Tech News
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Lithium Battery 18650 Demand Increasing
Published: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 | By: DennisNot long ago I re-posted a story that talked about how the rare earth metal Lithium is actually in short supply and that supply will eventually lead to the doom of the mobile device market.
Of course with any new technology that is making money demand is up and while there is a demand there will be miners in the ground extracting the elements we need.
Currently, an electric car needs 7,800 cylindrical lithium batteries for power and first-tier electric car supplier Tesla is expected to ship 20,000 electric cars in 2013, which indicates that there will be demand for 156 million cylindrical lithium batteries from the electric car industry in 2013. Since Tesla's electric car shipments are expected to reach 42,000-50,000 units in 2014, demand is expected to grow even higher, the sources noted.
Google, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Microsoft have also recently started changing the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) modules for their data center solutions, switching from lead-acid battery-based modules to one using the 18650 lithium battery since lithium batteries are more eco-friendly and better in efficiency.Oh to be on the ground floor of Lithium stocks. The trick is knowing when to move on to the next major discovery. Personally the future of electric cars is in battery technology and we need something better than Lithium right now.
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MSI GTX 780 Lightning Review @ Hardware Canucks
Published: Monday, September 23, 2013 | By: DennisDare I say I'm obsessed? Ever since reviewing the EVGA 780 Classified I have become extremely interested in what other companies plan to release using the GTX 780 GPU. The obvious choice is the MSI Lightning due to its track record but is the silly yellow fan enough to destroy that legacy?
Some may be wondering why it took this long for MSI to launch the GTX 780 Lightning considering we’re now some four months after NVIDIA announced the reference card. Truth be told, we haven’t seen a single Lightning generation that was introduced close to a technology’s original unveiling. This is simply because MSI pays minute attention to their flagships by specifically binning cores and engineering the best possible cooling / PWM solution. Al of this takes a significant amount of time. We also can’t forget that the GTX 780 still has a good amount of shelf life left so it’s not like the Lightning is being rolled out during its twilight days.
It would seem that overclocking is about the same out of the box and with behind the scenes, backdoor bios support those numbers are likely to improve under the guise of LN2 chip chilling.
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Grand Theft Auto 5 sales surpass $1 billion
Published: Monday, September 23, 2013 | By: DennisColor me not suprised.
It has been five years since the last Grand Theft Auto hit the shelves and may fans of the series have been hungrily waiting for the next installment. Sales figures put worldwide sales at $800 million on launch day and $1 Billion after three.
Talk about kicking COD in the balls.
Take-Two Interactive announced today that based on internal estimates it believes Grand Theft Auto 5 sales have surpassed $1 billion during its first three days at retail. According to the company, the game is the fastest product to achieve that milestone.
If the estimates by the Rockstar Games' parent company are correct, it will have beaten the already ridiculous achievement by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 last year, which hit the billion milestone in 15 days.Sadly, and I said I wouldn't do this, I helped pad those figures but not until the following week. Say good-bye to my free time and, likely any fresh news posting.
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Grand Theft Auto 5 sales surpass $1 billion
Published: Monday, September 23, 2013 | By: DennisColor me not suprised.
It has been five years since the last Grand Theft Auto hit the shelves and may fans of the series have been hungrily waiting for the next installment. Sales figures put worldwide sales at $800 million on launch day and $1 Billion after three.
Talk about kicking COD in the balls.
Take-Two Interactive announced today that based on internal estimates it believes Grand Theft Auto 5 sales have surpassed $1 billion during its first three days at retail. According to the company, the game is the fastest product to achieve that milestone.
If the estimates by the Rockstar Games' parent company are correct, it will have beaten the already ridiculous achievement by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 last year, which hit the billion milestone in 15 days.Sadly, and I said I wouldn't do this, I helped pad those figures but not until the following week. Say good-bye to my free time and, likely any fresh news posting.
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MSI GTX 660 N660 Gaming 2GD5/OC Video Card Review @HiTech Legion
Published: Thursday, September 19, 2013 | By: DennisI must say the intro to this review is quite, informative.
Here is an unrelated quote approved by their email distribution.
The MSI N660 Gaming features an NVIDIA GTX 660 GPU with a factory over clock and an upgraded cooling solution The N660 Gaming seprates itself from it's N660 TF sibling by having a newer version of the Twin Frozr IV cooler and an application to utilize 3 overclocking presets. The upgraded cooler's fans are 12mm larger in diameter and te heatsink has a built in deflector plate to get more air moving directly over the heatpipes.
(OMG that is painful)
You might take 45 seconds and at least check out the intro, it has something to do with South Korea and some car Chevy wants to import but when they do the US public calls it nasty names. I guess it has some sort of parallel to what MSI did by releasing a GTX 660 Gaming card when they already had a GTX 660 on the market.
Of course the existing card was *Not* the GTX 660 Gaming but something different and didn't follow their new marketing direction. Dunno, maybe I don't see the issue.
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Intel Z87 and Haswell 24/7 OC Guide @ techPowerUp
Published: Monday, September 16, 2013 | By: DennisThe overclocking I do is focused on borderline stable performance and while this type of overclock gets the most performance it is only useful when doing competitive benchmarks. When you look at 24/7 stability you must consider the impact of long term overvoltage exposure and cooling. More often than not simply dialing back your OC is the solution
Overvoltage can damage the CPU and cause it to degrade while cooling can impact stability and also cause various components to prematurely fail. The TechPowerUp article touches on these facts and preaches that you should buy the best. (duh)
Make sure to grab from popcorn and a fresh beverage, you'll be reading for awhile.
Recently purchased a new Haswell-based CPU only to run into an overclocking nightmare? Looking for some tips to get a bit more out of your chip? After pushing the limits for several weeks and ending up with more than a few dead chips, we've come up with a guide focused on 24/7 overclocking with Haswell!
My suggestions are a little simpler.
1) Buy the best as a good motherboard goes a long way. Most any board featured on this site is a good candidate.
2) Get good memory. With Haswell 2133Mhz is a starting point, faster is better.
3) Get a factory overclocked video card, DX11 games are dependent on a good GPU.
4) Get a high powered PSU, the higher the rating the lower the heat output.
5) Get good cooling in your chassis, large cases tend to cool better.
6) DIY Watercooling is best
6) When it comes to actually overclocking the system keep voltage changes to a minimum, On the CPU you can often get 500+Mhz just from multiplier adjustments without voltage (limited to X and K type). Set memory to XMP and enjoy yourself. -
CYBERPOWERPC Infuses Enthusiast Gaming PCs with “King of the Core”
Published: Thursday, September 12, 2013 | By: Dennis4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Ivy Bridge-E processors
CITY of INDUSTRY, CA (September 10, 2013) – CyberPower Inc., www.cyberpowerpc.com a global manufacturer of custom gaming PCs, gaming laptops, and performance workstations, today announced the addition of Intel’s new Core i7 processors, codename “Ivy Bridge-E”, to its lineup of enthusiast and performance class gaming PCs.
Among the list of CYBERPOWERPC systems to incorporate the powerful 4th Generation Intel chip includes the Fang III Black Mamba and Cobra, Zeus EVO Storm series, Pro Gamer FTW, and Power Mega III high performance workstations. The E in Ivy Bridge-E stands for enthusiast as all three processor options are unlocked and ready for overclocking. Customers have three amazingly flexible and powerful CPU solutions – the quad-core i7-4820K; the six-core i7-4930K; or the king of the Core series, i7-4960X six-core processor – the ultimate weapon when users demand unrivaled PC performance for gaming or work.
The new Intel Core i7 processors also feature the advanced technology you’ve come to expect from Intel including Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 that provides the extra burst of speed for demanding applications and Intel Hyper Threading to ensure smooth system operation and multi-tasking.
You can also take your computing to the next level with CYBERPOWERPC’s expert venom boost overclocking option that can boost your overall CPU speed up to 30%.
CYBERPOWERPC has your cooling covered with a wide variety of water cooling solutions including its Advance Hydro Liquid Cooling Kit with 480mm radiator or the dual pump Advance Hydro 2 system.
The base price a CYBERPOWERPC gaming system featuring the new Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition starts at $1,859.
All Core i7 Extreme Edition models can be customized with a number of performance hardware and component upgrades such as CPU/GPU upgrades, solid state drives and storage hard drives, performance memory, peripherals and business software to enhance your productivity, and more at the company’s website, www.CYBERPOWERPC.com. All CYBERPOWERPC desktop systems include an industry best 3-year limited warranty.
About CyberpowerPC Inc.
CyberpowerPC Inc. www.CyberpowerPC.com was founded in 1998 and has emerged as a leading global provider of custom computer systems and interactive gaming products. Headquartered in Baldwin Park in Southern California, CyberpowerPC manufacturers and distributes a complete line of custom built gaming desktops, gaming notebooks and high performance workstations to meet the unique needs of gamers, businesses, government agencies, educational institutions and other end-users. For more information contact: Sales (800) 707-0393; Email CyberpowerPC@CyberpowerPC.com.
All products/company names are either trademarks or trade names of their respective holders. -
Intel i7-4930K & i7-4820K Ivy Bridge-E Review @ Hardware Canucks
Published: Thursday, September 12, 2013 | By: DennisI just bought a Core i7 4930K, I sure hope its a good one.
Intel's Ivy Bridge-E may be associated with extreme pricing, but the i7-4930K and i7-4820K brings things down a notch. With great performance and lower price points, they add some value to the IVB-E equation.
Based on the review they topped out at a little over 4.6Ghz which isn't really all that good considering my SB-E processors all do 4.7Ghz on air/water. Of course under LN2 they all scale up to 5Ghz+ so with any luck my IVB-E will do the same.
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Thermaltake NiC C4 CPU cooler @ PureOverclock
Published: Thursday, September 12, 2013 | By: DennisHeatsinks are created to keep your processor cool and also designed to fit a pre-determined form factor. This is one reason why OEM coolers are quite small and the aftermarket ones are just the opposite. Well as heatsinks got larger and more universal they created a problem with memory clearance.
Most companies took the easy way out and built their coolers to allow standard height memory to fit under the fins and let's face it when was the last time you bought a standard height memory module?
“We all probably know the name Thermaltake. They’ve been around for quite some time now and make cases, power supplies, GPU coolers, CPU coolers, and a ton of cool accessories. They’ve been taking the CPU cooler market by storm in recent years with their Frio line of coolers. They recently released their Water 2.0 series of AiO cooling systems as well. Their latest entry into the CPU cooler market is the NiC series which consists of four models – the F3, F4, C5 and the cooler we’ll be looking at today – the C4. NiC stands for non-interference cooling and the main goal was to provide performance and maximum RAM compatibility. Let’s take a closer look.”
I tested the NiC not to long ago and determined it works as advertised but does lack a little in the cooling department.
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LanOC V13 Recap @ LanOC Reviews
Published: Thursday, September 12, 2013 | By: DennisI have done a few small lan parties in my day and Darren has hosted some of the largest ones in Idaho and regardless of the size the effort to get everything together is quite big.
Of course the real challenge is trying to enjoy yourself while getting asked questions and taking care of the guests.
It’s been a few days now and not only have I set all of the PCs around the house back up, I also took the time to do detail cleaning around my desk. Even after a few days I feel little tired, an impromptu nap that went until 3pm yesterday helped some but it’s going to be a little while before I’m back to normal. All of it means we had another successful LAN. Of course the work doesn’t stop on Sunday for me, but before I get too far into it I wanted to post up a little bit of a roundup. Read on to hear more about it.
Some good pics in there, be sure to check it out.
