Tech News
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It is Game Time for DDR4 and Micron has the Ball
Big news out of Micron related to their involvement in DDR4 and all things memory.
Micron, for its part, is content with being a quiet leader of the computer industry. Its position as a dominant power was solidified by the mid-2012 acquisition of Japan's Elpida Memory Inc. (TYO:6665). Elpida owned several large fabs worldwide, including a fab in the Hiroshima area. Last year Micron finalized that transaction, just in time to capitalize on a surge in memory spot prices.
It will be interesting to see how DDR4 pans out and while the article states that consumer DDR4 memory won't be available until 2015 I did see working memory samples at CES. They also say high-end servers and workstations will have DDR4 first and should make a debut sometime this summer.
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What Happens When You See More Updates from Friends
An ongoing battle in social media is how to attract more attention without getting yourself blocked, banned or discredited. Well, it would seem that facebook has been doing most of the work for us by telling its users what it wants them to see.
And really doing a poor job at that.
its a known fact that posting anything to a fan page on facebook will reach about 15%-25% of their total audience and that you will often never see anything your friends post unless you actually visit their page. It would seem that lately those numbers have gone down and I suspect this recent update is part of the reason.
Over time, we noticed that this effect wasn't true for text status updates from Pages. As a result, the latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends. We are learning that posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types.
There is ways to influence the numbers in your favor by "boosting" a post. This costs money and much like gambling you are not guaranteed to have any positive repercussions from it.
Eventually that will change, and until then you might as well save your money rather than spending it on a free service.
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EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified 3072 MB @ techPowerUp
I am often amazed at how much effort goes into a video card review, esp knowing how much work is actually involved. What I have discovered is that while the long list of benchmarks seems relevant the numbers often reflect a performance curve that can apply to any situation.
That is unless you are dealing with a monster of a GPU on one of the finest PCB designs avialable today. Yes, I am talking about the EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified.
EVGA's GTX 780 Ti Classified is the fastest GTX 780 Ti we ever tested. It comes with a large overclock out of the box that makes it run above 1175 MHz most of the time. The dual-fan ACX heatsink also provides good cooling, resulting in low temperatures and stable operation at all times.
I'm not really sure what overclocking criteria TPU puts on their video card samples but a max clock of 1090Mhz is not a good representation of what the card can do under normal conditions. They do mention that they didn't mess with any of the fan profiles meaning that the fans were not cranked up to provide the best cooling. Knowing this their overclock will be limited but, should still ramp past 1090Mhz.
Here is our review of the EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified for comparison purposes.
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ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition Motherboard Review @ Bjorn3D
Around the time the EVGA X79 Dark hit the shelves ASUS was busy putting the finishing touches on their own X79 refresh dubbed the Rampage IV Black Edition. The board is very similar to the normal Rampage IV with a few notable differences.
Of course some people swear that the changes are awesome while others don't find them all that appealing. The fact of the matter is, if you are in the market for X79 you will be hard pressed to find anything better because you simply cannot buy them.
Except for the EVGA X79 Dark, that board is awesome.
Echoes of AC/DC ring in my head as I came up with this title, and it took everything in me not to have about a thousand different “Back in black” references but I think we can survive a few. ASUS seems to reserve its “Black Edition” moniker for very special models as im sure some of you saw back when we got a chance to check out the Rampage III Black edition board based on the X58 chipset. That thing was a flat out beast and from looking at the specs on paper the Rampage IV Black edition is no different. Well we can say that in a manner of speaking as it looks to be a flat out beast but it is in terms entirely different as the technology on this board is seemingly light years ahead of the previous generation Black edition board, and even huge leaps ahead of the first Rampage IV Extreme board we viewed what must be 2 years ago now.
Gotta love the long quotes, helps me fill my google quota for text vs link.
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Silverstone Strider Gold S Series 850W @ PureOverclock
I don't normally post PSU reviews but the Silverstone Striders are quite nice and worth a look if you are in the market.
Silverstone is here to tell you that size doesn’t mean everything, and that you can have your cake and eat it, too. Enter their Strider Gold S series power supplies, which are labeled as not only the world’s smallest ATX power supplies, but are also rated to supply as much as 850W of peak output power. For today’s review, we have their top dog on hand: rated at 80 Plus Gold certification and being fully modular with a silent operating 120mm fan and 850W of total power output, we’ll see if this PSU lives up to Silverstone’s legendary quality. We will also be taking a quick look at their new line of PP07 braided cable extensions for those of you who are simply not satisfied with plain looking cables, but lack the skill/time/patience to do your own custom braiding.
The best part of these PSUs is that they are fully modular and available with two lengths of cable to fit any case from the large tower to a SFF mini box.
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AMD Kaveri A10 Launch
It would seem that right after CES there was a processor launch called Kaveri. The processor is an A10 package and drops into all existing motherboards using the FM2+ socket.
Web Reviews
- AMD Kaveri A10 7850K Review @ HCW
- AMD A10-7850K (Kaveri) APU Review featuring GIGABYTE G1.Sniper A88X @ HardwareHeaven
- AMD Kaveri A10 7850K & A8 7600 Review @ Hardware Canucks
- AMD A10-7850K und A10-7700K Kaveri APUs
- AMD A10-7850K 'Kaveri' review: AMD's new APU
- AMD A8 7600 Kaveri APU review
- AMD Kaveri Arrives: A8-7600 APU Review
- AMD's A8-7600 'Kaveri' processor reviewedLooks like I might be in the market for another A10 processor. I'll just need to get more motherboards to support it.
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AMD could counter Nvidia's G-Sync with simpler, free sync tech
You knew this was bound to happen but AMD is claiming that they can offer a simpler version of Nviida G-Sync using freely available technology.
As it would turn out, AMD had the technology built into their chips for several years because it saved power.
Koduri explained that this particular laptop's display happened to support a feature that AMD has had in its graphics chips "for three generations": dynamic refresh rates. AMD built this capability into its GPUs primarily for power-saving reasons, since unnecessary vertical refresh cycles burn power to little benefit. There's even a proposed VESA specification for dynamic refresh, and the feature has been adopted by some panel makers, though not on a consistent or widespread basis. AMD's Catalyst drivers already support it where it's available, which is why an impromptu demo was possible.
Dynamic refresh works much like G-Sync, varying the length of the vertical blank period between display refreshes on a per-frame basis, so the screen can be drawn when the GPU has a finished frame ready to be displayed.We all know that AMD is the king when it comes to paper launches but this looks like something that could very easily derail the G-Sync train before it leaves the station.
Of course you can't discredit the value of G-Sync since it actually resides on the monitor and better matches video hardware with the display but, the downside is cost and certification that is usually passed on to the consumer.
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NVIDIA Unveils Tegra K1, a 192-Core Super Chip for Mobile
Kepler GPU Architecture in GeForce GTX 780 Ti Morphs Into Mobile Graphics Powerhouse; Available in 32- and 64-Bit Versions
LAS VEGAS, NV - CES -- NVIDIA today unveiled the revolutionary Tegra® K1 mobile processor, a 192-core super chip featuring the same NVIDIA® Kepler™ architecture that powers the fastest GPU on the planet, the NVIDIA GeForce® GTX™ 780 Ti. For the first time, next-generation PC gaming will now be available on mobile platforms.
The Tegra K1 processor sets new mobile standards by supporting the latest PC-class gaming technologies, enabling it to run sophisticated gaming engines like Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4. It delivers advanced computation capabilities to speed the development of applications for computer vision and speech recognition. And its extraordinary efficiency delivers higher performance than any other mobile GPU at the same power level.
"Over the past two decades, NVIDIA invented the GPU and has developed more graphics technologies than any other company," said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO, NVIDIA. "With Tegra K1, we're bringing that heritage to mobile. It bridges the gap for developers, who can now build next-gen games and apps that will run on any device."
Tegra K1 is offered in two pin-to-pin compatible versions. The first version uses a 32-bit quad-core, 4-Plus-1™ ARM Cortex A15 CPU. The second version uses a custom, NVIDIA-designed 64-bit dual Super Core CPU. This CPU (codenamed "Denver") delivers very high single-thread and multi-thread performance. It is based on the ARMv8 architecture, which brings the energy-efficient heritage of ARM processor technology to 64-bit computing.
Both versions of Tegra K1 deliver stunning graphics and visual computing capabilities powered by the 192-core NVIDIA Kepler GPU. The 32-bit version is expected in devices in the first half of 2014, while the 64-bit version is expected in devices in the second half of the year.
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ROCCAT to Reveal Biggest Product Line-up at CES 2014
Hamburg – January 2, 2014 – At CES, German manufacturer ROCCAT will kick off 2014 with a full line-up of new gaming peripherals. From January 7 – 10 ROCCAT opens the doors to its Venetian Hotel showroom, showcasing new products in every category: mice, keyboards, headsets, mousepads and accessories. “2014 will be a phenomenal year for PC gaming – so much is changing at the moment and ROCCAT is about to prove its role as the industry’s leader in technology and innovation once more. With the products coming up next year we will be able to provide a whole ecosystem for PC gaming,” says René Korte, founder and CEO of ROCCAT.
At CES 2014 ROCCAT will introduce two new Kave XTD gaming headset models, making the Kave XTD series the company’s full range line-up when it comes to audio products.
The Kave XTD 5.1 Analog is the successor to the best-selling true 5.1 gaming headset in the world: the original Kave 5.1. Made for gamers with a 5.1 soundcard already built into their PCs, the Kave XTD 5.1 Analog features classic 5.1 audio jacks plus a USB connector to power up the in-cable remote and the LED lighting. The headset features unique Zero Noise technology thanks to the interference isolator built into its dual-mode in-cable remote. The remote can be used either as a desktop or clip-on remote. The overall comfort and build quality has also been improved significantly, with the weight impressively reduced by 25%.
The Kave XTD Stereo offers the same build and design, dedicated to comfort and durability. The stereo version of the Kave XTD features two powerful driver units delivering intense and rich gaming sound, pushing the boundaries of what is possible with stereo headset solutions. The detachable noise-cancelling microphone provides supreme sound quality and offers fan-favorite features like the mute LED, pioneered by ROCCAT in the original Kave 5.1.
With the Kave XTD 5.1 Digital, ROCCAT will also present again the flagship version of the series, featuring an inbuilt premium 5.1 soundcard, world-first headset-to-smartphone Bluetooth pairing and full audio controls with the comprehensive desktop remote.
The legendary Kone Series by ROCCAT is the origin of many features that are standard for gaming mice nowadays. Kone series models where the first ones to feature multicolor lighting, state of the art sensor technology and innovations like the tracking and distance control unit (TDCU). Now ROCCAT introduces the Kone XTD Optical with an adjustable distance control unit to customize lift-off distance and a new 6,400dpi optical sensor. Gamers are now able to significantly improve their accuracy with optical sensors. The Kone XTD Optical offers renowned features like Omron™ switches, the 4D Titan Wheel, Easy-Aim and ROCCAT Talk.
For the smaller Pure version of the Kone Series, ROCCAT presents three new designs at CES 2014. The Kone Pure Military features a 5,000dpi optical sensor with TDCU and will be available in three different styles: Desert Strike, Naval Storm and Camo Charge. ROCCAT will also make the new Kave XTD 5.1 Analog plus a mousepad available in the same design and sell the mice alone or as a bundle.
ROCCAT’s mechanical gaming keyboard series, Ryos, gets two compact ten key less versions - one with per-key illumination feature and one without backlighting. The new versions are called the Ryos TKL Pro and Ryos TKL. Their development is based directly on user feedback via Facebook. “We posted the ten key less version of the Ryos as an “easter egg” earlier this year. The demand from the community was overwhelming so we basically had no choice but to build it,” says René Korte. The TKL Pro version features a cutting-edge MCU, which supports impressive illumination effects such as “breathing” and will be available in four different switch colors.
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Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H Review @ HCW
Gigabyte does an extremely good job at creating clear separation between their motherboard segments and while the UD4H might be considered a mid-range motherboard it does quite well at delivering high-end performance.
Gigabyte aims to allow overclockers to take Haswell as far as possible on air with the 16-phase "Ultra Durable" Z87X-UD4H.
I just gave one of these away in the December 2013 Custom Gear Giveaway. Be sure to check out the event pages for details on the current contest
