Tech News
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MOA: Master Overclocking Arena 2011 Finals - Tonight!
Published: Thursday, October 6, 2011 | By: DennisThe exciting conclusion to the MSI Master Overclocking Arena 2011 occurs tonight (8:00pm MST).
For those of us not able to attend the competition in person be sure to check out the live web cast accessible from the MOA website. I don't expect there to be a whole lot to see but if they do it right you'll get a front row seat into the exciting final match for what started in Vegas early this year.
In the meantime you can check out our photo gallery from the MOA:Las Vegas event and be sure to support your favorite teams participating in the event.
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Motherboard brands struggling to survive in the notebook market
Published: Thursday, October 6, 2011 | By: DennisThe title of this news post somewhat implies that notebooks are killing the motherboard business but when you read the article you'll find that its the motherboard's notebook lines that are killing the company.
While Asustek Computer is aggressively pushing its ultrabooks in the notebook market, its fellow motherboard competitors are mostly still struggling in the notebook industry, according to sources from motherboard players.
-- snip --
Although Gigabyte will not join the first round of ultrabook competition, the company is already planning models featuring Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processor for the first half of 2012. With demand for ultrabooks expected to start rising in 2012, Gigabyte is confident that it will be able to achieve its goal of turning a profit with its notebook business.Notebooks are really a very "personal" platform device that, aside from hardcore business use, really needs to appeal to the user and almost match their demands completely. Combine that with the infrequency of their purchase and it's no wonder companies struggle to sell them.
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eVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified Review @ Guru3D
Published: Thursday, October 6, 2011 | By: DennisThis is a very interesting review quote that makes the review seem like they are surprised that EVGA is actually catering to their market base with a one of a kind video card designed to rival any of the custom PCB video cards on the market.
eVGA released the GeForce GTX 580 Classified. It is released in three flavors, the 'regular' version with air cooling, a liquid cooled version and then for the 0.000000001% of pro overclockers a kit with LN2 sub-zero cooling pots.
In-between these models you can opt for 1.5 and 3 GB versions as well. The card tested today comes with a funky dual-slot cooling design based on an 8 cm fan. eVGA overhauled the PCB design and wanted just the best on it so you'll spot a customized VRM and 14+3 phase design.The card looks like pure awesome, with some luck we might even get to test one under extreme conditions.
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NL: Review Block - Cases, Storage and Cards
Published: Monday, October 3, 2011 | By: DennisCases
- Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E (Evolution) mATX System Enclosure reviewed in Metku
- Silverstone GD06 HTPC chassis review
- Sentey Optimus GS-6000 Mid-Tower ATX Computer Case Review @ Tweaknews
- Raidmax Blackstorm Mid-Tower Case Review
- Lian Li PV-V600FR @ PureOverclock
- Thermaltake Armor A30 MicroATX Computer Case Review @ Bigbruin
Memory and Storage
- Corsair Force GT 240GB Solid State Drive Review
- The Memoright FTM Plus SATA 3 SSD Review @ The SSD Review
- VisionTek Ulimate 8GB DDR3-1600 @ PureOverclock
- Patriot Wildfire 120 GB SSD @ techPowerUp
Video Cards
- ASUS GTX580 DirectCU II Graphics Card Review @ OCIA
- ASUS GeForce GTS 450 Direct CU Silent Video Card Review
Stay tuned, more on the way. -
"Diggnation," to End in December
Published: Monday, October 3, 2011 | By: DennisCaught this story off of Twitter and I am a little sad to see the show being shut down.
Their explanation for ending it: They’ve grown up, just like the Web has. “We started this show as kids,” said Mr. Albrecht, now 35. “Both of us came into Web video at a time when ‘Web video’ wasn’t even a word.”
Said Mr. Rose, 34: “There are other things, creatively, that we’ve started to do that are a little more fresh and exciting.”
A Web video network, Revision3, was built in large part on the back of “Diggnation,” and like a traditional television network, it is carefully managing the announcement about the show’s end. “We’ve built the company to the point where, when a show goes through its natural life cycle, that’s fine,” the Revision3 chief executive, Jim Louderback, said in an interview last week.Gotta love it when a media network can be built around a popular web show, makes you wonder how different the web0sphere would be if media networks actually promoted the various properties they advertise with.
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Gigabyte X58A-OC Intel X58 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers
Published: Monday, October 3, 2011 | By: DennisThe Gigabyte X58A-OC has been making the rounds but is clearly not a very popular model since I suspect most sites, and enthusiasts, are holding out for X79 and trying not to pay attention to anything X58 anymore.
What is really crappy is that even if you did buy one of these motherboards finding a halfway decent memory kit for it will be next to impossible. There are plenty of modules tuned for Sandy Bridge but nothing left for LGA1366.People have been overclocking computer hardware for quite some time. Overclocking is not that hard at all, but to really get the highest achievable overclocks you need a motherboard that can take the punishment. Over the past 2 years we have seen efforts from many different manufacturers, but these efforts were targeted at 2 different demographics, overclockers and gamers. So you had all of these boards that had all the features that gamers and overclockers wanted, but what if you just wanted the overclocking features? Today we are taking a look at motherboard that gives you all of those overclock ing features and cuts out all the extra “fat” that is not needed. This board has been designed from the ground up to be best overclocking motherboard for the X58 platform. The motherboard I am talking about is the X58A-OC from Gigabyte, let’s see how far we can push this board
Ok dispite the long description I clicked on over to the OC page and saw this.
I tried to go right up to 4.4Ghz, but Windows would blue screen upon startup so I went back to the 160 frequency and used a multiplier of 27. This brought the system up to 4.3GHz, which was the highest overclock we were able to attain and the highest overclock we have ever attained with this processor.
Clearly they are "not" overclockers, which makes you wonder why they bothered to review such an awesome board.
Be sure to check out our review of the X58A-OC where we put a 980X under phase and crank things up to 5Ghz.
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Are sound cards still relevant? - A Blog @ TechReport
Published: Sunday, October 2, 2011 | By: DennisThere is an interesting blog post over at TechReport that touches on the extremely old subject of sound cards and if they are worth your time. From a sound quality standpoint it depends on how the discrete card was constructed and if it offers the digital connections you are looking for. In most cases discrete is the way to go for HTPC and high end gaming, not because the sound quality is better but rather the digital audio options (for HTPC) and offloading sound processing for smoother gameplay (for Gaming).
At the end of the day, the Xonar DX's audio quality is just enough of an improvement over the old integrated solution to make me keep the sound card around. I can live with manually selecting the headphone jack, but I really shouldn't have to considering that an entire motherboard supporting this feature can be purchased for the cost of the $82 Xonar.
This paragraph jumped out at me as being a rather poor excuse to put a positive spin on a bad experience.
Oh and if you do happen to read the blog post be sure to read the Editors comment at the bottom, trying to save face are we?
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EVGA GTX580 Classified 3072MB Air @ LanOC Reviews
Published: Thursday, September 29, 2011 | By: DennisThe description pretty much tells the story and genesis of this awesome video card from EVGA. Maybe one day we'll get one to put thru the paces.
Nvidia’s GTX580 launched close to a year ago yet is still one of the top performing video cards on the market. When you are a manufacture like EVGA, where do you go after you have introduced a full product line around the GTX580? Apparently if left alone, EVGA’s engineers in collaboration with overclockers “k|ngp|n” and “TiN”) will turn the GTX580 a monster just begging to be overclocked. With a revamped VRM circuitry with solid-state chokes, dual BIOS’s, and power coming from two 8 pin’s AND a 6pin this could very well be the fastest GTX580 on the market when overclocked. Of course the only way to find out is to read farther into our review.
Monster power, monster heatsink, and monster clocks. Sadly to get the "most" from this card you'll have to trash that aircooler and go with something cooler but with a core clock of 855Mhz you may have all you need, at least for gaming.
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Got my Battlefield 3 Beta Invite - How about you?
Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 | By: DennisWith all this talk about Battlefield 3 I thought I would share some of my good fortune.
Battlefield 3 Alpha Trial & Battlefield 3 Open Beta (48 hours early!!
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I'm still not a fan of how the game loads, First you have to launch from Origin which then spawns your default browser to log you into the BattleNet. From there you can choose to play a "Quick Match" (the only thing available in the beta). Clicking Quick Match will spawn another window with a "join server" button. Clicking that will spawn another process to connect you to a multiplayer server. If you're lucky it will come back with a button that actually launches the game and allows you to play.
When you are killed in the game you have to wait for the "Deploy" button to show which will get back into the action. Of course clicking that button takes awhile to register so you're actually out of it for a good 15 seconds while you wait.
Oh ya, and it looks like there is only a single map.
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Cooler Master Storm Trooper Launch Day
Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 | By: DennisA new addition to the CM Storm line has been announced and might be one of the best cases ever made.
The Trooper is a case offering that should be near the top of the list for anyone who is in the market for a full tower case. The MSRP of $189.99 makes it about middle of the range for this sort of case. The CM Storm Trooper is quite possibly the best case I have reviewed this year, so I am happy to award it 9/10 – LanOC Recommended.
Trooper Reviews
- Cooler Master Storm Trooper Gaming Case Review @ Ninjalane
- Cooler Master Storm Trooper Full Tower Case Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Cooler Master Storm Trooper @ LanOC Reviews
