Tech News
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F.E.A.R. 3 (PC) Review @ HardwareHeaven
Published: Sunday, July 17, 2011 | By: DennisI wouldn't normally post something like this but I have been playing this title for the past couple weeks and have thus far been very impressed. The game does support DX11 at some level but due to the however due to the GTX 275 in my gaming rig I'm forced to play in DX9 mode.
At its core F.E.A.R 3 is a modern day first person shooter so all of the key ingredients are here, the ability to carry multiple weapons, including two of the same type for dual handed attacks, we can zoom to target and health regenerates when we seek cover. Day 1 have however retained some of the key aspects of the original title which ensure that this feels like a F.E.A.R title, the main thing being the ability to slow time while attacking which allows us to target and attack multiple enemies more successfully in dangerous situations.
The only thing I'm not so happy about is the mouse movements being rather quick and jumpy due to a lower than expected framerate (again due to the GTX 275). Despite this I find the action to be well paced with the right amount of enemy interaction and plenty of places to hide during the fire fights.
There is also plenty of spooky parts and a few places where bodies hanging from meat hooks appear out of nowhere.
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The science of fanboyism @ TechReport
Published: Sunday, July 17, 2011 | By: DennisThis is a pretty good article, I will admit I did read the entire thing and stuff towards the end gets rather confusing but given the subject, I'm thinking that is what he was going for.
What pushes sane, otherwise intelligent people to develop an irrational bias toward a given brand or product? Are we seeing the manifestation of a rational process, whereby people attempt to validate and elevate themselves by loudly trumpeting the superiority of their choices? Or is something else at play?
As it turns out, various scientific studies have pointed to the existence of a basal process that, when one chooses between two roughly equally desirable items, causes the brain's perception of the two items to change significantly. The data from those studies are interesting and quite surprising.In the end they conclude that we "all" are fanboys (or fangirls) at some level.
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New Podcast Running a Little Late
Published: Thursday, July 14, 2011 | By: DennisThis isn't really tech news but the next installment of the Ninjalane Podcast is going to be a little late this month. Normally we like to launch the new episode around the 10th of each month. However, due to some things we have planned for this episode it will have to be delayed until early next week.
Stay tuned!
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Indiana Dumps Cursive For Keyboarding Skills
Published: Thursday, July 14, 2011 | By: DennisThis is some interesting stuff for sure. The progressive state and home to the Indy 500, Indiana, has decided to drop cursive writing from their school curriculum. The idea behind this is to teach our children the skills they need to live in a digital world rather than the analog world dependent on the written word.
I still remember taking a typing class in high school, I also remember writing papers on my Tandy 1000 in Jr High and I did quite well growing up. Had I not learned cursive I would have never learned how to sign my art or even sign the back of my credit card. This simply brings the end to autographs and sports memorabilia and makes it harder to fight identity theft.
The CCSI says future generations will need to master the keyboard; cursive, not so much. In fact, keyboarding is considered such an important skill that students will need to be able to type out reports by the end of the third grade.
Sadly my reoccurring thought in response to this is those movies where you see guys signing their name with a big X because they never learned how to read or write.
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NL: Review Block - Kitchen Sink Edition
Published: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 | By: DennisVideo Cards
- Radeon HD 6950 PCS+ Vortex 2 @ HardwareHeaven
- HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Review @ Hardware Canucks
- PowerColor HD 6870 X2 2 GB @ techPowerUp
Cases
- Corsair Graphite Series 600T Special Edition White Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Corsair Obsidian 650D @ techPowerUp
- Lian Li PC-P80N Full Tower Chassis Review
- CM Storm Enforcer @ Rbmods
Cooling
- Thermaltake Frio OCK Overclocking Cooler Review @ Tweaknews
- Zalman Z9 Plus Mid Tower Case Review @ ThinkComputers
Mices
- Cooler Master Spawn Mouse @ Bjorn3D
Mobo
- Sapphire Edge HD2 Mini PC @ Pro-Clockers
- ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 Motherboard Review -
Gigabyte G1.Sniper Motherboard Review @ APH Networks
Published: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 | By: DennisAPH Networks included a rather long description of this gaming motherboard from Gigabyte, lets see what they have to say.
July 1, 2011: Canada turns 144. July 4, 2011: USA turns 235. But what about me? July 3, 2011: That's one year and month anniversary since I have started here at APH Networks. It is also exactly five years and one month ago on this day, that I was given a special present after fully completing karate. What else is special about this day? Another computer here at APH Networks is successfully benchmarked by yours truly. Today, I have been asked to review a blissfully challenging and intriguing product, and this is no other than Gigabyte's high-end desktop gaming motherboard known as the G1.Sniper. "Sniper? Where!?" Incorporating Intel's X58 chipset designed mainly for the first generation Core i7 line of processors, the G1.Sniper is branded under Gigabyte's G1-Killer series, featuring a dedicated high-end X-Fi audio chip from Creative, heatsinks designed to look like the rails seen on rifles, and many other hardware and aesthetically pleasing features. The one we are reviewing today is the "midrange" unit priced about $430 at press time. Before you get too excited, let me briefly inform you that this is a "one shot, one kill" deal. You snooze, you lose; you skip benchmarking results, you miss out on seeing how well this motherboard performs. Or should I really be asking: Are the G1.Sniper's features really worth its $430 price tag? You will have to stay alert to find out!
Gigabyte had the next generation of G1 motherboards on display at Computex and they are all following the same pattern, high end audio, killer branded NIC, and military theme motherboard heatsinks. Great combo provided you like the styling.
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OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB SATA 6Gbit/s SSD Review @ Techgage
Published: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 | By: DennisPeople say that SSDs are the way of the future and given the technology going into these drives I would tend to agree. So what excatly is Max IOPS? read on..
When we took OCZ's Vertex 3 SSD for a spin last month, there was no other way to sum up our thoughts than 'blown-away'. How could such a drive get even better? With tweaked firmware and a doubling-up of NAND chips, of course. Let's take a look at the Vertex 3 Max IOPS edition and see if its price premium is justified.
It would seem that "price premium" and "blown away" tend to go together, and well, you get what you pay for.
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Foxconn breaks ground for Taipei IT mall
Published: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 | By: DennisThis goes to show that even though a company is not "big" in the US it doesn't mean they don't have pull and infulance elsewhere in the world.
Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) on July 11 held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Taipei Information Park, an IT shopping mall project based on a BOT (build-operate-transfer) contract with the Taipei City Government.
The shopping mall is a structure with 12 stories above ground and six basement levels on a site of 8,883 square meters (66,110 square feet), with completion scheduled for 2013. It will be operated by Cybermart Worldwide, a Foxconn Group member that operates the Cybermart 3C retail chain in China.This should be a great project, I'll be following it for sure.
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GIGABYTE Z68X-UD7-B3 Intel Z68 Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews
Published: Monday, July 11, 2011 | By: Dennis
If we were to look at strictly the performance of the GIGABYTE Z68X-UD7-B3, I would have no complaints. Unfortunately, I can't look past what I feel are short comings of the Z68X-UD7-B3. It seems to me, that GIGABYTE took the P67A-UD7-B3 motherboard, slapped the Intel Z68 chipset on it and called it good. The problem with doing that is that it pretty much leaves out the features that separate Intel Z68 chipset from the P67 chipset. You would expect that the boards would be priced close to the same, but that is not the situation that we have here today. We found that the GIGABYTE Z68X-UD7-B3 is currently retailing for $349.99 plus shipping and the GIGABYTE P67A-UD7-B3 is retailing for $294.99 after rebate. That means that there is a $55 price difference between two identical motherboards. What do you get for $55? Intel Smart Response Technology (SRT) for SSD caching...
The P67 and Z68 UD7 boards is one of my personal favorites and so far has done extremely well in a variety of overclocking situations from Air, Water, and Single Stage Phase. I hope to put this board under LN2 in the near future. While I don't expect to get anymore MHz out of my 2600K it should still be a fun time.
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NL: Review Block - Water Water Everywhere
Published: Monday, July 11, 2011 | By: DennisWatercooling kits have become surprisingly easy to install. In the early days you would have to assemble your kit from a variety of individual components, mod your case, and then chase down issues as they arose. These days you simply pick up a pre-made kit and away you go.
- Swiftech H20-220 Edge Watercooling Kit @ Bjorn3D
- Larkooler KU3-241 WaterCooling Kit Review @ XtremeComputingKits like these might be the future of PC watercooling but I still like doing things the old way.
