With the holiday's almost upon us, the GPU gnomes come out to play. ATI's little men were the first to pop out this year and they're coming with something big and small at the same time. We got a glimpse at some of the larger features a few weeks back with Eyefinity, but now we have the full scoop. ATI's launching two new video cards, the Radeon HD 5870 and the Radeon HD 5850. The big boy 5870 rolls in at $379, and the 5850 at $259.

GPU manufacturers are big on numbers, and they are LARGE this time.

Radeon HD 5870

• 1600 Stream Processors
• 850MHz Core Clock
• 1GB GDDR5
• 1.2GHz Memory Clock

Radeon HD 5850

• 1440 Stream Processors
• 725MHz Core Clock
• 1GB GDDR5
• 1GHz Memory Clock

The new GPUs are built on a 40nm process and have a whopping 2.15 billion transistors - more than double the amount found on the previous generation Radeon HD 4870. Support for DirectX 11 comes from day one, although we're still waiting for the Windows 7 launch. ATI claims to have doubled performance per watt and reduced power consumption drastically when the the board is idle. At peak performance, the boards draw between 170W to 190W. Power consumption drops to 27W when idle. By comparison the Radeon HD 4870 consumes 160W at peak and gulps down 60W when idle.

Rumors indicate that supply for the board will be tight around launch, and initial reports show both the Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon 5850 out of stock at many online retailers. Basic supply and demand issues will likely push prices upward. We've already seen the Radeon HD 5870 creep up to $407, and the Radeon HD 5850 to $300.

(This story originally appeared on CBS Interactive's Webcrawler site , and was written by associate editor Josh Lowensohn.)

Sony's announcement of the PlayStation 3 Slim on Tuesday was no surprise for most gamers and industry experts. Parts that once cost a small fortune, such as hard drives, processors, and special disc-reading lenses, continue to fall in price and take up less space. It's only natural the machines that use them would shrink as well.

The PlayStation 3 was physically the largest of the three current-generation home consoles, followed by Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. With never-ending lust by consumers for smaller gadgets, the current configuration was just not cutting it.

What's surprising about the Slim, though, is that Sony was the second-most recent of the three companies to have released its console, yet it's the first to offer a completely new form factor. Microsoft was the first out of the gate with a North America release of the Xbox 360 in late November 2005. Sony and Nintendo followed suit with the PlayStation 3 and Wii, respectively, which were released a week apart from each other in mid-November 2006.

The closest either Nintendo or Microsoft has come to a redesign since is Microsoft, which began including an HDMI port and increasing the included storage, alongside a major revision to the system software which allowed games to be played off the hard drive.

In the case of the PS3 Slim, it's actually the fourth generation of the device. During that three-year period, things like the included storage space jumped from 20GB to 120GB. And a recently unearthed patent at the FCC filing shows that a 250GB model is just around the corner.

So is it normal to release a heavily revised version of a gaming system within three years of the initial release? It depends on who you are. Let's take a look at some notable shrinkage from the last three generations of consoles. I think that you'll notice a trend.

Note: We're not including handheld consoles in this story, but parallels can be made between revisions to Nintendo's Game Boy and DS products, as well as Sony's PSP.

Previous generations

Last generation:

Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) Released: October 26, 2000 (North America)

(Left) The original PlayStation 2 design next to (Right) the Slimline model. (Credit: Sony / CNET)

The PS2 was the only console from the last generation to undergo a major facelift. Neither Microsoft's original Xbox nor Nintendo's GameCube underwent any physical changes.

Sony's first major revision was actually its ninth. Sony frequently changed internal components as circuit boards were streamlined, and parts were moved around to deter people from modifying the hardware. The revision, which came less than three years after the launch, added an infrared port to the front of the device, which would allow users to control the built-in DVD player without an IR dongle. It also ran quieter than older versions, which was Sony's nod to the fact that many were using the system primarily as a DVD player.

In 2004, Sony released the Slimline version of the PS2, which moved the power supply outside of the machine, which shrank the size of the device down considerably. It also did away with the tray-loading disc mechanism, and had users place discs inside the device using a flip-up panel. Other changes included the addition of the once-optional (and not free) network adapter inside of the machine so that users could connect their machine to play online matches.

Three years after that, Sony began shipping a version of the Slimline that was a third lighter, followed closely by a version that brought the power supply back into the unit, and did away with the external power brick entirely.

Two generations ago:

PlayStation 1 Released: September 9, 1995 (North America)

(Left) The original PlayStation next to (Right) the PSOne. (Credit: Sony / CNET)

The original PlayStation had the most hardware revisions of any home gaming console due mostly to the fact that it was produced for 11 years and sold more than 100 million units.

While most of the changes were internal parts, its biggest external change was the release of the PSOne in July 2000. This was a much smaller iteration of the hardware and had all new system software and a circuit board that featured smaller chips.

Three generations ago:

Super Nintendo Released: August 1991 (North America)

(Credit: Super Nintendo 1-Wikipedia, Super Nintendo Jr-Wikipedia)

To fight some of the attention that had been taken away by Sony's PlayStation, in late 1997 Nintendo released a smaller, simpler, and less-expensive version of the Super Nintendo. It did away with the ejector button for cartridges, and simply let gamers pull them out with their hands. It also featured a slightly different version of the A/V port in the back that was unable to run S-Video or RGB signals. At $100 it also cost close to what a single game did at the height of the system's popularity.

Sega Genesis/Sega CD Released: Genesis-August 14, 1989; Sega CD-October 15, 1992 (North America)

(Credit: Sega Genesis 1 w/Sega CD 1-Wikipedia, Sega Genesis 2 w/Sega CD 2-Wikipedia, Sega CDX-Wikipedia, Sega Nomad-Wikipedia)

Sega's console combination underwent several distinct revisions over the course of its existence, all of which brought smaller sizes. It's also worth nothing that Sega was not the sole creator of some of its systems, since it allowed licensing to third parties that could build its technology into other pieces of hardware. (For the sake of simplicity we're not including those.)

As for Sega's own hardware, the first and only major change for the 16-bit Genesis was to shrink in size. In 1994, roughly five years after its launch, Sega released a square version of the console which did away with the headphone jack and volume control slider on the front of the unit.

With a smaller version of the Genesis out, Sega had to create a smaller version of its CD-ROM peripheral, the Sega CD to match it. Thus, the Sega CD-2 was born. Instead of sitting underneath the Genesis, it plugged in to the right of it. It was also able to work with the first generation of Genesis hardware via an extender plate.

In 1994 Sega released the CDX, which was a combination of the Genesis and the Sega CD in one piece of hardware. It fizzled with a high price tag ($400) and the impending release of Sony's PlayStation, along with the imminent release of Sega's 32-bit console--the Saturn--and incompatibilities with Sega's third system add-on, the 32X.

Interestingly enough, the CDX was not the end of the line for the miniaturization of the Genesis. In late 1995 Sega released the Nomad, which was a handheld version of the Genesis. It played regular-sized Genesis cartridges and had a 3.25-inch color LCD and button controls that mimicked the Genesis controller. It could also be connected to a TV, so that players could play their games on a normal-sized screen.

Lessons learned

Out of all the console makers, Sony is the only one to completely revise its hardware every few years. What's interesting is that those revisions are coming closer together. In the case of the PlayStation (versions one through three), the time between initial launch and major revision has gone from five years down to just three. The original PlayStation launched in 1995, and was remade in 2000. Sony's PlayStation 2 launched in 2000, and was shrunk in 2004. The company's most recent console, the PlayStation 3 was launched in 2006, with the revision taking place in 2009.

Does that mean it'll creep even lower, into two-year or even yearly cycles between major revisions? Quite possibly, yes. It's worked very well with handheld gaming devices, and even some consumer electronics devices like iPods. Apple has turned out slimmer, more powerful versions of the iPod every year since 2001, and yearly events like E3 put continued pressure on console makers to show off something big.

In the case of the PS3 Slim though, it could just be that the PS3 had to be pushed out to meet its launch window, and that the Slim is what Sony was going for in the first place. Advances in the PlayStation 3's core technology, like the cell processor, also underwent changes since the console launched, including changes to fabrication that have taken the chip down from 90 nanometers to 65, then 45--the size that can be found inside the Slim. These changes meant less power consumption, smaller components, and easier cooling.

The same goes for the blue-violet laser that reads game and Blu-ray movie discs. When the PS3 was first released, it was one of the few players to feature the technology. It was also the cheapest. Blu-ray players have since dropped in price dramatically, and can now be had for under $100.

This generation of game console warfare is also much fiercer for Sony. It has had to defend its once-dominant spot against Microsoft's Xbox 360, which had a one-year lead to market, and Nintendo's family-friendly (and once $250 cheaper) Wii. The new $299 price tag for the PS3 Slim is proof enough of that.

So will Nintendo and Microsoft follow suit with new hardware this year? Not likely.

Just last week Microsoft released a new version of its Xbox 360 system software that added even more features. And at E3 the company announced and demonstrated Natal, a motion-capturing camera that tracks player movement and tacks it onto games. Shortly after that, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer supposedly told an audience that the camera would be built into a new version of the hardware shipping in 2010; a rumor which was squashed by Microsoft days later.

As for Nintendo, new hardware is less of a reality than a good old-fashioned price cut. For $50 more, Sony is now offering a game system that out-matches it on graphical prowess, and doubles as a spiffy Blu-ray player. For new gamers that's a hard sell--especially when new games that are coming out require extra hardware. Nintendo's sales are also slumping. Recent numbers from the NPD Group show that in July the console sold less than half the units that it did the year before, and with the holiday sales season right around the corner, a price cut is very possible.

Just don't expect it to get any smaller...at least until next year.

The PlayStation 3's more than just a gaming machine. It's also a Bluray player and a media server. When used as such, the DualShock is passable, but hitting pause or rewind on a remote is easier for most people than fiddling with a gamepad. Unfortunately, most remotes don't work with the PS3 natively. You've got two options though - you could go out and buy a new Bluetooth remote control for about $20-$30, or you could get the $60 Logitech Harmony Adapter for the PS3, provided you already own a Harmony remote. Ultimately it's the price of convenience. You either add that new remote to the existing stack or make the console work with a universal Harmony remote.

Setting up the Harmony Adapter didn't take too long. A quick tap of the button on the underside of the device had it synced with our PS3 in a few seconds. The trip to the computer to setup the Harmony remote itself took a little bit longer. Logitech would do well to simply include a Harmony Adapter device setting, instead you have to add a generic game console and call it the PlayStation 3. Minor quibble, but it would make setup that much easier.

Harmony remotes are well known for their ability to build out "activities". Activities basically give you one button macros to watch TV or play a game. In a full home theater you'd be pressing more than a few buttons on at least two or three remotes to get to where you need to be, what with all the devices and inputs. With a properly setup activity, one button press turns on the PS3, the TV and the home theater receiver, while simultaneously choosing all the appropriate inputs. If you've used universal remotes before it sounds like a tall order, but Logitech's software makes setting up activities relatively painless.

Within 15 minutes we had the PlayStation 3 integrated into the home theater setup with hardly a hiccup. The Harmony Adapter for the PlayStation 3 delivers exactly what it offers. You can't really go wrong if you can stomach the cost.

Streaming media over a network is difficult. It's that whole networking part that gets in the way, assuming you have one. Even if you do manage to get everything working, it still doesn't mean it will work smoothly all the time. We went over numerous options that are freely available for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 a while back. None of them are foolproof, and even when things do go right, you're still bound to encounter a random, utterly inexplicable, error. If you're not streaming, you're storing media on an already crammed console or constantly plugging in a new drive via the USB port. And you still have to contend with loads of codec issues.

You could grab a computer and drag it over to your living room, but that seems excessive if you all you want to do is playback media. Cheaper standalone devices like Seagate's FreeAgent Theater and Western Digital's WD TV fill the void easily. We got our hands on the FreeAgent Theater, which by itself costs around $100, and $200 if you get the model with a 250GB hard drive.

Setup is dead simple - plug it into the wall. The player connects to your TV via S-Video, composite and component video cables. Audio routes via RCA jacks, and a digital coaxial connector if you want surround sound. Note the lack of optical andHDMI jacks. (The WD TV, by contrast, has both optical and HDMI, but lacks component video outputs.) The lack of connectivity didn't affect overall picture quality on our 47" LCD HDTV, especially once you take into account the quality of most of the files.

The included remote is passable, but if you have a universal remote you're much better off using that. Seagate's software package makes syncing folders easy, and as a plus - it's not required at all. If you want to drag and drop files using Windows you're more than free to do just that.

The FreeAgent Theater's menu system works well and is easy to navigate. Although, the text can be a bit large and slow to scroll if you're trying to make your way through a large library of files. As a plus, the menu system has a relatively large preview area that lets you see the video or image file before you commit to opening it.

Seagate's FreeAgent Theater supports quite a few media formats: MPEG-1, MPEG-2(AVI, VOP, ISO), MPEG-4(AVI/Xvid), and DivX. The list is far from comprehensive which means you're going to have to re-encode some videos. Surprisingly, the FreeAgent also displays JPGs as large as 20 megapixels, and a decent variety of audio formats like MP3, AC3, WMA, and WAV(do note the lack of AAC support).

The FreeAgent Theater's biggest appeal is its simplicity. As a dedicated media player the FreeAgent Theater works well enough if you don't want to go through the motions of setting up streaming software for your consoles or bother to troubleshoot it.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has yet to be released, but no one's waiting on the premier of the movie to unveil their products. Depending on who you're rooting for, PDP's come up with a Megatron and Bumblebee themed case and stylus for the Nintendo DS Lite. We got our mits on the Megatron starter kit and the Bumblee stylus.

The $20 Megatron Starter Kit comes with a protective case and matching stylus. The case takes seconds to install, and gives the DS a more comfortable feel if you have larger hands. A sliding compartment on the back holds two games. Megatron's stylus looks fancy, but it's rather uncomfortable. The added plastic at the front end also makes it somewhat harder to see what you're doing on the screen. By constrast, the Bumblebee stylus felt much more usable. The Bumblebee Starter Kit is at stores for $20 as well, and the stylus by itself runs about $11.

Gaming mice come in many flavors, but wireless is rarely one of them. Most wireless mice tend to have a considerable amount of lag and really aren't built to satisfy gamers in terms of buttons, shape, or performance. Enter the Sidewinder X8 from Microsoft and the Mamba from Razer, both scratch gamers needs and come equipped with super sensitive sensors, gobs of buttons, fancy drivers, unique recharge stations, and of course lights. Adding all these features doesn't come cheap. The Mamba rolls in at $130, and the Sidewinder X8 at $80.

In classic Razer style, the Mamba arrives mounted to a plastic display case that wouldn't be out of place in a museum. At first we thought we'd received some special packaging, but this is the actual retail box. The company's taken a page out of the Apple notebook and included little paper containers for all the other essential goodies like manuals, wires, and the battery.

Hardware-wise, the Mamba probably represents the pinnacle of mousing technology, with its 5600 DPI sensor and 1000Hz polling rate. Movement is buttery smooth. Forget about lag or even seeing the mouse move in any sort of stuttered way.

A separate dock lights up to recharge the Mamba and provide wireless connectivity. Should your batteries die, you can simply plug the included USB cord into the mouse to charge it up. The cord also switches the mouse into wired mode, bypassing the wireless receiver altogether. Plugging the wire into the Mamba is a bit of a chore though. Getting the right angle to connect the wire takes some effort, and unclipping it can be difficult due to the small size of the release button. Fortunately, you won't have to fiddle with the cable much, as we got nearly a week of battery life while using it for hours on end at work and with a considerable amount of gaming mixed in.

Razer's profile editor is capable of customizing the mouse in a variety of ways: on the fly sensitivity, user profiles, lighting options, independent axis sensitivity, and macro setup. Macro setup couldn't be easier, and the built-in editor lets you easily adjust delays, and remove commands through a simple GUI. Onboard memory stores up to five separate profiles that can be launched automatically when the appropriate program launches. You can also assign a button to let you cycle through the various profiles. CPU usage likes to go haywire when saving selections, but the program behaves itself at other times. Razer also releases firmware updates from time to time to improve the Mamba.

All of the Mamba's buttons are coated in whatever fancy rubber-like material Razer uses, and they feel fantastic. The side buttons are easy to press, and the wheel has detentes, and as a plus - the wheel doesn't make a sound when you spin it. The main buttons feel like they're on hair triggers, making them very easy to press.

Microsoft's Sidewinder X8 doesn't arrive in a museum quality case like the Mamba, but it also costs 40% less. It also sports a slightly less sensitive sensor (4000 DPI) using Microsoft's BlueTrack Laser and 500Hz USB polling. For it's fancy sensor, the movement wasn't bad, but it did feel jittery or jumpy even at the lowest sensitivity settings. We tried various pointer speeds and sensitivities but it never got as smooth as the Mamba.

The Sidewinder comes with a black puck that acts as a wireless receiver and doodad holder for the mouse. Inside of the puck you'll find two sets of mouse feet that you can swap out to get a different feel. We didn't notice much of a difference between them. We will note that the Sidewinder is loud when moving. It almost sounds like we're rubbing sand paper on the mousepad.

A magnetic charging cord wraps around the puck like a yoyo. Microsoft's charging cord is a much more elegant solution than Razer's when it comes to connecting the mouse up for a little on the fly recharge. Slide the wire under the front of the mouse and you're done. No latches, no alignment, it's simple enough to connect even with your eyes closed. The Sidewinder stays in wireless mode even when hooked up though. While we didn't sit down with a stopwatch, we're fairly certain the Sidewinder outdoes the Mamba in terms of battery life. Even after a solid week of use, the mouse just kept on going. We finally plugged it in just for the heck of it.

The Sidewinder one ups the Mamba's button assignment and macro settings by providing application specific controls. Meaning you can setup entirely different button controls for each application, and you're not limited by five profiles like the Mamba. If you're looking to map specific commands from PhotoShop, a Web browser, or a game the Sidewinder is your mouse. Unlike the Mamba, your controls and profiles won't go with you if you move the mouse to a different computer.

Portability-wise, the Mamba wins with a caveat. Neither of the recharge bases make for great traveling companions. Both are large and add to an already filled laptop bag. The only reason the Mamba edges out the Sidewinder is because it works in wired mode without the need for the wireless receiver. Just to be extra clear - you'll have a wireless mouse that's only functional once it's wired. Silly, but at least it's an awesome mouse.

If cost wasn't a concern, choosing between the two isn't difficult. We'd side with the Mamba any day of the week. Despite its minor failings, the Mamba's movement is really that much better than the Sidewinder. No lag, no jitteriness, nothing but net. In addition, the buttons feel better, and the mouse glides along in utter silence. The Sidewinder's far from being a bad mouse, but the Mamba is simply that much better.

Sony might have a new PSP in the works. Check out our Rumor Control blog for the details. That is all.

There's pricing and then there's egregious pricing. It's plainly obvious to anyone who's ever used a computer that the Xbox 360 120GB Hard Drive upgrade kit could stand to have a better price point. Even the Xbox 360 60GB drive and the 512MB Memory Unit need price makeovers. Other blogs visited the topic almost a year ago, and since then prices have dropped -- just not nearly enough. A quick wander over to Best Buy shows the 120GB kit sitting pretty at $150, the 60GB drive lingers around $100, and the 512MB Memory Unit sits at $50.

Browse over to NewEgg and a conventional 120GB laptop drive now sits in the $45 price range. To be fair we should compare laptop drives with external enclosures to get a closer comparison, and even then we're only up to $70 and the drives are in the 250GB to 320GB range. The 500GB external laptop drives are $110. The pricing delta is even starker when we switch over to flash memory kits. You can easily find 8GB flash drives for $15, and 2GB flash drives go for as little as $5. Assuming we could divide up the 2GB flash drive into four equal parts, we're sitting at $1.25 for 512MB. Microsoft's 512MB Memory Unit costs a meager forty times more than the going rate.

Come on, kicking up the hard drive size to 250GB or 320GB would probably make people happier, and at the same time not add much to the cost of the product. And who knows, if the Memory Unit cost $5 instead of $50, they might actually sell a truckload of them.

OnLive was the hot topic for GDC. The company stirred more than a few pots with claims of HDTV quality gaming on a console that could hide under a DVD. We had the chance to sit down with OnLive's CEO Steve Perlman to get a few more answers about how the service might play out and how it behaves under different sets of conditions. His answers shed more light on how the system will work. Check out the video to see what Perlman has to say about bandwidth concerns, energy usage, the achievements system, spectating, and more.