Tech News
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Employee Turnover in the Tech Industry Marketing Department @ TweakNews
Published: Monday, July 25, 2011 | By: DennisI do enjoy reading editorials like this since you get a personal perspective on what is happening in the industry. (Some of which I can relate to) Hardware media is a strange thing. On one hand you have a variety of websites offering to do product reviews for the leading hardware manufacturers. As time rolls on this practice becomes standard and big business for both the hardware maker and the media site voicing their opinions. On the other hand you have the money aspect, media outlets want to get paid, the hardware maker wants to sell product, and when margins are low cuts have to be made.
This editorial touches on "why" there is turnover in the marketplace and how even though you may be working in North America you aren't always treated as an American employee but rather having to conform to the working practices of the parent company.
You didn't think the Japanese made it to the top working 9-5 five days a week with paid holidays off did you?
My first inclination was when I noticed that a lot of marketing representatives were never staying at the same company for more than a year or two. Sure for the hardware site owner this can be an advantage seeing you have a industry contact at Company A and when the representative moves over to Company B, you have a instant point of contact at a new brand while still retaining the latter. But why is the marketing department turnover so brutal? Am I missing something here?
The editorial is a quick read, give it a look
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HIS Radeon 6970 ICEQ MIX Review @ Guru3D
Published: Monday, July 25, 2011 | By: DennisI might file this product under the "WTF are they thinking?" category. When I saw this email in the news box I figured it was just another HD 6970 card review but the MIX at the end got me curious so I decided to check it out.
Manufacturers these days go to extremes to bring a graphics card to the market that is unique. With that sentiment HIS is releasing a product with a bit of difference. Roughly a year and a half ago LUCID entered the market with what they claimed to be the revolution in multi-GPU (from different brands) technology, the LUCID Hydra solution.
It caused quite a stir in the market and motherboard manufacturers quickly jumped onto the bandwagon so as not to miss that trendy boat. Unfortunately, ever since the release, LUCID Hydra has been a drama with bad scaling, a lot of incompatibility, slow driver updates; really most reviewers have cursed the chipset and me personally, I'd like to see that Hydra solution 6 feet under.Yep, we have a video card with an onboard Lucid Hydra chip. The Lucid chip normally resides on the motherboard between the source of PCIe lanes and the target graphics cards for maximum bandwidth. However by putting the chip on the video card you can run Lucid on any motherboard at the cost of total bandwidth to your graphics subsystem. Why is this? Well, Hydra works by taking control of the graphics subsystem and deciding what card gets to do the work. The chip then reassembles the return data to generate the frame which requires dedicated bandwidth to contact the various cards. If your primary graphics slot only has 8x lanes available you can assume some of that bandwidth will be consumed by Lucid data and again by the return data from the "slave" cards working in the system.
This really isn't a huge issue with DX11 titles since most of the processing is done by the GPU however older DX9 and DX10 titles will turn out to be somewhat slower than they could be. I guess this is a small price to pay for having PhysX support using AMD graphics cards.
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Customers angry, staff defiant at China's fake Apple Store
Published: Friday, July 22, 2011 | By: DennisThis goes to show that everyone in the world wants American goods, but they are not willing to pay for it so they spend some money and create a fake.
I did see news of this early in the week but didn't think it would become such a big deal, I guess I was wrong. Doh!
"When I heard the news I rushed here immediately to get the receipt, I am so upset," a customer surnamed Wang told Reuters, near tears. "With a store this big, it looks so believable who would have thought it was fake?"
Wang, a petite, 23-year-old office worker who would not give her first name, spent 14,000 yuan ($2,170) last month buying a Macbook Pro 13-inch and a 3G iPhone from the Kunming store. She wasn't issued a receipt at the time, with staff telling her to come back later.I like how they describe "Wang" as a Petite person
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ASUS captivates tech-enthusiasts at Power User Conference
Published: Friday, July 22, 2011 | By: DennisIn the spirit of the great giveaway we are hosting for the next few weeks here ia a really cool article talking about a recent overclocking event ASUS hosted in Mumbai.
The conference aimed to educate the power users on recent technological innovations offered by ASUS’ latest Z68 motherboards, ROG and TUF Series motherboards. During the presentation, Jack spoke extensively on topics like ASUS Dual Intelligent Processors with Digi+VRM digital power design, ROG Thunderbolt card design, military-standard tested TUF components and Sabertooth series motherboards.
These overclocking events are quite fun and really educate you on what can be done with overclocking and how computer enthusiasts use their gear.. It is sad that they held it by invitation only, but considering the location that might have been the smart move.
Its an easy read, be sure to check it out.
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Kingston Dual-Channel-Kit KHX2000C9AD3W1K2/4GX Review @ ocaholic
Published: Thursday, July 21, 2011 | By: DennisThere have only been a few companies that have done watercooled heatspreaders and I have often struggled as to why you need to watercool ram. Some people just like the thought that everything is watecooled while others think it helps with overclocking.
The Kingston H2O series belong to the most powerful modules which the memory giant actually has in its portfolio. As soon as you take a closer look at the specifications you'll see that they are very serious. According to Kingston these DIMMs need only 1.5 Volt to operate at 2000 MHz with 9-11-9-27 timings.
If you are into waterchillers for your overclocking adventures then a heatspreader like this can actually serve a purpose, assuming condensation can be kept under control.
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NL: Review Block - Cases and Cards
Published: Thursday, July 21, 2011 | By: DennisQuick review block covering some of the latest Video card and computer chassis reviews from around the web.
Video Cards
- HIS Radeon 6770 ICEQX Turbo Crossfire review
- HIS Radeon 6770 IceQ X Turbo @ PureOverclock
- Visiontek Radeon 6950 2GB @ PureOverclock
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 Super Overclock review <- SOC FTW
- PowerColor Radeon HD 6870 X2 graphics card review
- Zotac GTX 550Ti AMP! @ LanOC Reviews
Cases
- Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced @ Pro-Clockers
- Moneual Sonamu G100 ECO-Friendly Micro ATX Case Review @ Tweaknews
- CM Storm Enforcer @ techPowerUp
- OC3D: Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced Review -
Foxconn reportedly considering ECS acquisition
Published: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 | By: DennisPeople in the TW tech industry move around a lot and we hear rumors that so in so moved from here to there and whats his name moved from company a to b and then back to a. These transitions are a normal occurrence much like in any industry.
But, what if a person from Foxconn was fed up this their job and moved to ECS only to be required back into Foxconn due to a merger? It would be like they never left.
Source from retail channel pointed out that Orbbit has been operating in China retail market for many years, and is one of the few Taiwan-based players having retail channel capability in China, but since the company's market share is still trailing several China-based local players, even if Foxconn acquires ECS and Orbbit by a lower-than net value price, ECS's weak operation performance since 2007 may not make the transaction worth a while.
I would have to agree with the sources on this one, if Foxconn did buy ECS it wouldn't be to inherit their weak market share but to steal away some key partner or some of their exclusive OEM business.
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Cooler Master Storm Sirus Launch Day
Published: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 | By: DennisIt is launch day for a new product from Cooler Master called the Storm Sirus. We have seen this product many times since CES and we are glad it has finally made it to market.
The gaming headset is not your normal 2 speaker surround system but rather a true 5.1 speaker system with 4 individual speakers in each ear cup. The position of these speakers is what gives you audio depth and the tuning module allows you to adjust any setting you wish.
Reviews from around the web
- Cooler Master CM Storm Sirius 5.1 Gaming Headset Review @ Tweaknews
- Cooler Master Storm Sirus 5.1 Gaming Headset at Modders-Inc
- Cooler Master Storm Sirus 5.1 Headset Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Cooler Master Storm Sirus @ PureOverclock
- Cooler Master Storm Sirus @ LanOC ReviewsBe sure to check out our review of the CM Storm Sirus Gaming headset and then look to get one for yourself.
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Corsair H60 Self-Contained Liquid CPU Cooler Review @ Techgage
Published: Sunday, July 17, 2011 | By: DennisThe H50 is quite old in product years so to keep the product line fresh Corsair has been busy "upgrading" the popular platform to increase performance and compatibility.
When Corsair earlier this year announced its partnership with CoolIT, it at the same time also announced a follow-up to its popular H50, the H60. At first glance, the H60 looks simpler in design to the H50, but with an entirely rethought inside, featuring a split-flow design with micro-channel cold plate, that's not the case at all.
The way I understand it asetek makes the coolers but CoolIt supplies the system monitoring software, what a great combo.
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NL: Review Block - Motherboard Roundup at the Ninjalane Corral
Published: Sunday, July 17, 2011 | By: DennisJust a few mobo reviews from the inbox.
Motherboards
- Gigabyte G1.Assassin X58 Motherboard Review @ Hothardware
- ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z (Intel Z68) mATX Motherboard Review
- ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z review @ Guru3D
- ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi @ techPowerUpThe Zotac boards seem to be quite popular, I wonder if we should start reviewing them?
