Tech News

• Adata ventures into electric car battery business

  Published: Monday, July 26, 2010 | By: Dennis

  The popular memory company, Adata, has been branching off and trying new things.  At Computex this year we saw their new line of Power Supplies, I guess electric car batteries are just the next logical step.

  China-based Golden Crown (GC) Energy, which specializes in making electric car batteries, has drawn investment from Adata Technology, according to the battery maker speaking on the sidelines of the opening of its new plant. The major Taiwan-based DRAM module house has taken up a 10% stake in GC Energy.
  

  When times are tough companies tend to scramble to find something to diversify their income streams, this is why you see so many buyouts and mergers during a recession.  However when a company that specializes in memory products starts to do something totally unrelated to the field people (investors) tend to take notice.

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• Hailea HC-500A Water Chiller Review @ Bit-tech

  Published: Saturday, July 24, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Watercooling can come in many forms,  Small and compact units like the Corsair H-50 do a great job at keeping your processor cool however if you want to watercool your entire system a larger custom build is what you will need.  Regardless of what method you choose you can never get colder than ambient room temperature.
  
  So how do you increase the cooling performance of an already efficient cooling system??  You remove the radiator and replace it with a chiller of course.  The Hailea was designed to cool tropical aquariums but seems to have been modified into a 790w water chiller.
  
  

  Phase-change cooling is more usually found cooling a single component, typically a CPU, by pumping a sub-0°C liquid refrigerant over the CPU, with the heat of the CPU transferring to the liquid, phase-changing (boiling) it to its gaseous state. This gas is then pumped into a compressor which, with the help of a heat exchanger, phase-changes (condenses) it back to its liquid state to be pumped back to the cooling block to start the whole process again.
  

  
  Be sure to check out the article for an exploded view of the Hailea, it is quite impressive and even features a temperature control unit that will start and stop the compressor when needed.
  
  On a side note, I now know what I can do with that old Vapochill PE I have collecting dust in my garage.
  
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• NVIDIA Sheds Light On Lack Of PhysX CPU Optimizations @ HotHardware

  Published: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 | By: Dennis

  This is a pretty good read for those of you that have been following some of the PhysX drama that has hit the websphere.  The back story here is that someone discovered that PhysX didn't run well on a CPU and claimed that nVidia purposefully crippled it.  While reports like this rarely make headlines there is always a curiosity factor that needs to be taken into consideration.
  
  

  About four months ago, we covered the latest round of shin-kicking between ATI and NVIDIA, with ATI claiming that NVIDIA purposefully crippled CPU performance when running PhysX code and coerced developers to make use of it. NVIDIA denied all such claims, particularly those that implied it used its "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" program as a bludgeon to force hardware PhysX on developers or gamers.
  
  A new report has dug into how PhysX is executed on a standard x86 CPU; the analysis confirms some of AMD's earlier statements...
  

  
  We have also taken a look at PhysX performance in the past, but from the standpoint of what hardware configuration will give you the best performance.  One of the testing points was to enable PhysX without an nVidia card in the system (ie run it on the CPU).  As you can imagine performance was horrible but justified considering the architecture of a GPU vs that of a CPU.  The GPU can just do certain things faster than if you ran them from a CPU directly. 
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• nVidia GTX 460 Madness!!

  Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 | By: Dennis

  It would seem that everyone is getting the GTX 460 fever, at least when it comes to published reviews.  For those of you that don't know the nVidia GTX 460 is the new low(er) end Fermi GPU that appears be a perfect match between price and performance when it comes to DX11 enabled video cards.

  

  - EVGA GTX 460 768MB Superclocked Single & SLI Review @ Hardware Canucks
  - CHW review of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB & 768MB
  - EVGA GeForce GTX 460 768MB SC SLI Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
  - MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone OC 1024MB
  - iXBT Labs Review: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Graphics Card
  - Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic Platinum 1GB Overclocked

  The only thing lacking with the 460 is another set of SLI fingers for triple and quad card configurations.  Then again this is a mainstream card and not many mainstream folks have a need for more than 2 cards in any particular system.

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• NL: Review Block - Cases, Coolers, Memory

  Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Been a few days since I posted a review block so here goes.

  Memory
  - Crucial Ballistix 4GB PC3-12800 DDR3 Kit with Thermal Sensor Review @ Bigbruin  (oh ya, Crucial is stil right down the street from the Ninjalane Labs )
  - OC3D: Mushkin Blackline 12GB Kit Review
  - OCZ Agility 2 120 GB SSD @ techPowerUp
  
  Cases
  - Silverstone Fortress Series FT02 Computer Case Review @ Tweaknews
  - NZXT VULCAN M-ATX Computer Case @ TechwareLabs
  - SilverStone Grandia GD05 SFF HTPC Chassis Review @ EXTREME Overclocking
  - Xigmatek Midgard White Knight Review - XSReviews  (haven't we seen this case before?)
  - NZXT Beta EVO Case Review @ KitGuru
  - Cooler Master HAF X Bigtower Chassis Review
  - Xigmatek Midgard Case Review @ HardwareHeaven  (There it is again)
  - Thermaltake Element G Gaming PC Case Review
  
  Cooling
  - GBU Larkooler Universal Water Cooling Kit @ PureOverclock
  - Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow @ ocaholic
  - Thermaltake FRIO CPU/Processor Cooler Review @ Tweaknews
  - Thermaltake Frio CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Canucks
  - Thermaltake Frio Review @ HardwareLogic
  - Thermaltake Frio Review @ Ninjalane
  
  Take a careful look at that Xigmatek case and then check out our CM 690 review  You might be a little suprised at what you see. 
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• Thermaltake Armor A90 Reviews

  Published: Monday, July 19, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Now this is a little werid, but here we go launching a review of the Thermaltake Armor A90 computer case only to find 2 other reviews of teh same case in our news inbox.  What are the odds?

  - ThermalTake Armor A60 Case Review @ KitGuru
  - Thermaltake Armor A90 @ LanOC Reviews

  The Armor A90 isn't a bad case, but its not badass either, aside from the color.  But if you want the latest black case with bright blue (and clear) LED fans, look no further.

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• ASUS MARS II PCB shots leaked @ Elite Bastards

  Published: Friday, July 16, 2010 | By: Dennis

  So when is a leak a good thing?  I'd say anytime we can see something cool and unexpected.
  
  My sources within the walls of nVidia tell me that the company has a gag order on showing dual GPU designs to the general public but given the shots of the dual GTX 470 at Computex it would seem to be loosely enforced.
  
  With that being said here is something cool and unexpected, a dual GPU card direct from ASUS.
  
  

  If your Friday is proving to be a little boring, how's this for something to spice things up, courtesy of a trio of images that have just turned up in our mailbox.  The images in question purport to show ASUS' forthcoming MARS II graphics board, and they're extremely interesting to say the least. 

  Despite the poor lighting and bad angle the shots look legit.  At least they aren't ebay quality cellphone shots.

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• Antennagate - It Could Cost Apple $900 Million?

  Published: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 | By: Dennis

  If you have been following any of the iPhone 4 developments over the past few weeks you'll have no doubly heard about lack luster antenna and poor reception in the phone.  Well it would seem that stock speculators are now saying the antenna issues could cost Apple as much as $900 Million in stock loss and repair costs.  WTF?
  
  That number seems a little high to me, especially since some of that cost is estimated based on a stock drop and the expected warranty repair costs.  (which most companies are insured against)  So despite the obviously paranoid nature of this story, and that is written in an attempt to make it sound like "insider information", I'm sure Apple is going to be just fine.
  
  Now for the best part (and only reason I started ranting about it to begin with) the title.  "Antennagate"  It would seem that if you want to get people's attention and somehow add a "scandalous" tone to your news report just add "gate" to the end of a word and make up a title.
  
  For instance:

  "Motherboardgate - exploding caps cost companies millions in RMA and thousands of hours in lost game time"
  "Fermigate - excess heat and lackluster performance are prime to suck nVidia into a black hole"
  "Trafficgate - slight of hand? Or an actual problem?"

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• Gainward GeForce GTX 460 GLH

  Published: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 | By: Dennis

  As some of you may have noticed the GTX 460 was recently made public and most every review featured several directly marketing pages from nVidia.  Not a bad thing but indicates that the timetable to get the review turned around was somewhat "truncated".

  Out of the many we saw, this one from Gainward stood out as being the best of the bunch, this decision has nothing to do with clockspeeds or performance but rather the sexy red PCB and custom cooler with red fan.

  Generally Gainward designs their own PCBs which often pays off with better overclocking and overall performance, however you run the risk of being late to market and generally unloved by loyalists.

  The review is in German but the charts and photos tend to speak for themselves.
  

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• First-tier motherboard makers launch GeForce GTX 460 cards

  Published: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 | By: Dennis

  We all knew there would be more chips based on the "Fermi" architecture.  The real question is..  Will they be any good?

  The GeForce GTX 460 will come in two versions, 192-bit 768MB memory priced US$199 and 256-bit 1GB memory priced US$299. Most graphics card makers are already selling 768MB version GeForce GTX 460-based cards, while the 1GB versions will start mass shipments on July 26.
  
  Nvidia is expected to launch the GeForce GTS 455/450 GPU, targeting a US$129-179 price range in August and will launch one more GF100-based GPU in September, targeting the US$100 and below price range.
  
  The GeForce GTX 460 is equipped with 336 CUDA cores with 56 texture units.

  Given that the 460 runs at the same clock speed as the larger 480 and has some headroom for overclocking, I think the answer will be yes 

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