Tech News

• Titan Fenrir Siberia TTC-NC55TZ(RB) Heatsink Review @ Frostytech

  Published: Thursday, April 19, 2012 | By: Dennis

  This might be one of the coolest heatsinks I have seen in a really long time, and I have seen a bunch.  Basically this is a twin tower cooler with one tower laying flat while the second is vertical and blowing air over the first.  Of course the benefit here is longer heatpipes and the promise of more room around the base of the cooler.  Let's see if they made that happen.

  Top down cooling has its advantages, though tower cooling is usually the preferred method given its compact footprint. In this review Frostytech is testing out a heatsink from Titan that aims to satisfy both tower and top-top heatsink designs, in one. The Titan Fenrir Siberia Edition TTC-NC55TZRB heatsink is built around five 8mm diameter copper heatpipes which extend in two directions from a copper base block to independent fin stacks, essentially making one large CPU cooler from separate 'tower' and 'top-down' heatsinks.

  I haven't seen much from Titan lately, though after seeing this cooler I might hit them up at Computex this year.

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• NL: Review Block - Input Devices (4/17/2012)

  Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Personally I never liked reading input device reviews, much for the same reason I only skim thru video card reviews that claim they "do real world playability testing".  So much of what they claim is personal perception. 

  For instance when it comes to keyboards I like the Microsoft Natural Elite.  Not the new 3000 (it tweaks my wrists), not the original but the Elite.  I know plenty of people who can't type on them and think I'm sort of freak by nature for demanding one. 

  Lucky for us, gaming keyboards are more than just something you type on

  Keyboard Reviews
  - CM Storm Trigger Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @ techPowerUp
  - CM Storm QuickFire Pro Gaming Keyboard Review @ Techgage
  - QPAD MK-80 Keyboard Review on Technic3D
  - Enermax KW001 Briskie Keyboard mouse combo review
  - Corsair Vengeance K90 & M90 MMO/RTS Keyboard and Mouse Review @ Legit Reviews

  We have the CM Storm Trigger and Roccat keyboards in the labs right now so look for our reviews of these great gaming devices soon.

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• Thermaltake Massive23 GT Review @ XtremeComputing

  Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 | By: Dennis

  With a name like Massive23 you would think that this Thermaltake product would solve world hunger, save the whales and balance your checkbook.  In reality it can just keep your laptop from burning your junk.

  Although laptop technology has improved dramatically over the last decade heat continues to be a problem for many laptops to cope with. Heat build-up in a laptop (as in any device) Can degrade both performance of the device and longevity of its components, and in laptops and notebook form factors can seriously effect battery life and processor and GPU capabilities degrading speed of operation and physically damaging components.

  200mm fan, Check!
  Metal top, Check!

  On the surface it seems this cooler is quite solid, or is it?  Check out the review to find out.

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• Crytek Takes Aim with Crysis 3

  Published: Monday, April 16, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Gotta love this, a new Crysis released even before Crysis 2 got cold. 

  CRYTEK TAKES AIM WITH CRYSIS 3
  
  REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – April 16, 2012 – The hunted becomes the hunter! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) and award-winning developer Crytek GmbH, today announced Crysis® 3, the premier sandbox shooter experience of 2013. Powered by Crytek’s proprietary CryENGINE®, Crysis 3 advances the state of the art with unparalleled visuals and dynamic shooter gameplay. Players take on the role of ‘Prophet’ as he returns to New York, only to discover that the city has been encased in a Nanodome created by the corrupt Cell Corporation. The New York City Liberty Dome is a veritable urban rainforest teeming with overgrown trees, dense swamplands and raging rivers. Within the Liberty Dome, seven distinct and treacherous environments become known as the Seven Wonders. This dangerous new world demands advanced weapons and tactics. Prophet will utilize a lethal composite bow, an enhanced Nanosuit and devastating alien tech to become the deadliest hunter on the planet.

  This version of the game is set in the year 2047 where Prophet begins his revenge mission to take down Cell Corporation after finding out the truth behind quarantined Nanodomes.

  I really did like Crysis 2 but stopped playing shortly before the DX11 texture pack was released and well before the game was moved to Origin (which sucks btw).  That hasn't stopped EA from offering preorder bonus packs included in the Crysis 3 Hunter Edition

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• Team Ninjalane Emergency Overclocking Session

  Published: Friday, April 13, 2012 | By: Dennis

  One of the great things about HWBot is that it is constantly changing.  For instance you submit a monster SuperPi score worth X points only to have it devalued a week later.  These sorts of things impact your total score and also can move teams up and down in the rankings.  Of course the only way to ensure your place in the global ranks is to always be benching and working towards getting the most points wherever you can.
  
  In an attempt to reclaim some lost points Redmax will be hosting an emergency overclocking session this Saturday (4/14/2012 Starting @ 12:00 MST).  Be sure to tune in and see what it takes to run at Core I7 3960X on a Single Stage Phase cooler.

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• Oil cooling: Deep fried, or deep energy savings? - ExtremeTech

  Published: Thursday, April 12, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Since the early days of "alternative" cooling people have explored better ways to cool their computers.  Watercooling is by far the most popular of these and I have seen several modders building fully submerged PCs but these projects never got the attention of enterprise computing for various reasons.

  By fully submerging the hardware, oil is better able to affect the transfer of heat from the components and out of the facility. Much like the home-built "aquarium PCs," oil-cooled servers also have a pump to circulate the oil and a radiator to cool it down before it's returned to the system. In that respect it is similar to watercooling - just without using water-blocks. Like water, oil has a higher specific heat capacity than air, meaning it can absorb more heat for a given volume of coolant.

  Oil cooling does have its challenges, the biggest is how do you handle contaminates in the oil? Say one of the servers has a hardware failure causing a chip to burn.  Assuming the oil burn how do you handle conductive particles into the oil?  Given this doomsday scenario you could lose an entire rack of servers in rather quick order.

  Maybe the cost savings are worth the risk.

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• Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Preview @ Techgage

  Published: Thursday, April 12, 2012 | By: Dennis

  You would think that for a .Net developer like myself I would be totally onboard when it comes to Visual Studio.  However, I don't use VS for my development instead choosing to code my projects longhand in an editor called Homesite.  There are some limitations but I find my code to be cleaner and it allows me to code the way I like.

  I'm sure I'll eventually switch to the darkside but to be honest VS has always been code heavy and often saves extra files that aren't needed for the project and just add to the clutter.

  With the next version of Visual Studio soon to be upon us, we're taking a look at what's worth waiting for. While some animosity exists around certain decisions made by Microsoft, VS11 brings a lot to the table, most notably the addition of a robust environment for creating Metro-based apps.

  Gotta love that MS is keeping up and releasing everything a budding developer needs to create applications for their operating system.  That, if anything, is why they command the market.

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• Death Watch: Microsoft to kill Windows XP in two years

  Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Don't you hate it when you create something so good and so successful that it will never die?  HPUX, ya its still around, Oracle? yep still alive, Windows XP? whoa..

  The end is coming. Repent!
  
  That's the message from Microsoft as it reminded consumers that its support for Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 will end on April 8, 2014.
  
  According to Microsoft marketing director Stella Chernyak that means the software giant will nix security updates, non-security hot-fixes and technical support after that date. So let the countdown begin. You now have less than two years to get your affairs in order and hightail it to more current software.
  

  Keep in mind this is "support" for the latest service packs.  As far as I know M$ doesn't have a remote kill switch that would fully disable the OS.  Now if we could get overclockers to realize that Win7 is just as fast as XP we'd be making progress.

  (Well except for 3DMark 01, I have proven to myself that XP is faster when using that bench)

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• DARPA Seeking to Build (Friendly) Terminators

  Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 | By: Dennis

  It was bound to happen sooner or later, Terminator robots will soon be among us.  Maybe these will be iRobot style with the three laws or flat out "stand them up and knock them down" cyborgs from the future attempting to kill the mother of the leader who defeated them.  The jury is still out but the fact remains, it will happen.

  The government is looking for a few good robots. But never fear, this year's DARPA Robotics Challenge isn't a casting call for positronic killing machines—instead, teams are being asked to design robots capable of driving a vehicle, using power tools to bash through walls, and even replace a cooling pump, for a $2 million grand prize.
  
  Up to $34 million in total will be eligible in contracts and funding, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said Tuesday.
  
  The goal, DARPA said, is to produce a robot capable of assisting humans in dangerous or degraded environments, using unmodified tools designed for humans. 

  I wonder if they will have rubber skin or go straight for human flesh?

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• Intel Z77 Chipset Launch Day

  Published: Monday, April 9, 2012 | By: Dennis

  It is the much anticipated launch of the Intel Z77 chipset for the LGA 1155 socket processors.  As many of you already know this is the Sandy Bridge platform that was made popular by the P67 and Z68 chipsets from last year.

  Many of these reviews are just "pre"-views since the real reason for the Z77 release has yet to be launched.    Currently we have a Gigabyte Z77X USD3H in the lab and will be posting our article a little later today so be sure to come back and check it out.

  
  
  photo from TPU

  Reviews from around the web
  - ECS Z77H2-AX Golden motherboard preview
  - MSI Z77-GD65 @ Bjorn3D
  - ECS Golden Board Z77H2-AX LGA 1155 Preview @ techPowerUp
  - Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers
  - Z77 motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI @ TR
  - Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H @ HW-Journal
  - GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H WiFi & GA-Z77X-UD3H Motherboard Reviews @ Legit Reviews
  - Funky Kit Review: ASRock Z77-Professional Motherboard
  - OC3D: ASUS P8-Z77V Pro Sandy Bridge Review
  - Z77 Motherboard Round-Up: MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, Intel @ HotHardware
  - ASRock Z77 Extreme 6 @ PureOverclock
  - MSI Z77A-GD65 @ PureOverclock
  - Intel Z77 Series Chipset Launch Roundup @ HardwareHeaven
  - Asus Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard Review (with OC GTX680)

  That  ECS board is pretty crazy huh?  Reminds me a little of the Chaintech Zenith ZNF3-150 board we reviewed back in '03

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