Tech News

• AMD Athlon II X4 960T OEM CPU Review @ Motherboards

  Published: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 | By: Will

  The rumormills have gotten the masses up in arms over this new puppy. The potential Phenom II X4 that could be unlocked to a X6 is something everyone wants. Still it might only be for the OEM market and that is not setting well with enthusiasts out there.

  "In terms of performance, the AMD Phenom II X4 960T is right in-line with the expectation of a CPU that is clocked at 3.0GHz with four cores. Where this CPU really shines is when the end-user unlocks the extra two CPU cores on the die and runs this as a 6-core CPU except in the Sisoft Sandra test which is interesting. The extra cores come into play with multi-threaded apps in most cases and It works with a supported motherboard. The benefit of the AMD platform is that while the CPUs are released older motherboards still are generally compatible. Many AM2+ motherboards are certified to work with the new CPUs meaning that all you have to do to install the new CPU is update the BIOS. As the CPU is not available as of yet online I imagine the 960T will retail below the price of the 1055T making it a great competitor against the Core i5-650 CPU. More cores, more performance at the same price."

  I'm sure some retailer is going to sell OEM versions of this chip soon enough.

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• SandForce showdown: Corsair's Force F200 and OCZ's Agility 2 and Vertex 2 SSDs

  Published: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 | By: Will

  The SSD storm is not over yet. The ball keeps rolling for better and faster controllers and the flavor of the month is now SandForce SF-1200 controller. As these get better we hope to see prices fall on the older SSD drives that are just as capable as the new technology. 

  "A solid-state drive's controller chip largely determines its destiny. SandForce's SF-1200 is the latest controller to hit the market, and we've taken it for a spin in Corsair's Force F200 and OCZ's Agility 2 and Vertex 2 SSDs. Keep reading to see if all the hype is deserved."

  Everyone is getting the itch to get an SSD the way these things keep coming out.

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• AMD chipsets in tight supply

  Published: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 | By: Will

  It looks like the new AMD processors have put a real strain on the rest of there chipset production. With making some of the chipsets in short supply during high demand times.

  "Supply for AMD chipsets is running tight as the company has agreed to allow foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to allocate part of the 55nm capacity reserved for chipsets to GPU production in order to ease current GPU shortages, according to sources at motherboard makers.
  
  In the second half of 2009, AMD's 40nm ATI Radeon HD 5000 series faced a serious shortage due to low yields on TSMC's 40nm process, as a result, graphics card makers turned to placing orders for 55nm ATI Radeon HD 4000 series GPUs. However, since AMD took a conservative attitude toward future 55nm GPU sales after the launch of 40nm GPUs, both the company's 40nm and 55nm GPUs ended up suffering from shortages, according to previous reports."

  This could go very bad for AMD if they do not fix it quick.

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• ATI's Eyefinity: 18 Games Benched on 3 and 6 Displays @ Techgage

  Published: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 | By: Will

  Gaming with multiple monitors is the only way to play. We'll as long as you got that money to put out for it. Here is a fun little article on Eyefinity, and what you need to get you extreme resolution game on.

  "When AMD launched its ATI Eyefinity technology, it helped redefine high-end gaming, and effectively made 2560x1600 look like child's play. In this article, we put the technology to a good test across 18 different games and on both 3x1 (5760x1080) and 3x2 (5760x2160) display configurations to see just how worthy Eyefinity is."

  I prefer the 3 monitor setup over the 6  because of the seems from the bezels.

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• MSI 890FXA-GD70 @ PureOverclock

  Published: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 | By: Will

  The AMD Phenom II X6 is really picking up the pace on Intel with motherboards that are already ahead of the technology curve with USB 3.0 and SATA 6GBs. The big thing is how far will this motherboard overclock the new X6 to compete with the Core series. 

  "Today we're looking at MSI's foray into the USB 3.0 and SATA III market with their premium AM3 board, the 890FXA-GD70. This new board looks to build upon the success of MSI's recent product offerings, bringing some enthusiast features into the mix through the 890FX chipset to the Phenom faithful."

  That is a pretty impressive board.

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• MSI shows single and dual screen design tablets @ t-break

  Published: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 | By: Will

  These new MSI tablets look interesting, but the dual screen one sound just cool. Have a touch screen keyboard will make me the coolest geek of them all. Dual monitors to rule them all. After someone cleans off those screens. Yuck!

  "MSI was showing two very interesting tablets at the DCC event in Fujairah, UAE. The first one is a standard tablet form with a 9.7 inch capacitive screen and a minimal design. While we do not have any details on the specifications, we did see a MicroSD slot and a USB port. It will be..."

  Next time clean screen before picture.

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• ASUS Matrix 5870 Platinum ROG edition review @ Guru3D

  Published: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 | By: Will

  The new Asus ROG Radeon 5870 looks like one of the coolest cards in a long time. The word "Matrix" lighted up inside a case would be killer to see. Now does it bring anything more than just bling to the Radeon HD 5870 series cards? Go read and find out.

  Many moons have passed and ATI gave their partners the thumbs up to create little werewolves. See, when it's a full moon the R5870 turns into something geeky, extraordinary, even a bit hairy. Yes the OC editions of the Radeon HD 5870 series were unleashed. As the ASUS ROG team started to design the ASUS Radeon 5870 Matrix Platinum.
  
  In all its ways the 5870 Matrix Platinum card needs to be extreme, so we spot a custom PCB, some extraordinary cooling, we see a 2 GB memory size, we spot a standard overclock, but most of all... the card comes with overclocking software that allows voltage tweaking on three domains within the graphics card. What makes this product series so special is that it haves been designed with the ROG team (Republic of Gamers) a small group of enthusiasts within the ASUS campus. Little red colored minions that drink LN2 and taze each other just for fun. They live by one rule only, gain the maximum performance out of a product... and do things right.

  That is one of the coolest looking cards that has came out just recently.

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• Live Overclocking with EVGA

  Published: Monday, May 17, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Computex is coming up and looks like EVGA has booked both Kingpin and Shamino to headline the event with live overlcoking demonstrations.  The duo was featured a couple years ago overclocking for Foxconn and now they will be back and stationed at the GSkill booth.

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• Thermaltake Frio CPU Cooler @ TechwareLabs

  Published: Monday, May 17, 2010 | By: Will

  Ninjalane has enjoyed reviewing this awesome cooler. So let's read some other review on this product to get thier take on it. I'm sure they will just as impressed as we are. So give both reviews a read and make a good educated decision on it.

  "Not ready for water cooling? No Problem! Thermaltake has your back with the Frio, this baby claims support for up to 220 watts of power. Come see if you should take it home, or leave it out in the cold!"

  This is a cooler made for action.

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• Understanding All Voltage Configurations from the Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets

  Published: Sunday, May 16, 2010 | By: Dennis

  One of the hardest things to understand about overclocking is not actually making your system go faster, but rather when you should change things, and what things you should change.

  The things most often needing a little tweak would be:

  - Frequencies - These are the actual bus speeds you can change often denoted by Mhz
  - Multipliers/Dividers - These apply to the frequencies by giving you a factor of change (yep just like in math class, just don't divide by zero it tends to open a wormhole in timespace and makes your Pepsi flat
  - Voltages - These are the most common thing you will change and work much like giving your car gas when driving up a hill.

  The problem is none of this stuff is standardized so when you look at an EVGA BIOS you will see different things than if you were working on a Gigabyte board.  This is normally due to the different ways each mobo maker opts to tweak their systems.  DFI had their way, EVGA has their way, Foxconn has their way, and Gigabyte has theirs.  None of them are wrong, just different.

  Hardware Secrets has posted a multipage article trying to decipher the mystery of motherboard voltages, read with caution.

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