Tech News
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FyreTV BoXXX Adult Media Streamer @ Techgage
Published: Tuesday, February 8, 2011 | By: DennisIt is not every day you find pr0n on a hardware review site but it does happen. FyreTV is a widely popular way to get streaming adult media to your living room without resorting to a HTPC.
For those who want to be able to rent and watch the latest Hollywood blockbusters without leaving their couch, there are options. For those who want to do the same with adult content, there's few. We're taking a look at the FyreTV BoXXX, a set-top device that sets out to be the best video-on-demand service in existence.
Fyre had a rather large booth at AVN a few years ago which really helped sell the name. For us having some electronic gear on display in the midst of a plethora of adult film stars was reason for a second look.
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Cooler Master Spawn Gaming Mouse
Published: Monday, February 7, 2011 | By: DennisGaming mice are not something I normally pay much attention do but with so many different and specific styles on the market they are becoming difficult to ignore.
CoolerMaster has launched a new product to the CM Storm gaming line called the Spawn. This little red number comes with a 3500dpi image sensor and can process 6400fps for superaccurate motion tracking.
One of our photos from CES
Some reviews of this mouse
- Cooler Master Storm Spawn Gaming Mouse Review @ OCIA
- CM Storm Inferno Gaming Mouse @ Bjorn3D
Funny thing I use a Logitech G5 and typically have the DPI turned down to the middle setting, any higher and it becomes difficult to control. This is all personal preference for sure. -
NL: Review Block - Cases and Memory
Published: Monday, February 7, 2011 | By: DennisCases and Memory are the un-sung heroes of the system integrator and enthusiast builders arsenal and if you pick wrong you may be left with an ugly system that can't break 10min in SuperPi.
Cases
- Lian Li PC-A04 @ techPowerUp
- In Win IronClad Case Review @ Tweaknews
- InWin Dragon Rider Case Review @ GeekInvaders
- Antec Dark Fleet Series DF-85 PC Case ReviewMemory
- Crucial Ballistix 4GB DDR3-2133 @ PureOverclock
- Patriot Viper Xtreme Division 2 Memory Kit Review @ ThinkComputers
- G.Skill Ripjaws-X Series PC3-17066 4GB Kit @ TweakTown
There are a couple of familar names on this list. heck one of them I drive by every morning. -
New Features Added to Ninjalane
Published: Sunday, February 6, 2011 | By: DennisOver the past several weeks I have been working hard to update the Ninjalane website so to support some new features I have planned. The first of those updates has gone live today and consists of ... *drum roll* ... an image gallery.
On the surface an image gallery isn't "that" special but it was done for a variety of reasons.- To allow readers to spin thru all of the images quickly.
- Allows "us" to attach captions to each image.
- Another way to promote the article.
The Ninjalane CMS always supported doing something like this but due to time constraints during initial development I tabled the feature and figured I would come back to it.
The second update is more cosmetic and changes the way the enlarged images are viewed. In the past I used a JavaScript method to open a smaller browser window and loaded the image in there. This process worked great but it was very difficult for google to index and really isn't the cool way to do things anymore. So, to spice things up I have replaced this method with a customized version of Fancybox. Fancybox is a jQuery script that will expand the image when you click on it and shrink it down when you click again (along with tons of other things)
Give these features a try and let me know what you think.
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NL: Review Block - Collecting Dust Edition
Published: Friday, February 4, 2011 | By: DennisWith the massive reduction in Sandy Bridge motherboards until Mid March it would seem that review sites are scrambling to change their review schedule. Perfect time to revisit those video cards and X58 boards collecting dust in the corner.
Video Cards
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti Review @ TweakPC
- ASUS HD 6950 2GB Overclock Edition @ Bjorn3D
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs. GTX 460 1GB - at the same clocks @ Hexus
- ASUS HD 6970 DirectCU II - Triple Slot Monster Review @ ocaholic
- Palit GeForce GTX 560 Ti Sonic Video Card in SLI Review @ TweakTown
- OC3D: MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II ReviewMotherboards
Yay more sapphire X58 goodness - grrr
- Sapphire Pure Black X58 @ PureOverclock
- Sapphire PURE Black X58 Intel Motherboard at Modders-IncMore to come
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MSI Big Bang P67 Marshal review @ Guru3D
Published: Thursday, February 3, 2011 | By: DennisConsidering the recall on the 6-Series chipset several of the in-process reviews have been halted per the request of the mfg. However in the big picture the flaw in the SATA2 controller has little effect on the review in general, especially considering that most boards will get a replacement chipset come march/april and will be back on store shelves.
One of the most anticipated motherboards from MSI is the Big Bang Marshal featuring Sandy Bridge support, Lucid PCI Express bridge chip, and 8 full length16x PCI Express video card slots. Only 4 of them are electrically wired for 16 lanes but that is to be expected.The board comes with 24-phase DrMOS power design, voltage monitoring points, an external overclock device called the OC dashboard, that all new EFI BIOS, dual-BIOS selectable with a simple button, and OC genie button that allows you to have say a 2500K processor run at 4200 with the flick of a switch. I'm not done though, we spot integrated audio with SoundBlaster X-Fi application (software) layer, ten SATA ports of which four are based on the all new SATA 6G. Thick heatpipe (passive and thus silent) cooling and more and more.
I'll have to admit this board will be on my top 10, once it goes back on sale.
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Intel Sandy Bridge CPU In-Depth Look At Overclocking, Memory Timings and More @ Madshrimps
Published: Thursday, February 3, 2011 | By: DennisSince getting my Core i7 2600K I have explored just about every aspect of Sandy Bridge overclocking, I have yet to master the new platform but have a pretty good idea as to what I need to change to get the most from the system.
Madshrimps has compiled a technology overview and mixed in some memory timing examples to illustrate how the new chip scales when overclocked.First introduced at the CES, Intel's new Sandy Bridge CPU architecture is here to flood the mainstream market with over 25 CPUs. Don't panic, most are foreseen for the mobile market and only 9 new models will be introduced for the desktop segment. Coinciding with this new release is also a new socket design. 1155 pins will be the new standard for Intel's mainstream lineup. Yes you guessed it, Sandy bridge is here to replace socket 1156. Slowly but steadily Clarkdale and Lynnfield will become End Of Life and will be phased out. At the Sandy Bridge Tech conference the representatives of Intel said that the current S1366 i7 lineup (Bloomfield and Gulftown) will remain their high end platform. Time to explore Sandy Bridge...
I can tell you from experience that a 2600K clocked up to 5100Mhz at around a 1900Mhz memory clock backed by high quality ram running at CAS 7 will provide you with around 26GB/s worth of memory bandwidth as reported by SiSoft Sandra. That is more bandwidth than a X58 running triple channel memory at comparable clockspeeds.
The chip is a monster, nuff said. -
AMD Radeon HD 6950 1GB @ Techgage
Published: Thursday, February 3, 2011 | By: DennisThe AMD 6950 is a great card, solid performance and actually runs pretty cool for the performance. Of course one of the best things abuot teh card, at least the early ones, is the ability to flash and 6970 firmware and unlock more shaders and higher clock speeds.
AMD last week released a 1GB variant of its popular Radeon HD 6950 graphics card, and to see how the performance would be throttled with the GDDR cut, we benchmarked both versions with the latest Catalyst 11.1 driver. Does the 1GB card and its $20 savings prove too hard to ignore, or should the 2GB still be the one to scoop up?
Techgage is reviewing the 1GB edition, experence tells us that more video memory means better performance at higher resolutions and is likely to hold true.
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P67Motherboards pulled from Newegg
Published: Tuesday, February 1, 2011 | By: JimSeems the latest developments in the P67 chipset issue are fairly serious. I do appreciate Newegg stepping up, as did Intel, and shutting down the sales of the chipsets in question. I do wonder what will happen to those of us who bought the first boards? Will we get free replacements? Will there be refunds issued?
Intel has a real issue on their hands, but by coming out with the information and taking positive steps they have at least given the impression that they are on top of it. But I wonder , if the P67s are only expected to show an issue after 2+yrs of use then how are we to know if the "fix" hasd the same issues? And how did they discover it.....Have they been running them in the lab for 2+ years already? I would assume so.
Keep up to date on this and any other breaking news by checking in at Ninjalane regularly. -
More Info on the Intel 6-Series Chipset Flaw
Published: Monday, January 31, 2011 | By: DennisThis story is spreading faster than a movie star on a bender, goes to show that technology can be exciting too.
So as we have heard there is a "flaw" in the 6-series chipset that can degrade SATA performance over time. Intel is claiming a 5% failure rate over 3 years with typical usage and a 15% failure rate for systems with a higher use pattern, for instance video editing. This is why they have issued a recall.
Reports are also claiming that the flaw is limited to the four SATA 3 ports connected to the MCP and does not carry over to the two SATA 6 ports. The flaw also doesn't affect any additional SATA ports added to a system, either by PHY chip or addon card.
As you have likely figured out by now moving your drives to one of the "faster" SATA 6 ports will skirt around any performance issues caused by the flaw, and if you need more drive connections you have the option to add a cheap SATA card or something similar.
The TechReport appears to be spearheading this developing story, be sure to check out their coverage.
