Tech News
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Borderlands 2 level cap raise incoming
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2013 | By: DennisI have yet to get any of my two characters up to level 50 but I'm pretty close with my siren, Level 47 as of this post. Some hardcore players reached level 50 in the first week while others may have abandoned the game after the first play thru. Either way Gearbox has been watching and will raise the level cap when the time is right.
The cap raise timing is partly dictated by Borderlands 2?s increased stat tracking. “With Borderlands 1 we had to go by forum posts, and by checking out the number times certain achievements had been unlocked to really get an idea of where players were” explains Lopez. “But SHiFT allows us to see a lot more about the way players are playing the game, and see what they’re doing. We wanted to give people enough time to get at least one level 50 in there, and then see from there, how many people are doing this. Is this a good time for this? We also didn’t want to wait so long that people were no longer interested, or felt like it wasn’t coming”.
Many games have a level cap either imposed by the game algorithms or by the developer. Skyrim for instance has a level cap so you can't "perk" everything in the astrology tree. Borderlands 2, being an RPG, has a similar level cap so when they do raise the cap it I'll be curious to see how the perk tree will change.
It won't be a challenge if you unlock everything.
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Intel reportedly prepping soldered desktop chips after all @ ExtremeTech
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2013 | By: DennisSpeculation on the Intel roadmap told us that there would be BGA processors, what wasn't clear from their reponse is what segment(s) would overlap the socketed space.
New evidence (a “trusted source,” according to Tech Report) suggests Intel is actually planning a bifurcated strategy. Starting with Broadwell, certain motherboards will be available with soldered processors — presumably those intended for small set-top boxes or other diminutive form factors.
(the article at Tech Report)This all makes perfect sense really, Microsoft is pushing touch interfaces going forward so there is very little need to have configurable PCs anymore. I suspect there will always be a need for workstation class machines but take it from someone who has a Desktop at home and a Ultra Tablet on the road, the lines are getting blurred as to what a PC/Workstation needs to be.
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higher prices, better quality are the PC industry’s last chance
Published: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 | By: DennisWhen I post a review I will often not mention price or even where a product falls in relation to the competition. The reason being, if you are reading these reviews you a) already know what you want and are looking for an opinion or something specific or, b) you are just curious about these products in which case your not likely to be in the market to buy.
Bottom line, when it comes to high-end gear you have to be willing to pay the price, as with anything worth doing the right way.
The question is, is that way of thinking good for the PC industry in general?? In the early days (been looking back on the good'ole days lately) computers were extremely expensive. An Intel SX 386 might cost you 3 grand whereas the DX edition was upwards to 4 thousand dollars. These days you can buy a quad core Android tablet for 500 bux and people are complaining that it costs too much.
So what happened?
I say there was a trade-off early on, mfgs started lowering prices to make their profits in volume and started including bloatware to offset their losses. As the trend continued it was a race to the bottom with each mfg attempting to undercut the other and make things as cheap as possible.
Not sure that is the right direction and this article at ExtremeTech is saying the same thing.
The answer to this question has precious little to do with Microsoft. For decades, virtually every computer manufacturer, save Apple, has pursued a relentless policy of cost cutting. The precipitous decline in computer prices is one of the great technological success stories of the 20th century, but the decision to prioritize low prices above all else, over the course of decades has rotted the market from within.
Funny how Apple has been excluded, then again they control the price because they control the hardware.
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New Social Buttons added Reddit
Published: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 | By: DennisSince getting back from CES I have started looking at some upgrades to the Ninjalane.com website. The first of these is to update the social networking share buttons and changing them from the small elegant ones to the larger "Hey LoOk at me" clickable postage stamps.
In the process I have removed the Facebook share button that was causing issues with the site navigation and added reddit. They say reddit is the front page of the internet and based on the news of websites going down after being featured on reddit I'm kinda think something is there.
Back in the early days it was a right of passage to get "slashdotted" and it seems that honor has been relinquised, enter reddit, now go forth and share!
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NL: Review Block - CES 2013 Consumer Electronics Wrap Up
Published: Monday, January 14, 2013 | By: DennisCES is over but there is still plenty to ready about and photos to see.
- CES 2013: The Booth Babes @ ThinkComputers
- Bjorn3D CES 2013 Coverage
- CES 2013: CyberPower @ ThinkComputers
- Micron and Crucial Unveil M500 Series SSD, DDR4 Ballistix Memory Kit @ HotHardware (not located in Meridian)
- EVGA preps first Mini-ITX enclosure
- Intel Preview’s Haswell’s GT-3 @ CES Bjorn3D
- Micron and Crucial introduce next-gen M500 SSD @ TR
- Nvidia's Project Shield handheld caught on video
- CES 2013 Coverage Round-up @ Techgage
- CES 2013 Day 1 Coverage Posted At Legit Reviews
- Gigabyte Touts Tablets, Notebooks and All-in-Ones At CES 2013 @ HotHardware
- Xi3 Making Valve’s Fabled Steam Box? That’s News to Valve, It Turns Out @ HotHardware
- ASUS E2KM1I-Deluxe, ARES II Graphics Card, & RAIDR Express PCIe SSD @ Legit ReviewsI still have a few galleries to post and am just now finishing up the final photos. Look for them soon.
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Back from CES, News will resume after these messages
Published: Monday, January 14, 2013 | By: DennisThese days when your SEO URL is comprised of the articles title you have to be careful what you say since the most logical title is not likely what will get any traffic.
For instance, at the Detroit Auto Show they unveiled the new C7 Corvette Stingray which looks amazing and appears to be a cross between a Ferrari, a Dodge Viper and Nissan Skyline but is all Chevy and something anyone will want to buy.
I mean it looks good, but will anyone see my news because I say the New Corvette is awesome? We shall see.
Along a different path did you hear about how c|net had to recast its vote for the best product of CES?? It would seem that while the Dish Hopper clearly won the top prize the c|net crew had to change their vote to exclude the Hopper from winning due to an ongoing lawsuit over the commercial skipping option. (which is great by the way)
HWBot has also posted an interview with Roman 'Der8auer' Hartung the famed builder of the CPU container I use when LN2 overclocking. The interview is pretty good I would suggest you all check it out.
More news after the break, I'm still recovering from CES and deciding if I should post more CES coverage or roll the content into something "better"
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Ninjalane Podcast Delayed
Published: Thursday, January 10, 2013 | By: DennisIn case some of you are wondering "Where is my Podcast?" It was decided to record the show after CES. At least then Darren and I could talk about some of the cool stuff at the show and at least make the podcast relevent to the time period.
I cannot say when the show will go live but the plan is for sometime next week with a normal launch of the "raw and uncut" Podcast Extras.
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NL: CES 2013 Block - Everyone is on a Mission
Published: Wednesday, January 9, 2013 | By: DennisHere is a wrap up of CES coverage from some of the other hardware sites. Most seem to be doing the individual article approach.
Ninjalane
CES Dialog 2013 - Day 2 The First Official Day
CES Dialog 2013 - Day 1 The Calm Before the StormTech Report
Ivy Bridge, 8000-series Radeons team up in new Samsung notebooks
Slim Thermaltake Nic CPU cooler steers clear of DIMM slots
IR sensors, Xbox-style buttons infiltrate Thermaltake mice
Asus shows super-wide, 144Hz displays
New ROG graphics card has dual GPUs, liquid cooling
Gigabyte boards use Thunderbolt ports to drive 4K display resolutions
Intel reveals 7W Ivy Bridge CPUs, convertible Haswell ultrabook
Nvidia shows new Tegra chip, cloud gaming, handheld console
Gigabyte Thin Mini-ITX mobos coming this monthThinkComputers
CES 2013: Logitech @ ThinkComputers
CES 2013: Thermaltake @ ThinkComputersThere will be more CES news eventually including my very own coverage
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Corsair Obsidian 900D - CES 2013 Announcement
Published: Tuesday, January 8, 2013 | By: DennisOne of the problems associated with owning enthusiast grade hardware is that sometimes, just sometimes, the gear doesn't fit into a standard chassis. Case in point, the SR series boards from EVGA.
It is true, there are cases on the market that support those monster motherboards but nothing quite like the Corsair Obsidian Series 900D.
The case supports up to 15 hard drives, HPTX motherboards, Dual Power Supplies, 10 expansion slots, 15 fan locations including a quad fan radiator at the bottom and five other radiator mounting locations around case.
Needless to say this case is a little overkill, much like the hardware we intended to put in there.
In terms of size, the Obsidian 900D is a big one and the photo above is proper when it comes to scale. Check out the product landing page for more info and a few more product shots
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CES 2013: AMD unveils new GPUs, APUs and SoCs
Published: Tuesday, January 8, 2013 | By: DennisGotta love CES news out of Taiwan.
AMD has launched the Radeon HD 8000M series of mobile graphics processing units (GPUs) set to deliver discrete graphics performance to a variety of notebook designs, including the portable ultrathin form factor. The AMD Radeon HD 8000M series are the first notebook GPUs to be offered with AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, which delivers compute power and performance while stretching battery life through AMD Enduro Technology, according to the vendor. Designs are currently shipping with Asustek Computer and Samsung, with Lenovo and additional OEMs shipping soon.
Additionally, AMD announced the availability of AMD Radeon HD 8000 series desktop graphics, available only through OEMs. The AMD Radeon HD 8000 series features GCN Architecture with support for DirectX 11.1 for acceleration of Windows 8 platforms, AMD App Acceleration to enhance GPU performance, and features intelligent power management technology such as AMD PowerTune with boost.8000 series graphics FTW!! Lets hope they are a little better than last time.
