Tech News
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Gigabyte GV-567OC-1GI Radeon HD 5670 Videocard Review @ PCStats
Published: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | By: DennisFactory overclocking is a great way to feel like you are getting a little something for nothing. Sometimes you have to wonder if the additional boost is really worth all of that trouble. As we noted in our review of the Gigabyte 5670 and proven with our HWBot scores, any overclock is better than no overclock.
Gigabyte has designed a slightly overclocked (+10MHz) version of the Radeon HD 5670 videocard called the GV-567OC-1GI. ATI has produced several 'sweet spot' videocards over the past year like the Radeon HD 4870, 4850 and 4770, and through aggressive pricing and new manufacturing techniques ATI has managed to get all of these videocards into that $100-$150 'sweet spot' that net excellent gaming performance at a cut-rate price. Will the GV-567OC-1GI be worthy to join such hallowed company?
Gigabyte calls this card the Transformer, yet features a sexy cartoon female on their packaging, go figure.
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Crucial Ballistix Tracer Red PC3-12800 Memory Kit Review @ OCIA
Published: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | By: DennisThere are several unfortunate things about this review. First and foremost it is almost impossible to find the next and back buttons in this review, so don't feel bad if you only can only read the first page. Next it is sad that even though these modules feature super sweet and sexy slick red heat spreaders and fancy dancing red LEDs, the modules are only rated at 12800.
Crucial under its parent company Micron has been producing high quality, standard spec computer memory for more than 30 years. Although a latecomer to the performance marketplace, Crucial has not disappointed their fans and has built quite a name for its Ballistix line of memory over the last six years, beginning with their high speed DDR up through DDR2 and now DDR3. The Tracer series adds an interesting twist, that of LED activity lighting on the memory sticks themselves, useful for indicating memory utilization and also just for the bling factor. The memory I have for review today is the red version of Crucial's latest Ballistix Tracer series, in a 2x2Gb kit of PC3-12800 8-8-8-24.
Even though I was never offered a kit by the company that shares the same hometown as me, I "might" still buy a set.
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NL: Review Block - Cases and Coolers
Published: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | By: DennisHere are a few Cases and Coolers that happened to land in the news box.
Cases
- Xclio Nighthawk @ PureOverclockCoolers
- Gelid Solutions Tranquillo @ LanOC Reviews
- Thermaltake Contac 29 Direct Touch CPU Cooler Review @ Legit Reviews
- XtremeGear HP-1216B HSF Review at Overclockers Online
- Thermaltake ISGC-300 CPU Cooler Review @ Tweaknews
- Danamics LMX Liquid Metal CPU Cooler Review @ Real World Labs
- Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler Review @ BayReviewsBe sure to check out our latest review the Thermaltake SpinQ VT, quite the silent heat killa.
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Gigabyte H55M Reviews
Published: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | By: DennisThere are some interesting things to note about the new Core processors from Intel (Core i7 and Core i5). Core i7 comes in 2 different socket configurations that also require completely different chipsets. Core i5 comes in 2 "core" configurations but share the same socket requirements but require different chipsets depending on what features you are intending to use.
P55 and H55 are the current 1156 enabled chipsets (Core i5). P55 is the mainstream option for desktop systems without onboard graphics. H55 is basically the same thing but enables you to use the on-die GPU found in some Core i5 processors.(the dual core ones)
Gigabyte currently has one of the most popular H55 motherboards on the market, and here we have a couple of reviews for you to look over.
- Gigabyte H55M-S2H Budget 1156 Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers
- Gigabyte H55M-USB3 - The Ultimate $100 H55 Board? @ TechgageWe're still waiting for our H55 sample, but we hope to see it real soon.
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ASUS RoG Maximus III Extreme LGA 1156 Motherboard Preview @ Hardware Canucks
Published: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | By: DennisASUS is such a big company its sometimes hard to remember that they actually still do some enthusiast and workstation class computer hardware.
ASUS has long been known for their Republic of Gamers series of motherboards and while they have products already in place for both of Intel’s P55 and X58 platforms, they felt it was time to take things to the next level. The Maximus III Extreme follows closely in the footsteps of the original Maximus III Formula but adds a bevy of new features that are sure to make enthusiasts go weak in the knees.
Gotta love their color scheme, it's almost like everyone else had the same idea.
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STOP! Using the latest 196.75 NVidia Drivers
Published: Saturday, March 6, 2010 | By: WillLooks like some people video cards are getting fried from the fan running to slow with this new driver. So NVidia has put on there Facebook page to stop using the new driver and rollback to the 196.21 versions.
"NVIDIA We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers. Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our website. Thanks, and stay tuned for updates."
You have now been warned!
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Fake Intel Core i7 920s at the Egg
Published: Saturday, March 6, 2010 | By: WillWell this is a warning to everyone. If you bought a Intel Core i7 920 recently from Newegg open the box right away if you haven't. Looks like somefake CPU have been sent out. Looks like Newegg is taking care of the situation very well. Here is an article over at HardOCP that seems to sum up the problem very well.
Newegg Selling Fake Intel CPUs
"Did you just order an Intel Core i7-920 CPU from Newegg? Have you opened the box yet to check and see what is inside of it? We highly suggest you do."
Here is an image of the fake heatsink used. We borrowed from HardOCP.
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NL: PC Game Reviews Roundup
Published: Friday, March 5, 2010 | By: WillHere is one of those new PC games getting reviews done now for everyone to read.
Aliens vs Predator (PC) @ GamingHeaven
"People who grew up in the eighties know two things - the first being that Aliens was amazing and the second being that Predator was also amazing. This would lead anyone from that time to arrive at the conclusion that combining the two would be very much a wining idea. So it proved across various systems, the nostalgia mash-up delivering what many of us had hoped for down the years."
Aliens vs. Predator (PC) @ TweakPC
We took a look at Rebellions Aliens vs. Predator. Classical gameplay, nice graphics, so all good? Let's see!
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ASUS TUF SaberTooth 55i @ Bjorn3D
Published: Friday, March 5, 2010 | By: WillThis board has everything to make it look cool and even has the cool name of SaberTooth. Still does the features and the overclocking potential make this an awesome board? Let's read on to find out.
We over at Bjorn3D.com are going to be looking at one of ASUS's newest additions to their motherboard line up. This motherboard is built upon ASUS's outstanding continuation of high quality and their attention to detail. This motherboard uses Intel's P55 chipset, like other motherboards based on the this chipset, the ASUS Sabertooth 55i motherboard can support any 1156 socket CPU. It can be configured to run either Nvidia's multi GPU configuration SLI, or ATI's multi GPU configuration Crossfire X. But like all other P55 based motherboards, this motherboard only supports Dual Channel memory.
The ceramic heatsinks is just to cool.
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WD SiliconEdge Blue 256GB SSD Review @ HotHardware
Published: Wednesday, March 3, 2010 | By: WillWell the time has come for the big boys of Hard Drive land to step in the SSD market. Looks like Western Digital has the first foot in. Let's see what WD has to offer us end users.
"Storage is going solid state and the move to acquire Silicon Systems back in March of 2009, was a very deliberate course of action for WD that spoke clearly about their intentions. We've heard rumblings of offerings forthcoming from WD's primary competitor, Seagate, as well but today WD makes it real with their new SiliconEdge line of SSD products. We've taken a 256GB SiliconEdge Blue drive out for a spin, or perhaps lack thereof, and have our impressions posted on the pages ahead of WD's first foray into solid state drive technology..."
Wonder where the other guys are at?
