Tech News
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Lian-Li PC-N1 Intel NUC Replacement Case Review @ Legit Reviews
Published: Friday, February 22, 2013 | By: DennisI'm not really one for extremely small form factor computing but this case does look pretty pimp. The Intel NUC is a new project they have launched with the sole intention that "if they build it, people will use it". Personally I see it as a niche product for a niche that only exists in the industrial space, and that space can easily be filled with a cellphone/tablet.
One of the first things that we noticed with the PC-N1 is that Lian Li flipped the motherboard orientation. The CPU and chipset cooler is now located on the bottom of the case with large ventilation ports on both ends of the case. That obviously means that the I/O ports are now on the top of the PC-N1 case. On the front of the PC-N1 you have the brand name and the lone USB 2.0 port. Just above the front on the top cover you'll find the power button. The power button has been completely redesigned since the original prototype was shown at CES 2013...
Funny, I didn't see Lian Li at CES this year
Wonder where they were hiding? -
Samsung Series 5 13.3" Touch Screen Intel Core i5/8GB/128GB SSD Ultrabook Review (NP540U3C-A01CA) @ ModSynergy
Published: Friday, February 22, 2013 | By: Dennis*warning* *warning* Long title alert!
Today I get to share with you my experiences with the Samsung Series 5 13.3" Touch Screen Intel Core i5 Ultrabook. The model number of the mid-range Ultrabook I have tested is the NP540U3C-A01CA. Read on the find out more about this sleek, lightweight Ultrabook to see if it should be worth looking at for your future portable computing purchase.
Seems like a good computer, Thin, Light and brushed. Even comes with a touch screen for easy swiping and content digesting.
I'm not so sure it can play Crysis. It does have a Core i5 and only weighs a few pounds but without benchmarks we may never know.
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Arctic Breeze USB Desktop Fan Review @ Hi Tech Legion
Published: Friday, February 22, 2013 | By: DennisYou know its slow when you see a high-end hardware site (that recently featured the super cool and super expensive GTX Titan) posting a review of a fan, and not just any fan but a desktop fan used to keep you cool while you sweat and slave away downloading pr0n.
Or playing games, I guess you could sweat while doing that too.
The Arctic Breeze is a USB desktop fan that is portable and flexible. The Arctic Breeze’s 92mm fan has a range of 800 up to 1,800 RPM and can be controlled through the built-in knob. A 1.8 meter long USB 2.0 cable is used to power the Arctic Breeze fan and it has a flexible shaft to freely direct the airflow wherever required. Arctic also offers a “Pro” version of the Breeze which has an illuminated knob and doubles as a USB hub. An even more compact version is also available, dubbed the “Arctic Breeze Mobile” which does not come with a tabletop stand. The Arctic Breeze carries a 2-year warranty and is compatible with any device that has a 5V, 0.2A powered USB port.
Throw safety to the wind (<- see what I did there?) and lock up your daughters. There is no fan grill on this product.
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Hardware.Info: Frametime tests for GPUs
Published: Friday, February 22, 2013 | By: DennisThe cult of Scott has claimed another victim!
We published an article about a new way of testing graphics card performance in video games. Traditionally, graphics cards performance has been expressed in frames per second. The assumption has always been, the more fps your graphics card is capable of, the better video games will perform. But is it really that simple? Not quite so, it turns out. To really determine how a graphics card handles a video game, the average fps is not an adequate measure of performance, and you need more detail. Frametime tests provide exactly that.
I'm all for a new way to test video card performance but many technical people forget that non-technical folks are the ones reading your stuff and when things are confusing and/or different they are not likely to listen.
Of course I should heed my own warning but, I'll save that for another time
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GeForce GTX Titan Performance Launch Day - Uber Power
Published: Thursday, February 21, 2013 | By: DennisGeForce Titan is poised to be the most powerful single GPU video card to date with some sweet overclocking controls to boot. I have a vested interest in this card and hope to get a couple for some "internal testing" but until then lets see what other sites have to say.
GeForce GTX Titan Performance Reviews
- HEXUS Review: NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB Performance Review @ Hardware Canucks
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6 GB @ techPowerUp
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN SLI & Tri-SLI @ techPowerUp (ohhh Triple!)
Other Cards
- HIS Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition IceQ X 3 GB GDDR5 Review @ Hardware-MagThere should be some HWBot posts as well so stay tuned!
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Sapphire Vapor-X CPU Cooler @ PureOverclock
Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 | By: DennisSapphire is known for their awesome video cards and the Vapor-X name goes hand in hand with top of the line video card cooling. Does that translate to cooling your CPU?
We’re all aware of Sapphire and their Vapor-X technology. They’ve been implementing said Vapor-X technology on video cards since the 3870 with great success. Can the Vapor-X technology be adapted for CPU cooling as well? It sure can…but will it perform the same way it does on their graphics cards? Well lucky for us Sapphire sent us one of their new Vapor-X Universal CPU coolers to test and find out. So without further adieu let’s take a look!
This is a tower style cooler with some neat styling, be sure to check it out!
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GeForce GTX Titan Announced - The New Fastest GPU on PCI Express
Published: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 | By: DennisIt is a Titan of news today.
Be sure to check out our coverage of the Nvidia GTX Titan, its basically what everyone else is saying, but different.
Web Previews
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan preview
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Video Card Preview @ Legit Reviews
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Powered Maingear SHIFT @ HotHardware
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN GK110s Opening Act @ Hardware Canucks
- Gaming and Supercomputing Collide: NVIDIA Announces GeForce Titan @ Techgage
- NVIDIA Announce GTX Titan - HardwareHeavenWith any luck we should be seeing real benchmarks in a couple weeks.
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GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 Intel Z77 Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews
Published: Monday, February 18, 2013 | By: DennisIf there is one thing I love it is a top end motherboard, with top end features and a proven pedigree of reliability and performance. There are few companies left that can build such a product and Gigabyte is one of them.
Many hardware sites dub these as "halo" products indicating that they get the majority of the marketing money and serve to lead the way for down market sales. Of course the only downside is they are difficult to get.
All in all I have to say that the GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 is a great board and it's been a pleasure to work with over the past couple of weeks. Despite having the rather high price tag of $399.99 I would easily recommend the Z77X-UP7 to anyone looking for a top of the line motherboard...
Be sure to check out our review of the Gigabyte Z77X-UP7, sadly no LN2 overclocking for neither Legit or myself but I can say that I was able to get 5.0Ghz stable for the OC tests and even ran benchmarks to prove it.
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Fate of AMDs Sea Islands obscured in the fog @ TR
Published: Monday, February 18, 2013 | By: DennisI used to work with a guy who loved to use the word "cadence". He would use it out of context, in casual discussion and most of the time incorrectly. Normally this wouldn't bother me but, it is like seeing a VW Beetle on the road. When you see one then you see them all.
The news came out in an unusual way, via an interview with a Japanese website and then several tweets from AMD employees and the official Radeon Twitter feed. Naturally, we had questions about the state of things, so AMD held a conference call for the press today, in an attempt to clarify matters.
Prior to last weekend, we expected AMD to be introducing a new generation of graphics cards within the next few months. That expectation was informed by the firm's usual cadence for graphics releases and its public roadmaps. For instance, here's the slide AMD shared at its CES press conference, with graphics along the top.It would seem that AMD is planning a new GPU but is planning to keep the HD7000 series GPUs as their primary focus for the majority of 2013. I suspect that nVidia will be doing the same with tentative plans for something new sometime after Haswell.
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Silverstone Precision PS08 @ techPowerUp
Published: Thursday, February 14, 2013 | By: DennisNeed a case?
The Precision PS08 is the newest addition to the Precision family of cases from Silverstone. Its key selling point is the ability to hold large graphics cards within its compact and nearly weightless belly, but is it enough to sway people away from mid-tower cases for the same price?
This isn't a bad box and with some of the strange styling aside it could work well in just about any mainstream build. Personally I have a soft spot for the Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E Evolution. Its a great small case that supports full sized video cards, full sized coolers and 1000w PSUs. Only limitation is MicroATX motherboards, which aren't all that difficlt to get these days.
