Tech News
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NL: Review Block - Some Hot Coolers
Published: Sunday, May 16, 2010 | By: DennisViperlair has posted a review of the Noctua NH-D14 Heatsink. This is clearly a monster of a cooling device, but as well all know surface area is king in the aircooling world. The Noctra unit has the added benefit of also being rather quiet.
We recently reviewed the Noctua NH-D14, while we clearly don't have as many photos in our review we did prove it could handle a fair amount of heatload and remain quiet while doing so.
Quite a few sites have done reviews of the Venomous X and rather liked the performance and styling. The cooler is your standard nickel plated 6 heatpipe design crammed into a single dual fan cooling tower.
In our review of the Venomous X we noted that the mounting hardware is a little mechanical but offers you the ability to dial in your heatsink pressure as you see fit.
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The State of DirectX 11 - Image Quality & Performance @ HotHardware
Published: Thursday, May 13, 2010 | By: WillBeing a huge fan of Windows 7 I cannot think of a way that DirectX 11 is not shaping up to be what the hype has been. It also might be to soon to take a check list of features and say they are sub par or dead on the money, but let's read this to see.
In terms of technology, DirectX 11 isn't the API defining, behind-the-scenes reboot that DirectX 10 was. It's an incremental update, much in the same way that Windows 7 is an update of Vista. At the end of the day, DirectX 11 is basically just DirectX 10 with a bunch of new features stuck on. However, we'd speculate that DirectX 11 should have a much larger impact on the end-user experience than DirectX 10 did because it brings several new features to the table that will make creating advanced graphical effects seldom seen in past games, much easier.
Some critics have said that Windows 7 is everything that Vista was supposed to be. But is DirectX 11 everything DirectX 10 was hyped up to be? We couldn't let such a loaded question go unanswered, even if we did pose it ourselves. Now that DirectX 11 hardware is readily available and compatible games are on the shelves, it's high time we took stock of what DirectX 11 has to offer to the end-user...I honestly think that DirectX 11 has so much more just waiting to happen.
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Steam On a Mac!
Published: Thursday, May 13, 2010 | By: WillWell the day has finally come, and chicken little might be right about the sky falling. Mac has finally gotten a real gaming community from none other than Steam. So the days of making fun of Mac users for not having the ability to play real games is over.
"Steam has been a service exclusively for PC users since we launched it in 2004. For the first time we and our partners are bringing it to another platform. It's been a ton of work, but the Mac is great for the same reason the PC is great - they are both open systems that let gamers and game developers be as close as possible."
Don't worry Windows fans we can still make fun of them.
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Gigabyte attacks Asus on Intel mainboard pricing
Published: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 | By: WillHere is some good news for all of us enthusiasts with tight wallets. Looks like Gigabyte might give us everything we want out of a motherboard and a lower price. Can't really complain about that.
"Word from the channel has reached KitGuru that Gigabyte is keen to increase its share of the Intel mainboard space for 2010, and it's prepared to get aggressive on price to make it happen."
Waiting for the Asus response.
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Playboy to have the first 3D centerfold
Published: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 | By: Dennis3D is the new thing it seems. First we have nVidia 3D Vision hitting the scene as the first "active" 3D experence which was just enough hype to get the TV makers onboard to start marketing flat panel displays designed to show 3D images.
Of course to view anything in 3D you need to have the special glasses since your eyes cannot provide depth to a 2D image without a little help (for obvious reasons)
CHICAGO, May 11 (Reuters) - Playboy magazine, a pioneer in featuring photographs of naked women on its pages, said on Tuesday its June issue's 3-D centerfold will be an eye-popping collectible.
It was an idea the Playboy Enterprises' (PLA.N) founder Hugh Hefner says he had a half-century ago when he created the monthly, but couldn't afford.
Playboy's Playmate of the Year, Hope Dworaczyk, can be seen like no centerfold has been seen before. Her offering of a glass of wine appears to come off the page, along with the rest of her.
I think for the first time since I was in HIgh School I'm gonna hit the newsstands and buy me a Playboy
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AMD Phenom II X6 1090T OC Scaling With Voltage/Cooling @ Madshrimps
Published: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 | By: WillI am glued to this article just by the questions asked. Plus the new six cored beast from AMD just might be the one to bring some hardcore enthusiast back to AMD. So let's read and see what it happens.
"Does it, just like the Deneb, scale with voltage? Does it scale with temperature? Can we reach unseen heights in raw frequency? These are just a few of the questions we want to tackle in this article."
This is killing me gotta go read it.
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Understanding All Voltage Configurations from the Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets
Published: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 | By: WillHere is something for all overclockers from new to old. We all have questions on what voltage will do what. So here is a good read to help us all out.
"One of the oldest tricks to increase the probability of a successful overclocking is to increase the voltage from the component you want to overclock. Nowadays even basic motherboards present some voltage adjustments, with high-end models coming with a myriad of them. The problem is that even hardcore enthusiasts have a hard time understanding what each option really means. In this tutorial we will explain the exact meaning of each one of them in clear language."
Turn voltage up till the blue smoke is let out of my hardware check.
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ATI Radeon HD 5870 Overclocked Round-up - Gigabyte, MSI, HIS @ HotHardware
Published: Monday, May 10, 2010 | By: WillWith the release of the GTX 480 the Radeon HD 5870 has been given a face lift with added cooling, and more design freedom for ATI's partners. With that new freedom comes a whole group of overclocked 5870 editions that look to have some real potential. Check them out to see,
"Today at HotHardware we're looking at a trio of videocards that have their sights set on the enthusiast market. Factory overclocked Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards from HIS, MSI, and Gigabyte have landed in our lab and its time for another round up. Some might glance over these products and wonder what the big deal is. Any time a new series of graphics cards are launched by ATI or NVIDIA, it is common for add in board (AIB) partners to tweak various features so that consumers have even more attractive options to choose from, beyond the original reference design. The graphics cards we have setup for testing here come with increased GPU and memory speeds, promising improved performance right out of the box. In addition, the heatsinks have been redesigned to provide improved cooling in order to handle the increased frequencies that are set for their graphics engines. Read on to find out how these speed demons perform when compared to one another, and if one of them has what it takes to be your next upgrade..."
That MSI is way out of spec.
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GeForce GTX 480 liquid cooling Danger Den review - Liquid is Cool !
Published: Monday, May 10, 2010 | By: WillKeeping our GPU cool for some serious overclocking fun is what we are all about. So why not take on one of the hottest GPU out there the GTX 480. Looks like someone is doing just that with the new full coverage Danger Den Waterblock. Time to check out the results.
"Here at Guru3D we've continuously been stating that the true aficionados will opt for water-cooling for this product, and we always put our money where our mouth is, thus had to bring you at least one review on a liquid-cooled GeForce GTX 480. The folks at Danger Den shipped out their most shiny nickel plated GTX 480 cooling block, and we will put that to the test. We'll have a look at the product, the installation, temperatures before and after, we'll overclock and yea... thus look at power consumption as well.
Have a peek at what we'll be assembling today... the GeForce GTX 480 with that Danger Den liquid cooling block mounted on top of it."The results are just amazing.
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NZXT Crafted Series Vulcan Micro-ATX Gaming Case Review @ Legit Reviews
Published: Monday, May 10, 2010 | By: WillEveryone is always on the look out for a good case to use at LAN Parties. The next LAN Party case might be The Vulcan from NZXT. Give this review a good looking over and see what you think.
"The Vulcan is one small case, but you can put some big parts in it, and at the $69.99 price point is very affordable for an enthusiast case. LAN party goers may like this case for the fact it can accommodate large video cards like the ATI Radeon HD 5970 and its handy dandy carrying handle. The compact 16" x 7" x 16.6" body is approximately 40% smaller than the typical full tower PC case.."
Give me Full ATX for LAN Parties.
