Techconnect Review Round-up 30/4/10
CPU & Motherboard
- AMD Phenom II X6, 890FX @ Rage3D
- Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI tackle AMD's 890FX chipset @ The Tech Report
- Asus P7P55D-E Deluxe 1156 Motherboard @ OverclockersHQ
- ASUS P7P55 WS SuperComputer (P55 Express) Motherboard @ TweakTown
- AMD Phenom II X6 “Thuban†1090T 6-core Black Edition Processor @ Futurelooks
- Asrock X58 Extreme3 Socket 1366 Motherboard @ ProClockers
- MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard @ Overclockers Club
- AMD Athlon II X3 425 On Linux @ Phoronix
Storage
- OCZ Vertex 2 100GB SSD @ TechSpot
- Intel X25-M G2 80GB Solid State Drive (SSD) @ ITShootOut
- Patriot Zephyr 128GB SSD @ Neoseeker
- Plextor PX-B940SA 12x Blu-ray Disc Writer
@ CDRLabs
@ LANOC
- Super Talent SuperCrypt USB 3.0 32GB Thumb Drive @ PC Perspective
Graphics cards
- GeForce GTX 480 3-way SLI @ Guru3D
- ASUS GeForce GTX 480 @ PureOC
Enclosures & PSUs
- IN WIN Griffin Case @ Vortez Hardware
- Antec Fusion Remote Black chassis @ HardwareLogic
- Thermaltake Toughpower XT 775W Power Supply
@ HardwareHeaven
@ OCIA
Displays
- 21.5-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2233SW DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor @ Bona Fide Reviews
- LG Infinia 50PK790 50in Plasma TV @ TrustedReviews
Cooling and modding
- Corsair H50 v.s. CoolIT ECO A.L.C. @ Fudzilla
- Zalman ZM-MFC1 Combo Fan Controller @ Hardware Secrets
- Low Noise Socket 1156 Heatpipe Cooler Shootout @ Big Bruin
PCs & Macs
- Sony VAIO Y Series (VPC-Y11M1E/S) - 13.3in Laptop @ TrustedReviews
- Packard Bell EasyNote TM86, Novatech B17, Mesh Edge15 Value Plus, Asus Eee PC 1005PE, HP Mini 210-1002SA, Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3T @ TechRadar
Photo and video cameras
- Olympus PEN E-PL1 @ Digital Trends
Other
- HTC Legend @ VR-Zone
- Speck PortPack Notebook Shoulder Bag @ ThinkComputers
- Apple iPad Tablet @ Hardware Secrets
- SteelSeries 4HD Gaming Surface Mouse Pad @ Benchmark Reviews
- HornetTek Phantom: 2.5'' Multimedia Player @ Bjorn3d
- Sony Ericsson Elm @ TechRadar
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PQI unveils new USB 3.0-enabled flash drive
Power Quotient International aka PQI has today presented to the world its second flash drive to feature a USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed USB connection interface, the U368.
Going from 8GB to 128GB in terms of capacity, PQI's drive measures 90.1 x 22 x 11.1 mm, weights 25 grams, features a metallic frame colored in royal-blue with black streaks, can be used with USB 2.0 systems too, as USB 3.0 is backwards compatible, and offers maximum transfer speeds of 105 MB/s.
The yet unpriced U368 is set to be bundled with the TurboFlash USB software which helps increase read/write speeds.
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Opera Software buys FastMail.fm to expand its messaging offering
Browser developer Opera Software has just announced that it has acquired FastMail.fm, an Australian company that's been running an email service for consumers and small business customers for 10 years.
According to Opera, the purpose of the purchase is the expansion of its messaging solution and the delivery of a consistent e-mail experience on multiple devices, from PCs to Mobile phones, and from connected TVs to gaming consoles. Current FastMail.fm users won't see changes in billing cycle, pricing or features from the acquisition but they can opt out from having their account and data handled by Opera.
"The newest generation of Web users will discover the Web through a mobile device. Having world-class messaging capability alongside a rich and compelling Web experience is essential. By combining forces, Opera and FastMail.fm can offer messaging on any device," said Rolf Assev, Chief Strategy Officer, Opera Software. "This will enhance the value Opera provides to consumers, while assisting our operator partners in reducing customer churn."
The financial details of the Opera/FastMail.fm deal have not been disclosed.
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G.Skill Phoenix SandForce-based SSDs available for pre-order
G.Skill's first and for now only solid state drive powered by a SandForce controller (namely the SF-1200), known as 'Phoenix', has begun to appear in European stores and can e pre-ordered in 100GB form for 'as low as' 389 Euro.
Unveiled at CeBIT last month, the Phoenix family includes 50GB and 100GB 2.5-inch drives which have a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface, a MTBF (mean time before failure) of over 1.5 million hours, and deliver read and write speeds of up to 280 MB/s and 270 MB/s, respectively.
The Phoenix SSDs are backed by a two-year warranty and are said to become available as soon as next week.
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Opera 10.53 comes to fix severe vulnerability
Norway's own Opera Software has released a new update for the Windows and Mac versions of its web browser so as to fix a critical vulnerability discovered earlier this week.
According to the changelog provided by Opera's devs, the 10.53 patch only takes care of one thing and that's the bug where multiple asynchronous document modifications could be used to execute arbitrary code. Switching to the latest version is highly recommended and that can be done either by using the browser's built-in update function, or by downloading the full package from Opera.com.
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Mobile phone shipments went up 21.7% in Q1
Following a tough 2009, the mobile market has kicked off 2010 quite promising, with IDC reporting that in Q1 handset shipments were of 294.9 million units, up 21.7% compared to the same period of last year, thanks to an increased demand for smartphones.
As revealed earlier this month together with its financial results, Nokia has continued to be the number one phone vendor in Q1 with 107.8 million sold devices and a market share of 36.6%, down from 38.4% a year ago. On second place there's Samsung with 64.3 million units and a 21.8% piece of the mobile pie, followed by LG Electronics with 27.1 million and a share of 9.2%.
The healthy craving for smartphones has helped BlackBerry maker RIM (Research In Motion) to climb into the top 5 list and tie Sony Ericsson on the fourth place with about unit sales of 10.6 million and a market share of 3.6%. Motorola had to settle for fifth place this time due to its 8.5 million shipped units.
IDC is predicting that the mobile market will grow by 11% in 2010.
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Sapphire rolling out its own passive-cooled Radeon HD 5550
After Club 3D and HIS, it's now Sapphire's turn to announce a passively-cooled Radeon HD 5550 graphics card which is aimed to deliver silent, DirectX 11 power on the cheap.
Dubbed HD 5550 Ultimate, Sapphire's creation makes use of an aluminum heatsink equipped with two heatpipes, has 320 Stream Processors, a blue full-size PCB, a GPU clock of 550 MHz, a 128-bit memory interface, 1GB of DDR2 VRAM set to 800 MHz, and D-Sub, DVI and HDMI outputs.
The Redwood-powered Radeon HD 5550 Ultimate is available for pre-order at prices starting from 79 Euro.
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Google Search gets on-screen keyboard
Believe it or not Google Search got even better but not for everyone, 'only' for non-English users who are trying to type queries in their native language while using a working or even buggy English keyboard.
By making use of its own virtual keyboard API released last year, the Google team has developed and now integrated an on-screen/virtual keyboard into no less than 35 localized Google search sites.
"Our user research has shown that many people are more comfortable formulating search queries in their own language but have difficulty typing these queries into Google. (Try typing à ¤¨à ¤®à ¤¸à ¥Âà ¤¤à ¥‡ on a keyboard with English letters.) To overcome the difficulty they face in typing in their local language scripts, some people have resorted to copying and pasting from other sites and from online translation tools," said Manish Bhargava on the Google blog. "But there's an easier way - a virtual, or “on-screen†keyboard, lets you type directly in your local language script in an easy and consistent manner, no matter where you are or what computer you're using."
The on-screen keyboard is available for the following languages - Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Finnish, Galician, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Macedonian, Malayalam, Mongolian, Persian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Tatar, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Uzbek.
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Samsung ramping up DDR3 production amid increased server demand
Top DRAM (and NAND) manufacturer Samsung Electronics has announced that it is increasing production of 40nm DDR3 memory chips as an answer to the higher demand coming from server manufacturers, fueled by the relatively recent introduction of the Intel Xeon 5600 series processors.
Enabling up to 40% power savings compared to 60nm DRAMs, Samsung's 40nm DDR3 memory comes in 1Gb, 2Gb and 4Gb capacities and is utilized for 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB registered memory modules.
"When used in conjunction with use of the Xeon processor 5600 series and the 5500 and 7500 platforms, DDR3 is designed to dramatically improve the efficiency of data transactions while lowering power consumption in virtually any enterprise server application," said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor. "Our low-power DDR3 solutions will play a pivotal role in advancing the design of new-generation, 'green' servers."
Samsung began making 40nm DDR3 DRAM in early 2009.
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MSI officially intros the Big Bang-XPower X58 motherboard
MSI's Big Bang line of big-shot motherboards has now been expanded through the launch of the Big Bang-XPower, an Intel X58-powered model that's ready to serve overclockers and gamers with deep pockets.
Pictured below, the young Big Bang makes use of Military Class (a Hi-c CAP, Solid Caps, and Icy Chokes) and has a 16 Phase DrMOS PWM, a SuperPipe-equipped passive cooling system, APS (Active Phase Switching), the OC Genie overclocking technology, V-check points, and two 8-pin power connectors providing more watts to the CPU.
The Big Bang-XPower features six DDR3 memory slots, six PCI-Express x16 slots, two SATA 6.0 Gbps and six SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, two USB 3.0 and two eSATA connectors, dual Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, a debug LED, plus a PCIe x1 Quantum Wave audio card with Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 support.
MSI's motherboard is now available for pre-order at around 300 Euro.
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