Tech News

• AMD's 'Istanbul' six-core Opteron processors reviewed @ TechReport

  Published: Monday, June 1, 2009 | By: Will

  Looks like AMD is getting back into the server game, and we can only hope the trickle down effect comes into play. Ninjalane would love to get our hands on one of these bad boys. 

  "The new "Istanbul" Opteron packs six cores into a single chip, which makes it the fastest, most power-efficient Opteron yet. But can it match Intel's formidable Nehalem Xeons? The answer might surprise you--in more ways than one."

  I am so hoping for a consumer real soon. 

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• News and Computex Updates

  Published: Monday, June 1, 2009 | By: Dennis

  Hey everyone, Just a friendly reminder about how site updates will happen this week.  As some of you may know I'm in Taiwan again covering Computex which is a day ahead and 12 hours different from my normal schedule.  Whenever possible I'll be posting direct news updates of cool stuff but that will not always happen so be patient and keep checking back. 

  The current plan is to have daily coverage like before but depending on what goes on after the show that may or may not happen.  Seems with every Computex I attend I get yet another after show party invite.  . (I'll try posting some infor about these parties as well)

  Also if there is something you have heard about and want to see more drop by the Ninjalane Message Forum and let me know.  I'll be checking it from time to time..

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• A closer look at fresh versus used SSD performance

  Published: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | By: Dennis

  Thinking about moving to SSD?  Might want to give this a read.

  The block rewrite penalty inherent to flash memory has interesting performance implications for SSDs. As we've discovered, some SSD controllers cope much better than others when facing well-used drives.

  I'm still on the fence, the SSD stuff is pretty cool but not so much mainstream yet.

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• Sparkle GTX260 Core 216 GeForce GTX 260 Videocard Review @ PCSTATS

  Published: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | By: Dennis

  Sparkle has been doing some great stuff with videocards in the past by including fancy coolers and LED displays to show various things like frequency and voltage. 

  Seems this GTX260 is just a plain jane.

  Sparkle has teamed up with nVidia to produce the Sparkle GTX260 Core 216, a graphics card that stands as a direct challenger to AMD's Radeon 4870 graphics card. The "Core 216" part of the Sparkle GTX260 Core 216 videocard's name refers to the GPU having additional shader processors enabled. While the original Geforce 260 GTX had 192 shader processors, the Core 216 variant has an additional 24 enabled, for a grand total of, you guessed it, 216 shader processors.

  With any luck we'll be visiting with Sparkle at Computex this year.

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• NL: Review Block - Case Edition

  Published: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | By: Dennis

  Motherboards maybe be what defines your computer but the case is what most people see.  I'm just glad that everyone has gotten away from the premods.

  - NZXT Beta Mid-Tower @ Techgage
  - SilverStone Precision PS02 @ Phoronix
  - Cooler Master HAF 922 @ Hexus
  - Thermaltake V9 Black Edition Case Review @ Tweaknews
  - Cooler Master HAF 922 @ techPowerUp
  - IKONIK RA X10 SIM PC Case Review @ Real World Labs
  - Antec P183 Review @ Overclockers Online
  - TechwareLabs Reviews the Silverstone Fortress FT-01 Computer Case
  - Cooler Master Storm Scout Review @ OCC
  - Thermaltake Element S Mid-Tower Chassis @ Tweaktown
  - Coolermaster Scout @ Pro-Clockers
  - Cooler Master Storm Scout Mid-Tower Case Review @ Hardware Canucks
  - Neoseeker reviews the Cooler Master Scout case
  - Lian Li PC-9 case review @ TweakPC
  - Cooler Master Storm Scout Case @ LanOC Reviews
  - Cooler Master HAF 922 Case Review @ OCIA

  Holy shite that is a long list.  We can't handle all these cases.  Oh wait   Yes we can

  Most of them at least.

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• Why journalists deserve low pay

  Published: Monday, May 25, 2009 | By: Dennis

  In a way I have to agree.  Lately the news media has been really lacking in the stories they cover and you can clearly tell when it is a "slow news day".  I still remember a news media frenzy over a delayed airliner.  They had news copters, people in the airport lobby and all the while claiming "we have no idea what is going on but we speculate that......." 

  Good times, good times.  Keep it real and report on good stuff that's what I say.

  Then again if journalists are paid like Wendy's workers the mindless "do you want news with that?" mentality comes out and every little thing gets reported on in hopes that one big story (made up or real) will land some sort of recognition or get them fired.  Either way, corporate  news centers win and we are all left wondering stuff like if aliens really exist? or if Steven Colbert will ever run for president?.

  The demise of the news business can be halted, but only if journalists commit to creating real value for consumers and become more involved in setting the course of their companies.

  As many of you have figured out, we don't really report news here at Ninjalane but rather just repost stories that we find interesting.  Many of those stories are review links to other websites but every once in awhile there is some good mainstream stuff to report on or an original story that needs to be posted.

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• Corsair® Dominator™ GT is the fastest Intel® XMP-certified memory

  Published: Thursday, May 21, 2009 | By: Will

  Corsair® Dominator™ GT is the fastest Intel® XMP-certified memory
  - Intel XMP-certification for 2000MHz Dominator GT demonstrates Corsair’s leadership of the performance memory market -
  
  Fremont, CA, May 21st, 2009 - Corsair® www.corsair.com a worldwide leader in high performance computer and flash memory products, today announced that the 6GB Dominator GT 2000MHz CAS 8 has passed Intel's XMP-Ready certification for Core i7 Extreme Edition processors, making it the fastest memory kit to gain Intel's stamp of approval.
  
  The 6GB Dominator GT 2000MHz CAS 8 (TR3X6G2000C8GTF) is part of Corsair's award-winning Dominator GT line of hand-screened, hand-tuned, extreme performance DDR3 memory for Core i7 platforms. It is qualified and guaranteed to run at a frequency of 2000MHz with tight timings of 8-8-8-24 at a voltage of 1.65V. The platform used for the Intel qualification was an Asus P6T Deluxe.

  

  I guess these are new, but who cares they look to freakin awesome to not show off.

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• 4-Way SSD Round-Up Redux, OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, SuperTalent @ Hothardware

  Published: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 | By: Will

  SSD is all the rage and here is a little roundup to help clear up all the different models. I still think it will be as clear as mud the way new ones keep coming out. Still this is a very good effort and a good read for everyone to enjoy.

  "The SSD market is incredibly hot at the moment. Not only is there a consistent influx of new products that seemingly leapfrog the previous generation in nearly every way, but already established products have been treated to firmware updates that enhance their performance and capabilities as well.
  
  Over the course of the last few months, we rounded up a number of solid state drives and featured products from Intel, OCZ, and others independently. Ultimately, we found that Intel's X25-M series of drives was the current kingpin in terms of overall performance, but since our initial look, a slew of new drives have hit the market and Intel has updated the X25-M's firmware to eliminate a potential performance degradation issue. Due to all of the recent activity in the SSD space, we thought it was a good time to round-up another assortment of solid state drives to get a better feel for the current landscape."

  I cannot wait for these things to come down. 

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• DFI's UT and DK Intel P55 mobos get early showing @ TweakTown

  Published: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 | By: Will

   It is about time we start seeing some Intel Core i5 processor stuff. I was starting to think it was never going to come. Well here it is, and get ready to grab one when it comes out.

  "We went out and visited Eric and Jerry from DFI at their Taipei headquarters today and were given an exclusive look at their upcoming codenamed "Ibex Peak" single chip design Intel P55 Express based motherboards.
  
  DFI's UT P55-T3eH8 and DK P55-T3eH6 motherboards that we saw today are not mass production level samples and will see some changes - you will see some hand wiring and so on that obviously won't be there in the final shipping product. You'll probably be able to buy them sometime in September this year, once the compatible Socket LGA-1156 Core i5 quad-core "Lynnfield" processors go on sale. We think Intel pushed back the P55 launch again and again to allow the market to shift more of its P45 and Core 2 Duo parts before the new platform comes in and takes over the mainstream level."

  I smell i5 on the horizon. 

  Full ArticleVisit Website

• Real World Gameplay CPU Scaling @ HardOCP

  Published: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 | By: Will

  The guys over at the [H] are at it again with a serious benchmark undertaking. Testing a few different processors to see if the CPU is still a big part of the gaming scheme of things.

  "Four processors; Intel Core i7 920, Intel Core 2 QX9650, AMD Phenom II X4 810, & AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE. Seven games. REAL WORLD GAMEPLAY at stock clocks and all overclocked to 3.6GHz, head to head, & apples to apples."

  Wait a second are you telling me that a CPU might still matter for gaming. No Way!

  Full ArticleVisit Website