Tech News
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ECS Z77H2-A2X Black Edition Intel Z77 Motherboard Review @ PCSTATS
Published: Monday, May 7, 2012 | By: DennisYou've got to love the effort that ECS has gone thru to really pimp up their motherboard offerings. Sadly the UEFI design is a little, busy and the PWM is average but it looks nice.
Today PCSTATS has a real treat for you - the ECS Z77H2-A2X Black Edition Golden motherboard! Every metallic surface on this board is gold plated so it's got quite the 'bling' factor going for it. The reason for all the gold is that 2012 is the year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac calender, making this a very auspicious time. ECS's Z77H2-A2X motherboard is built around the Intel Z77 chipset and primed for Intel's 22nm 3rd Gen. Intel Core i3/i5/i7 'Ivy Bridge' processors.
Not sure I like the gold plating but it does add some bling that wouldn't otherwise be seen by anyone.
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Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 Intel Z77 Express LGA 1155 Preview @ techPowerUp
Published: Monday, May 7, 2012 | By: DennisI never considered this until now but the one thing missing from the Gigabyte Sniper lineup was a MicroATX motherboard for tiny machine goodness. Well wait no more cause now they got one.
Fresh out of boot camp, Gigabyte's latest platoon of gaming warfighters is here in the TPU motherboard testing facility, ready for battle. The Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 is a tiny mATX gaming fighter, armed with Gigabyte's own Super Hearing, Super Sight, Super Speed, and Super Sheild.
I do like how this board comes loaded with 16x PCI Express slots and the same sound and network hardware found on the regular size.
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OC3D: Little Devil LD-V4 Test Bench Review
Published: Friday, May 4, 2012 | By: DennisI've been working on a bench table design for quite a while now hoping to create the ultimate blend between pure awesome and convenience. (at least for me) The design is complete I just need to send out have some of the parts made up.
Of course with that being said, you can buy bench tables today, already built. So where do you find the best ones ever? If you say the United States you fail.
We couldnt live with a decent test bench as the basis for almost every review we do here at OC3D. We take a look at a new one from Little Devil.
How is that for a tagline?
Ya, I didn't think so either.
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NL: Review Block - Coolers and Cards - (5/4/2k12)
Published: Friday, May 4, 2012 | By: DennisJust a quick list of related reviews that landed in the newsbox. I am finding that many sites are moving away from the email distro and resorting to Facebook or RSS to get their news out. While I see benefit in that, it's not quite the same (*shudder* never thought I would admit that)
Check out the list then comment in the Forum if you have any questions, complaints or flame reversals.
Coolers, Heatsinks, SupaCoolPimpSpinners
- Thermaltake Frio Extreme CPU Cooler @ Pro-Clockers
- Zalman CNPS10X Optima Heatsink Review @ Frostytech
- Thermaltake Frio Advanced CPU Cooler @ Pro-Clockers
- Cooler Master TPC 812 CPU Cooler Review @ Legit Reviews
- Noctua NH-L12 Low Profile Heatsink Review @ Frostytech
Video Cards, GPUs, Video Goodness (Well most of them at least)
- VisionTek 7850 and 7870 @ PureOverclock
- MSI R7950 Twin Frozr III 3GD5/OC Review
- PowerColor PCS+ HD7970 vs Gainward GTX 680 Phantom Review @ HardwareHeaven
- Funky Kit Review: HIS Radeon HD 7870 (2GB GDDR5)
- HIS 7950 IceQ Turbo @ PureOverclock
- MSI Radeon HD 7870 HAWK review
- MSI Radeon HD 7870 HAWK 2 GB @ techPowerUpMore news to follow
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Asustek orders 1-1.2 million Intel 7 series chipsets
Published: Friday, May 4, 2012 | By: DennisNow that is a lot of chips.
The report talks about 7-Series as it relates to the Intel Z77 and would indicate that Asus is shoring up stocks for a long run of motherboards for the new Ivy Bridge processor.
Asustek Computer has placed orders with Intel for 1-1.2 million 7 series chipsets and 2.5-3 million H61 chipsets as well as ordering 600,000-800,000 760G and 500,000-600,000 A75 chipsets from AMD, for motherboards to be launched in the second quarter of 2012, according to industry sources.
Since Intel will launch more Ivy Bridge-based processors in the third quarter, Asustek is expected to start expanding its orders for Intel's Z77 chipset then.1.2 Million chipsets sounds like a pretty big haul lets hope the purchase will be good for them.
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Nvidia Gefore GTX 690 Launch Day - Global Style
Published: Thursday, May 3, 2012 | By: DennisLooking for the "new" fastest GPU on a single card? Look no further the GTX 690 has launched.
Today NVIDIA releases their new GeForce GTX 690 flagship. The $999 card is based on two GK104 graphics processors that have their full potential enabled. The new card has one of the most extravagant designs, making heavy use of metal which adds to the experience. Performance is outstanding, being neck to neck with a dual GTX 680 SLI setup.
- TechPowerUpLaunch Reviews
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 review
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Dual-GK104 GPU Review @ HotHardware
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690: The Dual-GPU Beast Arrived! @ Bjorn3D
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4 GB @ techPowerUp
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review @ Hardware Canucks
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Dual-GPU Graphics Card Launch Review @ HardwareHeaven
- NVIDIA Geforce GTX 690 DirectX 11 Video Card Review @ HiTech LegionSadly the card isn't cheap with a launch price of $999 US, and I thought the MSI 7970 Lightning was expensive.
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NL: Review Block - Input Devices
Published: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 | By: DennisThis will be a review block dedicated to input devices and memory, you know keyboards, mice and how you remember they are all there.
.Input Stuff
- CM Storm Trigger Gaming Keyboard Review @ Ninjalane
- Cooler Master Trigger Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @ Pro-Clockers
- Cooler Master Storm Trigger @ LanOC Reviews
- Cooler Master Quick Fire Rapid Review - XSReviews
- Corsair Vengeance M60 FPS Mouse Review @ Techgage
Memory
- Crucial Ballistix Elite 16GB DDR3-1866 BLE2CP8G3D1869DE1TX0CEU Review (yep that company just down the street from me, wonder why I still don't get samples, hummm)
- Patriot Viper Extreme Division 4 Review - 16GB Quad Channel 1600 MHz @ HCWMore to come, stay tuned
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Science Explains Why So Few People Are Left-Handed
Published: Thursday, April 26, 2012 | By: DennisI'm no lefty, in fact my left hand is pretty dumb when it comes to doing precision tasks like writing but I can assemble a motherboard, rebuild an engine, draw and paint with both my hands, assuming the right is involved.
Left-handers aren't very common. In fact , they only represent about 10 percent of the human population. But a new study suggests that the reason lefties are in the minority isn't anything suspect—rather, it boils down to the fact that the human race cooperate more than they compete.
Not sure I believe that the reason for handed'ness is based on the social order of humans but it seems logical.
kinda..
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MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning 3 GB @ techPowerUp
Published: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 | By: DennisI have posted some news about the MSI HD7970 Lightning before calling it one of the best video cards you can buy if you intend to overclock. Doesn't matter if its on air, water or LN2 this card can handle it.
MSI's Radeon HD 7970 Lightning is a heavily customized implementation of the HD 7970 with focus on performance and overclocking. The card uses a beefed up voltage regulation circuitry and massive dual-fan heatsink to ensure stable operation at MSI's clocks of 1070 MHz core and 1400 MHz memory.
Good luck finding one, they have been out of stock for over a month. (as of this post)
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Funky Kit - What is Phase Change cooling?
Published: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 | By: DennisThis is a pretty short article but does a good job at describing what Phase Change cooling is. Overclockers call this SS or Single Stage meaning that there is only a single coolant loop. Folks that what the stability of Single Stage but need a colder load temperature will get something called a Cascade. Cascade cooling is a Phase Change cooler with any number of coolant loops (usually no more than 3) and can drop the evaporator temp down below -100C.
Thats right, now for future reviews we will be featuring results for extreme cooling. Motherboards and some video cards will be cooled to sub-zero temperatures just for our lucky Funkykit viewers. That means this hardware will be pushed to its extreme limits and have what most people would consider to be excessive amounts of voltage used.
Single stage is really my most favorite cooling method but I've started to really enjoy LN2 cooling since you can vary the temperature..
