Ninjalane News

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 Super Overclock Review @ Hardware Canucks

Published: Friday, November 18, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Ninjalane

Dr00l over the SOC.  Most overclockers prefer the lighting series from MSI due to the larger PWM but for me it's the lights and that the card doesn't break any of the industry standards for expansion card height.

But really it's the lights.

The GTX 570 may have been introduced over nearly a year ago (yes, it has been that long) but it is still one of the best graphics cards around when it comes to price / performance ratio.  Gigabyte has taken it upon themselves to take this card to the next level by integrating it into their Super Overclock series.  The resulting GTX 570 Super Overclock boasts high clock speeds and a $50 price premium over the reference version but its performance could go toe to toe against the GTX 580.

Decent overclocking results too and all without using any LN2.

Sandy Bridge E Launch Day Round Up Redux

Published: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Intel launched the X79 chipset "yesterday" with a few sites having reviews ready for the launch.  November 15 marks the day processors are available with a slightly higher pricetag that what was expected.  (Likely due to price gouging and early adoption fees)

X editions are currently selling for $1050 with the K editions coming in at $600  Prices will likely drop but not until sometime after the new year.

- Intel Sandy Bridge E 3690X CPU Reviewed @ Madshrimps
- Intel Core i7 3930K and Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition LGA2011 CPU Announcement
- Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition Review @ HCW
- Intel i7-3960X and Intel DX79SI @ LanOC Reviews
- Intel X79 Chipset, Core i7 3960X & DX79SI Motherboard @ Bjorn3D
- Intel Core i7-3960X – Sandy-Bridge Extrem Review on Technic3D
- Sandy Bridge-E motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and MSI @ TR
- OC3D: Gigabye GA-X79-UD5 Preview

With much pain from my pocketbook I have an X edition on the way. Hopefully it is a good one.

Sapphire 6970 FleX Battlefield 3 Edition @ PureOverclock

Published: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

It takes a lot of power to push three monitors in gaming which could be one reason why nVidia requires two cards to run the threeway.

What's so special about this Sapphire 6970 FleX BF3 Edition? Well, it supports Eyefinity out of the box with no need for expensive DisplayPort or adapters. That capability is built directly into the card itself, independent of the monitors being used. This means that any monitors with DVI ports can now run Eyefinity.

Of course there is no indication that the card comes with a copy of Battlefield 3 but they did use the game during their tests.

Case Modding with Aquatuning Review - XSReviews

Published: Thursday, November 10, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Gotta love it when you can watch a simple modding projects like this come together.

Performance is a great factor when deciding what to buy, but what about looks? Should a rig be esthetically pleasing, or is it just a waste of money? For some, including me, casemodding is a hobby and can give a lot of pleasure. Improving the looks of your system can make the difference whether it’s good for the living room, to show off on LAN-parties, or just for your own satisfaction.

Today we’ll take a look at some casemodding accessories supplied by and available at AquaTuning.

This is basically a wiring project that sleeves each of the wires to make things all nice and tidy.

PowerColor HD 6970 Devil 13 2 GB @ techPowerUp

Published: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

It is sad more companies don't do this right out of the gate.

PowerColor's HD 6970 Devil 13 is a brand-new premium class Radeon HD 6970 which comes with the highest clocks available on any HD 6970 card. The Devil 13 also includes voltage monitoring points for voltmodders and a high quality power conversion system. But is that enough to justify a price of $549?

-- snip --

The PowerColor Devil 13 is using a completely revamped PCB design and cooling solution with overclockers and gamers in mind. Compared to other HD 6970 models, the Devil 13 comes with the highest clock speeds of any HD 6970 on the market today - when it's turbo mode is enabled. Without turbo, the card will run at reference design clocks, and is more focused on a quieter gaming experience according to PowerColor.

The way I see it anything "custom" is worth the additional cost.  Of course the assumption here is that the company takes the effort to include good silicon when they build the board.

Areca ARC-1882x RAID Card Review: Lightning Strikes at 4.7GB/s

Published: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Did I ever tell you I LOVE hardware RAID? 

Of course hardware RAID is only beneficial in a few situations, namely when parity calculations need to be preformed  or when data is being accessed by a wider audience.

Have You Ever Seen 4.7GB/s Performance Benchmarks Before?  Would you think it possible from an enthusiast point of view?  Our tests of the Areca ARC-1882x RAID Card, when accompanied by 8 x Micron C300 SSDs, will blow you away just as it did us.  Heads up though because we are going to throw fifteen pages of tests and pictures at you as we check out both RAID 0 and RAID 5.

The interesting thing about the controller is that it requires two PCBs indicating that the transfer speed is greater than what a single PCI Express 4x slot can provide.

ASUS ROG MARS II GTX 580 Quad SLI Video Card Review @ HardOCP

Published: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Looking at the details of the GTX 590 you have to wonder why nVidia didn't spec to use GTX 580 GPUs instead of the trimmed down versions the card comes with.  Of course cost plays a big factor in this decision along with availability but if we are talking about high performance why not push the boundaries.

The ASUS ROG MARS II Limited Edition video card brings true dual-GeForce GTX 580 GPUs to the table. Take two of these and you can have a true GTX 580 Quad-SLI system. We'll dive into performance, including Battlefield 3, and see what these can do directly compared to 4-way CrossFireX.

This is he dual GPU single card solution I would expect to see.

NL: Review Block - Motherboard Round-Up

Published: Monday, November 07, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

This is what we do when we have some reviews and don't wanna say anything wink smile

Motherboards
- ASUS Maximus IV Extreme P67 ROG Motherboard Review @ Bigbruin
- Asus P8P67 Pro B3 Rev 3.1 Motherboard @ Rbmods

Be sure to check out our reviews of the Asus M4E and Asus P8P67 Motherboards for comparison purposes.

Lion on a Hackintosh and an intervention for Battlefield 3

Published: Monday, November 07, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

Have you played the Single Player in Battlefield 3??  Omg it is the worst thing ever!  Back in the day you would have an excellent single player game but multiplayer just sucked.  Well it would seem the roles have been reversed.

Let's hope Modern Warfare 3 is better else I'll be boycotting the entire series.

Imagine my disappointment when I realized that, while you looked like the prettiest girl at the dance, your gameplay was essentially Modern Warfare 2 on steroids—or canned air. From the outset, you coaxed me along set paths filled with dreary cut scenes, endlessly respawning enemies, and unforgiving quick-time events (you know, those things where the game randomly gives you half a second to click a mouse button... or else).

Creative look at the subject btw worth a glance/read.

VisionTek Ultimate 6GB DDR3-1866 @ PureOverclock

Published: Monday, November 07, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

This just in from the WTH category.

VisionTek is a company probably known by most for producing graphic cards but unknown by some; they have been a jack of many trades for some time. They produce graphic cards, network cards, TV tuners, power supplies, and recently, memory. VisionTek has introduced a comprehensive memory line that features triple channel memory kits, among others.  Can their Ulimate series memory compete in the PC marketplace with enthusiasts like us? Let’s find out

Lets all hope this gamble of theirs pans out and we finally start to see more performance memory in retail channels.

ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional Motherboard Review @ Tweaktown

Published: Monday, November 07, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

The Fatal1ty brand has really started to fade from the public eye but that won't stop mfgs from using it to help promote their products.

We're getting through the boards, though, and the latest one for us to fire up comes from ASRock and follows the Fatal1ty series. The ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional looks the part, but today we'll see how it performs with the new AMD FX-8150 from AMD.

As usual, the first thing we'll do is check out the package to see what's going on. Once we've done that we'll start to move onto the board and see what features we've got on offer. After we've done that, we'll check out the BIOS to see what's going on before we get into the BIOS and have a look at that while also taking the time to overclock our processor.

There are a few benefits from getting a Fatal1ty branded motherboard, but for the life of me I couldn't find them in the review.

EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win

Published: Friday, November 04, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Ninjalane

Ok so we have seen the heatsink, we have seen the silkscreened PCBs and have even seen a demo mockup a few years ago (from another company).  So, what is this thing we have seen you ask?

Dual nVidia GPUs on a single card!. 

Now before you can say GTX 590 lets pull it back and qualify this statement a bit. "Dual affordable GPUs on a single card".  Yes its true, for the price of a single GTX 580 you can have the power of dual GTX 560 Ti's together on a special built PCB.

Friday, November 4th. 2011 - Introducing the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win! This card harnesses the power of two EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU’s for blistering fast DirectX 11 performance, including tessellation performance that destroys the competition. Experience a whole new level of interactive gaming and combine up to three displays off a single card for the ultimate in 3D entertainment, or disable Surround and combine up to four displays for maximum productivity. With these features and more, the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win gives you double the win!

Key Features:

  • Dual GTX 560 Ti GPU's
  • Over 30% Faster than GTX 580
  • 850MHz Core Clock
  • 3D Surround on a Single Card

As you can imagine, you get all of the benefits afforded to you by the GTX 590 such as 3D Vision Surround and faster performance due to onboard SLI.  However, the one thing not mentioned is for the first time ever you will be able to run Quad SLI from a GTX 560 Ti.  

Of course you can run SLI with a GTX 560 but since the cards only came with a single SLI bridge you were limited to only a two way SLI configurations and no way to add a third card except for running PhysX calculations.

ASUS Rampage III Black Edition X58 Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers

Published: Thursday, November 03, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

What happens when you take one of the most popular motherboards on the X58 platform and try to appeal to a younger and more hip crowd?

The Rampage III B.E. offers more than what would normally come with a motherboard. First, there is the ThunderBolt add-in card that gives the user the Killer E2100 chipset as well as outstanding audio. Is enough to charge the heavy price tag the motherboard caries? Well, what if we state the motherboard supports four GPUs, out-of-these-world overclocking ability as well as BlueTooth, Wi-Fi, ways to start and stop PCIe slots real-time? Well then, if that didn't impress you then read on and find out what else this motherboard has to offer.

Looks a lot like what Gigabyte did with the G1 Killer line doesn't it. 

Even though X58 is an aging platform and that triple channel memory kits are no longer available you can't deny that the X58 is still extremely cool.  Had memory companies continued to produce "good" triple channel kits there is a good chance more LGA1366 motherboards, and processors, would have been sold.

How to make sure your computer survives a nuclear holocaust

Published: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Web

Has we have noticed, threats never really go away.  Terrorist attacks have made air travel in the US less comfortable and even if the terrorist threat were to be removed it is highly unlikely that the security measures would go away.  The same is true for the nuclear deterrent.  During the cold war facilities were hardened so that they would have the best chance for survival.  Even though the cold war is over the nuclear threat is still quite real.

Maxwell’s NED [PDF] is a very simple silicon chip consisting of an ionizing radiation detector, an amplifier, and a timer. In normal operation, the chip’s Nuclear Event Detection pin is high (binary 1), and when the chip detects a burst of radiation the NED pin goes low (binary 0). Beyond this, of course, it entirely depends on what the chip is connected to

The funny thing about these chips is it will protect your equipment from EMP attack but does very little for the blast that follows.

Happy Halloween Everyone

Published: Monday, October 31, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Ninjalane

The holiday season is quickly approaching and it all starts with the most glorious of occasions, Halloween!.

Watch your punk'ins and keep your candy close, theres goblins in them there wood.

Gigabyte X79-Line-Up - Layout and Design @ ocaholic

Published: Friday, October 28, 2011 - By: Dennis
News Source: Email

We have already seen the Gigabyte lineup but it never hurts to get another opinion

With Gigabyte, the first heavy weight in the motherboard market shows it's entire line-up regarding their upcoming X79 motherboards. The GA-X79-UD3 will therefore be the entry level board. The GA-X79-UD5 aims at content creation and the GA-X79-UD7 targets overclockers and enthusiasts. And finally there will also be a board only for gamer: the G1.Assassin 2, which at a first glance seems not to make any compromise at all.

I'll take the UD7 and G1.Assassin 2 please, just box-em up and ship-em out. cool smileapprove smile