Choiix Power Fort Backup Battery Review
Published: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - Power_Supply

Power is a fundamental problem when using our portable devices and often dictates how often that device is used. Talk time on your cell phone, or play time on a portable gaming console limit their effectiveness. While the battery life is designed to accommodate the majority of scenarios between charging you always find yourself holding back to conserve the battery life or running out of power when you might need it most.

Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 Motherboard Review
Published: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - Motherboards

It has been quite some time since we last reviewed an AMD enabled motherboard and much to our surprise not much has changed. Granted the processors have gotten more powerful and they overclock better however none of that can be realized if your motherboard cannot unlock all of that potential.

SilverStone HDDBoost Review
Published: Sunday, August 22, 2010 - Storage

SilverStone has pioneered a whole new type of hardware in the HDDBoost. The Idea is simple the execution is very well done and overall is quite a nice product. Installing it was far simpler than I had expected and there was no additional input really needed.

Ninjalane News

PNY to Rescue Users wth Broke BFG Cards

Published: Thursday, September 02, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Web

Good news for those of you (like myself) who own BFG videocards.  It would seem that PNY is attempting to monoplize on the misfortune of BFG by offering $25US off of a PNY product when you trade in your old BFG video card (working or not).  As an added bonus they are also giving away a free copy of Just Cause 2 for anyone opting for the trade in.

This is actually a really good deal for those of you sitting on BFG products and are worried about the uncertain future of their working status. 

So there are a couple of bonuses here, First PNY gets a nice fresh stock of old GPUs they can use for their own RMA processes.  Second the end users get something for their products that are now otherwise worthless (provided they are broken). Thirdly, you get a cool and relevant game title that would otherwise cost you almost $50US.

Sounds like a win win.  Head on over to Hothardware for their take on the situation, or over to PNY to start the trade in process.

Tesla Motors fined for lacking emissions Certificate

Published: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Web

Now this might be the craziest thing I have ever seen.  Well maybe not, but it still ranks up there pretty high.

A more recently inanity is the requirement that electric vehicles receive an emissions "Certificate of Conformity" from the EPA to comply with the "Clean Air Act." And, while Kansan storekeepers have long been excused from abiding by the obviously obsolete ordinance, such is not the case for America's best known electric car maker, Tesla Motors.

Seems the EPA doesn't have a definition on what an electric car really is, or does and treats the Cert as a stamp of approval.  Either way it kind of makes you think, Testa isn't the first company to make 100% eclectic vehicles, so did the other companies have to pay as well?

Intel almost halves prices for Core i7-950

Published: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Web

This is good news for a variety of reasons.  Price drops usually indicate that new technology is coming or shows that a certain processor segment is overpriced and needs a little "hurry along" 

Digitimes reports that the drop is likely in response to the recent price cuts of the Quad Core Athlon however we'd like to think it has something to do with Sandy Bridge

Intel recently dropped the price of its quad-core Core i7-950 processors to US$294 from US$562 to defend from AMD's recent price cuts for its quad-core Athlon II X4 640 CPU from US$122 to US$99, according to sources from motherboard makers.

In addition to the price cut, Intel also recently released Core i3-560, Pentium E6800 and Celeron E3500 processors with prices at US$138, US$86 and US$53, respectively, the sources noted. All the prices are in thousand-unit tray quantities.

If you are in the market, this would be the leading indicator saying to start buying.  (Provided you have funds to cover your purchase, don't go selling the farm just to own a i7-950, leave that trash to apple users.)

Sandy Bridge Infomation Released

Published: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Several sites have scooped up Sandy Bridge content and with the pending release we're likely to see more.  For those of you that may be out of the loop Sandy Bridge is the code name for the next generation of Intel LGA 1156 processors designed to upgrade the Lynnfield line.

Sandy Bridge is the next major architecture from Intel. What Intel likes to call a tock. The first tock was Conroe, then Nehalem and now SB. In between were the ticks - Penryn, Westmere and after SB we'll have Ivy Bridge, a 22nm shrink of Sandy.

Anandtech has some great info on Sandy Bridge so be sure to give it a read.

SandyBridge Part 1 @ Anandtech - Architecture Preview and Naming

SandyBridge Part II @ Anandtech - Mobile Roadmap

Cannot promise we'll have a SandyBridge chip on launch day, but as we all know the future is not set and anything can happen

NL: Review Block: Motherboard Blowout - GiggaWhat?

Published: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Gigabyte has been in the news a lot lately between new product releases, reviews, and GO OC.  Well here are some more reviews for your viewing pleasure.

- GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 Motherboard @ TechwareLabs
- GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 AMD 890FX Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews
- Gigabyte H55M-USB3 @ Bjorn3D
- Gigabyte X58A-UD9 review @ Guru3D
- Gigabyte X58A-UD7 @ ocaholic
- Sapphire IPC-AM3DD785G Socket AM3 DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard Review

Be sure to check out our Gigabyte reviews as well.  We have the GA-H55N-USB3 and the GA-890FX-UD5 already posted and awaiting your approval, (or flameage, whatever works)

End of an Era - ATI is Outta Here!

Published: Sunday, August 29, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Ninjalane

Well not really, as some of you know AMD bought ATI several years ago and has been doing the merger thing slowly over time.  Well it would seem it's time to finally ditch the ATI name and just use the brands they created

ie Radeon and FirePro

If you just bought an "ATI Radeon" and are proud of that fact, fear not.  Existing products, including the Radeon HD 5000 series, will not be re-branded.  Instead, AMD says the first products to carry the "AMD Radeon" brand will be introduced later this year.

Pretty cool stuff really, watch the news wire, there will be other similar stories coming out all week.

Intel Core i5-670 Benchmark-Comparison with i5-661 @ TweakPC

Published: Friday, August 27, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

I never really paid much attention to reviews like this in the past but now that Team Ninjalane has become competitive on HWBot it pays to look at performance differences of processors and which one might get you the best points from a competitive standpoint.

You tend to spend less money that way.

Today we send another CPU throuh our benchmarc-parcours: the Intel Core i5-670. How does it perform?

The review is in "de" language so be sure to click the little American flag for a google translated English version

GIGABYTE Announces GO OC 2010 Worldwide Final

Published: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Web

Anyone who has been around overclocking knows a little something about mfg sponsored overclocking competitions.  Most of the time they are small regional events designed to highlight a select crowd and maybe sell some product.  That is not the case with Gigaybe.  In fact Gigabyte hosts one of the largest competitions in the industry with several regional finals held in 5 countries with contestants from 33 countries competing for a spot in the finals held in Taipei Taiwan.

Well the votes are in and the hard work has paid off for the regional winners, come September 25th one of them will be crowned the grand champion.

Taipei, Taiwan, August 24, 2010 - GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and computing hardware solutions today proudly announced the 3rd annual GO OC (GIGABYTE Open Overclocking Championship) is soon to get underway. Contestants from over 33 countries have competed in the local and then regional finals which were held in Indonesia, China, Mexico, Spain and USA from June to August. The victors of the regional events will meet on the battlefield in Taipei, Taiwan at the Hua-Shan Creative Park (East 3 Hall) on Saturday, September 25th, 2010.

Sadly we were not invited to cover the event, however much like a golf or football game the scores will be posted for all to see and we will be watching the reports closely.

You'll find the full press release in the forums

Maybe next year someone from Team Ninjalane will get invited to attend, only time and clock cycles will tell.

MadMouse Glaciator Thermoelectric Chiller @ PureOverclock

Published: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

I have to admit I never believed in the power of "chilled" water in a watercooling loop until I had to build a chiller for a recent overclocking escapade. The chiller was extremely simple and consisted of a regular watercooling loop with an old Danger Den Maze 4 placed inline before the CPU waterblock.  The waterblock was then attached directly to my phase cooler and within minutes the water was down to near freezing temperatures.

PureOverclock is looking at a TEC version of the same concept that uses a dual loop design.  One loop cools the hot side of the TEC while the other cools the processor.

the MadMouse Glaciator is a thermoelectric water chiller designed to effectively cool your processor and avoid some of the trappings we've seen in other manufacturer designs. As we'll see, the Glaciator is a compact and lightweight chiller that can be integrated into any water cooling systems to chill PC or server components, able to chill the coolant to sub-ambient temperatures. Is the Glaciator is a hit or miss? Let's find out.

It is really amazing how simple a chiller really is, just comes down to how much heat you can remove to obtain the coldest liquid possible.

A tribute to my under-appreciated home file servers @ The Tech Report

Published: Monday, August 23, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Geoff Gasior over at the Tech Report has posted a little something about is "under-appreciated home file servers".  I think this post started as a question on their weekly podcast about home servers and if anyone used them.  As a person who knows a little something about fileservers I can honestly say they are a must for anyone who deals with mission critical information and needs to have access to it from wherever they happen to be.

I spend an almost embarrassing amount of time in front of my desktop PC. It's my workhorse, and the system that I endeavor to keep the most up to date. My home-theater PC gets used daily, as well. This system has coveted spot in the living room and even a glamorous role in the entertainment business. My sleek ultraportable notebook? She can often be found sitting on my lap, back arched, letting me push all her buttons.


My particular situation is a little different then Geoff's.  I have 2 servers running 24/7.  The first is a A64 running Linux, the linux box (as I call it) acts as my network firewall, Subversion repository, and backup fileserver.  The second server is used for development and consists of a P4 dual core running Windows Server 2003. 

I need a system like this so I can test and tune my asp.net applications, however its use doesn't stop there.  This server also hosts a 1TB RAID 5 that I use to store everything I need to have access to.   Movies, music, software..etc.. 

The server also stores the files I need for running Ninjalane.com including benchmark software, review images, and website content.  Of course If I didn't have a business need for an application server I could easily get by with a NAS unit and hardware router, but in my case that is not an option.

BitFenix Colossus Case Announcement

Published: Thursday, August 19, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Ninjalane

We didn't really follow any of BitFenix hype during Computex but several people got to see a prototype of the Colossus computer case featured here.  Based on the coverage the product seemed very unique.

Well after a few months of waiting the BitFenix flagship product is ready for public consumption.

Here are some of the key features

- Choice of Monolith Black or Glacier White
- Two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports
- PWM Fan Controller for fine tuning fan speeds with greater precision
- Multimode Light Controls (on, pulse, off)
- Advanced LED Lighting System with user-selectable red and blue
- BitFenix S3(TM) Storage and Security
- Complete cable management
- Seven hard disk bays and eight PCI slots
- Install up to two 230mm fans, three 140mm fans, or three 120mm fans
- Easy Installation and setup

Quite the laundry list, but when it comes to computer cases it's not all about if it can hold your gear, it also needs to look good.

For more information on this flagship chassis check out the Youtube trailer or follow the link below.

GO OC 2010 North American Final @ Techgage

Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

There has been some good coverage of the GO OC qualifier in North America and it would seem that everyone focused on a different aspect of the event.  Our friends from Techgage have posted a photo write up of the event that most everyone can appreciate

This past weekend, Gigabyte held its third GO OC NA final in Industry, California, and put fourteen of the best overclockers together in the same room and let them loose on Intel's Core i7-980X processor and Kingston's HyperX memory. We were there and have all the info, and more pictures than you can shake a memory stick at.

On a much more personal note we will be pushing hard to not only cover GO OC in 2011 but to also get someone from the Ninjalane HWBot team into the competition and hopefully win.

Gigabyte GA-X58-UD9 @ PureOverclock

Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

The mother of all motherboards is clearly the Gigabyte GA-X58-UD9.  It might not be as extreme as the EVGA SR-2 or as colorful as some of the ASUS offering but in terms of pure technology the UD9 is the reigning king of the overclocking world.

While I personally feel that some of the features are overkill and unnecessary you cannot deny that to get ahead in the overclocking arms race you have to push the limits.

We've seen many X58 motherboards since their initial launch, and lately some refreshes with SATA 6G and USB 3.0 coming to the market. But we've never seen a board with a price tag like the Gigabyte GA-X58-UD9. We are well aware of Gigabyte's reputation among overclockers, and truth be told, we're big fans as well, since we've seen them display some of the best stability and recovery from extreme overclocking we've ever encountered.  But the UD9 is crazy expensive, so how do things shake out when we put the board on sub-zero cooling?

In terms of overclocking the board does great and while the GA-X58A-UD3R will do many of the things found on the UD9 it does have its limitations.

NL: Review Block - Processors

Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Here is a first, can you tell what it is?

Processors
- Intel Core i7 875 K Performance and Overclocking @ ocaholic
- OC3D: Intel i7 970 Review
- AMD Phenom 2 X6 1090T CPU @ Rbmods

With the first ever posting of Processor reviews we also have cooling (btw we're still waiting for our Corsair H/A70 *hint*)
- Corsair H70 Hydro Series CPU Cooler Review @ Technic3D
- Corsair A70 Dual 120mm Fan CPU Cooler Review @ Legit Reviews
- Corsair Hydro H70 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Canucks
- XSPC Rasa Waterblock Review - XSReviews

Supercooling seems to be where my head is at lately, gonna start with SS Phase Change and attempt to graduate to something colder.

NL: Review Block - Forgetting to Remember, Memory

Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Ya lame title I know, but it made you look!

System Memory
- Patriot Sector 7 6GB DDR3-1800  @ PureOverclock
- Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB Kit 1600MHz (KHX1600C9D3B1K2) @ Bjorn3D
- A-DATA Plus Series PC3-15000 (1866MHz) 6GB Kit @ Tweaktown
- Funky Kit Review: Adata XPG DDR3-2200 4Gb Gaming Memory Kits
- G.Skill Flare DDR3 2000 MHZ C7 AMD kit review @ Guru3D
- G.Skill RipJaws DDR3 1333 review @ TweakPC

Solid State
- OCZ RevoDrive Review: SSD RAID + PCI-Express @ HotHardware

Memory reviews seem to have lost popularity in recent years, likely do to product line expansion common to most memory mfgs, so now instead of choosing the best memory you also have choices in SSDs, Flash Drives, and Power Supplies.  The first 2 seem reasonable, but PSUs?

Modding article - Project: Arcade in Metku

Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Mame arcade cabinets are nothing new in the gaming world; they bring back the lost art of gaming we enjoyed as kids and do so without the nasty need for quarters.

This might be one of the cooler cabinets I have seen with a complete build log and helpful scripts to get you started.

When I was a kid, I wanted to play all these coin operated games but my parents didn't let me. From there on since I've wanted to build an arcade gaming cabinet. Now that I have the technical skills and financial means, why not?!

This isn't a full height arcade but rather one of the smaller desktop units that you would normally find in the bar to play video poker on.

BFG Tech Sending Out RMA Denial Letters @ Hardware Canucks

Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

This is good considering the 3x GTX 260's I hunted high and low for are in fact BFG branded cards.  So not only were the cards impossible to find, but now seem to be part of history.

It looks like BFG has finally received the final nail within its coffin and is officially “….winding down and liquidating its business” in their own words.  Some of their customers who have recently sent in BFG video cards for RMA have begun receiving a letter from BFG along with their returned yet unrepaired product.

I guess paying extra for a well known brand like EVGA would have paid off in the end 

Sapphire Radeon HD5770 Flex Reviews

Published: Thursday, August 12, 2010 - By: Dennis
News Source: Ninjalane

In celebration of our posting our review of the Radeon HD5770 Flex video card we're gonna feature some of the similar reviews from around the web.  This new "Flex" card is pretty unique in that it not only supports quad monitor setups but more importantly Eyefinity over DVI.

Aside from that it's just like every other HD5770 card out there.  Minus the overclocked ones, or cards with fancy watercoolers, or cards with snakes coming out of under the memory chips (which would be cool BTW)

- Sapphire HD5770 Flex @ LanOC Reviews
- GTX470 Vs 5770 CrossFire: Get in the ring special @ KitGuru
- Sapphire ATI 5770 1gig Flex Edition Video Card @ GeekInvaders
- Sapphire Radeon 5770 FleX @ PureOverclock
- XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB Single Slot Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Sapphire Radeon 5770 FleX Edition @ HardwareHeaven
- Funky Kit Review: HIS Radeon HD 5770 IceQ5 (1Gb GDDR5)

Sadly it would seem the Sapphire HD5770 didn't overclock very well, which isn't "that" much of a surprise, especially considering the hit or miss (keyword "miss") nature of overclocking with standard Sapphire product releases.

The Vapor-X stuff tends to do pretty well so all we can do is hold out for one of those cards to be released or better yet a dually version of the HD5770. Just imagine Radeon HD5770 X2, has a nice ring to it no?