News Archive
Tuesday, November 30th 2010
Today's Reviews
ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications solutions, today announced commercial availability of its latest solutions to bring touch compatibility to the desktop - the VX2258wm display and VPC220T all-in-one PC.
"Businesses and consumers alike are engaging with more touch interactive applications," said Sally Wang, senior director of product marketing, ViewSonic. "To address this need, ViewSonic has announced two new multi-touch solutions to enhance the computing experience. The VX2258wm is our first touch screen, energy-efficient monitor display, while our VPC220T is our multi-touch second-generation all-in-one PC, bringing intuitive touch navigation to SMBs and the enterprise."
Asetek Inc., the world's leading supplier of liquid cooling solutions for computers, today announced three new liquid CPU coolers for OEMs and system builders, designed for chassis utilizing 92mm exhaust fans. The products include: a single exhaust port, single-CPU cooler; a dual exhaust port, single-CPU cooler; and a dual exhaust port, dual-CPU cooler. These new Asetek products provide superior overclocking for compact gaming systems, and ultra-quiet computing and improved productivity for 3U servers and mainstream workstations.
"Our OEM and System Building partners are telling us space saving design is increasingly important in commercial applications as businesses seek to increase productivity without adding real estate," said Steve Branton, Director of Marketing at Asetek. "Consumers, particularly outside North America, also appreciate compact design. Asetek's new 92mm liquid CPU coolers enable companies such as BOXX Technologies to help their customers achieve these goals."
SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today unveils two SPARKLE GeForce GTS 450 Graphics Cards, offering unparalleled levels of price/performance to mainstream users. The SPARKLE GeForce GTS 450 Graphics Card uses the non-reference cooling fan from SPARKLE, featuring 1 big size PWM fan with 92mm diameter (12mm bigger than the reference one) and directional cooling fins with the directional guidance technology, effectively creating huge of wind for the heat dissipation of GPU / Memory / MOS circuit / capacitors. The non-reference cooling fan use the quiet design to operate extremely silence.It dissipate heat up to 5% more efficiently during gameplay and enable up to 9% quieter operation than the stock fan for GeForce GTS 450 graphics card.
Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced the Vengeance series of high performance DDR3 memory modules for enthusiasts and system builders.
Vengeance memory modules use carefully selected RAMs to enable excellent overclocking results on current and future generation Intel and AMD platforms. All initial Vengeance memory modules have a low 1.5V supply voltage for maximum compatibility and for energy-efficient operation. Vengeance DDR3 memory kits are available in single, dual, or triple module kits, with sizes ranging from 4GB all the way up to 16GB. All Vengeance modules are equipped with aluminum heat spreaders for thermal performance as well as aggressive appearance.
In the view of the demand for an ultra mini size platform with fanless design strongly inquired from customers, MSI IPC announces the latest 3.5" small form factor, I3-945GSE-D, based on the Intel Atom N270 processor and the Intel 945GSE chipset which gives devices based on it enhanced graphics and power-saving capabilities.
MSI I3-945GSE-D is fanless and comes to meet the requirements of an ultra-low power platform, especially in power input design, MSI I3-945GSE-D support wide range DC 9V ~ 36V inputs, and it also supports for numerous display, includes VGA and LVDS.
Leading flash memory manufacturer, Silicon Power today unleashes their new 2.5" SATA solid state drive (SSD) ~ E20, a new prospect in computer storage! The new E20 challenges SSD limitations with uniquely developed technology to boost read speeds up to 250MB/s and write speeds up to 230MB/s, both data transfer rates surpass the major SSD on the market today. In addition, E20 also supports TRIM Command. It is specifically for Windows 7 users, allowing for swift tens of seconds OS startup time and instant application and software use. For users using other OS, E20 provides Garbage Collection Technology. It enhances SSD's already strong performances and prevents poor computer responses from long hours of continuous use. It is the ingredient to achieving twice the result with half the effort.
Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced a 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch (6.4cm) Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) that provides government-grade AES-256 hardware encryption incorporated in the disk drive's controller electronics. The MKxx61GSYD is the newest addition to the Toshiba family of drives designed for commercial notebooks and security-sensitive applications, including shared desktop PCs. The drive's built-in hardware encryption offers benefits that go beyond software encryption.
Based on the Opal Security Subsystem Class (Opal SSC) specification from the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), the new Toshiba SED enables secure and quick deployment of encryption on notebook and desktop PCs to protect confidential information. Many organisations are taking steps to comply with security policies and new laws governing data privacy. The SED technology from Toshiba helps IT departments to achieve strong, cost-effective security without interrupting business flow or impacting application performance.
Noctua today announced that owners of older Noctua CPU coolers who wish to upgrade to the upcoming LGA1155 socket will be able to obtain the appropriate NM-I3 SecuFirm2 mounting kit free of charge. Recent models such as the NH-C14, NH-D14 or NH-U12P SE2 already include the NM-I3 mounting kit and are fully compatible with LGA1155 out of the box.
"We're determined to provide the best possible support to our customers and we've sent many thousands of NM-I3 mounting kits free of charge to users who wanted to upgrade to LGA1156", says Mag. Roland Mossig, Noctua CEO. "With Sandy Bridge just around the corner, we're pleased to announce that we'll extend this offer for LGA1155 users. Everyone owning an older Noctua heatsink that doesn't support LGA 115x out of the box will be able to upgrade to the new socket free of charge!"
Evercool rolled out the Ever Green Fan 12 Plus. This 140 mm spinner that can fit into 120 mm fan-mount holes, jumps into the "green" bandwagon by being made of eco-friendly materials, and using technologies that reduce power-draw and noise. Wherever possible the Ever Green minimizes plastic content, by using a thin round frame compared to a thick square one. It uses a lime-green frame, with a darker-green 9-blade impeller. The motor uses an "Ever Lubricated" bearing, which steps up the rated life-span all the way up to 40,000 hours. The fan spins at 1200 ± 10% RPM, with less than 23 dBA of noise output. The frame has a silicone gasket on one side, that absorbs vibrations. Rubber bolts, instead of metal screws are provided, that further reduce vibration transfer. Evercool did not give out pricing of the Ever Green Fan 12 Plus.
Dell today unveiled the Vostro V130, the latest and most stunning addition to its award-winning Vostro laptop line. Designed with the needs and wants of on-the-go entrepreneurs in mind, the Vostro V130 combines head-turning style with best-of-breed durability and security. The Vostro V130 is one of the thinnest [as thin as 0.65" (front) to 0.78" (rear)] and lightest (starting at 3.5 pounds) ultraportable 13-inch laptops available and includes color options Lucerne Red and Aberdeen Silver. Constructed from sturdy aluminum and reinforced with zinc hinges and a magnesium alloy palm rest, it is also road-ready and able to survive everyday bumps and thumps. In addition, the V130 is the first ultra-thin laptop to offer Hyperbaric Cooling, an Intel Advanced Cooling Technology, to help it stay quiet and cool.
Monday, November 29th 2010
Today's Reviews
Review
Graphics Cards
PowerColor's HD 6870 PCS+ comes with some of the highest out of the box clock speeds of all HD 6870 cards available today. It also comes with a unique thermal solution that offers extremely low noise levels in both idle and load. Another improvement is that power consumption is slightly lower than AMD's reference design - despite the higher clock speed.
Enermax announced the Jazzmate series of 2.5" SATA HDD/SSD enclosures. The lineup includes three variants based on the connectivity: EB211S, which has USB 2.0 interface; EB211ES, which has eSATA 3 Gb/s in addition to USB 2.0 interface; and EB211U3, which uses the new USB 3.0 interface, which is backwards compatible with USB 2.0. The Jazzmate enclosures measure 134 mm x 78 mm x 16 mm, and makes use of plastic and a steel mesh on its top. It can accommodate HDDs with spindle speeds of up to 10,000 RPM, and most SSDs. Drive installation is tool-free, and a detachable silicone rim offers some protection against mechanical shock. The EB211S is priced at around €16, EB211ES at €20, and EB211U3 at €30.
The launch of Futuremark's anticipated DirectX 11 graphics benchmark suite 3DMark 11, has been delayed. The software was earlier
slated for release on the 30th of November, with pre-ordering already underway. The company is citing last-minute bugs as a reason for the delay. In a circular to the press, Futuremark said: "Over the weekend we made the difficult decision to postpone the launch of 3DMark 11 by a few days. Our aim is that 3DMark 11 should provide accurate, reliable and consistent results from the start. With that goal in mind we are taking some extra time now to fix a couple of difficult bugs rather than patching the benchmark immediately after launch."
The company does not have a new release date at hand, as it doesn't know how long the last-minute bug-squashing will take. "It might take a day, it might be a week, but either way we'll be in touch again soon to confirm the new launch date...," the circular added. 3DMark 11 is a comprehensive 3D hardware performance benchmark suite that makes use of the DirectX 11 API, making use of the very latest in consumer 3D graphics. It also provides an insight into what level of detail and realism one can expect from this generation of graphics processors.
LaCie introduced the Hub4 USB 3.0, a 4-port USB 3.0 hub. Resembling an Ethernet hub, LaCie's box uses a stylish black and silver chassis with connection indicators in the front, four USB 3.0 ports, a USB 3.0 input, and a DC 5V input, on the back. Measuring 116 x 71 x 25 mm, it weighs 69 g. The hub is also backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 (the ports will work in USB 2.0 mode). It is designed for the majority of USB 3.0 adopters who have no more than two USB 3.0 ports in their system. LaCie's Hub4 USB 3.0 is priced at $59.99.
On a day when a lot of other geopolitical things are being leaked, our friends from Sweden found the specifications sheet of NVIDIA's new upcoming high-end graphics accelerator, the GeForce GTX 570. The GTX 570 will be a deputy to the company's recently-release GeForce GTX 580, it is based on the GF110 graphics processor, with 480 CUDA cores enabled, and a 320-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 1280 MB of memory. At this point it looks like a cross between the GTX 480 and the GTX 470, but the equations take a turn when clock speeds step in: 732 MHz core, 1464 MHz CUDA cores, and 950 MHz (3800 MHz effective) memory, churning out 152 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Power consumption is rated at 225W. NVIDIA's upcoming accelerator is slated for release on 7th December, just five days ahead of AMD's Radeon HD 6900 series launch.
ADATA Technology, after listening attentively to the voice of the market, ADATA has launched a new product in its Superior series of flash drives, the S101. Produced under advanced COB (Chip On Board) manufacturing processes, the S101 is a compact and delicate technological jewel. High quality black leather exterior with a unique and comfortable toothed texture allows you to manifest your personal sense of elegance, at a price the stays true to your sense of moderation.
ADATA Technology, the worldwide leader in DRAM modules and flash memory products, today released its latest Micro Memory Card Reader, the microReader version III, an ultra-compact and stylish solution for easy and convenient data transfers between mobile phones and PCs via High-Speed USB 2.0 interface.
For users of digital devices who are constantly on the go, moving and sharing personal files from memory-enabled phones to other devices can be a hassle when there is no USB cable on hand. Weighing just 3 grams, and the size of a small coin, the new ADATA microReader is one of the smallest card readers available on the market, with incredible portability that provides the freedom of data transfers any time, any place. Due to its ultra-compact size, the microReader can be plugged into the USB slot of a notebook PC at all times, without blocking the neighboring slots or getting in the way when the computer is stowed in a bag.
Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced that it had begun sample shipments of its new 2-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM (product names: EDJ2116DEBG and EDJ2108DEBG) geared for use in consumer electrical appliances. The new SDRAM is the industry's smallest 2-gigabit DDR3 that supports an x16-bit I/O interface.
The new 2-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM is well suited to consumer electrical appliances. It meets the high-speed DDR3-1600 (1600Mbps) standard likely to become the mainstream memory speed standard in 2011, uses energy-efficient 1.35V for the DDR3L-1333 memory speed and is compliant with DDR3-Plus (seamless BL4 access) for upgrading the performance of consumer electrical appliances.
Evercool added a new low-profile CPU cooler to its lineup, the HPL815-EP. Although a little diminutive, measuring 106 x 95 x 45 mm, weighing 320 g, the cooler supports all popular sockets, including LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA775, AM3/AM2+/AM2, including six-core Intel Core i7 980X, and AMD Phenom II X6 1090T. The design a CPU base in which four 8 mm thick copper heat pipes make direct contact with the CPU, conveying heat to a dense aluminum fin array that propagates along the plane of the motherboard, instead of perpendicular to it (like a common tower-type cooler). A 92 mm fan latches onto the heatsink using metal clips. The fan spins at 1,000~4,000 RPM. Evercool did not let out pricing details.
Friday, November 26th 2010
Today's Reviews
Back in August, a
report with details sourced from ComputerBase.de was bang-on in tabling what the 2011 Intel Core processor lineup is going to look like. With a little over a month to go for the market release of these processors, fresh details emerged that reveal pricing and precise availability dates of each model. To begin with, 9th January is D-day for the socket LGA1155 platform, when one can expect a large wave of motherboards to reach stores, along with 10 new Core i5, Core i7 "Sandy Bridge" quad-core processors.
The quad-core lineup consists of 7 Core i5 models. Based on a Sandy Bridge derivative silicon, these processors differ from the Core i7 models in having no HyperThreading (4 cores/4 threads), and 25% of the L3 cache being disabled (set at 6 MB). The lineup overall is seeing a clock speed increase compared to current-generation "Lynnfield" processors. The Core i5 lineup also includes an overclocker-friendly "K" model, which features an unlocked BClk multipler. The fastest in the lineup is the Core i7 2600/2600K, which is clocked at 3.40 GHz. With the default BClk (base clock) of Sandy Bridge running at 100 MHz (compared to 133 MHz on Nehalem/Westmere), one can expect very high multiplier values. It should also be easier to calculate speeds and keep track of, for overclockers.
MSI released a new factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 460 1 GB graphics card that makes use of the company's new sporty-looking single fan cooler the company first introduced with its Radeon HD 6850 graphics cards. The uses the same PCB as the one on the GTX 460 Cyclone OC graphics card. The cooler uses a 90 mm fan to blow air onto a large aluminum fin array, to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick heatpipes. The clock speeds are also identical with those of the Cyclone OC: 725 MHz core, 1450 MHz CUDA cores, and 900 MHz (3600 MHz effective) memory. The card also features software voltage control, which when combined with increased frequencies, up performance by 30%. Released in Europe, the new GTX 460 OC is priced at €155.
ASRock is known to mix and match sockets and chipsets to come up with some interesting hybrids that give users access to latest features offered by the chipset. A recent example of this is a socket 939 motherboard based on the AMD 785G chipset (read
here), which gives users of socket-939 Athlons access to a fast IGP and PCI-Express 2.0. The company's latest such innovation is the P67 Transformer. This is a socket LGA115
6 motherboard, it supports existing Core i5/Core i7 "Lynnfield", and Core i3/Core i5 "Clarkdale" processors, but is based on the Intel P67 Express chipset. The board gives users access to some advanced features of the P67 chipset, but won't support LGA1155 processors.
So what's in it for you? Well, the P67 PCH embeds a PCI-Express 2.0 hub compared to P55/H55, which pack an older PCI-Express 1.1 hub. The older hub is known to heavily bottleneck devices such as USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers that use only a single PCI-E lane (since PCI-E 1.1 has 250 MB/s per direction bandwidth, compared to 500 MB/s on the PCI-E 2.0). So significant is this bottleneck, that some motherboard designers even used bridge chips that convert the P55's PCI-E 1.1 x4 port to two PCI-E 2.0 x1, for USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers. The PCI-E x16 slots however, are wired to the processor and are Gen 2. ASRock's board hence gives you two USB 3.0 and two SATA 6 Gb/s with an alleviated bus bottleneck.
A consortium led by Hitachi, including Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a public-sector body that promotes research of energy-efficient technologies, National University Corporation Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Kyoto University, have developed a new hard drive data recording technology that promises to increase data density 8-fold.
The researchers have developed a new patterning technology for the magnetized bits that are laid on the platters, which are just 10 nm in size. This is made possible by using new materials, and making use of a self-arranged phenomenon of polymer materials. Its practical applications increases areal-density of disk platters to 3.9 Terabits per square inch, an 8-fold increase compared to the 500 Gigabits per square inch that's currently standard. This paves the way for 24 Terabyte (TB) hard drives in the very near future.
Thursday, November 25th 2010
Today's Reviews
Review
Headphones
Sunrise known for their well performing earbuds also produce a set of quite interesting in-ears. Dubbed the SW-Xcape these in-ears are priced at a somewhat reasonable $80.
Internationally renowned graphics card and mainboard manufacturer MSI announces today the R6870 Twin Frozr II graphics card. It is equipped with the latest 40nm AMD Radeon HD6870 GPU, IGB GDDR5 high-speed graphics memory, and the award-winning Twin Frozr II thermal solution. As a result, the operating temperature and noise of the R6870 Twin Frozr II are reduced by 19°C and 12.8dB respectively (versus the reference design). Also, the overvoltage function from the MSI-exclusive Afterburner software further enhances the OC potential of the Barts GPU, and AMD's Eyefinity Technology provides optimal multi-display 2D/3D output for gaming, productivity and entertainment. Along with the super reliable Solid CAPs which prolong product life and enhance product stability and quality, the R6870 Twin Frozr II is the best choice ever for power users looking for graphics cards with ultimate performance and low operating temperature.
Green-House is offering a white version of the GH-JEJ223SH monitor it launched last year. The 21.5-inch full HD (1920 x 1080 resolution) display is geared for gaming and video, which is complemented by 2 ms response time. Other panel specifications include 300 cd/m² brightness, 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Display inputs include DVI, HDMI, and D-Sub. It is priced at US $237.
The TP-1023 external HDD Team launched in 2010 is integration between the wild speed and luxurious design of a sports car. With the USB3.0 interface, TP-1023 delivers a transfer speed up to 5Gbps, which makes TP1023 runs as fast as a sport car! Under the Ferrari red surface coating, T1023 is fully packaged with functions that make itself stands out from any other external HDD on the market.
In addition to its eye-catching sports car design and coating, TP1023 is equipped with sports car like shock absorbent performance. The suspension design can significantly enhance the shock resistance ability. Passed Team Group's 130 falling tests (which has exceeded the industrial specification), the suspension on the TP-1023 provides the best protection for both the hard drive and data within.
Buffalo Japan introduced a new line of compact flash drives with USB 3.0 interface, under the RUF3-SS series. The drives are available in capacities of 8 GB (RUF3-S8GS-BK), 16 GB (RUF3-S16GS-BK), 32 GB (RUF3-S32GS-BK), and 64 GB (RUF3-S64GS-BK). Measuring 76 x 9 x 19 mm, the drives weigh 12 g. The drive offers transfer speeds of up to 71 MB/s when plugged into USB 3.0, and up to 44 MB/s when plugged into USB 2.0. The 8, 16, 32, and 64 gigabyte models are priced at ¥2,780 ($34), ¥4,980 ($60), ¥9,480 ($113), and ¥17,800 ($213) in Japan, respectively.
Gigabyte surprised us earlier this year, when it broke its tradition of sticking to a blue colored PCB for every motherboard it sells, by unveiling high-end socket LGA1155
motherboards with black PCBs. The next logical step is to build a premium motherboard brand targeting high-end gaming PC builds. Gigabyte does have a formidable high-end lineup, but they're known more for overclocking and tons of connectivity options.
The new brand by Gigabyte is competitive with ASUS' Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, MSI's XPower. One of the first products is referred to as the "G1-Killer", and all but an outline of an ATX motherboard. The product range is said to start at US $299, some of the first products will be unveiled at the upcoming CES event held in January, 2011.
Apacer, one of the world's leading brands of memory modules, announced today its ARES DDR3 Overclocking Memory Module. The newly-unveiled memory module is named after the god of war "ARES." Features include advanced memory chips, zero noise heat pipe cooling system with a large red aluminum heat dissipation fin. It is able to operate at a blazing-fast clock rate of 2400MHz, allowing not only overclockers to create overclocking miracles but hardcore gamers to achieve their optimum performance during the games.
ARES, the god of war, clad in armor dashing in the ferocious battlefield, is thought to have been invincible in Greek mythology. After the previous launch of second-to-none Aeolus equivalent, Apacer again named its DDR3 memory module from the mythology. Just as its name suggested, ARES DDR3 Overclocking Memory Module promises to deliver amazing and stable overclocking performances that feed the needs of the overclocking experts.
Wednesday, November 24th 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
Review
Cases
Corsair has put a lot of engineering into their Obsidian case line-up and everyone had eagerly been awaiting their first mid-tower case offering. Enter stage left: Corsair Graphite 600T, which takes a lot of the features of the Obsidian and packs it into a uniqe looking case at a much lower price point. We tear it apart and put it back together, to see if it can impress as much as the Obsidian series.
Exceleram - the Highend Memory based in Landau, Germany, announces the availability of the first four Rippler Memory Kits. The name Rippler stands for a new Heatsink designed especially for the overclocking community. The German Exceleram Team completed the development and the Rippler Series is ready to ship now. First shipments are leaving the German warehouse this week. The Rippler Series will be expanded during the next weeks.
"We already have customer requests for other Rippler Kits and we will consider them of course." said Martim Reis Silva - Sales Director Exceleram. As a goody, there are also 2 highend kits with black 8layer PCB available. In the beginning the memory will be delivered in a noble aluminiumbox instead of plastic blister.
PowerColor is readying the first AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics card that features a passive cooler, a completely silent cooling solution. The company is currently evaluating a new design that makes use of a large GPU heatsink featuring an aluminum fin array that ensures the card occupies just two expansion slots, while adding surface area by propagating to the top of the card, in an L-shape. The heatsink uses no less than five heat pipes to convey heat to the fins. PowerColor's card will be branded under the company's "SCS3" line of silent graphics cards. Based on the 40 nm "Barts" silicon, the AMD Radeon HD 6850 features 960 stream processors, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. Availability and pricing is unknown as the design is yet to be finalized.
Mitsubishi Electric announced a new premium 27" monitor. The RDT271WV packs a full-HD (1920 x 1080) panel that is LED-backlit, has a maximum brightness of 300 cd/m², 25,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, and 6.5 ms response time. Display connectivity includes a Japanese D5 port, DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. It also packs a set of 3W stereo speakers. Available in Japan, the RDT271WV is priced at ¥52,800 (around $633).
LG Display, a leading innovator of TFT-LCD technology, announced today that it has launched the 23-inch 240Hz LCD for monitors (dual monitor and TV use) that refreshes at a rate of 240 frames per second to deliver clear picture quality with no ghosting effect.
The industry have been engaged in a heated race to improve the motion picture response time (MPRT), unveiling products with refresh rates of 120Hz or 240Hz which are respectively twice and four times as fast as broadcast signals (60Hz). However, the technology has mostly been applied to LCD panels for high-end TV panels that are 40-inch or larger. This is the first time that 240Hz technology was applied in a 23-inch product under mass production.
Huntkey Enterprise Group held its Huntkey 80PLUS GOLD Certified Power Supplies launch conference successfully at 2:00 PM on November 23 at Dinghao's meeting hall. With a theme of "Surmounting", this conference released a series of 80PLUS Gold certified power-supplies with rated power of 300W and 1200W. It attracted many famous national IT media and overclockers.
Huntkey Vice President, Mr. Liu, global marketing manager, Mr. Tang, and global product manager, Mr. Villa, shared their opinions with audience. "Today's launch of 80PLUS Gold certified power supplies is dedicated to both overclockers and mainstream users alike. We hope to bring energy-saving, safe, high quality but cost-effective products to more users," Mr. Liu said. "300W and 1200W 80PLUS Gold certified power supplies stand for Huntkey's pursuit of two extremes, one for high-end quality, and the other for entry level users. The surmounting theme shows Huntkey's commitment for innovation." said another Huntkey representative in charge of the conference.
Japanese company Green-House is out with a new 23.6" display, the GH-JLH243SHB. This full-HD (1920 x 1080 pixels resolution) display sports LED-backlit illumination, which also thins it down to just 17 mm. Relevant panel specifications include 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 1,000:1 static contrast, 300 cd/m² brightness, 5 ms response time (2 ms GTG). The display includes 2x 1W stereo speakers. Display connectivity includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. It is priced at ¥22,800 (around US $275).
I-O Data introduced two new Blu-ray writers, the BRD-3DS12, and the BRD-3DU8. The is an internal SATA drive, while the BRD-3DU8 is an external USB 2.0 one, inclosed in a familiar-looking casing that can be found on some I-O Data external hard drives. The BRD-3DS12 writes single and double-layer BD-R at 12X, single and double layer BD-RE at 2X. The BRD-3DU8 external drive writes single and double layer BD-R at 8X, and BD-RE at 2X. The BRD-3DS12 and BRD-3DU8 are priced at ¥28,500 (around US $343) and ¥29,600 ($356), respectively.
Motherboard giant Gigabyte contributed to a nerdtastic art piece put in place by authorities of the Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan, Gigabyte's home country. A hall inside gate B7 of terminal 1 at the airport sports a wall-hung art-piece made entirely of Gigabyte motherboards, consisting of two lines, and a circle. The circle, made of identical motherboards, looks like a silicon wafer, and from a distance, each motherboard looks like a chip die on that wafer. A map of the island is also carved out of a motherboard on that circle.
Next to it is a large "Made in Taiwan" sign, also made by Gigabyte motherboards. This art piece is said to be using more than 1,200 motherboards, which of course are dead, returned for replacement pieces. After years of war and poverty, Taiwan has emerged as a major hub of semiconductor and electronics industries, there are ongoing efforts such as this one to propagate Taiwan as a stable investment destination, and in a pretty geeky way, we might add.
Tt eSPORTS, the world's leading professional gaming gear division by Thermaltake has unveiled their new keyboard the CHALLENGER Ultimate, a gaming keyboard created for MMORPG and RTS gamers to rule your kingdom with your own style. Enjoy the dark atmosphere but execute accurate shots, it's the only way to take down the enemies. With the Wizard 256 back light design, 4 levels of illumination design that simulates all time true-to-life gaming ambience that can match any mood, the CHALLENGER Ultimate also provides up to 14 Macro keys capability to be one step ahead of their competitors.
With 64KB on board memory in 5 game profiles and 70 Marco keys, plus anti-ghosting capability, gamers are given that extra boost of confidence to win. Tt eSPORTS is not only the leading gaming gear provider, but they are always focused on adding that something extra. With 2 extra built-in USB ports, audio jacks for Mic. in and SP out, Gold-plated USB connector are convenient features that enhance the gaming actions.
Gigabyte rolled out a factory-overclocked graphics card based on the new GeForce GTX 460 SE graphics processor. The card sports PCB and cooler designed by Gigabyte for its older GTX 460 models, featuring the company's WindForce 2X twin-fan GPU cooler, and an Ultra Durable VGA PCB. The card uses clock speeds of 740/1460/850(3400) MHz core/CUDA cores/memory(effective). Display outputs include two DVI and a mini-HDMI. The GTX 460 SE is based on the 40 nm GF104 silicon, with 288 CUDA cores, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. The GTX 460 SE WindForce 2X from Gigabyte is priced at €160.
Tuesday, November 23rd 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
Review
Graphics Cards
Last week NVIDIA launched their GeForce GTX 460 SE which is designed to give a good price/performance level without compromising on memory amount. But is this enough to compete with the full GTX 460 variants that have 768 MB or 1 GB of memory?
Mushkin, a global leader in high-performance computer products, announced today the release of 'Redline Ridgeback', a new variation on a heatsink that has become a staple in the high-performance and overclocking communities. Because of its aggressive yet sleek design and incredible heat dissipation qualities, enthusiasts the world over have demanded the Ridgeback heatsink for their memory cooling needs. Now, this exciting piece of technology has been prepared for Mushkin's world-renowned Redline Series with an engaging and strong blood-red appearance.
"The Ridgeback Project has been an exciting project for both myself and our marketing department. Because of Ridgeback's success, we wanted to offer the cooling technology with a sharp new look, and to give customers new aesthetic options. Case modders and system builders now have a striking new look available to them when using Ridgeback. Redline has always been Mushkin's premier memory line, and we're happy to add Ridgeback to its mix. Our new blood-red Ridgeback heatsinks scream 'performance' and offer it in every respect." - Brian Flood, director of product development.
Corsair introduced a new line of PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600 MHz) memory kits based its latest memory module design, the Corsair Vengeance. The Vengeance modules make use standard height DIMM PCBs, making use of a 'light' heatsink that goes on to be slightly taller than the PCB. 'Light', because unlike the heatsinks on the Dominator modules, Vengeance's heatsink looks to consist of just thick metal plates of the heatspreader elongating into a few heatsink fins, much like G.Skill's RipJaws modules.
The Vengeance modules can operate at 1600 MHz speeds with DRAM voltage of 1.5V, with CL8 and CL9 timings available in the lineup. The modules come in densities of 2 GB and 4 GB, making up single-channel (single module), dual-channel, and triple-channel memory kits, in capacities of 4 GB (single module), 8 GB (2x 4 GB) dual-channel, 6 GB (3x 2 GB) triple-channel, and 12 GB (3x 4 GB) triple-channel.
A list of models follows.
AMD's upcoming "Bulldozer" architecture based processors that use a new socket type, the AM3+, are slated for Q2, 2011. To complement its launch, AMD will be launching the 9-series chipset series, consisting of four kinds of desktop chipset. The lineup starts with the AMD 990FX, the high-end 4-way CrossFireX-ready chipset, geared for high-end motherboards. Next up, is the 990X. This discrete graphics chipset is also ready for CrossFireX, but has just 16 PCI-Express 2.0 lanes to spare for graphics, platforms based on this will feature two PCI-Express x16 slots which reconfigure to electrical x8 slots when both are populated.
The third is an entry-level discrete graphics chipset that doesn't support CrossFire, but can spare one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot for discrete graphics, it's the AMD 970. Lastly, there's the 980G integrated graphics chipset, which features a DirectX 10.1 compliant IGP, which supports UVD 2.0 video acceleration. For some reason, this chipset doesn't support older AM3 processors, but only AM3+. The other chipsets in the series however, do support existing socket AM3 Athlon II and Phenom II series processors. All four northbridge chipsets support HyperTransport 3.0 processor interconnect, supporting data rates of up to 5.2 GT/s.
Noctua today officially introduced its new NH-C14 CPU cooler. Sporting an exquisite, uniquely flexible 140mm dual fan setup of two Noctua NF-P14, the NH-C14 is a highly customisable, premium-class top-flow solution that further boosts the renowned quiet cooling performance of the company's much acclaimed NH-C12 series.
"Our NH-C12 coolers are renowned to rank among the most capable top-flow cooling solutions on the market, so we're truly proud to offer a further substantial improvement in quiet cooling performance with the new NH-C14", says Mag. Roland Mossig, Noctua CEO. "This model really closes the gap to good tower coolers while being much lower in height and ensuring better component cooling."
OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, unveils new Xtreme Thermal Exchange (XTE) and Blade 2 high-speed desktop memory, providing the optimal balance of blazing DDR3 performance and cooling efficiency in one solution. Committed to staying ahead of the curve in the high performance segment of the memory market, OCZ is offering high-end memory that keeps pace with intensive overclocking, gaming, and other high-productivity computing environments.
"Building on our previous lines of enthusiast overclocking memory, the new XTE and Blade 2 DDR3 memory series are designed to set the benchmark once again and deliver the ultimate in performance and stability," said Alex Mei, CMO of OCZ Technology Group. "Featuring new compact, yet highly efficient heatspreader designs, these hand-tested kits are the ideal solution for overclockers gaming and productivity applications, and are optimized for the latest generation of platforms from Intel and AMD."
Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced that it was once again selected as 2010's Best PSU and Best Memory Manufacturer by the readers of Custom PC magazine and bit-tech.net, two of the most respected technology publications in the United Kingdom.
The awards were voted for by Custom PC and bit-tech's audience of performance PC enthusiasts, overclockers and gamers. Choosing the companies they judged to have excelled in 2010, Corsair emerged as the clear victor in both the power supply and memory categories.
QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers today announced the latest refresh of its rack-mounted Business Series Turbo NAS servers which are hugely popular with corporate and entry-level enterprise customers for their sheer performance and business-ready features. Announced today are two new 4-drive units, the TS-459U-RP+ and the TS-459U-SP+ with up to 8TB of networked storage, and the TS-859U-RP+ with up to a whopping 16TB of online storage (using 2TB hard drives).
These new rack-mounted Business Series TS-x59U-RP+ models incorporate the new dual-core Intel Atom processor D525 with 1.8GHz clock speed and 1GB RAM, which can achieve up to 113MB/s transfer rates (FTP/Samba reads) via dual Gigabit LAN ports while maintaining guaranteed low power consumption.
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced their USB 3.0 RAIDDrive is now even faster. When we introduced the USB 3.0 RAIDDrive, we knew that we had reached the limit of the USB 3.0 host controllers currently available. Now that 2nd generation USB 3.0 host controllers are beginning to emerge, this drive is able to show its true performance. Completely unchanged since its debut in January 2010, this drive now posts scores over 370 MB/s; a full 55 MB/s faster.
"This product yet again underscores Super Talent's continued leadership in the USB 3.0 storage market. We now have five USB 3.0 flash drives: from the very fastest, RAIDDrive, to the ultra-affordable, Express DUO", said Super Talent COO, C.H. Lee.
TRENDnet, a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand, today announces the availability of the first to market 500Mbps Powerline AV Adapter, model TPL-401E, and the 500Mbps Powerline AV Adapter Kit, model TPL-401E2K. Each device represents the fastest Powerline solutions available to consumers today.
Plug the 500Mbps Powerline AV Adapter into any electrical outlet to create a secure 500Mbps building-wide network. Connect one adapter to your router and plug another adapter into any outlet on your electrical system for instant high speed network access. Connect adapters quickly using the convenient one-touch connect button. Use up to 16 Powerline adapters to network devices in different rooms without running new cabling.
Monday, November 22nd 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
With the debut of six products based on the Intel Atom processor, Intel Corporation is making it easier for customers to go-to-market with differentiated, custom-made designs. The company today announced the configurable Intel Atom processor E600C series, which features an Intel Atom E600 processor (formerly codenamed "Tunnel Creek") paired with an Altera Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) in a single package.
The new Intel Atom processor provides greater flexibility and faster time-to-market for customers, who can now more readily handle design changes without complicated hardware changes - helping to lower development costs. In addition, the new processor offers board space savings and better inventory control due to the single package, as well as a simplified manufacturing flow and single vendor support through Intel.
With the introduction of AMD's Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs, we were made to expect a massive architectural change in the way AMD arranges its unified shaders. That, however, didn't happen with the Radeon HD 6800 series based on the 40 nm "Barts" GPU, which continued to maintain the VLIW5 configuration (comprising of SIMD units with 4 simple and 1 complex stream processing units). A recent presentation leaked to the internet reveals that the much talked about architectural change was saved for Cayman, the company's upcoming high-end GPU, on which will be based Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards.
In VLIW4 architecture, equipotent stream processing units are arranged in groups of four along with general purpose registers. Although the four have equal capabilities, two out of four of these (occupying 3 and 4 issue slots) are assigned with some special functions. AMD looks to be conservative with the benefits of the new SIMD architecture. It claims that VLIW4 gives similar computational power as VLIW5, with 10% reduction in die area. It also simplifies scheduling.
Kingston unveiled the first line of HyperX branded solid state drives (SSDs), starting with the HyperX MAX 3.0 external SSDs with USB 3.0 interface. HyperX is Kingston's brand of high-performance products, such as memory modules. The HyperX MAX 3.0 comes in three capacities: 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB; and sports a sleek blue aluminum chassis in the distinct shade of blue found on HyperX memory module heatspreaders. Internally, it's a SATA 3 Gb/s SSD connected to a SATA to USB 3.0 bridge card.
The SSD is driven by Toshiba T6UG1XBG controller, which is connected to Toshiba-made MLC NAND flash chips, making use of some external DRAM cache. The SSD PCB is connected to the USB 3.0 bridge PCB, which is driven by Genesys Logic GL3310 USB 3.0 SATA bridge controller. The HyperX MAX 3.0 is rated by its makers to offer transfer speeds of 195 MB/s read and 160 MB/s write. The 64GB, 128GB and 256GB variants are priced at £125, £220, and £440, respectively. A review can be found at the source.
Kingston announced a new line of solid state drives (SSDs) under the SSDNow S100 series, which are meant for non-PC industry uses, such as industrial embedded computer nodes, industrial automation machinery, etc. The drives are available in the 2.5" SATA form-factor, supporting SATA 3 Gb/s interface. Available in capacities of 8 GB and 16 GB, the S100 SSDs offer transfer speeds of 90 MB/s read and 30 MB/s write (8 GB model); 230 MB/s read and 75 MB/s write (16 GB model). An MTBF of 1 million hours is rated. The 8 GB drive is priced at €41, and the 16 GB model at €57.
Thermaltake, leading DIY chassis brand, is launching their newest top-mounted HDD single bay docking station PC chassis, the all-black DOKKER. With the DOKKER mid-tower chassis Thermaltake is expanding their successful series of docking station chassis into the mainstream segment. The convenient dual-use single HDD docking station right on the front top of the case can accommodate one 3.5" or 2.5" SATA drive as needed. This hot-swap mechanism allows for fastest on-the-go data transfers without the need to install any software or hardware. As is custom with Thermltake cases, the DOKKER also provides for excellent airflow with the option to install up to 7 fans. A whooping 10 drives can be installed, while the HDD drive bays offer an anti-vibration design, guaranteeing a silent computing experience.
Cooler Master backed up the
HAF-X NVIDIA Edition with another NVIDIA-themed case launch, this time a modified version of the CM 690 II Advanced. The NVIDIA Edition variant of this popular case uses a more restrained use of the gaudy shade of green used on the HAF-X NVIDIA Edition, and uses just subtle lines of metallic green instead of the two chrome lines on the original design. The blue-illuminated front intake fan is replaced by a green one, and the side panel uses a window shaped after the NVIDIA "eye" logo, using green tinted acrylic. Internally, all features of the original CM 690 II Advanced are retained, except the green colored HDD trays, which look arguably less gaudy when seen through the window.
The CM 690 II Advanced can accommodate ATX and MATX cases, it uses an all-black interior, with several cable management and tool-free features. It measures 214.5 x 511.8 x 528.8 mm. The case uses perforated metal that runs through the front and top, with the front fan intake, four 5.25" drive bays, and front-panel that holds USB, eSATA, audio, and a SATA drive dock along the way; ending with two 140 mm top exhaust fan vents. Fans included are a 140 mm green-illuminated front intake, a 140 mm top exhaust, and a 120 mm rear exhaust. The CM 690 II Advanced NVIDIA Edition is priced at €110.
Zalman announced its latest CPU cooler, the CNPS5X. Its design is a fusion between traditional tower-type and Zalman's own nested fan design heatsink. The CNPS5X is designed for medium-thru-heavy thermal loads, more like highly overclocked dual-core or mildly overclocked quad-core chips. The company excluded support for LGA1366 for this reason, but added support for Intel's upcoming LGA1155 socket. Other sockets supported include LGA1156, LGA775, and AM3/AM2+/AM2.
Its design consists of Y-shaped aluminum fins, to which heat is conveyed evenly by three 8 mm thick copper heat pipes. The heat pipes converge at a copper CPU base. The 92 mm fan is nested inside the aluminum fins. It spins at 1400~2800 rpm, with a rated noise level of 20~32 dBA. Together, the CNPS5X measures 127(L) x 62(W) x 134(H) mm, weighing 320 g. Installation is made easy by push-pins for Intel sockets, and a fixed clip for AMD sockets, requiring no access to the back of the motherboard. Slated for market release in December, the CNPS5X from Zalman is priced at €26.90.
FinalWire Ltd. today announced the acquisition of diagnostics, hardware monitoring, network audit, and benchmarking software, Lavalys EVEREST. "Today is a significant step forward in our progress to deliver a class-leading diagnostics and benchmarking solution," said Tamas Miklos, managing director of FinalWire. "The addition of Lavalys' customers and technologies will enable us to accelerate investments, meet a wider set of customer needs through a richer solution set, increase efficiencies and significantly expand our opportunities for growth."
Beginning immediately, FinalWire will execute on the planned integration of the two companies' technologies and customers to ensure a smooth transition that will deliver immediate value for customers, partners and investors.
At last, specifications of AMD's elusive Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 6990 graphics accelerators made it to the internet, with slides exposing details such as stream processor count. The Radeon HD 6970 is based on a new 40 nm GPU by AMD, codenamed "Cayman". The dual-GPU accelerator being designed using two Cayman GPUs is codenamed "Antilles", and carries the product name Radeon HD 6990.
Cayman packs 1920 stream processors, spread across 30 SIMD engines, indicating the 4D stream processor architecture, generating single-precision computational power of 3 TFLOPs. It packs 96 TMUs, 128 Z/Stencil ROPs, and 32 color ROPs. Its memory bandwidth of 160 GB/s indicates that it uses a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The memory amount, however, seems to have been doubled to 2 GB on the Radeon HD 6970. Antilles uses two of these Cayman GPUs, combined computational power of 6 TFLOPs, a total of 3840 stream processors, total memory bandwidth of 307.2 GB/s, a total of 4 GB of memory, load and idle board power ratings at 300W and 30W, respectively.
MSI has unveiled its all-new 15.6-inch F Series FX610MX laptop, featuring AMD's new generation Phenom II triple-core processor and the ATI Mobility Radeon HD5470 discrete graphics card (512MB DDR3 VRAM). It comes with MSI's exclusive GPU Boost and ECO technologies which switch display and power management modes to meet your current needs, allowing you to strike the ideal balance between powerful multimedia performance and battery life.
MSI Marketing Director Sam Chern explains that the FX610MX employs a cinema-class 16:9 ratio power-saving LED display, ideal for viewing films, as well as MSI's Cinema Pro multimedia technology to enhance display color and clarity. What's more, the exterior of the FX610MX is sheathed in MSI's own raised totem seal coating to give it an extra touch of class and protect it against scratching, wear, and smudging. It also comes with a seamless, multipoint touchpad. You won't want to go anywhere without it.
Viking Modular Solutions, a division of Sanmina-SCI Corporation (Nasdaq: SANM), and leading manufacturer of innovative DRAM modules and Solid State Drive (SSD) solutions, today announced its DDR3 8GB Very Low Profile (VLP) Registered DIMM is available for immediate qualification. Suitable for the most demanding environmental conditions, this high-density VLP RDIMM is optimal for Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers in the telecommunications, enterprise, cloud and embedded computing markets that need the benefit of high density in a very low profile form factor.
Viking Modular is a leader in creating innovative DRAM packaging solutions that offer excellent signal integrity and thermal management. This latest DDR3 8GB VLP RDIMM uses mainstream 2Gbit DDR3 DRAM to deliver a cost effective, reliable, high-density solution, ideally suited for blade servers, storage bridge bay (SBB), AdvancedTCA (ATCA) and multiple space constrained high performance computing environments.
Things are looking upbeat at NVIDIA, and to feed that, Cooler Master is out with its latest NVIDIA-themed case, the HAF-X NVIDIA Edition. The company is known for making a wide range of cases themed after the GPU giant. The HAF-X NVIDIA Edition uses the HAF-X design overall, with a bright green frame, large patches of black, green colored internal parts (such as HDD trays), a green-illuminated front intake fan, and a green-tinted window with an NVIDIA "eye" streak. Measuring 230 x 599 x 550 mm, the case is designed to fit in standard ATX/MATX motherboards, as well as XL-ATX motherboards, such as the Gigabyte X58A-UD9 and the EVGA X58 Classified 4-way SLI.
Drive bays include five internal 3.5", with two of these supporting 2.5" and 1.8" drives, six 5.25" bays, of which one is a SATA 3.5"/2.5" HDD/SSD dock. The motherboard tray features a hole behind the CPU socket area for easy access to coolers with back-plates, the GPU holder rack can reinforce long graphics cards and minimize bending of their PCBs. Ventilation is aplenty. There's a 230 mm front intake fan, a 200 mm side-panel intake fan, a 140 mm rear exhaust fan, and two optional 200 mm top exhaust fans. Its front panel includes USB 3.0 ports, USB 2.0 ports, eSATA, FireWire and audio. The HAF-X NVIDIA Edition from Cooler Master is priced at US $230.
The ARCTIC S series 2.1 Speakers bring best audio quality for all needs. Dive into pure sound and make your PC to a real multimedia system. The speakers in the ARCTIC SOUND S Series features excellent sound quality with rich bass and clear highs. High fidelity drivers along with quick and precise responding driver coils play your music the way it is thought to be played.
The sleek and contemporary designs of these metallic-looking speakers blend seamlessly into any media center environment and emphasize your modern lifestyle. The different sizes will fit into either limited areas or spacious environments. All of the speakers are integrated with volume, bass, and treble controls, either on one of the satellites or on a control pod. Tweaking those settings with turning knobs are at user's fingertips. These easily accessible fine-tuning dials ensure personalized listening comfort and enhance listening pleasure as well.
Friday, November 19th 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
Club 3D B.V. is pleased to announce the introduction of the next generation video card based on the Bart XT chipset, AMD' second generation DirectX 11. The new Club 3D Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 Overclocked Edition video card features now the AMD HD3D technology which allows you to play your favorite games in full stereo 3D with a single video card (up to 3 monitors), and enjoy with the new EyeSpeed technology to watch the latest Blu-ray movies in 3D.
Do things faster with AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology on the most demanding applications and take advantage of the Dolby True HD support for a theatre-quality experience. Now is available to you with 940 Mhz GPU Clock, 4400 Mhz GDDR5 and 1120 Stream Processors.
NVIDIA stunned the computing world with a speedy launch of the GeForce GTX 580. The GPU was able to increase NVIDIA's single-GPU performance leadership, and also iron-out some serious issues with the power-draw and thermal characteristics of previous generation GeForce GTX 480. It is now that a dual-GPU implementation of the GF110 graphics processor, on which the GTX 580 is based, looks inevitable. NVIDIA seems to be ready with a prototype of such a dual-GPU accelerator, which the Chinese media is referring to as the "GTX 595".
The reference design PCB of the dual-GF110 accelerator (which still needs some components fitted) reveals quite a lot about the card taking shape. First, it's a single PCB card, both the GPU systems are located on the same PCB. Second, there are slots for three DVI output connectors present, indicating that the card with be 3D Vision Surround ready in a single card. You just have to get one of these, plug in three displays over standard DVI, and you're ready with a large display head spanning three physical displays.
Colorful, the brains behind the iGame series of fully-loaded performance-thru-mainstream graphics cards is continuing to let its creativity fly. This time around, the company is working on a new GeForce GTS 450 graphics card that's "slim" in more ways than one. To begin with, the card will feature a single-slot cooling solution, next, the designers completely did away with "big" and redundant components on the PCB, and replaced them with higher-grade yet compact and less in number components. For example, while most other graphics card vendors fill up the 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory bus of the GeForce GTS 450 with eight 1 Gbit (128 MB) chips, with two chips sharing a 32-bit wide path, Colorful used just four higher-density memory chips. That's four 2 Gbit (256 MB) memory chips made by Hynix to achieve the same capacity, reducing board footprint, and possibly heat and energy draw.
All cylindrical capacitors are replaced by server-grade flatbed high-C POSCAP capacitors. The card uses a simple 3+1 phase VRM, driven by an ON-Semi made controller. The chokes used don't exactly sit on the PCB, rather, they're suspended in openings of the PCB, by their leads, this improves ventilation around the chokes, and reduces the size of the chokes on the obverse side, reducing the obstruction caused to the cooler. The PCB itself is well "ventilated". All free-space on the PCB is used to carve out vents for the cooler to draw in air from. Colorful did not mention when tentatively it plans to release this product.
Futuremark announced today that 3DMark 11, the latest version of the industry standard benchmark for real-time 3D graphics, will be released on November 30. 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition priced at $19.95 can be pre-ordered today from http://www.3dmark.com/. Futuremark has updated the 3DMark website to highlight the exclusive features in the Advanced Edition and has released a new pre-order preview trailer showing graphical improvements in the Deep Sea and High Temple scenes. A selection of new before and after screenshots demonstrate tessellation, volumetric lighting and other effects created with DirectX 11.
The new 3DMark 11 Pre-order Preview trailer shows off a number of improvements from the previously released work-in-progress tech demo videos. The Deep Sea scene now includes particle effects in the water as submersibles explore the sea bed and discover a sunken World War II submarine. In the High Temple scene the foliage is now animated and there are changes in the lighting conditions as the sun sets on the mysterious temple.
PNY Technologies introduced a couple of DDR3-1333 MHz dual-channel memory kits for desktops, and a couple of DDR3-1066 MHz dual-channel kits for notebooks, under its Optima series. The kits are available in capacities of 4 GB (2x 2 GB), and 8 GB (2x 4 GB), costing US $69.99 and $129.99, respectively, both for the notebook and desktop lines.
MSI, the global leading brand in All-in-One PCs, continues to develop products that are innovative and attentive to the market. MSI will introduce a new business All-in-One PC model in the end of 2010: Wind Top AP2000. Designed specifically for the business and office environment, the AIO Wind Top AP2000 is equipped with high performance and powerful features. MSI's Wind Top AP2000 has a built-in 20" single-touch LCD panel (optional) with a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio that gives business users a comfortable HD-class screen, which is easy on the eyes, even with extensive usage. The model is also designed for commercial market with Point of Sale requirements: restaurants, five-star hotel reception desks, 24-hour convenience stores and gas stations. Two COM ports are provided for connectivity to barcode readers, credit card readers and credit card slip printers. Equipped with Intel dual-core processor and latest Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, Wind Top AP2000 will be the best partner in your office.
Antec, Inc., the global leader in high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself markets, today announced the formation of soundscience, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Antec, and introduces the all new soundscience rockus 3D | 2.1 speaker system.
The soundscience rockus 3D | 2.1 speaker system is designed to create a personal theater experience, bringing the power and realism of 3D sound together with the clarity and accuracy of high-fidelity audio, making it an ideal solution for experiencing game and movie sound in 3D.
QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers today refreshes its popular mid-range NAS business lineup with new 2- and 4-drive desktop models, TS-239 Pro II+ and TS-439 Pro II+. The Turbo NAS servers adopt Intel's new D425 single-core Atom CPU with 1.8GHz clock speed and 1GB RAM, which delivers superior performance and high reliability with versatile business features. The new models provide maximum storage of 8TB (using four 2TB hard drives and single disk volume/JBOD configuration). The TS-239 Pro II+ and TS-439 Pro II+ NAS servers are compatible with VMware, Citrix and Windows 2008 Hyper-V clusters virtualization platform, ideal for file sharing, backup, and advanced server applications in the office environment.
Thursday, November 18th 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
Review
Graphics Cards
Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 480 Super Overclock sets out to deliver affordable high-end overclocking for NVIDIA users. The card features dual voltage software control, voltage measurement points, a powerful but quiet triple fan cooler and Gigabyte's OC Guru overclocking software. Best of all, it comes at a reasonable $469 which is not much more than the reference design. But is that enough to hold off the GeForce GTX 580 ?
Razer, the world's leading high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals brand, today announced the Razer Nostromo gaming keypad, co-developed with Belkin and designed to give gamers the upper hand with cutting-edge ergonomics, tournament-grade controls, extreme customizability, and maximum comfort.
"A few years ago we had the privilege of working with Belkin to co-develop the highly successful Belkin n52te Speedpad." said Robert "RazerGuy" Krakoff, President, Razer. "The Razer Nostromo is an update to this illustrious gaming keypad to meet today's competitive gaming demands. Building on the Speedpad's proven ergonomic design, the Razer Nostromo incorporates the latest gaming technologies that Razer has developed over the past few years, including a new chipset and software drivers that allow all levels of gamers to program sophisticated command strings to help decimate their opponents."
Today LaCie announces the smallest SSD USB 3.0 drive, delivering speeds up to 260MB/s - LaCie FastKey. Small enough to hide in the palm of your hand, LaCie's FastKey can transfer 1000 mp3 or five DIVX files in less than 60 seconds.
While the FastKey can perform up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0, its peak performance goes far beyond that. Combining the performance of SSD, USB 3.0 and DRAM cache technology, the FastKey can write small files up to 100 times faster than your average USB 2.0 hard drive.
The PCI-SIG finalized the specifications of PCI-Express 3.0 bus, the latest version of PCI. Like PCI-Express 1.x and PCI-Express 2.x, PCI-E 3.0 is designed to be backwards-compatible with devices that use older versions of the bus. Keeping up with the major version trend, PCI-E 3.0 doubles the theoretical bandwidth. PCI-Express 3.0 can push 1 GB/s per lane, per direction, double that of PCI-E 2.0. A PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot would hence have its cumulative bandwidth at 32 GB/s.
Apart from pure bandwidth increases, PCI-Express also uses the new 128b/130b data encoding scheme, which reduces protocol overhead significantly, allowing near-100% utilization of available bandwidth. To put this into perspective, PCI-Express 2.0 had a data-rate of 5 GT/s, but with its overhead, could only effectively transfer 4 GT/s. The new scheme allows utilization of all 8 GT/s of the bandwidth PCI-Express 3.0 has, resulting in a data-rate of 1 GB/s per lane, per direction. The PCI-E specification document is available to PCI-SIG members. It is expected that the first PCI-Express 3.0 compliant devices will come to be in 2011.
SteelSeries, the leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories today, introduced the SteelSeries MMO Keyset for the Shift gaming keyboard. The SteelSeries MMO Keyset transforms the Shift into a feature-rich MMO Keyboard with an intuitive, preconfigured layout of keys that are labeled for movement, communication, and emotes. The new keyset brings gamers a superior and more cost-effective keyboard option compared to buying an MMO-only keyboard.
"The new MMO Keyset is an excellent example of how the SteelSeries Shift Keyboard is offering gamers an entirely new set-up, specific to the type of game they're currently playing, without having to commit to a big purchase, " said Bruce Hawver, SteelSeries' CEO.
Super Talent expanded its high performance solid state drive (SSD) lineup by releasing to market a 480 GB variant of its UltraDrive MX series. The UltraDrive MX 480 GB is a 2.5-inch SATA 3 Gb/s SSD, driven by JMicron JMF616 controller, making use of MLC NAND flash memory chips. The drive can also serve as an external SSD using USB 2.0 interface. The drive provides transfer rates of 250 MB/s read and 180 MB/s write. The JMF616 controller makes use of a 64 MB cache, and supports the TRIM garbage-collection feature that helps sustain write performance over time. It is priced at around US $1,160.
Japanese company Logitec unveiled the LHR-PBGU2 2.5-inch SATA drive enclosure measuring 75.5 x 115 x 13, the enclosure adds a mere 40 g to the drive's weight. It can take in 2.5" SATA hard drives and SSDs, and connect them to the system over USB 2.0 interface. Slated for release later this month, the LHR-PBGU2 is expected to be priced at US $12.
ASRock unveiled its socket LGA1155 motherboard lineup in grand style, showing off eight models, including four value-thru-enthusiast grade motherboards based on the Intel P67 chipset, and four essential-thru-mainstream motherboards based on the Intel H67 chipset. The series is topped by the P67 Extreme6, which packs no less than six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four external and two internal USB 3.0 ports, three PCI-Express x16 slots, 18-phase CPU VRM making use of high-grade capacitors, and a huge set of connectivity features. Next up is the P67 Extreme4, which is a notch lower than the Extreme6, but it still gives you four SATA 6 Gb/s and four USB 3.0 ports (two external, two internal via header), the same expansion slot layout as the Extreme6, and a slightly slimmer connectivity feature set.
The two Extreme boards are trailed by mid-range ones, starting with the P67 Pro3. The P67 Pro3 has a simple layout and offers not much more than the chipset's feature-set. There are two SATA 6 Gb/s and two USB 3.0 (rear) ports, expansion slots that include just one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, three PCI-E x1, and three PCI. The CPU is powered by an impressive (for this category) 10-phase VRM. Further down the line is the P67 Pro, which is further slimmed down. It does away with USB 3.0 but retains SATA 6 Gb/s. A simpler 4+1 phase CPU VRM is used. Most other features are the same as the Pro3.
I-O Data unveiled its latest line of USB 3.0 SuperSpeed flash drives under the TB-XT "ToteBag" series. Measuring 18.0 (W) x 69.6 (D) x 8.6 (H) mm and weighing around 12 g, the TB-XT drives are made of plastic and brushed aluminum bodies. The drives are available in capacities of 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB. The company did not detail the data transfer speeds, though it did mention the drives are slated for an early December release in the Japanese market.
Plextor LLC, a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media equipment, announces the PX-NAS4, its latest network-attached storage (NAS) device. The PX-NAS4 offers an exceptional performance, massive storage capacity, high data reliability and security, and low power consumption, making it a perfect solution for today's small and medium sized business environment.
With dual LAN ports, the PX-NAS4 provides substantial bandwidth up to 2Gbps data access to support the increasing data demands and needs of small and medium-sized businesses. PX-NAS4 has the capacity to store up to 8TB of data across four hot-swap drive bays. Also, the PX-NAS4 has a storage expansion option available via built-in eSATA and USB ports which allow for the connection of additional external hard drives to meet continuous storage demand.
AMD's next-generation PC processor architecture that seeks to challenge the best Intel has, codenamed "Bulldozer", is set to make its desktop PC debut in 2Q next year, with a desktop processor die codenamed "Zambezi". AMD is seeking to target all market segments, including an enthusiast-grade 8-core segment, a performance 6-core segment, and a mainstream 4-core segment. The roadmap reveals that Zambezi will make its entry with the enthusiast-grade 8-core models first, starting with 125W and 95W models, trailed by 6-core and 4-core ones.
Another couple of architectural details revealed is that Zambezi's integrated memory controller (IMC) supports DDR3-1866 MHz as its standard memory type, just like Deneb supports DDR3-1333 MHz as its standard. DDR3-1866 MHz, or PC3-14900 as it's technically known, will churn out 29.8 GB/s in dual-channel mode, that's higher than triple-channel DDR3-1066 MHz (25.6 GB/s), which is Intel Core i7 LGA1366 processors' official memory standard. The 8-core and 6-core Zambezi models feature 8 MB of L3 cache, while the 4-core ones feature 4 MB. Another tidbit you probably already knew is that existing socket AM3 processors are forwards-compatible with AM3+ (Zambezi's socket), but Zambezi processors won't work on older AM3/AM2(+) socket motherboards.
Leading All-in-One PC maker MSI has now added the all-new Classic series to its pre-existing Professional and Entertainment series of AIO PCs. The new Wind Top AC1900 comes equipped with a low-power and high-performance Intel dual-core processor and a 19" cinema-grade widescreen LCD. The monitor's 16:9 aspect ratio makes light work of word processing tasks. A DVD drive, webcam, speakers, and card readers are also integrated into the AC1900 to meet the needs of all users. And thanks to the proprietary MSI software which comes installed on the AC1900, people of all ages can operate the computer with ease. Setting up and using the computer is no longer a chore-just plugging in one power cable is all it takes to start up.
Antec, Inc., the global leader in high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself markets, today announced the first complete series of power supply units (PSUs) to offer consumers the high current capability favored by gamers and other high-power users, along with the safety of over current protection on all power rails.
The High Current Gamer series is designed to optimize high-output current delivery while reducing wiring loss, resulting in unsurpassable value and reliability in a package that provides affordability and accessibility to gamers and power users working within varying budgets.
Wednesday, November 17th 2010
Today's Reviews
AMD is teasing us with its latest Catalyst driver suite. Catalyst 10.11 WHQL from AMD has come after no less than five hotfix updates to the previous version Catalyst 10.10. The new version of Catalyst is reported by many to have been added to Windows Update late yesterday (11/16), but wasn't backed by any release notes document then. The driver is now uploaded on AMD's Game website. AMD Catalyst software suite includes drivers for all current ATI/AMD Radeon GPUs, AMD integrated graphics, and other ATI multimedia products. This version of AMD Catalyst brings a small number of game-specific performance enhancements, as well as fixes a few bugs. To begin with, performance is expected to go up by 3% for Battleforge, on Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs, both single and CrossFire, with AA disabled. Up to 5% performance increase can be expected for STALKER: Call of Pripyat benchmark.
DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 10.11 WHQL for
Windows 7/Vista 64-bit,
Windows 7/Vista 32-bit,
Windows XP 32-bit,
Windows XP 64-bit
Highlights of changes follows.
TYAN, an industry-leading server platform manufacturer, and a subsidiary of MiTAC International Corp., today announced four server platforms that are fully compatible with AMD FireStream GPU compute accelerators.
The AMD FireStream GPU compute accelerators are general purpose graphics processing units that deliver exceptional floating point processing capabilities, and are used widely in HPC, cloud and enterprise-scale applications, helping reduce cycle times with up to 2.64 TFLOPs of single precision performance.
I-O Data made another entry into the small but growing niche of stereoscopic 3D ready monitors, with the 23-inch LCD-3D231XBR. This NVIDIA 3D Vision certified display features a 120 Hz full-HD (1920 x 1080) panel, with contrast ratios of 1,000:1 static and 10,000:1 DCR; brightness of 300 cd/m²; and response time of 3 ms. The display also packs 2x 1.5W stereo speakers. Display inputs include DVI, HDMI, and D-Sub. The LCD-3D231XBR from I-O Data is priced at ¥44,800 (around US $536).
Introduced
way back in December 2009, I-O Data's ultra-slim BRP-U6 portable Blu-ray writer drive was found to be deficient of BD-RE capability. So the company updated its feature-set with the ability to read and burn them. The BRP-U6 can now burn both single layer BD-R and BD-RE discs at 6X and double Layer BD-R and BD-RE at 4X. Burning of older disc formats such as DVD±R/DVD±RW, double layer DVDs, and CD are naturally supported. The drive uses a USB 2.0 connector for both power and data. Slated for a December launch, the updated BRP-U6 will be priced at around ¥22,000 (US $263).
Buffalo Japan announced the new DriveStation HD-LB2.0TU3 line of external hard drives sporting the USB 3.0, eliminating the interface bottleneck. The new drives are available in capacities of 1 TB, 1.5 TB, and 2 TB. Measuring 39 x 123 x 189 mm, Buffalo's drives weigh about 1 kg, and feature silicone-based anti-vibration drive holders. With the Eco-mode enabled the drive consumes less than 0.15W of power when idling. Set to be available in early December, Buffalo's new 1 TB, 1.5 TB, and 2 TB drives are priced at $163, $201 and $251, respectively.
Transcend Information, Inc. today announced the addition of 64GB models to its Ultra Speed series USB flash drives. Featuring an incredible combination of storage capacity and transfer performance, the JetFlash 600 and JetFlash 620 Flash Drives can satisfy even the most demanding users, allowing them to store a lot more in significantly less time.
It is hard to imagine how many files and data one can operate in this age of information explosion. Transcend's Ultra Speed USB flash drives now come in an enormous 64 GB of storage capacity, enabling users to store over 16,000 high-quality pictures or songs, 640 minutes of Full HD videos, or seemingly limitless amount of documents-all in a tiny thumb-sized storage device.
Intel Capital, Intel Corporation's global investment organization, reaffirmed its dedication to foster worldwide innovation with the announcement of 18 new investments. The new deals total approximately $77 million and were announced today at the 11th annual Intel Capital CEO Summit, Intel Capital's gathering of portfolio company CEOs, corporate technology decision makers from Global 1000 companies and thought leaders from around the world. The new Intel Capital investments span 11 countries including Brazil, China, Germany, India, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine and the United States.
The new investments align with Intel's strategic focus on fostering innovation in core PC and server market segments including cloud computing, mobility solutions and access to broadband wireless in geographies around the world. Additionally, these investments will help enable advancements in adjacent computing areas including smart TV, tablets and smartphones.
Verbatim, the information storage pioneer and computer peripherals leader, helps consumers nationwide get "plugged in" like never before with the brand-new MediaShare Mini, an easy-to-use home networking solution that makes any USB drive and its files network accessible. The new unit also allows for seamless content sharing with friends and family as well as multimedia streaming.
"With more than 18 million external hard drives expected to be shipped this year, coupled with the increasing need for users to be able to access and share their content whenever and wherever they are, the MediaShare Mini is the perfect solution for helping people manage their digital life in the most efficient possible way," said Verbatim Product Manager, Ron Hanafin. "Whether it's retrieving files remotely, streaming iTunes music or uploading photos directly onto Facebook, the MediaShare Mini is the must-have tool for today's connected consumer."
Mitsubishi introduced the VISEO MDT231WG, one of the first 120 Hz monitors that make use of an IPS panel for better image quality. Further, it makes use of LED-backlit illumination for great viewing angles. This 23-inch panel provides full-HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, 5.5 ms response time, 350 cd/m² maximum brightness, and contrast ratios of 900:1 CRO, 5,000:1 DCR.
Features are a plenty, there's a 2.1 speaker set with 2x 3W stereo and 5W sub-woofer, Mitsubishi MPIII and GIGA Clear II image engine that work to enhance image quality, and connectivity that includes D5 digital port, S-Video, component, D-SUB, DVI-D, analog audio in/out and digital optical. Set to release in Japan, it costs around ¥116,800 (around US $1,400).
Tuesday, November 16th 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
Review
Other
There are very few manufacturers of completely passive systems out there. Impactics is jumping into the fray, aiming to offer fan-less systems, but without the large price premium associated to such computers. We take a look at the black, H55 and i3-530 equipped system to see if it can keep going under the pressure, or if it crumbles under the heat.
LSI announced a new high-end enterprise solid state drive (SSD) best suited for heavy-duty database operations. The WarpDrive SLP-300 from LSI is a PCI-Express x8 addon card that is driven by LSI's SAS2008 controller. A number of SandForce-driven SSD modules bearing single-level cell 30 nm-class NAND flash chips provide storage of 300 GB, latency of under 50 μs, capability of 240,000 IOPS for 4K reads, and 200,000 IOPS for 4K writes, and data-rates of 1,400 MB/s read and 1,200 MB/s write. The drive has a MTBF of 2 million hours. Backed by a 3-year warranty, the LSI WarpDrive SLP-300 will be priced at US $11,500 when it releases to market on 29th November.
NVIDIA announced today the expansion of its award-winning line of NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics solutions to the Mac platform, bringing the computational and visualization breakthroughs enabled by NVIDIA Fermi architecture to Mac Pro users.
For professional users operating on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, this means the wait is over. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000 graphics processing unit (GPU) for Mac is optimized to accelerate workflows and drive a range of top professional applications. For example, the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 software leverages NVIDIA CUDA parallel processing technology to enable film and video professionals to work unconstrained. Other examples include visual effects and image processing applications from The Foundry, including NUKE and STORM, and MATLAB from MathWorks.
Data Robotics, Inc. ("Drobo"), the company that delivers the best storage experience ever, today announced a major new product and breakthrough data protection capabilities. These announcements come on the heels of record sales of the Drobo product family to small and medium-sized organizations worldwide.
"Today's announcements will serve to further accelerate what our customers and partners fondly call the 'Drobo invasion,'" said Tom Buiocchi, chief executive officer, Drobo. "Our quest to provide the best storage experience for small and medium-sized organizations just progressed significantly with today's new product advancements."
OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, announces an exciting refresh of the renowned first generation Vertex and Colossus SSD Series. Called the Vertex Plus and Colossus Plus, the new SATA II solutions continue to implement the proven Indilinx technology while delivering significantly improved performance at their distinctively affordable price points.
OCZ continues to work diligently with the latest technology providers in flash storage with the goal of maintaining affordability for consumers that demand a faster, more responsive PC experience. Pricing and availability of the Vertex Plus and Colossus Plus series will be announced in the coming weeks.
QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Media Players today announced the TS-x19P+ lineup of affordable Turbo NAS servers targeted primarily for home and SOHO users. The new models utilize Marvell's new 1.6GHz embedded processor and include 512MB of DDRIII memory and Gigabit LAN ports, mustering up transfer rates exceeding 100MB/sec and offering a unique blend of performance and features at very affordable price points. The new models include the 1-drive TS-119P+, 2-drive TS-219P+ and 4-drive TS-419P+. With up to 8TB of networked storage, the TS-x19P+ series NAS servers combine an attractive industrial design, outstanding performance, consumer-friendly features, and above all, legendary QNAP quality and reliability.
NAS servers are becoming a popular addition to home and SOHO networks as they solve the problem of how to share digital pictures, music, and videos among computers in the home without resorting to a USB keychain drive. QNAP's new TS-x19P+ models are easy to attach to an existing home network and provide easy file sharing between PCs, Macs, Linux, and UNIX-based computers. QNAP's TS-x19P+ NAS servers can also provide automatic backup of all computers on the network, host websites, record home security surveillance video from IP cameras on the network, be a UPnP-compliant media server, and act as a stand-alone file server for BT/FTP/HTTP and eMule downloads.
TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announces its PCS+ series expansion to the HD6870 product lineup. As part of the award-winning PCS series, the latest PCS+ HD6870 is enhanced with factory overclocked settings and PowerColor's outstanding custom cooling solution. The PCS+ HD6870 is sure to deliver immersive gaming performance to hard core gamers.
The PCS+ HD6870 clocks in at 940MHz core speed, while memory clocks in at 1100MHz; with the most advanced GDDR5 onboard memory, it easily enhances data transmission rates up to 4.4Gbps and boosts up the gaming performance, ready to tackle all the most demanding game titles.
Leveraging more than 50 years of design and qualification experience, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced its new Ultrastar solid state drive (SSD) family. The new Ultrastar SSD400S family comes in 100GB, 200GB and 400GB capacities, featuring both 2.5-inch 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and 3.5-inch 4Gb/s Fibre Channel (FC) interfaces. As the world's first jointly developed SAS and FC enterprise-class SSDs, the Ultrastar SSD400S family combines Hitachi's proven enterprise hard disk drive (HDD) expertise with Intel's extensive capabilities in developing high-endurance 34-nanometer (nm), single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory and advanced SSD technology. This combination provides unique value to customers who are increasingly looking to tiered storage as a method of managing the escalating performance, capacity, endurance and reliability demands of today's data centers.
"Hitachi's strategic investment and commitment in the enterprise market is evident with the new Ultrastar SSD family. Our new SSD product family not only symbolizes our market opportunity to serve evolving cloud data center infrastructures, but also delivers value to our customers in terms of increasing data center performance and reducing total cost of ownership," said Mike Cordano, executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Hitachi GST. "We have a strong track record of working with global enterprise customers and are proud to report favorable responses to the Ultrastar SSD400S family. With qualifications now underway, we anticipate volume shipments to commence in the first half of 2011."
Prepare for a wave of custom-design AMD Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards. MSI joins the party with its new R6870 Twin Frozr II graphics card that uses the company's tried and tested Twin Frozr II GPU heatsink assembly on top of AMD reference design PCB. The cooler is advertised to keep the GPU up to 19 °C cooler, and 12.8 dB quieter compared to the AMD reference design cooler. It makes use of a large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick heat pipes. Ventilation is care of two 90 mm fans. MSI didn't specify if this card is factory-overclocked, but there's a good chance it is. Expect MSI's card to be launched in the days to come.
Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced two new 2.5-inch HDD models designed for rugged 24-hour continuous operation in computing, industrial, and other extreme environments. The new models - the 100GB1 SATA interface MK1060GSCX and the 80GB1 PATA interface MK8050GACY - offer exceptional reliability and performance across wide temperature, altitude, and vibration ranges, making them excellent choices for use in industrial equipment such as ATMs, digital surveillance, factory automation, and ruggedized PCs.
Designed for extended periods of operation, the MK1060GSCX and MK8050GACY feature a "case temperature" range of -15 to +70 degrees Celsius2 - the widest temperature range for 24/7* power-on operation in the HDD market. Both drives also have an expanded operating altitude range and offer better resistance to vibration when compared to standard HDD models.
Hot on the heels of the global launch of the new HD 6000 series of graphics cards based on the latest generation of graphics technology from AMD, SAPPHIRE Technology announces its first enhanced product - the HD 6850 TOXIC Edition. The SAPPHIRE HD 6850 TOXIC Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 960 stream processors and 48 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 820MHz for the core and 1100Mhz (4.4 Gb/sec effective) for the memory giving users a considerable boost in performance. In addition, the efficient SAPPHIRE original cooler ensures that there is a good margin for performance tuning (overclocking) by enthusiast users. A new overclocking tool - TriXX - is available to SAPPHIRE users as a download from the SAPPHIRE Select Club - free for SAPPHIRE enthusiasts to join online.
Unlike the standard model, the SAPPHIRE HD 6850 TOXIC Edition has the more versatile output configuration of two DVI, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort connectors. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs as well as the two DisplayPorts enables this card to support up to four monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode. With the release of the DisplayPort v1.2 drivers, it will be also be possible to daisy chain additional DisplayPort v1.2 monitors from each DisplayPort output.
HP unveiled the new Mini 1103 netbook that promises to bring a higher level computing experience at just US $299. The Mini 1103 is targeted at small businesses, rather than at casual internet users - the original target users of netbooks in general. The 10.1-inch netbook features an LED-backlit display with 1024 x 600 native resolution, and 93% full-size keyboard.
Based on Intel's Pine View platform, the Mini 1103 is driven by an Intel Atom N455 processor clocked at 1.66 GHz, though a more powerful Atom N475 1.83 GHz processor can be opted for. Other specs include up to 2 GB of DDR3 memory, and 320 GB of storage. Connectivity includes 10/100 Ethernet, WiFi b/g/n, optional Bluetooth 3.0, and optional GPS. A fixed VGA webcam and multi-format card reader make for the rest of the package. The Mini 1103 is powered by a 3-cell battery, a longer-lasting 6-cell one can be opted for. OS options include FreeDOS, SuSE Enterprise Desktop 11, or Windows 7 Starter 32-bit. The range starts at US $299.
According to market research, systems which support USB 3.0 and desktop peripherals, thanks to their gradual increases in popularity, are expected to become the new mainstream transfer interface by next year and quickly replace USB 2.0. In light of the growth potential within this market, PQI has followed up the recent release of its highly praised USB 3.0 Traveling Disk-the Cool Drive U368-by unveiling the USB 3.0 Cool Drive U339V Traveling Disk, the lightest drive of its kind available on the market today. In addition to showing off its product development capabilities and design prowess to the marketplace once again, this is also a reflection of PQI's continuous commitment to meeting user needs. The latest model features a high transfer speed USB 3.0 interface, backward compatibility with USB 2.0, and even more power efficiency. A single chip manufacturing process enables the exterior to be slim and graceful and, at only 13g, it is the lightest device of its kind in the industry.
Monday, November 15th 2010
Today's Reviews
Review
Graphics Cards
Last week NVIDIA released their new flagship graphics card, the GeForce GTX 580. Today we have on our testbench the ASUS ENGTX580 which is an almost full implementation of the reference design. The only exception is that the clock speed has been slightly increased - at no price premium.
EVGA kicked off its GeForce GTX 460 SE lineup with two models. The first one is a base model (part number: 01G-P3-1366-TR), sticking to NVIDIA reference design and clock speeds of 650/1300/3400 MHz (core/CUDA cores/memory GDDR5 effective), and being priced at US $179.99. The second one is a factory-overclocked model bearing EVGA's SuperClocked (SC) badge (part: 01G-P3-1367-TR). This bears clock speeds of 720/1440/3600 MHz, while retaining the reference design board and cooler. This one goes for $189.99.
OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, has acquired certain assets of privately held Solid Data Inc., a provider of solid-state storage systems and solutions based in Santa Clara, California.
OCZ acquired the Solid Data assets for a total consideration of approximately $950,000, consisting of restricted common stock and cash. As a result of the acquisition, OCZ will gain access to DRAM-based and Fibre-Channel ("FC")-based SSD controller technology for implementation in future OCZ solutions. In combination with OCZ's existing SSD technologies, the acquired Solid Data IP enables OCZ to offer a wider range of enterprise-grade SSD products to OEMs, including proprietary FC-based SSDs and low-latency DRAM/Flash hybrid solutions.
A-Data expanded its XPG-Gaming Series V2.0 series with a new 8 GB (2x 4 GB) dual-channel DDR3-2000 MHz kit. The modules are capable of DDR3-2000 MHz speeds with DRAM timings of 9-11-9-27T and module voltage of 1.55~1.75V. They make use of 2 oz. copper PCBs and aluminum heat-speaders making use of Thermal Conductive Technology (TCT). A-Data's new kit is backed by a lifetime warranty. Its pricing remains to be known.
Kingston Digital Europe Ltd, an affiliate of Kingston Technology Company Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of the new Kingston DataTraveler R500, a stylish, fast and rugged USB Flash drive. The Kingston DataTraveler R500 provides users with high-speed data transfer rates and a durable rubberized casing protecting the drive from scratches and general wear.
"This is the ideal solution for users such as photographers or graphic designers who want to store and share high-definition photos or videos, large documents, presentations or music", said Steve Hall, European Product Development of Flash. "This is the ultimate USB Flash drive for those who desire fast transfer rates and a sturdy design."
MSI, the globally-renown graphics card and mainboard manufacturer, is proud to announce today the N460GTX-SE Cyclone series graphics cards. Equipped with the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 SE GPU and top Military Class components, up to 30% overclocking potential can be reached on the N460GTX-SE Cyclone series via MSI Afterburner's over voltage function for GPU. In addition, by using the MSI-exclusive Cyclone thermal design with 9cm PWM fan, dual heat pipes and nickel-plated copper base, the N460GTX-SE Cyclone effectively dissipates heat and generates 15.7% lower noise than the reference cooler under full load to create a quiet gaming environment for users.
ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer, today announces the new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 SE. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 SE delivers best-in-class performance in the latest Microsoft DirectX 11-enabled games for an outstanding gaming experience.
The new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 SE packs 288 unified shaders for a performance punch. An ultra-wide 256-bit memory interface connects the graphics processor to 1GB of video memory to ensure lightning-fast performance, stunning visuals and phenomenal realism with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 460 SE.
NVIDIA made the latest variant of the GeForce GTX 460, the
GeForce GTX 460 SE. The GTX 460 SE is a new variant that is designed to give a good price-performance level without compromising on memory amount or bandwidth. It retains 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface of the GTX 460 1 GB variant, but has a lower CUDA core count of 288. Clock speeds are slightly lower, too. While the core, CUDA cores, and memory are clocked at 675/1350/3600 MHz on the 1 GB and 768 MB variants, for the GTX 460 SE, it's 650/1300/3400 MHz. Expect the GTX 460 SE to be priced slightly lower than the GTX 460 768 MB.
Icy Dock is proud to introduce its upgrade version of the dual bay RAID enclosure that set the standard for professionals, the MB662USEB-2S. This product combines the feature sets of the current MB662 Series into the ultimate RAID device for media professionals and individuals looking for performance, backups and storage expansion.
Similar to the current models, the MB662USEB-2S still utilizes an aluminum construction so that it is light weight for portability, and has the necessary material for optimal heat dissipation and durability. To help with temperature management, the cooling fan has been upgraded to an ultra quiet Sunon MagLev 40mm fan, and still features a speed control to allow the user flexibility according to his or her sound or cooling preferences.
Hitachi listed two of its new mammoth-capacity hard drives on its website, the Deskstar 7K3000 and Deskstar 5K3000. These drives are available in capacities of up to 3 TB; 2 TB and 1 TB variants are also available. The drives have spindle speeds of 7200 rpm (for the 7K3000) and 5400 rpm (for the 5K3000). Available in the 3.5-inch form factor, these drives use the SATA 6 Gb/s interface, but are backwards compatible with SATA 3 Gb/s and 1.5 Gb/s. The 7K3000 uses a 64 MB cache, while the 5K3000 makes do with 32 MB. Both drives have default sector sizes of 512 bytes. The company is yet to reveal pricing.
Gigabyte announced a new non-reference design GeForce GT 430 graphics card that features high-quality components to facilitate better overclocking. The card comes overclocked out of the box, too, with clock speeds of 730 MHz core, 1460 MHz CUDA cores, and 1800 MHz DDR3 memory, against reference speeds of 700/1400/1800 MHz. The card sports 1 GB of memory across a 128-bit wide DDR3 memory interface. It is DirectX 11 compliant, and features 96 CUDA cores. Gigabyte's full-height card makes use of a double slot fan-heatsink that makes use of an 80 mm fan. The company did not announce pricing or availability, yet.
Axle announced its GeForce GTX 580 graphics accelerator. Based almost entirely on the NVIDIA reference design (including cooler shroud labeling), Axle's accelerator also sticks to reference clock speeds of 772/4008 MHz (core/memory, GDDR5 effective). The GeForce GTX 580 from NVIDIA is built on a 40 nm process, it packs 512 CUDA cores, and 1536 MB of memory across a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Expect standard pricing for Axle's card.
QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers today expanded their hugely popular Business Series Turbo NAS lineup with the addition of a new 8-drive desktop model, TS-859 Pro+ Turbo NAS. The TS-859 Pro+ incorporates Intel's new D525 dual-core Atom CPU with 1.8GHz clock speed and 1GB RAM, which can achieve up to 116MB/s transfer rates (FTP/Samba reads) while maintaining guaranteed lower power consumption. The Turbo NAS provides up to 16TB of extremely large storage capacity (using 2TB hard drives and single disk volume/JBOD configuration), and is targeted for business users and workgroups who need a tower server to fit in their office environment for backup and sharing of enormous amount of documents, digital pictures, videos, and applications.
Meanwhile, the TS-859 Pro+ has been certified as compatible NFS and iSCSI datastore with fully VMware Ready, Citrix Ready and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V clusters compliant. QNAP continues its industry-leading iSCSI support for server clustering and virtualized environments including support for MC/S, MPIO, SPC-3, and thin provisioning. With built-in iSCSI initiator and target service, network storage can be virtually expanded by simply adding additional QNAP Turbo NAS units to the network and adding virtual volumes, up to 8 per device.
Saturday, November 13th 2010
Today's Reviews
NVIDIA shook the high-end PC hardware industry earlier this month with the surprise launch of its GeForce GTX 580 graphics card, which extended the lead for single-GPU performance NVIDIA has been holding. It also managed to come up with some great performance per Watt improvements over the previous generation. The reference design board, however, made use of a clock speed throttling logic which reduced clock speeds when an extremely demanding 3D application such as Furmark or OCCT is run. While this is a novel way to protect components saving consumers from potentially permanent damage to the hardware, it does come as a gripe to expert users, enthusiasts and overclockers, who know what they're doing.
GPU-Z developer and our boss W1zzard has devised a way to make disabling this protection accessible to everyone (who knows what he's dealing with), and came up with a nifty new feature for GPU-Z, our popular GPU diagnostics and monitoring utility, that can disable the speed throttling mechanism. It is a new command-line argument for GPU-Z, that's "/GTX580OCP". Start the GPU-Z executable (within Windows, using Command Prompt or shortcut), using that argument, and it will disable the clock speed throttling mechanism. For example, "X:\gpuz.exe /GTX580OCP" It will stay disabled for the remainder of the session, you can close GPU-Z. It will be enabled again on the next boot.
Friday, November 12th 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
AMD released the fifth hotfix update for Catalyst 10.10 WHQL. Catalyst 10.10e, like Catalyst 10.10c Hotfix, packs a number of game-specific performance improvements, and extends MLAA (morphological anti-aliasing) support introduced by Catalyst 10.10d Hotfix, to all Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs. The new Catalyst AI controls in control center are extended to Radeon HD 5000 GPUs, these were previously available only to users of Radeon HD 6800 series. Support for new stereoscopic 3D capable hardware was also added.
DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 10.10e Hotfix Update
A detailed list of changes follows.
MSI once again brings together the perfect blend of beauty and performance, this time in its all-new 15.6" FX603 laptop. The MSI FX603 is sheathed in MSI's own anti-scratch, anti-smudge raised totem seal coating technology. The speakers boast a lustrous chrome trim setting off the chiclet keyboard, the raised multipoint touchpad, and the hotkey zone's brush metal finish.
MSI Marketing Director Sam Chern adds that beneath the hood, the aesthetically pleasing FX603 notebook computer packs power in the form of Intel's Core i5 CPU. When it's processing high load applications, MSI's TDE Turbo Drive technology let's you instantaneously throttle up CPU performance. Worth mentioning is the fact that the FX603 comes with nVidia's new generation GeForce GT 425M discrete graphics card which supports DirectX 11 and when the machine is executing load-heavy graphics applications, MSI's exclusive GPU Boost technology causes the discrete graphics card mode to automatically kick in for powerful graphics processing.
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported revenue of $843.9 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 ended Oct. 31, 2010, up 4.0 percent from the prior quarter and down 6.6 percent from $903.2 million from the same period a year earlier.
On a GAAP basis, the company recorded net income of $84.9 million, or $0.15 per diluted share, compared with a GAAP net loss of $141.0 million, or $0.25 per share, in the previous quarter and GAAP net income of $107.6 million, or $0.19 per diluted share, in the same period a year earlier. GAAP gross margin was 46.5 percent compared with 16.6 percent in the previous quarter and 43.4 percent in the same period a year earlier.
Back at its launch, AMD didn't allow its board partners to release custom-design Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards right away, though such a restriction wasn't in place for the HD 6850. They were, however, allowed to come up with factory-overclocked models, that stick to the AMD reference design. That restriction could soon be lifted, with one of the first pictures of a completely non-reference design HD 6870 graphics card, the PowerColor HD 6870 PCS+, smiling for cameras.
The Professional Cooling System Plus (PCS+) from PowerColor makes use of a high-grade cooler that facilitates better overclocking, and runs quieter compared to the reference design cooler. It consists of a racy-looking shroud under which there's a large GPU heatsink, which is cooled by a 90 mm fan. The PCB also looks to be non-reference design. The card is also overclocked out of the box, 940/4400 MHz (core/memory, GDDR5 effective), vs. reference speeds of 900/4200 MHz. The Radeon HD 6870 is based on the 40 nm "Barts" silicon, it packs 1120 stream processors, and connects to 1 GB of memory over a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The PowerColor HD 6870 PCS+ is expected to release towards the end of this month.
FinalWire Ltd. today announced the immediate availability of AIDA64 Extreme Edition 1.20 software, a streamlined diagnostic and benchmarking tool for home users; and the immediate availability of AIDA64 Business Edition 1.20 software, an essential network management solution for small and medium scale enterprises.
The new release brings a fresh look with Windows 7 style icons, introduces a few improvements about modern Intel and AMD processors, and supports the latest AMD and nVIDIA graphics processors.
Originally poised for a November 22 launch, and plagued by reported delays, the Radeon HD 6900 series from AMD is indeed staring down at a three-week delay. According to a new release by AMD circulated to press sites, AMD is pinning the new launch date to be "in the week of" December 13, 2010. AMD tried to explain that the Radeon HD 5800 series is still in strong demand, and the Radeon HD 5970 is still maintaining performance leadership, perhaps blaming congestion in inventories for the delay, and not anything to do with manufacturing.
The first part of the explanation is unconvincing. If AMD did not want to disturb Radeon HD 5800 series sales, there wouldn't be Radeon HD 6800 series, which was launched with the idea of giving HD 5800-like performance at more affordable prices. The second part, however, is hard to dispute. AMD signed off its release saying that enthusiasts will find the products worth the wait. December 13, however, could disturb some gifting (or self-gifting) plans for Xmas. Given the swamped courier and logistics services at that time, it will be tough to get a Radeon HD 6900 series product in time for the celebrations.
Club 3D B.V. is pleased to announce the introduction of the next generation gaming video card. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 supports DirectX 11, CUDA, and NVIDIA PhysX technologies to provide the best experience on your favorite games.
With NVIDIA 3D Vision technology you can now use two Gefore GTX 580 cards in NVIDIA SLI configuration to project across three displays with NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology.
Thursday, November 11th 2010
Today's Reviews
Tt eSPORTS, the world's leading professional gaming gear division by Thermaltake, is proud to announce AZURUES, the newest optical gaming mouse. Its concept is simple and its focus is to help players beat out their opponents.
The Azurues is a sure hit. It has the option of switching between three different DPIs, 1600/800/400 providing superb gaming movement. It is the most ideal weapon for First-person shooting games. The specially designed Teflon feet on the bottom of the mouse maximize the movement activities. It is rubber coated to allow for easier hand grip control. The removable weights underneath the mouse add that extra touch that lets users customize the weight of their own mouse. All in all, the Azurues is the perfect choice for anyone looking for a no frills mouse that's aimed to make any gamer come out on top.
ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and mini-PCs, today reinvigorates the DVD-format with the new ZBOX DVD series mini-PCs powered by Next-Generation NVIDIA ION technology. The new ZOTAC ZBOX DVD series packs energy-efficiency, hardware high-definition streaming acceleration and advanced video processing capabilities into a slim chassis to create the perfect home theater PC for DVD aficionados.
A power-packed combination of Next-Generation NVIDIA ION graphics processor and dual-core Intel Atom D525 processor power the ZOTAC ZBOX DVD series for superior graphics performance, system responsiveness and energy-efficiency. The Next-Generation NVIDIA ION graphics processor is the heart of the ZBOX DVD series and delivers hardware decode acceleration and Adobe Flash acceleration for smooth playback of online and offline high-definition media.
Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced it had begun sample shipments of its new 32-gigabyte Load Reduced Dual In-Line Memory Module (LRDIMM), the DRAM industry's highest density memory module. The LRDIMM consists of 72 advanced 40nm process 4-gigabit DDR3 SDRAMs in a Double Density Package (DDP).
LRDIMM is a new standard for server memory modules that reduces I/O bus capacity by buffering the I/O bus line with the memory buffer (MB) to simultaneously enable higher system density and faster speed. JEDEC, a standardization body for the semiconductor industry, is studying the adoption of LRDIMM standards. Elpida is actively engaged in promoting its own standard.
After the Radeon HD 6800 series, the rest of AMD's Northern Islands family of GPUs seem to be taking their own sweet time making it to the market. With the HD 6900 series almost certain to be off its November 22 launch date, lower-end GPUs slated for early 2011 are still far away. Meanwhile Sapphire reportedly took the opportunity to rebrand the existing "Redwood" based Radeon HD 5550 to "Radeon HD 6390", in a bid to make some monies in Russia.
The Radeon HD 6300, at least the HD 6350, HD 6370 are reserved for an upcoming GPU codenamed "Caicos", its
AMD reference board even made it through a casual photo-session. The HD 5550 and HD 6390 were found to have the same device IDs. An older version of GPU Caps Viewer detects it as HD 5550, while the latest version sees it as HD 6390. The HD 5550 is based on the 40 nm "Redwood" GPU, it has 320 out of 400 stream processors enabled, and a 128-bit wide memory interface to typically connect to GDDR3 memory. Some premium models also feature GDDR5 memory.
Apacer rolled out its latest storage device, the AC430 compact external HDD. Available in 500 GB and 640 GB capacities, these drives feature USB 3.0 to eliminate interface bottlenecks, providing speeds of 92 MB/s read and 85 MB/s write. Packed inside its sleek brushed metal enclosures is a 2.5" SATA hard drive. Apacer did not give out pricing information.
GIGABYTE, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is pleased to announce arrival of the black GM-M7800S Elegant Vogue Wireless Mouse. First announced in June 2009, the black's predecessor GM-M7800S Brown has surprised the world with its elegant and luxurious design. Made with CRYSTALLIZED - Swarovski elements and exquisite black leather, the long-awaited GM-M7800S Black is ready to tickle your fashion sense again. For those addicted to luxury, this is where fashion meets function as GM-M7800S is not only decorated in sparkling crystals and quality leather with an appealing brushed metal look, but also equipped with advanced laser tracking, on-the-fly 1600 & 800 adjustable resolution, 4-way scrolling wheel and ultra portable nano receiver. Its reliable 2.4GHz wireless technology provides up to 10 meters transmission range. GM-M7800S Black is your perfect solution for fashion on the go.
Super Talent Technology,a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced two new drives to their successful Pico Series, the Pico Mini C and the Pico Mini D. USB flash drives have become an indispensible PC peripheral; there's just no better way to take your data from one PC to another. Having a USB flash drive close at hand has become critical for personal productivity. The new Pico Mini C&D were designed to be small enough to carry with you at all times.
Water-cooling specialist Danger Den is ready with a full-coverage water block for NVIDIA's recently introduced GeForce GTX 580 graphics card, tailored to fit the NVIDIA reference PCB. The DD-GTX580 from Danger Den uses a monolithic copper base and black chrome top. It is available in two variants depending on the base finish: mirrored, and satin copper, which are priced at US $146.95 and $134.95, respectively. Weighing in at 3.20 lbs (1.45 kg), the block cools all critical components, including the GPU, memory chips, and VRM on the obverse side of the PCB.
Antec, Inc., the global leader in high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself markets, today announced its newest premium line of consumer power supplies, the High Current Pro series. Available in four 80 PLUS Gold certified models, the High Current Pro series boasts unrivaled server-grade efficiency and reliability for powering the most demanding system builds.
The High Current Pro series uses a one-of-a-kind high-performance full-bridge topology for a higher DC-to-DC voltage regulator module working frequency that stabilizes output voltage, making the system more reliable and energy-efficient, and features none of the annoying pitch noise typically found in higher-power 80 PLUS Gold certified PSUs.
Originally slated for 22 November, AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 6900 series featuring the company's new enthusiast-grade "Cayman" GPU core reportedly ran into
delays. A more recent report by VR-Zone suggests that these delays are not because of any yield-issue related to the GPU, but shortage of a new high-grade driver-MOSFET (DrMOS) chip used on the reference board, sourced from Texas Instruments. The said component looks to feature a more compact package compared to the ones commonly made by Renesas and the likes, which is why AMD seems to have chosen it. The TI-made component is in short supply, and is a very recent introduction by its makers. AMD has a knack of using exotic and high-grade components on PCBs of its high-end graphics cards. A driver-MOSFET is a component that combines the driver IC, and MOSFETs into a single package.
EVGA is showing some love to the game of the day, Call of Duty: Black Ops, with a special edition GeForce GTX 580 graphics card that keeps up with the game's theme, and adds to die hard fans' collection. The EVGA GTX 580 Call of Duty: Black Ops Edition (part number: 015-P3-1583-AR) is a special package that includes a factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 580 graphics card bearing the game's theme in stickers, a game themed product box, and a game themed poster. The card doesn't, however, bundle a copy of the game itself. The GTX 580 card has factory-overclocked speeds of 797 MHz core, 1594 MHz CUDA cores, and 4050 MHz memory (GDDR5 effective), against reference speeds of 772/1544/4008 MHz. Available from EVGA store, the EVGA GTX 580 Call of Duty: Black Ops Edition is priced at
$519.99, or
$579.99 thanks to Newegg.com's 'unbeatable' pricing.
Wednesday, November 10th 2010
Today's Reviews
Review
Cases
Xigmatek has managed to impress with their past cases, offering a nearly unbeaten price/performance ratio. The new Pantheon aims to redefine this once more, offering modern features at a very competitive price point. Will it manage to hold its own or crumble on our test bench?
LANTIC today release its original design of NVIDIA series GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5. Lantic GTX580 a GF110 part fabricated using the 40 nm process technology. It will have 512 stream processors with a core speed of 772 MHz with a 1544 MHz shade clock and run 1002 MHz (4008 MHz QDR) GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit wide bus.
LANTIC GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5 support DX11, 3D Vision and support high-definition resolution. It is a dual-slot card with dual-linked DVI ports and a mini HDMI port and it features the 8-pin+6-pin PCI-e power configuration. LANTIC GTX 580 Equipped with Vapor chamber cooling technology, not only cooler and quieter than the GTX 480, and the new cooler should keep the new card well cooled and at around 47dBA in gaming scenario.
Being skilled at a game will only get you as far as your equipment allows. At ZOWIE GEAR we try to develop equipment that will push or completely remove these limitations, so the skills of each individual gamer can be expressed freely. Our current range of competitive gaming products includes mouse pads, headsets, mice and peripherals. We are very proud of these products, as we believe they have helped set new standards of quality and performance within the competitive gaming segment. The keyboard is a key factor in different competitive gaming titles, where response-time and the ability to move freely is essential to increase the gamers' performance. It was only a matter of time until we would put our attention on developing a keyboard; with that being said, we are extremely happy with the outcome of our new keyboard for competitive gaming.
Developing competitive gaming gear which satisfies a wide variety of gamers through different types of games such as FPS, RTS and Racing games is a challenge. To overcome the challenges, we teamed up with professional players of Counter-Strike (FPS), Starcraft (RTS) and Kartrider (Racing), in order to develop a keyboard which allows for fast and efficient usage. With special thanks to Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed, Young Ho 'Flash' Lee and Ho Jun 'Ho-Jun' Moon, we introduce to you the ZOWIE CELERITAS.
Zalman is pleased to inform that the new revolutionary 80 Plus Silver certified High End Power supply is now available. From its predecessor, the power efficiency has been increased up to 87% for the excellent performance (80 Plus SILVER certified) without any additional price increase.
The newly designed heatpipe block enhances cooling efficiency and minimize noise level by utilizing Zalman's unique noise prevention technologies. Furthermore all new PCB Layout provides users with highly effective energy usage with least energy loss. So, enjoy all benefits provided by Zalman with maximized performance in minimized noise.
Plextor rolled out its latest Blu-ray product, the PX-LB950SA internal Blu-ray writer drive. Armed with a SATA interface and 8 MB of cache, the PX-LB950SA can burn Blu-ray discs at 12X for BD-R, 8X for double-layer BD-R, and 2X for double-layer BD-RE. DVDs are burned at 16X for DVD-R/+R, 12X for DVD-RAM, 8X for DVD-R/+R (double-layer) and DVD-RW and 6x for DVD-RW. The drive also features LightScribe technology, with which it can burn labels onto compatible media. A copy of CyberLink PowerDVD 9 BD Suite is also bundled. Plextor's latest drive is priced at €179.
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced they've begun shipping their new 8GB Registered-ECC DDR3 DRAM modules to support low-voltage Intel Westmere platforms. Our JEDEC standard 1.35V DDR3 ECC/R-DIMM 8GB module running at 1333MHz with latencies of 9-9-9.
Reducing the costs associated with the Enterprise Data Center has become an important goal for the Enterprise server market. Our DDR3 memory product runs at 1.35v instead of the traditional 1.5v. The lower operating voltage reduces memory power consumption by over 20%, in comparison with the standard 1.5V DDR3 memory modules, and translates directly into lower power, less cooling, lower electrical bills, and less CO2 emissions for the data center.
Leadtek Research Inc., known globally for its extreme visual graphics technology development, today announced the new-generation WinFast GTX 580 graphics card. This newcomer's fastest DX11 GPU is designed for performance per watt and lower noise, offering you the maximum resolution and quality settings. The upcoming flagship card that will be based on the GF110 GPU features an ultra-high core clock speed of up to 772MHz and its processor clock ends up at 1544MHz. With 512 cores and 1536MB of GDDR5 memory, paired up with a 384-bit interface, it satisfies the graphics needs of the most demanding gamers. WinFast GTX 580 especially emphasizes lower power consumption and noise while the GPU is executing data computing. According to these benchmarks, the WinFast GTX 580 is 10% to 15% faster than the GTX 480. For the acoustics comparison, it is quieter than GTX 285, at only 47 dBA.
Other World Computing announced today it has added four new 750GB 7200 RPM models to its award-winning OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro bus powered portable storage solution line. The Mercury On-The-Go Pro is a high-performance, pocket-sized portable storage solution for Mac or PC users featuring FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 3, and/or USB 2.0 interfaces for real world data transfer speeds up to 170MB/s. Available with up to 1.0TB of storage capacity, the Mercury On-The-Go Pro can hold up to one million JPEG photos, 500 DVD movies, 76 hours of digital video, or 350,000 MP3 songs.
The Mercury On-The-Go Pro 750GB 7200RPM line features four models, including a "Triple Interface" model for FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0; a "Combo Interface" model for FireWire 400 and USB 2.0; a USB 3.0 "SuperSpeed" model for USB 3/2.0 Backwards; and a USB 2.0 model all available immediately priced from $134.99 from Other World Computing. In addition to the newest models, Mercury On-The-Go Pro models are available with up to 1.0TB in 5400RPM models and also available with Solid State Drives (SSD) with models currently up to 240GB.
At its annual Financial Analyst Day, AMD (NYSE: AMD) demonstrated how its unique combination of CPU and GPU computing technologies on a single die will enable breakthrough capabilities in an innovative processor design with planned OEM system availability in early 2011. AMD executives detailed how this new class of processor, AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), is poised to create a sustained position of advantage by powering demanding PC workloads in sleek form factors with long battery life, pacing future AMD growth. AMD Fusion APUs are built from DirectX 11-capable GPU technology and either low-power or high-performance multi-core x86 CPU technology. These APUs are designed to vastly improve today's Internet, video processing and playback, and gaming (client and online) experiences. For the first time, AMD also demonstrated its new high-performance x86 multi-core CPU architecture codenamed "Bulldozer" and provided additional information around the "Bulldozer" launch schedule.
The successful Fermi series from NVIDIA continues to expand with the new GTX 580, featuring 512 CUDA cores and achieving the most impressive DirectX 11 performance ever fielded by a single NVIDIA GPU. ASUS has added its own exclusive Voltage Tweak to the GTX580 for significant output gains on demand. The hardcore performance of the ASUS GTX580 offers full HD NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround gaming and movie watching on up to three screens, and CUDA parallel computing that puts the great power of the GPU at the disposal of the CPU for overall system enhancement.
Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced the Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan, a snap-on proactive solution to decrease memory module heat by increasing airflow. The Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan cools memory modules by eliminating 'dead spots' of airflow within the case. The fan is especially effective with water-cooled systems where internal airflow around the memory modules is often minimal. Watch a short video demonstrating how the Crucial fan increases airflow inside a computer case artificially filled with smoke. The Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan is available globally today through select partners and online at Crucial.com.
"With higher densities of memory running fully populated in motherboard memory slots?along with faster speeds?performance systems demand additional cooling," said Jeremy Mortenson, Crucial senior product manager. "Whether you run your memory at stock speeds or push it to the limits with overclocking, temperature plays a critical role in reliability. The new Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan can improve airflow and keep your memory running cooler."
With the
announcement of its newest flagship GPU, the GeForce GTX 580, NVIDIA released its first WHQL-signed GeForce driver suite for consumers. GeForce 262.99 WHQL is tailored for only the GTX 580, adding all necessary drivers, including embedded HDMI audio device (version 1.1.9.0), and NVIDIA PhysX system software (version 9.10.0514).
DOWNLOAD: GeForce 262.99 WHQLLaCie announced today the latest addition to its USB 3.0 portfolio, bringing the fastest interface on the market to the award-winning design of Philippe Starck - LaCie Starck Mobile USB 3.0. Reaching speeds up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0, the Starck Mobile USB 3.0 is an ideal gift for technology enthusiasts who demand stylish aesthetics with leading technology.
Ensuring connectivity is never an issue, the LaCie Starck Mobile USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0 - simply connect it into any PC or Mac for a seamless plug-and-play experience. Encased in 2mm of sturdy aluminum, the LaCie Starck Mobile USB 3.0 is one the most resistant choices for consumer hard drives on the market. The aluminum offers resilience from blunders, improved heat dissipation, and is fully recyclable.
TRENDnet, a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand, today announces the availability of the world's smallest 150Mbps Micro Wireless N USB Adapter, model TEW-648UBM. The ultra compact form factor measures a remarkable 0.59 x 0.74 x 0.28 inches (1.5 x 1.9 x 0.7 cm).
When plugged into a USB port, the adapter extends a scant 0.3 inches (0.8 cm) from the edge of the computer. The adapter is so small that users can stow a laptop with the adapter plugged in, without worrying about damaging the laptop or the adapter.
Tuesday, November 9th 2010
Today's Reviews
Review
Graphics Cards
Today NVIDIA releases their new GeForce GTX 580 which is based on their Fermi architecture. The card is 20% faster than the GTX 480, yet requires less power. NVIDIA has also optimized fan noise making this the quietest highest-end card on the market today.
Review
Graphics Cards
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580 has claimed the single GPU performance throne today. We take two of these cards for a spin to see what performance users can expect from this $1000 GPU combination. The review will also give insight into potential performance numbers for 3D Vision Surround.
KFA2, the new European premium brand of Galaxy, announced today its launch of the next generation NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 graphics card. "The KFA2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 Graphics card is the fastest single GPU graphics card on the market to date. New 512 cores are providing unbeatable processing power for the top graphics modes with extreme tessellation, which allows surface curves to be the smoothest than ever before." Said Graham Brown, European Marketing Manager.
SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly introduced the Calibre X580 graphics card , delivering intense performance and the broadest set of features for gamers who demand the best.
With the excellent cooling solution from Accelero Xtreme, the Calibre X580 Graphics Card brings ultimate DX11 performance with OC function. This offers opportunities for enthusiasts and anyone intent on more hardcore applications to tap their full, powerful potential. Compared to reference GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards on market, the the Calibre X580 Graphics Card is overclocked out of box, it boosts the core, shader and memory clocks significantly to 810MHz, 1620MHz and 2016MHz, bringing ultimate performance in the latest DX11 games including Dirt 2, Stalker:OCP, Alien VS. Predator, Metro 2033 and so on.
Palit joined the GeForce GTX 580 party with two offerings, both using NVIDIA reference board design, but one of them being a factory-overclocked Sonic variant. The base model sticks to NVIDIA reference clocks of 772/1544/4008 MHz (core/shader/memory), while the Sonic model goes all the way up to 832/1670/4200 MHz. The GeForce GTX 580 packs 512 CUDA cores, and 1536 MHz of memory across a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Palit's GTX 580 base model is priced at €480, and the Sonic model at €500.
Point of View known for its range of NVIDIA based 3D Graphics cards, Netbooks and other PC products, announces today its launch of the newest flagship enthusiast graphics cards: the Point of View GTX 580.
An intelligent thermal redesign of the cooler - using vapor chambers - have dropped down the operation temps massively. Combine the lower temperatures with a very energy efficient GPU and you have a winner.
Colorful kicked off its GeForce GTX 580 with a factory-overclocked, air-cooled model right away. The GeForce GTX 580 from Colorful features out of the box clock speeds of 800 MHz core, 4200 MHz memory (GDDR5 effective), compared to reference speeds of 772/4008 MHz. The Colorful GTX 580 is based on the NVIDIA reference design board and cooling assembly, and might feature an aggressive fan profile to keep the speedy beast cool. The GeForce GTX 580 is based on the 40 nm GF110 core, it packs 512 CUDA cores and 1536 MB of memory over a 384-bit wide memory interface. Initially Colorful will target the Asian markets with the GeForce GTX 580, a European launch in the future can't be totally written off.
EVGA announced a full-fledged lineup of GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards today, consisting of an NVIDIA reference clock speed version (part number: 015-P3-1580-AR), which also serves as the base model, priced at US $499.99. This is followed by a factory-overclocked version that bears the "SuperClocked" marker (part number: 015-P3-1582-AR), carrying slightly higher clock speeds, but sticking to NVIDIA reference board and cooler design. This one is priced at $519.99. The king of the hill is the FTW Hydro Copper 2 variant, which sports top clock speeds, supported by EVGA's iconic Hydro Copper water-block (part number: 015-P3-1589-AR).
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 is based on a new 40 nm GF110 core, it packs 512 CUDA cores, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory over a 384-bit memory interface. Its reference clock speeds are 772/1544/4008 MHz (core/CUDA core/memory, GDDR5 effective). For EVGA's SuperClocked variant it's upped to 797/1594/4050 MHz, and for the FTW Hydro Copper 2 Edition it's all the way up at 850/1700/4196 MHz.
ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and mini-PCs, today unleashes the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 graphics card - the world's fastest graphics card powered by NVIDIA Fermi architecture. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 delivers a perfect DirectX 11 gaming experience, dominates the competition with world-class performance and delivers unmatched gaming immersion.
Games powered by Microsoft DirectX 11 technology render flawlessly on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 graphics card with unprecedented visual realism and details. Integrated hardware tessellation technology enables the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 series to inject a dose of reality into flat game textures and models for a virtual environment that mimics reality for a greater sense of immersion in hardware tessellation enabled games.
PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY"), a global leader in flash memory cards, USB flash drives, solid state drives, high speed HDMI cables, computer memory upgrade modules, consumer graphics cards, and professional workstation graphics cards, today announced the XLR8 GeForce GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5.
PNY's XLR8 GeForce GTX 580 provides exceptional geometric realism, with support for all the premium GTX gaming technologies, such as NVIDIA Surround, 3D Vision, PhysX, and SLI. Unleash your computer's visual potential with the world's fastest DirectX 11 GPU available now. The newest graphics card in PNY's line-up, the GTX 580 rips through the latest games with screaming performance. Featuring an innovative custom vapor chamber, new adaptive fan control, SLI-optimized cover design, and external venting, this card was designed for quieter gaming over previous generations. The GTX 580 also offers support for full stereoscopic 3D gaming, 3D movies, and 3D digital photographs -- for a totally immersive experience.
NVIDIA today announced the latest consumer GPU based on the NVIDIA Fermi architecture, the GeForce GTX 580, which has been reengineered from the transistor-level up to deliver increased power efficiency and performance over previous generation products.
The GeForce GTX 580 GPU delivers the world's fastest performance for DirectX 11 (DX11) games, and support for NVIDIA 3D Vision, Surround, PhysX, SLI and CUDA technologies, further entrenching GeForce-based PCs as the most robust gaming platforms in the world. The combination of an innovative vapor chamber thermal solution and new architectural enhancements make the GTX 580 the fastest and quietest GPU in its class, delivering an increase of up to 35 percent in performance per watti, and performance that is up to 30 percent faster than the original GeForce GTX 480.
GIGABYTE, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is pleased to present the latest premium graphics card - GV-N580D5-15I-B. Built with next-generation NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 GPU and GDDR5 memory technology, GV-N580D5-15I-B runs every blockbuster games with amazing performance. Different from its previous generation, GV-N580D5-15I-B runs quieter with its innovative vapor chamber thermal design. Supporting NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround, 3D Vision, PhysX , and 3-way SLI, GV-N580D5-15I-B guarantees ultimate extreme DirectX 11 gaming experience.
ATP, a leading flash memory manufacturer known for its high quality, durable flash and DRAM memory modules announced its newly released Vertical Slim SATA Embedded Module. With its small size and ratified JEDEC standard, MO-297, the Vertical Slim SATA Embedded Module is an ideal fit for embedded solid state storage applications. The compact design of the Slim SATA solution makes the module the ideal structure for SSD solutions that have space constraints and require high performance and reliability.
The ATP Vertical Slim SATA Module adheres to the JEDEC standard, as well as CE, FCC and RoHS industry compliance and regulatory standards. The small size (54mm(L)x39.8mm(W)x4.0mm(H) and high density of the Vertical Slim SATA makes the module an ideal replacement for the 2.5" HDD. It offers an alternative solution for space constrained embedded applications such as IPC, Blades, Advanced TCA, Networking hosts, POS machines, and enhances the capability, performance and reliability of different applications. The ATP Vertical Slim SATA Module is available in 2GB to 16GB capacities.
Intel announced the opening of the Intel Romania Software Development Center today. The Intel Romania Software Development Center represents a multi-million Euro investment for the Intel Software and Services Group. Software innovations from the center's R&D work will help enable new and exciting consumer usages. Some recent examples of this type of Intel software innovation include the Intel AppUp Center and Intel's leadership in the MeeGo project.
The Intel Romania Software Development Center will focus on software solutions needed to create the best possible user experiences on a variety of Intel architecture based smart devices including smart phones and other common devices like smart TVs or in-vehicle infotainment systems. The center will initially conduct R&D for the MeeGo open source platform which provides great flexibility for smart devices and software developers.
Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid-state storage products, has begun sampling its new SATA interface NANDriveTM GLS85LS product family to select customers seeking high-endurance, high-performance, fully-integrated, embedded flash solid-state drives (SSD). Greenliant's award-winning NANDrive combines an integrated SATA NAND controller and the widest range of NAND flash capacities-2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 GB-in a multi-chip package.
For OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) requiring the durability and speed of SSDs in very small form factors, Greenliant's SATA NANDrive devices are 14mm x 24mm x 1.85mm. The NANDrive is offered in a 145 ball grid array (BGA), 1mm ball pitch package for easy, space-saving and cost-effective mounting to a system motherboard, and is ideal for data storage applications in portable computing, set-top box, industrial, automotive and networking systems.
TRENDnet, a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand, today announces the availability of the 200Mbps Powerline AV Adapter with Bonus Outlet, model TPL-304E, and the 200Mbps Powerline AV Adapter with Bonus Outlet Kit. Each device features a built in electrical outlet and embedded power saving technology, which reduces power consumption by up to 70% in standby mode.
The 200 Mbps Powerline AV Adapter with Bonus Outlet creates a secure high speed building-wide network from any electrical outlet. When the TPL-304E is plugged in, consumers don't lose the use of an outlet-an additional electrical socket is built into the front of the adapter. Connect one adapter to your network, and plug another adapter into any outlet on your electrical system for instant high speed network access. Connect adapters quickly using the convenient one-touch connect button. Install up to eight Powerline adapters in different rooms for building wide networking.
Monday, November 8th 2010
Today's Reviews
On the eve of a big development in the GPU industry, TechPowerUp introduced the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem diagnostic utility that provides you with detailed tech-specs of your installed graphics processors, and lets you monitor clock speeds, voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. Version 0.4.8 features support for new GPUs, most notably, full support for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, support for some upcoming GF104-based consumer SKUs, and some handy stability updates.
Apart from the GeForce GTX 580, GPU-Z 0.4.8 supports GeForce GT 420 and GT 440 (which are currently OEM-only products). It also features an updated TMU and texture fill-rate calculation method, and updated reliability on ATI cards using certain unsupported kinds of voltage controllers.
DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.4.8
A complete list of changes by the developer follows.
RITEK is launching the latest and upgraded USB 3.0 flash drive -RIDATA EZ Drive HD7. HD7 not only can provide the high transmission USB 3.0 speed, but also offer the most convenient design of USB 3.0 flash drive ever. RIDATA HD7 is the first capless designed connector with USB 3.0 flash drive in Taiwan.
RIDATA HD7 makes two best record of USB 3.0 flash drive. First of all, conforming to USB Specification 3.0, RIDATA HD7 gives you more than great performance with high-speed data transmission rates.HD7 can provide the highest transmission speed of 60 MB/s. Secondly, HD7 has convenient and smart design which is capless retractable USB connector. HD7 makes a new designed element into USB3.0 flash drives.
Galaxy is working on a new GeForce GTX 460 graphics card that uses a single-slot cooling solution. The company earlier surprised many, when it
unveiled a single-slot GeForce GTX 470. Galaxy's new single-slot GTX 460 bears a long PCB, and a cooling solution that looks to make lavish use of copper. It also doesn't compromise on the clock speeds in any way, with the GPU running at 675 MHz, and memory at 900/3600 MHz effective. There is 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. The 40 nm GF104 core is DirectX 11 compliant, and has 336 CUDA cores enabled on this card. The card draws power from two 6-pin power inputs. It is SLI capable. Galaxy didn't give out details about pricing and availability, importantly if it will be available to the western markets in the first place.
Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash, storage and enthusiast computer products, today announced a refresh of their High-Definition media player product line. The Patriot Box Office has undergone a series of changes adding improved functionality, an enhanced user interface, new product packaging and a new product name. Box Office is now named PBO Core: a name inspired by the legions of devoted fans and active forum participants who often discuss the product under the name "PBO", short for Patriot Box Office.
PBO Core has an enhanced User Interface which is more visually pleasing, while also proving to be easier to use and navigate. Functionality has been enhanced with the addition of Internet Media Services (IMS), greater compatibility with HDTV's, ability to play data from external optical USB devices and album artwork during audio playback. The addition of IMS provides a variety of streaming and internet enabled services such as video RSS feeds, streaming podcasts, online photo albums, live stock info, weather, news and more! The latest firmware which provides these features and improved user interface is available now and is backwards compatible with all Patriot Box Office media players on the market.
Originally slated for a November 22 launch, AMD's next-generation enthusiast-grade GPU, the Radeon HD 6970 may face some launch delays, according to industry sources. Apparently the company is yet to finalize a launch driver and BIOS for the HD 6970, and that could push back launch by a little. Meanwhile, a Zol.com.cn contributor let out some juicy pictures of the HD 6970 reference design accelerator.
Intel may be not very far away from releasing its third generation of solid state drives (SSDs), but that doesn't stop the company from updating its current "Postville" (Gen. 2) X25-M series of SSDs. The company recently listed a new 120 GB model, carrying the part number SSDSA2MH120G2K5. The drive comes in the 2.5" SATA form factor, and uses a SATA 3 Gb/s interface. It makes use of 34 nm MLC NAND flash chips, and offers read/write speeds of 250 MB/s and 70 MB/s, respectively. The TRIM command is supported. The X25-M G2 120 GB is priced at around €210.
LG made its latest netbook, the X-Note X170, official today. This 10.1-inch netbook is based on Intel's Pine Trail platform, and makes use of a dual-core Atom N550 processor clocked at 1.50 GHz, aided by 1 GB of memory, embedded GMA 3150 graphics, 250 GB of storage, and connectivity features which include 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, WiFi b/g/n, and Bluetooth 3.0. The screen resolution is 1024 x 600, but the buyer can opt for a 1366 x 768 pixel display, too. The proprietary SmartPOP connectivity feature makes it easy to sync data, calls, and messages with smartphones. Available in two lid color options (silver and red), the X-Note X170 may cost the equivalent of $566 to $602 (depending on the display choice, perhaps).
Active Media Products, manufacturer of small form factor SSDs and unique USB drives, today launched the SaberTooth Z4 line of consumer grade 1.8-inch PATA ZIF SSDs as a performance upgrade solution for many popular notebook models. The new SaberTooth Z4 SSDs support sequential read and write speeds of up to 80 MB/sec and 38 MB/sec respectively.
The SaberTooth Z4 measures 2.8 x 2.1 x 0.2 inches (70 x 54 x 5 mm) and uses an industry standard PATA ZIF interface so it is interchangeable with standard 1.8-inch ZIF HDDs. It was designed specifically for consumer and professional laptop upgrades. The Z4 uses highly reliable MLC NAND Flash as the storage medium.It features garbage collection, wear leveling and bad block management built into the firmware to maintain a high level of performance and reliability over the life of the drive. The SaberTooth Z4 series delivers substantially faster bootup, application load and shutdown speeds than conventional PATA HDDs. It is one of the fastest and easiest ways to upgrade dozens of different netbooks and UMPCs to higher performance and more local storage.
Toshiba Corp. (Toshiba) and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. today announced the Blade X-gale SSD series, an innovative new form factor in high capacity, high performance solid-state storage. Available now, the new drives are offered in capacities of 64-gigabyte (GB), 128GB and 256GB, with a maximum sequential read speed of 220 MB per second (MB/s) and a maximum sequential write speed of 180 MB/s. Ideally suited for integration into space-sensitive products, including tablet PCs, laptops, mini-mobile and netbook PCs, Toshiba's latest SSD offering helps these devices achieve a super slim profile.
"Delivering a product that enables superior user experience in a smaller footprint is the ultimate goal," noted Scott Nelson, vice president, Memory Business Unit, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. "The density of MLC NAND enables the creation of smaller form factor high density storage solutions, and Toshiba, as the technology leader for NAND storage solutions, will continue to innovate in this space."
NVIDIA is just a couple of days away from releasing the GeForce GTX 580, the company's trump card which came literally out of nowhere, compared to AMD's Northern Island GPUs, which were talked about for months. At the PDXLAN 16.5 event, NVIDIA showed off some slides that are most relevant to gamers, notably the thermal and acoustic characteristics of the reference design thermal solution. The latest thermal solution does look a lot more compact compared to that of the GTX 480, especially the lack of that hot-plate and heat pipes sticking out is notable.
The new cooling solution relies on vapor-chamber technology to convey heat to the aluminum fins, instead of heat pipes. The fan features a more refined adaptive fan profile. Combined with a more power optimized GPU, the new thermal solution is said to be more efficient and quiet compared to even that of the GeForce GTX 285.
Friday, November 5th 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
EDGE Tech Corp announces the release of its 32GB microSDHC Memory Card (Class 4), currently the largest capacity microSDHC card in the market, to increase available storage in the booming smartphone market. EDGE is a leading U.S.-based supplier of DRAM and flash memory upgrades, portable computing products, storage devices, and other experience-enhancing technology solutions.
MicroSD and microSDHC are the most popular memory cards for upgrading mobile phone storage. Measuring roughly half the size of a fingernail, the EDGE 32GB microSDHC Memory Card stores approximately 21,000 photos, 8,000 MP3 files, or 32 hours of HD video*. A Class 4 speed rating ensures a consistent transfer speed of at least 4MB/s.
Planar announced its latest 3D display suited for home entertainment, the NVIDIA 3D Vision certified Planar SA2311W. It is a 23" widescreen with full-HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, and 120 Hz refresh rate, to compliment that, it has a rated response time of 2 ms. Display input options include DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. Its stand allows height and tilt adjustments. Backed by a 3-year warranty, the SA2311W is priced at $449, and will be available for order soon.
MSI seems to be ready with its first wave of motherboards for socket LGA1155 processors, based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. At this point the lineup is quite simply three models - P67A-GD65, the performance segment offering, the P67A-GD55, upper mid-range, and H67MA-ED55, a micro-ATX board ready for integrated graphics. All three motherboards seem to carry high-grade components such as solid chokes (that don't whine), high-C capacitors, and offer a level of overclocking headroom enhanced by OC Genie II.
The P67A-GD65 features two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), three PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. Connectivity includes six SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the P67 PCH (of which four are internal, two eSATA), two SATA 6 Gb/s ports provided by a Marvell-made controller, and two additional SATA 3 Gb/s ports by a third-party controller; two USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, FireWire, and gigabit Ethernet. There are several overclocker-friendly features such as consolidated voltage measure points with proper sockets to hold multimeter leads, OC Genie controls, and a heat pipe distributing heat evenly between the VRM heatsinks.
I-O Data is readying the HDCA-U desktop external hard drive. The drive is designed to work not only with PCs and Macs, but also camcorders, and TVs. Measuring 39 (W) x 185 (D) x 120 (H) mm, these weigh around 1.1 kg, and come in two variants: the 1 TB variant goes for $155, and 2 TB at $247, when they release in Japan later this month.
Club 3D B.V. is pleased to announce the introduction of the next generation video card based on the Bart PRO chipset, AMD's second generation DirectX 11. The new Club 3D Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Overclocked Edition video card now features the AMD HD3D technology which allows you to play your favorite games in full stereo 3D with a single video card (up to 3 monitors, and enjoy with the new EyeSpeed technology to watch the latest Blu-ray movies in 3D.
Do things faster with AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology on the most demanding applications and take advantage of the Dolby True HD support for a theatre-quality experience. Now is available to you with 820 Mhz GPU Clock, 4400 Mhz GDDR5 and 960 Stream Processors.
VERTEX3D, a new brand of AMD graphics card, today announces an advanced version of the next generation HD6850 graphics: the VTX3D HD6850 X Edition. The X series aims to deliver extreme gaming performance in the ultra quiet working environment with factory overclocked setting, and tackles the most demanding gamers and applications.
The HD6850 X Edition features superior factory overclocked ability, with core clocks at 800MHz and memory clocks at 1050MHz. Equipped with the most advanced GDDR5 memory, delivering faster and higher bandwidths, allows the ultimate gaming performance on the maximum setting. Gamers can easily tune their rig to its limitations.
Lite-On Launch 8x External DVD Writer with Customisable Covers. Lite-On are renowned as leaders in optical storage innovations, and the launch of their eNAU608 shows no exception. The 8x external slim DVD writer has an unusual twist; by using the bundled NERO software, it allows users to customise the top cover to create a fun, vibrant and fully personalised design that is sure to turn heads and infuse a sense of fashion into everyday life.
A host of technology to ensure top quality recording and fuss-free disc labelling is packed inside the tiny case, and with an ultra-portable design that needs no separate power cable, it really is the ultimate way to back-up, share and store data, photos and movies on the move. Customisable covers for a truly individual style: The external eNAU608 slim drive is the first DVD writer in the world to offer users the ability to design, print and swap the cover to produce a completely personalised look.
MSI recently rolled out its new generation 15.6" CX620 3D notebook computer which packs all-new 3D display technology and impressive computing performance. Intel's latest Core i3/i5 CPU with ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5470 discrete graphics card (1GB DDR3 display memory), and HD LED backlit display. So whether you're playing games, watching films, or viewing photos, enjoying the ultimate in 3D images is as easy as putting on a pair of 3D glasses.
MSI Marketing Director Sam Chern adds that the MSI CX620 3D is sheathed in MSI's own stylish color film print to protect against scratching and wear and comes with an independent chiclet keyboard and seamless touchpad, giving it an extra touch of class. In terms of performance, MSI's exclusive GPU Boost and ECO power-saving technologies allow you to switch between display modes to maximize multimedia, processing, or battery performance, depending on the task at hand.
Lite-On, a global leader of optical storage solutions, released the new eNAU108 external slim 8X DVD/CD writer. Weighing only 0.4 pounds, its slim and super lightweight design makes it a perfect travel companion with any netbook or notebook.
USB-powered, the eNAU108 eliminates the need to carry a bulky power adapter. It is compatible with and supports all common DVD and CD formats so it is the convenient optical disc drive choice to keep around at home, in the office or on-the-go.
Silicon Power, the world's leading manufacturer in flash memory and DRAM module, announced the launch of the pioneering DDR3 1600MHz standard memory module. With this brand-new product, general users can easily reach greater performance without overclocking it. Consistent and compatible with JEDEC standards and DDR3 systems, Silicon Power DDR3 1600MHz standard memory module is definitely perfect for increasing system efficiency.
Silicon Power DDR3 1600MHz standard memory module is consistent and compatible with JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standards with 1600MHz clock rate, CL9 CAS latency, and 1.5V operating voltage. It adopts new fly-by topology design for more efficient commands, addresses, control signals, and clocks signals. It also supports On-DIE Termination (ODT) to dramatically reduce unwanted reflection signals and maximize speed rate. Meanwhile, Silicon Power insists on using original memory modules and FBGA packaging technology for excellent heat dissipation and accurate data transferring. Silicon Power single / dual / triple-channel memory kits are 100% tested to guarantee high performance of stability, durability and compatibility.
Gigabyte has been one of the first motherboard manufacturers to show off its
LGA1155 motherboard way back in June, even as some of its prime competitors are keeping their products embargoed. The company just let out pictures of its entire 12-strong LGA1155 product lineup with box-art, that targets almost every price point with its discrete graphics requiring P67A lineup, and integrated graphics ready H67A lineup. All it did to make sure it didn't step on Intel's toes is blur out the new Intel logos.
The top-tier P67A-UD7 and P67A-UD5 have been
discussed in some detail, in an older article. So were the P67A-UD3R, P67A-UD3, and H67MA-UD2H, in
this article. What are new to us, are a number of space-filling models, that fill any gaps in price-points between earlier known models. These include: P67A-UD4, P67A-UD3P, H67A-UD3H, H67MA-D2H, and H67M-D2.
NVIDIA is designing a new variant of its GeForce GTX 460 graphics processor, the GeForce GTX 460 SE. Based on the 40 nm GF104 silicon, it's positioned below the GTX 460 768 MB. It has 288 CUDA cores (6/8 streaming multiprocessors enabled, compared to 7/8 on the other GTX 460 variants), but uses the complete 256-bit wide memory interface, with GDDR5 memory. The GPU and memory are clocked at 650/1300 MHz DDR, compared to 670/1350 MHz DDR on the other GTX 460 variants. No information regarding pricing/availability is available.
Thursday, November 4th 2010
Today's Reviews
Review
Graphics Cards
PowerColor's HD 6850 PCS+ is an overclocked variant of the HD 6850. But the changes do not stop here. PowerColor also includes their own cooling solution and has done extensive changes to the voltage regulation circuitry on the card. But is this enough to compete with the excellent AMD reference design?
Review
Media Players
There are a lot of Atom+ION Nettops, but the Foxconn Netbox is not only extremely compact, but it also offers some customizability along with a very affordable price tag and the choice of black or white colors. We fill it with the required parts and wrangle it through our test bench to see how it holds up.
ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, announced a boost to its XPG Gaming Series DDR3 lineup with a 2400G 4GB dual channel kit to satisfy computer gamers' increasingly stringent demands for high capacity and performance DRAM Modules.
The new XPG DDR3 2400G runs at an operating voltage of 1.65 volts with CL value 9-11-9-27, allowing for predicted bandwidth up to 38.4GB per second. Each XPG Gaming v2.0 Series memory chip is selected through a strict filtering process, complete with superior 8-layer PCB (Printed Circuit Board) and unique TCT (Thermal Conductive Technology) that effectively lowers module temperature. Each memory chip is in direct contact with the heat spreaders for better heat dissipation, improved power consumption, and prolonged lifespan. The XPG DDR3 2400G also supports the Intel XMP (Extreme Memory Profiles) which help provide easy configuration for power users.
Zalman is pleased to inform you that Z9 series is now ready to go. This awesome featured Z9 series will continue the line-up of Z7 series. The new Mid Tower Enclosure comes with a lot of user- friendly functions and features will serve end-users chasing great value product in affordable price.
Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash, storage and enthusiast computer products, today expanded the product lineup of their recently announced Viper Xtreme Series of DDR3 memory solutions. New Sector 7 (tri-channel) kits are available in 12GB and 6GB capacities with speeds of 2000MHz and 1600MHz. New Sector 5 (dual-channel) kits are available in 8GB and 4GB capacities with 1600MHz speed. The Viper Xtreme Series of products utilize a custom developed aluminum and copper heat shield to achieve improved cooling and stability.
Patriot Viper Xtreme Series modules have a custom designed heatshield with a hefty copper insert (6 grams) across the DRAM chips and a slim profile extruded anodized aluminum outer piece. This unique design offers enhanced thermal performance in heat dissipation over aluminum based heatshields. Viper Xtreme modules pass a thorough qualification and screening process on multiple high-performance motherboards to ensure performance and reliability for overclocking. These modules are targeted and designed specifically for performance enthusiasts and overclockers looking for an edge in benchmark efforts and to push the boundaries of computing performance.
We scored an early look at MSI's latest graphics card, the R6850 Cyclone OC Power Edition. This AMD Radeon HD 6850 based graphics card makes use of MSI's popular Cyclone GPU cooler, which it has used on several generations of graphics cards. It consists of a GPU based turned heatsink with spirally-projecting aluminum fins, from which heat is conveyed to two aluminum fin arrays on either sides of the GPU, by 8 mm thick heat pipes. Carrying the "power edition" label, this card is geared for overclocking, in which software voltage control is provided and made use of.
The PCB draws power from just one 6-pin power connector, it uses a 6+1+1 phase VRM that makes use of high-grade components. Display connectivity includes two DVI, and one each of HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2. While MSI did not mention what clock speeds it ships with, it definitely put it through some OC tests. The card was able to achieve 1000/1200 MHz (core/memory) with a core voltage of 1.2V. The card was put through Furmark, where it settled down to 65 degrees Celsius. MSI will introduce this card to the market very soon.
Here are the winners of the MSI TechPowerUp GPU-Z Hardware Giveaway, for the month of October 2010. panning across September and October, the contests gives six lucky winners some epic graphics hardware from MSI. This is the closing month of the contest. The winners for this month are:
- Kamil from the Czech Republic, wins MSI R5870 Lightning
- Thomas from Denmark, wins MSI N460GTX HAWK
- Damir from Croatia, wins MSI R5770 HAWK
Congratulations to the winners. MSI will contact them directly and arrange for the shipping of the prizes. TechPowerUp would like to thank the nice people at MSI for making the giveaway possible, we will return with more such awesome giveaways to the GPU-Z community.
I-O Data announced a new external DVD-writer, which makes use of a full-sized drive, giving higher speeds. The DVR-UN24GE measures 170 x 240 x 50 mm (W x D x H), tipping the scales at 1.4 kg. It burns DVD-R/DVD+R at 24X, DVD-RAM at 12X, double-layer DVD-R/DVD+R at 8X, and 6X for rewritable DVDs. It uses a USB 2.0 interface. Nero Essentials and WinDVD are bundled. It is priced in Japan at ¥11,500 (about US $141).
EverCool updated the design of its Transformer 4 CPU cooler. The updated version supports LGA1156 socket, apart from its present LGA1366/LGA775/AM3. The Transformer 4 has a typical tower-type heatsink design, with a CPU base in which four 8 mm thick copper heat pipes make direct contact with the CPU, conveying heat to the aluminum fin array. Two 120 mm fans spinning at 800~2200 ±15% rpm circulate air through the heatsink. The price tag isn't announced, though we don't expect it to be much different from the existing price of around US $40.
Here's perhaps the first picture of an NVIDIA partner-branded GeForce GTX 580 graphics card, this one coming from Inno3D. The GeForce GTX 580 is based on NVIDIA's new GF110 graphics processor, in which the company claims to have refined the GPU design from previous generation GF100 many fold, increasing performance and performance per Watt. NVIDIA's latest GPU could be closer than you think, with the company expediting its launch to the first half of this month. The Product was listed at French online store Cybertek, priced at 499.99 EUR.
Gigabyte expanded its value case lineup with the GZ-P5. This ATX mid-tower is minimalist, and entry-level. Measuring 180 x 420 x 350 mm, it weighs 3.5 kg, and makes use of SECC steel and plastic. It doesn't ship with any fans, but has slots for 80 mm fans on the front (intake), rear (exhaust), and upper side-panel. There's also room for a 120 mm spinner at the lower side-panel. It is
listed on a Filipino online store, for around $30.
Wednesday, November 3rd 2010
Today's Reviews
Active Media Products, a leading manufacturer of SSDs and USB drives, today launched a new USB 2.0 flash drive in the shape of a 50-caliber bullet. This gold bullet drive features a rugged aluminum case with an air-tight rubber seal, making the drive waterproof when closed. Measuring about 3.0 inches in length and 0.6 inches in diameter, the bullet drive is offered in 4GB and 8GB capacities. "Our goal is to constantly reinvent the USB drive, making a unique combination of style and functionality." commented Active Media Products VP of Sales, Jerry Thomson.
The bullet includes a strong steel keychain and clip for attaching the drive to a backpack or keyring. This new bullet drive is available now through Amazon, at approximately $12 for the 4GB model and $21 for the 8GB drive.
Booktop, the revolutionary docking station concept GIGABYTE thrived on, has evolved to a whole new level! Following the success of M1022 in 2009, the first generation 10.1" Booktop laptop and the only laptop to win a Golden Pin Design Award, GIGABYTE immediately introduced M1305, the second generation 13.3" laptop equipped a docking station featuring a desktop-level NVIDIA graphics card. This brilliant innovation has already dazzled the market, but GIGABYTE is not satisfied just yet.
Perceiving growing consumer demand for mobile computing applications and the lack of integration between individual functions for similar mobile devices in the market, the RD team at GIGABYTE capitalized on its 20 years of professional experience and introduced T1125, the third- generation swivel 11.6" touch screen Booktop and the first of its kind in the industry that creatively combines the advantage of a tablet PC and docking technology in 2010. T1125 features both a swivel touchscreen and a removable Super multi DVD . With the docking station, T1125 instantly turns into a tablet PC on the go and a desktop PC with a DVD-ROM at home. T1125 is the first three-in-one computing device that provides users with a multitasking mode and completely revolutionizes all existing laptop user scenarios.
Following its recent announcement to take its entire display line to LED by early 2011, ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications solutions, today announced the launch of its latest LED backlit monitors - the VG36-LED Series.
Furthering its commitment to smarter, greener computing, the VG36-LED Series makes its debut with the 24" (23.6" vis.) VG2436wm-LED and 22" (21.5" vis.) VG2236wm-LED. These environmentally friendly LED monitors feature a slim bezel profile and native 1920x1080 resolution. In addition to Full HD resolution and DVI and VGA connectivity options, both mercury-free monitors offer an impressive 20,000,000:1 MEGA contrast ratio and built-in stereo speakers for the ultimate viewing experience. Teamed with Energy Star and EPEAT Gold certifications and an energy savings of up to 50%, the VG36-LED Series combines the best of all worlds.
Zalman made its entry into the solid state drive (SSD) business by unveiling two lines of SATA SSDs in the 2.5 inch form factor. It includes the value-oriented S-series, and the performance-oriented N-series. Available in 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB, the S-series models make use of a JMicron controller with up to 260 MB/s of read speeds, and 60 MB/s writes for the 32 GB model, 120 MB/s writes for the 64 GB one, and 210 MB/s for the 128 GB one. The Zalman S-series 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB SSDs are expected to be priced at US $99, $149, and $249, respectively. These drives do support the TRIM function.
The N-series SSDs make use of a SandForce SF-12xx controller, with sequential read speeds of up to 280 MB/s and 270 MB/s writes, consistent for both the 64 GB and 128 GB models. The N-series 64 GB model is priced at $169, and 128 GB model at $289.
Graphics card maker Colorful, which recently designed the GeForce GTX 460 and GTS 450
iGame series of graphics cards, found out that its exorbitant cooler design (for mid-range graphics cards) may cause problems for users wanting to install two of these cards in SLI, because a large heatsink obstructs most rigid types of SLI bridges. Unlike with ATI/AMD, NVIDIA leaves it to the motherboard vendors to supply bridge cables. So Colorful designed its own flexible SLI bridge cable, which it might bundle with graphics cards. The cable uses a flexible membrane-type PCB, it's 12.4 cm long. That's long enough to hop over three expansion slots. There's also scope that Colorful will market it separately.
AeroCool announced its latest PC case, the PGS B series XPredator. This ATX full-tower makes sure you never run out of room for extra large motherboards such as the EVGA X58 Classified 4-way SLI or the Gigabyte X58A-UD9, multiple water cooling loops, and a heap of hard drives. The case measures all of 600 (H) x 234 (W) x 555 (D) mm, mostly making use of steel. The case is mostly open, with a perforated front, and almost completely perforated side-panel, a gill-like vent on top (Alienware-inspired). Its front-panel lets you control fan speeds, apart from providing three USB 1.1/2.0, one USB 3.0, one eSATA, and audio.
Interiors are decked up in black and orange, drive and expansion card installation is tool-free. The motherboard tray has a hole giving you easy access to coolers with back-plates, abundant holes to help cable management. Ventilation includes one included 140 mm front intake fan, provision for one bottom 120 mm intake, four orange-illuminated intake fans on the side panel to maintain a positive air pressure, one top 200 mm exhaust, and space for one 120/140 mm fan. There are four water-cooling tubing holes. The AeroCool XPredator is priced at €139.90
ASUS showed off its high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard lineup in London, including from its two top brands, ROG and Sabertooth TUF. The ROG Maximus IV Extreme, TUF Sabertooth P67, P8P67 Deluxe and P8P67 were on display. All four models are based on the Intel P67 Express chipset, designed to support upcoming Sandy Bridge architecture derived LGA1155 processors, or the 2011 Core processor family. Leading the pack is the Maximum IV Extreme. This board is literally bursting with features and is geared for extreme overclocking. There are no less than four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, possibly driven by a PCI-E bridge chip, which allows 3-way and 4-way SLI/CrossFireX; four each of USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and ROG-exclusive features such as ROG Connect, and redundant BIOS.
Next in line is the TUF Sabertooth P67. Keeping in tune with the TUF series' main feature of providing very high durability, the Sabertooth P67 uses ceramic heatsinks and high-grade components. For the first time, we're getting to see a protective scaffolding covering most of the board's area on its obverse side (we've seen it on the reverse side on older models). ASUS is calling it "tactical vest". This board only supports two PCI-E x16 devices, 2-way SLI/CrossFireX.
Exceleram announced refreshed memory kit lineup better tuned for overclocking, under the SpeedSlider series. Modules are equipped with a new 8-layer black PCB that provides higher electrical stability. There are eight new kits in all, with capacities ranging from 4 GB (2x 2 GB) to 6 GB (3x 2 GB). Of these four are of a higher grade, marked by a red culvert heatspreader, these include the EB3102A (4 GB, 1600 MHz, 6-8-7-24, 1.65V); EB3103A (6 GB, 1600 MHz, 6-8-7-24, 1.65V); EB3100A (4 GB, 1600 MHz, 6-9-8-24, 1.65V); and EB3104A (6 GB, 1600 MHz, 6-9-8-24, 1.65V).
Marked by the blue culvert heatspreader, the remaining four are slightly more value-oriented. These include the EB3120A (4 GB, 1600 MHz, 7-8-7-24, 1.65V); EB3121A (6 GB, 1600 MHz, 7-8-7-24, 1.65V); EB3117A (4 GB, 1333 MHz, 7-7-7-21, 1.50V); and EB3118A (6 GB 1333 MHz, 7-7-7-21, 1.50V). "We act on the suggestions from many customers with this step," said Torsten Düker, CEO of Exceleram. The company did not reveal pricing, but said that these will reach stores very soon.
TRENDnet, a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand, today announces the availability of the 3.5" USB 3.0 External Enclosure, model TU3-S35, and 2.5" USB 3.0 External Enclosure, model TU3-S25. Save time by storing and transferring content at blazing fast 5Gbps USB 3.0 speeds-10 times faster than USB 2.0 enclosures.
TRENDnet's 3.5" USB 3.0 External Enclosure, model TU3-S35, supports one 3.5" SATA I or II hard disk drive with storage capacities in excess of one Terabyte (hard drive sold separately). Install a SATA I or II hard drive and connect the enclosure to a 5Gbps USB 3.0 port on your computer. The included USB 3.0 Type A connector is backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports. Large cooling vents and the aluminum housing cool the enclosed hard drive, and an included mounting stand saves desk space.
Tuesday, November 2nd 2010
Today's Contests
Today's Reviews
Review
Cases
AZZA has a very interesting line-up of cases so far and the Hurrican 2000 is their most sophisticated one yet. It features a menacing look, is filled to the rim with 8 fans (yes 8!) and hot-swap bays for each of the removable hard drive trays. We fill the case with everything - even water cooling and let loose the hurricane.
Creative Technology Ltd. today announced the Creative ZiiSound T6 - the latest addition to its extensive Pure Wireless speaker family. The all new speaker system assumes the position of the flagship Surround Sound wireless speaker in the Pure Wireless speaker range.
The ZiiSound T6 personifies everything the Pure Wireless speaker range is, where speakers have been engineered for wireless audio perfection, based on Creative's in-house wireless technology reference system - an engineering optimisation that brings out the best wireless audio performance in Bluetooth and apt-X technologies for speakers.
Quite some time after
releasing the GeForce GTX 470 Super Overclock (SOC) graphics card, Gigabyte managed to design a high-performance PCB that facilitates better overclocks for the GeForce GTX 480, under a new SKU, the GV-N480SO-15I. Its most notable features include the WindForce 3X cooler, Ultra Durable VGA+ construction, and GPU Gauntlet (GPU selected out of a performance binning process). The card sports a blue PCB, and makes use of a strong VRM to support out of the box clock speeds of 820 MHz (core, vs. 700 MHz reference), and 950/3800 effective MHz (memory, vs. 924/3696 MHz).
The cooler makes use of three 90 mm fans to circulate air through a large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by heat pipes and a copper plate. The PCB holds a strong 12+2 phase VRM to give the card enough juice for the clock speeds it comes with, plus keep some room for DIY overclocking. The Ultra Durable VGA+ construction gives the card high-grade components such as low-latency memory chips, 2 oz copper PCB, ferrite-core chokes, and low RDS (on) MOSFETs. The card also features two BIOS chips, which are selectable using a switch. Unlike many graphics card vendors that use a similar feature leaving one BIOS holding a high-performance profile and the other holding a failsafe reference clock profile, Gigabyte loaded both BIOS ROMs with high-performance profiles, one holding an SOC profile (with the above mentioned speeds), and another "LN2" profile perhaps holding even racier clocks and/or voltage settings, but requiring liquid-nitrogen cooling to sustain stability. Gigabyte's latest creation will release soon, priced at around 440 EUR.
Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the launch of its next generation SSDNow V+ solid-state drive (SSD), the Kingston SSDNow V+100. The new V+100 provides corporations with a viable solution to extend the life of currently installed client systems while meeting user performance expectations.
The new drive features enhanced garbage collection that is not OS dependent, making it a solid upgrade path to extend the life cycle of older client systems. The V+100's drive performance has also been increased by 25 percent, enabling more efficient data transfer over the previous generation. In addition, a new 96GB capacity has been added to the family offering a broader range of choices to enterprise customers.
GIGABYTE is pleased to announce the arrival of M6980 Macro Gaming Mouse and M6900 Precision Gaming Mouse. Coinciding with the recent release of Aivia K8100 Gaming Keyboard, GIGABYTE has been sweeping the world with gaming sensation. With streamline-shaped ergonomic design, both M6980 and M6900 gaming mice are made for gamers at a competitive price.
Streamline-shaped GIGABYTE M6980 Macro Gaming Mouse is a seven-button ergonomic laser mouse supported by GIGABYTE's GHOST macro engine. Equipped with 8KB onboard memory, GHOST macro engine allows for up to 3 portable onboard profile settings. The mouse also features up to 7080 gaming grade fps, on-the-fly DPI switching, 4-way scrolling, and rubberized coating surface. Not only are the 7 buttons customizable, the LED lighting system also flickers to display "breathing effect" as an indicator for DPI and profiles. Designed with 2000dpi laser sensor, 1000rps report rate and 20G acceleration, the sensitive M6980 Macro Gaming Mouse offers gamers precision and accuracy during engaged gaming activity.
Portable storage has never looked so good with the new G-Technology G-DRIVE slim from Hitachi GST. Just in time for the holidays, and making a perfect external storage companion to the Apple Macbook, MacBook Pro or Macbook Air, the new G-DRIVE slim external hard drive gives users 320GB of storage and ubiquitous USB 2.0 connectivity in an amazingly slim form factor. The new drive is designed from the inside out to emulate G-Technology's known quality and style for the Apple Mac market, providing simple, reliable and affordable external storage for college students, business professionals and consumers on the go.
The new G-DRIVE slim leverages Hitachi GST's rugged, 7mm Travelstar Z5K320 drive, making it the thinnest, 2.5-inch external hard drive in the world. With its diminutive footprint - just a mere 128.6 mm (L) x 82 mm (W) by 9.9 mm (H), - sleek design and recyclable aluminum enclosure, users now have a stylish drive to help them move, work and play with their digital content. Lightweight and compact, weighing in at approximately 144g (5 oz), users can easily carry up to 80 hours of high-definition video, 320 hours of standard video, 114 movies, 80,000 songs or 160 games wherever they go.
Sunbeamtech announced its Rheosmart family of single and multiple channel fan controllers. There are three parts, the Rheosmart PCI, Rheosmart 3, and Rheosmart 6. The Rheosmart PCI isn't a PCI addon card, but just a fan controller board that occupies an expansion slot on the back of your case. It lets you control one fan channel with up to 30W of power, and also lets you select between PWM and voltage methods. The Rheosmart 3, as the name suggests, is a 3-channel controller, and occupies a 3.5" exposed drive bay. Lastly, there's the six-channel Rheosmart 6, which occupies a 5.25" bay. PWM method lets the controller auto-adjust speeds based on system temperatures, under the motherboard's control. Sunbeamtech did not give out pricing.
More pictures follow.
Walton Chaintech Corporation, manufacturer of memory modules and computer components and accessories, today announces three brand-new APOGΣΣ SSD series to demonstrate its capability in fulfilling consumers' requirement in high-speed and large storage equipments. The APOGΣΣ A-series, C-series and L-series all incorporate the mainstream SATA II interface, and yet, each offers unique features and targets at different segment of gamers, price-sensitive and entry-level consumers, respectively.
The APOGΣΣ A-series SSD offers unsurpassed solid performance without sacrificing its cool, quiet and energy efficient operation conditions. Built with SATA II interface, it can be easily integrated into today's mobile and desktop platforms.
Stealth.Com Inc., a leader in the industrial computer and peripherals market has released a new ultra small PC designed specifically for in-vehicle/mobile/embedded applications. Stealth's model LPC-100M is a rugged small form PC that operates from 10-26 VDC power input making it ideal for DC powered applications typically found in vehicles and remote applications.
According to Stealth CEO, Ed Boutilier; "One of the unique attributes the LPC-100M mobile computer possesses is a user selectable smart power control interface. Start-up and shut-down times are user definable allowing for safe application launching along with a controlled shutdown period. This is absolutely critical in preventing data corruption when power sources are interrupted in mobile and field environments."
TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, adds its own cooling solution to the HD6850 series: PCS+ HD 6850. This powerful upgraded edition embraces the PCS+ series features which equips with superior factory overclocked setting and excellent cooling solution, unlimited the ultra gaming potential in the coolest working environment.
PCS+ HD6850 clocks at 820 MHz core speed, while memory clocks at 1100 MHz. The factory overclocked setting ensures gaming efficacy can effortlessly go beyond the standard version, delivering the out of box gaming performance which will easily blow up gamers' mind.
Monday, November 1st 2010
Today's Reviews
Nexus Technology Introduces the silence to your desk with the SM-7000B. The SM-7000B (Silent Mouse Black) is an advanced 2.4G wireless optical mouse which connects to your PC, MAC or laptop with a super small nano receiver and has a 1000/1600 DPI selection button.
The Nexus Silent Mouse has a comfortable size and is an excellent mouse for desktop use. But also for laptop users it is very suitable. Especially because of the small nano receive which you plug in a USB port and leave it there. It is so small that you do not need to take it out...you just forget its there. Furthermore the mouse is made from quality surface treatments so it feels good in your hand.
NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, announced today the new 19" MultiSync EA192M and 20" widescreen MultiSync E201W to the desktop product lineup.
Compared to previous generations of NEC's desktop LCD monitors, the LED backlight technology in both the MultiSync EA192M and E201W allows less greenhouse gas emissions and reduces power consumption and heat radiation. These new LED-backlit models also use more recycled plastics, less hazardous materials and are mercury-free, a significant advantage when compared to conventional CCFL-backlit LCD monitors.
Huntkey Enterprise Group officially announces that "Radiation Protection for the Future", Huntkey SHIELD chassis global launching ceremony is scheduled to be presented in Shenzhen Huntkey Industrial Park on October 28. One of the major releases of the company in 2010, it would be distributed in the retail market as a middle/high-end product of Huntkey.
With the advance of technology and the proliferation of the Internet, the computer is today a must-have device in our daily life. It is nothing strange for an office lady, or business people to watch a movie, or play video games at home after eight hours of working in front of the screen. For them, over half of their time is spent on computers every day. It is hard to image what life would be without a computer. However, a computer generates radiation. The longer we use computer, the more risk of exposure to radiation hazard. While there are numerous reports online about computer radiation hazards, the most common include acne, balding and infertility.
Achronix Semiconductor Corp. today announced strategic access to Intel Corporation's 22 nanometer (nm) process technology, and plans to develop the most advanced Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs).
The Achronix Speedster22i FPGA family will shatter existing limitations of FPGAs, allowing cost effective production of high performance devices over 2.5M LUTs in size, equivalent to an ASIC of over 20 million gates.
Taking advantage of the performance and power savings of Intel's 22nm process technology, Speedster22i will also extend the boundaries of FPGA speed and power efficiency, enabling as much as 300% higher performance, 50% lower power, and 40% lower cost than any other FPGA in any other process technology.
Japanese hardware maker Green House announced a new external hard drive enclosure that can house a 3.5" SATA drive, connect to it over SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and connect it to the PC over USB 3.0, ensuring there's no dearth for bandwidth. The GH-HDC3035AK from Green House measures 187 x 113 x 30 mm, weighing 360 g, and can take hard drives and solid state drives with capacities of up to 2 TB. It's also backwards compatible with USB 2.0, but at a huge performance penalty. Available in Japan around mid-November, the GH-HDC3035AK is priced at JP ¥2,980; around US $37.
Scythe officially released a brand new Speaker Set as well as a new Class D Amplifier. New Kro Craft mini Speaker (SCKCM-1000) are fully fledged Stereo Monitor Speakers made of high quality aluminum. The aim was to design a speaker set that creates accurate and enjoyable sound in a small form-factor while matches the most Desktop Environments. The black anodized aluminum chassis is fitted with a Scythe own 100 mm Concave Dome Fullrange Speaker Unit. The set is rated with 20 Watt power output (8 Ohm) and reproduces a frequency range from 80 Hz to 16 kHz (+-3db).
Each speaker is measured to be 4.33 x 4.80(+ 0.94) x 4.13 Inch (110 x 122+(24) x 105 mm). To further improve the sound quality and the direction the speakers are aligned, total of 8 small and 4 big Rubber Feet are supplied. Furthermore, both terminals on the rear side of the speakers are gold plated and are compatible to common banana plugs. Users can purchase the Kro Craft mini Speaker (SCKCM-1000) as of today for 65.00 USD or 36.90 EUR.
Today, Logitech introduced the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 - the company's first light-powered keyboard. The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard powers itself whenever there's light, even indoors, making battery hassles a thing of the past.
"The keyboard is still the best input device for typing emails and IMs, updating your Facebook page or posting responses to your favorite blogs - and the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 is the next big innovation in keyboard technology," said Denis Pavillard, vice president of product marketing for Logitech's keyboards and desktops. "The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard is powered by light but can work in total darkness for up to three months. Plus, with its PVC-free construction and fully recyclable packaging, it's designed to minimize its footprint."
The original N4200 made huge waves in the hardware community with its innovative features and functionality. Today, Thecus Technology, the Creator in Storage, is proud to announce its successor: the N4200PRO. Packing an all-new Intel Atom processor and DDR3 memory, the N4200PRO takes the original Zero-Crash NAS and puts performance into overdrive.
Performance freaks are going to love the new N4200PRO. Plentiful storage management options including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6,10, JBOD are present, as are convenient features such as hot-swap, hot-spare, online RAID migration and expansion, as well as auto-rebuild.
Transcend Information, Inc., a worldwide leader in memory and storage products, today released a brand new Flash Card product line, CFast cards. The revolutionary new CFast cards integrate the rapid, more robust SATA interface into the existing CF card form factor, offering improved performance and convenience for a variety of industrial applications.
As with the SD card and its enhanced versions, SDHC and SDXC, CFast is the latest specification for CF cards, developed by CompactFlash Association (CFA) as a removable high-speed storage solution for industrial use. Compared to current CF cards based on the slower ATA/IDE interface, Transcend's CFast cards use the more modern SATA interface, delivering incredible transfer rates of up to 108MB/s. With the CFast card installed, users of industrial PCs or SATA 3Gb/s compatible devices will be able to store and access information at faster rates as a result of the enhanced communication between the card and its host device.
Transcend Information, Inc., a worldwide leader in memory and storage products, today announced the company's first 64GB Class 10 SDXC memory cards. Featuring an unprecedented amount of storage capacity and ultra fast transfer rates up to 25 MB/s, Transcend's new Ultimate SDXC cards are perfect for consumers in need of extended Full HD video recording time and improved camera performance for high-resolution digital photography.
SDXC (Secure Digital eXtended Capacity) is the next-generation standard for SD cards established by the Secure Digital Association (SDA). With supported capacities up to 2TB, SDXC offers vastly greater storage potential compared to the SDHC standard, which only supports capacities up to 32GB. A 64GB SDXC card can store a maximum of 26208 pictures (based on 5 megapixel JPEG compression format), 352 hours of standard quality video (MPEG-4 video at 384 Kbps), or 640 minutes of 1920x1080 Full HD videos. Thanks to its use of the exFAT file system that supports files larger than 4GB, Transcend's SDXC cards are the ideal complement to today's high-end SDXC-compatible DSLR cameras and HD camcorders.
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced that their new USB 3.0 Express Duo has broken the $15 price barrier.
The fastest USB 2.0 flash drives are limited to a maximum READ speed of approximately 32MB/s. Super Talent's new USB 3.0 Express Duo can top over 67MB/s when plugged into a USB 3.0 port, yet remains fully-backward compatible to USB 2.0… and for about the same price. Starting today, Super Talent will begin offering the 8GB USB 3.0 Express DUO for $14 and the 16GB version for only $29!
