Tech News
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Asus Makes an Offer to Buy ASRock @ SemiAccurate
Published: Monday, October 1, 2012 | By: DennisLooks like i won't have to worry about getting those ASRock review samples after all.
This is currently rumor mill and not that the "news" is out share prices of ASRock will begin to fall, so much in fact that Asus can either buy them or they will end up folding. Currently word has it that an offer has been made for Asrock, and Pegatron is essentially fine with the terms. This would take the #1 and #3 mobo makers and combine them, leaving the industry with one massive behemoth, one solid player, and a lot of minnows struggling to make waves. As of now, there is a first tier of Asus and Gigabyte, then Asrock, MSI, and ECS at less than half of that volume, plus a few niche players in the motherboard market.
TechReport did some digging and "re" discovered that ASRock used to be an Asus Company (which was no suprise to me) back in 2002 but was spun off to avoid compeition within the company.
It would seem that things just got real in the motherboard world. I wonder how this will impact some of the other players in the field.
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Haswell may cause motherboard players to exit market
Published: Thursday, September 27, 2012 | By: DennisI really hate to see stories like this.
Intel is already set to launch its next-generation Haswell-based processors, comprehensively designed for IT products such as tablets, notebooks, ultrabooks, desktops and servers, in the second quarter of 2013; however, since Haswell is designed to integrate functions such as power phase control, which is mainly used for overclocking, into the CPU, sources from motherboard players are concerned that the new processor and weakening desktop market demand will cause several second-tier motherboard players to exit the market in late 2013.
Intel has been taking steps to further reduce total system costs by moving more and more "chipset" functions to the processor. This all started with the Math Co-Processor (A long time ago) followed by the CPU (multi core processors). The memory controller was the most impressive move from a performance standopint followed by the PCI Express bus found in Sandy/Ivy Bridge.
In proper "we can do it better than you" thinking the latest thing to move to the CPU will be PWM control. On the surface this is a good thing since it should improve power savings but won't help much if you intend to overclock or do any of the traditional enthusiast activities. All of the things listed above were also factors that separated the various motherboard vendors. Some vendors did things better and that reflected on their quality while other vendors would cut costs and the consumer would suffer.
Eventually the Intel processor will be a total SOC (System on a Chip) and render the traditional motherboard obsolete and thus level the playing field. No longer will you lust for an Asus ROG board or hunt high and low for a Gigabyte 7 series, instead it will be like a GPU reference design.
Yes you will still need a physical PCB but the things that made that PCB unique will no longer exist. People say that the PC is dead, in some ways they are right.
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Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 Launch Day
Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 | By: DennisIf you are looking for a good chassis that is easy to carry around and offers a vareity of customization options then you owe it to yourself to look at the new Storm Scout 2 from Cooler Master.
Check our our review of the CM Storm Scout 2 right here.
Web Reviews
- CM Storm Scout 2 Case Review @ Hardware Secrets
- Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 Case Review @ Legit Reviews
- Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 @ LanOC Reviews
- Cooler Master CM Storm Scout 2 Gaming Case @ Pro-ClockersBe sure to stop by the forums and leave us a comment.
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NL: Review Block - Board Cards and Coolers - Kinda
Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 | By: DennisTime for another edition of cleaning out the inbox
.motherboards()
- ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion @ Ocaholic
- GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H Motherboard Review @ Techgage
- BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X Intel Z77 Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews
- Asrock X79 Extreme11 @ Pro-Clockers
Video Cards 2.0
- SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Review @ HardOCP
- KFA2 GeForce GTX 670 EX OC Review @ Technic3D/Chefredaktion
- HD 7990 Review; PowerColor’s Devil 13 @ Hardware Canucks
Coolers.ToString
- EKL Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure review: Alpine cooling?
Chassis to rule them all
- CM Storm Scout 2 Mid-Tower Gaming Chassis Review @ Techgage
- Silverstonetek TJ04-E System Enclosure reviewed in Metku
- Fractal Design Define R4 @ techPowerUp -
Zotac GTX680 AMP Edition Graphics Card @ Bjorn
Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 | By: DennisIs it just me or has Zotac started playing an ASUS me-to? Dual fan, check, triple slot, check, fancy angular heatsink, check. Its not looking good...
ZOTAC AMP edition is something that just recently with the 660 Ti we found to be a seriously ferocious competitor. AMP edition cards are built for all out speed and coming with highly capable performance oriented coolers we expect great things from them. Today looking at the 680 AMP edition we expect no different.
Based on the board design I'm not seeing anything special. No expanded PWM and they are even using the stock PCI Express power sockets. *tisk tisk*
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MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower Intel LGA 1155 @ techPowerUp
Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 | By: DennisIt would seem that MSI has finally gotten around to filling out the Z77 lineup with the Big Bang Z77 MPower.
A few weeks ago, we saw MSI's "OC Certified" memory launch, which is now available in stores, and those DIMMs sported a pretty fancy color scheme that matches their Lightning VGAs. That set of hardware would not be complete without a board to run those other two in, and today we look at that board, called the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower. Like the recently-launched memory, the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower comes "OC Certified", ready to be the base of getting the most out of your other MSI products.
I cannot lie the intro to this review is a little weak but if that is what it takes to start of a good review then sign me up.
or not
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Seven Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 round-up: Super cards! @ HardwareInfo
Published: Thursday, September 20, 2012 | By: DennisOne of the cornerstones of any enthusiast system build is a rocking video card. It's not because you need one or have to have ultimate control but rather to complement the system and offer the option for bragging rights.
To find an ultimate video card you just need to look, they can be found near the top of the product offerings and are not often priced to move.
In the HardwareInfo review they look at seven "super cards" designed for the enthusiast and sometimes extremely rare. They all look to be of the GTX 680 variety so AMD fans beware.
There was nothing wrong with Nvidia's reference cooler, but this round-up proves there are some nice alternatives as well. MSI has a good card with the N680GTX Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC, it's slightly overclocked, cools better, and it is also the most silent out of all cards we tested. MSI's Lightning card is the fastest card with also the best overclocking potential, but it's loud. If you're not planning on extreme overclocking, then our vote goes to the ASUS GTX680-DC2T-2GD5.
I have had good luck with the Lightning edition cards but have recently started paying more attention to EVGA as their classified line has proven to be quite good.
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Some OCZ History Lost to Time
Published: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 | By: DennisSpeaking of OCZ, I was searching thru some old news and found a post that talked about the OCZ Titan 3. This was a GeForce3 graphics card that was one of the first ones you couild buy that was "factory" overclocked.
I quoted "factory" because they didn't really have a factory but would rather take vanilla cards, upgrade the coolers with off the self products, modify the BIOS to increase the clock speed and sell them at a premium.
Funny I always thought OCZ started as an Idaho company but the press release listed Portage, Indiana.
Keep in mind this was long before OCZ was bought by another company working on a DRAM product and even before they changed focus and dedicated their focus to industrial SSD.
*Edit* I knew OCZ started in Idaho. Nampa Idaho to be exact. Check out the following press release (re-post) over at Savage News.
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OCZ Changes Leaders, Now time to fix the problems
Published: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 | By: DennisA little over a year ago a story broke about some bad investment practices over at OCZ and I was surprised to see that despite the press and fanfare nothing really happened. Well it would seem that people don't really care unless the problem is costing them money.
In this case a "dip" in stock price.
OCZ said on Monday Chief Executive Ryan Petersen has resigned, a month after it announced the retirement of Chief Financial Officer Arthur Knapp. OCZ's shares fell 5 percent to $4.23 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday.
"Investor pressure and loss of credibility with the management, because of underperformance in the last three quarters, made the company's board go for this transition," Piper Jaffray & Co analyst Andrew Nowinski said.
Petersen has been at the helm of OCZ since 2002 and steered the company to revenue of $365.8 million last year, from less than $10 million when he started.I don't cover storage technologies much but when I do it has been OCZ since day 1 and I can honestly say that both of the products were quite fast and showed us why SSDs deserve to be in an enthusiast system.
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Leaked Windows 8 tablet pricing suggests Microsoft may have.. Ya, Not Good?
Published: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 | By: DennisAs hardcore hardware enthusiasts you put less emphasis on price and more on features. While that holds true for the ultra-high end the same cannot be said for tablets.
If, like me, you thought Microsoft would price Windows RT competitively, you were wrong: A leaked slide from Asus says that its Vivo Tab RT, due to be released alongside Windows RT at the end of October, will start at $600. Unbelievably, this is $100 more than the iPad 3, and a full $200 more than the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 2 10.1.
For $600, you would expect some sensational hardware specs — but alas, that’s sadly not the case. The Vivo Tab RT has a low-res 10.1-inch 1366×768 IPS display, quad-core Tegra 3 SoC, 2GB of RAM, NFC, 8-megapixel camera… and that’s about it. Like its Androidesque cousin, the Transformer, the Vivo Tab RT can be plugged into a keyboard/battery dock — but it’ll cost you another $200 for the pleasure. (Curiously, the Transformer’s docking station only costs $150 — go figure.)Much like in the PC space Microsoft is looking to make their cut on every OS they sell, either it be PC, Tablet, Tablet RT, Phone, car, soda machine, horse and buggy, whatever. Because of this you'll have to accept that WinTabs are going to cost a little more than the IOS and Android equivalents. That is also assuming you'll be able to do more on them.
