Tech News
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Funky Kit Review: OCZ Vector 256GB SSD (Indilinx Barefoot 3)
Published: Monday, January 28, 2013 | By: DennisLooks like OCZ is till making super fast SSD drives! GO OCZ!
I am very, very impressed by OCZ's Vector 256GB. It's my new favorite SSD of all time, which is saying something. Highly recommend it if you're in the market for a very fast SSD!
Not sure how to respond to a quote like that. I mean, is that an SSD in your pocket, or are you just happy to get one from OCZ?
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Sound Judgment: Five Gaming Headphones Tested @ HotHardware
Published: Monday, January 28, 2013 | By: DennisAn interesting read, especially considering there is no clear way to review a set of headphones without actually trying them out and basing a decision on personal preference. In this review I think they did a pretty good job with no clear winner, or loser.
What separates a premium headset from a blue light special? It's a combination of things, from well designed drivers to comfy ear cups that kiss the sides of your head with a gentle yet firm caress (we're being melodramatic...a little). And then there's the overall feature-set and premium extras like a noise-cancelling microphone and 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound.
Unfortunately, there's only so much you can discern from a headset's spec sheet, and with so many to choose from, you'd have to invest an obscene amount of time and money auditioning each one. We don't want you to have to do that, so we went and rounded up five high-end headsets from four different manufacturers, including Corsair, Creative Labs, Roccat and Rosewill and the goods posted on the following pages...Keep in mind this is a five way round-up and few 1:1 comparisons.
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EVGA SuperNova NEX 1500W Classified review: a beast of a PSU
Published: Friday, January 25, 2013 | By: DennisThere are big power supplies and then there are "good" big power supplies. The EVGA SuperNova falls into one of those categories. Which one will depend on who you talk to.
The EVGA SuperNova NEX1500W Classified is a beast. It's clearly aimed at overclockers that need as much power as possible for their high-end components. That is why EVGA focused on power and stability, and sacrificed a little in the area of noise production. Strong qualities of this PSU are its voltages, ripple, efficiency, extra software and its looks. Drawbacks consist of the noise and also the usage without load.
I'd like to think that the bench top options found in the SuperNova makes this PSU a good candidate for the test bench and the sleeved cables help to dress up any custom build. So far that is good enough for me.
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Crytek Acquires Rights to Homefront IP
Published: Friday, January 25, 2013 | By: DennisI have mentioned many times that I loved the concept for Homefront but the single player execution was lackluster to say the least. It is easy to blame the game developer and in this case had they made a better game I think THQ might still be around today.
Development work will continue on Homefront 2 at Crytek’s UK studio in Nottingham. “From day one, the Homefront 2 team has been committed to creating a game that takes the series to new heights and features the level of quality and innovation associated with Crytek,” said Nick Button-Brown, General Manager of Games at Crytek. “Nothing has changed with regards our development of the game, and we look forward to sharing the finished product with players.”
We/I can only hope that they adopt the Crysis 2/3 model for the new Homefront and allow players to choose how they want to play a certain section and also expand the story line to last more than 3 hours.
Bottom line I think this will be a good thing for the franchise with more positive notes than negative.
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Intel to exit the desktop motherboard business
Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 | By: DennisSome hard hitting news from the Tech Report.
For years, Intel has produced its own line of desktop motherboards. Not for much longer, though. This afternoon, we learned that Intel will ramp down its desktop motherboard business over the next three years. As that division spins down, Intel will allocate more resources to reference design development, small-form-factor NUC devices, and "other areas to be discussed later."
According to Intel spokesman Dan Snyder, Intel will stop developing new desktop boards after it rolls out models designed for next-gen Haswell processors. After that, you'll have to rely on boards from the likes of Asus, Gigabyte, ASRock, and MSI, as most of you probably do already. Those firms are expected to fully support Intel's upcoming roadmap, Synder says, so desktop boards aren't going anywhere.Three years seems like a long time but I suspect this is to allow for full warranty support on existing products in the market. I wouldn't expect any new boards to come out of an Intel fab after September 2013
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HIS HD 7970 IceQ X2 and HD 7950 IceQ X2 Review @ Hardware Canucks
Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 | By: DennisHIS has always been a "soft spoken" video card vendor in terms of availability in the US but when they release a product they know how to get people's attention. Enter the X (squared) 7970 and 7950 Radeon graphics cards. These are basically reference clocked GPUs with an extremely large dual fan cooler.
HIS's IceQ X2 heatsink design is billed as one of the best around and it has now been paired up with AMD's HD 7970 GHz Edition and HD 7950 Boost. They've done this without adding a huge premium onto these cards which results in an excellent price / performance ratio, particularly when overclocking is involved.
I am almost suprized that they didn't include a fourth heatpipe given the size of the radiator. Then again the 7970 wasn't "that" hot to begin with so maybe the design was on purpose or a balance between cost and performance.
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NL: Review Block - Cases and Coolers Jan 22 2013
Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 | By: DennisI have a pretty big list of reviews from around the web. Look them over and let me know what you think.
Coolers
- Cooler Master Seidon 240M AIO CPU Cooler Review @ Pro-Clockers
- Cooler Master Seidon 240M AIO Liquid CPU Cooler Review @ Hi Tech Legion
- Zalman LQ315 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets
- Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme CPU Cooler Review @ ThinkComputers
- Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 2 Review @ XSReviews
- Gelid Solutions The Black Edition Twin-Tower-Cooler @ ocaholic
- Thermalright AXP-100 CPU Air Cooler Review @ [H]
- Sapphire Vapor-X CPU Cooler Review on Technic3D
- Corsair Hydro H60 Watercooling System Review @ Frostytech
Cases
- NZXT Phantom 630 @ techPowerUp
- Fractal Design Define R4 Mid-Tower Chassis Review @ Techgage
- Antec GX700 Mid-Tower Case Review @ Hi Tech Legion
- Cooler Master HAF XB @ techPowerUpOf course some of these I/we have already reviewed like the Be Quiet Dark Rock and Cooler Master HAF XB.
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Intel set to announce Haswell processors at Computex 2013
Published: Monday, January 21, 2013 | By: DennisIn the past Intel has launched their new tech at CES which allows mfgs to have "real" products live by Computex time, From what I have heard most of the mfgs were ready with their Haswell products they were just waiting for the nod from Intel to make an announcement.
Intel is set to host a conference prior to Computex 2013 in June announcing its upcoming Haswell series processors jointly with downstream partners, according to sources from PC players.
The sources noted that the new CPUs will appear on June 2 and related PC products will be showcased at Computex, hosted from June 4-8.This is really good news and should make Computex quite exciting once again. Now I just need to figure out how to get there.
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Borderlands 2 level cap raise incoming
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2013 | By: DennisI have yet to get any of my two characters up to level 50 but I'm pretty close with my siren, Level 47 as of this post. Some hardcore players reached level 50 in the first week while others may have abandoned the game after the first play thru. Either way Gearbox has been watching and will raise the level cap when the time is right.
The cap raise timing is partly dictated by Borderlands 2?s increased stat tracking. “With Borderlands 1 we had to go by forum posts, and by checking out the number times certain achievements had been unlocked to really get an idea of where players were” explains Lopez. “But SHiFT allows us to see a lot more about the way players are playing the game, and see what they’re doing. We wanted to give people enough time to get at least one level 50 in there, and then see from there, how many people are doing this. Is this a good time for this? We also didn’t want to wait so long that people were no longer interested, or felt like it wasn’t coming”.
Many games have a level cap either imposed by the game algorithms or by the developer. Skyrim for instance has a level cap so you can't "perk" everything in the astrology tree. Borderlands 2, being an RPG, has a similar level cap so when they do raise the cap it I'll be curious to see how the perk tree will change.
It won't be a challenge if you unlock everything.
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Intel reportedly prepping soldered desktop chips after all @ ExtremeTech
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2013 | By: DennisSpeculation on the Intel roadmap told us that there would be BGA processors, what wasn't clear from their reponse is what segment(s) would overlap the socketed space.
New evidence (a “trusted source,” according to Tech Report) suggests Intel is actually planning a bifurcated strategy. Starting with Broadwell, certain motherboards will be available with soldered processors — presumably those intended for small set-top boxes or other diminutive form factors.
(the article at Tech Report)This all makes perfect sense really, Microsoft is pushing touch interfaces going forward so there is very little need to have configurable PCs anymore. I suspect there will always be a need for workstation class machines but take it from someone who has a Desktop at home and a Ultra Tablet on the road, the lines are getting blurred as to what a PC/Workstation needs to be.
