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Written by Hanners
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 17:08 |
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After taking a look at OCZ's ModXStream Pro 500W power supply earlier today, here's our latest round up of news and reviews.
CPUs, video cards and motherboards
- MSI P55A-GD65 Motherboard review at Hardware Secrets
- ASRock X58 Extreme 3 LGA1366 Motherboard review at Future Looks
- Asus Rampage III Extreme review at OCaholic
- GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 (Intel H55 Express) Mini-ITX Motherboard review at Tweak Town
- MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 768MB OC review at Hardware Canucks
- MSI GTX 460 cyclone 768MB review at Pure Overclock
- Intel Core i5-655K Processor review at Benchmark Reviews
- ATI Catalyst 10.7 Windows 7 Driver Analysis at Tweak Town
- AMD 2010 Processor Series in Tests, Part 1 at iXBT Labs
Cases, cooling and power supplies
- Noctua NH-C12P SE14 review at Overclockers Online
- Best CPU Cooler Performance Q2-2010 at Benchmark Reviews
- NZXT Phantom review at Pure Overclock
- IDAPT I3 Universal Desktop Charger review at Think Computers
- Speck PixelSkin for iPad review at iGadget Life
- PC Power & Cooling 950 Mk II Power Supply review at Bjorn 3D
- NZXT Phantom Case first look at TechWare Labs
- Lian Li Pitstop T60 Test bench review at Clunk
- Choiix Comforter Lapdesk review at Pro-Clockers
- OCZ StealthXStream 2 600 W Power Supply review at Hardware Secrets
- Speck PixelSkin for iPad review at iGadget Life
Memory and storage
- 7,200-RPM terabytes from Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate, and WD face off at The Tech Report
- OCZ Revo 120GB PCI Express SSD Performance preview at Tech Gage
- Western Digital VelociRaptor 600 GB Hard Disk Drive review at Tech ARP
- WD 7200 RPM Scorpio Black 500GB Notebook Hard Drive review at Hot Hardware
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB review at TechWare Labs
- Moneaul Crystal Pen Drive review at XS Reviews
- OCZ Technology RevoDrive 120GB PCIe Solid State Drive review at Tweak Town
- Patriot Inferno 100 GB SSD review at techPowerUp
Systems, communications and input devices
- Dell Inspiron Zino HD review at Missing Remote
- ASUS G73JH gaming notebook review at HEXUS
- Rosewill RK-800G Gaming Keyboard review at Burned In
- Samsung Gravity 3 SGH-t479 review at Test Freaks
- Asus Ion 2-Powered Eee PC 1201PN review at Hot Hardware
Audio and video devices
- Geeks.com Mini USB 2.0 LED Projector review at OCIA
- Psyko Audio Labs 5.1 PC Gaming Headphones review at Tweak Town
Software and gaming
- Benchmarking ZFS On FreeBSD vs. EXT4 & Btrfs On Linux at Phoronix
- StarCraft II - Wings of Liberty (PC) review at Gaming Heaven
- AMD Ups The Workstation Ante With A New FirePro Driver at Phoronix
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 (Wii) review at Tweak PC
- FileMaker Pro 11 review at Business Computing World View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 14:03 |
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If you're in the market for a new power supply that won't break the bank, and you don't require the kind of Wattages that could power a small country, then today's review might just be for you, as we take a look at OCZ's modular ModXStream Pro 500W unit.
The ModXStream Pro 500W features six connectors for its modular power cables, with the two red outputs available for PCI Express for graphics power connectors, while the other four black outputs are available for other power requirements such as Molex, Serial ATA power and so on.
As you might expect, the main required ATX power connectors are attached directly to the PSU despite the modular nature of the rest of the unit, giving us the usual assortment of a 24-pin connector together with one eight-pin and two four-pin ATX +12V connectors.
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W power supply review View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 10:39 |
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Given AMD's family of DirectX 11 parts and how long they've been in the market compared to NVIDIA's offerings this isn't a surprise, but nonetheless the news that ATI currently holds a slender majority in terms of discrete graphics share will be great news for them.
AMD's ATI graphics unit took 51 percent of the standalone, or "discrete," graphics chip market compared to Nvidia's share that was just shy of 49 percent, according to Mercury Research, a Cave Creek, Arizona firm that tracks graphics chip shipments. This is a sharp reversal from the same period a year ago when Nvidia had about 59 percent of the market and AMD had just under 41 percent.
Total market figures for the second quarter of 2010 had Intel with a 54.3 percent share, AMD with 24.5 percent, and Nvidia with 19.8 percent. This, also, is a setback for Nvidia: in the second quarter of last year, Nvidia had a 29.6 percent share compared to AMD's 18.2 percent.
cNet News has the story. View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 08:11 |
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Now that there are a reasonable number of DirectX 11 graphics boards on the market from both AMD and NVIDIA, which parts give you the most bang for your buck, and how do the type of games you play (i.e. DirectX 11 or otherwise) affect the potential value of a given card? Both interesting questions which this article sets out to answer.
Today's value comparison spans 11 cards with price tags ranging from around $140 to $680. Since Nvidia has yet to launch a sub-$200 DirectX 11 product, we'll mainly be studying match-ups at $200 and upward. This exercise should help us answer questions on everyone's lips. Is the GeForce GTX 460 1GB truly a better deal than the 768MB model and the Radeon HD 5830? Should you get a Radeon HD 5850 or a GeForce GTX 470? Are top-of-the-line cards always ripoffs? And will Lindsay Lohan serve her full 90-day jail sentence?
To get a complete picture, we'll be looking at all of the games from our latest graphics review. Value mash-ups can be quite helpful, and we love including them at the end of our articles, but nothing beats looking at individual games and figuring out the best bang for your buck in each one. Just because a given GeForce or Radeon outmatches its competitors overall doesn't mean it's always the best deal, after all.
Check out all of their findings at The Tech Report. View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 08:07 |
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Following the bad news regarding their patent dispute with Rambus earlier this week, it seems as though NVIDIA are having further concerns which have caused their expectations for the second quarter of the financial year to be lowered.
Nvidia Corp. on Wednesday announced that it expected revenue for the second quarter ending August 1, 2010, to be drastically lower than the guidance provided with the company's financial results for its first quarter. The company blamed poor sales of consumer graphics processing units (GPUs) as well as economic weakness in certain parts of the world.
The company that controls a huge chunk of the graphics adapters market said that its revenue for its second quarter of fiscal 2011 was estimated at $800 million to $820 million, compared with the range of $950 million to $970 million provided on May 13, 2010.
Nvidia officially explained that the revenue shortfall occurred primarily in the consumer GPU business, resulting from increased memory costs and economic weakness in Europe and China. The increased solution cost of discrete GPUs led to a greater-than-expected shift to lower-priced GPUs and PCs with integrated graphics. Nevertheless, everything may not be that easy and straightforward.
The full story can be found at X-Bit Labs. View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010 16:18 |
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If you're one of the StarCraft II playing masses who is frustrated at the lack of anti-aliasing on AMD graphics boards, then rejoice! For a hotfix driver which allows anti-aliasing to be enabled is on its way soon.
On vacation - but just got an email saying that Starcraft 2 AA is almost ready. Just getting tested now. Hotfix soon.
The tidings of comfort of joy come straight from Terry Makedon's Twitter feed. View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010 09:23 |
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Although we might have to wait a while to see USB 3.0 integrated officially into an Intel motherboard chipset, AMD appear to be more on the ball when it comes to such functionality, while this particular report also brings us news of AMD's CPU launch plans for the second half of this year.
AMD is currently in talks with Renesas Electronics, which was merged with Japan-based NEC, about the licensing of USB 3.0 technology, and is considering integrating USB 3.0 support in its upcoming Hudson D1 southbridge chipsets, according to sources from notebook makers.
The Hudson D1 chipset will be introduced for AMD's 40nm Ontario APUs that are set to be shipped in the fourth quarter of 2010. The new platform will mainly target the ultra-thin notebook and netbook markets.
DigiTimes has all the details. View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010 09:11 |
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We've already heard suggestions from a number of sources that ATI's next-generation graphics architecture will be heading our way before the year is out - Now the latest speculation suggests that we'll be seeing the first so-called "Southern Islands" parts by the end of October.
ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, reportedly plans to formally launch its first second-generation DirectX 11 graphics processing units (GPUs) sometimes in the second half of October, 2010. The new lineup is projected to bring new performance heights to the high-end product segment, but it is not clear whether there will be sufficient amount of the new ATI Radeon HD 6000-series graphics processors this calendar year. AMD's graphics unit reportedly set the launch window for the next-generation graphics processors for premium segment to 15 - 29 of October, 2010, according to Heise.de web-site that cites "reliable corporate sources". This is the second or the third confirmation about ATI's intention to release the code-named Southern Islands chips for performance-demanding applications in Q4 2010. X-Bit Labs have the full story. View or post comments. |
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Written by Hanners
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Tuesday, 27 July 2010 14:52 |
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Watching Rambus win a patent case is always a heart-sinking moment given said company's history, but this certainly looks like it could be a nasty blow for NVIDIA - Although it won't stop them shipping GPUs just yet, it could cause them some major headaches a little further down the line.
Nvidia Corp., the world’s second- largest maker of computer-graphics chips, plans to appeal a patent ruling lost to Rambus Inc. and said customers including Hewlett-Packard Co. won’t see any disruption to their supplies.
The U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington yesterday said Nvidia chips infringed three Rambus patents, and issued an order that would ban imports of certain products containing the chips. Nvidia said it can continue sales by taking advantage of a licensing arrangement Rambus reached with European regulators as part of an unrelated antitrust case.
“I would expect that they would fight it to the extent the law provides, but having said that, they have to take care of their customers,” Chris Caso, an analyst with Susquehanna International Group in New York, said in an interview.
Bloomberg has more details on the story. View or post comments. |
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