Tech News
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It's Final -- Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use
We are going to have to strike a balance.
I like the world that oil has made though I'm a realist and understand that once the oil is gone things are going to have to change. Sure there are other sources to extract our hydrocarbons but, they aren't cheap.
So lets go down the list, what is made from oil? Plastic, Fuel and Lubes. The big one here is plastic and all of the byproducts of plastic which includes things like trash liners, car interiors, computer parts and those bags we store our food in. No oil, no plastic
Unless, we make them from corn which is part of the topic of this article.
The report lists many potential negative risks of development, such as direct conflicts between land for fuels and land for food, other land-use changes, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity and nitrogen pollution through the excessive use of fertilizers
So, the challenge will be how to create food for "us" with enough extra to give us all the luxuries we have grown accustomed to. That means smarter farms, better wastewater collection and most importantly, farmers. Sadly, "bad farmers" are responsible for the destruction of the "Great Barrier Reef" and a number of production farms that blanket California and all because of a rise in land prices and a reduction of farm profits.
I grew up in a region that was full of farms, ranches, dairies and over the past several years all of that choice land has turned into housing developments. Heck, the house I built is part of a development that was once a farm and all of the good soil got scraped away during the development process requiring me to haul in dirt just so I could have grass.
Cheaper and faster isn't always the right solution even though it seems like the right path.
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Aerocool Targets Gamers and RGB Enthusiasts at CES 2017
- Launches New Product Line: Gaming Chairs - AC120 and AC220
- Thermal Line: Verkho Air Coolers
- Project 7: C0 (C-Zero), Liquid Cooling, Fans, Hub, PSU and more
- PC Gaming for All; Choose Yours: Enthusiasts | Pro-Gamers | Casual Gamers
- #BeCool by Aerocool
Taipei, TAIWAN – Aerocool Advanced Technologies Corp., a leading PC gaming hardware and accessories design company, today announced its latest products for Gamers and RGB Enthusiasts at CES 2017. Displaying three PC gaming systems built for enthusiasts, pro-gamers, and casual gamers, Aerocool showcased its latest product line-up in a short video highlighting the cases, coolers, PSU and gaming chairs. For more information, please visit Aerocool CES.
“We’re delivering on the needs of the gaming community – cases, coolers, PSUs and now gaming chairs. Showcasing a complete lineup of our product portfolio for our community and fans across the globe, our products look cool, perform great and are affordable,” said Tony Lin, CEO of Aerocool. “Our Project 7 line will see an expansion in 2017 with products that are really cool and keep our fans anticipating – What’s Next”.
PC Gaming for All; Choose Yours: Enthusiasts | Pro-Gamers | Casual Gamers
The Enthusiasts system showcases Aerocool Project 7 product line in all its beauty. The beautiful P7-C1 tempered glass case and RGB Fans can be controlled by an independent Hub using software. Powered by an RGB PSU and liquid cooled, the RGB system is perfect for those that love a multitude of colors. Check out the build here.
The Pro-Gamers system utilizes the latest addition to the Project 7 family, P7-C0 (C-Zero) cooled by Verkho 5, a new air cooler with 5 heat pipes having a TDP of 150W. The Casual Gamers system makes use of Aerocool’s award-winning Aero series case. Introducing, the Aero 300 with Verkho 4, an air cooler with 4 heat pipes having a TDP of 135W.
Gaming chairs: AC120 and AC220
Aerocool also revealed two gaming chairs, the AC120 and AC220. Inspired by a racing car design, the two gaming chairs have racing stripes and carbon-fiber look material to enhance the sleek bold lines across the chair. Both chairs can hold up to 330 pounds or 150 kg, can recline 180° fully-flat if the need arises for a power nap and is available in six colors: full black, black/blue, black/white, black/red, black/green, black/orange.
Specs and Product Availability: March 2017 for all products
Be Cool Giveaway by Aerocool
Aerocool has partnered with independent artist Maciej Hajnrich aka Valp and ThunderX3 allowing every individual to download an exclusive wallpaper to share their own cool gaming setups. Every participant stands a chance to win the latest Aerocool chair and PC peripherals sponsored by ThunderX3. To download this exclusive wallpaper or to participate in the giveaway, please click here for English | Deutsch | Español | Português do Brasil | P?????? | ??.
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NZXT Kraken X52 Closed Loop Water Cooler Review @ APH Networks
Short and sweet.
The NZXT Kraken X52 balances out form and function. But balancing out form and function does come at a price.
The Kraken isn't just a bit of movie majik, it is a real life dual fan AIO watercooler designed to deliver. Well, I have no idea what it can deliver because: reasons but, if I was to fathom a guess it could cool, one, maybe two CPUs running at full tilt and at least four sticks of ram.
Double up your cooling with a push and pull configuration and you'll unlock full RGB LED support along with a natural cooling effect called "AIO Lake Effect" which can cause snow drifts up to 20 feet and hours of sleet and ice to make your games run super fast.
- or: you could read the review and find out just how accurate I am.
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Happy New Year from Hardware Asylum
On behalf of Hardware Asylum I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.
2016 was great fun and while there were some issues along the way I think it ended on a high note. 2017 marks the start of my 18th year doing computer hardware review. It is hard to believe that I started Ninjalane back in 1999 and have been trucking along ever since.
While it is fun to celebrate past achievements I am looking forward to what 2017 brings and more on that shortly after CES.
Have a good one!
See you all in 2017
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Throwback Time: DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra B
Last week I posted a Socket A motherboard from Gigabyte and figured I would follow it up with might have been the BEST Socket A motherboard of the era.
The DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra B.
During the reign of DFI they would often re-issue motherboards based on customer feedback. The NF2 Ultra B was one of the first boards that Oskar Wu redesigned and turned out to be extremely popular with overclockers. Some of the design revisions included moving the socket to the upper left of the motherboard and pushing the VRM closer to the chipset. The idea here was to balance power delivery and put the CPU higher in the chassis for better cooling. It even came with heatsink mounting holes so you could use larger heatsinks.
The board featured a very large North Bridge heatsink along with the normal flair of DFI LanParty features including onboard power and reset buttons, RAID controller and new CMOS Reloaded.
CMOS Reloaded has since become a stable in the industry allowing people to store overclocking profiles and quickly reload your settings in the event that you needed to reset the CMOS. NForce motherboards also had a nasty "bug" which caused the CMOS to "brick" when overclocking and required that you either "hot flash" the BIOS or replace the BIOS chip. Despite all the good DFI never did include a secondary BIOS on any of their motherboards however, any serious overclocker had a bag of them just for this reason.
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Team Group T-Force Night Hawk 3000 MHz DDR4 @ techPowerUp
If there ever was a memory module design specifically for ASUS ROG motherboards I think the T-Force from Team Group fits that mold to a T. (see what I did there?)
Team Group sent us their newly released T-Force Night Hawk 3000 MHz DDR4, which comes with a new look, and other features not common to today's DDR4. T-Force is Team Group's latest focus on bringing something a little bit different for any memory-related gear, including memory and SSDs.
The top of the module comes with RGB LED lighting effects and has a style that jsut screams Silverstone Raven, ASUS "whatever" and maybe MSI if you somehow morph a dragon into a flying bird shape.
Either way they look amazing and at 3000Mhz they should also deliver some amazing gaming performance.
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Guru3D Rig of the Month - December 2016 - El Jefe
Casemodding isn't what it use to be and is a topic that Darren and I discussed in episode 70 of The Hardware Asylum Podcast. The whole modding thing has gotten easier and maybe it is in response to kids not having shop class in school anymore or families without tools but, I feel computer modding should be a status symbol and something everyone should do to personalize their PC.
One of my goals for 2017 is to bring back a casemodding and system build gallery and have my readers pick the monthly winners. I think it would be good fun and a great way to help promote the hobby.
The December edition of the Guru3D Rig of the Month 2016 is here. For this months build you get to meet 'El Jefe' from Allen Gonzalez. A really nice and specialized build.
I might even go so far as to have overclocking builds featured. Maybe put some rules around what qualifies as an overclock but it might be a great way to also promote the fun stuff you can do with overclocking.
Until then check out the build over at Guru3D.
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Avexir Raiden Green Tesla 16GB 2666MHz DDR4 Memory Review @ Hardwareslave
Avexir makes some pretty impressive memory modules and appears to be a strong supporter of the overclocking world. One of their unicorn products are the modules with the plasma show across the top. Very pretty to look at however, knowing that you are sticking a static generator on top of a memory module you have to wonder if it is really all that good.
Today we review the Avexir Raiden Series Green Tesla 2666MHz DDR4 Memory 16GB Kit. There are a lot of DDR4 kits on the market and they vary greatly in speeds, capacity, and design. If you want something a little visually different, Avexir have their Raiden Series using world exclusive patented technology of plasma tubes to mimic lightening effect.
If I was to speculate the year of the plasma memory module light show has concluded. LEDs seem to be the future and I give that a year before its all Meh under the bridge.
Still, the effect is extremely memorizing to watch, maybe someone will figure out how to put that in a watercooling reservoir for added drama. In the meantime check out the HWS review of the mouthful memory modules from Avexir
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ZEN Benchmark from french hardware Magazine
Leave it to the French to break NDA and think it is a good thing. Well, in this case I’m going to “assume” it was something the editor didn't catch but, still it is stuff like this that will bring back paper launches and market delays. It is also making it more difficult for consumers to trust hardware media and will eventually cause it to collapse.
Of course, with that being said and assuming the charts are "correct" the new AMD Ryzen CPU is looking like a winner in the performance arena.
The reddit translation is claiming 8 Zen cores and matching performance with a Intel Core i7 6900K (Broadwell-E) and at a lower than advertised clock frequency. This is great news since AMD really needs something in the performance arena before it even thinks about the consumer space.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and more importantly what kinds of motherboards might get released. You know they will be full on Crossfire boards with 4-way support (cause:NVidia). Plus if history holds true then we will also get this level of performance for less than the cost of a Core i7 6900K which can be north of $1,000 USD.
It might be time to get excited about AMD again.
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Ryzen CPU expected to help raise AMD desktop market share
Most enthusiasts would agree that CPU popularity is often centered around performance meaning that the fastest chip usually wins. Speed can either be raw out of the box performance or based on overclockability. For instance the old Socket A Athlon CPUs were extremely popular due to how they overclocked and how much fun it was to do. Some of that translated to the A64 line but that quickly died off when LGA 1366 was released.
Assuming Ryzen can match performance with Skylake and Kaby Lake then I think they might have a chance.
AMD's next-generation 14nm Ryzen series processors will be unveiled in the first quarter of 2017 and the new platform will be officially released at the end of February and enter global mass shipments in March, according to sources from motherboard players. Optimistic about its high price/performance ratio, motherboard players have been rather aggressive about placing orders for related motherboards recently and some even believe demand for the new platform will increase AMD's share in the worldwide desktop processor market in the second quarter of 2017.
Now all they need is something to compete with LGA 2011 and they might be on to something.
