IT News HeadLines (AnandTech) 31/10/2010

550W Roundup: Three PSUs at Different Prices

"You get what you pay for!" Is this maxim realy true? On the one hand there are more than enough expensive PSUs with high ripple and noise results with a noisy fan thrown in as well; on the other hand, you can't get the best capacitors without paying a premium. So let's see how three different 550W power supplies compare, particularly in light of their pricing. There's quite a spread here in terms of cost; how much PSU can you get for your dollar?

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AnandTech 2010 Server Upgrade: The Memory

A couple of months ago we shared with you the CPUs that are going into our new server farm. We've actually started physically installing the machines (hence the brief outage over the weekend) so it's time to share another piece of the server puzzle.
The final configuration we decided on was 12 machines. This is a significant reduction of the number of systems we have installed (currently nearly 30) but the performance per box is much higher, allowing for consolidation through virtualization.
We are building two private clouds: a lighter cloud of 8 machines for our application serving needs (including some redundancy in the cloud), and a 4 machine DB cloud to handle the heavier IO. We'll dive into our infrastructure design in the later, full article but for now let's talk about memory.
The application server cloud is light on memory. Each system in this cloud has 12GB of memory (6 x 2 DDR3-1333 DIMMs). The DB server cloud on the other hand has 48GB of memory per box (12 x 4GB DDR3-1333 DIMMs).
Kingston was nice enough to supply the memory for our project with. The 96 sticks of memory were broken down into 48 x KVR1333D3D4R9S/4GI and 48 x KVR1333D3D8R9S/2GI. If you want to see what 288GB of memory looks like, check out the gallery below.

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Note that for all of the components we selected for this project, we decided upon the components first and then petitioned the manufacturers second. The stipulation was that the AnandTech server farm would be a publicly visible test bed. Any failures of the hardware are public failures and would obviously reflect poorly on the manufacturer. For CPUs and memory it's not so big of a deal - physical failures there are fairly rare, but for SSDs this provided an interesting challenge. More on that in our next installment.

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AnandTech Giveaway: Patriot Box Office
I realize I've been very slow with these. My travel schedule as returned to unexpectedly ridiculous once again. You've been seeing the results of those travels on the site, most recenty with the Windows Phone 7 coverage. There are a few more exciting trips left in the year for me so I appreciate your patience as always.
Last month we held a giveaway for an ASRock 890GX Extreme 3. The winner? MUluke. Respond to my email to claim your prize :)
Today's giveaway is going to be a media streaming box we reviewed not too long ago: Patriot's Box Office. The full spec sheet is here. Patriot was kind enough to even throw in a WiFi adapter with the Box Office.

Read on for entry instructions!

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NASA Looks to Protect U.S. Power Grid with "Solar Shield" Project
Solar Shield could prevent lengthy power blackouts and transformer damage during geomagnetic storms
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The Mobile Network: Wireless Communication Using Humans
Researchers work on body-to-body network for "anytime, anywhere" connectivity.
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Sony Posts Big Profit, but is Hurt by Weakening Dollar
Growth in LCD television sector is offset by currency concerns
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10/29/2010 Daily Hardware Reviews
DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Friday
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World's Highest Above-Water Peak, Everest, Gets Internet Access
Smartphone users can take a break from a long day of climbing and check their email
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UM, UC Researchers Apply Observed Infant Social Skills to Baby Robot
Baby robot, Diego-San, could help researchers better understand the development of human learning
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Apple Moves up to Fourth Place in Global Mobile Market, Passes RIM
Apple's record quarter earned it a 1-up in sales rankings
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Microsoft's 89,000 Employees to Receive Windows Phone 7 Handsets
"You're getting a phone... and YOU'RE getting a phone!"
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Verizon Testing Unlimited Calling to Any Mobile, Tiered Data a Reality
Verizon takes a cue from Sprint, takes better tiered-route than AT&T
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Microsoft Posts Impressive Q1 Results
Microsoft reported $16.2B in revenue for Q1
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Apple iPhone May Get Reprogrammable SIM Card
Will Apple become the master of unlocking?
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Navy's New Experimental Ship Runs on Algae Biofuel Which Costs $424/Gallon
Navy hopes to cut its fossil fuel consumption in half by 2020
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10/28/2010 Daily Hardware Reviews
DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for thursday
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Verizon Wireless to Pay Record $25M Fine for “Mystery” Data Charges
Money will be paid to the U.S. Treasury
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