Tech News
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Dell sold to Microsoft, Silver Lake for $24 billion
Published: Thursday, February 7, 2013 | By: DennisThe big thing in the news these past couple weeks is the sale of Dell Computers and word has come out that Microsoft is one of the new owners with a 2 billion dollar chunk of cash.. I guess we now know where all of the new Surface tablets will be coming from.
In an unexpected and exciting twist for the PC industry, Dell — pending regulatory and stockholder approval — has been sold to Microsoft, Silver Lake, and Michael Dell himself for $24.4 billion. Michael Dell remains the largest shareholder with 16%, and will continue to run the company. Microsoft’s part of the sale totals $2 billion, though big questions remain about how Microsoft will be involved in the newly-private company.
This may show my age a bit but "Dude! you're getting your company back!"
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Zotac shows off the ZT-Z77 Crown-U1D motherboard @ VR-Zone
Published: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 | By: DennisI saw a sneak of this motherboard on Facebook today and started looking around for more information. It would seem this Z77 from Zotac is clearly designed for the uber enthusiast who wants the best power delivery and features. However its missing some, well, features.
For instance there is no PCI Express bridge chip so you'll only be able to do 2-way SLI or Crossfire. The spacing between the PCI Express slots is only two giving you very little space between the cards to keep them cool. Given that this is a full ATX motherboard there is PLENTY of room.
The board does feature onboard wireless similar to every other Zotac motherboard and you have a few benchtop buttons right next to the primary 24pin power connector. Really the only saving grace is the PWM.
Some motherboards have 10 phase PWMs, others have 4. the Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 has 32 while some of the higher end X79 boards feature 12 at best. The Zotac Z77 Crown comes with 24 power phases that wraps around the entire CPU and occupies the space normally left for the North Bridge or PCI Express bridge chip. Maybe the best feature of this PWM design is the large FPCAP power capacitor used to condition power going to the CPU giving you better stability at super high frequencies.
Some say these are unnessarry, but cleaner power means cleaner overclocks.
Chances are I will never see this motherboard in the Ninjalane Labs and if Zotac follows their normal pattern of high end product releases the enthusiasts of China will get first dibs and likely be the only market they pursue.
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GIGABYTE Z77X-UD4H LGA1155 Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks
Published: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 | By: DennisI am glad to see that Gigabyte has scaled back their product launches a bit and aren't releasing as many motherboards as they did when P67 and Z68 came out. Something tells me that between the chipset recall and back to back chipset launches the product guys/gals decided that offering more features instead of more options was a better way to go.
Case in point, the new Z77X-UD4H.
Gigabyte's new Z77X-UD4H is among a new breed of motherboards which combine high end feature sets with an affordable price. Boasting great overclocking abilities and dual card Crossfire / SLI compatibility, it seems to have everything a budget-conscious enthusiast could possibly want.
Truth be told the board is almost identical to the Z77X-UD3H that I reviewed. The layout is the same and features are similar but it overclocks memory like mad. Due in part to a less complex board design lending its self to better signaling between processor and memory.
Sadly while the Z77X-UP7 is a super awesome motherboard the complexity lends to its downfall when it comes to high speed memory overclocking, just not going to happen.
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ASRock Z77 OC Formula Motherboard Review @ Madshrimps
Published: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 | By: DennisAre you in the market for a signature motherboard endorsed, modded and designed by a famous overclocker? Then you may want to look at the ASRock Z77 OC Formula.
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The Z77 OC Formula is one of the high performance motherboards from ASRock, was built in cooperation with the well-known overclocker Nick Shih and features a 12 + 4 VRM design covered by a massive waterblock/heatsink, an 8-layer PCB, measuring points, plenty of thermal sensors and more. What we also like about this board is the fact that they have removed the legacy components like Floppy/IDE interfaces along with the PCI slots, in order to have a clean motherboard PCB design in the end.
Personally I like the heatsink design and the inclusion of a fan to keep the PWM cool. They never do get that hot (or shouldn't) but when you are benching with water or LN2 having a little air moving around the PWM can go a long way.
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SilverStone PP06B Individual-Sleeved PSU Cables Review @ Pro-Clockers
Published: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 | By: DennisSome people don't like the look of individually sleeved PSU cables claiming that several things died many years ago and looking at PSU cables was one of them. But, in a world where casemodding is still a popular pastime anything different is generally good.
If this last route seems the best avenue for you and if you already own a SilverStone power supply that was manufacturer after 2009, they have some for you to look at. SilverStone has gone the route similar to Corsair and is offering sleeved cables. For a few weeks only black were available but red and white have recently showed up on their site. So, it is some to clean of the interior of one of our test rigs.
The great thing about these cables is that they come with some select PSUs but can also be bought aftermarket for any Silverstone modular PSU.
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NL: Review Block - Coolers and Storage - The good stuff
Published: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 | By: DennisQuick review block showing the latest cooler reviews spiced up with some SSD action. Normally I skip over the SSD stuff but these are pretty good.
The Coolas
- Zalman LQ320 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets
- Silverstone NT06-Pro Topdown SFF/HTPC CPU Cooler Review @ Hi Tech Legion
- Evercool Silent Shark CPU Cooler Review @ Pro-Clockers
Storage - SSD Style
- Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD Review @ Techgage
- OCZ Vector 256GB @ Bjorn3DNot the end of the world, just the end of this news post
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What Happens When a 900mph Ping Pong Hits Your Paddle
Published: Monday, February 4, 2013 | By: DennisI do love physics in the morning.
There's no shortage of plans online for building a simple ping pong cannon that can fire balls at hundreds of miles per hour. But you're probably not going to find the details of Purdue University Professor Mark French's cannon, since his creation can accelerate a ping pong ball to 900 miles per hour, or just over Mach 1.2.
When I was looking for a college to attend my decision was mostly based on word of mouth from previous students and friends who had attended. Of course cost also had a factor in my decision but in the end I choose my college based on the stuff they were capable of doing.
The video on this article is a great motivator, almost makes me want to head back to school.
Almost
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ASUS ROG ARES II Video Card - Massive Monster or Docile Dog?
Published: Friday, February 1, 2013 | By: DennisFancy new HD7990 card from Asus but instead of the normal stock style cooler they opted to include a self contained watercooler and blocks for each GPU.
Web Reviews
- ASUS ROG ARES II Video Card Review @ [H]
- ASUS ROG ARES II (Crossfire) review
- ASUS Ares II Crossfire X review: the most extreme graphics card times twoNot sure how this compares to the Devil 13 that was featured in the Ninjalane Podcast but one thing is for sure, Asus is late to the party with this one.
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Creative Sound Blaster Z Sound Card @ techPowerUp
Published: Friday, February 1, 2013 | By: DennisYou don't see many discrete sound cards anymore and my once hardcore belief that you needed one died some time ago. (about the time auzentech stopped targeting hardware sites with their awesome sound cards.)
Creative is still in the game and has really gone to great lengths to showcase their next generation.
Creative's long awaited new line of sound cards is here. Today, we take a thorough look at the new entry-level model called "Sound Blaster Z". The sound card comes equipped with the new Sound Core processor and Creative even bundles it with a decent microphone.I like the shell and window cover on this card. Not only is it read but the whole thing is also backlit!
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Can A New GPU Rejuvenate A 5 Year Old Gaming PC? @ HotHardware
Published: Friday, February 1, 2013 | By: DennisPretty sure the answer to this is. Yes, kinda
Depending on the age and type of video card you have sometimes adding a secondary card is the best move.
New video card launches from AMD and NVIDIA are almost always reviewed on hardware that’s less than 12 months old. That's not an arbitrary decision -- it helps reviewers make certain that GPU performance isn't held back by older CPUs and can be particularly important when evaluating the impact of new interfaces or bus designs. The downside of this policy is that it leaves a gap in product coverage. Gamers with older systems often miss out on whether or not a new graphics card will be a meaningful upgrade for aging systems. That's particularly important as the speed of the desktop replacement cycle has slowed.
Here, we're going to compare the performance impact of upgrading the graphics card on an older system that doesn't have access to any of the substantial performance gains Intel introduced with Nehalem in late 2008. Our upgrade card of choice is an EVGA GeForce GTX 660 SuperClocked with 2GB of RAM:Seems like their idea of an "old gaming pc" is a little skewed.
