Hardware Asylum T-Shirts Available Now!!

Back in the days of Ninjalane.com I showed and shared my support for the website by embroidering the Ninjalane star on some shirts.  Most of them were for me but I always made some extras as gifts for my mfg partners and sold a few to friends.

With the launch of Hardware Asylum I figured it was time to design me up some t-shirts but instead of doing a simple embroidery I went the silkscreen route and have to admit they turned out GREAT!

You will find the large Hardware Asylum logo and web address on the back and a smaller version of the flame guy on the front left chest.

As it would turn out when you do "real" screen printing there is a minimum order you must put in and after the pre-orders have been shipped and my samples removed there are some extras.

For those of you who would like to get a piece of Hardware Asylum history send me an email.  I currently have Mens Large and Extra Large available (American sizes) @ $15.00/ea + shipping (US Postal) PayPal is accepted.

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Use Your Borderlands 2 Golden Keys!?!

For those of you who have played Borderlands 2 there is a chance you have seen the Mysterious Golden Chest in Sanctuary.  As you are progressing thru the game it becomes difficult to get "good" high level loot making your game progress take longer.  The Golden Chest is a way around that and by spending a Golden Key you are rewarded with a guaranteed purple drop that is level matched to the character who spent the key.

If you follow Gearbox Software on Facebook or @DuvalMagic (Randy Pitchford) on Twitter you will get a chance at getting more Golden Keys.  For instance they posted keys for 5 Golden Keys today on twitter with a follow up message.

Randy Pitchford @DuvalMagic
PS3: CT5BJ-6FZCH-TXX5T-SB5BJ-3CHC5
WinPC/Mac: KB5TJ-CJB3Z-H6KKT-BB33B-KH33B
X360: CBWJ3-BKXSX-HSJ5X-WX3TJ-6BBZS

Randy Pitchford @DuvalMagic
SHiFT codes for five Golden Keys for Borderlands 2 on the way. Use them, don't horde them. Good luck, and happy hunting!

The ongoing rumor in the community is that every time a Golden Key is spent a snapshot of your player and game data is sent back to Gearbox so they can determine how often you play, what level your character is and what loot you have.  I suspect they can also gauge how popular the game is which might have also been a driving force behind all the DLC they released.

As listeners of the Hardware Asylum Podcast will know, Darren and I have played a bunch of Borderlands 2, and still play on occasion.  Sadly there comes a time when the loot you have is actually better than what the Golden Chest can provide so you tend to horde the keys figuring that you might use them when you need extra cash or when a playing partner needs a better gun or something.

Right now I have a total of 186 Golden Keys and stopped spending them when I realized that the purple gear in the chest was rather crappy compared to what I have collected.  I'll continue to collect keys for as long as Randy keeps posting them however, unless they start allowing legendaries and pearls to crop up in the chest the chance that I'll spend them is pretty slim.

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EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified K|ngp|n Edition Video Card Review @ Hardware Asylum

We have said this a few times now but overclocking is a big part of the enthusiast community so we tend to look for special products designed to help us reach our goals. The EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified K|NGP|N Edition is clearly a video card designed for hardware enthusiasts looking to get the most from their system. That is provided you are using it correctly.

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NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti Video Card Review @ Hardware Asylum

The great thing about being NVIDIA is that they always have something available to take on the competition and today they have launched the world’s fastest GPU the GTX 780 Ti(tan)ium.  When this card was announced figured it was nothing more than an overclocked GTX Titan with a 700 series name badge.  However, final specs uncovered that it was so much more.

GTX 780 Ti comes with 2880 CUDA cores (more than Titan) 7000Mhz memory modules (Faster than Titan) and a 875Mhz Core Clock (Quicker than Titan) which makes this card, at the lowest level, a powerhouse of parallel processing.

And, Hardware Asylum as a review

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MSI Master Overclocking Arena 2013 live photo coverage @ Hardware.Info

The MSI MOA this year was plagued with a limited budget that not only impacted the format of the competition but also where it was hosted.  While this may have limited any local foot traffic for those of us outside of Taiwan you wouldn't have known the difference.

The MOA this year occurred over the course of two days and followed a similar format to previous years.  Three benchmarks with the best improvement of score winning that stage but, as we have seen just because you win a stage doesn't mean you'll win the competition.

Hardware.Info appears to have been one of the invited media and has a pretty good photo log of the event.

We’re doing live coverage of MSI’s Master Overclocking Arena 2013 overclocking event today. 16 overclockers from all over the world compete in three benchmarks; SuperPi 32M, Cinebench 11.5 and 3DMark Fire Strike. We’ll updating the link below all day long with new pictures.

--snip--

Unfortunately one overclocker has to quit the competition before the end. Italian OC-guru Giorgioprimo already had bad luck in the morning, sacrifing his first MPower board. Halfway the Fire Strike session his second board also crashed. And there's more: Mikecdm's Samsung based Lightning card died during the competition.

Darren and I will be discussing the MOA on the next Podcast so stay tuned.

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AMD benchmarks show R9 290X faster than GTX 780

This might be "old news" for the AMD fans out there but last week at the NVidia event in Montreal there were rumors floating around that AMD had set up shop nearby and that NVidia reps were camped out watching to see who (of their invited media) actually went to go see them.

We all know that companies take advantage of media coverage when they can and even make up creative ways to invite them that doesn't come off as morally disrespectful, however wrong it may be.

Journalists (including TR's Scott Wasson) are gathered in Montreal this week for an Nvidia event. It so happens that AMD is right next door to the Nvidia venue, armed with one of its upcoming Radeon R9 290X graphics cards—and it's taken the opportunity to release some internal benchmarks comparing that card to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780.

I wasn't suprised to hear that AMD was in the area during the NVidia event, they tend to bogart time during the IDF and yet when they host a private media showing in Hawaii does Intel or NVidia butt in?

I'm not sure, seems they never invite me to those kinds of parties.

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nVidia Announces the GTX 780 Ti R290X Killer

nVidia is having a little "event" in Canada this week and today marks the second day of announcements including a new GPU.  Most folks farming for traffic said it wasn't going to happen while others would string you along saying "we swore we wouldn't tell".  Either way the rumormill was correct and we indeed have a new GPU.

Enter the GTX 780 Ti

Today in Montreal, NVIDIA announced they will be releasing the GTX 780 Ti in mid-November (it will be a hard launch).  This card is meant to compete and potentially one-up AMD’s upcoming R9 290X in a big way.  It is supposed to be quiet, run cool and provide a ton of performance.

Of course the news is just breaking so details are sparse but according to nVidia "this is the fastest GPU we have ever produced" which would indicate it is faster than Titan.  

Personally I think its just a Titan core on a retail card but with the 780 name badge it will likely be limited to 3-way SLI and generally cost too much for anyone to care.  

More to come.

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Pink is the new Black by Enermax

In the early days of computer chassis design everything was beige because beige was a neutral color that went with almost everything, it is also where the phrase "the beige box" came from.  Modding changed the landscape somewhat and introduced a rainbow of colors applied to a variety of cases from mild customs to inexpensive pre-mods.  They all had something to offer and usually in a color that suited your tastes.

Of those colors you don't normally see Pink, and when you do its usually in conjunction with a cartoon or part of a custom mod done by an end user.  That is, until now.

Enermax has released the new Ostrog Pink chassis which is pretty much your standard mid tower chassis featuring a soft Pink exterior and glossy white center.  USB and power controls are located at the top, it comes with a removable HDD cage for longer graphics cards and features a varity of filters and screwless ODD kits (the 5.25 drive bays).

Pink may not be the color of the hardcore gamer and color matched components may be difficult to source but any fan of pink, ladies included, may find this case the perfect alternative to modding a chassis themselves.

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SilverStone Tundra TD02 & TD03 Review @ Hardware Canucks

When is a cooler, *not* a cooler? Well, I'm not sure such a thing exists.  In fact the new Tundra chillers from Silverstone are quite good though feature some interesting design decisions.

With the Tundra TD02 and TD03, SilverStone has officially entered the water cooling market with two extremely competitive all in ones.  They compete well against the likes of Corsair's H100 series and NZXT's Krakens.

There is only so much  you can do with an AIO watercooler before you run into bottlenecks either in pump power, radiator size, fan speed and even the diameter of the hoses can impact performance.

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Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 @ Modders-Inc

The nice thing about being part of the "trusted" hardware media is that you get to see the genesis of products from their first concepts to the pre-launch displays.  The Cooler Master HAF Stacker is one such case that I first saw at CES.

To be honest I wasn't really a fan of the design but it has potential, especially in the modding community.

I think we have all thought at one time or another that if we could just build a case that we wanted it would bee so cool. Or not having to cram in all your hardware, water cooling setup, hard drives and all the wires and cables that go with it. Cooler Master must have been thinking the same thing and came up with a totally new idea for the computer case market. The Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 is like nothing you have every seen before.

Now for the real question, why didn't we get one for review??

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