Tech News
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GIGABYTE Unleashes G1.Sniper 2 Gaming Motherboard
Published: Thursday, August 4, 2011 | By: DennisIt is the return of the G1 KIller, the Gigabyte board designed for gamers to provide the best gaming experence without resorting to expensive addon cards beyond a top notch video card.
City of Industry, California, August 4th 2011 - GIGABYTE TECHNOLGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced the launch of the new G1.Sniper 2 motherboard, the latest G1-Killer Series motherboard designed for extreme gaming on the latest Intel® Z68 chipset and Intel® i7 Core 'Sandy Bridge' processors. Featuring several state-of-the-art onboard solutions from renowned industry leaders Creative and Bigfoot Networks, as well as many additional and exclusive GIGABYTE features, the GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 2 motherboard takes no prisoners in its quest for gaming supremacy.
"The GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 2 brings our acclaimed no mercy G1-Killer gaming philosophy to Intel's mainstream Z68 platform", commented Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. "From listening closely to the gaming community, it's clear that this is an eagerly anticipated motherboard, and one that will guarantee the fearlessly uncompromising gaming experience that so many of our customers crave."For more details check out http://www.gigabyte.us/ and the press release in the Ninjalane Message Forum.
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ASUS Rampage III Black Edition Review @ Bjorn3D
Published: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 | By: DennisNot sure if I like the black and red edition or the black and gray but you cannot argue that the Black Edition Rampage III is quite amazing.
Considering that the aging X58 chipset has already been replaced, we were surprised to see yet another offering in the X58 lineup, even with the recent release of Sandy Bridge and the Z68 chipset. However, looking over the specs and feature, on this board we would dare to say that the X58 is back in black.
Sadly it seems most hardware editors have given up on X58 looking for the next great thing to report on. Personally I see X58 still having some fight left, heck X79 is on the roadmap but it won't be here until after Christmas (or so they say).
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Fractal Design Define R3 Mid-Tower Chassis Review @ Techgage
Published: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 | By: DennisNot a bad looking case, its like a clean black box.
With the chassis market dominated by a small group of major companies, it's easy to get excited when we receive a model from a company that's not that well known - at least on these shores. In this particular case (no pun, of course), that company is Fractal Design, and its the silence-focused Define R3 mid-tower on deck today.
I have never liked having foam on the side panels but it seems to work in certain situations.
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NL: Review Block - ASRock Review Day
Published: Monday, August 1, 2011 | By: DennisI don't normally post reviews dealing with ASRock hardware but there were a bunch today so here it goes.
Motherboards
- ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Motherboard Review @ Motherboards
- ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty Gen3 Motherboard Review @ HardwareHeaven
- ASRock Z68 Extreme4 @ Hardwareoverclock
- ASRock Core HT @ PureOverclock -
SilverStone Raven RV03 Computer Case Review @ APH Networks
Published: Monday, August 1, 2011 | By: DennisThe Silverstone Raven has gone thru a few design revisions but the concept stays the same. Rotate the motherboard 90 degrees and use extremely large fans to keep everything cool. Of course the best part is that it actually works.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary / Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, over a SilverStone Raven RV03 that looks hardcore. As much as I want to be a poet as famous as Edgar Allan Poe, I just simply cannot wrap my head around such intriguing English works with such deep meaning. Whenever ideas pop into my head, these are usually not anything English literature related -- other than the fact that the text I have written down is English, and that's about it. But what I can tell you about this poem, especially in this introductory paragraph, is that reviews written here at APH Networks are sometimes done around midnight, but not exactly in a dreary fashion. Unless you have heard this poem before in one way or another, many of you may be wondering what in the world this poem has anything to do with our review on SilverStone's Raven RV03 case today. Yes, I know, I don't have a major in English literature, and I am interpreting this poem too literally in accordance to my own thoughts. But what we have here at APH today seems to be quite unique from the standard market of computer chassis. The very first notable thing that is prominently advertised about the SiverStone Raven RV03 is its 90 degree rotated motherboard tray. Of course, the company also tack on other interesting features as well. Now that I have got you hyped up about Edgar Allen Poe's
SilverStoneRavenRV03, it is up to you to keep reading to find out more!Not sure what Edgar has to do with a case review but... ok
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Gainward GeForce GTX 590 Review @ Technic3D
Published: Monday, August 1, 2011 | By: DennisWhen the GTX 590 was released NVidia told us that only a few select vendors would be allowed to sell the card making the total release somewhat limited. Of course what they told us only applied to the US market since other regions were given a different set of rules.
The Gainward GeForce GTX 590 Graphic Card arrived Technic3D. Technic3D will check the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 590 Series in the following Review with a Resolution from 2560x1600, 1920x1200, 1680x1050, 3D Vision, the real Power Consumption, loudness, temperature, Overclocking and many more in new Games against other Graphic Cards. Better than two GTX 580?
This is a great card from a technology standpoint but since it relies on SLI to operate sometimes the performance isn't there.
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NL: Review Block - Another Kitchen Sink Edition
Published: Thursday, July 28, 2011 | By: DennisMemory
- ADATA DDR3 1600X CL7-9-7-21 Review @ ocaholic
Sounds
- Thermaltake Shock One Headset @ Bjorn3D
Motherboards
- ASUS M5A97 EVO and M5A99X EVO @ PureOverclock
Coolers
- Funky Kit Review: Spire Slimod 282 VGA Cooler
- Corsair Hydro Series H80 Liquid CPU Cooler Review @ Legit Reviews
- Zalman CNPS7X LED CPU Cooler Review @ Techgage
- ThermalTake Frio OCK CPU Cooler Review @ TechwareLabs
- Evercool Dr. Cool Cooler @ Hardware Bistro
Input Devices
- Zowie Mico RTS Mouse Review @ XSReviews
- Gigabyte GM-M6900 Gaming Mouse Review @ TechwareLabs
Cases
- SilverStone Grandia GD03 HTPC Case Review @ ReviewDesk
- OC3D: Silverstone Raven RV03 Review
- Corsair Obsidian Series 650D Case Review on Technic3D
- Thermaltake Level 10 GT @ PureOverclock
Video Cards
- HIS 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2GB @ PureOverclock
- ASUS RoG GTX 580 Matrix Platinum Review @ Hardware Canucks -
EVGA P67 FTW Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks
Published: Thursday, July 28, 2011 | By: DennisIt has been awhile but we're finally seeing EVGA P67 reviews!. I think had there not been a worldwide recall on the P67 B2 and a waiting period for the Z68 the existing P67 boards would get some much needed attention.
With the release of Intel’s Z68, the P67 chipset may have become yesterday’s news but no one seems to have told EVGA since they have recently introduced their flagship P67 FTW. This motherboard has some big shoes to fill considering its predecessor –the P55 FTW- was a genre defining product. But with a long list of features and EVGA’s pedigree of creating overclocker friendly boards, this new FTW should have what it takes to compete.
The board looks amazing and appears to have all of the cool stuff we like to see, I sure hope it sells well.
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Employee Turnover in the Tech Industry Marketing Department @ TweakNews
Published: Monday, July 25, 2011 | By: DennisI do enjoy reading editorials like this since you get a personal perspective on what is happening in the industry. (Some of which I can relate to) Hardware media is a strange thing. On one hand you have a variety of websites offering to do product reviews for the leading hardware manufacturers. As time rolls on this practice becomes standard and big business for both the hardware maker and the media site voicing their opinions. On the other hand you have the money aspect, media outlets want to get paid, the hardware maker wants to sell product, and when margins are low cuts have to be made.
This editorial touches on "why" there is turnover in the marketplace and how even though you may be working in North America you aren't always treated as an American employee but rather having to conform to the working practices of the parent company.
You didn't think the Japanese made it to the top working 9-5 five days a week with paid holidays off did you?
My first inclination was when I noticed that a lot of marketing representatives were never staying at the same company for more than a year or two. Sure for the hardware site owner this can be an advantage seeing you have a industry contact at Company A and when the representative moves over to Company B, you have a instant point of contact at a new brand while still retaining the latter. But why is the marketing department turnover so brutal? Am I missing something here?
The editorial is a quick read, give it a look
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HIS Radeon 6970 ICEQ MIX Review @ Guru3D
Published: Monday, July 25, 2011 | By: DennisI might file this product under the "WTF are they thinking?" category. When I saw this email in the news box I figured it was just another HD 6970 card review but the MIX at the end got me curious so I decided to check it out.
Manufacturers these days go to extremes to bring a graphics card to the market that is unique. With that sentiment HIS is releasing a product with a bit of difference. Roughly a year and a half ago LUCID entered the market with what they claimed to be the revolution in multi-GPU (from different brands) technology, the LUCID Hydra solution.
It caused quite a stir in the market and motherboard manufacturers quickly jumped onto the bandwagon so as not to miss that trendy boat. Unfortunately, ever since the release, LUCID Hydra has been a drama with bad scaling, a lot of incompatibility, slow driver updates; really most reviewers have cursed the chipset and me personally, I'd like to see that Hydra solution 6 feet under.Yep, we have a video card with an onboard Lucid Hydra chip. The Lucid chip normally resides on the motherboard between the source of PCIe lanes and the target graphics cards for maximum bandwidth. However by putting the chip on the video card you can run Lucid on any motherboard at the cost of total bandwidth to your graphics subsystem. Why is this? Well, Hydra works by taking control of the graphics subsystem and deciding what card gets to do the work. The chip then reassembles the return data to generate the frame which requires dedicated bandwidth to contact the various cards. If your primary graphics slot only has 8x lanes available you can assume some of that bandwidth will be consumed by Lucid data and again by the return data from the "slave" cards working in the system.
This really isn't a huge issue with DX11 titles since most of the processing is done by the GPU however older DX9 and DX10 titles will turn out to be somewhat slower than they could be. I guess this is a small price to pay for having PhysX support using AMD graphics cards.
