BLU Products show off their Quattro line of smartphones powered by Tegra 3 and comes in 4.5- and 5.7-inch models
BLU Products' latest smartphone creations have been announced, with their Quattro line of smartphones all based on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 SoC and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The first of which is the entry-level Quattro 4.5, featuring a 4.5-inch qHD display, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, 4GB of internal memory expandable by up to 32GB with an external memory card, and 1GB of RAM. The Quattro 4.5 will be available in the coming days at $249.99 unlocked through various websites in the US.
Next up we have the Quattro 4.5 HD which sports an Advanced Super View 4.5-inch HD 326ppi display which is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass. We find an 8-megapixel rear-facing snapper on the Quattro 4.5 HD which also features an f/2.4 large aperture lens, 16GB of internal storage and 1GB of RAM. The Quattro 4.5 HD will be available in the first week of this month at $349.99.
Finally, we have the bigger Quattro 5.7 HD which - as you may have guessed - sports a 5.7-inch 1280x720 display, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, 4GB of internal memory expandable by an external memory card and a 1GB of RAM. The Quattro 5.7 HD will be available at the end of March at $299.99.
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Ask the Experts: What's the best GPU for gaming at 1366x768?
Our
Ask the Experts section has a new question, where we have Rumy from Bangladesh wanting to buy a GPU for gaming at 1366x768 and wants some suggestions.
Q: Suggest me the best GPU for 1366x768 gaming.
A: You can view the answer to Rumy's question right
here.
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Surface Pro begins dropping into retail stores, asks you to come and check it out
If you're like me and can't wait to check out Microsoft's Surface Pro in person, well that wait might be over depending on where you live. Some shoppers in the US and Canada can now check out the Windows 8-powered slate at selected retailers.
In the US, you might want to check out Best Buy and Staples as well as Microsoft Stores. If you do get some hands-on time with Microsoft's iPad competitor, be sure to let us know what you think in the comments!
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Dell's buyout deal is nearly done, would see Michael Dell himself contribute his stake in Dell
It looks like we're getting close to the end of the Dell buyout procedure, where we have
Reuters now reporting that at least four huge banks are involved. These banks include Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital.
Included in the swirl of rumors, is that Michael Dell would even contribute his stake in Dell, pushing nearly 16% towards gaining the majority ownership and Microsoft having his back by offering $3 billion as an investment. With Dell selling millions upon millions of Windows-based PCs, it would make sense for Microsoft to keep the lifeline phone line open for Dell.
Once this all materializes, we're going to have to see Dell go through an extremely quick re-imaging process. They'll need to completely swing themselves around and start kicking ass and taking names once again.
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RumorTT: Google's X-Phone to feature 128GB model, new camera and 4.8-inch 1080p display
Here we go, folks! Rumors are now floating around that the highly rumored X-Phone will feature a 4.8-inch 1920x1080 display. We should expect the X-Phone to feature Sony's Exmor camera sensor, too.
Better yet, we can expect it to rock the latest Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie OS, which should have some nifty features and improved battery life. We should also expect there to be a 128GB model, and Motorola's Kevlar design that is build to be water-resistant. Google's I/O conference is nearly here, in May 15-17, where we should see this next big step from Google announced.
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Police Quest creator to start up a Kickstarter project
I'm sure there are some of you out there, like me, who remember the class adventure series from Sierra, Police Quest. Well, the creator of Police Quest, Jim Walls, was interviewed by Chris Pope, the Executive Producer of Guys from Andromedia LLC where he had something interesting to announce.
Walls announced that he is to soon join some of his ex-Sierra buddies, where they'll begin a new Kickstarter project where they hope to raise enough funds to start a new Police Quest-like game. We won't see a proper Police Quest game as Activision own the rights to it, but something like Police Quest would still be great.
Walls is asking for help, and would like people who are interested in helping to contact him through
his website, but still has full intentions of starting a new Kickstarter-funded project sometime this year.
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Foursquare for Business arrives on the Google Play Store
Foursquare on their path to location check-in domination, have unleashed Foursquare for Business onto the Google Play Store. What makes this special is that businesses can now edit their locations from their smartphones, instead of using the Foursquare website.
Using the app, business owners can post photo updates, share updates through social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, view their consumers' latest check-ins, learn more about their customers and drive new business through specials run on Foursquare. The application is very specific, and suited only for businesses on Foursquare, so if you're a business owner - you should get on this,
right now.
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SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD Review
Introduction
Prior to CES 2013 we had an influx of new cutting edge SSDs hit the office. Ideally, all of these new products would have been published on January 7, the first day of the show. They weren't and it's my fault - sorry about the delay. The good news is we now have all of our testing finished and were able to spend some real time with all of these drives. Sometimes being first doesn't mean you win the race.
The SSD market is booming and the projected growth is the highest we've seen for any storage product in a very long time. This amount of growth doesn't have a lot to do with SSDs increasing in capacity or even being faster than the existing products on the market. It has to do with cost. The lower prices are driving the SSD market right now and into the future. For the next six months we won't see any large performance increases, SATA III is pretty much tapped out. We will see lower prices and higher capacities - the two roadblocks holding mainstream users back from adapting the technology.
The SanDisk Ultra Plus is a mainstream offering designed to decrease the cost of ownership. At the time of writing, the 256GB model we're looking at today costs $219.99 at Newegg, the same as the Extreme SSD 240GB. We feel the price is higher than it should be and aren't afraid to put that out in the open here on the first page of this review. I don't think the $219.99 price is going to stick for very long. I honestly think this drive will get down to around the $150 mark within the next three months.
The reason why is because the SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB uses a four-channel Marvell controller which is cheaper to use than a SandForce controller, it also uses SanDisk's own 19nm NAND flash. The flash is also cheaper to work with than the 24nm used on the SanDisk Extreme SSD. In our CES coverage we told you about Micron's coming price war that will heat up with the release of the M500 960GB for $600 with prices scaling proportionally through the other capacity sizes. The price war is coming, right now these companies are just tossing stones at each other, but soon the silos will heat up as full on nuclear war starts.
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Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX Chassis Review
Introduction
At this exact time last year I was still in email limbo with Fractal Design, as I was trying to obtain samples and see what all the hype surrounding their products were all about. In the short span of only a year I got to look at quite a few of their cases as well as a fan controller they released not too long ago. In that time I have come to not only like the white accented black chassis designs, but have come to revere them for their sturdy construction and solid build quality. Every chassis I have seen, whether small or large, have always delivered a chassis worth owning.
We all knew about the Arc series, and of course there was the Define series that covered a few of the more popular designs over the past couple of years, but we are introducing a whole new series today. With most of the chassis designs being a regular tower configuration, most of what I have seen has been almost a direct evolution from one design to the next. Delving into the SFF chassis world for the first time, Fractal Design had no real blueprint to work from, but from what I have seen in the past, it makes me eager to see what they have in store this time around.
The SFF chassis in question today is the Node 304, one of two cases currently offered in this series. There is a larger Node chassis that is more of an HTPC design and will allow for full ATX motherboards inside of it with the Node 604. While these two cases do share a few features, the chassis layout is completely different between the 604 and the Mini-ITX compatible Node 304. Things like front mounting a PSU and using a power extension cable, modular hard drive racks, and eliminating the ODD bays to give a very clean aesthetic appeal are just some of the features to be found.
If your interest is piqued and you want to see more, continue with us as I shed light on what the new Node 304 is all about.
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Toshiba THNSNF256GCSS 'Thin Sniff' 256GB SSD Preview
Introduction
Toshiba announced the THNSNF product line at Computex 2012, just over six months ago. The line consists of three form factors and each form factor divides further into capacity sizes. Each model has a unique ID since the capacity size is in each model number. Today we're looking at the THNSNF256GCSS, a 2.5"form factor drive with a 7mm z-height.
Since Toshiba almost exclusively sells SSDs directly to OEMs and system integrators, you may wonder why this drive is getting attention on TweakTown. There are a couple of answers to that. The first is to see what system builders are using - if I don't know, I can't tell you to buy an aftermarket SSD or to keep the one that shipped in your new shiny ultrabook. The second reason is this is a really cool drive with features we never expected to see on an OEM drive.
The THNSNF (you can call it
Thin Sniff, we do) was the first drive with 19nm Toggle 2 NAND, it beat Plextor's M5 Pro by several months. So, the flash is from Toshiba, the controller is also from Toshiba, but they had some help from Marvell along the way. We know this because the controller says so. This is where things start to get interesting. Unlike every other Marvell SSD controller we're seen to date, this design does not have a DRAM buffer. There is an open space on the PCB, but this is a DRAM-less design. Given the performance, we have to wonder just how fast THNSNF would be with DRAM.
Speaking of performance... as you know OCZ Technology went to Marvell for their Vertex 4, at least for the hardware portion. Vertex 4 was the first drive on the market that we know of to limit single queue depth read speeds. When you cap single queue depth read performance, you leave bandwidth open for other requests, and it makes multitasking smoother. THNSNF does the same thing and this is the first time we've seen the feature used outside of OCZ Vertex 4 and Vector.
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Case Smithing: Getting Started with DIY Cable Sleeving
Introduction
Nearly every major case mod these days features sleeved cables. They neaten up the interior appearance of a build as well as being a major factor in establishing the colour scheme the builder is aiming for. But have you ever wondered how people go about sleeving or how hard it is? The basics of sleeving are not an overly difficult skill to learn, but it can quickly become time consuming depending on the size and complexity of the job.
Sleeving is a never ending process as it's not really a permanent installation so changing colors and types whenever you wish is completely possible, even being able to re-theme a whole set of cables for a new project or color scheme.
In this guide I will be going over the basic methods of applying sleeve to the most typical cable types as well as some of the most common materials used.
Before I go any further I would like to thank SilverStone for supplying its Strider Essential Series 400w power supply that will be used in this guide. It's a great little unit and will go towards powering the Tweak Town F@H Prodigy Project once it's completed.
So back to the job at hand - let's
untangle the tricks of cable sleeving.
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Phanteks PH-TC12DX Tower CPU Cooler Review
Introduction
When I was introduced to Phanteks, their PH-TC14PE was all the rage. The real issue with seeing that cooler first is that it was highly unlikely that I would see a bigger or better performing cooler from them in the years to come. It seems I was partially right. While the twin-tower cooler had little room left to grow to increase performance values, Phanteks are now trying to find similar performance to their titan of air cooling, but in a much smaller, and just a quiet package.
That brings us to why we are here today. Since Phanteks had little room to go bigger, a more compact solution was needed to allow many more users to have the access to install it in smaller mid-tower cases, as well as not having to have that behemoth of a cooler tugging on the CPU socket. Phanteks has already shown they can be successful in the twin-tower design, even in the C-Style coolers and low-profile solutions, so a single tower to compete against the masses seems the most logical next step.
So today we take a look at the PH-TC12DX which should fit the bill of the "standard" tower cooler design from Phanteks. Along with this new design, Phanteks still delivers with the Physical Antioxidant thermal shield to ensure better long term performance, and has Cold Plasma Spray Coating that allows for better thermal transfer between the corresponding materials. It also keeps the same caliber of fans, the SoliSku mounting, and yes you get a large tube of their PH-NDC that uses Nano diamond-like particles to improve thermal transfer from the IHS to the cooler base.
With a mix of what has helped Phanteks become a household name, and a bit of tweaking to a "standard" concept, what do you get for their efforts? Continue reading and find out for yourself.
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Top 10 TweakTown Content from the past week [28 January 2013]
Here are our top 10 articles, reviews and guides from the past week!
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Why I'm excited about Microsoft's Surface Pro
Introduction
The last time I was this excited about a product release was probably for an Apple device - the original iPhone, which I imported into Australia as it wasn't available here at the time, or the iPad. Consoles usually get me quite excited, too. This time, I'm really excited, and intrigued, by Microsoft's upcoming Surface Pro.
Microsoft announced the Surface line of tablets in June last year, which included two models, Surface RT and Surface Pro. With the Surface RT, we have Windows RT running underneath - but the more exciting of the two was Surface Pro - which runs a full-fledged version of Windows 8 Pro underneath.
The Surface RT runs an NVIDIA Tegra 3 system-on-chip (SoC) underneath, which is a quad-core CPU running at 1.3GHz. It includes 2GB of RAM and a 10.6-inch display with a resolution of 1366x768 - providing 148 pixels per inch (PPI) image. All of this on a "ClearType HD" screen with a 16:9 ratio. The Surface Pro on the other hand, gives us a proper Intel Core i5 processor and a Full HD 1920x1080 resolution on the same 10.6-inch screen size.
Microsoft want to directly compete against the iPad, but with a full x86-based processor, and x86-capable full-fledged version of Windows running on the Surface Pro, they'll be introducing an entire new class of device. The iPad, while great, is merely a tablet - iOS is very simple compared to a proper OS like Windows or OS X.
What we should expect from the Surface Pro?
The Surface Pro will change things, considerably. It'll do this in many ways - first, it'll change Microsoft's way of dealing with things in the market. Normally they release an OS and wait for other manufacturers and partners to release products with their OS on it. This gives Acer, Samsung, ASUS, HP, Dell and many, many others the power to release a cool new product, but Microsoft never really get any recognition from it.
We all know brand name machines come with 'bloat' on them, in the form of software - I have always hated this. I hated firing up a brand new $3000 Dell notebook to have a million and one programs load up with Windows and slow it down. The first thing I would do is format the HDD and install a fresh copy of Windows onto it. I would buy an OEM copy of Windows just to for this task, and never use the backup images provided by the company.
This is where Surface Pro will give Microsoft an edge against their competitors, who are also their partners. They will make the Surface Pro the absolute best they can, and it'll be a 'pure Microsoft/Windows experience'. No bloat included. A fresh install of Windows - a breath of fresh air.
The Surface Pro features a proper Intel Core i5 dual-core processor, which will give it desktop class performance. A proper SSD instead of an eMMC-based drive, will again, give us desktop class performance. 4GB of RAM and Intel HD Graphics HD 4000, which will give it - you guessed it - desktop class performance.
The hardware mixed with the design of the Surface Pro itself will give us a completely new device. Yes, we have Ultrabooks on the market with touchscreen-capable displays, but they're not the same as a built form the ground up device from Microsoft.
We will also see USB 3.0 and miniDisplayPort featured on the Surface Pro, which will put it in a class of its own when compared to the current reigning champion, Apple's iPad.
Up until now, tablets have been casual devices, something bigger than your smartphone to just view content on. Creating content on a tablet hasn't been very successful so far, with on-screen keyboards only capable of so much, and third-party, or even first-party accessories not up to scratch. Surface changes this - big time.
Microsoft offer the Touch Cover and Type Cover for Surface, both connecting to the slate through a magnetic strip. Both covers also protect the Surface when folded against the device, and when opened, function as physical keyboards. Both keyboards feature gyroscope and accelerometer sensors to work out, based on position, whether or not to detect and accept input.
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Taking a look at MEGA (beta) - cloud storage, done safely?
Introduction and Initial Impressions
MEGA. MEGA is the result of Megaupload being taken away from the Internet, under some controversial terms by the US government. Founder of Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has been through some crazy times, having his house raided by authorities and his business torn apart. He vowed to come back, bigger, better - and more mega than ever, which brings us to today - a walkthrough of his latest creation - MEGA.
MEGA is a cloud storage site built on security and confidentiality. Most think this is for the users, but there is more security built into the backend to protect MEGA and it's financiers from prosecution, more so than protecting users' privacy. We'll get to that soon.
Myself, and many others, had issues trying to visit the MEGA website, but if you use https, you'll be fine. So to visit MEGA, you'll need to type in
https://mega.co.nz and it'll be smooth sailing from there. The first thing you'll be greeted with when visiting MEGA is the splash screen and the well thought-out and beautiful user interface (UI).
MEGA's UI is simple, effective and to the point. It's great to look at, and easy to use. Right now it's only capable of being used from a browser, with no mobile apps making cloud storage from your multiple smart devices easy. This is one of the downfalls of the site, something that is hopefully fixed in the future.
MEGA comes with 50GB of cloud storage for free - nothing to sneeze at whatsoever. There are options to purchase, but today we'll just be going through the free version and going for a test spin.
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Antec A.M.P Mobile Audio Review Roundup - Gain, ISO and dBs
Antec are no newbies when it comes to making great PC products of all sorts, earning a right full amount of respect from gamers and industry experts along the way. However, in an increasingly varied and challenging market, many of these once specialist company's like Antec have been branching out into other products in order to expand. This in many ways is a very good thing because company's like Corsair have done really well by doing this and have actually channeled a refreshing vibe along the way. How will Antec go?
Today we have a total of three portable music solutions from Antec Mobile products or A.M.P, two ear phone solutions and a wireless Bluetooth receiver for mobile products. For the ease of everyone we have combined these three products into one review as each is quite similar in function, but a little different in user needs, so we will let you decide at the end which best suits your needs.
First in the lineup is the A.M.P dBs earphone product which is simply that, a simple set of high quality ear phones for use with mobile products. They feature a simple yet attractive design that is visually appealing and sturdy in construction. Next up is the A.M.P ISO earphone product which is a Bluetooth based wireless solution again for mobile products. They feature a set of active noise canceling wireless earphones connected to a small control unit that charges via USB. Lastly today we have the A.M.P Gain which is a wireless Bluetooth receiver that can handle music and calls without the issue of wires being involved.
We have three interesting portable audio solutions here which are quite similar in some ways, but adequately different in other ways to allow the user to choose for themselves the best option. In terms of construction all three are built from high quality materials and have being built to a high standard feeling weighty without being heavy and awkward. The appearance of both earphone solutions is attractive without being over the top; the choice of color in of our review samples was quite pleasing to the eye without being too much, as can be the case sometimes.
Comfort wise both earphones are well designed enough to feel good to wear and also come with the option being able change the size of the rubber pads on the end to suit different types of ear, which we thought was a nice touch. Additional we thought the braided cable of the dBs to be a nice touch; in fact we have not seen earphones with this feature before.
All three of these products are intended to work with portable music devices so that covers a pretty large spectrum of different products, but just make sure that whatever you are using has Bluetooth built in if you're going to go for one of the wireless solutions of these three options. From a technical perspective we all have a pretty good idea of what Bluetooth is by now and how it works, but as always make sure that you are well familiar with the concept of pairing in order to make Bluetooth products work happily. The process is not overly hard, and we didn't see any issues during testing.
Digging a little deeper and both sets of earphones here are full range meaning that the drivers inside get a full range signal to playback. They both also feature noise suppression technology which has being doing the rounds for a while now, but not really in the lower end market as much and the higher end market. We are more grateful to have this feature as part of these earphones that we are not going to be critical of how well it works, because it's really a bonus, unless you're spending over a few hundred dollars on high grade earphones or headphones.
Lastly here, the little A.M.P Gain receiver is an all-in-one mini wireless hub for portable audio products and smartphones. It's really a simple and well thought out idea, and as always, it's the simple ideas that can end up being great ones. In terms of setup, as mentioned earlier, the Gain and ISO will require Bluetooth pairing, but the dBs simply connects like a standard set of headphones using the mini jack on your device.
A.M.P dBs: These are a well built and thought out set of earphones that handle music really well for the most part, but perhaps sound a little muddy down the low-end at times. Overall though it's a strong product and the nylon cable is a nice touch. The dBs are a slimmed down more simple version of the ISO solution from A.M.P not to say though that they are lacking in any way when it comes to build quality. At first we noticed the lovely red nylon cable that instantly pleased, but also because it seemed strong and durable.
The fit inside the ear was fine for us with the option also of fine tuning the fit using the supplied different sized rubbers, but this will depend on your ears of course. Sound quality was quite strong with a slight boost towards the low-end which sounded a little muddy during some bass heavy music. The mid-range was quite open and clean and the high-end when examined seemed quite up to the task, too. Overall during our testing we found the dBs to be quite a capable little pair of earphones.
A.M.P Gain: This is a handy and quite powerful little device for connection to your mobile products. Its size and the fact that it connects to virtually any set of headphones are the main selling points, but more so than anything the Gain is just a cool little device to have hanging around for when it's needed to add wireless audio to most devices with Bluetooth connectivity. The Gain unit is an interestingly named and quite useful little device to have.
In all honesty we could not come up with a much better name, but also to be honest, we had to examine the package quite intimately to see exactly what it was before opening it up. Given this is a handy little mini Bluetooth receiver with quite a few uses, its needs to be a little clearer in terms of how its marketed, we think. In terms of how it went during testing, we found no issues with pairing the unit and then connecting a set of earphones for wireless joy. The look and finish is quite nice and compact is the word here, and it looks a little nifty, but maybe easy to lose depending on your lifestyle.
A.M.P ISO: A feature packed and well-built product that sounds really good and brings a new light to the realm of headphones for mobile devices. The fit and finish is top notch. The ISO is a wireless earphone system that uses USB to charge from a PC and then can be disconnected and used with a compatible portable device. Once charged up the system is ready to go and a simple Bluetooth pairing is all that is needed to get things up and rolling.
These are also active noise canceling headphones which as we said above is a bonus for the price point that Antec is attacking. We found the noise canceling aspect to function quite well, but results are always going to vary depending on different usage scenarios. The level of sound quality overall was quite good with a good seal in the ear allowing for decent low-end reproduction and a decent mid-range, too. The high-end was only just good enough, but still up to the task during our testing.
All three A.M.P products are top notch solutions that are designed well and are thought out well with high quality fit and finish across the board. In terms of performance we really did not have to many issues aside from the overly keen bass at times with the dBs, but really aside from that all three did exactly what they needed to do, and quite well.
With owe so many options out there when looking for earphones it's really difficult not only to make strong recommendations, but also for the consumer tasked with actually going out and picking just one of these. However, that being said, if you're after comfortable, well-built and decent sounding earphones, then A.M.P can deliver that and at a reasonable price. Are they the absolute best out there right now for the money? We cannot honestly answer that one as there is just too much to cover, but they do a fine job in our opinion.
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Wi-Fi Tweak Guide for Better Wireless Performance in your Home or Office Network
Introduction
This guide came about since I was experiencing issues with my personal home Wi-Fi network. Initially I suspected my iPhone to be the cause of poor wireless performance on my home network due to issues Apple has been seeing with its iOS mobile operating system in the 6.x version range. Not wanting to wait for Apple to fix certain compatibility issues, I decided to investigate my own network to see if the issue could be there. It turned out the issues I was facing with poor Wi-Fi performance was not a fault of my iPhone, but my network.
Therefor I want to share my personal experiences with fine tuning my wireless network for optimal performance - that is, increased throughput (speed) and general performance (radio range). The tips and tweaks provided in this guide are simple to execute and often forgotten even by seasoned tech experts. Even if your network is performing well, these tips should be able to squeeze out some extra performance. Let's cover them one by one, and hopefully by the end, your wireless network is running great once again, or better than it ever has operated.
This guide is going to use a D-Link DIR-855 wireless router as the base for settings and such. Most wireless routers include almost exactly the same settings; they may just be worded differently and found in different locations - just hunt around for them. The first tip right out of the gate is to ensure that your router is running the latest firmware update. Often after logging into your router through its web-based control panel, you can enter the settings area and check that you have the latest firmware version if you're connected to the internet. If not, visit the manufacturer's website and check. It's worth the time as firmware updates can not only fix bugs, but also improve performance and open up new settings.
Step 1 - Location and Signal Strength
The first and probably most important thing we need to look at is the location of your wireless router or access point. It's often one of the simple things that are forgotten, and in my case, the position of my router caused issues with my Wi-Fi network.
Ensure that your router is positioned in the most central location of your home or office. While this is not always easy to achieve, you'll find that the more central, the better. Also make sure there are as few objects near the router as possible and it is positioned as high as possible. If you are in a single story house, make sure the router is central and positioned above nearby objects, such as furniture. If you are in a multistory complex, put the router on the middle floor or upper floor. If you find that your router is unable to provide enough signal strength to cover the whole building, you may need to look into adding an access point or
turning an old, unused router into an access point (a previously published popular TweakTown guide).
In my case, I live in a three-story townhouse with my router on the first floor and I have an old router that I turned into an access point on the third floor. It's an old house with very solid construct (big, thick walls), and that means it's very tough for the radio signals to pass through. All I did was have an electrician run a CAT6 or such gigabit ethernet cable from the first floor to the third floor. Newer houses constructed mostly of wood or less obstructive materials may not require the same, as wireless signals can pass through easier.
Another issue I faced was having another wireless device placed closely to my wireless router. When I was experiencing issues with my wireless network, I had a Skype wireless receiver for a Skype / landline phone right next to my router or at times even sitting right on top of my router. It turned out by having this additional wireless device so close to my router it heavily impacted its signal. All I had to do was move the Skype wireless receiver away (I moved it around one meter / 3 or 4 feet away) from the router and just that simple move improved the network greatly. Also ensure that other electronics such as microwaves and such are nowhere near your router as they will likely cause interference.
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Kingston HyperX Beast PC3-19200 16GB Dual Channel Memory Kit Review
Towards the end of last year we saw Kingston expand the popular HyperX line with a new high-end series within it. The
new HyperX Predator PC3-19200 dual channel kit did a good job of impressing us with a strong overclock and strong performance in general. Today we see Kingston have expanded the series HyperX series even further with the addition of the new Beast series. These days the HyperX series is actually quite large being separated into three lines starting with the Blu series followed by the slightly higher end Genesis series and topping out at the Predator series.
Within each of those series we have a further three series bringing a total of nine different names under the HyperX label. We won't go any further than that, but as you can tell, we've got quite a decent amount of RAM that falls under the popular HyperX name. The new Beast kit falls under the Predator series sits as the second highest series at the moment with kits coming in at up to 2400MHz DDR. The actual Predator series on the other hand goes as high as 2666MHz DDR.
With all that said and done let's move onto the actual RAM kit itself. Looking below you can see that Kingston has moved away from the traditional blue heatsink that we see most the time and instead opted for a black one here. It's a good looking heatsink that like so many are ruined by a green PCB.
Of course we know that the PCB is purely aesthetics, but it doesn't change the fact that we would love companies who opt for these good looking heatsinks to also opt for a black PCB. We see a few companies do it, but not nearly as many as we'd like - especially when it comes to these higher end RAM kits that cost more.
Taking a bit of a closer look at the heatsink you can see that both sides are nearly identical with the HyperX Beast and Kingston logo present on both sides. The only difference is that you can see one side has a sticker on it that gives us a bit of information on what exactly we're dealing with.
Looking closer at the sticker you can see we've got a bunch of information, but it's generally harder to understand unless you know the model number. Going off the model number across the top, though, you can see we're dealing with a 2400MHz DDR CAS 11 kit - more specifically it's an 11-13-13-32-2T @ 1.65v 16GB kit in the form of two 8GB modules that run in Dual Channel mode.
Heading into the BIOS we moved straight to the XMP section hoping that we could set the kit to Profile 1 and get up and running with no issues. Setting the XMP profile and rebooting our system, we booted up straight away and you can see above that we were up and running in Windows with the correct timings and speed. Under AIDA64 we ended up with Read / Write numbers of
22,290 MB/s / 20,684 MB/s, Copy speed of
24,724 MB/s and latency of
35.0ns.
This is fairly typical performance with no real surprise. With stock testing out the way it's onto the next step - overclocking. We've been using an ASRock Z77 OC Formula motherboard for our RAM reviews lately and it's been absolutely fantastic when it comes to RAM overclocking. Most the time we simply opt to adjust the memory divider and from here the motherboard takes care of the timings. Sitting at 2400MHz DDR we moved to the next divider which is 2600MHz DDR. Straight away our machine booted with no problem so we went back into the BIOS to try the 2666MHz DDR option.
We didn't really expect it to work because of our CPU limitation which seems to max out at around the mid 2600MHz DDR mark. With no surprise we got into a reboot loop and our system started back up with the default BIOS settings loaded. So with that done we moved back to the 2600MHz DDR divider and played around with the BCLK a little to see how high we could go.
In the end we got our BCLK up only slightly to 101 and that resulted in this memory running at 2626MHz DDR. With the timings super relaxed at 12-15-15-35-2T, though, we then took the time to see what we could do here.
Looking above you can see we ended up running the kit at 11-13-13-32 which is the same as the out of the box speeds. The main difference, though, is that at these speeds we managed to run with a 1T Command Rate instead of the higher 2T one which is seen out of the box. Under AIDA64 we ended up with Read / Write numbers of
23,031 MB/s / 21,021 MB/s, Copy speed of
23,975 MB/s and latency of
32.3ns.
Compared to the stock performance you can see across the board we've got a bit an increase when it comes to our read and write numbers along with our latency becoming slightly better. With that done the last thing we did was head back into the BIOS and adjusted the CPU speed.
With the 101 BCLK still in place you can see above that we pushed the CPU multiplier up to 46x. This resulted in our CPU running at 4646MHz while our memory stayed at 2626MHz DDR. Under AIDA64 we ended up with Read / Write numbers of
24,848 MB/s / 23,330 MB/s, Copy speed of
24,706 MB/s and latency of
30.7ns.
Across the board you can again see a boost in overall performance and again latency dropped down again coming in at 30.7ns, which looks good against the original 35.0ns that was seen on the kit at its default speeds.
Coming in at $154.99 the HyperX Beast kit we're looking at today is over double the price of the 2400MHz DDR Predator kit we looked at late last year. The big difference is that we're dealing with a 16GB kit here, though, instead of the 8GB Predator kit we looked at. At $154.99 the Hyper Beast kit clearly falls into that higher performance price bracket. Looking today, though, you can see we're clearly dealing with a quality kit that manages to not only overclock to over 2600MHz DDR at the default timings, but manages to work at the more aggressive 1T Command Rate, too.
With some strong overclocking potential, a good look and strong price tag considering the stock 2400MHz DDR timings, the 2400MHz DDR 16GB HyperX Beast kit from Kingston is a good option for anyone who's looking for a strong all round kit.
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ASRock VisionX 321B Ivy Bridge HTPC Review
I've always been a fan of the ASRock HTPC line, but they've been something that I've admired from a distance and never really had the opportunity to have a look at closely. That was until last year when I got a chance to have a look at the
CoreHT 252B Sandy Bridge HTPC at my editor Cameron's house and use it a bit.
ASRock had clearly done a good job of bringing a sharp looking mini PC to the market that looked good and offered some strong performance. So when we got word of the new Ivy Bridge based models being released, I knew that it must be mine. Having been using the VisionX for a while now you can't deny the joys of having a proper PC against your typical "Media Player".
Let's take a quick moment to cover what's going on with the box today before we move inside the box itself and take a look at the bundle. Having a look at the front of the box you can see it's fairly simple with a really clean look. We've got a picture of the device, a bit about the VisionX series on the right and along the bottom we've got a number of logos along with mention of some of the main features.
Turning the box over we've got some pictures and a quote from the V.P of ASRock B & D Division. Across the bottom of the box we also again see some of the main features that are included.
Moving away from the box itself and into the bundle you can see there's actually not a whole lot going on. When you think about it, though, you don't need a lot outside the actual unit itself. Looking below you can see the normal line up of paperwork as you'd expect along with a driver CD.
Along with the driver CD you can see we've also got a copy of PowerDVD 10 included in the bundle. We've also got a DVI to GVA connector, a short SATA cable and a SATA power cable convertor. To round off the bundle no HTPC is complete without a remote.
With the box and bundle looked at it's time to get into the VisionX itself which you can see below. For the most part it looks fairly similar to other HTPC devices from ASRock. On the dimension front we're looking at 200mm(W) x 70mm(H) x 200mm(L) with a total weight of 3.11kg.
While available in two colors you can see we've got the black one today which we prefer over the silver version. Of course this is going to come down to pure personal preference and more than likely the color combination of your TV area will influence your decision.
Moving in closer to the VisionX we start at the front which has the ASRock and THX logo below a slot based Blu-ray combo drive which helps make for a really clean look. Moving to the bottom of the device we can see a number of ports. Starting from the left we've got a headphone and microphone jack.
As we continue to move across we've got two USB 3.0 ports along with a 4-in-1 card reader that can read MMC, SD, MS and MS Pro. Finally on the far right we have the power button which has a blue LED behind it that lights up when the machine is up and running.
Around the back of the VisionX you can see we've got a whole lot going on. Starting with the top you can see a clip that helps remove the top of the casing and next to that we have a Kensington lock area. Moving to the bottom of the unit on the left we have our DC in port which is used with the included power adapter. Next to that you can see five auxiliary ports along with an optical out port. There is support for 7.1 channel THX audio which is perfect for watching Blu-rays.
Continuing to move across we've got a Gigabit networking port along with two more USB 3.0 ports. Video connectivity comes in the form of a Dual Link DVI-I port and a HDMI 1.4a one with an eSATA III port sitting between them. Finally we finish up with four more USB ports, but these are USB 2.0 in this instance.
As we clip open the top and undo some screws on the inside we get an idea of what's going on inside the VisionX. Opening it up I really found myself surprised at just how good looking the unit was with the copper heatsink and heatpipes being the major stand out. Looking at the insides you can see we've got a really clean setup going on. Considering the tight space you of course need as much room as you can get so the air can move throughout the system.
From a specification point of view the VisionX 321B really is quite the heavy weight considering its size. On the CPU front we've got an Intel Core i5 3210M Ivy Bridge based chip. 8GB of DDR3 is included in the form of two 4GB sticks. Graphics is provided by the AMD HD 7850M and storage comes in the form of a 750GB 2.5" hard disk drive. We would have preferred to see an SSD here, but we can't have everything our way.
Moving in a bit closer we get a better look at what's going on and the big surprise was the inclusion of the mSATA port towards the bottom of the case. Removing the standard 2.5" 750GB hard drive and replacing it with an mSATA SSD you'd find yourself with a system that would run even faster, weigh slightly less and also generate less heat.
To the right you can see the 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 connector. You can see on the left side we've got our two 4GB SO-DIMM memory modules. If you look a bit closer you can see towards the top right we also have a spare SATA port in the event you want to throw a second drive into the mix.
If we look at the top half of the inside you can see there's not a whole lot going on. You can see the Blu-ray slot drive and 750 GB hard drive that we've already mentioned along with a small fan which helps move some air around the case.
Firing up the VisionX the first time we had to take the time to install Windows 7 as the system didn't come with an operating system installed in our case. We installed off a USB 2.0 pen drive, but the install was painfully slow since I couldn't remember the last time I installed Windows onto a non-SSD drive.
Of course this is no fault of ASRock and the addition of an SSD drive would add a decent chunk to the overall cost. Considering the nature of the system as well, you probably don't need an SSD. With that said, though, if you wanted to increase the overall snappiness of the system, a small sized SSD would go down extremely well - especially if you're going to be watching content via the streaming of a server, NAS or your main PC. The need for a massive amount of storage may be unnecessary.
With Windows installed, all the drivers along with our important codec packs, the system ran like an absolute dream. As we mentioned earlier, from a specification stand point of view, the VisionX is actually quite stacked. 1080P playback via Blu-rays or just MKV files was fantastic. From a playback perspective the VisionX really can handle anything you throw at it thanks to the specifications and power it possesses.
Once all that was installed it was time to install VNC. Instead of a wireless keyboard or mouse I've always taken a slightly different approach to my HTPC setup and this time is no different. With the help of my Apple iPad mini tablet and VNC, I use remote desktop to control what's going on with the screen in front of me.
This is especially helpful if you sit further away from your TV and have trouble reading the text. Instead of having to move forward to see what's going on or just randomly click stuff, you can with accuracy control everything that's going.
Prior to the VisionX I had been doing most of my movie and TV watching via a WD TV Live Hub which is a truly awesome device. The lack of wireless on it was something that always annoyed me, but the biggest issue with this device and just about any media player is that you don't have the same flexibility as you do with a device such as this ASRock machine which is a PC.
I have an NFL Gamepass subscription that allows me to stream a whole bunch of NFL goodness here in Taiwan. I also like to follow the Global StarCraft II League which is streamed through the internet. Watching both these on a typical media player isn't possible, and this is where a proper HTPC really begins to shine. Outside of this, thanks to the HD 7850 M that's included, there's a fair bit of grunt to this system on a whole. With Valve introducing
Steam Big Picture Mode, you could even bring yourself to doing some gaming on that TV of yours. Not serious high resolution gaming with all the graphics quality settings turned up, but at least some is possible.
At $879.99 the ASRock VisionX 321B HTPC is not a cheap piece of kit and there's no denying that you could build a HTPC for less. Could you build something as small and as sexy as this, though, is the real question. If you're happy spending a bit of money for something that's going to last a long time, this is a really nice option that will no doubt look great next to your TV and perform well indeed.
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Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 XT (Tahiti LE) 2GB with Boost Overclocked Video Card Review
Introduction
Earlier in the month we had a chance to look at the new
PowerColor HD 7870 2GB Myst Edition Tahiti LE based HD 7870 which uses a modified version of the higher end Tahiti HD 7900 GPU. We found ourselves extremely impressed with the new model, but it was not without its flaws.
The card itself was excellent in so many ways and it was rounded off with a really strong price. The big issue comes from the marketing side of things. As we mentioned in that review the new Tahiti LE based HD 7870 isn't a model that AMD are promoting. Instead only certain companies are offering the model with PowerColor being one, and another being Sapphire.
Due to this it's up to companies themselves to promote it and while they'll do a pretty good job, there's no denying that the product won't get the same attention verse a model that every AMD partner was promoting. Since we've already looked at one of the new Tahiti LE based HD 7870's at its out of the box speeds, we'll today be taking time to overclock a Sapphire model to see just what it's capable of doing.
As always there are a few things we need to do before we get into the overclocking side of things. We'll start with the package to see what Sapphire is offering before we move onto the video card itself. Once we've done that we'll take a look at the specifications of the card out of the box before we look at how we went with the overclocking. Finally we'll quickly check out our testbed and then get into the performance side of things.
Package
Having a look at the box there's nothing too new. You can actually see we're dealing with the typical HD 7870 box with just a sticker that gives it the new name which has the XT label tagged onto the end. The biggest problem is that we don't really know this card is based on the new Tahiti LE core. This was the same issue we noted with the PowerColor version that we looked at previously.
We kind of understand when you throw the "LE" tag onto anything it gets hit with this negative stigma. The difference is that this time we're dealing with a HD 7900 series core that has been brought down to the HD 7800 series level. In the past we often saw the LE tag on video cards in the same series where a lower end version of the core was used.
This time, though, we're dealing with a core that is used on the series above it and AMD have brought it down to the series below making it the highest end HD 7800 based video card on sale.
Looking inside the package it comes as a big surprise just how much there is contained within. Alongside the normal paperwork and driver CD we have the standard DVI to VGA connector and CrossFire bridge in the bundle. We've also got two Molex to 6-pin PCIe connectors, Mini DP to DisplayPort, HDMI to DVI and a full length HDMI cable to round things off. This package bucks the trend of late of light video card bundles.
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ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 (AMD A85X) Motherboard Review
Introduction
Last year we got the chance to check out the latest CPU and APU offerings from AMD. The
AMD FX-8350 and A10-5800K both did a good job of impressing us relatively well, but we knew that both models would be plagued with the same issues AMD have always been plagued with. The lack of marketing behind both processors mean that they would fall under the blue limelight of the king, Intel.
After having a look at both models we then took the time to check out the
GIGABYTE F2A85X-UP4 and saw that when it came to the overclocking side of things on normal everyday coolers that the results weren't fantastic. Looking around, though, and talking to other editors, we knew it wasn't us and our fairly limited 4.5GHz overclock on the A10-5800K was standard.
A month on, though, we've got some new boards and some updated BIOS's to play around with. We wonder if anything has changed in that time. We've seen some amazing numbers come out of the latest AMD CPU's when it comes to pure speed, but they're all based on extreme LN2 cooling. Today we'll take the time to check out an ASRock FM2 offering in the form of the FM2A85X Extreme6 motherboard.
What has ASRock brought to the FM2 table? Well, there's only one way to find out and the first thing we'll do is check out the package. Once we've done that we'll move onto the board itself before checking out the BIOS and the options that are on offer there. We'll then look at our testbed and cover the overclocking side of things before we finally get into the meat of it all and find out how performance looks.
Package
Looking at the box it's just that typical ASRock design with a large focus being on the XFast technology that the company has implemented for a while now. Turning the box over we go into some more details in regards to the features which include Premium Gold Caps, Digi Power and 8+2 Power Phase Design.
Along with that, though, we've got other features like Lucid Virtu MVP, XFast technology which we mentioned at the start, Fast Boot, UEFI BIOS and DDR3 2600+ support via overclocking. The big feature pushed on the back, though, is none of these and is instead the new X-Boost technology that's shown up at the top of the box.
We don't know a whole lot about this new feature and we won't go into too much detail here since we'll take a closer look at it when we move to the overclocking side of things. Looking above, though, you can see that the general feel is that it's an easy to use overclocking solution.
Moving to the inside of the box there's nothing too unusual going on with the contents. We've got the normal paperwork along with some information on Lucid Virtu MVP and XFast technology. We've also got a driver CD, I/O backplate and four SATA cables.
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PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 3GB PCS Overclocked Video Card Review
Introduction
As we started the New Year the last thing I thought I would be looking at was going to be video cards. With the HD 7000 series having been out for around a year now we really thought that the series would've ran its course by now. Quite to the contrary, though, we've seen a bunch of new video cards for partners lately and the launch of the new Tahiti LE based HD 7870.
Today we're checking out one of our favorite models; the HD 7950. While out of the box the model is a little slower than its big brother, the HD 7970, the price point of the model along with the overclocking potential has always been something that we've loved.
The latest one to hit our office comes from PowerColor and is part of the popular PCS line from the company. How does it differ to some of the other video cards we've looked at? Well there's really only one way to find out. As always, though, we've got a couple of things we need to do.
We'll move from here into the package to see what PowerColor is offering us on the box along with its content. Once we've done that it's onto the video card itself to see the cooler we've got along with the connection options before we move onto the specification side of things which today will be slightly expanded as we've decided to overclock this card. Finally we'll check out the testbed and get straight into the testing side of things to see just what kind of performance we're able to get out of the card here today. First, though, let's get into that package and see what's going on.
Package
I love the look of PowerColor boxes recently. They really stand out and look great. You can see we've got the brand and model on the front along with some of the main details. Turning the box over we get a lot more detail into what's going on with the PowerColor HD 7950 3GB PCS.
Across the top part of the box you can see we've got a little bit of information on the PCS system or Professional Cooling System. Across the bottom we get more details including some information on the fans, heat pipes and cooper base. Across the middle of the box we've got some information on the Gold Power Kit which has improved components including Digital PWM, Multi Phase Design and Ferrite Core Choke helping improve power.
Moving inside the box we've got a fairly standard bundle which is ultimately code for a light bundle. Along with the Quick Installation Guide and driver CD we've also got a DVI to VGA connector, CrossFire bridge and Mini DP to DisplayPort connector.
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Antec GX700 Military Themed Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Introduction
Before I left for CES, there was some talk about this new chassis from Antec, and I went ahead and told them to sample it to me, and that I could get this chassis online near or on the release date. Well that time is here now, and with some setbacks, like my basement flooding while away in Las Vegas, and the fact that Antec double boxed this sample in an Antec 900 box, I was a little confused. Then it dawned on me, I have this chassis on hand, and the date is fast approaching; I better get myself in gear and get this chassis looked at so that I can make the expectations of Antec, while still giving my readers a themed chassis to look at, and not the same old box designs you are used to.
It doesn't take a genius to go around and look in the case mod sections of any forum to see what is hot in modding trends these days, but it does take someone with the guts to take these concepts and make a chassis that many will find to be a great chassis to start with for any themed chassis built on war, the military, or even just something very industrial. Sometimes ideas such as this can take a huge flop on their faces, as you have to be careful not to go too far, that normal users would just pass it right by. The way Antec has went about this chassis design and the introduction of the GX series of cases, I personally think is a great mix. For those looking for something a bit different, this has you covered, and for those looking to paint and re-engineer a chassis bent on world domination, again, this chassis has you covered.
The GX series from Antec currently only has this one chassis in the lineup, the GX700. In this mid-tower design Antec chose to use industrial clips to hold in the bay covers, and thick steel used to cover the fans and as the bay covers, then painted in olive drab, there is no mistaking the military theme from the front. They also added a missile launch button inspired fan control system keeping with the theme and adding a bit of the unexpected.
I don't want to burn through all the details of the GX700 too fast, or it leaves me nothing to fill the rest of the review with. If the introduction image and text have grabbed you thus far, continue reading, as this new chassis from Antec is something I have personally never seen before, and should be a huge hit once more people know about it.
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Top 10 TweakTown Content from the past week [21 January 2013]
Here are our top 10 articles, reviews and guides from the past week!
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The Expendables 2 (2012) Blu-ray Review
Following both critical and financial successes with
Rocky Balboa and
Rambo, the formerly dormant career of Sylvester Stallone has enjoyed a resurgence of late. Naturally, if one aging star can pull $131 million, how much could seven aging stars pull in? The answer to that was the 2010 tour de force
The Expendables, which took the novel approach of mingling stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve 'Stone Cold' Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and a cameo from the then "Governator", Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a hard-assed throw back to the films of old.
When that made a reasonable amount of cash for the studio, a sequel was, of course, inevitable. The formula for
The Expendables 2 is simply to ramp up the best elements of the first film, lightening the tone and putting even more old people in!
When the mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) coerces Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), the leader of the Expendables, into accepting a reconnaissance mission to retrieve an item from a downed airplane in Albania, the group find themselves at the mercy of arms dealer Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his opposing force. The retrieved item is exchanged for their lives, but not before one of their own is slain. Vilain escapes, but the Expendables vow vengeance, tracking them across Europe. But Vilain has an even more devious plan and now the means to execute it.
Where the original film was a more serious and to a certain degree, joyless film,
The Expendables 2 plays up the humor quotient, solidified by the casting of internet favourite Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme, ensuring that the tongue is automatically firmly in cheek. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis expand their previous cameos into much larger roles and don't shy away from battle, in a climactic shootout which shares more than a passing similarity to the 'No Russian' level of
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Make no mistake, this isn't high art, and won't be in contention for any Academy awards. This is fan service and no attempt is made to skate over this. Numerous allusions are made to the roles which made the stars household names ("I said I'd be back!") and even the meme's of Chuck Norris are referenced ("I heard you got bitten by a king cobra" "Yeah. But after several days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.")
You'll not have any life affirming moments during
The Expendables 2, but if films are meant to be entertaining, then it's certainly one of the most entertaining movies to come out from the year that was 2012.
Video
The Expendables 2 is presented in the film's original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with AVC MPEG-4 compression.
On Blu-ray, the movie looks exactly as it did in the cinema - draped in gritty and dark hues, with significant colour grading which desaturated the frame and accentuates blue tones. There's a little softness to the image, which isn't a fault of the transfer, but would suggest its purpose is to tones down some of the stars aging signs.
Despite the darkness, there's pleasingly little in the way of black crush, revealing a lot of detail in each frame. Its production methods won't lead the film to being the next best demo disc, but as far as faithful encoding goes - the
Expendables 2 takes the cake.
Audio
The Expendables 2 is presented in DTS HD Master Audio 7.1, at 24 bits.
Well, actually that's not entirely true.
The Expendables 2 is the first Blu-ray in the world to be encoded with what's being called 'DTS 11.1 Neo X', which essentially means there is additional speaker height information encoded in the stream. Hands up if you are equipped with this tech? I thought so, but still - a very cool move from Roadshow.
Everyone else will have to make do with 'just' 7.1; a doozy of a consolation prize. Just like the film itself, there is nothing subtle about
The Expendables 2 sound mix. Every explosion, crash and bullet storm rattles the floor with a resounding low frequency thud.
There's quite the range of accents on offer from the rather international cast, but very rarely is anything of any consequence unable to be heard. Sound designers have clearly had a lot of fun crafting the sound mix here, I imagine the order from on high was to make it as big as possible and that's exactly what we get.
Extras
At first glance it would appear that there isn't much in the way of extra features here, but what we do get is pleasingly substantial. Let's take a look see.
First up is the feature length
Audio Commentary featuring Director Simon West on solo duty. His adeptness with helming ensemble action films made him a good choice for helming the sequel and whilst he offers a solid commentary, only the most pure fans will be willing to stick it through to the end.
Next we have four decent length featurettes, the beefiest -
Big Guns, Bigger Heroes: The 1980's and the Rise of the Action film charts the growing popularity of action heroes in the American psyche, whose rise of the Stallone's and Schwarzenegger's of the world dovetailed with the explosion of interest in bodybuilding and the excesses of the 1980's.
God of War: Assembling Earth's Mightiest Anti-Heroes discusses the casting process and how series newcomers were roped in.
On the Assault: The Real Life Weaponry of the Expendables 2 takes a light hearted look at the movies gunplay, which coming just weeks after events in the United States might make this appear a little touchy.
Guns for Hire: Real Life Expendables investigates the real world industry of mercenaries and what their jobs entail.
Finally, we have approximately five minutes of
Deleted Scenes which reveal some brief superfluous shots, along with five minutes of spectacularly unfunny fluffs in the
Gag Reel.
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Gangster Squad (2013) Cinema Review
I'm not sure what it is about the genre, but gangster movies are generally underappreciated in their time, but go on to become cult classics. In evidence, titles such as
Scarface,
Casino,
Dick Tracy,
Gangs of New York,
Once Upon a Time in America and
A Touch of Evil...I could go on and on.
Gangster Squad will probably make plenty of money owing to its hot cast, but I'm pretty sure it won't be reappraised in future years from anything more than 'average'.
The year is 1949. Ex-boxer and feared gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has Los Angeles in his pocket, with lawyers, police and judges all in his employ and no one willing to prosecute him. But there are some good men left. Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) has had enough and calls on Sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) to establish a team of solid cops to take him down and clean up the city. But with a police force so deeply mired in corruption, the squad won't be officially sanctioned, forced to rely on their own resourcefulness to exploit the holes in Cohen's systems and protect not only themselves, but their loved ones.
Gangster Squad seems to have taken
The Untouchables as its inspiration, borrowing the same structure, but filling it with more blood, a harder edge and more sex appeal. But where that film is a satisfyingly compelling dramatization of Al Capone, that's where the similarities end.
On the surface, the film seems to tick all the right boxes, including great sets, and abundance of CG, slick visuals and a great cast, but this is a film that is tonally closer to
Dick Tracy than
The Untouchables.
And that's a real shame too, because in another universe, with a stronger script and a different director,
Gangster Squad could have stood side by side with that film as one of the great dramatizations of larger than life villains.
Sadly,
Gangster Squad's most unforgiveable crime is that it so comprehensively wastes its strong A+ list cast, never requiring more than a bat of an eye-lid from Emma Stone or Ryan Gosling to stand back and smolder the screen. Penn's scenery chewing as the wholly one-dimensional Cohen seems to channel Al Pacino, but falls far short of the mark. Let's remember, he's an Oscar winner for god's sake.
Ultimately,
Gangster Squad just feels like a film doesn't know what it wants to be. Cinema by numbers. Film making by faceless studio heads. I'll admit, it has its entertaining moments, but at the end of the day, a good looking mess is still just a mess.
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Cooler Master CM Storm Power-RX Hybrid Mouse Pad Review
Most users will put tons of effort and thought into what mouse is chosen to input your commands into the PC while playing your favourite games, or in my case, editing images as well. In both instances, you desire accuracy and pin point precision, whether eliminating a hair from an image or while trying to go for your next head shot. While the sensor in the mouse will do most of the work for you, there is a definite need to pay attention to what sort of surface is under your mouse to give you the "complete package" to enjoying the full potential of any mouse.
Today Cooler Master has sent along its new market crushing design that will lead most users away from the basic foam backed, cloth topped mousing surfaces. In its latest development there are two major changes that will help users enjoy using their mice. These are the use of a silicon base material, and the fact that the cloth top layer has been submerged into a thin layer of a special compound. The silicon is there to give you not only a super thin profile, but it is one of the better anti-skid materials used on a mouse pad I have used so far. As for the top of the Power-RX we are going to be looking at, the cloth gives you a traditional look and feel, but it is also great to track on, and waterproof.
On the CM Storm page they lead into everything the Power-RX offers. They state that this high-end hybrid mouse pad is designed for hard-core gamers who demand more than just precision. The Power-RX offers the anti-slip base we discussed, but also keeps a low ergonomic profile to reduce wrist strain. So, along with looking at the ease of tracking, keeping the mouse pad in place, being waterproof, Cooler Master also wants you to enjoy your time with the Power-RX for as long as possible.
Where most mice come in a flat envelope or in the realm of CM Storms previous submissions, they used a thin square box to ship their pads. Not this time though, the Power-RX is shipped in a round tube with black and red theme showing soldiers in silhouette under the Power-RX naming on the front.
As you roll the tube around to the back side, you then are explained that this is a mouse pad, the Power-RX, and you also have a list of features that show what this silicon based mouse mat has to offer.
Since this isn't the typical construction of a mouse pad, a cut out in the tube isn't sufficient. Here Cooler Master took a chunk of a mat and adds it to a dog tag chain to allow users to feel the top and the bottom of the mouse pad to help persuade your buying choice. I can assure you there is no other pad on the market quite like the feel of the Power-RX.
After popping off the metal end cap of the outer tube, you can just slide the rolled pad out of it and get right to using the Power-RX. Unlike most other pads, this one doesn't keep the rolled memory very long and will lie flat almost instantly. Just to give you some perspective of the size of the Power-RX, it is 45cm from left to right and 35cm from top to bottom excluding the extra strip at the top with the CM Storm name and logo on it.
On the reverse of the pad you will find a very bright red silicon backing material. This not only has a textured surface to deliver the anti-slip feature of the Power-RX, but there is also a CM Storm name and logo pressed into it at the lower right corner of it. I know this is just for show, but this has to be the first pad I have seen that went beyond just texture on the back. Not that there is any reason for it to be there, but it does show that they had an eye on the details with every step of the Power-RX's design and production.
Getting much closer to the red silicon backing, you can see tiny irregularities in the silicon that will allow this pad to grip onto nearly any surface and not move around while trying to carry out missions in game, or even after a few hours of whatever you had planned to do, you won't need to be readjusting the mousing surface in game and getting yourself killed for your efforts.
The top of the Power-RX is also a different bird than what we are accustomed to. Where typically you would be looking at an even pattern of the cloth top applied to the foam backing, here it isn't the case. The Power-RX does use cloth on the top, but it is submerged in a layer of rubber to accomplish a few things. Not only does it reduce the drag on the mouse, it makes the pad waterproof, and it keeps your cabling from rolling the cloth edges of the pad.
Just in case, when I rattled off the size of the mat earlier, if you still couldn't wrap your head around its large size, I added the CM Storm Recon to help press this point to you. The size of this will allow most users the ability to move in most games without having to lift the mouse, and with the Recon, it matches so well to the logo's on the mat, and once I powered the Recon for testing, the red LED under the logo of the mouse made it a perfect package deal in the aesthetics category.
As I write this, I have had the Power-RX on my desk for a couple of weeks. In that time, I also tried out the pad on various surfaces. I used Formica, glass, particle board, real wood, even on top of my Modder's Mat, and there really wasn't a surface in my house that I couldn't get the Power-RX to stay right where I put it. While out of the box, there is a slightly oily feel to the silicon base, that doesn't affect its grip. The only time I was able to get the Power-RX to move was when it was on top of another CM Storm mouse pad, and really, why would anyone use stacked mouse pads?
The top of the pad has its plus sides as well. Even just the feel of the submerged cloth tells you something new is going on here. At first glance it all looks normal, but there is that slightly oily feel to the top as well. This surface treatment allows the sensor to track very well, and I didn't experience any jitter or LOD issues with the Recon or the Level10M I used on it. With a textured top, not unlike the bottom, it leaves less for the mouse to have to rest on, and degreasing the amount of drag against the feet on the mice can easily be felt right away. The last thing the submerged top of the Power-RX offers is that when an accident with a beverage happens and we all know it will at some point, the top of this mat is waterproof. Any spills that may occur no need to worry and rush about the house looking for towels, just calmly find something to clean it with, as it will be sitting on the pad in globules until you make it back. There is no way that the liquid can soak in.
While I don't see any of the Power-RX pads on the market yet, I have to assume they will fill shelves very soon. The one thing that may turn some buyers off from the Power-RX is the initial price of $24.99 where Cooler Master has set the MSRP. I will tell you though; it is worth every penny of that price. Think about it this way, if you spilled something gross on a cloth and foam pad, you have no real way to remove the liquid from the pad without fully washing it. In that process you could not only fray the edges of the cloth mat, but you could also disturb the glue in the middle and separate bits of the cloth in the main area of the mousing surface. So now the $10 or $15 mouse pad is ruined and you are soon off to the shop to get another. With the Power-RX it is a onetime purchase, and as long as you don't physically cut this mouse pad, I can see it lasting literally for a decade or so before you would even need to ponder a replacement.
In every way Cooler Master and CM Storm paid attention to every finite detail of a mouse pad, and it paid off big. The Power-RX is super thin to keep your wrist level and more comfortable over the long haul, and even being so thin, the top edge is rolled down and sealed so that the cable won't destroy the edges. Using silicon as a base material seems so obvious now over the typical foam, and submerging the cloth used on the top in a thin layer of rubber is ingenious. Seeing the Power-RX in real life and getting to use one for a while now leads me to two conclusions. The first is that I bet we see many manufacturers stealing this idea, as it is just too good to pass over and not try to make money on. The second conclusion I can make from the Power-RX is that once you get one, you will never look back at the old pad or have any need to replace it for years to come, making the investment of near $25 almost irrelevant.
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Far Cry 3 PC Review
If publishers want a case in point in how to build hype at an E3 reveal, Far Cry 3 is the perfect case. Ever since we first heard Vaas utter those now famous words, "Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?", we have waited with baited breath. The video had action, intense gameplay and also psychological elements that sent the hype levels of the game through the roof. And so now 18 months later it's time to determine if the developers have delivered on the promise from that video and aside from a few quirks here and there and a poor ending to the story, the answer is a resounding yes.
In Far Cry 3 you take control of Jason Brody, a young college kid with rich parents enjoying life to the max on an island paradise when things go awry. Jason and his friends are captured by pirates and the infamous Vaas. Taken for ransom from their wealthy parents, Jason manages to escape with his brother and from there the story becomes that you as Jason must rescue your friends, but also as you build acquaintances on the island, decide how you want the future to be for those people. There is a point where the story just becomes boring and formulaic unfortunately, but until then it's one of the best stories of this generation.
As expected based on the first two games, Far Cry 3 puts you in a massive open world with side missions and main story to complete. One of the key facets of the title is exploration and the game significantly rewards you for exploring. Whilst there are scripted elements to some of the missions, sometimes it's just interesting to wander about the island and see what the enemy and other NPCs are doing. One example was we were closing in on an enemy kill, only to see a crocodile jump out of the water to take him alive. If someone else was to go to that exact spot, it may not happen because those sequences are not scripted.
In fact, Far Cry 3 gives one of the best representations of a living breathing world in a video game to date. You can of course choose to main line the story if you wish, but that is to completely devalue the amount of effort that Ubisoft has not only put into the side missions, but also the world itself. You will miss a lot of the awesome areas of the island and some interesting, story building sequences as well. There is also a meta game within the game where you can hunt animals present throughout the world to improve Jason's overall abilities and weaponry.
For example, if you get some shark skins, you can craft a new pouch which improves your inventory level - something which is a lot more interesting to do than just buy a new pouch. You can pick up leaves and plants to help you concoct medicine to heal Jason. At no real point in the game are you forced to buy things. For example, one area which encourages exploration is the local stores. If you manage to take over the local radio tower, the shops will give you free weapons as a reward whilst that tower is not held by the enemies. It's a really interesting mechanic that rewards exploration in a manner that is tangible rather than just 'let's see this entire island'.
For the most part the missions are also enjoyable to play as well. There are over thirty campaign missions with quite a number more side missions to complete. To complete Far Cry 3 without doing side missions will take you about 10 hours and so it is a fairly meaty game when you compare it to most releases. The game does contain fast travel once you have visited a location although sometimes it is better to just explore and see the world on offer.
What Far Cry 3 manages to achieve is a believable world. This island could be a real world thing (although it's not), and the developers have clearly put a lot of work into building a fantastic world for the game. It has the crazy professor and the tribal warriors to complete the mix. But what takes it to the next level is the various fauna milling about the place. You can be swimming quietly in the rivers or ocean and the next minute a shark or crocodile attacks. The first time this happens you will literally jump in your seat and it's generally over before it even starts. You can imagine this is how it happens in the real world as well with most victims attacked before they even know it's happening.
The design of the island also allows for some open world elements to creep into the campaign missions as well. Whilst you are somewhat restricted as to the zone you can move in during missions (we guess to not break the mission entirely), you are given leeway as to how you approach the mission. Go in guns blazing? Or snipe from the mountain side? Many different ways are available to generally complete each mission and it is this variety that keeps the game fresh to the end.
On the PC at least, Far Cry 3 is a visual tour de force and one of the best games graphically we have ever played. If you have the hardware and video card to push this to the max you will see a visually stunning world with amazing graphics. Tone the graphics done a little and the game still shines even on older hardware, so it is clear Ubisoft has done its job in optimizing this game for fairly run of the mill systems as well. This is something that the original Far Cry game was criticised for not doing.
The game also features a co-operative multiplayer portion for up to four players to take part in. It is set six months before the actual events of the single player campaign and so in many ways is its own story. Introducing co-operative into such an awesome, open world game is something that Ubisoft had to do to take this game to the next level. With a length of about six hours, you certainly get your money's worth even though it's not the main campaign.
Far Cry 3 started out with a great E3 presentation that put the hype levels through the roof. Usually when this happens games significantly let us down, but in this case Ubisoft has delivered. No doubt they felt the pressure of such an awesome opening with Vaas and our main character, but instead of crumbling, they produced what is sure to be one of the best games of 2012.
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Hitman: Absolution Xbox 360 Review
As a series Hitman has been quite successful and this is why it's puzzling that we are now only just getting the return of the game. Hitman Blood Money was one of the better games from the earliest times of this generation, but IO Interactive decided to put that to the side and come up with the new IP.
This game became Kane & Lynch which had middling success in both sales and critical format. So six years later we have the return of Agent 47 and it's not without changes. Absolution completely changes up the series in many ways and we still aren't sure if all the changes and decisions made were the right ones.
Absolution picks up with Agent 47 being tasked to kill his agency handler Diana. She has gone rogue and has been selling secrets to enemies of the agency so his final contract becomes her. The agency has produced another agent from a child, Victoria with Diana on her deathbed asking 47 to protect her at all costs. This is what the story primarily revolves around; the protection of Victoria and escaping from the agency that 47 once called home. From the outset this shows just how much of a departure Absolution is to the regular format with previous games tasking 47 with contracts to fulfil for the agency.
In terms of the gameplay there are a lot of elements that have returned from previous games. On some of the missions you will be tasked with taking down a target and you can either choose to go in all guns blazing or make the death look like an accident with the latter not only scoring you more points, but generally being more satisfying to do as well. Hitman can be seen as a puzzle game - trying to concoct together various environmental elements such as leaking oil and a bullet to take out enemies unseen.
This is only apparent on some of the levels. On many levels within the game there are no targets and instead it is 47's goal to reach another area to continue the story. As well as this there are times where the game takes control from you and performs kills in cut scenes. For a series which has focused so much on clean quiet kills from a gameplay perspective, to have this happen is frustrating. There are some sections in the game where quiet kills just cannot occur.
This is where you will like this game or not. Whilst in the past each mission was one huge environment for 47 to traverse and come up with sneaky ways to take out the target, in this game you are instead tasked with basically getting from point a to point b. Hitman in many ways becomes a third person shooter with the amount of sandbox missions able to be counted on less than two hands. Given that there are 20 missions overall in the game, this is a bit disappointing.
However, on those levels which do give you the freedom to explore and come up with various ways to take out the targets, the game absolutely shines. Previously seen at E3, the King of Chinatown level is one such example where there is many different ways to take out the target such as poisoning fish or blowing up a car. And it is these missions that you will revisit over and over again to try and come up with different ways to end the mission without being seen.
As well as the actual targets each mission contains a number of challenges to complete. Sometimes these challenges are to take out the targets in various different ways whilst other times it can be tasks such as finishing the mission only using 47's suit. Given that you very often traverse areas where you should not be, doing this is harder than it sounds.
Many of the elements we have seen in previous titles have again come back. You can still take the disguises of other characters although this is a bit harder than last time around.
Enemies will spot that you are not one of them quite easily and so it becomes a case of still having to focus on stealth even when blended in. To aid with this, 47 now has an instinct ability which allows you to see enemies through walls and walk near enemies in disguise without being spotted. You gain more instinct by performing quiet kills and tasks.
One of the more frustrating elements of Absolution is the change from limited save games to checkpoints. Instead of being able to save at any point in the game (within a limited number), you now have to track down and find checkpoints in the level. They are generally off the beaten track and this can be very frustrating especially on the tougher levels. The checkpoints also do not get retained if you leave your game which we have no idea why IO Interactive decided that was a good idea.
The enemy AI generally revolves around them being able to determine you are 47 rather than actually being tough. When things go bad you generally can get out of a tight spot with your bullets except towards the end of the game where that type of tactic just gets impossible due to the weaponry they have. Once they spot you the game moves into a very Metal Gear like alarm system. At the highest level they hunt you and shoot on sight whilst if you can manage to hide long enough, they will give up and lower the alarm level. Of course the best way is to not be spotted at all and in general this is possible on every mission.
On the visual and environmental side of things the game is generally impressive. Whilst there is quite a variety to the locations that you will visit during your time with the game, it is not as varied as it was in Blood Money with some locations being visited more than once. Some of the missions are quite large in size whilst others are almost corridors only. It goes without saying the larger missions are the ones where 47's abilities can really shine. One thing that is true is that in general IO Interactive has used the environments to the best of their abilities with 47 being able to perform numerous environmental based kills on his targets.
Multiplayer comes in the form of contracts mode and in an ironic twist this system is much closer to that of the older games. You can either build or download contracts from other users and basically you are dropped into a world and have to kill targets silently to fulfil the contract. As you do so you gain money which can be used to upgrade your weaponry in multiplayer. This is an interesting take on multiplayer and we hope that users really embrace this system because it's entirely possible this could give the game a lot of legs.
Hitman: Absolution is a game that made us think about how we review games in many ways. Should we review a game based on what the name is on the box, or what the content actually is. Of course the latter is the answer, but we can't help but feel that this is not the greatest Hitman game. It's significantly different to other Hitman titles, but it's also not a bad game. If you come into the game expecting Blood Money 2 you will be disappointed, but if you look past this you will find a competent Hitman game that has just enough elements of its predecessors to ensure you should play as 47 again.
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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation PlayStation Vita Review
It's fair to say that whilst the Assassin's Creed II series of games were some of the most well received games this generation, the portable versions of the game haven't really set the gaming world on fire. Appearing only on the PSP (aside from the iOS games that were not 3D), the games focused on Altair, the original protagonist, rather than the very likeable Ezio.
However, with the release of a new platform, the PS Vita, Ubisoft decided to give the portable space another crack with the AC series and have come out with mixed results. Liberation is not necessarily a bad game, but there are some areas which can be quite infuriating to play.
Liberation for the first time introduces a female character as the main lead. You play as Aveline, the black daughter of a rich businessman in the 1700's. A result of infidelity, Aveline lives with her step mother and father in New Orleans as one of the wealthy and famous. However, Aveline wants to rid the world of slavery, especially for her people and sets about trying to bring down the tyranny which existed in the time. Set in the 1700's, the game takes place during the same timeline as that of the main console game, and to get the most out of the story, you need to play both.
There are a few major changes for the franchise aside from the fact you now control a woman. The game introduces for the first time personas. Aveline has three; wealthy lady, slave and assassin. Depending on the persona (clothing) you are currently wearing will limit or improve the abilities Aveline has available to her. For example, in the wealthy dress, Aveline cannot climb buildings or walls whilst in the assassin clothing she will draw suspect looks from the guards right away.
This is probably the most interesting change to the franchise because it means you often have to change your clothing to complete tasks. Having to change clothing to complete a task can be a tad tiresome (especially when it's not clear which clothing you should be wearing), but all the same the addition enhances the franchise.
As well as the main city, you will also visit the bayou of New Orleans which gives you the opportunity to partake in tree climbing and jumping. Ripped directly from the console game with Connor you can at will climb trees and often have to when completing assassination tasks. The game controls well and it's very obvious when you can and cannot climb trees. The Bayou has a very Metal Gear Solid 3 feel to it - a large, lush jungle full of crocodiles and other animals that can hurt Aveline. The main difference being that Aveline does not need to eat animals to survive.
The structure of the game takes on that of its console big brothers. The game includes nine sequences to complete which is a little on the short side and you will have this game down in around six to eight hours depending on how good you are at it. There is no difficulty setting so once you finish it, that's it really.
There are a number of side tasks to complete and there is a meta game where you can control a shipping company to gain money, but really in the grand scheme of things, you can ignore these and easily complete the game. One of the interesting elements is that the story you get if you just play the main missions is not the actual story. To get the real ending you need to take out a particular hidden character in each sequence.
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One of the biggest bugbears we have with the game is the PS Vita controls. The main controls themselves are fine, but when the developer is trying to shoe horn in the touch mechanics of the game, it just starts to break. For example, the game will at times ask you to put the Vita camera near a bright light. It took us a while to find a light that would give the Vita what it wanted, and there was no indication at all whether we were getting closer or not.
There are also other sections of the game which use the back touchpad such as paddling a canoe. There is nothing wrong with trying to include Vita specific controls, but when they work like they do in Liberation (it's a lucky dip as to whether your motions will be picked up), it would have been best to leave them out.
The environments that the game is set in are impressive for a handheld product. The city of New Orleans is beautifully represented by period buildings and the actual city itself is quite large, but nowhere near what you find in the console games of course. The split of the bayou and the city is an interesting feature with both environments having graphical problems as well as also some impressive sections. Voice acting on the system is impressive especially for a handheld and whilst the soundtrack can become repetitive, it suits the game and setting well.
There is no doubt that Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is the most impressive handheld version of the series yet. Ubisoft has used some of Vita's power well, but also included some utterly frustrating mini games based on the touch and camera features. It is on the short side and that means it's not really suitable as something for a long distance trip, but for short spurts on the way to work, it works almost perfectly.
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SGS Chooses Zerto Disaster Recovery Solution to Protect Applications Twice as Fast
Boston, US - January 29, 2013 - Zerto, the industry's first hypervisor-based replication solution provider, today announced that Swiss multi-national conglomerate SGS has chosen Zerto Virtual Replication (ZVR) for its business continuity and disaster recovery services (BC/DR). SGS employs more than 70,000 people in more than 1,350 offices and laboratories around the world that help companies meet important health, safety and regulatory standards throughout the supply chain process. Through comprehensive inspections, certification and verification processes and a global network of testing facilities, SGS ensures companies are compliant with both local and global standards and regulations.
"ZVR is a straightforward product that is easy to implement and easy to use," says Baris Dogan, operations support team leader of SGS Turkey, the division of SGS that deployed Zerto Virtual Replication. "We were able to replicate the same amount of data with Zerto twice as fast when compared with the competition. We have full confidence in our BC/DR strategy because we are able to test and validate it whenever we want, which wasn't the case with other solutions."
Working with EMOBIL, SGS Turkey evaluated several solutions. To meet the joint criteria they developed, the solution needed multi-site support in order to replicate from their seven branches back to their main data center but also had to be simple to implement, test and use. With ZVR, SGS was able to begin regular disaster recovery testing for the very first time, thus minimizing the risk of their environment. EMOBIL guided SGS Turkey through the evaluation and installed ZVR to protect all of their seven branches without complexity.
"For DR needs, there are orchestration tools, which are too complex and only deliver half the solution, and backup products, which several of our customers have deemed unreliable for replication," says Erhan Cevik, strategic partner advising SGS and founding partner at EMOBIL. "At the end of the day, Zerto is the only complete, all-in-one solution on the market."
"We are always humbled when a large and respected enterprise like SGS Turkey chooses our solution, and are pleased to provide them with a more complete and easy-to-use BC/DR solution than they could find from any other vendor," said Ziv Kedem, CEO, Zerto, Inc. "Zerto is a proven solution for any company, particularly complex global operations who are virtualized and therefore in need of storage agnostic, multi-site BC/DR solutions."
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QNAP Introduces Latest Affordable 10GbE Turbo NAS Solution
QNAP Inc. introduced the new TS-x70U-RP series Turbo NAS to its US market this week. The new series, TS-x70U-RP, stands out with its economical 10GbE capability and retains all the same features.
The new TS-x70U-RP series NAS is powered by a high performance Dual-core Intel 2.4GHz CPU and is equipped with 4GB DDR3 RAM with upgradable option up to 16GB. The 10GbE ready capability makes the TS-x70U-RP series the perfect solution for business applications such as iSCSI IP-SAN, server virtualization, high speed backup, video storage, and centralized shared storage.
"Timing is everything and we realize that this is the right time to introduce an affordable 10GbE solution for SMB's, power users and virtualized environments to the NAS market," said Ivan Hsu, Product Marketing Director for QNAP. "Compared to three years ago, the overall 10GbE ecosystem has gone through a big change and we feel that a complete 10GbE ready server, 10 GbE network card, and switch solution under $5,000 is the new trend. We want to revolutionize the game by making it more accessible to users hungry for more performance," he added.
Price and Availability
The MSRP for the TS-1270U-RP NAS is priced at $2899 and $2299 for the TS-870U-RP. The TS-x70U-RP Turbo NAS Series are currently available in the US.
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Jetway Now Shipping AMD R-Series Embedded Mini-ITX Motherboard
Jetway Computer Corp., a leader in computer electronics and motherboard design and manufacturing, announced availability of the NF82 mini-ITX motherboard for AMD R-Series APU embedded processors, codenamed eTrinity. The eTrinity platform delivers a high-performance platform to SMB and embedded system integrators developing low-power small form factor mini-PC solutions with exceptional graphics performance.
Jetway is the first manufacturer to ship a mini-ITX motherboard supporting the new FS1r2 socket AMD R-Series APU. By using the FS1r2 socket, a system integrator can choose the price or performance they want, rather than be limited by a specific BGA processor soldered onto a motherboard. AMD is currently shipping four R-Series APU models through their AMD Authorized Embedded Distributors; Arrow, ASI, AVNET, Symmetry and Synnex. Below is a list of the available R-Series APU.
AMD R-Series APU (Socket FS1r2)
- R-464L, 2.3GHz, Quad-Core, 4MB Cache, Radeon HD 7660G, 35W
- R-460H, 1.9GHz, Quad-Core, 4MB Cache, Radeon HD 7640G, 35W
- R-272F, 2.7GHz, Dual-Core, 1MB Cache, Radeon HD 7520G, 35W
- R-268D, 2.5GHz, Dual -Core, 1MB Cache, Radeon HD 7420G, 35W
The Jetway NF82 is an ideal platform for Digital Signage supporting up to three simultaneous independent displays or one large display by using the built-in AMD Eyefinity Technology. Even more displays can be supported by installing a PCI Express x16 graphics card.
The rear I/O is loaded with ports, including 5.1 channel audio, dual gigabit LAN, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort and two RS232 serial ports. Additional features include 5-year availability, six SATA3 6Gb/s ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, one mSATA / PCI Express Mini Card shared slot, supports up to 16GB memory, USB 3.0 and 2.0 internal headers, four internal serial port headers, 8-bit GPIO, watchdog system reset and a TPM 1.2 header.
The Jetway NF82 mini-ITX motherboard is now available at authorized resellers and system integrators. For more information, visit the
product page.
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SPACECOM AND SPACEX ANNOUNCE AGREEMENT FOR AMOS-6 SATELLITE LAUNCH
Hawthorne, CA / Ramat-Gan, Israel, January 29, 2013 - Today, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Space Communication Ltd. (Spacecom) announced an agreement to launch Spacecom's AMOS-6 satellite on SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Falcon 9 will insert the communications satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), further enhancing Spacecom's existing satellite fleet.
The AMOS-6 agreement is the latest in a series of wins for SpaceX. The company closed out 2012 having signed 14 launch contracts-maintaining the company's position as the world's fastest growing launch services provider.
"This last year has been one of great success and tremendous growth," said Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX. "Spacecom was one of our earliest supporters-SpaceX is proud to be their partner and we look forward to launching their AMOS-6 satellite."
The AMOS-6 satellite, to be built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), will provide communication services including direct satellite home internet for Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. AMOS-6 will replace AMOS-2, which is expected to end its service in 2016.
"We are excited to partner with SpaceX and its tremendous team. AMOS-6 will be larger and stronger than AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 combined, and signals a new age for Spacecom," commented David Pollack, President and CEO of Spacecom. "As we establish our position as a global satellite operator providing more services and capacity, AMOS-6 will be a key element of our business strategy and future."
The AMOS-6 mission is targeting a 2015 launch from Cape Canaveral, FL.
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Seagate Technology Reports Fiscal Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results
Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today reported financial results for the quarter ended December 28, 2012. During the fiscal second quarter, the Company reported revenue of approximately $3.7 billion, shipping 58 million units. On a GAAP basis, Seagate reported gross margin of 27.0%, net income of $492 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.30. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of certain items, Seagate reported gross margin of 27.6%, net income of $523 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.38. Cash flow from operations in the quarter was $844 million and the Company returned $1.1 billion to shareholders in dividends and share redemptions. Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments totaled approximately $2.0 billion at the end of the fiscal second quarter.
"Seagate is executing well in an environment where customer demand forecasting is challenging," said Steve Luczo, Seagate's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Looking ahead, we will continue to manage our business conservatively to the demand environment, focus on profitability and effectively invest for market leadership in storage for mobility, cloud and open source. Creating value for shareholders remains a top priority, and in the first half of fiscal 2013, we returned over 95% of operating cash flows through share redemptions and dividends."
Seagate has issued a Supplemental Commentary document. The Supplemental Commentary will not be read during today's call, but rather it is available in the investors section of seagate.com.
Quarterly Cash Dividend
The Board of Directors approved an increase in our quarterly cash dividend to $0.38 per share which was paid on December 28, 2012, rather than in the March 2013 quarter. The payment of any future quarterly dividends will be at the discretion of the Board and will be dependent upon Seagate's financial position, results of operations, available cash, cash flow, capital requirements and other factors deemed relevant by the Board.
Investor Communications
Seagate management will hold a public webcast today at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time that can be accessed on its Investor Relations website at
http://www.seagate.com/investors. During today's webcast, the Company will provide an outlook for its third fiscal quarter of 2013 including key underlying assumptions.
Replay
A replay will be available beginning today at approximately 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time at
http://www.seagate.com/investors.
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Microsoft Releases Office 365 Home Premium
Microsoft Corp. today announced worldwide availability of Office 365 Home Premium, a reinvention of the company's flagship Office product line for consumers. Office 365 Home Premium is a cloud service designed for busy households and people juggling ever-increasing work and family responsibilities.
The new offering includes the latest and most complete set of Office applications; works across up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs; and comes with extra SkyDrive storage and Skype calling -- all for US$99.99 for an annual subscription, the equivalent of US$8.34 per month.
"Today's launch of Office 365 Home Premium marks the next big step in Microsoft's transformation to a devices and services business," said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. "This is so much more than just another release of Office. This is Office reinvented as a consumer cloud service with all the full-featured Office applications people know and love, together with impressive new cloud and social benefits."
Microsoft also announced it will now deliver many new features and services to the cloud first, transforming the company's traditional three-year release cycle. Now, new features and services stream to subscribers as soon as they are ready, keeping subscribers always up to date while eliminating the hassles of upgrading.
"This is a major leap forward," said Kurt DelBene , president of the Microsoft Office Division. "People's needs change rapidly, and Office 365 Home Premium will change with them."
Simultaneously, Microsoft today released Office 365 University for college or university students, faculty and staff at a price of just US$79.99 for a four-year subscription -- the equivalent of US$1.67 per month. Globally, the company also released updated versions of the traditional Office suite: Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013 and Office Professional 2013. Office 365 for businesses will be released globally with new capabilities on Feb. 27.
Time to Do the Things You Want
In a recent global survey, nearly 60 percent of people said they don't have the time to do the things they want to do, and more than 80 percent said they could save one or more hours a day if they were better organized. Office 365 Home Premium is designed to help people be more productive from virtually anywhere and find the flexibility to do the things they want.
"Between kids and career, I'm never completely at home or completely at work -- and thanks to technology, that suits me just fine," said Jen Singer , an author, blogger and mom of two teen boys. "With Office 365 Home Premium, I can work around my kids' schedules, so I can drive the soccer carpool, coordinate errands while at a doctor's office and still hit my deadlines at work. And, with one subscription for everyone in my family, it's an absolute steal."
To help people find more time to do the things they want, Microsoft is introducing Time to 365 (
http://www.office.com/timeto365), a new crowd-sourced website where people can find and share tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration from around the world. Contributors include experts such as "techorating" pro Janna Robinson (
http://www.jannarobinson.com) and everyday working parents who have found ways to simplify their lives. Tips on the site include, for example, an idea for organizing your grocery list with OneNote on your phone, a pointer on how to pick the right-sized TV for your living room, and ways to use Office applications to help plan a child's birthday party.
About Office 365 Home Premium
Office 365 Home Premium is available in 162 markets in 21 languages and includes the following:
- The latest and most complete set of Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access
- One license for the entire household to use Office on up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs or Macs, and Office on Demand available from any Internet-connected PC
- An additional 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage, nearly three times the amount available with a free SkyDrive account
- 60 free Skype world calling minutes per month to call mobile phones, landlines or PCs around the world
- Future upgrades, so you always use the latest time-saving technology
People can learn more about Office 365 Home Premium or try it free for 30 days at
http://www.office.com.
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Genius Redesigns the Pen Mouse
Genius, after receiving great reception for its Pen Mouse from consumers, has introduced the carbon grey Pen Mouse with a redesigned shape for improved grip and pen clip for portability. Using 2.4 Ghz wireless technology, Genius' Pen Mouse, shaped like a fountain pen, allows users to sit back in their chair and use their leg, palm, or any number of unconventional surfaces, as a mouse pad. Even while standing or giving presentations users can use Pen Mouse to control their PC.
Not just a convenient mousing option, Pen Mouse also helps those with wrist problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome as it prevents aggravating injuries unlike regular mice as it does not require use of the wrist.
This mouse functions on almost any surface, including your palm, with its three dpi settings, switchable between 400/800/1200 dpi to accommodate various sensitivity preferences. A slight, downward push activates the left-click, while right-click and flying-scroll buttons, towards the tip of the Pen Mouse, give users a brand new mousing experience that is both comfortable and accurate. Pushing the flying-scroll button and vertically or horizontally moving the Pen Mouse produces fast and convenient scrolling.
The wireless Pen Mouse connects to desktops and notebooks via USB with a very small, Pico dongle. Powered by a single AAA battery, Genius' Pen Mouse enters a power-saving sleep-mode when not in use. To start mousing again, simply press any button. Also, provided is a carrying case that protects the Pen Mouse and dongle when traveling.
The Pen Mouse in new carbon grey or silver color options is now available in the US for the suggested retail price of $49.99. More product information available
here.
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HGST Launches the Industry's Highest Capacity 10K RPM Hard Drive
HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, NASDAQ: WDC) today announced the industry's highest-capacity 10,000 RPM, enterprise-class hard drive - the Ultrastar C10K1200. Providing a capacity extension to HGST's proven Ultrastar C10K900 product line, the new 2.5-inch Ultrastar C10K1200 features a SAS 6Gb/s interface for reliable data throughput, a 64MB cache buffer for optimized read/write response time, and a fast 10K rotational speed for reliable high-performance computing. All this, combined with the drive's low power, high capacity and high performance attributes, results in higher density servers, blades and network storage arrays that helps reduce space requirements, lowers cooling costs and improves total cost of ownership (TCO).
Increasing storage needs, shrinking floor space and budgets, and reducing power and cooling are just a few challenges that datacenter managers face today, making it challenging to scale and sustain business growth. Whether building datacenters for public clouds, private clouds or traditional datacenters, adopting the right tiered storage strategy delivers greater efficiencies in terms of reliability, performance, capacity and power, and can make a vast difference in the ability to lower TCO.
As the only 1.2TB 10,000 RPM enterprise-class SAS hard drive in the industry, and one with a 2.0 million hours mean time between failure (MTBF) specification, the Ultrastar C10K1200 is the ultimate solution for 24x7 enterprise applications such as data mining/analysis, business processing and timely delivery of data-intensive content-on-demand such as multiple channels of streaming video. For space and/or power constrained cloud or enterprise datacenter environments, the 1.2TB Ultrastar C10K1200 drive delivers 33 percent more capacity in the same 2.5-inch form factor, giving IT managers the ability to now store 28.8 TBs in a 2U, 24-bay rackmount server. The Ultrastar C10K1200 drive also helps datacenters achieve lower AC power and HVAC requirements. With HGST Advanced Power Management technology, with multi-state idle modes, the Ultrastar C10K1200 uses less than 5W during idle mode, freeing up precious headroom for growing datacenter needs.
Storage Tiering with 10K Performance HDDs
Every datacenter application has a specific set of capacity and performance requirements. Storage tiering helps place the right storage in the right place, balancing capacity, performance and cost. And contrary to popular belief, hard drives will retain their function for the foreseeable future as the primary form of storage from a cost and performance standpoint for large capacity, high-performance storage. The key to a sound tiering strategy is to identify where the highest performance is needed, then segment the Tier 0 and Tier 1 layers between enterprise-class SSDs and 10K RPM performance drives.
The Ultrastar C10K1200 is based on common Ultrastar C10K900 technologies to ensure greater reliability and reduced qualification times. Designed with the similar system architecture, HGST's Ultrastar 10K performance HDDs are designed to be plug-compatible with Ultrastar solid state drives. This allows IT managers to easily swap an SSD with a 10K hard drive in order to effectively scale and tier applications, as SSDs provide the best IOPs/watt for reducing TCO, while 10K performance drives are more cost effective from a dollar-per-GB and capacity-performance perspective. A common HDD and SSD architecture also speeds up the drive qualification process and gives IT managers the ability to mix and match drives to ensure scale and flexibility for easier deployment, maintenance and upgrades.
The Ultrastar C10K1200 drive includes a host of industrial-strength technologies designed to maximize reliability for mission-critical workloads. Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motors deliver a low acoustic rating and improved data integrity, while Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology anticipates and counteracts disturbances that can occur in multi-drive configurations. In addition, the Ultrastar C10K1200 uses HGST-patented head load/unload ramp to minimize integration induced drive damage.
For added data security, select models of the Ultrastar C10K1200 offer Bulk Data Encryption for hard drive-level data security. These self-encrypting models are designed to the Trusted Computing Group's Enterprise A Security Subsystem Class encryption specification and allow customers to reduce costs associated with drive retirement and extend drive life by enabling swift and secure repurposing of drives.
"We are pleased to be the first to ship server and storage systems using HGST's new 1.2TB Ultrastar C10K1200 enterprise-class drives," said Peter Korce, vice president and general manager, Dell Storage. "The new HGST drives complement our offerings, helping to deliver the performance, capacity, and reliability that customers have come to expect from our Dell PowerEdge and PowerVault solutions."
Availability
The new 2.5-inch Ultrastar C10K1200 hard drive is shipping today, and has been qualified by select OEMs.
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GIGABYTE Announces New Server and Workstation Motherboards
Taipei, Taiwan, January 29th 2013 - GIGABYTE is proud to announce two new models of workstation motherboards and one new model dedicated to mission critical server applications. All of them being based on the Intel Xeon processors E5-2600 product family, these new models are designed to answer demanding needs for computing resources across various usage models, form factors and scales. While these products have been naturally thought for scenarios requiring heavy computing power through GPUs or GPGPU / co-processors cards, from CAD/CAE to rendering, simulation and modeling, their most notable advantage relies in their unique memory performance capability:
Achieved through GIGABYTE's capabilities in design, PCB layout and BIOS fine-tuning, this feature will be most appreciated in the many workstation applications where improvements in memory frequency result in speeding up the user's productivity and in all the industries relying on server applications where each incremental improvement in memory performance results in significant benefits, such as in finance.
Also, these three models are built with GIGABYTE's digital PWM controllers, guaranteeing a dynamic power supply to the processor(s) and memory with an ultra-fast response time. Built with advanced calibration tools, they offer the purest and most efficient electrical supply to date. When the CPU workload varies in function of the applications running, the Intel Turbo Boost Technology will do a dynamic overclock of the CPU cores, where the digital PWMs outshine the previous analog solutions. This way the CPU operations are much more stable, and the overall reliability of the system is greatly improved.
GA-7PESH3
Super Workstation Board
The GA-7PESH3 gives nothing less than the possibility to build a full-blown super workstation within a standard full tower desktop case. With up to 16 cores, 32 threads, 4 double slot GPU/co-processors, and connections for a storage array of up to 13 drives, the user's workflow can be accelerated with many Teraflops of pure computing power. The ultimate workstation board dedicated to CAD/CAE, simulation and modeling.
Supports 4-Way SLI & CrossFireX
In order to deliver the biggest computing acceleration possible to advanced workstation applications, the GA-7PESH3 can be equipped with up to four NVIDIA Tesla and Intel Xeon Phi co-processing cards, or with up to four NVIDIA Quadro or AMD FirePro cards working together in SLI/CrossFire modes.
SAS 6Gbs Onboard
The GA-7PESH3 is built with the LSI 2008 controller, which provides SAS support for up to eight SAS 6Gbs drives. Improved performance and long-term stability make SAS drives ideal for 24/7 intensive workstation and mission critical applications:
- Faster read and writes - up 15,000rpm
- Faster data seek times - more responsive
- Better long term stability - up to 2 million hours MTBF
- Available in 3.5" and compact 2.5" form factors
- SCSI protocol offers improved data integrity
Unique Memory Configuration
Thanks to the unique memory capability described above, the GA-7PESH3 can receive 128GB of DDR3 RDIMM ECC memory running at 1600MHz.
GA-7PESH4
Rock-Solid Backbone for Critical Server Applications
Designed to over perform in all kind of mission critical applications, whether they are computing or memory intensive, highly parallel, relying on storage or depending on expansions, the GA-7PESH4 is a versatile and highly reliable base for business grade server applications.
High End Quad GbE LAN Solution
Built with the latest generation of network controller, optimized for virtualization, iSCSI and management related traffic, the GA-7PESH4 is designed to free the processors as much as possible from the network transfer loadings. Intense transfers will typically occupy up to 30% less computing resources compared to traditional LAN solutions. Also consumes less energy thanks to EEE and DMA coordination. Supports OS2BMC and MCTP.
Unique Memory Configuration
Thanks to the unique memory capability described above, the GA-7PESH4 can receive 256GB of DDR3 RDIMM ECC memory running at 1600MHz.
GA-6PXSV4
For Workstations in Virtualized Environments
Although this ATX model is suitable for tower workstation builds, the placement of its components and its airflow design has been optimized for rack integration. The critical computing resources of CAD/CAE teams within a large organization can be centralized in a way where maintenance and management can be scaled and made more convenient. With a quad LAN solution and a remote management controller, the GA-6PXSV4 is ready for computing intensive applications in virtualized environments.
Supports 3-Way SLI & CrossFireX
With three PCI-Express x16 Generation 3.0 slots supporting 3-way NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX modes, this motherboard can receive a trio of GPUs working together to deliver ultra-smooth and accelerated utilization of CAD/CAE and content creation applications. The GA-6PXSV4 can therefore deliver improved workflow, speed-up production, and ultimately strengthen the increasingly pressured capability of design houses to deliver their work in short periods of time.
Unique Memory Configuration
Thanks to the unique memory capability described above, the GA-7PESH3 can receive 128GB of DDR3 RDIMM ECC memory running at 1600MHz.
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Seagate and Virident Join Forces for the Enterprise Flash Storage Market
Seagate Technology plc., a worldwide leader in storage solutions, and Virident Systems Inc., the performance leader in flash-based storage-class memory (SCM) solutions, today announced a strategic agreement to jointly deliver solutions for the growing enterprise flash storage market. Under the agreement, Seagate will immediately offer a complete line of flash-based PCIe solutions to its OEM and distribution partners. In addition, Seagate and Virident intend to leverage their mutual strengths to create next-generation hardware and software solutions for the solid-state storage market. In conjunction with the agreement, Seagate has made a strategic equity investment in Virident, and will appoint one member to the Virident Board of Directors.
"Seagate is thrilled to team with Virident, a technology leader in one of the fastest growing markets in enterprise and cloud computing," said Gary Gentry, senior vice president and general manager, Solid State Drives at Seagate. "Together, we are working to develop the next-generation hardware and software solutions in the PCIe space. Our solid-state strategy is founded on both in-house development and through strategic partnerships with innovative companies to deliver the broadest portfolio in the industry. We believe that this strategic agreement immediately strengthens our leading position in the enterprise storage market by adding a broad line of Seagate flash-based PCIe solutions powered by Virident to our portfolio. We look forward to a long, productive partnership with Virident."
"We are extremely pleased to have Seagate as a strategic partner and investor," said Mike Gustafson, Chief Executive Officer of Virident. "This partnership validates Virident's vision of pervasive flash in the performance tier and accelerates our shared vision by bringing next-generation SCM solutions to the enterprise and web datacenters worldwide. The agreement also expands Virident's routes to market today by making our best-in-class PCIe flash products available to Seagate's world-class channels."
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Rambus Introduces R+ LPDDR3 Memory Architecture Solution
Rambus Inc., the innovative technology solutions company that brings invention to market, today announced its first LPDDR3 offering targeted at the mobile industry. In the Rambus R+ solution set, the R+ LPDDR3 memory architecture is fully compatible with industry standards while providing improved power and performance. This allows customers to differentiate their products in a cost-effective manner with improved time-to-market. Further helping improve design and development cycles, the R+ LPDDR3 is also available with Rambus' collaborative design and integration services.
The R+ LPDDR3 architecture includes both a controller and a DRAM interface and can reduce active memory system power by up to 25% and supports data rates of up to 3200 megabits per second (Mbps), which is double the performance of existing LPDDR3 technologies. These improvements to power efficiency and performance enable longer battery life and enhanced mobile device functionality for streaming HD video, gaming and data-intensive apps.
"Each generation of mobile devices demands even higher performance with lower power. The R+ LPDDR3 technology enables the mobile market to use our controller and DRAM solutions to provide unprecedented levels of performance, with a significant power savings," said Kevin Donnelly, senior vice president and general manager of the Memory and Interface Division at Rambus. "Since this technology is a part of our R+ platform, beyond the improvements in power and performance, we're also maintaining compatibility with today's standards to ensure our customers have all the benefits of the Rambus' superior technology with reduced adoption risk."
The seed to the improved power and performance offered by the R+ LPDDR3 architecture is a low-swing implementation of the Rambus Near Ground Signaling technology. Essentially, this single-ended, ground-terminated signaling technology allows devices to achieve higher data rates with significantly reduced IO power. The R+ LPDDR3 architecture is built from ground up to be backward compatible with LPDDR3 supporting same protocol, power states and existing package definitions and system environments.
Additional key features of the R+ LPDDR3 include:
- 1600 to 3200 Mbps data rates
- Multi-modal support for LPDDR2, LPDDR3 and R+ LPDDR3
- DFI 3.1 and JEDEC LPDDR3 standards compliant
- Supports package-on-package and discrete packaging types
- Includes LabStation software environment for bring-up, characterization, and validation in end-user application
- Silicon proven design in GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28 nm-SLP process
- The R+ LPDDR3 memory controller and DRAM interface solutions are currently available. For additional information on the Rambus R+ LPDDR3, visit this page.
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Toshiba Introduces New Canvio Series Hard Drives
Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the addition of new two terabyte offerings to its Canvio storage lineup, including a 2 TB Canvio Basics 3.0 portable hard drive and a 2 TB Canvio Special Edition portable hard drive.
"We understand that consumers have varying capacity needs and we strive to provide solutions that match differing requirements," said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of product marketing and development of branded storage products, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. "Our new 2TB solutions now provide our customers that are looking for basic functionality with an increased storage capacity, as the most basic users are continuing to grow an expansive digital library."
Canvio Basics 3.0: Storage in a Box
Toshiba's simplest storage solution, the Canvio Basics 3.0, is now available in a 2 TB capacity, which can store up to 571,000 digital photos, 526,000 digital music files or 1,640 downloaded digital movies. As with the rest of the offerings within the Canvio Basics 3.0 line, software setup is not necessary.
Consumers are able to use this solution right out of the box and begin saving their digital files by simply connecting it to their PC. The Canvio Basics 3.0 supports USB 3.0 for rapid transfer speeds, is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and is also equipped with a special internal shock sensor and ramp loading technology to keep consumers' digital files safe against accidental drops.
Canvio Special Edition Portable Hard Drive
Toshiba's Canvio Special Edition Portable Hard Drive provides users with spacious storage capacity and a complete, yet simple-to-use backup solution. The included NTI Backup Now EZ software makes backing up systems fast and simple, and provides users with the option of backing up their digital files to the cloud, backing up their files and folders to their Canvio portable hard drive, backing up everything saved on their PC, or doing all three for the most comprehensive coverage.
Pricing and Availability
The 2 TB Toshiba Canvio Basics 3.0 portable hard drive is available for purchase for $189.99 MSRP in select retail locations and on ToshibaDirect.com.
The 2 TB Toshiba Canvio Special Edition portable hard drive is available for $219.99 MSRP exclusively at Best Buy and BestBuy.com.
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Panasonic Announces Panaboard Interactive Whiteboards with Integrated PC
Panasonic, a provider of professional document imaging solutions, today announced the new Panaboard UB-T880 Series of interactive whiteboards with an embedded PC. The integrated Intel i5 2520M processor embedded in the whiteboard provides simplicity, versatility and interactive message delivery, making it ideal for applications such as lectures and presentations in classrooms or corporate boardroom environments.
As part of the Panaboard UB-T880 Series of interactive whiteboards, the new models with embedded PC come in two sizes - a widescreen 86-inch diagonal viewing surface and a 77-inch surface with 3:4 aspect ratio. The embedded PC includes HD audio, HDMI and Ethernet outputs, and features Wi-Fi capabilities and MS Windows 7. Because the UB-T880 Series whiteboards with embedded PCs have their own IP address, presenters can email content directly to the board, further minimizing setup time and maximizing collaboration time.
"We're constantly looking for ways to simplify technology for our customers. For classrooms or meeting rooms that don't already have personal computers, the UB-T880 Series with embedded PC offers the functionality of a PC while reducing the expense of purchasing one for every location," said Joseph Odore, Product Manager for Imaging Products at Panasonic System Communications Company of North America. "For instances when end users already have a laptop or personal computer, the Panaboard with embedded PC frees up the use of their computer during group presentations or lectures to take notes or provide real-time student assessment."
With the ability to deploy software prior to delivery, the Panaboards are the ultimate plug-and-play solution, offering fewer wires and a simple setup. The Panaboard UB-T880 Series with embedded PC offers additional versatility benefits, as the optional mobile cart allows users to roll the board into the next room and the PC moves with it, eliminating the need to unplug and carry a separate computer or install software on multiple PCs.
Interactive for Collaboration
As with all Panasonic interactive Panaboards, the UB-T880 Series whiteboards with embedded PC feature a multi-touch surface and simultaneous operation to promote collaboration. Dynamic image control allows users to easily move, scale and rotate content on the board, and the Presenter Pen allows users to switch between four marker and three highlighter colors, use the eraser tool, as well as advance slides on a presentation from anywhere in the room. Additionally, the Panaboards come with built-in stereo speakers, offering presenters the ability to share audio along with their presentations.
The UB-T880 Series with embedded PC will be available through authorized Panasonic retailers beginning February 1, 2013.
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OCZ Adds 750 W and 850 W Models to Its PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III PSU Line
OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems, today announced that it has added 750 W and 850 W power supply unit (PSU) models to the award-winning Silencer Mk III Power Supply Series from PC Power & Cooling. With these new high-wattage options, the Silencer Mk III provides a professional-grade power solution rated for industrial usage and provides the performance and stability required for demanding computing environments.
"Building on our highly reputable Silencer Mk III core architecture, we are very pleased to deliver new high-wattage options that provide the ultimate in efficiency and stability while delivering ultra-quiet operation and a modular cable design for which this portfolio is highly regarded," said Bob Roark, Vice-President of Power Management for OCZ Technology. "With the addition of 750W and 850W models, the Silencer Mk III Power Supply Series once again defines the ultimate power management solution for today's professional and enthusiast users."
The Silencer Mk III 750 W and 850 W are rock-solid power supply solutions that meet the stringent 80 Plus Gold certification for exceptional energy-efficiency ratings and support over 90 percent efficiency under typical workloads. Featuring its popular Dual Thermal Control System (a sophisticated operation that allows either PSU model to be switched seamlessly between normal and silent modes), the Silencer Mk III works in conjunction with the load and temperature controlled fan for ultra-quiet operation. Additionally, the entire Silencer Mk III Series combines a single +12V rail, premium components (including 100 percent Japanese 105C capacitors), rigorous protection circuitries, continuous stable output at a demanding 50C ambient temperature, and heavy-duty chrome finish metallic cable connectors to provide excellent conductivity and lower resistance when compared to other power supplies on the market.
Where industrial-grade durability meets a sleek modular design, the Silencer Mk III 750W and 850W models are available immediately and are backed with PC Power & Cooling's complete confidence in reliability and supported by an industry-leading 7 year warranty. For more information on OCZ's complete PC Power & Cooling portfolio, including the new 750 W and 850 W Silencer Mk III Series, please visit
http://www.pcpower.com/index.html.
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Aerocool announcing new Templarius family with two PC chassis Ferrum and Telum
Taiwan based manufacturer Aerocool is hereby announcing the availability of the two new PC chassis Ferrum and Telum. Both chassis belong to the recently formed Templarius family . Templarius aims especially at gamers, who are looking for excellent gaming peripherals coming in one unique look. This new brand will feature products such as mice, keyboards, headsets and power supply units alongside PC chassis which will all come in a unified design.
Templarius brand logo is designed in the style of medieval knights of Templar. Interested users are invited to join the Facebook fan page of Templarius Gaming, to be part of the "Knight's Brotherhood!" community. New additions of the Templarius brand are the PC chassis Ferrum and Telum.
Ferrum's exterior design catches the attention easily thanks to the perfectly matched black and white colors in combination with the Templarius logo and the underlining black stripes. Chassis is made of 0,5 mm thick SGCC steel to provide a solid and firm armor. On the inside, enough space for high-end components such as latest ATX or µATX mainboards and VGA card with a total length of up to 400 mm is provided. Consequently gamers have enough space to assemble high-end systems using flagship VGA cards such as the GeForce GTX 690 or Radeon HD 7990. To further increase the usability, the mainboard tray is equipped with openings for easy access to the backplate of CPU coolers as well as special cable management holes.
To assure optimum airflow, both the top and front panel are equipped with mesh grid, allowing users to guide the airflow individually according to their preference. Furthermore up to 10 case fans can be mounted inside the Ferrum PC chassis, where one silent 120 mm axial fan is pre-mounted in the front panel. 5,25 inch bays are equipped with the tool-free Multi-X mounting mechanism, which allows easy mounting of drives, fans, 3,5 or 2,5 inch HDD/SSD or other accessories. In addition Ferrum PC chassis is equipped with pre-drilled watercooling holes as well as a dust filter to protect the PSU. Last but not least is the i/O-Panel, wich is located in the top of the Chassis, that provides one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 port alongside with audio connectors.
Second addition to Templarius family is the Telum PC chassis, which is available in two versions. Users can choose from a completely black or a white version with some black elements. Aerocool used 0,5 mm thick SPCC steel for the chassis in combination with a black acrylic window inside the side panel. Both top and front panel are equipped with mesh grid to allow optimizations of airflow. Telum comes with two pre-mounted 120 mm axial fans, additionally up to 8 further case fans can be mounted. Furthermore a fan controller is located in the top panel, which allows users to operate the built-in fans at full speed using 12 volts or low-speed using 5 volts, or even completely shut down the fans.
Similar to Ferrum, a user-friendly mainboard tray has been utilized, allowing easy access to the backplate of CPU coolers and additional holes for better cable management. Features such as durst filter for the power supply unit, pre-drilled watercooling holes and the tool-free Multi-X mounting mechanism have been integrated in the Telum PC chassis as well. To improve connectivity, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports and audio connectors as well as power and HDD LEDs are located in the top panel.
Both Ferrum and Telum PC chassis are available on the European market as of today. Manufacturer's suggested retail price are as following:
- Telum (Black) 50,50 EUR
- Telum (White) 54,55 EUR
- Ferrum 45,50 EUR
*Prices do not include TAX or VAT
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Top 10 TweakTown Press Releases from the past week [28 January 2013]
Here are our top 10 posted press releases from the past week!
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Intel Introduces mSATA Solid-State Drive for Ultrabook and Low-Power Embedded Applications
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 28, 2013 - Intel Corporation announced today the Intel Solid-State Drive 525 Series (Intel SSD 525 Series) in a small mSATA form factor with 6-gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) performance. The Intel SSD 525 Series gives OEM customers, channel and tech enthusiasts an ultra-portable, low-power storage solution in one-eighth the space of a traditional 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) to drive innovative Ultrabook, tablet and embedded applications.
The Intel SSD 525 is the latest entry to the Intel 500 Series SSD Family aimed at higher-performance, enthusiast solutions. Measuring 3.7mm x 50.8mm x 29.85mm and weighing 10 grams, the mSATA with PCI Express (PCIe) mini-connector delivers the performance of the company's Intel SSD 520 Series client drive. This makes the Intel SSD 525 suitable for All-in-One desktops, notebooks, Ultrabooks and workstation upgrades, as well as automotive, digital signage, embedded video and retail solutions.
With random read performance of up to 50,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) and sequential read performance up to 550 megabytes per second (MB/s), systems using the Intel SSD 525 Series will receive a performance boost for the most demanding applications and intense multi-tasking needs. This is coupled with random write performance of up to 80,000 IOPS and sequential writes of 520 MB/s to deliver a top-performing mSATA SSD.
"The Intel SSD 525 Series is Intel's latest 6 Gb/s mSATA product, which brings high performance to an ultra-portable form factor targeted for Ultrabooks and a myriad of embedded solutions," said James Slattery, product line manager for Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group Client SSDs. "Intel SSDs reduce the risk of data loss due to shock, vibration or jarring. With these new performance thresholds available in a small form factor package, and backed by Intel quality and reliability, the Intel SSD 525 opens the door to an unlimited number of creative embedded solutions such as in-flight entertainment, mobile workstations, microservers and IP phone storage."
The Intel SSD 525 Series will be available in 30 gigabyte (GB), 60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 180GB and 240GB capacities. The company has begun shipping the 120GB and 180GB options, with additional capacities and volume shipments to follow this quarter.
The Intel SSD 525 Series features Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128-bit encryption capabilities for added data protection should a device be stolen or lost. It uses Intel 25-nanometer (nm) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory and is backed by a 5-year limited warranty.
Also available for Intel SSD purchasers is the
Intel SSD Toolbox with Intel SSD Optimizer, a free utility that provides Microsoft Windows* users with a powerful set of management, information and diagnostic tools to help maintain the health and out-of-box performance of the drive. Available in 11 languages, the Intel SSD Toolbox is also Windows* 8-compatible. To help ease the installation process, all Intel SSD users can download the free
Intel Data Migration Software to help clone the entire content of a previous storage drive (SSD or HDD) to any Intel SSD.
For more information on Intel SSDs go to
http://www.intel.com/go/ssd or follow Intel SSDs on Twitter (
@intelssd), Facebook (www.intel.com/go/ssdfacebook or communities.intel.com).
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Multiplayer Mode Makes A Ghostly Appearance In Luigi's Mansion 2 On Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo has revealed new information about Luigi's Mansion 2 launching exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems in March. Luigi stumbles through multiple mansions to capture ghosts and solve puzzles armed with his trusty ghost-catching vacuum cleaner, the Poltergust 5000, and in a series first, this is one of the Super Mario games that will feature a local and online multiplayer mode.
The game is a fully-fledged sequel to the Nintendo GameCube title that first put forth Luigi as the reluctant hero, battling his own nerves and a bevy of ghosts on a mission to save his brother Mario from a haunted mansion. On Nintendo 3DS Luigi will face an even greater challenge for solo players to enjoy in addition to the multiplayer.
Up to four players* can join up and journey into the Scarescraper jam-packed with paranormal creatures. In Hunter Mode, each player controls a different colour Luigi and is challenged to hunt down ghosts and use effective teamwork to clear each floor of the tower before the clock strikes zero. Bonuses and upgrades can be earned depending on how well the team performs, helping to get the ghost-hunting team to the boss battles awaiting at the top of each tower. Players can choose the number of floors in this mode ranging from 5, 10 or 25. They can also adjust the difficulty to cater to both new and veteran gamers. Fallen players can even be revived by their teammates to keep the adventure going.
Luigi's Mansion 2 will be available across Europe in March 2013 exclusively for Nintendo 3DS and will be available both at retail and as a digital download from Nintendo eShop.
*Additional systems and games may be needed for multiplayer mode and are sold separately.
For more information:
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Super Talent Announces Green Very Low Profile (VLP) Memory
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, introduces its updated green memory modules.
With no tradeoffs in price or performance, choosing VLP DIMMs for computing can have an enormous environmental impact when the hundreds of thousands of memory modules produced monthly are taken into account.
"Decreasing overhead in a data center is an easy way for a company to reduce costs. With Super Talent's Green Memory, power and cooling costs can be easily cut while maintaining speed and reliability for a company," said Shimon, VP of Engineering, Super Talent Technology.
These DIMMS use 38% less FR4 material and are designed to JEDEC standard schematics. They can be used in standard based x86 motherboards while blade servers and ATCA applications can make use of the very low profile RDIMMS. Full specifications and data sheets for our green memory line from Super Talent Technology can be found
here.
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Belkin Announces Intent to Acquire Cisco's Home Networking Business Unit
Belkin, a private company based in Playa Vista, Calif., with operations and sales in more than 100 countries, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cisco's Home Networking Business Unit, including its proven products, technology, well-known Linksys brand and talented employees. With global operations, Linksys' main office is located in Irvine, Calif.
"We're very excited about this announcement," said Chet Pipkin, CEO of Belkin. "Our two organizations share many core beliefs - we have similar beginnings and share a passion for meeting the real needs of our customers through the strengths of an entrepreneurial culture. Belkin's ultimate goal is to be the global leader in the connected home and wireless networking space and this acquisition is an important step to realizing that vision."
Belkin intends to maintain the Linksys brand and will offer support for Linksys products as part of this transaction. All valid warranties will be honored by Belkin for current and future Linksys products. After the transaction closes, Belkin will account for approximately 30 percent of the U.S. retail home and small business networking market.
"Linksys pioneered wireless connectivity capability around the globe, and has a strong brand renowned for its premium market position, the strength of its installed base and its proven dependability. Linksys users benefit from peace of mind in their home networking environment. At Belkin we have developed great insight into consumer needs, and the experiences, solutions and products we bring to the market, including our WeMo home automation platform, will help us to grow Linksys' market presence," Pipkin said.
"Linksys is one of the leading home networking providers and has created a market-leading suite of products and services to meet customer needs," said Hilton Romanski, VP Corporate Business Development, Cisco. "While part of Cisco, Linksys has continuously innovated, while strengthening the brand and expanding its market leadership. As part of Cisco's commitment to service providers, we are pleased about this strategic relationship with Belkin to build on Linksys' position of strength."
"With complementary innovation and engineering strategies in the combined organization, Belkin will be able to create new opportunities for consumers, distribution partners and resellers, and will have the strongest retail presence in the U.S. networking marketplace. Belkin also will have access to a large installed base that will be able to upgrade their networking environment to take advantage of new technologies in the smartphone, tablet, notebook and home automation arenas," Pipkin said. "Additionally, Linksys will enhance Belkin's capabilities to meet the needs of the service provider space and small business users."
Belkin and Cisco intend to develop a strategic relationship on a variety of initiatives including retail distribution, strategic marketing and products for the service provider market. Having access to Cisco's specialized software solutions across all of Belkin's product lines will bring a more seamless user experience for customers. Merging the innovation capabilities of Linksys and Belkin provides a powerful platform from which to develop the next generation of home networking technology.
"At Belkin, we're committed to enabling great experiences for users of today's mobile and connected home technologies," Pipkin said. "The acquisition of Linksys and the combination of Belkin's and Linksys' expertise and innovation will position us to meet the demands of today's rapidly evolving advances in technology. We look forward to honoring the heritage of the Linksys brand and investing in the continuing evolution of its product portfolio. Together, we will provide a powerful, simple to use, and reliable wireless and networking platform for the markets we serve."
Specific financial terms of the transaction are undisclosed. The transaction is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to close in March 2013.
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AVADirect First In US To Offer Clevo P570WM X79 17.3" Full HD Gaming Notebook
Twinsburg, OH - January 25th, 2013
AVADirect, a leading custom notebook provider, is now offering the world's first X79 gaming notebook.
Almost one year ago, AVADirect began to accept pre-orders on what was to be the world's first X79 desktop replacement, the Clevo P270WM. After many complications, production was halted and release delayed. One year later, Clevo has scrapped the design of what was to be the first X79-based gaming notebook and is now ready to release the true X79 desktop replacement, the Clevo P570WM. The result is nothing short of spectacular, and AVADirect is embracing its availability with open, anxious arms to upgrade their arsenal of custom gaming notebook.
The specifications packed tactfully in the AVADirect Clevo X79 P570WM is nothing to trifle with. Being the first desktop replacement available, since the two-year old X7201, extreme desktop-replacement performance has returned with a vengeance. Offering socket 2011 Extreme Core i7 processors, GTX 680M graphics cards in 2-way SLI, NVIDIA's Quadro K5000, three 2.5" drive bays (including a separate optical drive bay. that can be converted to support a fourth 2.5" drive), RAID 0/1/5 support, and 54/34 express card slot. The Quadro K5000 mobile GPU deserves an article on its own. Never before have video, audio, and CAD professionals had the ability to harness such focused graphics power in a mobile platform, without having to consider a Mini PC option. With improved CUDA core technology, the K5000 mobile graphics unit promises to deliver a new and exciting experience to hard-working professionals. New to Clevo's latest line of custom notebooks, the X79 P570WM offers a back-lit, color-integrated keyboard that offers color-changing zones programmed to any end-user's preference. Many would easily say AVADirect's Clevo P570WM is fully loaded with bells and whistles.
It's no secret that enthusiast and professionals were ecstatic, following the news of the first X79-designed desktop replacement, manufactured by Clevo, and provided by AVADirect. Desktop replacements have become a growing demand based on their ability to provide the most robust performance available in a mobile platform. The X79 Clevo P570WM sets out to raise industry standards, for mobile solutions, through its performance-driven ability to handle a majority of requirements existing with today's demanding software. These key components are the core of AVADirect's partnership with Clevo and their combined goal to bring the latest and most innovative mobile products to end-users that can expand their abilities, skill set, entertainment experience, and quality of life. AVADirect's Clevo P570WM represents everything that the custom builder stands for. Raw, uncompromisable performance presented with high-quality standards; designed by end-users that refuse to accept anything less than a reliable, high-end quality product.
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