Your source for downloading popular benchmarks

When people envision a World of Warcraft player, they likely envision some pale guy hunched over a keyboard in his parent’s basement, but they may have to start picturing their own parents and grandparents, according to new research. From North Carolina State University comes a study investigating the benefits for older adults with age related cognitive impairment that come from playing WoW. Such impairment can effect memory, focus, and spatial abilities.

The researchers had a group of older adults, aged 60-77 years old, take a standard cognitive abilities test before starting a two week regiment of WoW gameplay, with an average of one hour a day. At the end of the two weeks the players and a control group also tested earlier were retested, with some interesting results. Those in the experimental group who had little impairment to begin with saw no appreciable increase in abilities. However, those who were impaired saw significant improvements, and the more impaired the person was, the greater the improvement.

The PC platform usually isn't the place where you'd expect to see a shiny new Metal Gear Solid game, but if Kojima Productions' latest job ads are any indication, we will be seeing the next MGS released on the PC. Kojima's studio looks to be expanding its gaming horizons in a big way, as its list of available jobs cover a wide range - from programmers, character artists, and a project engineer for "the latest Metal Gear Solid targeted for high-end consoles and PC."

What's more, a multiplayer component is likely to be included in the next MGS, as there's also an opening for an engineer capable of developing "network gameplay functionality for online games." Got some professional ideas on how to enhance the Fox Engine to create awesome content or the know-how to deliver the MGS franchise to global success? Drop by the Game Developers Conference Career Pavilion (March 6-9) for your chance at working on the next Metal Gear Solid.

PowerColor has announced the first Radeon HD 7970 video card with a liquid cooling solution, the PowerColor LCS HD7970. The LCS HD7970 incorporates an aftermarket water block from EK Water Blocks. By offering the first water-cooled HD 7970 on the market, PowerColor has managed to increase the overclocking headroom on the HD 7970 above the factory overclock settings of 1150MHz core and 1425MHz memory speeds. With the nickel-coated copper base fully covering all key components, the LCS HD7970 allows the GPU to operate at temperatures under 50°C even under full load. The block comes with both 3/8" and 1/2" high-flow fittings which are equipped with O-rings to prevent leakage. Beyond the factory OC settings, the LCS HD7970 offers standard features you'd expect such as 3GB GDDR5 memory, 384-bit memory interface, support for DirectX 11.1 and DL-DVI-I/ HDMI/2x mini DisplayPort connections. PowerColor did not reveal the price or availability at this time.

Today we have a couple of Radeon HD 7900-series video card reviews for you to read. We'll start off with the Sapphire Radeon HD 7950, a factory-overclocked version first released back at the end of January. The HD 7950 cards were the second in the 7900-series with the HD 7970 being launched in conjunction with CES 2012 earlier in January. Our roundup includes another look at the XFX HD 7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation card courtesy of the folks over at Neoseeker. There's also a couple of solid states drive reviews covering offerings from OWC and Kingston along with an editorial examining the state of NAND flash memory. We have more for you to read about in cooling with a look at the Cooler Master Hyper 612 PWM CPU cooler, the Lenovo ThinkPad T420 notebook and the SteelSeries Kana Black 1.1 gaming mouse.

Cooling
Coolermaster Hyper 612 PWM Heatsink @ Frostytech

Input Devices
SteelSeries Kana Black 1.1 Gaming Mouse @ TweakTown

Notebooks
Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Review: Kickin' It Old School @ PC Perspective

Storage/Hard Drives
NAND Flash Memory - A Future Not So Bleak After All @ PC Pespective
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB Solid State Drive @ ThinkComputers
Kingston SSDNow 200V+ 120GB @ Bjorn3D

Video
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC Video Card @ [H]ardOCP
XFX Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition @ Neoseeker

With more than 20 million subscribers, Netflix holds the crown as the first, and largest, instant video streaming service. Larger companies, such as Amazon and Walmart, have sought to cash in on the large number of consumers who have ditched their cable providers in favor of instant media. However, Comcast announced that it will be the first cable provider to jump into the streaming media race. The cable giant plans to release a service this week that will deliver older television shows and movies to Internet-enabled devices, called Xfinity Streampix. The service is hard to pronounce, but it will be easy on the wallet, as it comes in at only $5 to current Comcast subscribers, and will be free to users who bundle multiple services from the company.

This seems to be a move by the company to retain subscribers, as many consumers have become disenfranchised with the high price of cable, and other TV services. It’s difficult to imagine that this new service will have much effect on current streaming services, as you must be a current subscriber to take advantage of it, but it is interesting to see that cable companies are taking note of the drop in subscribers, and scrambling to gain some back.

With more than 20 million subscribers, Netflix holds the crown as the first, and largest, instant video streaming service. Larger companies, such as Amazon and Walmart, have sought to cash in on the large number of consumers who have ditched their cable providers in favor of instant media. However, Comcast announced that it will be the first cable provider to jump into the streaming media race. The cable giant plans to release a service this week that will deliver older television shows and movies to Internet-enabled devices, called Xfinity Streampix. The service is hard to pronounce, but it will be easy on the wallet, as it comes in at only $5 to current Comcast subscribers, and will be free to users who bundle multiple services from the company.

This seems to be a move by the company to retain subscribers, as many consumers have become disenfranchised with the high price of cable, and other TV services. It’s difficult to imagine that this new service will have much effect on current streaming services, as you must be a current subscriber to take advantage of it, but it is interesting to see that cable companies are taking note of the drop in subscribers, and scrambling to gain some back.

OCZ has a new entry into the enterprise market with its SANRAD VXL enterprise storage accelerator. This technology will offer flash caching and acceleration for virtualized environments based on VMWare ESX and Citrix Xen. VXL technology will allow OCZ PCIe SSDs, such as the recently announced Z-Drive R4 CloudServ, to take the place of tier-1 SANs and act as an accelerator for iSCSI and fibre channel storage. OCZ will be putting this to the test as it is offering on-site demonstrations for enterprise customers, hoping to show off data access up to 25 times faster than a normal SAN. All operating systems will be supported as long as they are supported by the underlying hypervisor, and VXL technology will be transparent to the guest OS. For those interested in arranging a demo, contact your OCZ account manager or contact the OCZ enterprise team.

When you want to build an HTPC or just use a smaller case, your CPU cooling options are not as extensive compared to those using a taller case. If you desire low temperatures and quiet operation, you may have to compromise somewhere else, but luckily Noctua has you covered. Noctua has announced the NH-L12 low-profile CPU cooler that is ideal for Small Form Factor (SFF) cases and HTPCs. The NH-L12 has two of those legendary Noctua fans to give you maximum performance or low clearance with the removal of the top fan. An NF-F12 (120mm) PWM fan on top and NF-B9 (92mm) PWM fan on the bottom are included, and if you use just the 92mm, the height of the cooler drops down to 66mm. This would make it an ideal cooler for smaller cases, plus the included Low-Noise Adapter can allow for even quieter operation.

The Noctua NH-L12 low-profile CPU cooler should be available now for $59.99. It includes Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound, SecuFirm2 multi-socket mounting system, and a six year warranty.

Thecus has announced a pair of new Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices that will make up its Vision Series. The N2800 and N4800 are powered by the Intel Atom D2700 processor, operating at 2.13GHz. This new Atom CPU is designed to work without fans, offering the potential to drastically cut down on noise and power consumption. In addition to the new CPU, the Vision Series will also come with an HDMI port, allowing users to connect it directly to an external monitor. When combined with a USB keyboard and mouse, this will allow the user to watch HD movies, access the Internet and control the NAS without the need for an additional machine. Both NAS systems will also feature 2GB of DDR3. The N4800 has two USB 3.0 ports while the N2800 only has one.

This past Sunday, the new CG trailer for Mass Effect 3 debuted. At the end of that trailer was mention of an extended cut launching on the 21st, which just so happens to be today. The extended version of the "Take Earth Back" trailer for Mass Effect 3 is now available for your viewing pleasure, and it expands on the action seen in the trailer from Sunday. More cities get destroyed by the Reaper invasion of Earth, people are shown being turned into Husks, and overall, all hope seems to be lost. That is, until Commander Shepard arrives with an army to give the Reapers one heck of a fight. "Take Earth Back" is full of action and some masterful CG work, and hopefully gives you a sense of what Mass Effect 3 will be like. Sure, it may not be in-game footage, but the emotional value is definitely present.

Mass Effect 3 launches on March 6th for the PC, PS3, and 360.