(PR) Creative Launches the HN-900 and Aurvana X-Fi 2 Active Noise-Canceling Headphones
Creative Technology Ltd today announced the new Creative HN-900 headphones, which utilize active noise cancellation to reduce ambient noise by up to 85 percent. The Creative HN-900 headphones also feature an in-line microphone and switch for convenient one-click voice communication on the iPhone, and 40 mm Neodymium drivers and gold-plated plugs for outstanding audio playback. Dual-mode usage allows active noise-cancellation for up to 40 hours by a single AAA alkaline battery or in passive mode without power.
Creative today also introduced the Aurvana X-Fi 2 Noise-Canceling Headphones, which utilize active noise cancellation to reduce ambient noise by up to 90 percent, and feature X-Fi audio technology for improved sound quality and a virtual surround sound effect that is ideal for watching in-flight entertainment.
Read More ...
Firefox 11 Goes Beta
Don't worry if you just installed Firefox 10.0 cause there's a new Foxxy browser craving your attention, the Firefox 11.0 beta. This fresh build comes with an updated migration tool that can also import Chrome bookmarks, history, and cookies, and features add-on syncing capabilities, redesigned media controls for HTML5 video, and support for the CSS text-size-adjust property and the outerHTML property.
Firefox 11.0 also brings some goodies for devs like the Page Inspector 3D View, the new Style Editor tool, SPDY Support and more.
To download the Firefox 11.0 beta (for Windows, Mac OS or Linux) see this page.
Read More ...
(PR) Super Talent Introduces Overclocked Quad Channel DDR3 Kits
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash solutions, today announces their Quadra series, overclocked, quad-channel DDR3 memory kits, targeted at the extreme enthusiast market.
Gamers and enthusiasts already know about Intel's i7-3960X 6-Core processors and now they are scrambling to find DRAM worthy of their new rig. The Quadra, DDR3 Quad-kits, come in 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz and pairs perfectly with the i7 processors, which now handles 4 channels of memory. By fully populating all 8 slots of memory with Super Talent's 4GB DIMMs, users will experience reduced loading times with all their high-system-requirement programs. Now more time can be spent using a computer than waiting on it.
Read More ...
Micron CEO Steve Appleton Dies In Plane Crash
CNN is reporting Micron CEO Steve Appleton has died in a small-plane crash in Boise this morning. According to CNN, 'Appleton was flying a Lancair fixed-wing single-engine plane that crashed at 8:58 a.m. local time at Boise Airport' Said a spokeswoman for the airport. She could not confirm whether the accident took place at takeoff, landing or during flight.' No other details are currently known.
Micron was founded in Boise in October 1978, and it became a public company in June 1984. The company ranked No. 287 on the 2011 Fortune 500 list. At the end of 2011, Micron employed about 20,000 full-time staffers. Mr. Appleton is survived by his wife and children.
Source: CNN
Read More ...
(PR) Xigmatek Gigas Brushed Aluminum Micro-ATX Cube Case Announced
Xigmatek is celebrating a first with the Gigas Micro-ATX Cube, as it is their first Aluminum chassis. Even with its compact dimensions, the Gigas Cube manages to fit high-end Hardware, allowing one to easily build a potent HTPC or Gaming system. USB 3.0, space for up to 4 fans, along with a fan controller round up the list of features.
The word "Gigas" is part of the Greek language and means "giant". In the modern language, the prefix "giga" can be found in many different areas to quantify the sheer size. Gigabyte or Gigawatt are such examples and the new chassis from Xigmatek carries the name "Gigas" for good reason.
Read More ...
(PR) Dell Names John Swainson President of New Software Group
Dell today announced the appointment of John Swainson to serve as President, Software Group, effective March 5, 2012. Mr. Swainson will report to Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell.
The Software Group will build on Dell's software capabilities and provide greater innovation and organizational support to create a more competitive position in delivering end-to-end IT solutions to customers. The organization will add to Dell's enterprise solutions capability, accelerate profitable growth and further differentiate the company from competitors by increasing its solutions portfolio with Dell-owned intellectual property.
Read More ...
AMD Slips Out Trinity ULV 3DMark Performance
In a footnote of a slide detailing AMD's Trinity A6 APU for Ultrathin notebooks at the company's Financial Analyst Day event, the new chip's 3DMark performance was revealed. The company was talking about the 17W ULV (ultra-low voltage) variant of the "Trinity" APU in the slide, that's designed for compact notebooks. The 3DMark Vantage performance of the APU was measured to be 2,355 points, in the same test, an Intel Core i5-2537M ULV 17W "Sandy Bridge" processor scored 1,158 points. The AMD chip, hence, emerged with a 103% graphics performance lead.
The slide notes that with an assumed performance increase of 30% by the upcoming "Ivy Bridge" architecture, its 3DMark performance is projected to be 1,505 points. The 17W Trinity chip would still end up with a 56% performance lead. Moving on, AMD even revealed the performance of the high-performance A10 "Trinity" APU with 25W TDP, designed for slightly thicker notebooks. This chip scored 3,600 points in 3DMark, which would effectively make it 136% faster than Ivy Bridge at graphics.
Read More ...
Alienware M18x R2 Reportedly Packing Some Serious GPU Punch
Still not officially announced by Dell, the Alienware-branded M18x R2 gaming laptop is rumored to come with some fresh and powerful graphics options from both NVIDIA and AMD. The Santa Clara team (NVIDIA) is said to be supplying two cards for the M18x R2 - the GeForce GTX 660M and GTX 675M (the latter will be available in a SLI configuration), while the Sunnyvale squad (AMD) will deliver the Radeon HD 7970M, in a CrossFireX setup.
Beside the GPU goodies mentioned, the M18x R2 (18.4-inch) laptop is expected to feature an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU, black and red color choices, an optional Wireless HD card, and more. Stay tuned (and save up?).
Source: dell-lab.posterous.com
Read More ...
Gigabyte Reveals the MSH61QI LGA 1155 Mini-ITX Motherboard
While it may be working away on 7 Series motherboards, Gigabyte still has some love for the 'old' 6 Series chipsets and is preparing more products based on them. One such product is the MSH61QI, a Mini-ITX board powered by the H61 Express Chipset.
Targeting embedded markets, the MSH61QI offers support for LGA 1155 processors, and features two DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM slots, two SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, one PCI-Express x16 and two (one full size, one half size) Mini-PCIe slots, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, Line-In and SPDIF connectors, and a HDMI output. The board's availability and price tag have not been announced, yet.
Read More ...
(PR) AMD Strategy Transformation Brings Agile Delivery of Industry-Leading IP
At its annual Financial Analyst Day, AMD (NYSE: AMD) detailed a new "ambidextrous" strategy that builds on the company's long history of x86 and graphics innovation while embracing other technologies and intellectual property to deliver differentiated products.
AMD is adopting an SoC-centric roadmap designed to speed time-to-market, drive sustained execution, and enable the development of more tailored customer solutions. SoC design methodology is advantageous because it is a modular approach to processor design, leveraging best practice tools and microprocessor design flows with the ability to easily re-use IP and design blocks across a range of products.
Read More ...
(PR) StarTech Announces New HDMI over IP and VGA over IP Extenders
StarTech.com, a leading manufacturer of hard-to-find connectivity parts has announced the release of two new Video over IP Extenders – the IPUSB2VGA VGA over IP Extender and the IPUSB2HD2 HDMI over IP Extender, which enable users to extend video and the accompanying audio signals from a PC to remote locations over an IP-based network connection. The IP video extenders/adapters support display resolutions up to 1080p (1920x1080) and can extend video signals and the accompanying audio over a network connection by distances of up to 100m (330ft).
"The IPUSB2VGA and IPUSB2HD2 are perfect solutions for video distribution in boardrooms or office environments where multiple users may need to connect to a projector" said John Mardinly, Senior Product Manager for StarTech.com's Audio-Video and Digital Signage products lines. "Simply install the software on the computers you want to connect to the unit and users will be able to connect to the projector or display over a network connection."
Read More ...
ASUS' MS-100 USB Speakers get a Picture Preview
Announced late last year together with the HS-W1 Wireless Headset, ASUS' MS-100 USB speakers have now went their separate way to be the focus of an unboxing/preview piece. Pictured below, the stereo speakers target mobile users and feature a cone design, a glossy black coating, a rubber stand that reduces vibration, and only USB connectivity (no need for a separate power cord).
The MS-100 makes use of 54 mm drivers, it has a frequency response of 100 Hz to 20 KHz, and delivers a total output of 3 W RMS. Still no word on pricing or availability but it's likely the speakers will be out very soon.
Source: Techinstyle.tv
Read More ...
(PR) ASUS Launches the Radeon HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP Graphics Card
Ushering the finest and most capable graphics card based on new AMD "Tahiti" 28nm GPUs, the ASUS HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP uses a factory-overclocked core and 3 GB of GDDR5. It is cooled by the exclusive DirectCU II, a dual fan thermal design with six copper heatpipes and a large dissipation area that leads to the lowest temperatures and quietest operation of any HD 7970 card.
ASUS DIGI+ VRM 12-phase digital power delivery comes to graphics cards improved with Super Alloy Power components, while overclockers are bound to appreciate the inclusion of exclusive VGA Hotwire hardware overvolting and GPU Tweak software tuning. The new cards further support adapter-free AMD Eyefinity 6.
Read More ...
Acer Quietly Releases the Revo RL70 AMD-powered Nettop
Acer has recently rolled out a new Revo series nettop/mini PC, a model called Revo RL70 which measures 209.89 (W) x 209.89 (D) x 35.35 (H) mm and makes use of AMD's E-450 APU boasting two Bobcat cores @ 1.65 GHz and Radeon HD 6320 graphics.
Acer's compact system also has 2 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a multi-in-one card reader, six USB 2.0 ports, plus D-Sub and HDMI outputs. The Revo RL70(-UR10P) runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and is selling for $329.99.
Read More ...
PC Motherboard Prices to Rise By 10% By Q2, 2012
Responding to increasing prices of key raw materials such as copper, and spiraling labor costs, motherboard manufacturers are planning price-hikes of their products by as much as 10%, which will take effect by the end of Q1, 2012. Vendors adopting these increased prices include major players such as ASUS and Gigabyte. Motherboard prices were earlier raised by 5-10% in early-2011 to tune in with increased material costs and the impact of labor shortages, and by 3-8% in April 2011 due to shortages and increased prices of components sourced from Japan, in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami disaster of 2011.
Source: DigiTimes
Read More ...
10-core Ivy Bridge-EP Sample Tested
The Ivy Bridge LGA1155 processors inbound for April are mom and pop PC chips in front of the monstrosities Intel has planned for the enterprise (and possibly high-end desktop/HEDT) markets, based on the architecture. An 10-core Ivy Bridge-EP engineering sample, made it to the right hands in Taiwan (wrong hands for Intel), that wasted no time in putting them through some tests.
The 10-core Ivy Bridge-EP/EX chip (LGA2011, 2P-capable) features 10 next-generation cores clocked at 2.80 GHz, with 256 KB L2 cache per core, 30 MB shared L3 cache, and HyperThreading technology that enables 20 logical CPUs. This chip crunched WPrime 1024M in 158.5 seconds, and scores 41.78X relative speed in Fritz chess when just 8 of its 20 threads are put to use. You can also find some pretty screen shots of CPU-Z with its long processor selection list and Windows 8 task manager.
Sources: Coolaler, ComputerBase.de
Read More ...
BitFenix Prodigy Pictured with Hardware Installed
Here are the first pictures of BitFenix Prodigy with compatible hardware installed. These pictures show that despite being designed for compact motherboard form-factors such as the mini-ITX, the Prodigy has plenty of room for a long graphics card (even the likes of Radeon HD 6990 will fit), and water-cooling hardware such as a 2x 120 mm radiator, pump, tubing, to support water-cooling of both the CPU and graphics card installed. Regardless, there's still room for large-sized tower-type CPU air cooler and dual-slot graphics card cooler, as the pictures below reveal.
Read More ...
LG BP40NS20 Portable Blu-ray Writer Reaches Europe
LG Electronics has just announced the European arrival of its slim and curvy BP40NS20 optical drive which is capable of writing Blu-ray discs at up to 6x speeds. Seen below, LG's external Blu burner features 3D Blu-ray and BDXL support, an anti-scratch UV coating, a USB 2.0 interface, 4 MB of buffer memory, the Silent Play technology for reducing noise during movie playback, and the Jamless Play function which smoothes out playback of damaged discs.
The BP40NS20 also has LightScribe support and offers writer speeds of up to 6x for BD-R, 2x for BD-RE, 8x for DVD-R/+R/+RW, 6x for DVD-RW, 5x for DVD-RAM,, and 24x for CD-R/CD-RW. The drive can be found on sale at 109 Euro.
Read More ...
Compal's AMD Trinity Reference-Design Notebook Pictured
At the AMD Financial Analyst Day event, Engadget got to take a look at a reference design notebook made by Compal, a high-volume notebook ODM, that's based on AMD's next-generation "Trinity" accelerated processing unit. This reference design is what Compal will send to its downstream OEMs to sample its architecture, features, and performance. The pictures reveal the notebook to be typically-sized, with a thickness of 18 mm, packing a low-voltage variant of the Trinity silicon. It is targeting the $500-600 market, and will be feature-rich, including four "Piledriver" architecture x86-64 cores, Radeon HD 7000M graphics, and the latest-generation connectivity, including USB 3.0, HDMI, and mini-DisplayPort (could this be LightningBolt?).
Source: Engadget
Read More ...
Pioneer Readies New Blu-ray XL Burner Capable of Writing at 6X Speed
Pioneer is working on a new Blu-ray disc writer, the BDR-S07, capable of writing 100 GB Blu-ray XL (BDXL) discs at speeds of up to 6X. The drive burns more conventional BD-R double-layer and single-layer discs at speeds up to 12X. BD-R LtH are written at 6X; single, double, and triple-layer BD-RE discs are written at 2X. The drive is built in the conventional tray-loading 5.25" form-factor, supporting the SATA interface. It comes in three variants that differ only with their bezels: BDR-S07-BK has a piano-black bezel, the BDR-S07-KR has a matte-black bezel, and the BDR-S07-W has a matte-white bezel. These drives will be priced at 25,000 JPY (US $328).
Source: AkihabaraNews
Read More ...
Super Flower Unveils New Value 430W 80Plus Gold PSU
Super Flower launched its new value 430W PSU that's 80Plus Gold-certified, at an introductory price of 369 RMB (US $58.5). Rated at 430W, the PSU features active-PFC, and can handle up to 10% overload while maintaining over 89% efficiency. It is non-modular, and features Japanese-made capacitors and MOSFETs. It is cooled by a 120 mm fan. Its connector loadout is not revealed yet, though with its NVIDIA SLI certification, one can assume it has at least two PCIe power connectors.
Source: Expreview
Read More ...
(PR) TRENDnet Expands North American Channel Partner Program
TRENDnet a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand, today announces the addition of the 'Silver Tier' to TRENDnet's upTREND Partner Program, providing increased benefits and support to North American Channel Partners.
The upTREND Partner Program previously featured a 3-tiered classification system: Valued Partner, Gold Partner, and Platinum Partner; with each successive tier extending additional partner rewards. TRENDnet is pleased to launch a fourth 'Silver Partner' tier, which extends increased benefits to additional partners.
Read More ...
Ubisoft Server Maintenance To Render Always-Online DRM Games Unplayable
Next week, Ubisoft will be performing large-scale server maintenance, which could see its DRM-handling go offline. It would directly impact some games that are designed to work with Ubisoft's infamous "Always-Online" DRM, which requires gamers to be connected to the internet when playing games enabled with it. Tom Clancy's HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7 will be unplayable during the course of maintenance. Bigger titles such as Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Driver: San Francisco, however, will stay online for the duration of the switch-over. Ubisoft is loathed for its hyper-strict DRM that requires you to ping their DRM servers every few moments to reassure them you're not a pirate. It is even known to limit activations to your graphics card. This is yet another example where DRM only ends up hurting legitimate users more than piracy.
Source: PC Gamer
Read More ...
AMD Outlines Its 2012-2013 Client Roadmap, Big Focus is on APUs
Today at its annual Financial Analyst Day, AMD has presented an updated roadmap detailing the hardware it plans to bring to the table during 2012 and 2013. For this year, the Sunnyvale-based company is preparing a processor quarter which includes the Trinity, Brazos 2.0 and Hondo APUs (accelerated processing units) and the Vishera CPU.
Set to be the main weapon in AMD's x86 arsenal, the Trinity APU (aka the 2nd gen A Series) is made on 32 nm process technology, and features DirectX 11 graphics, two/four Piledriver cores (Piledrive is said to deliver 25% better performance than the Stars cores found in Llano APUs), and a TDP that can go as low as 17 W on mobile parts. Trinity is expected to debut in Q2 and already has close to 100 design wins (more than Llano had before its release).
Read More ...
(PR) MSI Officially Intros the Wind U180 Netbook
The Wind U180, meticulously crafted by MSI for 2012, marks a new zenith in computer technology, offering both performance and an esthetically pleasing looks. It comes in minimalist black, angel white or lavender, is less than one-inch thin, tips the scales at just 1 kg, and is sheathed in MSI's own attractive IMR color film print to prevent scratches and smudges. Let this highly mobile piece of computer technology add color to your life.
Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, points out that the MSI Wind U180, a new generation netbook characterized by painstaking attention to craftsmanship and innovation, not only packs significantly more power, it is the ideal solution to meet today's mobile multimedia needs. Its display is some three times more powerful than that of the previous generation, enabling the high resolution LED screen to show much more detail and color. What's more, the HDMI slot allows you to connect the U180 netbook to a large HDTV to maximize multimedia entertainment.
Read More ...
ViewSonic Launches the VX2336s-LED IPS Monitor
ViewSonic has today released the VX2336s-LED, a 23-inch monitor which features LED backlighting and utilizes the SuperClear IPS technology enabling 'brilliant image quality' and viewing angles of up to 178/178 degrees (vertical/horizontal).
This new display also has a curved frame with piano-black mirrored surface, a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 (20,000,000:1 DCR), a 14 ms response time, 250 cd/m2 typical brightness, D-Sub and DVI connectors, and the Eco-mode function for lower power consumption.
The VX2336s-LED is backed by a three-year warranty and costs £159 / $299.99.
Read More ...
(PR) Apricorn Introduces the Aegis Padlock DT Secure Drives
Apricorn (www.apricorn.com), a leading designer and manufacturer of data security products for business, has expanded their award winning Aegis Secure Drives to the desktop environment with the announcement of a new, powerful desktop edition, the Aegis Padlock DT.
Sporting a spacious capacity of up to 3 TB with a Super Speed USB 3.0 interface, the Aegis Padlock DT not only provides immense storage and lightning fast access speeds, but also protects its data with seamless AES-XTS hardware encryption and secure PIN access. With its software free design, simple setup and starting price of $229, the Aegis Padlock DT provides a complete data storage solution that is affordable, secure and effortless to deploy in a demanding office environment.
Read More ...
PowerColor Previews its LCS HD7970 Graphics Card
More Tahiti goodness is coming up as PowerColor has confirmed with a nice clear photo that it's working on a watercooled Radeon HD 7970 card. Dubbed LCS (Liquid Cooling System) HD7970, the card comes equipped with a (single-slot) waterblock from Slovenia's own EK team.
PowerColor's watercooled card also features 2048 Stream Processors, a 384-bit memory interface, 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, DVI, HDMI and dual mini DisplayPort outputs, plus DirectX 11.1 capabilities, CrossFireX support, and a PCI-Express 3.0 interface. No word on the card's clocks (yet) but they should be higher than on stock models. Expect more info later this month.
Read More ...
(PR) Gamers and Publishers Worldwide Log On to Origin
With more than 9.3 million registered users and partnerships now with 21 different publishers, Origin, the direct-to-consumer gaming platform from Electronic Arts (EA) Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) has quickly become one of the industry’s leading online game services in just over two quarters since launch.
Origin announced today that seven more publishers have agreed to offer their games for purchase and download. Led by Remedy Entertainment who will bring Alan Wake to Origin, additional publishers include Focus Home Interactive, Iceberg Interactive, Strategy First, Macro Games, Selectsoft and Legendo Entertainment. These publishers join 14 previously announced Origin partners, including Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, THQ, Capcom, Trion Worlds and Robot Entertainment.
Read More ...
Orico Intros X-Gear Modular Storage System
Chinese storage and peripherals major Orico unveiled the X-Gear modular storage system, which consists of three products: the XG-2501p, which is a 2.5-inch SATA HDD/SSD enclosure; the XG-3502i, which is a slot-in docking-station for the XG-2501p that fits into an exposed 3.5-inch drive bay; and the XG-2516s, which is a combo-package of these two products (an enclosure of your choice, and the slot-in dock).
The XG-2501p enclosure sports a brushed-aluminum exterior, and is available in a variety of colors. The XG-3502i has a slot-in tray for the enclosure, with a mechanical eject button for any inserted XG-2501p, and an activity indicator. The XG-2501p is priced at 28 RMB (US $5), the XG-3502i at 49 RMB ($7.8), and XG-2516s at 69 RMB ($11).
Source: Expreview
Read More ...
Lite-On Expects Huge Growth in SSD Sales, in 2012
Optical disc drive major Lite-On opined that its SSD sales will see huge growth in 2012. The company is not new to SSDs, as it entered the SSD business about three years ago, yet it is not a major player. In 2011, the SSD business generated about NT$1 billion (US $33.9 million) in revenues for the company, which the company expects will jump 600~700% (NT$6-7 billion) in 2012. Tablets and Ultrabooks, according to Lite-On, will be the prime-movers of this growth.
Source: DigiTimes
Read More ...
(PR) Intel Promotes Two Executives to Senior Vice President
Intel Corporation today announced that its board of directors has promoted Mooly Eden and Richard Taylor to the position of senior vice president. The promotions recognize outstanding performance.
Eden, 60, is senior vice president and was recently named president and general manager of Intel Israel. In this role, Eden is responsible for Intel Israel's operations and strategy, including the Israel Development Centers and Intel's Fab 28 manufacturing facility. In his 30 years at Intel, Eden has held many management and technical positions in microprocessor design, including the Intel Pentium processor with MMX technology. He also was responsible for the development of Intel's mobile PC microprocessors and chipsets, including Intel Centrino Processor Technology, which included a low-power processor and bundle of chips that offered WiFi. This product helped make WiFi a standard, integrated feature on laptops worldwide and is considered a key driver of the mobile revolution. Eden most recently led the PC Client Group, Intel's largest product group.
Read More ...
(PR) RunCore Announces the 2.5-inch SATA 3 Pro-V MAX Solid State Drive
RunCore, a leading manufacturer of high-performance and rugged solid state drives (SSDs) today announced the availability of its latest SATA 3 SSD.
"The new 2.5" SATA3, 6Gbs, drive is the nice addition to our existing portfolio of SSD products. The Pro-V MAX is based on the SF-2281 controller with the optimized firmware (the Golden FW). With Read and Write transfer rate at 560 MB/s and 520 MB/s, respectively, and the burst IOPS at 87K while sustained IOPS over 60K, has a super score of over 770 in AS SSD Benchmark, the drive is designed to deliver exceptional performance over the life of it with no performance degradation over time. The Pro-V MAX is ideal for use in gaming machines, HPC & datacenter servers," said Amy Wang, VP of Strategies and Business Product Development of RunCore.
Read More ...
Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter Starts Shipping
Seagate started shipping its GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter accessory. The gadget lets you connect a SATA drive (HDD or SSD) to a host machine over 10 Gbps Thunderbolt interface, completely eliminating any bottleneck (USB 3.0 bottlenecks SATA 6 Gb/s). It works by simply sliding and locking in a SATA device to its industry-standard SATA power+data interface, and plugging the adapter to the host using a Thunderbolt cable. The Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter is priced at US $99.99.
Read More ...
Production-Grade MSI Z77A-GD65 Motherboard Pictured
At CES, we got to check out MSI's Z77A-GD65 motherboard in its baby-suit, with just basic heatsinks, as the production ones were getting finalized. At the IT Partners show, we got to see the production model of this board, complete with its final VRM and PCH heatsink design.
The Z77A-GD65 uses a 9-phase VRM to power the CPU. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC or x8/x8, depending on the second slot being populated), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4, wired to the PCH), and four PCIe x1. Storage connectivity include four SATA 6 Gb/s (two from the PCH, two from a third-party controller), and four SATA 3 Gb/s ports. Display connectivity includes D-Sub, DVI, and HDMI. Other features include a number of USB 3.0, USB 2.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, and features for overclockers such as consolidated voltage measurement points, redundant UEFI BIOS, and OC Genie. It is slated for April.
Read More ...
PNY Shows Off the Optima Pro Solid State Drives
Fresh news from the IT Partners event in France, PNY is preparing the release of a couple of new, speedy solid state drives, the enterprise-grade Optima Pro models which make use of SandForce's SF-2582 controller. These 2.5-inch drives also have a metal casing, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips, and a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface.
The Optima Pro SSDs come in 120 GB and 240 GB capacities and should deliver sequential read/write speeds of over 500 MB/s. Unfortunately their prices are not yet known.
Read More ...
Targus Intros USB 3.0 Dual-Display Adapter
Peripherals major Targus introduced the ACA039US, a USB display adapter that takes advantage of the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface, and provides two display outputs, supporting two displays. Based on DisplayLink DL-3900 chipset, the ACA039US relies on USB 3.0 for both host connectivity and power. It gives out two display outputs: DVI-I (single link) and HDMI 1.3. Each connector supports display heads at resolutions up to 2048 x 1152 pixels, even though the DL-3900 chipset supports 2560 x 1600 (over dual-link DVI). The HDMI 1.3 connection gives out 5.1-channel audio, and is HDCP 2.0-compliant. The ACA039US from Targus will be released to market soon, at a price of US $99.99, a single-port variant is also planned, at US$79.99. Let's hope it has dual-link DVI.
Source: VR-Zone
Read More ...
Titan Sibera TTC-NC55TZ(RB) CPU Cooler Pictured
Titan Technology unveiled its latest Siberia CPU Cooler, the TTC-NC55TZ(RB). The cooler has an asymmetric aluminum fin tower design, which cools other hot components on the motherboard along with the CPU. The design consists of a nickel-plated copper base, from which five copper heat pipes pass. One end of these heat pipes pass through an aluminum fin stack that propagates along the plane of the motherboard, while the other passes though a stack that propagates perpendicular to this plane.
The stack that's along the plane of the motherboard is the larger of the two, and is ventilated by a 140 mm fan. The perpendicular stack is ventilated by a smaller 120 mm fan. The 140 mm fan spins at 700 ~ 1,800 RPM, pushing 34.78 ~ 89.43 CFM of air, with a noise output of 8.3 ~ 28.8 dBA. The 120 mm fan, on the other hand, spins at 800 ~ 2,200 RPM; pushing 24.23 ~ 66.2 CFM, with 15.0 ~ 35.0 dBA noise output. Both fans have 4-pin plugs and support PWM control. The heatsink itself measures 200 x 130 x 162 mm (WxDxH), weighing 755 g. All current sockets, including LGA2011, LGA1366, LGA1155/LGA1156, AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2, and FM1 are supported. It is priced at 6,980 JPY (US $91.6).
Source: Hermitage Akihabara
Read More ...
Zalman Launches the Z11 and Z11 Plus Mid-Tower Cases
South Korean company Zalman has now introduced two new 'high performance' PC cases, the Z11 and Z11 Plus mid-towers. These models measure 260 (W) x 498 (H) x 525 (D) mm, they weight 7.3 kg, and have a steel structure, a black paint job, and support for ATX and micro ATX motherboards, as well as for graphics cards up to 290 mm long.
Zalman's cases feature four exposed 5.25-inch bays, one 2.5-inch bay, five 3.5-inch drive trays with tool-free mounting, an acrylic side window, an anti-vibration rubber stand for the PSU, two pre-drilled holes for watercooling tubes, and four fans - one 120 mm spinner with blue LEDs in front, another one on top, a LED-less 120 mm model at the back, and two 80 mm fans on the side.
The Zalman Z11 includes an I/O panel with four USB 2.0 ports and has a recommended price tag of 69.90 Euro, while the Z11 Plus offers two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports, and costs 79.90 Euro. Both are expected to become available in about two weeks.
Read More ...
AMD A8-3870K Cracks 6 GHz with All Cores Enabled
Overclocker "Christian Ney" of the HWBOT community claims to have cracked the 6 GHz clock speed mark with an AMD A8-3870K APU, with all four of its cores enabled. The feat consisted of a clock speed of 6067.7 MHz achieved using a base clock of 258.2 MHz and multiplier of 47.0x. The memory was clocked at 3505 MHz, just 95 MHz short of a world-record. The chip was put through a scorching core voltage of 2V. Supporting components included GIGABYTE A75-UD4H motherboard, and GeIL EVO Corsa DDR3 memory. The setup was cooled sub-zero. CPU-Z Validator rejected this submission, probably because like us, it finds 2V vCore and 258.2 MHz base clock unreal for Llano, since it uses a common 100 MHz clock domain for BClk and PCIe.
Source: MyDrivers.com
Read More ...
Facebook Files $5 Billion IPO, Values it at Nearly $100 Billion
Facebook Inc., has finally filed to go public with its IPO, with plans to raise US $5 billion, according to a figure used to calculate the registration fee. The company seeks to trade under the ticker symbol "FB", although it did not list an exchange. It is speculated by those close to the company that Facebook is aiming at a far greater offering that will value to the company close to $100 billion. Facebook also provided some interesting stats about its operations in its filing. The EDGAR filing documents can be accessed here.
Source: Engadget
Read More ...
Available Tags:Firefox , DDR3 , CEO , Dell , AMD , GPU , Gigabyte , ASUS , USB , Radeon , Acer , Ivy Bridge , Hardware , LG , Blu-ray , Notebook , Ubisoft , Server , MSI , Netbook , ViewSonic , Gamers , SSD , Intel , SATA 3 , SATA , Seagate , Thunderbolt , MSI , USB 3.0 , CPU Cooler , CPU , Zalman , Facebook ,
No comments:
Post a Comment