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Gainward announces a 2GB GTX 460
If you’re on the lookout for a GTX460, you had two choices – the 768MB versions, or the 1GB variants. From our recent review, the 1GB versions, due to their increased memory bus width, outperformed the 768MB versions by quite a few percentage points. This is also reflected in the price of the 1GB 460 over the 768MB 460. So now Gainward are adding to the mix, with a 2GB GTX 460 model.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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MSI’s GeForce N470GTX & GTX 470 SLI
For the launch of the first GF100-based video cards – the GTX 480 and GTX 470 – NVIDIA sent over a 3 card reviewer’s kit containing two GTX 480s and a single GTX 470. This allowed us to do SLI testing with the GTX 480 (a money-is-no-object setup) but not with NVIDIA’s significantly cheaper GTX 470. As part of a comprehensive SLI & CrossFire guide we’re working on for next month we needed a second GTX 470 for testing GTX 470 SLI operation, and MSI answered our call with their N470GTX.
Today we’ll be taking a look at MSI’s GTX 470. We’ll also be taking a sneak-peek of our forthcoming SLI/CF guide with a look at GTX 470 SLI performance.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Intel's 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link: The Future of Interfaces
Intel has been talking about using optical interfaces in computing for years. So much so, that silicon photonics sessions at IDF became a regular stop on our coverage tour each year. The demos were always showcasing something too far out in the development cycle to get immediately excited about however. The first time we met Intel’s hybrid laser in silicon was 2006, and even then we were told that it’d be years before we’d see it productized.
Four years later, and we’re seeing Intel make good on its promises of delivering the technology necessary to put together real products.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Asus U33Jc: Much Ado About Bamboo
There's an age-old battle between form and function. Some users will give up performance and features for a devices that looks cool, while for others the benchmarks are all that really matters. The ASUS U33Jc doesn't totally eschew function, with plenty of high-end features, but it does pay more than lip service to aesthetics by placing bamboo surfaces on the top panel and palm rest. The result is a unique look with an organic vibe that is sure to turn a few heads.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Intel's Core i7 970 Reviewed, (Slightly) More Affordable 6-core
Take the
If you're tempted by the 980X but wanted something slightly more affordable, read on to get introduced to the new Core i7 970.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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WD TV Live Plus: Western Digital's Latest Media Player Reviewed
The last few years have seen a large number of digital content sources becoming easily accessible to end consumers. Digital content providers such as Netflix have recently been expanding their service to be compatibile with game consoles like the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, and an increasing number of Blu-ray players and televisions. WD has followed suit and now offers a flavor of their WD TV series that supports Netflix video streaming and also has one of the widest ranges of both online and local content compatibility that exists in the media streaming device market today.
In this review, we examine the WD TV Live Plus and put it to test using our recently developed media streamer / HTPC review methodology.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Samsung's N210: Where the Matte Finish Went
Pine Trail netbooks are pretty much all the same: they give you a 10.1" 1024x600 display and pitifully slow CPU and GPU performance, but that's balanaced by good battery life and a low cost. The Samsung N210 has been around a while now, but it stands out from the crowd by being one of the few netbooks to eschew glossy exteriors and LCDs. Is that enough to make it a good purchase? That depends on whether you can live with the Atom performance bottleneck.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Virtualization - Ask the Experts #2
Our Ask the Experts series continues with another round of questions.
A couple of months ago we ran a webcast with Intel Fellow, Rich Uhlig, VMware Chief Platform Architect, Rich Brunner and myself. The goal was to talk about the past, present and future of virtualization. In preparation for the webcast we solicited questions from all of you, unfortunately we only had an hour during the webcast to address them. Rich Uhlig from Intel, Rich Brunner from VMware and our own Johan de Gelas all agreed to answer some of your questions in a 6 part series we're calling Ask the Experts. Each week we'll showcase three questions you guys asked about virtualization and provide answers from our panel of three experts. These responses haven't been edited and come straight from the experts.
If you'd like to see your question answered here leave it in the comments. While we can't guarantee we'll get to everything, we'll try to pick a few from the comments to answer as the weeks go on.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Virtualization - Ask the Experts #1
A couple of months ago we ran a webcast with Intel Fellow, Rich Uhlig, VMware Chief Platform Architect, Rich Brunner and myself. The goal was to talk about the past, present and future of virtualization. In preparation for the webcast we solicited questions from all of you, unfortunately we only had an hour during the webcast to address them. Rich Uhlig from Intel, Rich Brunner from VMware and our own Johan de Gelas all agreed to answer some of your questions in a 6 part series we're calling Ask the Experts. Each week we'll showcase three questions you guys asked about virtualization and provide answers from our panel of three experts. These responses haven't been edited and come straight from the experts.
If you'd like to see your question answered here leave it in the comments. While we can't guarantee we'll get to everything, we'll try to pick a few from the comments to answer as the weeks go on.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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AnandTech 13-year Anniversary Giveaways Continue: G.Skill 4GB Memory Kit #4
Antec approached us out of the blue and offered a DF-85 case in our last giveaway. Well, there was a slight change of plans. Antec was so pleased with how many AnandTech readers entered that it agreed to give away two cases instead of one. Congratulations to both goozira and fralexandr, respond to the email I just sent you guys and you'll both get a case from Antec.
This week it's back to memory, we have another 4GB kit to give away courtesy of G.Skill. Today's prize is a 4GB (2 x 2GB) G.Skill Ripjaws kit (F3-10666CL8D-4GBRM). The memory is rated for DDR3-1333 with 8-8-8-24 timings at 1.5V. This should work in Intel LGA-1156 and AMD Socket-AM3 motherboards. You can find Newegg's listing here.
Today's Prize
Read on to find out how to enter.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Motorola Droid X: Thoroughly Reviewed
There’s a divergence in the smartphone world. Some devices are either maintaining or shrinking overall size in an attempt to become more convenient to carry around. Although it’s not what you’d expect, we have seen a few devices go in the opposite direction. As nice as it is to carry a small phone, it’s far more productive to have a bigger one. They’re easier to type on, better for reading web pages and generally more useful when you’re actually trying to get something done.
HTC was first in our labs with a member of this new breed of larger smartphones with the EVO 4G. While we found the larger screen nice, the lackluster OS performance and poor battery life weren’t exactly great selling points. Now it’s Motorola’s turn.
The Droid X is the spiritual successor to
But unlike the EVO 4G, you don’t sacrifice performance or battery life. As a matter of fact, you end up with the best battery life of any Android phone we’ve reviewed. And TI has put together an SoC that finally rivals and exceeds Qualcomm’s Snapdragon.
Read on for our full review.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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ASRock Core 100HT-BD : Bringing HTPCs to the Mainstream Market [UPDATED : Noise Issue]
Anandtech has evaluated many systems in search of the utopian HTPC. However, every one of them has ended up with some issue or the other. When ASRock offered to send us their flagship HTPC introduced at the 2010 CeBIT show, we jumped at the opportunity to evaluate it and determine whether it was the HTPC of our dreams.
Instead of going with a second generation ION chipset that many had expected them to (after the ION 330-HT from last year), they sprang a surprise by opting for an Arrandale based platform. Having realized that the Atom in the nettop was the main reason for enthusiasts to avoid using them as full-fledged HTPCs, they have corrected their approach now. We had earlier that Clarkdale / Arrandale was quite up to the task as a HTPC platform. In the last few months, we have seen the introduction of many H55 / H57 based mini-ITX motherboards supporting the Clarkdales. The strong demand for such motherboards indicates that there is a definite market for pre-built HTPCs based on the Clarkdales and Arrandales in that form factor. The Core 100 series from ASRock seems to fit that bill.
How does ASRock's flagship product fare? Is it the destination in our search for the utopian HTPC? Read on for Anandtech's review of the ASRock Core 100HT-BD.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Laptop Buyer's Guide: 14-inch and Smaller
In the second half of our
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte & MSI: Four Flagship X58 Motherboards Reviewed
Thus far, we’ve spent most of 2010 focusing on mainstream segments for our motherboards reviews, there’s more of that to come over the next few months starting off with a long overdue focus on AMD. Before we get to that though, there are a few loose ends to tie up on Intel’s X58 chipset – today we’re going to take a look at four motherboards aimed at the serious enthusiast.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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The iPhone 4 Redux: Analyzing Apple's iOS 4.0.1 Signal Fix & Antenna Issue
In case you haven’t noticed, the iPhone 4’s antenna design has come under considerable scrutiny. In
Since those initial measurements, we’ve been working tirelessly to both characterize the problem, fully understand the mechanisms behind it, and report on a number of possible solutions.
Update: We just confirmed that our analysis based on iOS 4.1 beta applies to iOS 4.0.1 that was just released.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Low Power Server CPUs: the energy saving choice?
Keeping an eye on power when choosing the hardware and software components is thus much more than naively following the hype of “green IT”. It is simply the smart thing to do. We take another shot at understanding how choosing your server components wisely can give you a cost advantage. In this article, we focus on low power Xeons in a consolidated Hyper-V/Windows 2008 virtualization scenario. Do Low Power Xeons save energy and costs? We designed a new and improved methodology to find out.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Microsoft's KIN: A Eulogy
After being on the market a short six weeks, Microsoft announced that it was scrapping the launch of KIN devices in European markets, and with it, further development of the platform stateside. While the premature death of the platform isn’t really a shock (the phones had glaring issues and ran an OS that clearly had no roadmap in a Windows Phone 7 dominated future), the KIN included a notable number of features Microsoft and its Danger team executed better than anyone else in the smartphone market today.
Even though they're devices you'll probably never encounter in person, as just under 10,000 were sold (as of this writing, there are 9,341 active KIN devices using the platform's Facebook application), they're a glimpse into the future of a relatively fresh mobile device paradigm. One where the cloud rules entirely, where devices are little more than gateways into all of that data already on the web. Google and Apple are slowly moving towards that vision, but Microsoft has nearly all the pieces ready today. If Microsoft wants to dominate the smartphone market with Windows Phone 7, rolling KIN's cloud centric functionality into the platform will be key to success.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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OCZ Unveils 4GB DDR3-2133 Modules
The amount and speed of the RAM in a system is always indicative of the user and the software. Small home users require nothing more than enough for the operating system, word processing, web browsing and email. CAD engineers, VM users, and video/ music/graphic editors may require density over speed, to cope with a potentially large workload, while overclocking fanatics like memory that goes fast. OCZ plans to cater to both overclocking and high memory users, with the announcement of high speed, 4GB memory modules.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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AnandTech 13-year Anniversary Giveaways Continue: Antec DF-85 Gaming Chassis
Our last giveaway was an ASRock H55M Pro motherboard. The winner? policy11. Congrats! Respond to my email with your shipping info and we'll get your prize out right away.
Today's prize actually wasn't on the original list but Antec liked what we were doing and immediately contacted us with an offering: the Antec DF-85 gaming chassis:
Read on to find out how to enter.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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The SSD Diaries: Crucial's RealSSD C300
The promise was high. Crucial was to not only offer better than X25-M performance but also be the first to deliver a 6Gbps SSD. Competing controller makers wouldn't hit 6Gbps until Q3/Q4 at the earliest. Two things stood in Crucial's way: 1) a little company called SandForce and, 2) a pesky set of firmware issues.
With the latter taken care of, and the former dropping prices to be more aggressive in the market, it's about time that we gave Crucial's C300 SSD a good look.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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ASUS, EVGA, Zotac GeForce GTX 460 Cards Overclocked and Reviewed
In part 2 of our GTX 460 launch coverage, we take a look at a varied selection of launch cards from Zotac, EVGA, and Asus. NVIDIA's partners aren't wasting any time in getting customized cards out, so right away we're seeing everything from factory overclocked cards to fully custom cards and anything in-between. Having seen how well the reference GTX 460 performs, now we can see how the vendors have built on NVIDIA's success.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460: The $200 King
Only a short month after the launch of the GeForce GTX 465, NVIDIA is back again with a new card: the GeForce GTX 460. Built on their brand-new GF104 GPU, the GTX 460 shakes up the mainstream in a big way by bringing NVIDIA's DX11 Fermi family to a $199 card and in the process righting what was wrong with the GTX 465. Along the way we'll also see just what NVIDIA did to the GF104 GPU to make this happen, and why GF104 is much more than the simple GF100 derivative we were expecting.
It's been a while since we've been able to write a glowing review of an NVIDIA card, but today we'll see why NVIDIA is offering the right combination of price and performance to claim the $200-$250 market as their own.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Alienware M11x R2: A Legend Reborn
Four months ago, Alienware turned the mobile gaming world on its head by cramming a reasonably fast GPU into a small chassis with an 11.6" display. We loved the concept of an ultraportable gaming laptop, but we had a few complaints. Now Alienware has returned with the updated R2 model, sporting NVIDIA's Optimus Technology and the same GT 335M GPU. Added to that is an Intel Arrandale ULV processor, our first laptop to use such a CPU. That addresses two of the biggest concerns we had with the original, but does it make for a truly better laptop? Today we'll look to answer that question with our in-depth review.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Fermi Goes Mobile: AVADirect's Clevo W880CU with GTX 480M
Ever wonder what a $3,000 notebook looks like? NVIDIA's first DirectX 11-capable GPU makes its way into notebooks to reclaim the fastest mobile graphics crown from AMD, starting with the Clevo W880CU. In this familiar shell beats the heart of a monster, but is the severely cut-down Fermi enough to gain a healthy lead past the Mobility Radeon HD 5870, and is the W880CU worth your gaming dollar?
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W
Although many users are currently looking for smaller power supplies below 500W, there still is a demand for stronger ones, particularly if you are a gamer with Triple-SLI or Quad-Crossfire systems. Those planning on running NVIDIA's next generation "Fermi" will want a fairly beefy PSU, and the same goes for Folding@Home farms where you'd want a lot of stable power. For the upper end PSUs there are a wide range of models, which doesn’t make the purchase decision easy. In addition, these power supplies are usually expensive so you'll want to get the best features and a reliable power supply that can operate even under maximum load and summer temperatures. The Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W aims to satisfy those requirements.
AnandTech Article Channel
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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NewsBone.com
Suggest a feed to syndicate here, or check out what I'm doing over at freshtao.
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:03:22 2010
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Health Advice Smartphone App Launches in South Africa
Most of the smartphone apps are for whims, pleasure or light applications, but Afridoctor is actually something that can make a big difference in the health field possibly saving lives in the process.
When Nokia launched a competition inviting entrants to design apps for its upmarket mobile models, Blueworld Communities developed Afridoctor in three weeks and submitted it. It was the winning entry. The company is now refining and testing a version of the app that will work on more basic Nokia phones and WAP enabled handsets.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Firefox 4 Beta 2 Hits the Streets
This definitely lives up to its Beta status, the new update is worth the download, but testing proves it's not ready for the prime time quite yet. A few more laps around the track Firefox, but well worth watching.
The really important changes will be coming under the hood, and they're at most three-quarters baked at this point. HTML5 and WebM -- which aren't more than partially implemented -- have enormous potential to get us all weaned off Flash. Lazy frame construction should make page rendering faster, although Firefox has a long way to go to catch up with Chrome.One thing's for sure: Even if you love Chrome or Opera (or even Internet Explorer!), Firefox 4 struts some new stuff that's well worth absorbing.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Google Tops the List for Malware Searches
In a report from Barracuda Labs, Google was named the most popular search engine used by malicious attackers. I'm sure that is a dubious honor Google would just as soon pass on. Although, Google's aware of the situation, and is catching up pretty fast, cybercriminals remain ahead of the game.
Interestingly, based on the data gathered, the most popular topic of choice for cybercriminals were spyware related searches, followed by entertainment news, with hosting sites, P2P and proxies related searches showing a significant growth.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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FCC Gives Thumbs-Up to First LTE Phone Sale
I'm certainly happy that no one was on fire and the FCC was sent for water….they have finally approved the 4G Long Term Evolution phone for sale. This move paves the way for other 4G devices and networks to get rolling. Some significant actions should be made before the end of the year in LTE technology.
The Samsung SCH-r900 will be the first LTE phone to market in the US, which MetroPCS hopes to launch "this summer" according to InformationWeek. We're still mostly in the dark as to where MetroPCS plans to build out its LTE network (the company said earlier this year that it was targeting a number of metro markets, but only named Las Vegas), but regardless, it looks like Sprint will soon have to share the 4G limelight.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Seniors Take National Wii Golf Title
When the Wii system was invented, no one had any thoughts that it would take off the way it did or the number of lives it would effect. Take for example the foursome of senior citizens who range in age from 74 to 89, who just won the National Seniors Golf title.
Not only has Wii golf brought out the competitive nature of some of Parc at Duluth's residents, it has brought together residents who might not otherwise socialize with one another- Sanger and Taylor are just one example. Socialization is one of the reasons corporate wellness director Angela Butler-Hackett recommended the purchase of a Wii gaming system for all four of the Parc facilities in metro Atlanta. A recreation therapist, Butler-Hackett recognized the multiple benefits a Wii could have.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Chevy Volt Production Increased by 50%
General Motors is showing confidence in the Chevy Volt by increasing 2012 production from 30k to 45k due to the strong public interest in the Volt's green technology and gas savings.
The Volt offers a total driving range of about 340 miles and is powered by electricity at all times. For up to the first 40 miles, the vehicle drives gas- and tailpipe-emissions-free using electricity stored in its 16-kWh lithium-ion battery. When the Volt's battery runs low, a gas-powered, engine/generator seamlessly operates to extend the driving range another 300 miles on a full tank.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Army Enlists Tentacled 'Snakebots'
The U.S. Army is taking robotics in a new direction by taking already existing robot technology and joining them together to make a completely new system of operations.
The snakes also work in groups, acting more like fingers or the tentacles of an octopus. Arranging several of them on a circular base creates an array that can gingerly pick up, rotate, and inspect an IED or possibly even open a door
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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'BlackPad' tablet due in November?
The speculation on RIM's entry into the tablet computer market has progressed a step or two. The word now is that the 'BlackPad' is due to be released in November to go head to head with Apple's iPad
The new device will have roughly the same dimensions as the iPad, which has a 9.7-inch diagonal screen. It will also include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology that will allow people to connect to the Internet through their BlackBerrys, the sources said. RIM plans to call the tablet Blackpad, say sources. It will be priced in line with the iPad, which starts at $499. RIM acquired the Internet rights to blackpad.com this month, according to the Whois database of domain names.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets
Data miners are striking gold with new software, tracking your moves in real time- where you go, what you do, what you prefer- basically a complete profile of your internet habits. The internet used to be a lonely place, but now you are never alone.
Tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to "cookie" files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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The FBI Checks In at Defcon
The FBI has taken a special interest in the 'Social Engineering' contest sponsored by Defcon. The participants will try to trick corporate employees into divulging not-so-sensitive data and the Feds want to insure that it stays non-sensitive.
Over the next three days participants will try their best to unearth data from an undisclosed list of about 30 U.S. companies. The contest will take place in a room in the Riviera hotel in Las Vegas furnished with a soundproof booth and a speaker, so an audience can hear the contestants call companies and try to weasel out what data they can get from unwitting employees.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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The Internet Illuminati: Seven Hold Keys to the Digital Universe
Did you know that the fate of the internet rests in the hands of seven individuals dispersed around the globe? Well it's a fact and not a well known one for sure. In the event of a cataclysmic event that disrupts the internet, they are the ones that gather to restart it. The spice must flow.
In the event of a terrorist or other attack on the Internet, the key holders will be flown to an undisclosed location in the U.S. Each key contains a fragment. If at least five are united, they will form a master key that can restore the Internet.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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DIY Wearable Computer Turns You Into a Cyborg
Oh, those crazy Swedish. First it was the meatballs and now wearable computers. Martin Magnusson, a Swedish researcher and entrepreneur, has taken the first step and created a wearable computer that can be slung across the body. This redifines the word nerd.....and is quite the fashion statement
A Beagleboard running Angstrom Linux and a Plexgear mini USB hub that drives the Bluetooth adapter and display forms the rest of this rather simple machine. Four 2700 mAh AA batteries are used to power the USB hub. Magnusson has used a foldable Nokia keyboard for input and is piping internet connectivity through Bluetooth tethering to an iPhone in his pocket.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Microsoft To Release Emergency Patch For Windows on Monday
Microsoft plans to release on Monday an emergency fix for a Windows vulnerability that is being exploited by attackers using a "highly virulent strain" of malware. Affected versions of Windows include Windows 7, XP, Server 2003, Vista and Server 2008. Microsoft has posted a detailed list.
"We're able to confirm that, in the past few days, we've seen an increase in attempts to exploit the vulnerability," Christopher Budd, spokesman for the Microsoft Security Response Center, said Friday. "We firmly believe that releasing the update out of band is the best thing to do to help protect our customers."
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Russian Judge Clamps Down on Internet Access
Russia, never to be outdone by China, has blocked or limited access to five sites by order of a Russian district court judge. One of the sites sites included the YouTube video service owned by Google. Google was not amused and criticized the judge's ruling. It seems Big Brother is alive and well and presently residing in Asia.
Rosnet President Alexander Yermakov told national media that his company had declined to block access to the sites, saying the judge was "incompetent" and that he was determined "to go till the end, till the Constitutional Court." Google, which runs the world's largest search engine, also criticized the court's ruling which ordered Rosnet to block its popular YouTube video site for having posted a film clip which the judge said fomented ethnic hatred.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Major Corporations Downloading Facebook Profiles
A post yesterday on BitTorrent listed 100 million Facebook profiles. These are profiles that are open to public view, but this torrent neatly packages them for exploitation by any interested party. Hacker Ron Bowes from Skull Security created a crawler that pulled everything from Facebook's open access directory, essentially giving him all data that people had set to allow anyone to see.
Remember that torrent yesterday that contained the personal information off of 100 million scraped Facebook profiles? I thought it was strange that the guy didn't sell this information, since many companies would be interested. Turns out they are interested.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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ASUS ROG Matrix 5870 Platinum Install
Looking to replace my Radeon HD 5970 and decided to go with ASUS' ROG Matrix 5870 Platinum that we recently reviewed. It is loaded with features rarely seen on video cards and I thought it would find a good home in my personal rig. And yes, we have a purpose behind our upgrade too.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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MSI 890FXA-GD70 Motherboard Review
MSI's newest offering supporting AMD's line of processors comes in the form of the 890FXA-GD70. This board could potentially be a P55 killer, with its balance of features and performance prowess. How does it do in the HardOCP gauntlet and better yet, how well does it overclock?
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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GeForce GTX 460 SLI Performance vs. AMD GPUs
Our first look at the GeForce GTX 460 showed it to be an impressive product with excellent all-around performance for the price. Next our SLI follow-up showed that a GTX 460 SLI rig was competitive with NVIDIA's own flagship DX11 products. But how does GTX 460 SLI compare with AMD's HD 5850, 5870, and 5970 cards?
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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CoolIT ECO C240 Performance Review
Other companies made the closed loop self contained CPU water cooler famous. CoolIT Systems intends to make it one of the easiest to install and best optimized and efficient liquid cooling systems around. The ECO C240 doubles up on cooling surface area. Does CoolIT hit its mark?
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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NVIDIA Surround Technology Performance Review
NVIDIA's new multi-display Surround Technology is put to the test with GeForce GTX 480 SLI video cards in 3x1 Surround mode. We compare directly to AMD's Eyefinity technology and the same three displays with 2GB Eyefinity6 HD 5870 CrossFireX and 1GB HD 5870 CrossFireX.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Gigabyte HD 5770 Super Overclock Video Card Review
The Gigabyte HD 5770 Super Overclock provides us with "Ultra Durable" components, cherry-picked GPUs, higher GPU frequencies, and a new cooling solution. With all that, does it wipe the floor with a Radeon HD 5770? How about GBT's claims comparing its card to the aging GTX 260? We put it to the test.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Q310 CPU Heat Sink / Air Cooler Roundup
Thinking of upgrading your CPU air cooler since things are getting a little hotter under the colar? We cover some newer solutions from big names in air cooling and compare those to the tried and true solutions that we have come to know and love.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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Corsair AX1200 1200W Power Supply Review
Corsair has built a tremendously solid brand in the computer power supply market over the last couple of years. Today it steps into a new realm, that being the 1200 watt market. Making great PSUs gets harder as the power scales. Let's see if Corsair can ride the winds once again and pull off a bigger-than-a-kilowatt win.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 SLI Performance Follow-up
Our first look at the GeForce GTX 460 showed it to be an impressive product with excellent all-around performance for the price. But what about SLI performance? How does GTX 460 SLI performance compare with a single GTX 480 or GTX 470 in real world gaming? Two 460 cards are now only $80 more than a single GTX 470.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Review
Today NVIDIA is answering the demands of money conscious gamers by introducing the new GeForce GTX 460. The GTX 460 is a refinement of the Fermi architecture, designed to land significant performance improvements for gamers resting in the $200 USD sweet spot. We will find out if this truly does deliver gaming bliss on the cheap and why NVIDIA is calling the GTX 460 an "Overclocker's Dream."
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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NVIDIA GTX 280 SLI 3D Surround Experience
Take your 2 year old GTX 280 video card and pair it up with another 2 year old GTX 280 and what do you get? You get an NVIDIA SLI system capable of delivering huge multi-display NV Surround gaming resolutions with the latest games.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 Motherboard Review
ASUS' latest AM3 offering promises to be at least an interesting one. Not only does it feature USB 3 and SATA 6Gbps support, it also offers the lowest cost of entry into the world of quad core computing with support for a Core Unlocker. All with an 890GX chipset with integrated graphics as well.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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AMD ATI Catalyst Driver Performance Comparison
Ever wonder just how much performance has improved with drivers since launch date with AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5800 series? We did after NVIDIA's recent driver launch, so we aimed to find out just how much AMD's drivers have improved. We compare the launch driver, the first WHQL driver, and the current WHQL driver.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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NVIDIA 3D VISION SURROUND Experience
Many have waited for NVIDIA's 3D VISION SURROUND Technology with bated breath. The wait is over and NVIDIA can now give its GPU owners a 3x1 multi-display gaming experience; and in 3D too! Does NVIDIA's implementation live up to the expectations of those that have been using competitive technology for eight months?
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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HIS HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo X Video Card Review
The HIS HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo X offers us a new cooling solution and higher frequencies, but is that enough to outdo the tried and true reference Radeon HD 5870 and a GeForce GTX 480? We put it to the test in Splinter Cell Conviction, Metro 2033, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Aliens vs. Predators, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Furmark for our power and temperature testing.
[H]ardOCP News/Article Feed
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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NewsBone.com
Suggest a feed to syndicate here, or check out what I'm doing over at freshtao.
~Created Sat Jul 31 17:18:17 2010
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The 2011 Desktop Summit Is Announced For Berlin
Back in 2009 there was the Desktop Summit that placed GUADEC and Akademy, the annual development conferences for the GNOME and KDE desktops, respectively, in the same location at the same time. While there was not a 2010 Desktop Summit for more open collaboration between these two major free software projects, there will be a 2011 Desktop Summit and it's taking place in Berlin...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Is OpenSolaris About To Be Forked As Illumos?
There are still a few weeks left before the deadline that demands Oracle appoint a community liaison for their OpenSolaris operating system that is capable of communicating their future intentions to the OpenSolaris community (like where the hell is OpenSolaris 2010.1H) or else the OpenSolaris Governing Board will return control of the community back to Oracle. However, some OpenSolaris community developers have already had enough: they've begun work on a new project...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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NVIDIA's Dead Open-Source Driver Gets Updated
Back in March an announcement came out of NVIDIA as they were getting ready to launch the GeForce GTX 400 "Fermi" graphics cards that they would be dropping support for the xf86-video-nv driver. The xf86-video-nv driver really didn't provide much of a feature set and was far behind the Nouveau KMS and Gallium3D drivers even though these were reverse-engineered by the open-source, so NVIDIA announced they would be discontinuing this open-source DDX driver and advised its customers to just use the VESA driver until they are able to download and install NVIDIA's proprietary Linux graphics driver. However, today they have decided to release an updated driver...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Wine 1.3.0 Begins A New Development Cycle
It was just two weeks ago that Wine 1.2.0 was released as the second major stable release of Wine in the nearly two decades that this free software project has been around, but the developers are now out today with their first development release of Wine 1.3. The Wine 1.3.0 release already pulls in a great deal of new code...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Lian Li PC-T60 ATX Test Bench
When testing out new hardware at Phoronix the systems are often running in an open environment atop a table rather than nestled away within an ATX case. While cases like the Raven RV02 and Fortress FT02 are wonderful to work with and use, when routinely swapping out hardware whether it's graphics cards or motherboards, it can be time consuming having to open up the chassis each time, remove any screws, pull out the existing hardware, and then install the new hardware. Running the hardware simply off its own cardboard box is often the quickest and most efficient path, but each system can occupy a lot of table space and lead to a rather cluttered work area. Fortunately, Lian Li has introduced a new ATX test bench called the PC-T60 that is designed for those enthusiasts or professionals that are frequently swapping out PC hardware.
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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ATI R600g Gains Mip-Map, Face Culling Support
It was just one week ago that the R600g driver that is to provide open-source Gallium3D support to ATI Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 (R600/700) graphics cards didn't do much as it's shader compiler was far from complete. However, after the author of this driver, Jerome Glisse, embarked on a new strategy, the the glxgears milestone was quickly hit...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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GLX-Dock 2.2 Enters Beta With Greater Usefulness
The first beta release of GLX-Dock 2.2 is now available for those looking to add a Mac OS X-like dock to their Linux desktop. The GLX-Dock 2.2 release is focusing upon improving four core areas of this open-source application dock: being unobtrusive yet useful and simple while also introducing a new panel view...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Alien Arena 2010 v7.45 Offers Up More Features
Back in May there was the initial Alien Arena 2010 (v7.40) open-source game release of this year, but now John Diamond has come about with another update that continues to offer up a number of new features and other improvements. The previous update introduced five new game levels and rendering improvements while this newest update offers:..
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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KDE SC 4.7 May Utilize OpenGL 3.x For Compositing
We're just days away from the release of KDE SC 4.5, but details are now surfacing from Martin Graesslin about his planned KWin compositing changes in the KDE SC 4.6 and 4.7 releases. Compositing in KDE SC 4.6 should be much faster, support mobile rendering using OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0, and potentially offer a stable ABI. With KDE SC 4.7 is where we're looking at the KDE world to potentially begin tapping OpenGL 3.0 for a better compositing experience...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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CrossOver 9.1 Is Based Upon Wine 1.2 Goodness
Wine 1.2 was released earlier this month with more than 23,000 changes since the release of Wine 1.0 some two years ago. This stable update to this major free software project is impressive and many more Windows applications now have life under Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. CodeWeavers, which is the primary corporate backer of the open-source Wine project, has now released CrossOver (Office) 9.1 and CrossOver Games 9.1 to their customers...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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GNOME 3.0 Delayed To March 2011
Two years ago at GUADEC, the annual developer's conference for GNOME, it was announced that GNOME 2.30 would be released as GNOME 3.0. With GNOME's long-standing tradition of putting out major updates every six months, this put the GNOME 3.0 release to be in March of 2010. Last November it was then decided to delay GNOME 3.0 to September of 2010 to give developers more time to prepare on this first major overhaul to the GNOME desktop in years. It's just been announced though from this year's GUADEC conference happening this week that GNOME 3.0 will now not be released until March of 2011...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Radeon EGL Patches For Mesa, Wayland
Yesterday we reported on the state of Wayland with the project's founder, Kristian Høgsberg, showing the initial GTK+ 3.0 tool-kit running under this interesting display server. Besides the lack of tool-kits being fully ported over to run under Wayland, another stumbling block for advancing Wayland's development and usage has been the relatively high barrier to entry for simply getting Wayland to run. Fortunately, that barrier is slowly being lowered...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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The Gallium3D R600 Driver Now Has Texture Support
There's good news for those interested in the open-source Gallium3D driver for the ATI R600/R700 (Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 series) graphics cards: the R600g driver is beginning to work. While there's been the classic Mesa R600/R700 driver for months now that is working fine for most users, once finished the Gallium3D version should offer better performance, better OpenGL support (OpenGL 2.1 support off the bat, but that's still a ways behind OpenGL 4.1), and many other possibilities via Gallium3D's different state trackers...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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AMD Ups The Workstation Ante With A New FirePro Driver
Whether you are an owner of an ATI FirePro V3800 that retails for just over $100 USD, the proud owner of an ATI FirePro V8800 that goes for over $1,300 USD, or any of the FirePro products in-between, you will want to update your graphics driver when AMD puts out their next stable software update. Back in March AMD put out an amazing FirePro Linux driver that increased the performance of their workstation graphics cards already on the market (and the other Evergreen-based workstation cards that entered the market soon after) by an astonishing amount. Our independent tests of this proprietary Linux driver update found that the performance in some workstation applications had increased by up to 59% by simply installing this updated driver while other OpenGL tests had just improved rather modestly with 20%+ gains. AMD though is preparing to release another driver update for Microsoft Windows and Linux that ups their workstation graphics performance even more! We have run some tests of this new beta driver against their older driver with both their low-end and ultra-high-end FirePro products and have found the improvements again to be astonishing.
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Kristian Shows Off GTK+ 3.0 On Wayland
Earlier this month the Wayland TODO list was updated -- a month after it received some summer love -- and now we some new information from the founder of the Wayland Display Server, Kristian Høgsberg...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Benchmarking ZFS On FreeBSD vs. EXT4 & Btrfs On Linux
ZFS is often looked upon as an advanced, superior file-system and one of the strong points of the Solaris/OpenSolaris platform while most feel that only recently has Linux been able to catch-up on the file-system front with EXT4 and the still-experimental Btrfs. ZFS is copy-on-write, self-healing with 256-bit checksums, supports compression, online pool growth, scales much better than the UFS file-system commonly used on BSD operating systems, supports snapshots, supports deduplication, and the list goes on for the features of this file-system developed by Sun Microsystems. In this article we are seeing how well the performance of the ZFS file-system under PC-BSD/FreeBSD 8.1 stacks up to UFS (including UFS+J and UFS+S) and on the Linux side with EXT4 and Btrfs.
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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We're Now Up To OpenGL 4.1; Brings New Features
The Khronos Group came out in mid-March to release the OpenGL 4.0 specification along with OpenGL 3.3 (to bring as many OGL4 features back to OGL3 as possible for older hardware that doesn't support OpenGL 4.0), but today from SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles they have rolled out OpenGL 4.1. The Khronos Group has now put out six ratified versions of OpenGL in less than two years and the 4.1 release adds more graphical goodies to this industry standard. OpenGL 4.1 is also joined by version 4.10 of GLSL, the GL Shading Language...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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New Windows vs. Linux Benchmarks Are On The Way
A few months back we began publishing some open-source Windows benchmarks once the Phoronix Test Suite started picking up Microsoft Windows 7 x64 support to join Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, and Mac OS X as another supported testing platform. We had published Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 10.04 benchmarks and then a benchmarking threesome of Windows, Ubuntu, and Mac OS X. We had also benchmarked EXT4 vs. the NTFS file-system while the real loser throughout all of this testing was the Intel Linux graphics driver as being the really sore spot for Linux performance when compared to Windows throughout all of our tests. A new set of Windows vs. Linux benchmarks are to be carried out over the next week or two and we will be running even more tests this time around...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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AMD Catalyst 10.7 For Linux Has Eyefinity Support
As was widely anticipated, today AMD is rolling out their Catalyst 10.7 graphics driver for Windows and Linux platforms. On the Windows side, their Catalyst 10.7 rolls out support for OpenGL ES 2.0. ATI Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000/5000 series graphics cards (along with the FirePro hardware) running Windows can now take advantage of OpenGL ES 2.0 support with HTML5 for in-browser graphics rendering. However, that support hasn't yet made its way to the Catalyst Linux driver, but there are other changes packed away in this month's update...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Running ZFS With CAM-based ATA On FreeBSD 8.1
As was mentioned in last Friday's article, Which Is Faster: Debian Linux or FreeBSD, tests of FreeBSD atop the ZFS file-system (rather than UFS2+S) are currently underway and those results are expected to be published in full later this week as the ZFS disk performance is compared directly to UFS2+S, UFS2+J, and also Ubuntu Linux with the EXT4 and Btrfs file-systems. Today though we have a few ZFS performance numbers to share as we look at the performance of the new CAM-ATA sub-system on FreeBSD.
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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The 2010 Linux Graphics Survey Is Coming Up
For a fourth year we will once again be hosting the annual Linux Graphics Survey at Phoronix. This survey is designed to quantify what areas of the Linux graphics stack that end-users are most interested in, the popularity of the different Linux drivers and hardware in use, and to collect other metrics of interest to developers and other stakeholders...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Compiz 0.9.2 Is On The Way
One of the Compiz developers has updated his blog about the ongoing work towards the Compiz 0.9.2 release now that Compiz 0.9 was finally released earlier this month...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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FFmpeg's VP8 Decoder Blasts Google's Decoder
It was just back in May that Google opened up the VP8 video format that they got their hands on through the acquisition of On2 and at the same time they created the WebM container format. VP8 has already received a lot of love by the open-source community -- both developers and end-users -- and support for it has already worked its way into FFmpeg, GStreamer, and other multimedia projects. Google released the libvpx library as their official VP8 decoder library, but now the FFmpeg developers have created their own decoder and it's shockingly faster than that of Google's own open-source library...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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FreeBSD 8.1 Released With Many Updates
We knew it was coming (and that FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE has been on the FreeBSD FTP servers for a few days already), but the FreeBSD 8.1 release announcement is now available over at FreeBSD.org...
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Testing Intel's New GLSL Mesa Compiler With ATI Graphics
With Intel developers earlier this week expressing their plans to merge their new GLSL compiler into Mesa by the end of next month, which besides providing various shader compiler optimizations and being a better framework going forward is already set to correct 50+ bugs, we decided to try out this Mesa "GLSL2" compiler. However, as Intel explicitly stated they haven't tested this new GL Shading Language compiler that's been in development for months with any other hardware drivers (or even Gallium3D) besides their own Intel DRI driver, we decided to see how well it works with the open-source Radeon classic and Gallium3D drivers. It ended up being both good and bad.
Phoronix
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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NewsBone.com
Suggest a feed to syndicate here, or check out what I'm doing over at freshtao.
~Created Sat Jul 31 12:09:31 2010
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Review: Samsung TruDirect SE-S204S Drive
Everyone has a camcorder now a days, and some people are having a hard time getting that content directly onto their computer and burned onto a DVD. Samsung has made it their mission to make that process easier with their TruDirect drive.
The Samsung TruDirect drive allows you to record directly to a DVD. You do not need to view your video in any other programs. You just stream it to your computer, and TruDirect will put it on a DVD at the same time.
So how exactly do you do this? Well you plug in your camcorder via Firewire, or you can use a product like Pinnacles MoviePlus. Once your camcorder is connected, just place a blank DVD in the drive and fire up the TruDirect software by simply pressing a button on the drive.
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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Review: Vonage V-Portal
Vonage released the first of a line of Vonage Branded products aimed at making new users', and users who aren't technical inclined, lives a lot easier.
Vonage announced during CES Vonage V-Portal a device that can connect up to two Vonage lines and allows you to use it as a router and caller ID box. The V-Portal device is designed to make the installation process of a new Vonage line a lot easier than before.
To test how simple it was, I asked my mom install it, and she agreed. She came over, read the included instructions, plugged the modem into the V-Portal box, plugged in the phone line and cat5 cable for the computer, and what do ya know, we had phone service, and the computer still had an internet connection.
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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Review: Toshiba M205
A lot of people over the past few months have asked me to recommend them an affordable notebook that does it all. They want a simple system that works. Most of the time, I would recommend a Toshiba System like the U305 or the TX1000 from HP, but those two notebooks sometimes offered a bit more than what some people wanted.
Now, I can recommend to those people the M205 from Toshiba. The M205 is a small 14" system with a Core 2 Duo Processor 1 Gig of Ram, 160 GB of hard drive space, DVD drive (writer), widescreen truebrite monitor, built in wireless (a/b/g), built in 1.3 megapixel webcam, and pre-installed with Windows Vista Premium.
The first thing I did on the M205 was install Microsoft Office, and I am happy to say it installed quickly, faster than it does on my desktop. Excel, Outlook, and Word also all loaded up quickly. Splash screen loaded for a few secs and went straight to the program. No lag what so ever.
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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AMD Introduces ATI Radeon HD 3870 x2
Today AMD introduced the ATI Radeon HD 3870 x2, a video card for enthusiast with 2 55nm chips onboard that will deliver a TeraFlop of performance, better power management, full HD support and support for DirectX 10.1.
The card gets even better, by the end of Quarter 1 2008 and Start of Quarter 2, drivers will add crossfire support to the cards, giving users the possibly double the cards performance.
I have had a 3870 x2 card for a little over 4 days now and I have to say it is very impressive.
I ran a benchmark with PCMark Vantage prior to installing the card and after, my after score was 6983, a total of 1241 points higher. (Specs for the system used, Quad Core Phenom 9700, 4 GB DDR3 memory, 500 GB hdd and 150 GB hdd, 3870 s2). The system scored 13062 in 3DMark 06. Read More
0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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AMD Announces ATI Radeon HD 3450 and ATI Radeon HD 3650
AMD today announced what they call their strongest offering ever. The new Radeon HD 3450, 3650 and 3690 all support DirectX 10.1, have an integrated Display Port, Enhanced UVD, full HD support, and support for Hybrid Graphics.
AMD is the first to offer graphics cards with DisplayPort (DP). DP offers 2x the bandwidth of DVI and is royalty free so it will help keep card prices down once the DP technology takes off. The cards also use 55nm technology, which basically means they run cooler and are more energy efficient.
The 3450 comes with Hybrid Graphics support, this basically means if you have a Motherboard with Integrated Graphics, and the 3450. The two graphics cards will link up and work together. Similar to what crossfire does. So if you have a motherboard with integrated graphics and buy a 50 dollar video card, you should get the performance of a 75 to 100 dollar video card. Benchmarks I have seen show up to 80% performance increases. (Benchmarks were provided by AMD)
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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Review: HP Pavilion tx2000 Entertainment PC
A year ago HP delivered the Pavilion tx1000 Entertainment PC, a hybrid between a notebook and a Tablet PC. It was a great machine, and we here at HardwareGeeks.com awarded it our Editors Choice Award for the month of April 2007 and also our Top choice Award for the year of 2007.
The tx1000 was and still is a fantastic piece of machinery. 9 out of 10 reviews on the web praised it. However, at the same time each review noted some dislikes about the machine such as a lack of an active stylus and a keyboard that had a left shift key that was rather small. Read More
5 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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Review: Toshiba Satellite Pro A200
Toshiba strikes again with another great notebook, this time it is the Satellite Pro A200-EZ2204X, and we have reviewed it for you. The A200-EZ2204x is specifically for business computing and perfect for a business environment.
When I first saw the A200, I asked myself where the finger print reader was and other features you normally find on a business notebook. The more I stared at it, the more I realized that this machine is a perfect workstation replacement for a small business.
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000
ATI during CES 2008 announced the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000, which is the worlds first DirectX 10.1 compatible graphics card for notebook PCs.
The new Radeon HD 3000 delivers full 1080p HD support and it conserves a lot of energy so it helps expand your notebooks battery life. The card is so powerful it can smoothly render realistic textures and life like lighting during game play quickly and with no lag in game play.
The HD 3000 is also the industries first 55nm Mobile GPU, this offers better performance per watt used making it energy efficient, and much cooler. The GPU also has dynamic power management called PowerPlay 7.0, which will dynamically adjust the power usage of the GPU. So PowerPlay will help give your system longer battery life and keep your system cooler.
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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Review: V-Moda Vibe Duo
As innovative a company as Apple is, it seems even they couldn't get past the bane of cell phone accessories- the bundled headset. The included headset is hardly worth using, but to make maters worse, Apple's notorious decision to recess the iPhone's headphone jack has made finding a replacement a formidable task. Fortunately, V-Moda has recently introduced a stereo headset tailored specifically for the iPhone. I've spent the past month using the Vibe Duos on a daily basis, and I'm pleased to inform you your search for an iPhone headset could very well be over.
The Vibe Duos are exceptionally well designed. Much like the stock headset, they feature a small microphone that hangs a few inches below your chin and a plug slim enough to fit the iPhone's 3.5mm headphone jack. Despite their light weight, the Vibe Duos have a solid, chunky feeling- you can toss them in your bag sans case and not have to worry about tearing off a cord. They also look stunning, with a dark composite body and textured metal accents. Plus, they're not white, which means you won't be a walking billboard for a certain Cupertino-based tech company when you wear them in public.
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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Bit by a Spider; Hands on With AMD's Spider Platform
Last week I received an AMD Spider system which has a quad-core Phenom 9700 2.4GHz processor and a 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3850 graphics card. Both the processor and graphics card are samples, with the video card having a sticker that reads "Non-Qualifications Sample" slapped on it.
When AMD first introduced me to Phenom over a year ago, they made comments such as "We don't duct tape our cores together" and "We will deliver a processor that will eliminate the hour glass". I took those statements with a grain of salt, and early benchmarks made everyone wonder if AMD was going to pull through. I have come to realize over the past week that while the hour glass hasn't disappeared, I do see it a lot less. There is a lot of room for improvement but after all I just have an engineering sample in this machine the final version will most likely be better.
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0 Comment(s).
HardwareGeeks Tech News and Reviews
~Created Sat Jul 31 18:12:23 2010
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