IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 25/08/2012

GIGABYTE breaks Core i7 3770K OC World Record at 7102MHz with upcoming Z77X-UP7
Earlier on today we were invited to the GIGABYTE headquarters here in Taipei where we were told we would see the Taiwanese motherboard maker and its in-house professional overclocker HiCookie try to set a new world record for the Intel Core i7 3770K processor.

Overclocking was done on the upcoming GA-Z77X-UP7 motherboard that is due to be released this coming Monday - GIGABYTE at the time of writing were not prepared to comment on pricing as it is yet to be 100% confirmed. However, you can expect the price to be fairly high as this is a board designed for overclockers and it has plenty of top notch features to help overclockers around the world set new performance records. In the video above I mentioned that the Z77X-UP7 is much like a Formula One car in its design theory. Every little tweak has been included and high-end components such as 32 CPU phases are included to help set said new records.

gigabyte_breaks_core_i7_3770k_oc_world_record_at_7102mhz_with_upcoming_z77x_up7

Besides the massive amount of power phases and its all-digital power system, GIGABYTE has included some new handy switches this time around. There are two switches at the southern end of the motherboard. One is to control which BIOS is used (master or backup) since this board like all other GIGABYTE boards support Dual BIOS. The second switch disables the Dual BIOS function as sometimes overclockers get into a kind of loop issue that has the motherboard looping between both BIOSes to figure out which one to use.

The other new switch is at the northern end of the board and it's the LN2 switch. When activated, this switch will keep the CPU clocked back to allow for overclockers to take a screenshot or validate an OC result. I guess depending on which way you look at it, deactivated or activated, when the overclocker is ready to validate his or her result, the switch is changed to set the maximum OC that the overclocker has achieved.

Another feature is the black PCI Express x16 slot. It's the only black slot on the board and it's designed for overclockers running single video card tests. This black slot is routed directly through PCIe to the CPU, hence reducing bandwidth. Since the Z77 chipset only has so many PCIe lanes, a PLX bridge is added to support up to four way SLI and CrossFireX. The issue for those who are only focused on single video card testing is that they noticed additional latency when routing through the PLX bridge on previous GIGABYTE boards, hence why GIGABYTE this time around added the special black PCIe slot for those concerned with that issue.

The Z77X-UP7 also features many of the other goodies you'd expect from GIGABYTE including OC Touch, onboard voltage measurement, debug display and of course Ultra Durable 5 technology. The big one not mentioned so far is that this board features a 10 layer PCB and at least according to GIGABYTE, that is the most of any Z77 motherboard currently on the market.

Getting back to the reason you probably visited this post, the OC world record. HiCookie was able to clock in a speed of 7102MHz (1 core / 1 thread) with his Intel Core i7 3770K processor at 1.968 volts and -188 degrees Celsius. At the time of writing this is a world record! You'll see in the video above that at this insane speed, the board was only stable for enough time to take a CPU-Z validation file (around half a second), but this is normal. I've seen overclockers hold CPU speeds longer than this, but not at this extreme speed. We're told at this level it's normal to only have enough time to grab a validation before the system reboots or freezes up, but it's long enough to set a new record.

FMS 2012: SMART Storage Demonstrates The Optimus SSD With 1.6TB
FMS 2012 - SMART Storage has been making waves lately in the enterprise SSD space with an entire line of drives for every type of application.

The focus at the Flash Memory Summit was on the Optimus SSD, which sports a dual SAS connection. This allows this SSD to pull off 1GB/s in sequential read speed and 500 MB/s in write speed.

A closer look reveals that the SSD has two SATA connectors connecting into the device, which allows the high power of the SSD to be unleashed. This also allows for several types of enterprise features, such as failover and multipath data access.

In another demonstration the SSD is pulling off 102,000 4k random read IOPS from a single device.

The specifications reveal that the Optimus packs 1.6TB in a 2.5in form factor SSD. This is currently the highest capacity SSD of its size on the market. This allows for large increases in capacity and

performance in very small packages.

Taking a look at the internals of the 1.6TB SSD we can see the proprietary SMART storage controller, and the fact that there are dual PCBs that sandwich together to allow for such high capacity points.

Finally we take a look at the rear of the dual PCBs, and we can see the rows of yellow capacitors along the left side that will keep the device powered up long enough in the event of power failure to flush all writes to NAND, ensuring data integrity.

We have already been testing one of these high powered SSDs for several weeks, so look to the review section for a product evaluation soon.

FMS 2012: Marvell Unveils New DragonFly NVRAM Solution
FMS 2012 - Marvell has revealed their new DragonFly NVRAM solution for servers at the Flash Memory Summit.

As we can see this card comes in a small package and sports a PCIe Gen2x8 connection to the host.

Getting down under the cover we can see some of the components that allow the DragonFly to reach its impressive specifications of 200K+ IOPS, 3.2GBps and .22us latency. The DragonFly connects to SSDs via a typical SFF connector, and acts as a front end for the attached storage. The data is cached to the DRAM chip that is located towards the top right of the card. The battery near the bottom is used to write the data cached into ram to the NAND, on the rear of the card, in the event of power failure.

The DRAM chips and the Marvell that controls them are located to the upper left of the card. This is where the data is flushed to in the event of power loss. The device caches both read and write data, and utilizes de-duplication and write coalescence to mitigate performance degradation and endurance of the underlying array that will be connected.

Here we can see the result of the acceleration. The window on the right of the right hand screen shows the performance before and after the DragonFly solution is implemented. The orange line indicates the performance gains over the grey line, which is before the solution is enabled. The right hand results illustrate the TPM (Transactions Per Minute) being accelerated from 10,560 up to

an amazing 41,4880 with the solution enabled.

This type of acceleration solution is aimed at Database, Virtualization, Big Data, and Cloud Computing environments. Several industry players need to take notice of this solution, as it is going to provide some direct competition to a few players in the market, such as Fusion-IO. With this particular solutions off-loaded architecture there are considerable advantages to other solutions. With other enterprise features such as Active-Active High Availability and write coalescence to preserve the underlying endurance of the attached storage, this device is sure to make serious waves in this segment. We can't wait to get working silicon in our hands and run it through our enterprise test bench, so stay tuned for a much more intensive deep dive into this exciting new technology!

Tablet shipments expected to pass 100 million this year, iPad leads the pack
According to analyst firm ABI Research, tablet shipments are expected to exceed 100 million units for this year, with this number led by the most popular of all, Apple's iPad. The quarter from April to June is said to have set a new record, seeing 25 million units shipped, with 36% growth from the first quarter, and a 77% jump from the same quarter of 2011.

Apple dominates these shipments, where their iPad makes up 69% of tablet sales in Q2, with other competitors seeing just modest gains. Samsung's tablets have reportedly grown by 8.1%, but ASUS only saw a 4% increase. ABI analyst, Jeff Orr says:

Most impressive about Apple's 17.0 million tablet shipments in 2Q'2012 was it nearly matched 2010 total worldwide shipments of 17.3 million for all vendors.

South Korean court rules that Samsung didn't violate the iPhone design
Apple and Samsung may be at each others throats in the US courts, but in South Korea, a court has ruled that Samsung didn't violate on Apple's iPhone design. A judge at the Seoul Central District Court said:

There are lots of external design similarities between the iPhone and Galaxy S, such as rounded corners and large screens ... but these similarities had been documented in previous products. Given that it's very limited to make big design changes in touch-screen based mobile products in general ... and the defendant (Samsung) differentiated its products with three buttons in the front and adopted different designs in camera and (on the) side, the two products have a different look.

The judge also cited that it is difficult to say that consumers would confuse the iPhone with the Galaxy, considering they both sport completely different logos on the back of each model. Consumers also factor in operating systems, brand, applications, price and services when buying a smartphone.

The court also ruled that Apple infringed on two of Samsung's wireless technology patents, and the Cupertino-based company were required to whip out their credit card and pay a $35,400 fine. Samsung was fined slightly less for violating one patent in relation to a so-called bouncing-back function that is used when scrolling electronic documents. The judge ordered Samsung to immediately halt the sale of 10 products, including the Galaxy S II, and they also banned four of Apple's products, including the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

SanDisk Extreme 240GB Fixed TRIM Solid State Drive Review

Introduction

If I could sum up all of 2012 in one word I would say: TRIM. For the last six months we fought a TRIM issue on LSI SandForce based drives and from this point going forward TRIM is going to play an even more significant role for enthusiasts. The SanDisk Extreme was the first drive we found the TRIM condition with, but that story that has played over and over again. It's time to move on and with working firmware in house, getting past broken TRIM is much easier.

This week we started writing the next chapter in the 2012 TRIM saga. Under my direction, Jon from RWLabs.com wrote the world's first working TRIM in RAID 0 article. While Jon was proving RAID 0 TRIM works with a complicated mix of RAID Option ROMS and drivers, I was putting PCIe 3.0 RAID to the test and breaking the highest possible score in ATTO. How long before we get RAID TRIM from Areca, LSI or PMC Sierra in advanced RAID array like 5 and 6? I don't know, but that'll be quite an exciting chapter to write. You can bet that any company remotely serious about RAID is taking a very close look at what modifications Intel made to accomplish this significant step forward with RAID 0 TRIM.

Before you can RAID 0 TRIM you first need an SSD with TRIM to start with and that is why we are here today. We've already looked at the SanDisk Extreme 240GB in our first article and then again in the 24nm Toggle Mode Flash Faceoff between the Extreme and the Plextor M3 Pro. Sadly I have to admit my arrow landed off the mark in both of those articles, but we have our facts straight now - sorry about that. I'm not perfect, but I'm here to set the record straight, you don't find that on the web much these days.

Today we're re-testing the SanDisk Extreme 240GB SSD with the new 5.0.3 firmware that fixes TRIM and keeps the drive running at extreme speeds. Like many Team SandForce manufacturers, SanDisk is not releasing 5.0.3 to the general public. A very small issue was found in 5.0.3, but 5.0.4 will fix the issue and we have confirmation that 5.0.4 will be ready for your flashing pleasure in less than a month.

Both firmware revisions deliver the same performance so there is no reason to wait. Let's get this party started.
... Read the rest in your browser!

Strontium Technology Announces Hawk SSD Series
Strontium Technology has announced a new series of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) named HAWK. These Hynix-built solid state drives with Strontium branding are based on SandForce's SF2281 controller and SK Hynix Flash. These drives are said to be a good upgrade option featuring 500MB/s of read and write performance and also claim to offer faster performance for PCs and Macs. Needless to say, SSDs feature enhanced durability, shock-proof, silent operation and are more reliable as compared to traditional hard drives.

The 2.5-inch HAWK drive is available in 120GB and 240GB storage capacities. The sequential (256KB, MAX) read speed is 510 MB/s and write speed is 470 MB/s. The random (4KB, MAX) performance is 50,000 IOPS read and 38,000 IOPS write. It comes with support for SATA I/ II/ III interface, TRIM Support (O/S support required) and has a Mean Time between Failures (MBTF) of 1.2M. Strontium HAWK SSD has been designed to offer quicker boot up and shorter lead time in the loading of applications to enhance productivity.

Strontium HAWK SSD simply makes the computer more responsive than ever. With quicker boot up and shorter lead time in applications loading, it will definitely enhance your daily productivity and ensure your system takes flight to the next level.

Backed by a three-year warranty, the HAWK SSD will be available through Strontium's authorized distributors and channel partners. The 120GB and 240GB SSDs are also available through Strontium's website.

FEATURES

2.5" Drive
SandForce SF-2281
MLC NAND Flash for Fast Performance
Available Capacities: 120GB and 240GB
Sequential Performance (256KB, MAX): Read: 510 MB/s, Write: 470 MB/s
Random Performance (4KB, MAX): Read: 50,000 IOPS, Write: 38,000 IOPS
Supports SATA I/ II/ III Interface
TRIM Support (O/S Support Required)
Power Consumption: 0.82W (Active), 0.26W (Idle)
Mean Time between Failures (MBTF): 1.2M
3 years hassle-free Strontium Limited Warranty

OCZ Unveils ZS Series Power Supplies
OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs), memory modules, and power supplies for computing devices and systems, announces the availability of OCZ new ZS line series of power supplies in 550-watt, 650-watt and 750-watt models that offers consumers superior value for home desktops and gaming systems. It provides the high efficiency, cool operation, and a compact case design, the ZS Series offers an excellent price point for system builders looking for a quality upgrade in a variety of power options.

The ZS Series is ideal for system builders and gamers, and is capable of powering dual-GPU platforms equipped for NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX modes. The PSU is kept cool under heavy usage with a large temperature and load-controlled 135 mm double ball-bearing fan, and this high-efficiency PSU also meets strict 80-Plus Bronze energy saving requirements by converting up to a full 85% of AC to DC power at typical loads.

OCZ says the ZS Series complies with ErP (Energy Related product) Directive to ensure less than 1W of power is used in passive standby and off modes.

Features:

550W, 650W, and 750W Configurations

Single +12V Rail

Continuous output rated at 40°C

150 x 160 x 86mm (W x L x H)

ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V

Non-Modular

80 Plus Bronze Certified

High Efficiency: 85% at typical load

Overvoltage/Overcurrent/Short-Circuit protection

Active PFC

MTBF: 100,000 hours

135 mm temperature and load controlled double ball-bearing fan

3 year warranty backed by OCZ's exclusive

PowerSwap Warranty replacement program.

The OCZ ZS Power Supply will be available in 550W, 650W and 750W models. For more information, visit the product page.

Logitech Unveils Washable, Ultra-Durable Keyboard
Today Logitech unveiled the latest in its line of PC keyboards, the Logitech Washable Keyboard K310. From a light dusting to a rinse in the kitchen sink, this keyboard is easy to clean and easy to dry. It's also designed for a comfortable typing experience with a familiar layout and sleek, thin profile.

The Logitech Washable Keyboard K310 can be hand washed time and time again, and can be submerged (with the exception of the USB cable) in up to 11 inches of water. Convenient drainage holes at the back of the keyboard allow for easy drying while key characters are laser printed and UV coated to help ensure the letters don't fade in the wash. Plus, the keys can last up to five million keystrokes, meaning this keyboard can take a washing, as well as a pounding.

"We've all experienced that moment of distraction - followed by panic, when a cup of coffee or a soda spills all over your keyboard," says Sophie Le Guen, senior director of mice and keyboards at Logitech. "Because life and its messes will happen, regardless of how careful you are, Logitech designed the Logitech Washable Keyboard K310 to look and function like new, even over time."

Durable, yet still comfortable, this full-size keyboard's contemporary design complements both your computer and your work space. It comes complete with F-keys and a number pad, and is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. With twelve hot keys for instant access to Internet, e-mail, play, volume and more, you can readily open your most-used applications with a single keystroke. To make life even easier, this keyboard requires no software for setup, simply pull the device straight out of the box, plug it in and type away.

Pricing and Availability

The Logitech Washable Keyboard K310 is expected to be available in the U.S. beginning in August and Europe beginning in October 2012, for a suggested retail price of $39.99.

PNY Launches New Line-Up of Solid State Drives
PNY Technologies, Inc. today introduced their new line-up of high-performance Solid State Drives (SSDs) for enterprise to consumer storage solutions, while at the Flash Memory Summit 2012 in Santa Clara, CA, booth #827. The PNY Prevail Series includes Prevail Elite and Prevail Solid State Drives -- designed for workstation use; while the XLR8 Series includes XLR8 Pro and XLR8 Solid State Drives -- designed for consumer use.

Featuring a comprehensive line-up of innovative products, PNY's Solid State Drives support a wide host of customers, applications, and industries. With essential benefits, such as high reliability, accelerated performance, lower power operations, extreme ruggedness, and overall efficiency -- all of these latest SSDs are backed by the PNY Endurance Promise. With endurance ratings of either 10K or 3K Program/Erase cycles, PNY's SSDs provide a wide gamut of use cases for customers' needs.

All of PNY's SSDs are also designed and manufactured in the USA at a brand-new state of the art manufacturing facility featuring the latest in SMT capability. PNY performs rigorous testing on every Solid State Drive -- for the utmost in quality and reliability.

PNY SSDs are powered by the SandForce SF-2200 series flash storage processors, which not only deliver the best performance for SSDs, but also support DuraClass advanced NAND flash management technology. These features keep the drive at top performance levels including optimized program cycles to effectively extend flash-rated endurance.

"PNY's new Solid State Drives have emerged to support the new storage demand for NAND flash-based memory," said Mark Honeck, director of product marketing at PNY. "As the SSD market is growing exponentially, PNY is here to help our customers take advantage of the explosive growth within this market. With cost to performance ratio, we're making it easier than ever for customers to adopt SSD usage."

Prevail Series: Prevail Elite and Prevail SSDs
The PNY Prevail Series offers enterprise class performance and endurance with low power operation and a flash endurance rating of up to 10K Program/Erase cycles, making it an ideal drive for the highest performing applications and uses -- from office storage upgrades and boot drives to workstation, server, and networking deployments.

The Prevail Series is storage designed for lower latency, faster boot up and application launching -- to run systems at lightning speed. Designed to offer incredible performance to satisfy the most demanding power user, featuring high endurance flash for running multiple applications and operating systems faster, these drives feature a 2.5" SATA III, 6 Gbps interface, support 128-bit AES encryption and Secure Erase.

Powered by the SandForce 2200 family of controllers, the Prevail Series of Solid State Drives offer up to 550 MB/s sequential read, 520 MB/s sequential write speeds, 85,000 random read/write IOPS, and capacities of 480 GB, 240 GB, and 120 GB. Prevail Series SSDs also come with a 5-Year Warranty, limited 3-year plus an additional 2-years with online product registration.

XLR8 Series: XLR8 Pro and XLR8 SSDs
The PNY XLR8 Series SSDs offer long lasting high performance storage designed for gaming, photo/video applications and faster system performance. These mid and entry-level Solid State Drives offer the best cost to performance ratio to consumers.

The XLR8 Series drives feature a 2.5" SATA III, 6 Gbps interface, and support 128-bit AES encryption and specifications that enable launch of multiple operating systems and programs in seconds while preserving data longer with Compute grade NAND flash.

Powered by SandForce 2200 controllers, the XLR8 Series of SSDs offer up to 550 MB/s sequential read speeds, 520 MB/s sequential write speeds, 85,000 random read/write IOPS, and capacities of 480 GB, 240 GB, and 120 GB. XLR8 Pro SSDs come with a 5-Year Warranty, limited 3-year plus an additional 2-years with online product registration; while the XLR8 SSDs come with a 3-Year Warranty. Additionally, consumers who purchase an XLR8 120 GB SSD will also receive a bonus PNY 32 GB Compact Attache USB Flash Drive.

An interactive demonstration can be seen at the Flash Memory Summit 2012 -- the forum for the best in the technology industry today. PNY will be presenting technologically innovative solutions within the SSD realm, along with partner JMR and Blackmagic Design.

The PNY Prevail Elite, Prevail, XLR8 Pro, and XLR8 Solid State Drives are available for purchase at select e-tailers, retailers, PNY.com, and through authorized PNY distribution partners. For more information on the complete line of products that PNY has to offer, visit http://www.PNY.com.

Super Talent's RC8 Controller is certified for Windows To Go
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its USB 3.0 Express RC8 has been certified as a go to market partner with Microsoft for usage with Windows To Go, a new feature of Microsoft's Windows 8 Enterprise edition. Windows To Go enables enterprises to provision a full corporate image on an external USB drive which users can boot and operate from almost any PC.

Certified through the Windows 8 Hardware certification kit, Super Talent's RC8 is one of the world's top USB 3.0 drives with SSD technology; it provides high random read/write speed capabilities and reports itself as fixed media. Supertalent RC8 meets and surpasses many of the performance requirements of Windows To Go certified drives.

"We are pleased to announce Supertalent as one of our go-to-market partners for Windows To Go. We are committed to providing our customers with a rich, consistent, and personalized Windows 8 experience even when they run Windows 8 from a USB drive. Super Talent will offer drives specifically optimized for Windows To Go to help us fulfill this vision" - Karri Alexion-Tiernan; Director of Product Marketing, Windows Enterprise, Microsoft.

The integration of SSD technology enables the RC8 to deliver exceptional real world performance with outstanding reliability. Using the SandForce SSD firmware, the RC8 is over-provisioned at an enterprise level of 27 percent. This change significantly elevates the drive's performance and increases our product's longevity and reliability.

"We are proud to announce the certification of our USB 3.0 Express RC8 with Windows To Go. Microsoft Corp. is a valued partner of SuperTalent Technology. Our R&D team has been devoted to a successful launch for both partners." - Abraham Ma, CEO, Super Talent Technology.

The RC8 includes eight channels of NAND flash and a full SSD controller, but it is the enterprise level provisioning that allows for incredible 4K random sequential read/write scores-making the RC8 ideal for loading applications. With STT's drive it is just as quick and easy to run a program on the RC8 as it would be to run it on your own SSD.

For more information please visit our website http://www.supertalent.com/WTG/ to learn more about Windows To Go and The RC8, or email us (at) WTG.sales@supertalent.com . SuperTalent has been working closely with Microsoft to groom the USB 3.0 Express RC8 explicitly to the needs of Windows To Go, and is dedicated to making sure it meets the needs of Microsoft & Windows 8.

Available Tags:GIGABYTE , i7 , SSD , Tablet , iPad , Samsung , iPhone , OCZ , Logitech , Keyboard , Windows ,

Saturday, August 25, 2012

IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 25/08/2012

Introduction

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