The Pittsburgh LAN Coalition

Greetings Gamers!

Iron Storm X is only a week away and if you haven’t registered or paid, you might want to do so NOW. Pre-registration will end Thursday, March 19 at 11:59 pm. After this, the only payment option available is cash or check at the doors.

You’re all probably wondering what we’ll have for prizes at the LAN. Lets just say I’m going to need to get a U-Haul to bring it to the LAN. Please take the time to check out our sponsors since they are providing all of the following worth over $5000!:

Slappa

Estimated Prize Cost: $1000+
Everyone will be receiving a Neo Jacket from Slappa!

• 80 x Neo Jacket - Celtics
• 80 x PSP Neo Jackets - Magic
• 2 x BulkHead 4:1 PRO Laptop Travel Bag
• 3 x PSP HardBody Daily White/Silver

Gigabyte

Estimated Prize Cost: $500+

• 1 x GV-NX96T512HP Video Card
• 1 x GA-EP45-UD3R Motherboard
• Lots of swag!

King of the Mountain Electronics

Estimated Prize Cost: $150

• 1 x PNY VCG981024GXEB GeForce 9800 GT 1GB Video Card

Cooler Master

Estimated Prize Cost: $780

• 3 x CM 690 Cases
• 3 x RS-750 Power Supplies

FSP Group USA

Estimated Prize Cost: $470

• 1 x Kingcraft 1000
• 1 x FX600-GLN-E
• 1 x FSP300-1E01 (BoosterX3)

NZXT

Estimated Prize Cost:

• 1 x Avatar Gaming Mouse
• 1 x Case
• 1 x Case

ThinkComputers.org

Estimated Prize Cost: $400+

• NZXT Cases
• Laptop Coolers
• And More!

In Win

Estimated Prize Cost: $200+

• 1 x F-430 Case
• 1 x AL-13 03 Case

Crucial

Estimated Prize Cost: $100

• 2 Stick Pack of Ballistix
• Other Swag

SilverStone Technology

Estimated Prize Cost: $100

• 1 x Raven Gaming Mouse
• 2 x AeroSlots

MotherboardPro.com

Estimated Prize Cost: $500+

• 25 x DFI Backpacks
• Other swag

Jinx

Estimated Prize Cost: $150

• Tons of Stickers
• 2 x Hats
• 5 x Shirts
• 15 x Lanyards

Computer Power User Magazine

Estimated Prize Cost: $500+

• 8 Gift Certificates
• 200 Magazines

Velocity Micro

Estimated Prize Cost: $100

• Assorted Swag

AMD Game

Estimated Prize Cost: $100

• Assorted Swag

Thermaltake

Estimated Prize Cost: $50

• Assorted Swag

Pictures of the Prizes! Click for a bigger view.

Continue reading ‘Iron Storm 10 Prize List - Don’t Forget To Register and Pay!’ »

March 12, 2009, CHARLOTTE N.C. — Earlier this month SLAPPA Distribution announced they have partnered with professional eSports organization and current Intel Extreme Masters III Champions Fnatic, and today SLAPPA showed further commitment to the eSports community by announcing the sponsorship of Pro Gaming team Paragon of Virtue (POV) and a working partnership with E-Sports Entertainment (ESEA).

Now that SLAPPA is the title sponsor and the official bags and cases for team POV, the team will be sporting co-branded shirts and hoodies, and will use exclusively SLAPPA gear at their tournaments.

“When POV approached us we liked their desire and confidence” says SLAPPA president Dominick Martinetti. “These guys have a laser focus on becoming one of the top 3 teams in the U.S., and I connected with their drive to be the best. I hope that as their sponsor, SLAPPA can help POV achieve every goal they have as a team.”

Colin DeShong, POV Executive Director added, “As the 2009 season begins, we are excited to have SLAPPA partnering up with our team for all our endeavors. It’s one thing to be considered ‘professionals’ in the game, but it’s another to actually exude professionalism in one’s appearance. We’re confident that with SLAPPA by our side, we’ll be turning heads in both arenas.”

In addition to adding team POV to the team roster, SLAPPA is now getting active with E-Sports Entertainment through www.ESEA.net. Martinetti continues, “Over the past six months, SLAPPA has been sponsoring LAN tournaments such as Lanapalooza, Fites, the Pittsburg Lan Coalition and many others, so when the opportunity to partner with ESEA came up, we were very enthusiastic about working together with them. ESEA has a great community and together we have come up with some cool cooperative programs, such as exclusive SLAPPA product bundle offers, sponsoring tournaments and ‘Play with the Pros’ events. We are very excited about working with Craig and the ESEA team.”

“I was immediately drawn to the design, quality, and commitment to innovation that SLAPPA brings to all of their products” says Craig Levine of E-Sports Entertainment. “When we were presented with the opportunity to bring SLAPPA products to the ESEA community and the opportunity for fans to play alongside POV using our premium gaming environment I was very excited.”

Continue reading ‘SLAPPA increases presence in Professional eSports Market’ »

Taipei, Taiwan 03 03, 2009 – The latest GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA graphics accelerator GV-N250ZL-1GI uses high quality components and provides unrivaled performance
GIGABYTE Technology Co. LTD., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today launched the GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA graphics accelerator GV-N250ZL-1GI. Supporting NVIDIA’s latest processors-GTS 250, GIGABYTE GV-N250ZL-1GI features 1GB GDDR3 memory and 128 stream processors to enable gamers to enjoy enhanced gaming performance. In addition, the GV-N250ZL-1GI is equipped with the latest NVIDIA SLI^® , NVIDIA PureVideo^® HD, NVIDIA PhysX™, NVIDIA CUDA™ technology and Microsoft DirectX 10. Output interfaces support Dual-Link DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI with HDCP. The GIGABYTE GV- N250ZL-1GI gives gamers ultra stable and ultra cool gaming resolutions.

Continue reading ‘GIGABYTE Extends Ultra Durable VGA Range with GV-N250ZL-1GI Graphics Accelerators’ »

Taipei, Taiwan 03 03, 2009 –
GIGABYTE Technology Co. LTD., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today launched the latest GIGABYTE unique technology: Ultra Durable VGA. GIGABYTE latest innovative technology-Ultra Durable VGA features 2 oz copper PCB board, Samsung/Hynix memory, Japanese solid capacitor, Ferrite Core Chokes, and Low RDS (on) MOSFET to deliver incredibly low GPU temperature, unrivaled overclocking capability, low power switching loss, and guaranteed longer life. Compared with traditional graphics accelerators, Ultra Durable VGA graphics accelerators can lower GPU temperature by 5%~10%, lower power switching loss by 10%~30%, and increase overclocking capability by 10%~30%. GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA graphics accelerators can provide truly both “high-performanced” and “green” graphic card resolutions.

Continue reading ‘GIGABYTE Released Latest Unique Technology Ultra Durable VGA’ »

With an eye on the gaming market, SLAPPA focuses on partnering with the best

March 3, 2009, CHARLOTTE N.C.— SLAPPA Distribution today announced that they have partnered with professional eSports organization Fnatic, and together the two organizations will be working closely to further enhance the eSports market.  SLAPPA will be supporting the Fnatic professional team, made up of some of the best squads in the world, such as, Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Dota and COD4, and will also work with the Fnatic squads to develop a complete line of professional gaming gear.

Now that SLAPPA is the official provider of bags and cases for Fnatic, you will see the Fnatic squads sporting SLAPPA gear at their tournaments, but that’s not all the two will be doing together.

SLAPPA president Dominick Martinetti explained in more detail, that the two companies are developing more gamer-specific products together, and will even be co-branding some models.  “Over the past 6 months, we have been blindsided by a large number of eSports teams and tournaments who want SLAPPA to enter the world of gaming.  As the number of inquiries grew, we realized that the SLAPPA product philosophy was seen as a perfect match for the gaming world.  My objective then was to partner with the best in order to develop world-class product for gamers.  Now that we are partnered with Fnatic, I’m very confident that we are on our way to building great gear for gamers.  We bring expertise in the case and bag market, and a very strong brand name that stands for quality and innovation.  Fnatic brings the best gamers, practical knowledge on the needs of gamers and a brand name that is synonymous with winning. I’m very excited about what this partnership will produce”, says Martinetti.

Business Development Manager of Fnatic, Neil Kirk has this to say:
“SLAPPA designs and creates professional gear for individuals that want and demand high quality, long lasting items.  eSports is no different and it is with great delight that we see this relationship beginning to give gamers who want to achieve the highest ranking and best results the same.  Our squads strive for and in most cases achieve those same goals; they are professionals in the world wide phenomenon of electronic sports. Our expertise, coupled with SLAPPA’s knowledge and professional gear will bring to market a great product for gamers, helping make our players even more of a force to be reckoned with. We are looking forward to commencing this relationship and the successes it can bring.”
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About SLAPPA

SLAPPA’s line of cd cases, dvd cases, laptop bags and backpacks are made with the highest quality materials, unique designs and patented technologies that when combined together, “break the mold” in a category otherwise flooded with mundane products.  For more information please contact SLAPPA at slappa.hq@slappa.com.

About Fnatic

The Fnatic Team is a professional video gaming team, consisting of players from across the globe that all make a living through competing in video game tournaments. The Fnatic Team has been ranked as the world’s number one Counter Strike team for the past 2 years, and have world class squads in other games such as World Of Warcraft, Defence of the Ancients, Call of Duty 4, Warcraft 3 and Starcraft. Fnatic is committed to the growth of Video gaming as an Electronic Sport, and will continue to be at the forefront of this ever expanding and maturing market. The Fnatic team has established itself as a vibrant, well coordinated outfit with a clear vision for the future of competitive gaming and as a brand has a global reach. The Fnatic team was founded in 2004 and has won many world titles as well as supporting numerous of the world’s most successful gamers over the years including Laurens “Lauke” Pluijmaekers, Sander “Vo0” Kaasjager, and more recently the famous Counterstrike team with the likes of Patrick “f0rest” Lindberg, and the World of Warcraft squad with Rumay “Hafu” Wang. For more information visit the company on the World Wide Web at www.fnatic.com.

Gigabyte is planning on providing 1 Motherboard and 1 Graphics Card for our Iron Storm X event on March 21-22nd. They have informed me that they will be providing the GV-NX96T512HP for this LAN. The motherboard that they will be providing, GA-EP45-UD3R, will be one of the UD3 or Ultra Durable 3 Series of motherboards.  Please take the time to read about the Ultra Durable 3 Technology.

Don’t forget to Register and Pay for the LAN if you haven’t already done so!

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ 3 series motherboards once again lead the motherboard industry for the highest quality and most innovative motherboard design. Featuring the industry’s first consumer desktop motherboard design to introduce 2 ounces of copper for both the Power and Ground layers, GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ 3 motherboards deliver dramatically lower system temperature, improved energy efficiency and enhanced stability for overclocking.

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ 3 motherboards also feature Japanese Solid Capacitors boasting 50,000 hours of operation, Ferrite core chokes with higher energy efficiency compared to the commonly used iron core chokes and Lower RDS(on) MOSFETs that features a lower resistance, which reduces power consumption and heat generation. The GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ 3 series motherboards promises to provide the stability, reliability and longevity essential to meet the power needs of high-end processors and other components running today’s most demanding applications and games.

The internationally-known Pittsburgh LAN Coalition (Pittco) officially announced today the opening of registration for its latest event, IRON STORM X from 2 p.m. on March 21 to 2 p.m. March 22 at the Castle Shannon Volunteer Fire Hall in Castle Shannon, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Iron Storm X is the eleventh LAN party computer and console gaming event which Pittco has held in its more than five years as an organization.

Pittco will seat up to 200 gamers at the 24-hour event. Gamers will compete in a variety of tournaments and competitions in order to prove they are the best player of their favorite games. Tournaments will be formally announced closer to the event, but will probably include Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Counter-Strike: Source, and Unreal Tournament.

Several hundred dollars in prizes will be given to winners of these contests. Past prize sponsors include Alienware, ATXPowerSupplies.com, Bawls Guarana, BDA Gamer, CPU Magazine, Danger Den, Evo-G, FSP Group USA, Razer, Patriot Memory, Red Bull, Slappa, Steel Series, TRENDnet, and Velocity Micro.

In addition to its own dedicated servers, Pittsburgh-based computer review web sites ThinkComputers and BIOS LEVEL will be lending some of their dedicated servers.

Light snacks will be available for free at the event, while water, soft drinks, and pizza will be available for a nominal free.

Admission to the event costs $25 for pre-registration on its web site, www.pittco.org, or $35 for on-site registration.

Registration is open now.

Big Win For Future Anti-Video Game Battles

Dear Pittco,

When asked to combat an anti-video game threat, VGVN members like you continually come to the defense of video games by voicing your concerns to state officials where anti-video game laws are being considered. Before many of you spoke up to defend video games, many of these state officials never even heard a counter-argument to the stances of many vocal video game critics.

Recently, the Pennsylvania Task Force on Violent Interactive Video Games released a landmark report to the state legislature which makes the case for NOT enacting video game regulations. The report is a comprehensive study with input from a diverse group of participants including experts on First Amendment issues, social science, clinical psychology and members of the game and entertainment industry and law enforcement.

The lengthy report is available here (PDF). The report praises the industry’s efforts to address concerns about game content and raising awareness about the rating system. Most importantly, the report outlines three recommendations for Pennsylvania:

• The Pennsylvania General Assembly must avoid enacting restrictive legislation similar to those that have been invalidated by federal courts.
• The General Assembly should consider devoting resources to the establishment of a publicly funded consumer education program on video and computer games.
• The task force calls upon the academic community of this Commonwealth to pursue more scientifically based and objective research on the positive and negative effects of video games and other modern media on children and young adults.

This is a positive signal that our voices are being heard, and hopefully other states will look to Pennsylvania before deciding to take on video games again! If they don’t, we will be there to defend video games, and we hope we can count on your support!

Thanks,

The Video Game Voter Network

New processor technology immediately available in both direct and retail systems from Velocity Micro

Richmond, VA – Nov 17, 2008 – Velocity Micro, the premier independent builder of custom, high performance computers, notebooks, and workstations, announces today the immediate availability of ultra performance desktop PCs powered by Intel Core i7 and Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors.  Faster and more efficient than their Core 2 predecessors, Intel Core i7 processors provide increased performance in gaming, digital media creation, and multitasking.  By combining their trademarked precision craftsmanship and the record breaking performance of this revolutionary processor, the Intel Core i7 processor-based offerings from Velocity Micro set the new standard in power and productivity.

“We’ve always made it a priority to provide our customers with the very latest technology,” said Randy Copeland, President and CEO of Velocity Micro.  “With the launch of the Core i7, we’re able to fulfill the immediate need of our enthusiast customers, giving them a remarkably fast PC that blows the doors off of everything else we’ve ever built.”

With increased memory bandwidth and new Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, Velocity Micro’s Intel Core i7 processor-based systems promise seamless gaming and multitasking.  Additionally, the eight available threads of the Intel Core i7 processor, twice as many as the Core 2 Quad, translate into astonishing performance increases for the digital media creator. And with immediate availability of both direct and retail offerings, Velocity Micro will be a major provider of Intel Core i7 processor technology in North America at launch.  Velocity Micro will offer systems with the mainstream Intel Core i7 920 and 940 processors, and the Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition, in a variety of Edge™, Raptor™, ProMagix™, and Vector™ lines, starting at $1699.

“We’re excited to work with Velocity Micro on the launch of the Core i7,” said CJ Bruno, Intel VP & GM, Americas Sales & Marketing Organization.  “We’ve worked diligently to develop the most advanced processor on the planet, and have succeeded with the Core i7.  Velocity Micro customers will be extremely impressed with the performance of this processor in gaming, digital media creation, and multitasking applications.”

To configure or find a retail provider of Velocity Micro PCs powered by Intel Core i7 processors, visit www.velocitymicro.com.

ABOUT VELOCITY MICRO, INC.

Velocity Micro, Inc. is the premier high-performance personal computer provider in North America. Founded in 1992, Richmond, Va.-based Velocity Micro custom builds award winning gaming, mobile, multimedia, home office, small business, pro workstation, and visual supercomputer solutions. Velocity Micro consumer systems are available at Best Buy, MicroCenter, Circuit City, and select Staples retail stores nationwide, as well as online vendors Amazon.com, Newegg.com, TigerDirect.com, CompUSA.com,  and many others. For more information on Velocity Micro, please visit www.velocitymicro.com or call (800) 303-7866.

Velocity Micro has earned over 45 industry awards, including 11 PC Magazine Editor’s Choice awards. CNET, Maximum PC, Mobile PC, PC World, Computer Gaming World, Computer Shopper, and PC Gamer editors have all chosen Velocity Micro systems as some of the industry’s best-performing, highest-quality, and most reliable PCs.

Ars Technica reports that EA and Crytek are offering a free weekend of Crysis Wars for any interested gamers from October 10 through 12.

Visit http://www.mycrysis.com/ for more information and to get a free weekend experience of a great game.