Tech News

• NL: Review Block - Board Cards and Coolers - Kinda

  Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Time for another edition of cleaning out the inbox 

  .motherboards()
  - ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion @ Ocaholic
  - GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H Motherboard Review @ Techgage
  - BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X Intel Z77 Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews
  - Asrock X79 Extreme11 @ Pro-Clockers
  
  Video Cards 2.0
  - SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Review @ HardOCP
  - KFA2 GeForce GTX 670 EX OC Review @ Technic3D/Chefredaktion
  - HD 7990 Review; PowerColor’s Devil 13 @ Hardware Canucks
  
  Coolers.ToString
  - EKL Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure review: Alpine cooling?
  
  Chassis to rule them all
  - CM Storm Scout 2 Mid-Tower Gaming Chassis Review @ Techgage
  - Silverstonetek TJ04-E System Enclosure reviewed in Metku
  - Fractal Design Define R4 @ techPowerUp

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• Zotac GTX680 AMP Edition Graphics Card @ Bjorn

  Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Is it just me or has Zotac started playing an ASUS me-to?  Dual fan, check,  triple slot, check, fancy angular heatsink, check.  Its not looking good...

  ZOTAC AMP edition is something that just recently with the 660 Ti we found to be a seriously ferocious competitor. AMP edition cards are built for all out speed and coming with highly capable performance oriented coolers we expect great things from them. Today looking at the 680 AMP edition we expect no different.
  

  Based on the board design I'm not seeing anything special.  No expanded PWM and they are even using the stock PCI Express power sockets. *tisk tisk*

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• MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower Intel LGA 1155 @ techPowerUp

  Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 | By: Dennis

  It would seem that MSI has finally gotten around to filling out the Z77 lineup with the Big Bang Z77 MPower.

  A few weeks ago, we saw MSI's "OC Certified" memory launch, which is now available in stores, and those DIMMs sported a pretty fancy color scheme that matches their Lightning VGAs. That set of hardware would not be complete without a board to run those other two in, and today we look at that board, called the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower. Like the recently-launched memory, the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower comes "OC Certified", ready to be the base of getting the most out of your other MSI products.

  I cannot lie the intro to this review is a little weak but if that is what it takes to start of a good review then sign me up.

  or not 

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• Seven Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 round-up: Super cards! @ HardwareInfo

  Published: Thursday, September 20, 2012 | By: Dennis

  One of the cornerstones of any enthusiast system build is a rocking video card.  It's not because you need one or have to have ultimate control but rather to complement the system and offer the option for bragging rights.

  To find an ultimate video card you just need to look, they can be found near the top of the product offerings and are not often priced to move.

  In the HardwareInfo review they look at seven "super cards" designed for the enthusiast and sometimes extremely rare.  They all look to be of the GTX 680 variety so AMD fans beware.

  There was nothing wrong with Nvidia's reference cooler, but this round-up proves there are some nice alternatives as well. MSI has a good card with the N680GTX Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC, it's slightly overclocked, cools better, and it is also the most silent out of all cards we tested. MSI's Lightning card is the fastest card with also the best overclocking potential, but it's loud. If you're not planning on extreme overclocking, then our vote goes to the ASUS GTX680-DC2T-2GD5.

  I have had good luck with the Lightning edition cards but have recently started paying more attention to EVGA as their classified line has proven to be quite good.

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• Some OCZ History Lost to Time

  Published: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Speaking of OCZ,  I was searching thru some old news and found a post that talked about the OCZ Titan 3.  This was a GeForce3 graphics card that was one of the first ones you couild buy that was "factory" overclocked.

  I quoted "factory" because they didn't really have a factory but would rather take vanilla cards, upgrade the coolers with off the self products, modify the BIOS to increase the clock speed and sell them at a premium. 

  Funny I always thought OCZ started as an Idaho company but the press release listed Portage, Indiana.

  Keep in mind this was long before OCZ was bought by another company working on a DRAM product and even before they changed focus and dedicated their focus to industrial SSD.

   *Edit*  I knew OCZ started in Idaho.  Nampa Idaho to be exact.  Check out the following press release (re-post) over at Savage News.

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• OCZ Changes Leaders, Now time to fix the problems

  Published: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 | By: Dennis

  A little over a year ago a story broke about some bad investment practices over at OCZ and I was surprised to see that despite the press and fanfare nothing really happened.  Well it would seem that people don't really care unless the problem is costing them money.

  In this case a "dip" in stock price.

  OCZ said on Monday Chief Executive Ryan Petersen has resigned, a month after it announced the retirement of Chief Financial Officer Arthur Knapp. OCZ's shares fell 5 percent to $4.23 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday.
  
  "Investor pressure and loss of credibility with the management, because of underperformance in the last three quarters, made the company's board go for this transition," Piper Jaffray & Co analyst Andrew Nowinski said.
  
  Petersen has been at the helm of OCZ since 2002 and steered the company to revenue of $365.8 million last year, from less than $10 million when he started.

  I don't cover storage technologies much but when I do it has been OCZ since day 1 and I can honestly say that both of the products were quite fast and showed us why SSDs deserve to be in an enthusiast system.

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• Leaked Windows 8 tablet pricing suggests Microsoft may have.. Ya, Not Good?

  Published: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 | By: Dennis

  As hardcore hardware enthusiasts you put less emphasis on price and more on features.  While that holds true for the ultra-high end the same cannot be said for tablets.

  If, like me, you thought Microsoft would price Windows RT competitively, you were wrong: A leaked slide from Asus says that its Vivo Tab RT, due to be released alongside Windows RT at the end of October, will start at $600. Unbelievably, this is $100 more than the iPad 3, and a full $200 more than the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 2 10.1.
  
  For $600, you would expect some sensational hardware specs — but alas, that’s sadly not the case. The Vivo Tab RT has a low-res 10.1-inch 1366×768 IPS display, quad-core Tegra 3 SoC, 2GB of RAM, NFC, 8-megapixel camera… and that’s about it. Like its Androidesque cousin, the Transformer, the Vivo Tab RT can be plugged into a keyboard/battery dock — but it’ll cost you another $200 for the pleasure. (Curiously, the Transformer’s docking station only costs $150 — go figure.)

  Much like in the PC space Microsoft is looking to make their cut on every OS they sell, either it be PC, Tablet, Tablet RT, Phone, car, soda machine, horse and buggy, whatever.  Because of this you'll have to accept that WinTabs are going to cost a little more than the IOS and Android equivalents.  That is also assuming you'll be able to do more on them.

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• GTX 660 Review Launch Wrap-Up

  Published: Monday, September 17, 2012 | By: Dennis

  I am aware that most Ninjalane readers aren't so much interested in the GTX 660 and 650 GPUs but don't think I won't continue to post the reviews that come in.

  Web Reviews of the GTX 660 and GTX 650
  - The TR Podcast 119: GTX 660, Haswell, Sleeping Dogs and iPhone 5  Its a long one (per the usual) so grab some popcorn and s soda
  - nVidia GeForce GTX 660 and nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Roundup @ OcInside
  - In Win GreenMe 650 W @ techPowerUp
  - NVIDIA 600 Series Video Card Overclocking Guide @ ThinkComputers
  - GeForce GTX 650 MSI Power edition review @ Guru3D
  - Gigabyte GTX 660 Windforce @ PureOverclock
  - MSI GTX 660 Twin Frozr @ PureOverclock
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Review @ Techgage

  Don't worry this will be the last review block (like this) for awhile

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• NVidia GTX 660 Launch Day - Lots of gaming goodness

  Published: Thursday, September 13, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Mainstream gaming was just given yet another lower cost jolt in performance.  Enter the GTX 660 [Non-Ti].  This card comes with 980 CUDA cores and 128-bit memory interface.  By the looks of it most of the board partners have decided to release overclocked editions which speak to the power of Kepler or the conservative nature of NVidia.

  The jury is still out on that topic, and while they decide you can check out the following reviews from around the web including our very own Gigabyte GTX 660 Review @ NInjalane

  GTX 660 Web Reviews
  - ASUS GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II Video Card Review @ [H]
  - EVGA GeForce GTX 660 SC (SuperClocked) 2GB @ Bjorn3D
  - nVidia GeForce GTX 660 & SLI @ ocaholic
  - MSI GTX 660 OC Edition Twin Frozr Review @ KitGuru
  - ASUS GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II TOP review @ Guru3D
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Round-Up: MSI, ZOTAC, Gigabyte @ HotHardware
  - MSI GTX 660 Twin Frozr 2GB OC @ LanOC Reviews
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Overclocked Graphics Card Review (EVGA/ZOTAC)@ HardwareHeaven
  - Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660 graphics card by TechReport
  - EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked 2Gb @ LanOC Reviews
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Review @ Hardware Canucks
  - KFA2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 EX OC @ Hexus
  - MSI GeForce GTX 660 Twin Frozr 2 GB @ techPowerUp
  - ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 2 GB @ techPowerUp
  - Gigabyte GTX 660 Windforce OC 2 GB @ techPowerUp
  - ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Direct Cu II 2 GB @ techPowerUp
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Video Card Review with MSI and EVGA @ Legit Reviews

  More gaming goodness to come.

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• Gigabyte GA-X79S-UP5-WIFI and GA-X79-UP4 @ PureOverclock

  Published: Thursday, September 13, 2012 | By: Dennis

  The first wave of "refresh" motherboards has been making their rounds to the review sites.  PureOverclock is looking at the new X79 boards from Gigabyte using the new UD5 technology.

  New products in the desktop sector have taken somewhat of a break for a bit. Intel's latest Ivy Bridge release has settled in and Haswell is slated for mid 2013. As for the immediate future, Intel is on the brink of releasing Ivy Bridge "E" extreme processors in the next quater, and Intel continues Socket 2011 with the X79 chipset. In the meantime, some may have forgotten that Sandy Bridge "E" processors still remain a viable and even better performing platform than Ivy Bridge. Today, we have a dual-motherboard review, and both of them are from Gigabyte: the GA-Z79S-UP5 WiFi and the GA-X79-UP4.  Let’s see how they fare.

  With the rumors of Ivy Bridge E trickling out of IDF you can be assured there will be more attention paid to X79 in the near future.

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