Tech News
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Gigabyte X79 G1.Assassin 2 @ PureOverclock
Published: Monday, January 2, 2012 | By: DennisHere we have one of the hottest gaming boards you can buy for the 3000 series Core i7.
"With their G1.Assassin 2 from their "Gamer" series, Gigabyte hopes to deliver a board which exceeds anything else in the mainstream market and we will be putting this motherboard to the test, both in real-world and some synthetic tests to see if this board can live up to the claims."
We looked at the G1 Killer Sniper 2 not long ago and found that the board does benefit from the higher-end components both in speed and sound quality. The one thing it did lack was flat out overclocking ability, but for gamers stability should be the number one concern.
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MSI 990FXA-GD80 @ Bjorn3D
Published: Monday, January 2, 2012 | By: DennisOne of the latest 990FX boards from MSI.
Ever since the release of the AMD FX-8150, the field has been widened for 990FX based motherboards. Many 990FX motherboards were released prior to the launch of AMD's Bulldozer, however, their potential was limited by the fact athat they were working off the old Phenom architecture of CPU
I have always been interested in MSI motherboards but so far have not pulled the trigger to get one in the Ninjalane Labs for testing. Maybe this will be the year to try out the MSI.
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NL: Review Block - Coolers and Cases - 1/2/2012
Published: Monday, January 2, 2012 | By: DennisJust a quick round-up of the latest coolers and cases in the Ninjalane inbox.
Coolers
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Cooler
- Funky Kit Review: Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid CPU cooler
- Zalman CNPS11X Cpu Cooler @ Rbmods
- NZXT Havik 120 Review
- Intel LGA2011 CPU Cooler Roundup @ Legit Reviews
Cases
- LanCool PC-K9 Computer Case Review @ APH Networks
- Antec Eleven Hundred @ techPowerUp
- SilverStone Precision PS07 mATX Case Review @ APH Networks
- SilverStone Raven RV03 Chassis Review @ OCIAmore to come including an awesome new case from......
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Quanta to remain as biggest notebook maker in 2012
Published: Monday, January 2, 2012 | By: DennisQuanta is in the news again. I like following what Quanta does on occasion since they were the ones who got me into doing hardware review.
Quanta Computer is expected to ship 57.43-60.50 million notebooks in 2012, remaining as the largest notebook maker, according to industry sources.
With EMS providers withdrawing from the ODM market, main ODM makers of notebooks will face less pressure of price-cut competition for orders in 2012, during which global demand for notebooks is expected to grow by 5-10% from 2011, the sources indicated.There are only 4 or so companies that actually make laptops, may seem hard to believe but the majority of laptops are all made by a few select companies to match the specs of the respective company. I know there is an article there but these are the secrets they all want to keep.
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HornetTek Fantasy @ LanOC Reviews
Published: Monday, January 2, 2012 | By: DennisCleaver name, made me do a double take and wonder why LanOC would be reviewing something like this.
Naming a product after the subject of a Ludacris song definitely garners up images of fast cars, hot women, and wealth. Does the Fantasy from HornetTek live up to my fantasies of a personal media player, and is it something you should consider adding to your already crowded home entertainment system? Read on to find out!
Oh, and its a media player about the size of 6'ish iphones.
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Is Overclocking Over?
Published: Monday, January 2, 2012 | By: DennisHere is a question that isn't so simple to answer, Is Overclocking Over? The guys at ExtremeTech ask the question and come up with an interesting conclusion.
While we were tossing around story ideas this week, one of the ExtremeTech guys lobbed out this doozy of a press release he received from Kingston. It basically explained how a Romanian overclocking team smashed a few overclocking records, including pushing Kingston’s HyperX DDR3 memory to an incredible 3600MHz (at CL10). The Lab501 team did this, and their other record breakers, with the aid of liquid nitrogen which cooled the RAM down to a frosty -196°C.
I remember reading that story and seemed like big news, both for Kingston and for Lab501. The thing that most people say when I talk about LN2 cooling is, "Is cooling your system like that practical?" Of course the answer is no, mostly due to things like voltage degradation and supplies of LN2. You also have to consider that as processors advance you don't need to overclock to get the performance you "need". The keyword here is "need" since some of us just "want" more.
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HD 7970: Bulldozer vs. Sandy Bridge vs. Nehalem @ techPowerUp
Published: Friday, December 30, 2011 | By: DennisArticles like these are really fun to read since it puts real numbers to a system type based on your video card instead of the other way around. Of course we have already determined that DX11 performance is largely dependent on your GPU and less so on your particular motherboard so keep that in mind when looking over the charts.
In our CPU scaling article we investigate gaming performance of AMD's latest Radeon HD 7970 flagship. The processors in our test group have been selected to match popular CPUs used by gamers and enthusiasts: AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer, Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge and Intel Core i7-920 Nehalem.
This begs the question, who would benefit from an article like this? Simply put overclockers. Most folks won't be building a system specifically for an HD7970 and if they are they have too much money and really should be concerned with how many 7970's to buy vs what processor to run (implying they already have the best proc).
One thing you will notice in the article is that the author doesn't call out that any system has been overclocked meaning that the Core i7 920 is running stock while the Core i5 2500k is running faster and with less threads. Not really a fair comparison. So why are the 3DMark 11 scores so close?
I'll let your little hamster wheel churn on that for a bit.
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Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD Motherboard Review @ PCSTATS
Published: Friday, December 30, 2011 | By: DennisIt is my opinion that all midrange Z68 motherboards should come with SSD cache chips onboard, not only does it increase performance but adds value to the product.
The Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD motherboard is a socket 1155 platform that can be installed with 2nd Generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 2xxx-series 'SandyBridge' processors. Built around the Intel Z68 Express chipset, the board takes up to 32GB of dual channel DDR3-1066/1333/1600/1866/2133 memory (4GB for 32-bit OS's) in four DIMM slots. Extreme Memory Profiles (XMP) are supported.
Being that this is a Gigabyte motherboard you can also expect it to overclock quite well even with the UD3 at the end.
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GIGABYTE Firmware (BIOS) Update on Certain X79 Series Motherboard Models
Published: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 | By: DennisIt is always a good idea to keep your BIOS up to date but the truth of the matter is you dont "need" to update the BIOS unless there is something wrong. Or, in this case something wrong with your motherboard.
City of Industry, California, December 27, 2011-- It has come to our attention that certain X79 Series Motherboards (see models below) may malfunction due to excess heat when performing Extreme Overclocking beyond the board’s limit. To address this issue and to ensure our product is being used as intended, we urge existing X79 users to either visit GIGABYTE’s official website to download and update their X79 series BIOS, or contact GIGABYTE’s regional service center.
The GIGABYTE X79 Series Motherboards in question are ONLY limited to the following models: G1.Assassin 2 , GA-X79-UD7, GA-X79-UD5 and GA-X79-UD3. The X79 series motherboards not named above are outside the scope of this statement and not applicable.The BIOS update is to address issues with the PWM and how it may overheat and catch fire. If you happen to have one of these boards you can use the @BIOS software and update your firmware from within Windows.
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Beginners Guides: 99 Performance Tips for Windows XP v1.7
Published: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 | By: DennisWindows 7 is already pretty fast provided you are using modern hardware but there are still things you can do to improve overall performance.
From faster boot times, to speeding up your current hardware, PCSTATS has 99 Tips to make your computer run quicker, better, and more efficiently. Whether this means booting and shutting down quicker, achieving better 3D gaming performance, or just making your PC feel more 'snappy,' chances are there's a tip or two in here to help you speed your current PC up
Worth checking out if you are looking to get more from your Win7 install.
