Tech News

• Gigabyte 890FXA-UD7 @ PureOverclock

  Published: Monday, October 25, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Gigabyte's Ultra Durable line of video cards has a pretty clear distinction between the mainstream and the high-end that is usually denoted by the UD number in the name.  All boards feature the same basic features however the higher up you go the better the components you get.

  Gigabyte has made what we'd call an "Ultra High-End" board for AM3, if you'd want to call it that. Made for overclocking and for QuadFire, it's not for the timid of heart, or budget. But at least it won't require a 2nd mortgage like the UD9 would. Let's take a closer look at the Gigabyte 890FX-UD7.
  

  UD7 boards typically feature multipurpose MCP coolers that can accept water while UD5 and UD3 are typically left having an aircooling only option,  Be sure to check out our review of this very same board in UD5 trim.
  

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• Nvidia lowers prices for GeForce GTX 460 and GTX 470

  Published: Friday, October 22, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Nvidia on October 21 announced price cuts for three GeForce GTX 460 GPUs of 12.6-15.1%, and for 470 chips of 25.8%, according to Taiwan-based card makers.
  
  The price reduction is to cope with potential competition from Radeon HD 6000-series cards to be launched by AMD on October 22, the sources analyzed.

  The launch would be today and the price drop is real. (don't believe us, check Newegg and/or Tiger Direct).  The average price drop is between 15 and 25% making the cards extremely attractive from a purchase standpoint.

  I have not checked to see if the price drop extends to Overclocked and Super Overclocked cards but there is no reason to think otherwise.

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• AMD Radeon 6000 Series Launch Day - Review Roundup

  Published: Friday, October 22, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Whoa, something exploded today, as you can tell today is launch day for the AMD 6XXX.  This is a midrange card (with a high end name) priced and targeted at the GTX 460.  

  Today also marks the 2nd day after a major price drop in NVidia GTX460 and GTX470 graphics cards.  (Normally issued thru a MIR)

  - AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 @ Techgage

  - AMD Radeon HD 6850 CrossFire @ techPowerUp
  - ASUS Radeon HD 6870 CrossFire @ techPowerUp
  - HIS Radeon HD 6850 1 GB @ techPowerUp
  - ASUS Radeon HD 6850 Direct CU 1 GB @ techPowerUp
  - HIS Radeon HD 6870 1 GB @ techPowerUp

  - AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 Review @ Hardware Canucks

  - HIS Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card in Crossfire @ TweakTown
  - AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card @ TweakTown

  - Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 @ Pro-Clockers
  - Gigabyte Radeon 6850 1GB @ PureOverclock
  - ASUS Radeon EAH6870 1GB @ PureOverclock
  - Sapphire Radeon 6850 1GB @ PureOverclock

  - AMD Radeon 6870 and 6850 Launch Review @ HardwareHeaven

  - Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers

  - OC3D: ASUS HD6870 Crossfire EXCLUSIVE Review (ohhh exclusive *tremble*)
  - OC3D: HIS Radeon 6850 and 6870 Review

  - Diamond Multimedia HD 6870 @ LanOC Reviews

  - Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 review @ Guru3D
  - Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 CrossfireX review @ Guru3D

  - AMD Radeon HD 6870 and 6850 Graphics Debut @ HotHardware

  - HIS Radeon HD6870 @ Bjorn3D
  - Sapphire HD 6850 @ Bjorn3D
  - AMD HD6850 and HD6870 @ Bjorn3D

  - AMD Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 CrossFire Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

  - AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 cards benchmarked and reviewed @ Hexus

  - Radeon HD 6850: Grinding Diamonds @ InsideHW
  
  This might be the longest review block ever!  Normally I filter out multiple review links to the same site, makes posting the links faster and will be easier for you to read.  However this time I figured "what the hell, lets post them all". 

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• Planning One-Way Human Trip to Mars - How do you do it?

  Published: Thursday, October 21, 2010 | By: Dennis

  In other news... (and direct from ExtremeTech)
  
  What would you think about a one way trip to Mars?  While many of us have used that as a harmful threat it seems that NASA and DARPA are exploring the prospect for real.
  
  

  Worden said that despite the allure of settling distant worlds, we should first go to the moons of Mars, in order to do comprehensive telerobotics exploration, the report said. We're not sure about that idea; we heard Phobos and Deimos could be pretty scary.
  

  
  Of course you may remember Phobos and Deimos were the moons where Doom takes place, while I think landing on the larger planet might be a little easier that doesn't seem to be the case with these guys.
  
  The article talks about building a "Hundred Year Starship" powered by electricity and with enough room to ferry the crew and supplies on a one-way trip to the distant planet.  Considering it takes about 200+ days to get to Mars, and that you're going to be there "forever" you need more than just a few astronauts to make it happen.  You need a settlement expedition similar to what Europe did when discovering new world.
  
  First you send your scouts to setup base camp, gather food, and setup shelter.  Then send wave after wave of settlers until you have enough people to maintain a community.  It was expensive back in the 1700's, and it's not going to be any cheaper now.  Not to mention the ships won't be reusable, they need to be recyclable by the settlers, oh and there is no going back.
  
  Anyone on board?

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• Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 expected to perform 20% faster than 480

  Published: Thursday, October 21, 2010 | By: Dennis

  This is some good news for those of us waiting for the next big thing.

  Nvidia is preparing to launch its GF110-based GeForce GTX 580 by the end of November or early December 2010 with performance 20% faster than its current GeForce GTX 480, according to sources from graphics card makers.
  
  After GF110, Nvidia is also set to gradually unveil its GF112, GF114 and GF119 in 2011 with market positions similar to its GF104, GF106 and GF108, respectively. The company is also preparing to announce 28nm Kepler GPUs by the end of 2011 and is currently developing Maxwell as Kepler's successor.

  Assuming this is using the same Fermi architecture can likely expect a full 512 shader cores and maybe a 512-bit memory interface.  Of course there isn't anything keeping nVidia from increasing the number of CUDA cores, maybe the GF11X will have 640?, or maybe more. 

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• Thermaltake Armor A60 @ techPowerUp

  Published: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Looking for a great case, with tons of features, and USB3 support built in?  Then give the Armor A60 a look.

  The Armor A60 is a smaller version of the popular Armor A90. It retains the cool and edgy look of the larger brother, but also offers a few new and interesting features and updates. We throw everything we have at the case to see if the Armor A60 remains standing once the dust has settled.

  Thermaltake also offers this case as a Case/PSU bundle if you happen to be building from scratch.

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• ASUS Rampage III Gene review @ Guru3D

  Published: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 | By: Dennis

  It would seem that X58 is still very popular despite the pending Sandy Bridge release and for good reason, X58 isn't getting upgraded and remains the flagship product from Intel.

  Cute tiny and sexy .. don't we all like it ? Within that motto ASUS has it's own Gene series within the motherboard line up. Now if you put that on the X58 platform, it's called Rampage by ASUS. And then when this apocalyptic group of minions and demons called 'Republic of Gamers' aka ROG gets their hands on a product like this, you can expect improvements and extra overclock features.
  
  The end results is is, the ASUS Rampage III Gene ROG edition.

  Its MicroATX too.  Not a bad thing, but X58 and Core i7 both get extremely hot and very view MicroATX cases deliver enough cooling power to keep things short of melting.

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• Intel Initiates Mass Production of Sandy Bridge Microprocessors.

  Published: Sunday, October 17, 2010 | By: Dennis

  It's like Clarkdale all over again!
  
  

  "[In the third quarter] we began volume production of Sandy Bridge and expect to ship revenue units in Q4 as we prepare for systems launch in the first quarter of 2011. Sandy Bridge represents the largest increase in computing performance in our history. This is a truly stunning product that we cannot wait to bring to market. Early demand from customers is much greater than we originally expected and we anticipate a very fast ramp," said Paul Otellini, chief executive officer of Intel, during the most recent conference call with financial analysts.
  

  
  Of course as many of us know Clarkdale lunched during CES, and while Intel was nice enough to supply "us" with a Core i5-661 processor it took almost 6 months to get an H55 board to test it on.
  
  It even did 5.5Ghz under phase!
  
  I highly doubt this trend will repeat when Sandy Bridge launches, but then again who is to say "we" didn't get our Sandy Bridge processor samples already?
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• 22nd October launch for AMD Radeon HD 68XX Series

  Published: Sunday, October 17, 2010 | By: Dennis

  I normally don't get too excited over the latest AMD launch but here is a good time to make an exception.  According to this new report at VR-Zone 2 cards in the 6000 series lineup will be launching on the 22nd and they expect them to be on retail shelves at the same time.

  It is confirmed that AMD has changed its mind for the second time and will launch the Radeon HD 6000 Series on 22 October 2010. The launch was initially slated for 12 October but was pushed back a week to the 19th prior to this. Fudzilla has also confirmed that the Radeon HD 6000 Series will launch on the 22nd.

  Keep in mind this might be a grain of salt sort of thing (since we haven't gotten any review requests yet), but if we happen to get a last minute "hey will you review this card for us?" I'll gladly stand corrected. 

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• Colorful iGame GTX 460 1 GB @ techPowerUp

  Published: Sunday, October 17, 2010 | By: Dennis

  This may be one of the coolest video cards I have seen in a really long time.  While on the surface you see a dual fan triple slot video card, under the surface you find an upgraded PWM, dual power connectors, and voltage test points.

  This card is built to be an overclocker like the Gigabyte GTX 470 SOC so expect some big numbers with proper cooling.

  

  Colorful's iGame GTX 460 uses a massive triple slot cooler with two fans to keep the card cool. It also offers overclocker-friendly features like a Turbo button or voltage measurement points. Out of the box the card runs at clocks of 820 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory making it one of the faster GTX 460 variants out there.
  
  -- snip --
  
  As mentioned before, the card has a turbo switch which lets you select between a normal mode (GTX 460 reference clocks) and a turbo mode (820/1000). The two modes have different 3D  voltages so we tested overclocking potential in both of them. The first number in the following paragraph is normal mode, the second number is turbo mode.

  I'd like to know if these will start selling in the US, and if so. Where to do I get one! (or two

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