Tech News

• Sapphire HD6850 Toxic @ LanOC Reviews

  Published: Friday, November 19, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Remember that new nVidia card, the GTX 580??  Well the new cooler features a technology that was first introduced by this company in the VaporX line of products.

  Only a few weeks ago AMD introduced their 6800 series cards featuring both the 6850 and 6870. We covered the 6870 with both Single and Dual card reviews. It didn’t take long to see non-reference designs coming from Sapphire with their Toxic HD6850 being announced today. We have had the pleasure of putting the card through its paces to see how it compares to the 6870 in both price and performance. With the GPU being clocked at 820MHz over the stock 775MHz and a memory frequency bump of 400MHz, from 4000Mhz to 4400MHz it should perform well. But with a few less shaders, compaired to the HD6870, will it hold its own? How will it compaire to Nvidia's offerings?

  So, when did Sapphire change their board colors from Red to Blue?  I guess it has been awhile now, Doh!.

  So long red PCB. 

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• Prolimatech Super Mega and Armageddon Review @ XSReviews

  Published: Thursday, November 18, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Monster cooler anyone??  Heatpipe tower coolers have become the new standard in aftermarket cooling and it would seem everyone has a different idea as to how the heatpipes should be placed.

  Prolimatech appears to think inline pipes is the way to go. 

  This time we are going to take a look at serious air cooling. Prolimatech is known as a producer of high quality air coolers which stand the test against most concurrents. Today we are going to look at two of Prolimatech top air coolers, the thin but wide Armageddon and the proper and copper, Super Mega heatsinks. Both coolers will be matched against each other and valued for their respective prices and market position.

  While we cannot fully agree with the design layout people seem to still like the performance.

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• SilverStone Sugo SG07 Mini-ITX PC Case Review @ Legit Reviews

  Published: Thursday, November 18, 2010 | By: Dennis

  When it comes to cool cases Silverstone has the market covered.

  SilverStone has done a nice job with their Sugo SG07 and accomplished what they set out to do. Build a small form factor case that will house the biggest graphics cards available while having the built-in power to handle it and the rest of the system. All this comes with the quality and aesthetics that one expects from a company like SilverStone...

  This particular case has been on display at the various trade shows (CES / Computex) for over a year now and is positioned to be "the" MiniITX case to buy if your board is anything but an Atom.

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• P67 Sandy Bridge Previews

  Published: Monday, November 15, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Intel P67 is due to be released in the next couple months but we are already starting to see boards, at least in pictures.  Below we have some of the new designs from ASUS, we have already seen some P67 motherboard designs from Gigabyte.

  Intel P67
  - ASUS P67 Sandy Bridge Motherboards @ PureOverclock
  - P8P67, Maximus IV Extreme and Sabertooth 2 @ Legit Reviews
  - ASUS P67 'Sandy Bridge' Motherboards Preview @ Hardware Canucks
  - OC3D: Asus P67 1155 Sandybridge Sneak Peak
  - ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Quick Preview @ HardwareHeaven
  - Asus details Sandy Bridge motherboard lineup
  

  In other Sandy Bridge news we have some actual names to link with the various processors.
  
  Intel updates Sandy Bridge processor lineup

  Intel is set to launch several Sandy Bridge-based low-power processors under its Huron River platform, Core i7-2640LM, 2620LM, 2630UM and 2610LM, as well as Core i5-2530UM, in addition to its Core i7-2920XM, 2820QM, 2720QM and 2620M, and Core i5-2540M and 2520M, according to sources from notebook players.
  

  So far we have seen P67 boards from ASUS, Gigabyte and ECS but what about the other players in the market like EVGA and Foxconn??  Well according to my sources their silence is held based on threats from Intel to withhold product. 
  
  Every motherboard is dependent on the chipsets and Intel is more than willing to hand out chipset designs provided the mobo makers can honor the strict NDA.  This is one of the joys of owning the sole license to processor architecture.  Had nVidia been allowed to produce Sandy Bridge chipsets we likely wouldn't have seen preview products until right at launch day. 
  
  As we have seen there are some cases where Intel allows for that NDA to be broken in what can be described as, targeted marketing.  In this case they are allowing the top sellers to release previews of their designs in hopes that it will enhance sales and basically telling everyone else to suffer.  Of course these P67 previews are "worthless" in the hands of the public since the processors are not available.  Even media outlets are denied product until Intel decides it is ok to release them. 
  
  This kind of begs the question "Why even bother?" 

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• NL: Review Block - Cooling Video and Storage

  Published: Monday, November 15, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Storage
  - OCZ RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD Review @ HardwareHeaven
  - OCZ RevoDrive PCI-E Solid State Drive Review @ OCIA
  - Unsung Heroes: 14 Years of Hard Drive Performance
  
  Cooling
  - Cooler Master V6 CPU / Processor Cooler Review @ Tweaknews
  
  Video
  - Nvidia GTS-450 Graphics Card Review @ MissingRemote
  - ASUS GeForce GTX 580 1.5 GB @ techPowerUp
  - GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 480 SOC 1536 MB Video Card @ TT
  - Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB Super Overclock @ PureOverclock

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• Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200W Power Supply Review @ Kitguru

  Published: Thursday, November 11, 2010 | By: Dennis

  KitGuru has posted a review of the Silent Pro 1200w PSU from Cooler Master, it's a great unit, lots of power, features a clean and quiet design and is 80 Plus Gold certified. 

  We actually reviewed the Silent Pro 1200w PSU some months ago and while initial impressions were extremely good those opinions changed a few months after.  One of the pastimes we enjoy is overclocking, and having a good PSU is really important to get the most from your sessions.  Naturally our first choice was to use the largest one in our arsenal, which happened to be the 1200W Silent Pro.  Initially we didn't find any issues with the cables but it would seem that, while convenient, the breakaway plugs are a royal pain in the ass to line up and install making system setup difficult and time consuming.
  
  Our only hope is that future editions of the Silent Pro Series come with improved cables, though we're not holding our breath.
  

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• COD: Black Ops - Biggest Game Release Ever?

  Published: Thursday, November 11, 2010 | By: Dennis

  It not like nobody saw this coming.

  The video game publisher estimates the first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops pulled in $360 million on its opening day in North America and the U.K.
  
  Activision says 5.6 million copies of the highly-anticipated action game were sold. By comparison, last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- the previous "biggest entertainment launch in history" -- pulled in $310 million on launch day and sold 4.7 million copies.

  Not only does this set records in single game sales but also marks back to back sales records for Call of Duty releases.   Now I just need to set aside some time to play. 

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• New Website for GeForce Card Owners - GeForce.com

  Published: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 | By: Dennis

  To help raise awareness around new technology companies will usually setup websites to explain what the technology is, why it is good, and how to use it.  A tried and true method of marketing.  In the case of NVidia they did this for their nForce chipsets and again for SLI when it started to become popular. 

  A new website has been launched designed to help users get the most from their nVidia GeForce video cards called GeForce.com.  GeForce.com is more than a simple propaganda website, but instead a website designed for the end-user to educate them on the benefits of GeForce products and offer up suggestions on how to configure game settings for the best possible quality.

  OPS is a set of in-game settings that aims to maximize image quality while maintaining 30 frames per second or more. An OPS is determined by playing through a key portion of the game using automated software, analyzing the framerate, then altering the in-game settings accordingly until the average framerate reaches 30 fps or more. The software reports back the optimal playable setting, the average framerate, and where possible, minimum and maximum framerates.
   
  For a given NVIDIA GPU, we generate OPS for three resolutions so you can pick the one that suits your monitor. On high-end GPUs, settings up to 2560 x 1600 are available. On low end GPUs, OPS targets resolutions around 1680 x 1050.

  The site is currently in beta but has a handful of games available, and settings for all current NVidia GPUs.

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• nVidia GTX 580 Launch Day

  Published: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Well it would seem the rumors were true, big green did have an ace up their sleeve that on the surface seems to fully complete the Fermi circle.
  
  As many of you know the Fermi architecture was designed to support 512 CUDA cores but due to heat concerns the first cards were released only having 480 cores.  While NVidia was flushing out the 400 level product offering they were also refining the Fermi design to both improve performance and lower the power envelope.
  
  GF110 was the latest iteration of Fermi and appears to be the baseline used to create the new GTX 580.  Combine a full 512 stream processors with higher clocks and you get a significant performance increase across the board.
  
  Here are some reviews from around the web
  
  - Zotac GeForce GTX 580 review @ t-break
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580: A New Flagship Emerges
  - Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 @ Bjorn3D
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 SLI @ techPowerUp
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1536 MB @ techPowerUp
  - GeForce GTX 580 review
  - GeForce GTX 580 SLI review
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 GF110 Fermi Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
  - Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 SLI Launch Review @ HardwareHeaven
  - Nvidia's GeForce GTX 580 graphics processor
  - HEXUS.net - reviews :: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 graphics card review
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 Review @ Hardware Canucks
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580: Back in the Game @ InsideHW
  
  With any luck we'll have a similar review posted in the next few weeks and some product photos and specs posted a little later today.

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• COD: Black Ops - just one day away (Nov 9th 2k10)

  Published: Monday, November 8, 2010 | By: Dennis

  The latest installment of the COD (Call of Duty) franchise is due to be released tomorrow and thus far is destined to rival the Modern Warfare 2 release as being the top grossing game of the year.
  
  I have noticed some interesting trends in the site logs, it would seem that the Popular Foxconn BlackOps motheboard review has been getting some good google hits lately and I suspect that people searching for info on the game are getting the review instead. 
  
  Who knew that an X48 based, and highly overclockable, motherboard from Foxconn could be so popular over 2 years after its initial release. 
  
  Might be time to setup the X48 for some COD: Black Ops action!!
  
  In other BlackOps news a new commercial for COD: Black Ops has been released, check it out.

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