Tech News
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Happy New Year!
Published: Friday, December 31, 2010 | By: DennisHappy new year everyone!,
May all of your 2010 failures be forgotten and hopes for your 2011 wishes to come true.
Things here will be a little quiet until CES time. I have quite a few things to wrap up before the big trip including a fresh new review complete with new benchmarks
Take care, and stay safe
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Inno3D Geforce GTX580 Overclock Review @ XtremeComputing
Published: Thursday, December 30, 2010 | By: DennisAt one point I was a huge fan of Inno3D stuff, mostly because they were the only ones who offered a PCI version of the popular GeForce2. Something like that isn't considered fashionable with Eyefinity and 3DVision Surround being the hot ticket. However, back then it was the only way to enable a dual screen desktop.
Since then Inno3D has retreated back to the APAC market and is rarely heard of in the States.
Today I’ve got the Inno3D GTX580 Overclock to review. The latest and (hopefully) greatest single-gpu graphics card on the market. Seen to be a tweaked and perfected version of the GTX480, this card should be top boss. However, we’ll see how it does in our benchmarks
Seems like a good card, complete with OEM cooler.
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Octomom meets Motherboard - Kinda
Published: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 | By: DennisIt would seem the big news of the day is a crazy "me too" motherboard from MSI called the Marshal. The board comes with eight full length PCI Express slots, four of them are designed to run at full bandwidth while the remaining run at half bandwidth.
We have seen several motherboards using a similar configuration, Gigabyte, and EVGA seem to be the popular choice and since their release other companies have been doing their best to play "catch-up".MSI shows off its Big Bang Marshal board
@ Semiaccurate (the name strikes phjear in malware detectors world wide)
@ DailyTechIn other news we have a couple twin fan extra tall MSI video cards being shown by MSI.
R6970 Lightning and N580GTX Lightning Sneak Peek
Lastly, we have a fancy device from EVGA that reminds me of some stuff DFI used to do back in the day on their LAN Party motherboards, yep molex power piped directly into the PCI Express slot for greater video card stability. EVGA calls this device "Power Boost".
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Media Players Media Remotes and the HTPC
Published: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 | By: DennisThe HTPC offers a great deal of flexibility when it comes to expanding your Home Theater video library, of course to get the most from your HTPC experience you first need a computer to hook up to your big screen television.
Missing Remote has a beginners Guide to Home Theater PC (HTPC) to get you started.
Of course if you would rather not hassle building a computer for the living room you can purchase a AIO unit like the QNAP NMP-1000P Media Player. We had the opportunity to review the NMP-1000P and aside from a few "gotchas" it worked perfectly.
Lastly once you get your HTPC up and running you'll need a way to control what the computer does. A wireless keyboard and mouse seem like a logical choice; however a special built remote might be better. GlideTV has you covered with their Navigator HTPC Remote and Legit has a review posted.
If you want to see another HTPC build be sure to check out the Ninjalane Project "Building a HTPC" -
Gigabyte Aivia K8100 Gaming Keyboard Review @ Hardware Canucks
Published: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 | By: DennisGaming keyboards are a love and hate relationship. People that know how to use them, tend to side on the love side, while productive folks often look for a comfortable "ergo" design and rely on their fast fingers to get that first frag.
Which user are you?Let's preface things by saying that we have a special place in our hearts for all things red. With that being said, red peripherals do take a bit of getting used to but Gigabyte does offer the Aivia in a number of different colours from a standard black finish to screaming yellow. This is definitely a safe move on their part since the K8100 is a near-perfect keyboard which would have been ruined in some eyes if Gigabyte stuck to Lego-like primary colours.
Don't get me wrong, I am a total fan of "red" however there is something about this keyboard that just seems excessive.
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NL: Review Round-Up - Cards, Boards and Sandy Bridge
Published: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 | By: DennisRadeon HD69XX Series Round-Up
- AMD Radeon HD 6950 & HD 6970 CrossFireX @ Techgage
- Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers
- Sapphire HD 6850 1GB Review @ XSReviews (1GB ??)
nV Video Card(s)
- Gainward GeForce GTX 570 GLH Golden Sample Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven (Maybe one of these days Gainward will start selling in the US, I do miss the sexy red PCB, on anything for that matter)
Motherboard Round-Up
- Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 Mini-ITX Motherboard Review @ OCIA (Our review of the GA-H55N here)
- Foxconn P67A-S Intel P67 Preview @ techPowerUp (W00t for Sandy!!)
- MSI P67A-GD65 Sandy bridge mobo preview
Sandy Bridge is the news big Intel release and it would seem Intel is really pushing it, at least from the standpoint of getting "all" of the mobo makers on board with product for launch. -
NL: Review Block - Cases and Cooling
Published: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 | By: DennisSome review links from around the web.
Cases
- Silverstone SG07B-W Gaming SFF Case @ Pro-Clockers
- SilverStone Grandia GD05 Case Review at Overclockers Online
- IcyDock MB973SP-B Tray-less 3-Bay SATA Hard Drive Bay Module
- SilverStone SG05-450 SFF Chassis Review @ OCIA
Cooling
- Scythe Setsugen 2 meets GTX 570 @ Hardwareoverclock
- Thermalright Silver Arrow Heatsink Review @ Frostytech
- Vantage Advanced Liquid Cooling by CoolIT Systems @ Bjorn3D
- Swiftech H2O-320 Edge Water Cooling Kit @ PureOverclock -
AMD Radeon HD 6950 to HD 6970 Mod @ TechpowerUp
Published: Monday, December 27, 2010 | By: DennisIt usually takes a few weeks but eventually hardware enthusiasts will find ways to get around the limitations mfgs add to their hardware. In this case a simple BIOS flash will turn your HD 6950 into a fully capable HD 6970.
Just like on all other similar products, AMD's two Cayman variants, called Cayman Pro and Cayman XT, are based on the exact same GPU silicon. The model variant a GPU chip becomes is decided after the die is produced, at some point before it is put on the card. Creating new SKUs from the same silicon by locking features has been common practice in the industry since at least the Radeon 9500 in 2002.
This article is to unlock the Radeon HD 6950. The HD 6970 has nothing that can be unlocked.While the card will accept the BIOS there is no guarantee that the card will accept higher clocks, and in some cases may actually cause more issues than it solves.
I'll give this mod a try when I have a spare moment, given how well the HD 6950 clocked in the review I'd expect things to go extremely well.
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Merry Christmas Everyone
Published: Friday, December 24, 2010 | By: DennisHappy Holidays everyone, Eat well and be merry!!
Most of all enjoy the day
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Intel Wins Approval for McAfee Acquisition From FTC
Published: Thursday, December 23, 2010 | By: DennisAs if we had any doubts, of course the EU will likely have their panties in a wad over this, but anymore what doesn't.
In August, Intel agreed to buy the company for $7.68 billion, saying it will use the deal to create chips with built- in security. The acquisition of McAfee, also based in Santa Clara, would be the biggest purchase in Intel's history. Integrating McAfee defenses into its products will make devices more efficient and secure, Intel has said.
Intel making more chips? Seems crazy doesn't it.
. Give them a few years and they will try integrating "these" chips into their processors like they are doing with everything else.
Or, they will spend all this time and money on something, overhype it, and then later drop the project because someone else can do it better. (read: Larrabee)
