Congrats Team Romania Lab 501 for Winning MOA 2011

Lab 501 locked up another victory in overclocking compeititions after posting a massive 11796 3DMark 11 score and near perfect SuperPi 32m time of 6m 16.031 on a 2600k with a locked mulit at 50x.

Sadly the American teams of "Team OCAlliance" and "Team Over the Edge" came in spots 7 and 8 respectively due in part to the combined scores of the three benchmarks and not placing high in the rankings. 

I spent the evening watching most of the competition (up until 3DMark 2001) and was very pleased with the format and coverage, of course there is more that could be done to enhance the experience but sometimes just watching from afar is good enough.

The last two US teams, "Team Last Minute" and "Team Pure" had a terrible time in the ranks which is likely due to poor processors or system issues.   

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MOA: Master Overclocking Arena 2011 Finals - Tonight!

The exciting conclusion to the MSI Master Overclocking Arena 2011 occurs tonight (8:00pm MST).

For those of us not able to attend the competition in person be sure to check out the live web cast accessible from the MOA website.  I don't expect there to be a whole lot to see but if they do it right you'll get a front row seat into the exciting final match for what started in Vegas early this year.

In the meantime you can check out our photo gallery from the MOA:Las Vegas event and be sure to support your favorite teams participating in the event.

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Motherboard brands struggling to survive in the notebook market

The title of this news post somewhat implies that notebooks are killing the motherboard business but when you read the article you'll find that its the motherboard's notebook lines that are killing the company.

While Asustek Computer is aggressively pushing its ultrabooks in the notebook market, its fellow motherboard competitors are mostly still struggling in the notebook industry, according to sources from motherboard players.

-- snip --

Although Gigabyte will not join the first round of ultrabook competition, the company is already planning models featuring Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processor for the first half of 2012. With demand for ultrabooks expected to start rising in 2012, Gigabyte is confident that it will be able to achieve its goal of turning a profit with its notebook business.

Notebooks are really a very "personal" platform device that, aside from hardcore business use, really needs to appeal to the user and almost match their demands completely.  Combine that with the infrequency of their purchase and it's no wonder companies struggle to sell them.

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eVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified Review @ Guru3D

This is a very interesting review quote that makes the review seem like they are surprised that EVGA is actually catering to their market base with a one of a kind video card designed to rival any of the custom PCB video cards on the market.

eVGA released the GeForce GTX 580 Classified. It is released in three flavors, the 'regular' version with air cooling, a liquid cooled version and then for the 0.000000001% of pro overclockers a kit with LN2 sub-zero cooling pots.

In-between these models you can opt for 1.5 and 3 GB versions as well. The card tested today comes with a funky dual-slot cooling design based on an 8 cm fan. eVGA overhauled the PCB design and wanted just the best on it so you'll spot a customized VRM and 14+3 phase design.

The card looks like pure awesome, with some luck we might even get to test one under extreme conditions.

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NL: Review Block - Cases, Storage and Cards

Cases
- Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E (Evolution) mATX System Enclosure reviewed in Metku
- Silverstone GD06 HTPC chassis review
- Sentey Optimus GS-6000 Mid-Tower ATX Computer Case Review @ Tweaknews
- Raidmax Blackstorm Mid-Tower Case Review
- Lian Li PV-V600FR @ PureOverclock
- Thermaltake Armor A30 MicroATX Computer Case Review @ Bigbruin

Memory and Storage
- Corsair Force GT 240GB Solid State Drive Review
- The Memoright FTM Plus SATA 3 SSD Review @ The SSD Review
- VisionTek Ulimate 8GB DDR3-1600 @ PureOverclock
- Patriot Wildfire 120 GB SSD @ techPowerUp

Video Cards
- ASUS GTX580 DirectCU II Graphics Card Review @ OCIA
- ASUS GeForce GTS 450 Direct CU Silent Video Card Review

Stay tuned, more on the way.

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"Diggnation," to End in December

Caught this story off of Twitter and I am a little sad to see the show being shut down.

Their explanation for ending it: They’ve grown up, just like the Web has. “We started this show as kids,” said Mr. Albrecht, now 35. “Both of us came into Web video at a time when ‘Web video’ wasn’t even a word.”

Said Mr. Rose, 34: “There are other things, creatively, that we’ve started to do that are a little more fresh and exciting.”

A Web video network, Revision3, was built in large part on the back of “Diggnation,” and like a traditional television network, it is carefully managing the announcement about the show’s end. “We’ve built the company to the point where, when a show goes through its natural life cycle, that’s fine,” the Revision3 chief executive, Jim Louderback, said in an interview last week. 

Gotta love it when a media network can be built around a popular web show, makes you wonder how different the web0sphere would be if media networks actually promoted the various properties they advertise with.

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Gigabyte X58A-OC Intel X58 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers

The Gigabyte X58A-OC has been making the rounds but is clearly not a very popular model since I suspect most sites, and enthusiasts, are holding out for X79 and trying not to pay attention to anything X58 anymore.

What is really crappy is that even if you did buy one of these motherboards finding a halfway decent memory kit for it will be next to impossible.  There are plenty of modules tuned for Sandy Bridge but nothing left for LGA1366.

People have been overclocking computer hardware for quite some time. Overclocking is not that hard at all, but to really get the highest achievable overclocks you need a motherboard that can take the punishment. Over the past 2 years we have seen efforts from many different manufacturers, but these efforts were targeted at 2 different demographics, overclockers and gamers. So you had all of these boards that had all the features that gamers and overclockers wanted, but what if you just wanted the overclocking features? Today we are taking a look at motherboard that gives you all of those overclock ing features and cuts out all the extra “fat” that is not needed. This board has been designed from the ground up to be best overclocking motherboard for the X58 platform. The motherboard I am talking about is the X58A-OC from Gigabyte, let’s see how far we can push this board

Ok dispite the long description I clicked on over to the OC page and saw this.

I tried to go right up to 4.4Ghz, but Windows would blue screen upon startup so I went back to the 160 frequency and used a multiplier of 27.  This brought the system up to 4.3GHz, which was the highest overclock we were able to attain and the highest overclock we have ever attained with this processor.

Clearly they are "not" overclockers, which makes you wonder why they bothered to review such an awesome board.

Be sure to check out our review of the X58A-OC where we put a 980X under phase and crank things up to 5Ghz.

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Are sound cards still relevant? - A Blog @ TechReport

There is an interesting blog post over at TechReport that touches on the extremely old subject of sound cards and if they are worth your time.  From a sound quality standpoint it depends on how the discrete card was constructed and if it offers the digital connections you are looking for.  In most cases discrete is the way to go for HTPC and high end gaming, not because the sound quality is better but rather the digital audio options (for HTPC) and offloading sound processing for smoother gameplay (for Gaming).

At the end of the day, the Xonar DX's audio quality is just enough of an improvement over the old integrated solution to make me keep the sound card around. I can live with manually selecting the headphone jack, but I really shouldn't have to considering that an entire motherboard supporting this feature can be purchased for the cost of the $82 Xonar.

This paragraph jumped out at me as being a rather poor excuse to put a positive spin on a bad experience.  

Oh and if you do happen to read the blog post be sure to read the Editors comment at the bottom, trying to save face are we?

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EVGA GTX580 Classified 3072MB Air @ LanOC Reviews

The description pretty much tells the story and genesis of this awesome video card from EVGA.  Maybe one day we'll get one to put thru the paces.

Nvidia’s GTX580 launched close to a year ago yet is still one of the top performing video cards on the market. When you are a manufacture like EVGA, where do you go after you have introduced a full product line around the GTX580? Apparently if left alone, EVGA’s engineers in collaboration with overclockers “k|ngp|n” and “TiN”) will turn the GTX580 a monster just begging to be overclocked. With a revamped VRM circuitry with solid-state chokes, dual BIOS’s, and power coming from two 8 pin’s AND a 6pin this could very well be the fastest GTX580 on the market when overclocked. Of course the only way to find out is to read farther into our review.

Monster power, monster heatsink, and monster clocks.  Sadly to get the "most" from this card you'll have to trash that aircooler and go with something cooler but with a core clock of 855Mhz you may have all you need, at least for gaming.

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Got my Battlefield 3 Beta Invite - How about you?

With all this talk about Battlefield 3 I thought I would share some of my good fortune.

Battlefield 3 Alpha Trial & Battlefield 3 Open Beta (48 hours early!! )

I'm still not a fan of how the game loads,  First you have to launch from Origin which then spawns your default browser to log you into the BattleNet.  From there you can choose to play a "Quick Match" (the only thing available in the beta).  Clicking Quick Match will spawn another window with a "join server" button.  Clicking that will spawn another process to connect you to a multiplayer server.  If you're lucky it will come back with a button that actually launches the game and allows you to play.

When you are killed in the game you have to wait for the "Deploy" button to show which will get back into the action.  Of course clicking that button takes awhile to register so you're actually out of it for a good 15 seconds while you wait.

Oh ya, and it looks like there is only a single map.

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Cooler Master Storm Trooper Launch Day

A new addition to the CM Storm line has been announced and might be one of the best cases ever made.

The Trooper is a case offering that should be near the top of the list for anyone who is in the market for a full tower case.  The MSRP of $189.99 makes it about middle of the range for this sort of case.  The CM Storm Trooper is quite possibly the best case I have reviewed this year, so I am happy to award it 9/10 – LanOC Recommended.

Trooper Reviews
- Cooler Master Storm Trooper Gaming Case Review @ Ninjalane
- Cooler Master Storm Trooper Full Tower Case Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Cooler Master Storm Trooper @ LanOC Reviews

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NL: Review Block - Cases and Coolers

Seems fitting that we do a case and cooler review block considering that is all I have done for the past 5 days.

Cases
- Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced @ Bjorn3D
- SilverStone Raven RV03 @ Hexus
- SilverStone Temjin SST-TJ08-Evolution M-ATX Tower Chassis Review
- OC3D: Silverstone TJ08 Review

Coolers
- Corsair H100 Self-Contained Liquid CPU Cooler Review @ Techgage
- Corsair Hydro Series H100 CPU Water Cooler @ Metku

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Sapphire 6850 Vapor-X @ PureOverclock

Ever wondered what could be done with the HD 6850 with a really good aircooler?  How about 970Mhz on the core.

We are looking at the replacement for the original HD 5770: the Sapphire Radeon HD6850 Vapor-X. This card sports Sapphire's non-reference heatsink, black diamond chokes and 10-Phase power design, and looks to bring some robust gaming horsepower at lower temperatures with the popular Vapor-X cooler design. The HD 6850 graphics card was made for the mainstream population, with an MSRP of less than $170 and an added bonus of DiRT 3 thrown in to the mix, this looks like a very promising package for the average user.

I do really love these custom PCB video cards, they just seem like the right way to go moving forward.  Its too bad more companies don't do the same.

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Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 Motherboard Review @ HardCoreWare

Looking to get into a Sandy Bridge system but are choosing to experience the low cost nature of the platform?  Well you may consider a board just like this one.

The Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 is just one of many Z68 configurations made by Gigabyte, this one a mid-range full ATX board with not a lot of bells and whistles. What does $130 get you?

We of course looked at the ultra-high-end UD7 edition of the same motherboard, and while it comes with a few more features designed for overclocking it will have the same basic "default" performance as the UD3.

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How to Overclock Sandy Bridge E to 5GHz @ Bit-Tech

Now that IDF is over and editors have had time to look over the SBE (Sandy Bridge E) info from the slide presentations you're bound to find exploritory articles speculating how to overclock future systems by reverse engineering what is presented.

For instance we already know that SBE is based on the Sandy Bridge architecture and that some of the leaked specs and board designs indicate that the LGA2011 is basically two SB chips stuck together.  Of course that is an over simplification but good enough for now.  One of the limitations of Sandy Bridge was the lack of real Base Clock overclocking since there was no independent system clock to control SATA and PCI Express speeds.  Basically that means you run the risk of out of frequency errors as the Base Clock increased.

Based on this article they are speculating that the same Base Clock limitation exists in SBE but Intel has introducted an additional mulitplier upstream of Base Clock to further alter CPU speed.

Let’s say we’re aiming for an overclock of 5GHz (something that the Intel engineers said they had achieved during a bit of mucking around in their office). We don’t know how much of an overclock that is, but we know that 50x100MHz=5GHz. However, if we have a ‘locked’ Sandy Bridge E CPU that doesn’t have a multiplier of 50 or more, we’ll have to change the System Clock and the CPU divider instead. The maths requires us to work backwards from 5GHz like this:

1) 5,000 ÷ 1.66 = 3,012
2) 3,012 ÷ 100 = 30.012
3) 3,012 ÷ 30 = 100.4

In step 1 we’ve used the highest CPU divider to ‘gear down’ the desired overclock to System Clock and CPU multiplier ranges we’re confident of being able to use. In step 2 we’ve divided the result of step one by the desired System Clock – we’re still a little nervous about taking the System Clock too far from 100MHz (weirdly, we’re more nervous of this than Intel, it seems) as it’s the clock that's used by buses such as SATA and USB, and we’d rather not lose all our data.

The calculation above is using basic high school algebra to determine a Base Clock speed for a 5Ghz overclock assuming the following constants.

- Desired Speed
- Reference Clock Ratio (There appears to be two of them 1.25 and 1.66, I'm going to go out on a limb and assuming mobo makers will include more.)
- CPU Multiplier (assuming 95Mhz Bclk and the assumption that you can lower the mulitplier)

Great stuff, I can't wait to start tinkering.

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NL: Review Block - Video Cards Coolers and Cases

Video Cards
- ASUS Mars II graphics card review
- ASUS GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB Graphics Card Review @ Bigbruin
- Sparkle Calibre X560DF Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
- MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III 1GD5 Power Edition OC @ Bjorn3D
- MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition Review
- HIS 6870 IceQ 1GB @ PureOverclock

Card Coolers
- Alpenfohn Peter GPU Cooler Review @ XSReviews
- Alpenfohn Peter VGA Cooler @ Madshrimps

Cases
- NZXT Tempest 410 Elite Mid-Tower Chassis Review @ Techgage
- Akasa Venom Toxic @ techPowerUp
- Lian Li PC-90B 'The Hammer' @ techPowerUp

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NVIDIA Talks PC Gaming Trends @ Techgage

NVidia has always pushed the PC when it comes to gaming and even helped game developers implement nVidia technology in their upcoming titles.  While we like to complain that consoles have killed PC game development it would seem that isn't always the case.

Some claim that PC gaming is dying, but recent trends disagree. In fact, it looks to be console gaming that's soon to see a decline, thanks in part to a growing number of compelling aspects that PCs offer - including at the very least free-to-play games. Let's take a look at these and other trends, and the reasons behind them.

I don't mind paying for games just so long as they provide me with some enjoyment and have a good single player story line.  Sadly very few games can deliver.

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GIGABYTE GTX 570 Super Overclock SOC @ OCAU

When it comes to high-end super cards you can't go wrong with the SOC from Gigabyte.  The card comes "hot clocked" from the factory and features their triple fan "Windforce" GPU cooler to help control overclocked heat loads.  Of course if mortal cooling isn't your style simply press the LN2 button, strap on a GPU pot and pour for broke.

GIGABYTE's Super Overclock series of products is well known for pushing the envelope of overclocker-friendly features and high factory-shipped clock speeds. After reviewing their GTX 580 SOC, we thought it would be worth benchmarking its more affordable brother, the GTX 570 SOC. At first look we noticed that it was, like its big brother the GTX 580, a complete redesign - from the cooling, PCB design, power circuitry and amped up clock speeds. The GTX 570 SOC maintains a dual slot design and familiar form factor seen with the GTX 580 SOC. So how does this perform against NVIDIA's pricier GTX 580, and what features does it bring to the table? Let's fire up our test bench and find out!

From what we can tell the SOC line is the only one that is specifically designed for overclocking with a custom PCB that remains well within ATX spec.

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Intel's Next-Gen Sandy Bridge-E Extreme Chip to Boost Performance by 65%

This is some good news for us Workstation enthusiasts, now if the processor will also overclock like the 900 series we'll have a great tweaking processor as well.

According to a document with Intel's performance estimates of the Core i7-3960X processor (six cores, 3.30GHz, 15MB cache) seen by X-bit labs, the forthcoming chip for the LGA2011 platform is clearly faster than its predecessor Core i7-990X (six cores, 3.46GHz, 12MB cache) across a range of benchmarks despite of lower clock-speed amid the same amount of cores due to advantages of the Sandy Bridge micro-architecture over Nehalem/Westmere micro-architecture, quad-channel memory controller and other innovations.

I'm beginning to wonder what the difference is between X and K skus besides the L3 cache size.  According to the chart they both have unlocked multipliers and we already know 8 core CPUs will be "Xeon" branded for servers.  So, what does X mean?  Multi processor maybe?

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Intel Core i7-3930K compared to Core i7-980X

After IDF I started doing some more research into what will come with the LGA2011 processors and X79.  Of course the information is sparse and likely to change but the rumor mill appears to be quite knowledgeable.

With Sandy Bridge as the foundation the processors will be tweaked with a quad-core DDR3 memory controller, better overclocking and up to six cores in retail - eight for servers.

We knwo since earlier that Intel is planning at least three Sandy Bridge-E processors in the Intel Core i7-3000 series this fall and it is the middle child Core i7-3930K that Cooler has. The processor will operate at 3.2 GHz, but can overclock to 3.8GHz in Turbo mode. it was locked at the nominal frequency and then compared to Intel's current Gulftown architecture at the same clock frequency and number of cores.

Minus the misspellings the article is quite interesting and talks about 3 basic skus with the high end editions being X and K complete with unlocked multipliers.  All processors will feature a 130w TDP and quad memory channels so they almost mimic the 1155 lineup.

The 130w TDP is quite high considering SandyBridge-E appears to be nothing more than two 1155 processors smashed together, I guess they need a little extra juice to get all of the cores and PCI Express lanes to work.

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