactive sensory environment.

The first ‘amBX’ compatible product to be launched by the Company, the new Gaming Lights with amBX Technology consist of twin light pods which can be positioned wherever and however best suits the gaming environments (traditionally to either side of the monitor). Plugging directly into the PC via USB, the Cyborg Gaming Lights work best when used with amBX scripted software, where they react in synchronization to in game’s amBX commands or the effects can be customized by the gamer. Enveloping the user in up to 16 million colors, the lights provide atmospheric, directional lighting effects such as tracking enemy fire and an enhanced ambient gaming environment.

The Gaming Lights feature multi-hinge design which allows for flexible positioning of the Gaming Lights to maximize the spread of color. In addition, the Gaming Lights have been designed to facilitate simultaneous use of multiple sets of lights. Up to twenty-four set of lights can be positioned at different compass points around the room to create surround effects. When positioned in different areas of the room, the Gaming Lights will react with different default or gamer defined effects giving the gamer a fully directional, spatial and sensory surround lighting experience.

amBX is also compatible with many PC applications, when used with non amBX coded software or with other forms of media, the amBX software engine detects the colors in the game or media and creates amBX scripts automatically so the Gaming Lights react to dominate on-screen colors to provide a highly effective lighting ambiance and enhances virtually any form of media. In addition, the Gaming Lights ship with customization software which allows users to program custom amBX effects for movies, games or music, program or retrieve custom profiles or simply choose from a range of pre-programmed effects.

Included with the Gaming Lights is a 30 day trial of the hit game: Age of Conan™: Hyborian Adventures (Funcom®), featuring full amBX compatibility and serving as the perfect introduction to the amBX experience.

The Gaming Lights with amBX Technology are perfect when used alone or ideal for use in conjunction with the forthcoming Cyborg Gaming Keyboard with amBX Technology, expected to ship summer 2011.

Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz commented, “Last year we unveiled the amBX Hardware Development Kit which continues to assist developers in maximizing the potential of this groundbreaking technology. Through working alongside our partners at amBX we are able to advance our strategy of using our Cyborg professional gaming brand to deliver new and enticing gaming experiences which continue to push the technology envelope.”

Neil MacDonald, CEO of amBX UK Ltd commented, “We're extremely pleased that our relationship with Mad Catz has resulted in the release of this exciting new product which we firmly believe will bring new dimensions of immersive gaming to PC players. We believe that playing games with amBX represents a leap ahead for the gaming experience and look forward to continuing our work with Mad Catz to enhance the gaming future for all.”

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