Tech News
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Portal free on steam
Published: Friday, September 16, 2011 | By: DeanWho doesn't like free stuff? Well Steam is giving away Portal once again for free. You have till September 20th so act soon.
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Windows 8 on a laptop in-depth preview
Published: Friday, September 16, 2011 | By: DeanMany of you might have known that a developers build of Windows 8 has been released to the general public already. Heres a great preview of what's inside.
Less than 24 hours after it went live on Microsoft's site, Steve Ballmer reported a whopping 500,000 downloads of Windows 8 Developer Preview. That's half a million copies, if not eager Windows fans. Well, you can count us among them. Although we were treated to some private hands-on time with a tablet optimized for the OS, we hadn't, until now, had a chance to use it on a laptop -- i.e., the computing environment where we spend most of our time, and the one where we're most used to seeing Windows, in particular.
If you don't have time yourself to install, this preview will tide you over just fine. Very in depth and informative.
If you want to grab it yourself and give it a go, you can do so from here.
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Off to Watch the Boise Open
Published: Friday, September 16, 2011 | By: DennisNot much more I can say. I'm off to watch the Boise Open today and likely won't be able to post any news. Don't fret normal operations will resume before you know it.
Oh wait, I said that already
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ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z LGA1155 @ techPowerUp
Published: Friday, September 16, 2011 | By: DennisThe Maximus IV Gene-Z that we reviewed was actually a really fun board to mess with. It didn't have all the cool stuff found on the Maximus IV Extreme but reacted and performed exactly the same, which is saying a lot since it’s only half the size.
ASUS has updated their microATX ROG offerings with the latest chipset from Intel, and we take a look. A red and black racer, the ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z is ready for high speed gaming without a doubt, and packs in many exclusive features that just might see it hit the finish line first. Ready? Set? GO!
The ROG features are what really separate these motherboards from the competition and I think the TPU folks agree..
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AMD Bulldozer FX pricing revealed @ ExtremeTech
Published: Thursday, September 15, 2011 | By: DennisEarly this week AMD released some amazing overclocking numbers from a golden, and LHe cooled, FX-8150 which has many enthusiasts excited about the new platform. Pricing for the new chip has also been released and seems to have many analysts confused.
Why is any of the above bad news? Well, the pricing is possibly too cheap. Early benchmarks of Bulldozer showed that Zambezi was never likely to be competitive with Intel’s Core i7 — and these prices, which are all well below any of Intel’s comparable i7 (and even some i5) Sandy Bridge chips, suggest that the FX Series chips are priced to sell rather than compete. The nearest-spec chip to the FX-8150, for example, is the Core i7-2600, which has an Intel-suggested retail price of $294 — some $60 more than the AMD chip. If you compare the FX against the “overclockable” 2600k, the price difference is even more pronounced.
$200 isn't bad for a new processor and I have yet to see an AMD processor ever cost more than the comparable Intel offering so I dunno what the big deal is. Of course this is just speculation, once the reviews are up we'll know for sure.
Check CPU-World for a price list and the site below for more on this story.
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IDF Goodness - Gigabyte X79 Motherboards Reveled
Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 | By: DennisLast year Gigabyte unveiled their P67 line at IDF which marked a radical change in direction for Gigabyte. First of all they changed the board colors from light blue to matte black and updated the heatsink design to better align the accent colors with the segment level.
Well, in keeping with tradition there is a new line of motherboards on display. This time based on the Intel X79.
The X79A-OC we are told was built to be the X79A-OC, but as many have heard there will be no more boards named the OC board. As you can obviously see the board carries the same color coordination, as well as the same features, and a few more such as the DIP switches, which we don't know what they do.
Be sure to check out SinHardware.com for some good photos of the upcoming boards including the new X79A-UD7(OC) board. Yep, as we had suspected the OC and UD7 lines have been combined.
You'll also notice two different boards, one based on four memory sockets with the other having eight. Boards that come with eight memory sockets will likely be higher-end than the four socket edition but may not work as well for overclocking.
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AMD FX Overclocking Preview @ HardOCP
Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 | By: DennisOverclocking at AMD with HardOCP.
As some of you may have noticed there was a world record announced today stating that AMD has the fastest running processor at 8.4Ghz. Of course it takes Liquid Helium to get the processor cold enough to run that fast but if you're looking to break a record that is how you do it. The video they have posted is a great presentation on the steps they took to reach the highest CPU speed on LN2 before switching to LHe.
Very much worth checking out.
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Top 5 Tablets for Business | Business Computing World
Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 | By: DennisYou get one guess as to which tablet they picked as number one and will also be surprised at what popular tablet didn't make the list.
For employers, the benefit of deploying tablets is having a more productive workforce that’s always connected to what’s happening at the office. However, businesses looking to deploy tablets have a different set of requirements than the average consumer. Security and application compatibility are both top priorities for any business, thereby eliminating some of the more consumer-friendly choices on the market. If your business has decided that it’s time to choose a tablet, it’s worth considering what kind of things you are going to use it for. This way you know that you’ll match the right machine to your needs…
Top lists are great but in most cases they are extremely biased by the writers. While I do agree with many of their statements I don't think the Apple iPad2 should be at the top of the list, especially when it comes to business usage.
Maybe if you're a writer and want to check email all day but if you need to do graphics or hardcore computing none of the "play" tablest are going to work. In fact you'll want an Asus Slate for something like that. Not only will it secure up to your corp network but it comes with a Core i5 and touch screen display.
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Lamptron Fan Controller Roundup @ PureOverclock
Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 | By: DennisI'm not sure about a round up for fan controllers but if any company is to be involved it would be Lamptron.
Cooling is an issue that always concerns us when it comes to computers. Whether running stock settings or overclocking things, heat is the enemy. An inexpensive way to help control the heat is through the use of fans, and specifically, fan controllers. We look at three fan controllers from Lamptron to suit various budgets and needs: the FC-4, FC-5 V2, and the Touch. From entry level to premium touch sensitive controls, let's see what these controllers have to offer.
There are a few reviews of Lamptron controllers on Ninjalane, check the modding review section.
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Inside the second: A new look at game benchmarking
Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 | By: DennisLeave it up to the guys at TechReport to come up with a reason for changing how we run 3D benchmarks. There are pleny of good quotes in this article and after an hour you'll wonder why you're still reading but, it's that good.
Naturally, we contacted the major graphics chip vendors to see what they had to say about the issue. Somewhat to our surprise, representatives from both AMD and Nvidia quickly and forthrightly acknowledged that multi-GPU micro-stuttering is a real problem, is what we measured in our frame-time analysis, and is difficult to address. Both companies said they've been studying this problem for some time, too. That's intriguing, because neither firm saw fit to inform potential customers about the issue when introducing its most recent multi-GPU product, say the Radeon HD 6990 or the GeForce GTX 590. Hmm.
AMD's David Nalasco identified micro-stuttering as an issue with the rate at which frames are dispatched to GPUs, and he said the problem is not always an easy one to reproduce. Nalasco noted that jitter can come and go as one plays a game, because the relative timings between frames can vary.I also noticed an interesting coincidence given their hint of coming up with a "Jitter Index".
(bottom of page 6). Of course their "index" would correspond to the Ninjalane Multi GPU Index number system as a way to rate the micro-stuttering that happens when you link more than one video card together.
