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 .:Latest Topics |
.:Latest News
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: I4U News | Subject: System
An HTPC can really add a lot of functionality to your current TV and stereo system, but the cases aren't always the perfect shape for your current home theatre stand. If you have a snazzy HTPC that doesn't fit, or are not particularly interested in picking up a purpose built HTPC case, consider the SageTV HD Media Extender. I4U took a look at this device which supports inputs including MPEG1, 2, 4, H.264 up to 1080p, and many more. It outputs via HDMI, component, composite and S-Video and it's audio includes left/right audio output and optical S/PDIF. The key is a 10/100 Ethernet port that will work with a DHCP server, allowing you to grab any content over your home network.
"Today we are checking out the SageTV HD Media Extender. The device streams music, photos, and video from the PC to a TV in another room. This could be a good alternative for those who want a HTPC, but don't have room in the living room to set one up. Read on for all the details on the SageTV HD Media Extender." Here are some more Systems articles from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: Red & Blackness Mods | Subject: General Tech
Keylogging is bad ... unless you are doing it to your own PC to find out exactly how your screen gets flipped and random icons are deleted from your desktop by a mysterious someone. It is the perfect way to find out just who is doing what to your PC if it is in an area where a roommate, pet or child can get at. Unfortunately, from what happened during R&B Mod's testing, you might not be the only one with access to the keystroke record. Be warned.
"Every now and then, the idea of knowing what your friend might type on his computer pops in mind. Keelog has provided us their newest product Keelogger Flash USB keylogger, which saves everything you type on your computer to tiny USB flash memory and allows you to read it whenever you want. The current product line includes PS/2 and USB keyloggers with 2MB, 512MB or 2GB of memory." Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: Bjorn3D | Subject: Storage
Having an external HDD enclosure can be very handy, especially if it can hot-swap drives. It does add to the clutter of cables running around your PC, with data and power cables not looking particularly good even if the enclosure does. ICY DOCK's MB672SKGF-B is an internal HDD enclosure that supports hot-swapping and helps keep your area clean; all the cabling is inside the case. As an added bonus you also get an LCD screen on the casing which can track the temperature of the drive. Take a peek over at Bjorn3D.
"Now here's the thing - I have a beautiful Antec Nine Hundred case with a single DVD drive installed in one of the 5.25' external drive bays, so the other bays remain largely unused. I've considered putting in additional optical drives, but tell you the truth, I personally just don't have any great need to do so. For looks alone I've been considering installing a fan controller or something fun with lights and gauges, but just never saw anything that I couldn't live without. Fortunately for me, ICY DOCK came along with an intriguing new product and I was given the opportunity to check it out. Not only does the ICY DOCK MB672SKGF internal 3.5' SAS/SATA HDD Enclosure look great, but it actually solves a problem I never realized I had. Now with one drive bay easily accessible in the front of my Nine Hundred case, I can easily swap out hard drives and forget about those external drives and the plethora of cables and power supplies that come with them. Let's take a closer look at ICY DOCK and the new internal drive enclosure from this innovative company." Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: PC Perspective | Subject: Graphics Card
If you haven't checked out the reviews of the HD4670 yet, you probably don't realize just how great a value this card is. For under $100 you can actually play Crysis @ 1024x768 on high with 8xAF and stay well over 30fps. As an HTPC card it is even more powerful, it supports all of AMD's recent additions to their HD processing, so BluRay playback will be smooth and the card can stream 7.1 ACM audio out the HDMI connection for single cable HTPC output. Read about the rest of this cards capabilities in Ryan's full review.
"The Radeon HD 4670 looks even better when we take that long-debated question of multi-GPU tactics into account. We saw scaling that reached into the 80% and above range with our pair of HD 4670s - something that is possible only because the GPU is most definitely the bottleneck in our gaming tests. The upgrade potential 3-6 months down the road for a user buying one of these GPUs today is compelling - $90 (and probably lower than that in the future) is a much easier cost to swallow for a sweet increase in gaming performance." Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: The Inquirer | Subject: General Tech
The current scourge of humanity, if the RIAA, MPAA, MicroSoft and others are to be believed is counterfeiting and piracy. Every copied movie or Windows disk is a threat to the very existence of the free world and it's economy. That may well be true on some level, but there are far worse examples to prosecute, like the fake mil-spec chips that are becoming very common purchases for a cash strapped US Armed Forces. Imaging how upset you would be if a CPU you purcahsed for your home PC turned out not to be what it claimed to be. Now imagine that the fake chip is powering an air craft you are flying in or in the fire control of a Navy vessel.
The military is not buying these fake chips intentionally, but because of budget constraints they are forced to buy from the cheapest source. That opens them up to the possibility of fake or damaged goods being supplied, which turns out to be exactly what is happening. Read more on this incredibly infuriating story at The Inquirer. "US WARPLANES, ships and communications networks have become vulnerable thanks to fake microchips flooding into the western world from China. Use of these fraudulent chips could be the cause of equipment failure which, depending on the equipment, could be fatal. The worst affected companies include Boeing Satallite Systems, Raytheon Missile Systems, Northrop Grumman Navigation Systems, BAE, and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control." Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
Ryan Shrout | Source: General | Subject: Processor
We have been hearing rumors about a potential connection between the CPU voltage of the upcoming Intel Nehalem processor and the system memory for a few weeks but now we have some much more concrete evidence. Images at this site of the ASUS P6T X58 motherboard reveal a sticker on the DIMM slots that says the following:
"...DIMMs with voltage setting over 1.65v may damage the CPU..." Will BIOS work arounds be the answer for this? 
Ryan Shrout | Source: PC Perspective Forums | Subject: Motherboard
I saw this post in our forums over the weekend and thought it deserved a little front page love: AudioFreak39 posted up some pictures of a test bed configuration running one of the upcoming Nehalem Core i7 965 processors, Intel X58 Smackover motherboard with lots of images of the BIOS on the board as well!
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: PC Perspective Forums | Subject: General Tech
You know it is going to be a bad day when all of your folders start going on walkabout, and don't seem to plan on coming back. Drop by and see if there are any gems of wisdom you can offer, or that you might be able to use for yourself and save the sensitive ears of poor unfortunate woodland critters. On the other hand, if you are in the mood for something a little more uplifting, check out the overclock on this Phenom X4! You can also pick up some good watercooling tips in the Cases n' Cooling forum, or play with air ducting in a Lian-Li case. Head to the graphics card section and join in on the comments about the new AMD and nVIDIA drivers.
If you are looking for something a little less technical, but with all the fun of a fanboy fight between Intel and AMD processors, drop into the Lightning Round, the televised debates are causing quite a stir. You can avoid the controversy altogether and just go straight to shopping, our Trading Post will have what you are looking for, unless you want it new from our Pricegrabber link. Don't forget to enter our Galaxy contest, just like we mentioned in our 38th PC Perspective Podcast and please, stay away from large carnivorous felines.
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: Bjorn3D | Subject: Case and Cooling
At 120 x 128 x 161.1mm, the CoolerMaster V8 is one large chunk of heatsink. It's size does allow it to use a 120mm fan which offers good cooling power without a lot of noise. The retention brackets will allow you to install the cooler on current AMD and Intel systems, but unfortunately you will not be able to use it with Socket 1366
processors. Check out the full review at Bjorn3D.
"In today's world, as CPU's get bigger and faster, we are finding out that not only do we want to have the fastest CPU available, but we are also wanting to gain that extra little kick by overclocking our CPU's. We also want to use an inexpensive cooling solution that will not only run quiet, but also keep our CPU's running cool without having to spend an enormous amount of money or having to spend a lot of time on setting up watercooling or phase change units. Which really leaves us only one choice left, aircooling. Aircooling is normally inexpensive and requires no real technological knowledge to set it up, while at the same time requiring the least amount of time for setting it up. Well, we may have a good canidate for that task. Today we will be looking at a new CPU cooler from Cooler Master, the V8." Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: Guru of 3D | Subject: Processor
The new flagship CPU from AMD is the AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition, which finally gives AMD a product that can beat the Q6600 at a comparable price. Even better, the overclock that Guru 3D managed on this processor indicates that you can really push this chip, if you stick it in a 790G board. Read on for all the benchmarks of a chip that will be very popular among the AMD crowd.
"The BE editions in essence are the 'regular' processor, yet they passed quality and analysis for better overclocking performance and have their multiplier unlocked. This obviously is the product we'll be testing today. We'll conduct our test in two ways though, first off we'll check baseline performance just like the regular Phenom X4 9950 and then start an overclocking session. Throughout our benchmarks we'll show you the results on both that baseline and overclocked performance with all benchmarks. This is AMDs is the cream of the crop processor of the quad-core product line, it runs at 2600 MHz on all four cores with a multiplier of 13. But really, it doesn't mind clocks over 3000 MHz either. And that's what we'll show you in today's article." Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: [H]ard|OCP | Subject: Motherboard
The EVGA nForce 780i SLI FTW is an attempt to compete against Intel's historically more powerful chipsets. Unfortunately, it fell short in a few key areas; it is a DDR2 board in a DDR3 world and it really doesn't offer
much improvement over the original version of the 780i. Add to that it's less that stellar performance on [H]ard|OCP's torture testing and you can see why [H] was a little disappointed in EVGA.
"With the introduction of the nForce 780i SLI FTW board, EVGA took the winning design of their nForce 780i SLI board and perfected it with better overall power circuitry and board cooling. Is this enough to make it competitive with the Intel chipset based solutions?" Here are some more Motherboard articles from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: Tweak Guides | Subject: General Tech
Tweak Guides has just finished updating their Windows Tweaking Companion. Available in both Vista and XP flavoured versions, the guide is a compilation of just about every single tweak and optimization that can be found out there on the net. As always, bear in mind that like any other type of tweaking, there is a chance that things can go horribly, horribly wrong. Make sure you have backups and an idea what it is that you are changing.
"The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (TGTC) for Windows XP and Windows Vista have both been revised to Version 4.2 and 2.2 respectively. If you're not familiar with the TGTC, it's a complete plain English system optimization guide for all Windows users, whether novice or advanced." Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: TweakTown | Subject: Memory
While just about any DIMM you buy today has a heat spreader on it at the very least, not all of the cooling solutions offered by memory makers are as good as others. If you do find yourself having heat problems with your RAM, try the Thermaltake RamOrb memory cooler. The only major difficulty that you could encounter is the removal of the original heatsinks so that you can use the RamOrb, other than that it should be as easy as it was for TweakTown.
"Times have certainly changed and even budget memory comes with a heatsink these days. Memory now runs much warmer than the ambient air surrounding it and companies are spending a great deal of time and effort to cool their products. While early coolers were held in place with what amounted to double sided tape from 3M and the coolers were more for appearance than performance, a few companies have invested in thermal transfer material to effectively transfer heat away from the RAM and pass it to the cooler. Thermaltake is now taking the idea of the cooling RAM to a new level and incorporating one of their most popular product lines. The new Thermaltake RamOrb (PN: CL-R0029) is now shipping to retail and e-tail locations and will be available in the coming weeks." Here are some more Memory articles from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: CPU3D | Subject: General Tech
North America certainly does not have a monopoly on high end system builders. Check out Beast Computers based in the UK for an example of that. CPU3D just finished reviewing their Aphros Reality Gaming PC, with custom watercooling that is good enough to allow a Intel QX9770 to hit 4136 MHz and keep a pair of 4870X2s from cooking themselves. Check out the heavily modified Lian Li PC-P80 B that the entire system is housed in.
"Extreme gaming PCs is what BEAST Computers are all about ... If you've recently won the lottery, you can splash out and take a look at what BEAST Computers can do for you. For those who can afford £200 per month, you can go for their finance deals. Either way ... you'll be glad to know that your extreme gaming system from BEAST is one of a kind!" Here are some more Systems articles from around the web:
Ryan Shrout | Source: General | Subject: Mobile
Back in September we told you about a lawsuit being placed against NVIDIA and its CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, by NVIDIA shareholders, claiming that NVIDIA held back information about its problems with poor manufactured mobility GPUs. Now, NVIDIA is being taken to court once again, this time with friends HP and Dell in hand.
In this case, the claim is that consumers with potentially faulty machines were not properly compensated when the "fix" for the issue involved a BIOS flash that made their systems louder and less power efficient. Since the current fix for the mobility GPU issue is to turn the cooling fan on faster and more often, users get noiser notebooks and slightly less battery life than they had initially received. On one hand I can clearly see the consumers point of view, however I doubt that suit will have legs since driver/firmware updates are changing small things like fan speeds and LCD brightnesses all the time. I guess we'll see if the judge agrees with that though.
Two class actions were started against Nvidia. The first, filed against Nvidia, Dell and Hewlett Packard alleging that defective graphics chips were shipped in notebook PCs but the defendants have failed to start a programme to replace the controller chips.
The first action alleges that the defendants only offered a software program update which while it purportedly repaired the defective chip, causes damage by reducing battery life and reduction in the life span of the computer. "Thus, despite these facts, consumers are stuck with the defective computers: no replacements, no refunds and no compensation from any defendant," the first filing made in a New York court by Louis Olivos alleges.  It's alleged the defendants failed to disclose the "unusually high failure rates of Nvidia's GPUs and MCPs, and only acknowledged the existence of problems in a July 2nd 2008 SEC form 8K. Nvidia said in that filing it would take a $150 million to $200 million charge to cover customer warranties. In July, HP admitted several models in its Pavilion and Compaq Presario used the defective chip. It is offering a BIOS update which the filing alleges is difficult and the fix "is no fix at all", causing the fan to run more.
At the end of July this year, Dell admitted a number of its notebooks suffered from the problem too. The problem causes multiple images, random characters on the screen, lines on the screen and no video. Dell also recommends a flash of system BIOSes, and it's alleged this doesn't fix the defective chips either. The second class action, filed in a California district court, is made against Nvidia, its CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and Marvin Burkett. This alleges that the defendants disseminated false and misleading documents, statements and omissions about the defective graphics processor chips. "Despite knowing of this defect and its inevitable and devastating consequences....since at least November 8, 2007, the defendants delayed disclosure to the investing public for at least eight monmths, until July 2008," the filing alleges.
Ryan Shrout | Source: General | Subject: Storage
It looks like we have another player in the storage market bowing out to its competitors - Fujitsu is apparently selling off their HDD and storage division to Western Digital, one of the market's key leaders in technology and performance. Along with the deal comes the HDD manufacturering plants that Fujitsu owns in Japan, the Philippines and Thailand and an additional 7.1% market share to add to Western Digital's 22.5%.
Fujitsu is in talks to sell its hard-disk drive business to Western Digital, according to a report in the Thursday morning edition of the Nikkei business daily. The two companies are in the latter stage of negotiations over the deal and hope to reach agreement before the end of this year, the report said. The proposed deal would see Fujitsu sell its entire hard-disk drive unit, including plants in Japan, the Philippines and Thailand that employ around 15,000 people, for between ¥70 billion to ¥100 billion (US$661 million to US$944 million), the newspaper reported. Fujitsu and Western Digital could not immediately be reached for comment. Fujitsu was the world's number six hard-disk drive manufacturer in 2007, according to figures from IDC. It had a 7.1 percent share of the market, putting it just behind Toshiba and a couple of percentage points behind Samsung. Western Digital was the second largest player in the market, with a share of 22.5 percent. A combined Fujitsu and Western Digital would have had a 29.6 percent market share, still in second place behind leader Seagate, which enjoyed a 35 percent share, but further ahead of third-ranked Hitachi.
Ryan Shrout | Source: Guru of 3D | Subject: Mobile
Apparently in Japan AMD is publicly showing off an updated version of their mobility discrete graphics product that will fall under the Radeon HD 4000-series moniker. The new part will obviously offer improved graphics and gaming performance but also adds full hardware decode support for Blu-ray video. Power consumption is always a keep factor in mobility parts and with the recent release of AMD's HD 4350 and 4550 GPUs we know that AMD has that particular issue well in control.
AMD is hinting at new technology show by showing a pre-production version of a Mobility Radeon HD 4000 chipset. Although AMD has yet to publicly discuss the hardware, the company's booth at the Japanese expo contains a clearly identified test bed with the notebook-oriented chipset demonstrating its full hardware Blu-ray video decoding.
The demo unit has a large expansion card and a desktop-class cooler but is believed to be using these only for simplicity's sake in the development phase. Most production notebooks often use custom-designed cooling and embedded graphics that are impractical outside of complete systems.
Ryan Shrout | Source: General | Subject: Motherboard
While photos of motherboards might not get everyone revved up, I think you'll find this pictorial view of the Gigabyte X58-based EX58-EXTREME to be pretty impressive. The board includes an absolutely massive heatpipe add-on, six DDR3 memory slots, three PCI Express x16 slots, ten SATA ports, eight USB 2.0 connections and is really, really shiny.
not final verison yet, just v0.2 sample,
according to their PM, they will remove Pink slots be instead of white. NB heatpipe idea is from VGA's multi-core design. what you think of this mobo?
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: Think Computers | Subject: Display
The Soyo Pearl Series 24-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor is a 2ms response time, 1920x1200 native resloution with built in speakers and support for both DVI and VGA input. Think Computers thought it a rather nice choice for gamers, especially those who prefer a glossy screen on their LCD; those who like a matte finish may disagree.
"Earlier this year we took a look at Soyo's Topaz S 24-inch display, which we found to be a pretty good consumer display. It was not that flashy and didn't have the extras that many other displays had, but it was affordable. Soyo has sent us their new Pearl Series 24-inch display, which we hope is an improvement over the Topaz S. It features a 1920 x 1200 native resolution, 500 nits brightness, 2ms response time, and a 1000:1 contrast ratio. Let's take a look..." Here are some more Display articles from around the web:
Jeremy Hellstrom | Source: Tweaknews | Subject: Graphics Card
The Arctic Cooling Accelero Turbo Module will appeal to a certain type of enthusiast; those who want a rig that is impressive for what it can do, not how it looks. If you drop by Tweaknews you can see why they describe it as not terribly attractive, a giant heatsink obscuring any view of your graphics card and a pair of fans that look like they've been attached with twist ties. If you really do care about more about function, all you will see is a 20C+ temperature drop for $10 while reducing noise; assuming you have picked up the $20 Accelero that these Turbo fans attach to.
"Arctic Cooling's Turbo Module fan kit may not be the most attractive product to come down the pike, but when combined with the excellent Accelero passive cooler, you'll have a very nearly silent VGA cooler with excellent performance at a very affordable price." Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:
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