Intel SSD 335 Series Expanded with New 180 GB Model
Intel made an addition to its SSD 335 line of performance-segment consumer SSDs, which is currently available in just one capacity, 240 GB. The new 180 GB variant (SKU: SSDSC2CT180A4K5) retains the feature-set and rated speeds of its older sibling, boasting of up to 500 MB/s reads, up to 450 MB/s writes, and up to 52,000 IOPS 4K random write throughput. Based on the LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor, the drive features 20 nm MLC NAND flash chips by IMFlash Technologies (Intel, Micron JV).
In addition, Intel updated the drive body design, which will also apply to newer batches of the 240 GB variant. The new design consists of a brace running the perimeter of the drive (without affecting its 2.5-inch 9 mm-thick size compliance), and a "circuit board" print art. Backed by a 3-year warranty, the Intel SSD 335 180 GB is priced at US $179.99.
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Intel "Haswell" Quad-Core CPU Benchmarked, Compared Clock-for-Clock with "Ivy Bridge" Russian tech publication OCLab.ru, which claims access to Intel's next-generation Core "Haswell" processor engineering-sample (and an LGA1150 8-series motherboard!), wasted no time in running a quick clock-for-clock performance comparison with the current Core "Ivy Bridge" processor. In its comparison, it set both chips to run at a fixed 2.80 GHz clock speed (by disabling Turbo Boost, C1E, and EIST), indicating that the ES OCLab is in possession of doesn't go beyond that frequency. The two chips were put through SuperPi 1M, PiFast, and wPrime 32M. The Core "Haswell" chip is only marginally faster than Ivy Bridge, in fact slower in one test. In its next battery of tests, the reviewer stepped up iterations (load), putting the chips through single-threaded SuperPi 32M, and multi-threaded wPrime 1024M. While wPrime performance is nearly identical between the two chips, Haswell crunched SuperPi 32M about 3 percent quicker than Ivy Bridge. It's still to early to take a call on CPU performance percentage difference between the two architectures. Intel's Core "Haswell" processors launch in the first week of June.
Source: OCLab.ru via X-bit Labs
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(PR) OCZ Technology Provides Further Update on its Business OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced additional estimated financial information in an effort to further communicate with key constituents of the Company. The following preliminary estimates are subject to further review by the Company and its auditors. The Company estimates that its quarterly revenue will range between $65 million to $85 million in each quarter for the second and third fiscal quarters of 2013. This range takes into effect the impacts of the reclassification of certain customer costs from operating expenses to revenue, the significant reduction of channel inventory, the timing of revenue recognition, and the levels of reserves for product returns. Read More ...
(PR) VESA Introduces Updated Dual-Mode Standard, Enabling Creation of DisplayPort-to-HDMI The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the latest release of the DisplayPort Dual-Mode Standard. This release supports the next generation of Dual-Mode DisplayPort enabled personal computers and Dual-Mode DisplayPort cable adaptors, expected to be available to consumers later this year. Among several refinements to improve interoperability, the updated standard enables a higher data rate for DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable adaptors, providing support for HDMI 1.4 display resolutions such as 1080p 3D at 60Hz, and Ultra HD (4K x 2K) up to 30Hz frame rate, as well as 1080p with deep color. "The first Ultra HD displays were introduced in 2012, but today's Dual-Mode DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable adaptors limit display resolution to 1080p," said Craig Wiley, senior director of marketing at Parade Technologies, and VESA Board of Directors chairman. "For a personal computer to fully support HDMI 1.4 or deep color, today a separate HDMI output is needed. This updated DisplayPort Dual-Mode Standard version 1.1 enables full support of HDMI 1.4 video modes, and 1080p deep color, using a simple cable adaptor plugged into the system's DisplayPort output. This helps to reduce the number of interface ports needed on a Personal Computer, which is desirable as form factors shrink." Read More ...
First NVIDIA GeForce Titan 780 Performance Numbers Revealed The rumor mill is spinning to galeforce (or should we say GeForce) winds. Its newest sack of flour points at what could be the first performance figure of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce Titan 780 flagship single-GPU graphics card. Circulating among various Chinese tech publications is this 3DMark 11 Xtreme Preset screenshot from the PCinLife community, in which a lucky bloke claimed access to a GeForce Titan 780 engineering sample, and a driver to get it to work. In the scribbled out 3DMark 11 Xtreme Preset score screenshot (below), the source claims the fabled graphics card can singlehandedly score X7107 points. For reference, a GeForce GTX 690 usually scores in the region of X6000 points, and a GTX 680 around X3300. If true, NVIDIA has something truly remarkable up its sleeves, maybe the second coming of 8800 GTX. From older reports, we know that the GeForce Titan is expected to ship sooner than most people think, some time in February.
Source: PCOnline.com.cn
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(PR) Imagination Ships Caustic Series2 R2500 and R2100 Ray Tracing Accelerators Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia technologies company, is now shipping its Caustic Series2 PC boards, the R2500 and R2100, which accelerate PowerVR OpenRL applications including the Caustic Visualizer viewport plug-ins for Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max and the Neon viewport in Rhinoceros 5 from Robert McNeel and Associates. The Caustic Series2 is the first family of high performance ray tracing accelerator PC boards using Imagination's unique ray tracing technologies in the world's first chipset dedicated to high performance, fully interactive ray tracing in a workstation environment.
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Zalman Announces a Fleet of New Gaming Mice, Mousepads Korean peripherals maker Zalman rolled out a fleet of new gaming mice and mousepads. Among the mice are the ZM-GM1 flagship mouse, ZM-M400, and the ambidextrous claw-grip oriented ZM-M250; and among the mousepads are the ZM-MP series. The ZM-GM1 is an ambidextrous-looking (yet right-oriented mouse for palm-grips. Measuring 125 x 84 x 38 mm, its dry weight is about 85 g. Featuring a silver+black body with steel highlights, the mouse provides five buttons, excluding on-the-fly resolution adjustments. Under the hood is an Avago 9500 optical sensor, with 6,000 dpi resolution, and 12,000 FPS reporting rate. In addition to an illuminated logo and parts surrounding its scrollwheel, the mouse lights up along the contours of its thumb-rest. Moving on, the the ZM-M400 features a right-oriented design unlike the ZM-GM1, measuring 112 x 82 x 40 mm and a fixed 129 g weight, but its looks could be deceptive by today's standards. It packs a light 1,600 dpi sensor, which doesn't get close to anything Avago. The last of the three mice is the ZM-M250, which features a glossy, ambidextrous shape, a total of three buttons, measurements of 119 x 64 x 34 mm, weighing 81 g, the same 1,600 dpi sensor as the ZM-M400. Its top features a groovy circuit board pattern.
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(PR) Kanex DualRole Combines USB 3.0 Hub with Gigabit Ethernet Kanex, a leader of innovative Apple and iOS connectivity solutions for homes and businesses worldwide, today announced DualRole, a USB 3 Hub and Gigabit Adapter all in one solution. The hub portion uses the latest SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard for fast transfer speeds between devices and your computer. It has three extra USB 3 ports which enable users to connect more USB 3 devices such as hard drives, digital cameras, MP3 players and more. The Gigabit Ethernet adapter adds a Gigabit port to your MacBook Air, MacBook Pro with Retina display or any other USB 3 enabled computer and provides a fast and secure wired connection without hassle of Wi-Fi setup. "We designed DualRole with MacBook travelers in mind," said Kelvin Yan, president of Kanex. "We know when on the road sometimes you need an Ethernet connection for Internet or network access or even more USB ports, which is why we combined both a hub and adapter into one small compact solution."
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(PR) NVIDIA GPU-Accelerated Supercomputer Sets World Record for Energy Efficiency Italy's "Eurora" supercomputer -- which uses NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators based on NVIDIA Kepler, the world's fastest and most efficient high performance computing (HPC) architecture -- has set a new record for data center energy efficiency, NVIDIA today announced. The Eurora supercomputer, built by Eurotech and deployed Wednesday at the Cineca facility in Bologna, Italy, the country's most powerful supercomputing center, reached 3,150 megaflops per watt of sustained performance -- a mark 26 percent higher than the top system on the most recent Green500 list of the world's most efficient supercomputers. Eurora broke the record by combining 128 high-performance, energy-efficient NVIDIA Tesla K20 accelerators with the Eurotech Aurora Tigon supercomputer, featuring innovative Aurora Hot Water Cooling technology, which uses direct hot water cooling on all electronic and electrical components of the HPC system.
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3DMark for Windows Arrives on February 4th Futuremark's next big installment of the 3DMark franchise is set for a February 4th release, according to the developer. The Windows PC version of the suite, which includes the Fire Strike DirectX 11 and Cloud Gate DirectX 10 game tests, in addition to various feature-tests, will be released on the 4th. The company did not give out release dates for its Android, iOS, and Windows RT versions. In the run up to its release, Futuremark kept enthusiasts interested by timely release of teaser images and videos of its two game tests, starting with Fire Strike in early December, and Cloud Gate, a couple of weeks later. The new 3DMark faced several delays, given that the first reveal of Fire Strike dates back to June 2012. Yet Futuremark is hopeful the new 3DMark will reach out to many more users thanks to its relaxed system requirements.
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ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Thunderbolt Graphics Card Pictured As the Lunar New Year shopping season heats up in the Greater China Region, ZOTAC launched yet another innovative performance-segment graphics card, the GeForce GTX 660 Thunderbolt Edition, which has nothing to do with the Thunderbolt interface (sorry to get your hopes up). What this card does bring to the table, are a high-grade non-reference design PCB, and an innovative new cooling solution. The cooler may look like yet another aluminum fin stack ventilated by two fans, but it's in fact a chunky monolithic aluminum heatsink, with heat-transfer bolstered by three copper heat pipes. It's hence a hybrid between heatsinks and fin-stacks. Heatsinks give you the convenience of easier cleaning as spacing between their ridges are greater, and are generally more rigid. In the pictures below ZOTAC demonstrates how its hybrid heatsink is better than fin-stacks.
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ASRock Also Unveils FM2A85X Pro ATX Motherboard In addition to the FM2A85X-ITX, ASRock expanded its socket FM2 motherboard lineup with the FM2A85X Pro. This slim ATX form-factor motherboard, as the name suggests, is based on AMD A85X chipset, supporting socket FM2 APUs. By ATX standards, the board has a very slim feature-set, which should keep its price considerably low. To begin with, the FM2 socket is powered by a cost-effective 5-phase VRM, which draws power from an 8-pin EPS connector. It is wired to just two DDR3 DIMM slots (32 GB max., dual-channel DDR3-1866); and a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 connector. In addition to a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 that's wired to the APU, the FM2A85X-ITX features another long slot, only this one is electrical 2.0 x4, and wired to the A85X FCH. Three PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and two legacy PCI make for the rest of the expansion slot area. The board features a total of eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, but are spread apart in two clumps of four ports each. Connectivity is pretty basic: dual-link DVI, D-Sub, four USB 3.0 ports (two rear, two by header), 6-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, PS/2 mouse and keyboard; and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports. We expect this one to go for around $80, if not less.
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ASRock Unveils FM2A85X-ITX Motherboard In what could bring an ear-to-ear grin on DIY NAS/home-server builders, ASRock launched the industry's first mini-ITX motherboard with a total of eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports (of which one is eSATA 6 Gb/s). The new FM2A85X-ITX, as the name suggests, is a socket FM2 motherboard based on the AMD A85X chipset, in the mini-ITX form-factor. Everything on this board is just where you'd want it to be: the centrally-located APU socket is powered by a fairly strong 6-phase VRM, which along with ancillary phases, draws power from 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors. The APU socket, which supports today's AMD A-series "Trinity" APUs, and likely tomorrow's A-series "Richland" APUs, is wired to two DDR3-DIMM slots supporting a maximum of 32 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1866 memory; and the lone expansion slot, a PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The AMD A85X FCH wires out seven internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports (with RAID 0/1/10 support), and an eSATA 6 Gb/s port. Display connectivity includes one each of dual-link DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. The board features a total of four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers). Gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel HD audio, PS/2 keyboard, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports make for the rest of the connectivity. The ASRock FM2A85X-ITX is expected to be priced around US $110.
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(PR) ASUSTOR Releases Enterprise-Level Rackmount NAS ASUSTOR Inc., a leading innovator and provider of network storage solutions, today announced the release of four new enterprise-level 1U and 2U rackmount NAS devices. These new devices consist of the four drive bay AS-604RS and AS-604RD models and the nine drive bay AS-609RS and AS-609RD models. All devices come equipped with the Intel Atom 2.13 GHz dual-core processor which combines supercharged performance with low power consumption. Furthermore, all devices are verified as VMware, Citrix and Hyper-V ready, providing businesses with a flexible and cost-efficient virtual storage solution. "Our new rackmount NAS models include the type of hardware specifications required by the most demanding business environments such as dual gigabit Ethernet ports, eSATA and SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interfaces and support for hard drive hot swapping." said Johnny Chen, Product Manager at ASUSTOR. "The AS-604RD and AS-609RD models also feature redundant power supplies meaning that should the primary power supply fail, a second one will automatically start running to keep the NAS powered on. This undoubtedly gives businesses the type of 24/7, round-the-clock, uninterrupted access that they need."
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AMD Releases FX-4130 "Vishera" Quad-Core Processor AMD introduced the FX-4130 value quad-core processor. Although slotted in the 4100 series, which suggests it being based on the older "Zambezi" silicon, the new FX-4130 is in fact based on the newer "Vishera" silicon, and the "Piledriver" micro-architecture. AMD is following a competitive (price-performance) approach to its CPU lineup, rather than a pure-performance one, and the FX-4130 is pitted by the company against the similarly priced Intel Core i3-2100. The FX-4130 features four cores spread across two "Piledriver" modules, 3.80 GHz nominal clock speed with 3.90 GHz Turbo Core frequency, 2 MB L2 cache per module, 4 MB shared L3 cache, and an up to date instruction-set that includes AVX, AES-NI, SSE4.2, FMA, and XOP. Similarly priced Intel chips lack some of these instruction sets. With the FX-4130, AMD is packing a chunkier stock fan-heatsink than older FX-4000 series chips, which spins at lower speeds to keep the chip cool, and is hence less noisy. The new FX-4130 is priced at $99.99.
Source: X-bit Labs
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I-O Data Announces HDL-AS Single-Drive NAS I-O Data announced the LANDisk HDL-AS line of single-drive NAS servers for home users. Available with hard-drives pre-installed, in 2 TB and 3 TB capacities, the HDL-AS features a 1 GbE network interface, and sustained throughput of 90 MB/s. Its software supports programmed recording of streams over DTCP-IP (SKY! premium Service Link), Dropbox, iTunes server, and most consumer NAS features. Measuring 45 x 138 x 168 mm, it weighs about 1.2 kg. Slated for mid-February, it is priced at 26,565¥ ($292) for the 2 TB and 36,645¥ ($403) for the 3 TB model.
Source: Hermitage Akihabara
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Abee Launches Cubical Aluminum Cases with 2-tone Fronts Japanese premium PC case maker Abee launched the ACubic CP330 (mini-ITX) and ACubic CP730 (micro-ATX) lines of cubical aluminum cases with 2-tone frontss. The front panels are checkered to four squares with two mildly contrasting shades of black or silver. Variations include Black x Black, Black x Silver, and Silver x Silver. Measuring 229 x 249 x 229 mm (WxDxH), and weighing about 3.4 kg, the CP330 features one each of 5.25-inch and 3.5/2.5-inch drive bays, a 120 mm front intake fan, and provision for a 92 mm rear exhaust. It features room for graphics cards as long as 200 mm, and CPU coolers as tall as 55 mm. The CP730, on the other hand, measures 269 x 318 x 249 mm, weighing 4.9 kg, features three 3.5/2.5-inch bays in addition to the 5.25-incher, and room for graphics cards as long as 270 mm, and CPU coolers as tall as 75 mm. It features the same fan loadout as its smaller sibling.
Source: Hermitage Akihabara
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Intel SSD 525 Starts Selling in Japan Intel's performance-segment mSATA SSDs, the SSD 525 series, started selling in Japan under OEM packaging, although freely available in ground stores (much like bare hard drives). Based on the LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor and Intel's own 25 nm MLC NAND flash chips, the SSD 525 is available in four capacities: 30 GB, 120 GB, 180 GB, and 240 GB. The 240 GB variant stands out, with speeds of up to 550 MB/s reads with 500 MB/s writes; while the others max out at 500 MB/s reads with 275 MB/s writes. The 30, 120, 180, and 240 GB variants are priced at 5,180¥ ($57), 14,480¥ ($160), 20,800¥ ($228), and 26,980¥ ($295), respectively.
Source: PC Watch
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NVIDIA GeForce Experience Open Beta Launched NVIDIA's GeForce Experience game settings optimization tool opened up to beta testing by the public at large. The software is designed to make PC gaming as effortless as console gaming, when it comes to getting the best experience out of available hardware. The tool detects your GeForce hardware, installed games, and suggests the best settings for your games given your system specs, which can be applied with one click. GeForce Experience went open-beta with the release of a new version of the software, v1.0.1, which expands its list of supported games to include Far Cry 3, Mechwarrior Online, and Hawken; improved game detection logic, support for more CPUs (Core 2 series), playable settings for the new 2560 x 1440 resolution, translations to more languages, and numerous bug fixes.
DOWNLOAD: GeForce Experience 1.0.1 Beta
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Abee Announces ACE-G40 Line of Cubical Micro-ATX Cases Japanese premium PC case maker Abee announced the ACE-G40 line of cubical micro-ATX cases. Made of aluminum alloy panels with SECC steel framework, these cases are designed with a perforated metal strip lining its front, which lets it draw air from a 120 mm fan. The ACE-G40 is available in two color options, silver (ACE-G40-S), and black (ACE-G40-BK). Its motherboard tray gives you enough room for CPU coolers as tall as 75 mm, and graphics cards as long as 270 mm. The ACE-G40 can hold a 5.25-inch drive, three 3.5-inch drives or up to six 2.5-inch ones. In addition to the 120 mm front-intake, the case has just enough room for a 92 mm rear exhaust. Measuring 269 x 318 x 249 mm (WxDxH), its dry-weight is 4.6 kg.
Source: Hermitage Akihabara
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Available Tags:Intel , SSD , Ivy Bridge , CPU , OCZ , NVIDIA , GeForce , Zalman , Gaming , USB 3.0 , USB , Windows , ZOTAC , GTX , Thunderbolt , ASRock , AMD ,
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