January 18th, 2010
by Rafael Hernandez
December 11th, 2009
by Rafael Hernandez
Graphics card launches are generally a good thin, bringing about the latest and greatest in graphical technical achievements, unfortunately they also bring along the dreadful “reference heatsink” which nearly every card manufacturer adopts to save time and get their product out the door quickly.
Gigabyte’s Radeon HD 5750 does away with the reference cooler and implements their own design which should, hopefully, lower noise and slightly improve cooling. TweakTown has the review:
The stand out point for this card is the cooling; GIGABYTE are on a bit of a roll when it comes to using their own cooling. We saw them do an excellent job on the GT 240 which offered a great performance to noise ratio and we see the same thing here again. If you’re looking for something that’s quiet and is going to run cooler than some of the original designs from companies, this is an excellent choice.
Quieter, cooler, and a good performer…can’t ask much more than that now can you?
November 23rd, 2009
by Rafael Hernandez
Black Friday usually marks the first major day of the Holiday shopping season, but with retailers moving their bargain day up from after Thanksgiving to…well…today. Amazon has started up their Black Friday deals as of today which means, for bargain seekers and gadget freaks, today is the day to jump on their deals. Of course they’ll be having the deals all this week as well.
Why is it important? Given the online vendor price wars and over the top deals you can expect the other major online stores to follow along.
November 18th, 2009
by Rafael Hernandez
With all of the attention being paid to AMD and Intel’s impressive chipset lineups there’s still Nvidia’s lineup to consider. Sure the company has had some knocks as of late but they still produce some interesting options if you’re going for the all out performance angle.
TechwareLabs has a look at the MSI NF980-G65 Motherboard with its AMD Phenom II support and plenty of overclocking options to get the most out of your processor. Here’s a peek:
Immediately from the specifications we can that the MSI NF980-G65 is an nVidia board through and through supporting triple SLI courtesy of its nForce 980a chipset. A host of other options round out this this overclockers dream including support for overclocking the RAM all the way to 2133MHz. As a legacy free board the MSI NF980-G65 does not have any serial or parallel ports but does include support for PCI-E Gen 2 as well as RAID and 6 SATA ports. In fact the only thing we are suprised about is the lack of an e-SATA port on the rear.
A great option if you’re sticking with the Nvidia side of the fence and want SLI gaming performance with AMD’s Phenom II lineup.
November 2nd, 2009
by Rafael Hernandez
Looking for that extra bit of something that will make your computing life so much easier?
Well we’re sure it’s out there. In the mean time here are a few of the latest reviews making their way around the web.
Cases, Cooling, and Power Supplies
BFG Tech EX-1000 1000W Modular Power Supply – Big Bruin
Cogage TRUE Spirit LGA1366 CPU Cooler – Legit Reviews
Silverstone RV02 Raven 2 PC Case – NinjaLane
Zalman ZM-MFC3 Fan Controller – Testseek Labs
CPUs, Motherboards, Memory
AMD Athlon II X3 425, 435 Processors – iXBT Labs
AMD Sempron 140 – techPowerUp
ASRock X58 Extreme Mainboard – Real World Labs
MSI P55-GD80 Motherboard – Hardware Secrets
OCZ Platinum DDR3 PC15000 Memory – ProClockers
Desktop Systems
Apple 27″ iMac – AppleInsider
Graphics Cards and Displays
HIS Radeon HD5870 Graphics Card – Overclocker Cafe
LG W2486L Monitor – InsideHW
Netbooks and Notebooks
Acer Aspire 7738 Notebook – InsideHW
Asus Eee 1101HA Netbook – I4U
Networking, Peripherals and Storage
Lacie Starck Mobile External Hard Drive – TechReviewSource
Steelseries 7G Keyboard – XSReviews
QNAP TS-419P Four-Bay Turbo NAS Server – TweakTown
March 21st, 2009
by Rafael Hernandez
It’s hard to think that Nintendo’s Wii would have a massive number of sales on any single title may seem a bit odd to all of the “old core” gamers out there but that is indeed the case, doubly so. PC World reports that Wii Play has sold quite a few units in the US:
Wii Play(tm), a collection of nine mini-games, has now sold more than
10 million units in the United States alone since its debut in February
2007, according to figures released today by the independent NPD Group,
which tracks video game sales in the United States. Wii Play, now the
top-selling software on all consoles and portable systems in the United
States, comes packaged with a Wii Remote(tm) controller.
Kotaku also brings word of some insane sales figures for the Wii Fit:
I just confirmed with the NPD Group that the fitness title’s lifetime sales has topped Halo 3’s. As of the end of February Wii Fit has sold 6 million copies in the U.S. while Xbox 360 goliath has moved 5.9 million copies in its life time.
Some staggering numbers for your mind to wrap around, the Wii is a veritable cash cow.
January 27th, 2009
by Rafael Hernandez
If you’ve ever been wanting for a colorful new Sony PSP you’re in luck! The company has announced four new colors for the portable console and four Value Packs to go along with it. Follow on for the spec sheets, press release, and images all rolled into one.
SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT JAPAN INTRODUCES NEW COLORS FOR PSP
Read more…
December 26th, 2008
by Rafael Hernandez
This generation of consoles has expanded from the standard video game player to all encompassing media handlers. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 have had the largest focus when it came to implementing those features but Nintendo is seemingly working on bringing streaming media to their Wii console according to Reuters. Here’s a tidbit:
TOKYO (Reuters) – Dentsu Inc, Japan’s largest ad agency, said it
would team up with game maker Nintendo Co Ltd to launch a video
distribution service on Nintendo’s wildly popular Wii console.
The two companies plan to offer programmes created for the service,
a Dentsu spokesman said, in contrast to most online channels, which
tend to carry existing TV shows and movies.
Viewers will need to pay to see some of the new programmes, while
others will be offered free of charge and accompanied by
advertisements, the spokesman said on Thursday.
Their massive user base in Japan could make for an interesting service, just don’t expect high definition broadcasts.
December 10th, 2008
by Rafael Hernandez
New product revisions are usually the area of expertise for the insane fanboys wanting the best possible hardware version available. Microsoft’s “Jasper” revision of the Xbox 360 console is bound to have people flipping over console boxes like raving lunatics. AnandTech explains what to look out for if you want to get your hands on one:
In 2007 the 2nd generation Xbox 360 came out, codenamed Falcon. Falcon featured a 65nm CPU, 80nm GPU and 80nm eDRAM. Falcon came with HDMI by default, but Microsoft eventually made a revision without HDMI called Opus (opus we built a console that fails a lot! sorry, couldn’t resist).
Finally, after much speculation, the 3rd generation Xbox 360 started popping up in stores right around the holiday buying season and it’s called Jasper. Jasper keeps the same 65nm CPU from Falcon/Opus, but shrinks the GPU down to 65nm as well. The eDRAM remains at 80nm.
When Xenon came out, we bought one and took it apart. The same for Falcon, and naturally, the same for Jasper. The stakes are a lot higher with Jasper however; this may very well be the Xbox 360 to get, not only is it a lot cooler and cheaper for Microsoft to manufacture, but it may finally solve the 360’s biggest issue to date.
Happy hunting, the power usage improvements alone could make upgrading worth its while.
October 24th, 2008
by Rafael Hernandez
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is getting prepped for a brand new user interface that does away with the “blades” system of the past and brings in a slicker interface with its very own Nintendo Wii “Mii” knockoff.
Major Nelson brings word of a preview of the new UI for a few lucky participants who sign up for it. Head on over to his site to get all of the details.
