Tech News

• ASUS ROG Crosshair IV Extreme AM3 Socket Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers

  Published: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 | By: Dennis

  These Republic of Gamer motherboards are really starting to grow on me.  Good styling, excellent expansion options, and they appear to have all of the features enthusiasts need without going overboard.

  As great as those features may be, it is all the other things that ASUS has integrated into the new Crosshair that set the motherboard apart from the competition. First, it begins with the CrossLinx 3 which with the help of the Lucid HYDRALOGIX engine gives the end users the ability mix and match different graphic cards and allows them to run together, enhancing the gaming experience. Not only does this give nVidia fans the option of running SLI on an AMD chipset, but to have an Crossfire-SLi hybrid if you so choose.
  
  The above is enough to have many of us begging for more money in our allowance to go out and grab this motherboard. There is still so much more to the Crosshair IV Extreme, which we will be talking about in the review, and it is only going to add to your desire to own this board.
  

  Now all we need to do is get a few here in the Lab for some hardcore testing. 

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• NL: Review Block - Cases Cards and Coolers

  Published: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Cases
  - In-Win Ironclad Full Tower Case @ Bjorn3D
  - BitFenix Survivor Mid Tower PC Case Review @ Legit Reviews
  
  Video Cards
  - Point of View GTX 570 TGT Ultra Charged review @ Guru3D
  - ASUS GeForce GTX 570 @ PureOverclock
  - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 @ Techgage
  - EVGA GTX570 Review @ OC3D
  
  Coolers
  - Corsair A50 CPU Cooler Review @ Tweaknews
  - Noctua NH-C14 @ Viperlair
  - Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus @ Hardwareoverclock
  

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• The Shader Difference - GeForce GTX 580 at GTX 480 Clocks @ TweakTown

  Published: Monday, December 13, 2010 | By: Dennis

  One of the common questions about product "refreshes" is how does the new product compare to the previous edition?.  In some cases its a night and day difference, but in others it is really hard to tell.

  This particular article really seems to be pointless but is a good investigation into how much performance we should have gotten out of the 400 series nVidia cards.

  Being able to test the difference that Shaders make isn't something that we normally test or get the chance to test very often. The launch of the GTX 480, though, was full of so much drama in relation to yields and its performance. The biggest change that seemed to happen right in front of our eyes was a shift from the 512 Shaders we thought the card would ship with, to 480 Shaders. Sure, we knew it was going to cause a performance hit, but how much of a performance hit? - The decreased amount of Shaders was only one of the issues with the GTX 480, though, with other issues being heat, noise and power draw.
  
  While the latter didn't bother me, the first two were real issues; first we saw Galaxy attack the heat and noise with an awesome looking triple fan, triple slot cooler. We then saw GIGABYTE and MSI attack the model; in the end the GTX 480 looked like a great product and to be honest it still is, especially with some of the bargain prices it can be grabbed for now from some places. We wonder, though, what would've happened if the GTX 580 we looked at today launched as the GTX 480 in March; the same clocks, but the new cooler and more importantly the 512 Shaders that we had hoped to have initially.

  Personally, I'm glad to see the 500 level cards, even if they are basically the same thing.

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• ECS H67H2-M Intel H67 Motherboard - First Look @ PCSTATS

  Published: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Here is a company you would never associate with releasing a "high-performance" motherboard, but that doesn't stop them from trying.

  The ECS H67H2-M motherboard supports quad-core Intel 2nd Generation Core i3/i5/i7 2xxx-series socket 1155 32nm Sandy Bridge processors. The LGA1155 socket is not compatible with existing LGA1156 processors, nor are the upcoming LGA1155 CPUs backwards compatible with existing LGA1156 motherboards despite the common processor names. ECS' H67H2-M motherboard has one PCI Express 2.0 x16 videocard slot that runs with 16-lanes of bandwidth, two PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots and a legacy PCI slot care of an ITE controller. The Intel H67 has notably dropped native support for PCI. The MicroATX ECS H67H2-M features four dual channel DDR3-1066/1333 memory slots which can accommodate up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM in 32-bit OS', 16GB in 64-bit Windows 7.

  Based on some "leaked" info the P67 performance and overclocking is likely to be about the same across all of the mfgs so it will be interesting to see what they do to change that.

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• NL: Review Block - AMD Black Edition Hex-Core

  Published: Tuesday, December 7, 2010 | By: Dennis

  How many ways can you describe 100Mhz of core speed?

  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE Hex-Core Processor Review @ EOC
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T: Last Phenom II Six-Core Processor @ Bjorn3D
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Review – overclocking performance
  - OC3D: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE Review
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T @ PureOverclock
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition CPU Review @ Legit Reviews
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Six-Core Processor Review @ Hardware Canucks
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition CPU review @ Hexus
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition CPU Review @ HotHardware
  - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition vs Intel Core i7-950 @ HardwareHeaven

  About that many 

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• The Tension Between Marketing and Reviewers

  Published: Monday, December 6, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Not much to say about this article aside from it being a good read.  As hardware reviewers we are tasked with the challenge to be objective, fair, and knowledgeable.  Being creative with the ability to put words together also helps. Loyd Case helps shed a little light on why reviews are important and why we often hear conflicting stories from rival companies.

  It’s not overt brainwashing, but the goal is the same: co-opt reviewers’ hearts and minds.
  
  Reviewers are different from ordinary consumers, particularly experienced reviewers. When you’ve seen a bazillion products in a category, it’s easy to become jaded about the next release. The way around that, of course, is to put yourself into the mindset of the person who’s going to shell out tens, hundreds or thousands of dollars of real money.
  

  There are actually 2 kinds of reviewers out there, supported and unsupported.  Most of your high dollar sites will get mfg support in the form of product and "from the source" marketing material that, if anything, helps provide the reviewer the technical details that are otherwise unavailable.
  
  The unsupported sites are generally smaller and either have to beg for product or buy it themselves with the sole purpose of doing a review for the site.  These sites will usually have the product well after launch, and in some cases will be less biased than a supported site.
  
  Which one is better??  All depends on what you are after.  Ninjalane.com is actually a little of both, we are fully supported by several mfgs, however, sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get tangible samples. We try to remove bias from our reviews but there are several occasions that we inject out opinion based on how "we" view the particular product.

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• Gaming Mouse Blow Out

  Published: Monday, December 6, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Here is where I could say we are slashing prices left, right, up, and down.

  But that would be dumb

  Gaming Mice - Super Fast, Super Awesome
  - Mionix NAOS 3200 High Performance Gaming Mouse @ Hardware Canucks
  - Mionix Naos 3200 Gaming Mouse Review @ OCModShop

  Some Sound to go with that mouse?
  - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD Review @ Madshrimps

  So, why be silly with something as serious as a new post? For the lolz of course.  If you agree drop by the forum and let us know, if not, then drop by the forum and let us know that too.

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• NL: Review Block - Video Cards

  Published: Monday, December 6, 2010 | By: Dennis

  By the time this news story goes live we will have had a lull in video card product releases.  The GTX 580 has been released but aside from the initial review samples product availability has been scarce at best.  The new Radeon 6000 series has launched with the low end products first and the yet to be seen HD6900.

  Does that mean there are not video cards to be seen?  Honestly, yes but tell that to the busy hardware review website crews from around the world, and Canada.

  Video Cards
  - OC3D: Sapphire HD6850 TOXIC Edition Review
  - XFX Radeon 6850 Black Edition (Dual Fans) Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven
  - Radeon HD 5550 v. GeForce GT 430 @ InsideHW

  The last review should be an indication as to how powerful, and relevant, current video cards are. 

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• VPS: What It Is and How It's Useful @ Techgage

  Published: Saturday, December 4, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Virtualization is one of those things that the mainstream public rarely needs to think about, mainly because it doesn't concern them.  Or does it?

  Techgage takes on the task of taming the tactical advantage of turning a PC into something more useful.  (teehee )

  We've talked a fair bit about home virtualization in the past, but now we're going to take a different turn and tackle VPSs, or "Virtual Private Servers". In essence, a VPS is a virtual machine in the cloud, allowing you to log in from anywhere and gain nearly full control over a remote machine with tons of bandwidth to do a variety of cool things.

  Developers and programmers often will use virtual OS installs so they can mimic the environment they are developing for.  Doing so makes things easier especially when their target environment is radically different or has driver dependencies.

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• Lian Li V2120 Case Review on Technic3D

  Published: Saturday, December 4, 2010 | By: Dennis

  Lain Li case design doesn't change much over the years and that is what is nice about traditional case designs, they don't need to.

  The Lian Li V2120 Big-Tower is the next PC-Case in the Technic3D Editorship. Aluminum PC cases, the PC-V2120 has a front door panel and the latest in tool-less design. Plus, multi-heat zones and wheels for easy moving that lock in position. Motherboard tray can be easily slide out of the chassis for convenience. Supports HPTX motherboards and 11 PCI-Slots.We will check this in the following Review.

  On a related note, this is one of the few cases on the market that fully supports the EVGA SR-2 and other oversized motherboards.

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