The Phenom project is a monster of a case mod project with a team headed by Bill Owen, who has brought us some fantastic looking case mods in the past. Recently we featured the Ghostrider case mod, but Phenom looks to be the most ambitious project to date. Interested in Bill’s ongoing work, I emailed him and asked a few questions. He was kind enough to respond and give me a little information about his latest project.
If you are interested in modding and want to get some ideas of what’s involved in a big project, please read on. The email interview, a few photos and a very interesting You Tube video are included after the jump. The specs that this monster is going to have are truly mind blowing. I heard mention of quad PCI, new Phenom FX processor and Bill makes mention of a 128GB SSD. I would love to see this thing powering multi-monitor Call of Duty 4 or Crysis. Wouldn’t it be great if AMD could bankroll all of our PC projects? (more…)
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AMD has announced some remarkable improvements to the performance of their Radeon graphics cards with the release of the Catalyst 7.10 drivers. The drivers will be released later this week and promises some notable percentage gains in both Crossfire and single card configurations.
The following figures are according to AMD, take them with a pinch of salt.
- Battlefield 2142 Crossfire performance improves 5-23% on the ATI Radeonâ„¢ HD 2600, ATI Radeonâ„¢ HD 2400 and ATI Radeonâ„¢ X1300/X1550 series
- Call of Duty 2 performance improves up to 6.7% on both single card and Crossfire ATI Radeon HD 2600 and ATI Radeon HD 2400 configurations
- Call of Juarez DirectX 10 Crossfire performance improves up to 42% and single card performance improves up to 34% on all ATI Radeonâ„¢ HD 2000 series products.
- Company of Heroes DirectX 10 Crossfire performance improves up to 80% on all ATI Radeon HD 2000 series products and single card performance improves as much as 31% on ATI Radeon HD 2900 and ATI Radeon HD 2600 products
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Crossfire performance improves as much as 23% on ATI Radeonâ„¢ 1000 series products and single card performance improves as much as 23% on both ATI Radeon HD 2000 and ATI Radeon 1000 series products
- FEAR Crossfire performance improves as much as 16% on the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX, ATI Radeonâ„¢ X1650 XT, ATI Radeon HD 2400 series and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 series
- Supreme Commander Crossfire performance improves up to 30% on all ATI Radeon HD 2000 and ATI Radeon 1000 series products. The ATI Radeon X1650 and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 series products see even greater improvements of 82% or more.
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Someone cleverer than you or I has developed a simple tool called the Scoop n’ Clip that will make your morning cup of coffee just a little easier to make. It not only measures your coffee, it also keeps the rest of the bag fresh with a handle that doubles as a clip.
It’s easy alright, but I would still rather pay some well educated but unmotivated thirty-something a few bucks to make one for me at my local Starbucks. It’s easy and amusing at the same time.
Price: $6.99
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When it comes to alarm clocks, their job is to get you out of bed. Here are 10 alarm clocks that get you out of bed in a very annoying fashion.
Sfera alarm clock
The Sfera alarm clock hangs from the ceiling above your bed. When the alarm goes off, you can reach up and touch it to activate the snooze function causing it retract towards the ceiling. When snooze goes off again, you have to reach higher to activate the snooze again. Each time you activate the snooze function the alarm retracts a little higher to the point that you get your butt out of bed.
[via OhGizmo]
Puzzle Alarm Clock
The Puzzle Alarm wakes you up by firing three puzzle pieces up in the air, then it is your mission to get the pieces and put them back in the alarm clock or it won’t turn off until then. Price:$30
Nooby
The interactive alarm clock with a unique personality goes by the name, Nooby. To see what time the alarm is set you simply ask him and he reads the current alarm setting and assures you it’ll go off. When your favorite time of the morning comes around, he’ll beep and say, “Rise and shine, it’s time to get up!”. When you go back to sleep and don’t turn the alarm off right away, he’ll beep again, but this time he gets nasty, “Take your fingers out of your ears!”. To put an end to this harassing wake up call, you simply ring the clock’s blue neck. If he senses that you are angry, he’ll get grumpy and ignore you.Price:$29.95
[via Gadget Review]
ClearSounds Wake & Shake Alarm Clock
ClearSounds Wake & Shake alarm clock features a choice of loud tones, a flashing strobe, or vibrating pad to alert you when the alarm signals or as an added bonus, when the phone rings!
Tone control offers 95 dB ring level volume intensity. Flashing strobe light breaks through sleep to wake you up. Vibrating pad can be positioned under your pillow or mattress for a sturdy nudge out of bed.
Price: $59.95 
If 95 dB is not loud enough for you (a jackhammer is about 100 decibels). This 113 dB alarm clock should do the trick.
Laser Target Alarm Clock
A laser beam aimed at the exact center of the target is the only way to turn off the alarm sound in the morning. When the laser hits the target the alarm is turned off for 24 hours and goes off at the same time the next day. The alarm will always do this until manually de-activated or the alarm time changes. When you wake up to an alarm and you have to concentrate to carefully aim the laser beam at the target, you’ll be suitably awake so as not to easily fall back asleep.
Price:$20
Kuku Alarm Clock
The Kuku Alarm Clock greets you every morning by crowing and laying eggs. It won’t stop chirping until you’ve returned its eggs.
Price:$49.95
The Drill Sergeant Alarm Clock
The Drill Sergeant Alarm Clock
After a bugle plays “Reveille,” your personal drill sergeant clears the cobwebs from your brain with an inspiring round of orders you can’t fail to obey. LCD display provides you with time, alarm time, and date. Alarm with snooze button sounds with bugle, drill sergeant, or AM/FM radio (when you’re off duty, of course).
Price:$19.98
[via Red ferret]
Flying Alarm Clock
The blowfly alarm clock escapes from a cage in your room, moves and produces sound around you when the alarm goes off. To turn it off you have to catch it and put it back in its home. A similar alarm is available at Amazon for $25
Sonic Grenade Alarm
The Sonic Alarm will wake pretty well anything up. Simply pull the pin, yell an emphatic “fire in the hole” and lob the grenade into the sleeper’s room. After ten seconds a very annoying and piercingly loud noise (there are three volume settings) will blast out from the alarm. That’s not all however, what makes this especially great is that to stop the alarm the sleeper has to find you so you can put the pin back in. Price:$19
Clocky
When you hit Clocky’s snooze button, he will roll off of the nightstand, fall to the floor, and run around the room, searching for a place to hide. When the alarm sounds again, you have to get out of bed to find it and turn it off. He finds a new spot everyday, “kind of like a hide-and-seek game”.Video of Clocky in action.
Price:$50
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