Tech News
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Wikileaks confirmed: A plan to kill American geologist with poison beer
Published: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | By: DennisThis is just wrong on so many levels. I know some of you are saying "that is why I don't drink beer" while others are saying "Silly Afgans, you can't learn about beer culture by watching "The Fast and Furious" with that Dom guy"
My opinion, I like beer, almost as much as Pepsi. However if presented with the situation below I might have laughed and then promptly thrown the bottle out the window.
The Corona bottle sat on his counter for the next two weeks Yeager says, because Corona is one of his least favorite beers. He finally opened it during a going away party as the other drinks began to run low.
"I pulled it out and when I popped it there was no fizz and the cap was loose," says Yeager. "Because this one didn't have fizz you wonder if it went rancid or not, and I just kind of sniffed it and I went 'Oh, that doesn't smell like beer.' "
Funny thing after reading this I remember a scene in an old James Bond film (Dr. No I believe) where James comes back to his hotel room only to find that someone had been there while he was out. He seemed to have expected that so went over to fix himself a drink. As he picked up his bottle of vodka he had a second though, stopped, took a sniff, then recapped the bottle and grabbed a fresh one from another drawer.
The lesson here, watch what you drink and if you do drink buy the booze yourself. Also (on the flip side) if you are going to poison a drink, take some time and at least research your target and their culture. At least then the story might reflect that you aren't a total and complete fuxX0ring idiot. -
NL: Review Block - SSD Storage Systems
Published: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | By: DennisPCI Express SSD drives are a convenient way to bypass the limitations of a SATA controller, however until now they have been cost prohibitive to most people with human sized pools of money.
Here are a couple reviews related to the new SSD "card" from OCZ
- OCZ RevoDrive 120GB PCI-Express SSD Review @ Legit Reviews
- OCZ Revo 120GB PCI Express SSD Performance Preview @ Techgage
For those looking for something more traditional there are several options including a C300 drive from Crucial.
- Corsair Force 120GB Solid State Drive Review @ Hardware Canucks
- OCZ Vertex 2 Extended SSD Review @ TweakPC
- G.Skill Phoenix Pro 120 SSD Review @ TweakPC (these are "de" so be sure to click the US flag in the corner)
- OCZ Agility 2 SandForce-based 60GB Solid State Drive @ Pro-Clockers
- Crucial C300 256GB SSD Review @ KitGuru
For something even stranger check out the Silverstone HDDBoost designed to speed up rotational drives with an SSD backer.
- SilverStone HDDBoost Review @ BURNED iN
On a side, and somewhat unrelated note, I have finally filled up my 1TB network storage array. The array has been comprised of 3x 500GB Seagate drives in a RAID 5 and up until now has been my main storage platform. I guess it might be time to replace those 500GB drives with their 1TB counterparts and expand the logical drive.
Try doing that with SSD! -
NL: Review Block - Motherboard Goodness
Published: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | By: DennisBeen awhile since I posted anything motherboard related, here is what landed in the Inbox from sites around the web.
Motherboard Reviews
- Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 @ Techgage
- Gigabyte H55N-USB3 ITX Motherboard Review @ Madshrimps
- MSI Big Bang XPOWER Motherboard @ TechwareLabs
- MSI Big Bang XPower Intel X58 Motherboard Review @ OCIA
- MSI Big Bang XPower @ PureOverclock
- EVGA P55 FTW Overclocking Mainboard Review @ TweakPC
- iXBT Labs Review: Foxconn H55MX-S Motherboard
- ASUS Rampage III Gene Motherboard @ Tweaktown
- Funky Kit Review: Gigabyte P55 USB3 motherboard
- Asus Rampage III Extreme - Overclocking Hero @ ocaholicIt would seem that "somebody" was able to secure a UD9
- Gigabyte X58A-UD9 review @ t-break -
Adata ventures into electric car battery business
Published: Monday, July 26, 2010 | By: DennisThe 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: DennisWatercooling 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: DennisThis 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. -
nVidia GTX 460 Madness!!
Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 | By: DennisIt 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 OverclockedThe 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: DennisBeen 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
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- 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. -
Thermaltake Armor A90 Reviews
Published: Monday, July 19, 2010 | By: DennisNow 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 ReviewsThe 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: DennisSo 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.
