Tech News
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Desktop Boradwell Is Here
With Skylake just around the corner you have to wonder if Intel was ever going to release that "tick" for the Z97 chipset. Namely Broadwell.
As some of you know Broadwell was designed to be a mobile chip, low power but with decent performance however, the big claim to fame was the integrated iris Pro Graphics.
Web Reviews
- Intel takes the integrated graphics crown on the desktop: Broadwell Core i7 5775C review @Hardware.Info
- Comparing The Power/Performance Of A NetBurst Celeron & Pentium 4 To Broadwell's Core i7 5775C @ Phoronix
- Intel Core i7 5775C: Once Going, This Broadwell CPU Is Great On Linux @ Phoronix
- Intel "Broadwell" Core i7 5775C Review @HiTech Legion
- Open-Source Linux Graphics: A10-7870K Godavari vs. i7-4790K Haswell vs. i7-5775C Broadwell @ Phoronix
- Intel Broadwell-E Core i7 5775C processor review @ Guru3D
- Intel Core i7-5775C @ LanOC ReviewsI got a chance to see Broadwell in action during Computex, most notably how well the processor could overclock. Sadly, the chip had a hard limit which was well within the "air cooled" range so needless to say Haswell is still holds the OC crown.
At least for a few more weeks.
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Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 3666Mhz Retail Kits Available
I caught a post to these bad boys in my news stream this morning. It would appear that the first retail kits of DDR with XMP profiles up to 3666Mhz are now available!.
Some of the important features would include:
Hand Screened Performance IC's
Using best of the best IC's available leads to highly overclockable memory
DHX cooling
Patented technology pulls performance-robbing heat away from the modules and allows Dominator memory to run at a cooler temperature.
Customizable light bar
Customize the look and feel of your memory with upgradable light bars and Dominator Airflow LED fan.
Performance and Compatibility
Dominator Platinum DDR4 is optimized and compatibility tested for the latest Intel X99 Series motherboards and offers higher frequencies, greater bandwidth, and lower power consumption.
XMP 2.0 support for trouble-free automatic overclocking.
Corsair Link compatibility
The Corsair Link Digital connector allows you to monitor your memory's temperature for an optimal combination of performance and stability.There are a couple of "unwritten" requirements including CPU quality and the orange across the top of the heatspreader indicating Gigabyte OC. Of course, they will likely work in any motherboard including X99 and Skylake you just wont be able to set XMP.
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Asylum Review Block: Radeon Fury Road
I'm sitting here looking at a Mad Max: Fury Road poster and wondering how that relates to the AMD Radeon Fury and I think "Overpowered with Unrealistic Results" draws a nice parallel but, hey I could be wrong.
Web Reviews
- HIS Radeon R9 380 IceQ X² OC 2 GB GDDR5 Review @ Hardware-Mag.de
- Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury Tri-X OC Review @ HardwareSlave
- HIS Radeon R9 390X IceQ X2 Video Card Review - Most Unique 390X So Far
- HIS Radeon R9 390X IceQ X2 OC 8GB Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
- Sapphire Tri-X Radeon R9 Fury Review @ Modders-Inc
- ASUS Radeon R9 Fury STRIX review @ Guru3D
- ASUS Radeon R9 Fury STRIX 4 GB @ techPowerUp
- Asus' Strix Radeon R9 Fury graphics card reviewed @ Some Tech Place
- AMD Radeon R9 Fury Review: Fiji On Air Tested @ HotHardware
- MSI Radeon R9 390X GAMING 8G Overclocking Review @ [H]Eventually we will be less "Fury" and have a Fury one of our own, though until then Fury On!
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Where is the YouTube for Podcasts? - Good Question
This is a pretty good editorial about how difficult it is to get people to find a podcast and some of the trouble associated with it and she pretty much hits every issue including the free for all YouTube that allows people to make money without spending "anything" to the audio equivalent Soundcloud which does a horrible job and promoting and charges you for the inconvenience.
I’m not about to argue that a direct translation of YouTube is the solution to the podcast platform problem. There are a lot of problems with YouTube’s model. But a comparison between audio and video platforms is useful in highlighting how far podcast platforms are behind other digital mediums.
The obvious is the attention span of 90% of internet users. Websites need to grab the attention of a visitor in 3 seconds or less and YouTube caters to a generation who grew up in front of a television. It is unfortunate but Internet users are reluctant to learn anymore and unless their answer is in the top 5 results on google you might as well not exist.
I do hope the Podcast situation improves. iTunes is the defacto standard which was created 10+ years ago and hasn't changed much over the years. There is lots Apple could do to improve the situation and sadly any 3rd party uses iTunes as a basis for their solution. The future doesn't look good for Podcasting but I am hopeful that something will come around.
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Throw Back Thursday: DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra rev B
In 2003 the Athlon processor was the enthusiast platform to have. Not only was it faster than the Pentium III but had plenty of ways to be overclocked and was quite a bit cheaper. Of course there are downsides to most things and the AMD chipset wasn’t very good and if you installed the heatsink incorrectly you would most often crack the core.
For those that don’t remember this was the time when “flip chips” were popular placing the CPU core on top of the package and before the introduction of IHS, or the integrated heat spreader.
The old 462 Socket A didn’t get worldwide attention until the release of the Nvidia nForce 2 chipset which not only supported dual channel DDR 400 memory but was able to unlock the Athlon multiplier even after the traces were cut on the processor. To do this you inserted a wire into the CPU socket before installing the processor and free multipliers for everyone.
One of the most popular motherboards of the time was the DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra which gave rise to the special Oskar Wu version the DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra Rev B pictured here. It had everything from enhanced DDR memory support to an offset socket location for better cooling and an extra open area to support dual slot AGP cards.
The motherboard also supported SATA RAID and had onboard power and reset buttons for test bench use and LanParty style debugging. Sadly the capacitors have started to burst which is also why Japanese capacitors became so popular some years later.
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Awful Airport Design or Successful College Project?
There are several "worthless" degrees you can get in college. Most of them mean well but very few of them will actually help prepare you for a career in that profession. However, some require you have a degree to even be considered.
Architecture is one such degree. This is considered a professional degree which is a minimum of 5 years learning about various building systems, design and sometimes a little practical knowledge. Of course what it doesn't prepare you for is the 10 years after graduation stuck drawing details and fetching coffee for the project Architect who has already put in their time in the trenches and feels entitled.
Yes, the degree will get you in the door but the fight is long from finished.
This is something I didn't understand during my Architecture studies and instead took my learning serious and applied a good amount of logic to all of my projects, never really experimenting with something that "shouldn't" be built because it wasn't practical or was impossible to achieve.
Alex Sutton, a grad student from Bartlett School of Architecture in London, seems to have thrown all logic to the wind and decided to experiment with a new style of airport that isn't on the ground and far from the city but rather elevated and placed in the empty space between buildings. On paper this looks like a good use of "empty space" however creates a whole list of problems including (but not limited to) excessive noise, wind, broken windows, plane crashes and let’s not forget that once you cover a street with a runway that street no longer gets any light.
Alex positioned one of his airports over water which helps this but still isn’t much better.
Ever wonder why buildings in New York are stepped back after a certain number of floors? Seems people began to miss having sunlight on their streets and didn’t like getting blown over due to powerful winds coming down the sides of buildings so they passed an ordinance requiring a certain amount of "free air" on a building lot.
Overall I say this is a great project, very radical and so horrible that it went viral. Let’s hope it lands him a great job to help offset the pain of being a draftsman with a degree.
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Throw Back Thursday: Corsair Ice T30 TEC Memory Cooler
Back in 2009 Corsair Dominator memory was THE what you bought if you wanted the best possible performance. The modules came in a variety of different speeds and often had the best timings on the market. A specially designed PCB made the modules taller which caused issues with CPU cooling but tended to work better with the heatspreader and keep temperatures under control.
Across the top of these modules was a finned heatsink that not only looked cool but was removable. Why you ask? Well, Corsair sold a variety of accessories for their Dominator line including different colored heatsinks and some that were even taller. To compliment the Dominator line Corsair also offered the DHX+ Airflow GT which was the fancy name for a large dual fan cooler that now seems to be rather common with most memory makers.
In an attempt to really push the cooling envelope Corsair developed the "Ice T30" This is a watercooled TEC powered memory cooler that mounted directly to the top of the Dominator memory modules. It was held in place using a set of longer screws and basically replaced the finned heatsink across the top.
The TEC was powered by a control module that would monitor the relative humidy and cold plate temperature to ensure that there was no condensation. A switch on the module would bypass this and allow the TEC to run at 100%, which is what most overclockers did.
Ironicly enough the Ice T30 didn't sell well however Vince at Kingpincooler used the idea to develop the Dominance Memory Cooler which allowed extreme overclockers to put their memory under LN2.
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Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Mid Tower Chassis
Walnut, California July 9th, 2015 - Phanteks today announce the release of the budget
friendly, Enthoo PRO M. The PRO M’s look is based on the award-winning Enthoo Pro
while the interior is based on the open concept of the Enthoo EVOLV ATX. The PRO M
combines the features of the EVOLV ATX and the design of the original Enthoo PRO.
Unleash unlimited possiblities with the Enthoo PRO M.
Like the original Enthoo PRO, the PRO M retains the brushed plasitc with the aluminum appearance and comes in two color, Black and Titanium Green. The PRO M’s I/O port now resides on the side of the front panel creating a simple but elegant design without the cost.
The PRO M will feature a large interior to support full ATX. A innovative top radiator bracket to allow easy installation of the radiator and/or fans like the Enthoo EVOLV ATX and the EVOLV ITX.
The PRO M now comes with the all new HDD mounting system that can support multiple storage with the optional HDD bracket (PH-HDDKT_02).
The PRO M is designed with watercooling in mind. Multiple reservoir and pump mounting locations, as well as storage capacity are all possible with the upgrade options.“being very versatile, having a spacious and clean interior and of course making it very easy to build water-cooling systems is what the Enthoo Series is all about.” - Boon Tuoh Khor
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Hardware Asylum Builds Section: Asylum Builds
One question I get asked a lot is "I want to build a computer, what should I buy?". The answer to questions like these can sometimes be simple like "Go to CyberpowerPC and buy this" or might be more involved and include discussions around thermal efficiencies in heatsink design and do you need a side window.
In an attempt to help enlighten the budding computer enthusiast I have created a new section on Hardware Asylum called "Builds" or "Asylum Builds". These computer system builds will be different than a limited budget build and instead be purpose built for a certain task.
Every build will fall into one of three categories.
- The Rig: Systems in this section are general purpose machines that can be used for a variety of different situations
- Gaming: As the name suggests Gaming builds will feature hardware designed to get the most out of your games
- Xtreme: Every website has a build like this that often includes a mismatch set of parts (cause: reasons). Xtreme builds take this a step further and adds a purpose which might be Xtreme Gaming or Xtreme Overclocking.
The first of these builds is a simple MiniITX Media Capture box that mirrors what I built for recording the Hardware Asylum Podcast. It features some high-end hardware (cause: reasons) that were all built around an internal Avermedia Game Broadcaster card.
Check out the new section and let me know what you think.
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Lessons Learned From 7 Years of China Factory Visits
My morning ritual usually consists of sorting through my morning email and extracting what is useful and deleting the HAM. One message that caught my attention this morning was from a manufacturer in China asking if I would be interested in their products. Curious I decided to check out their website and noticed that all of the floors in the photos were green.
Having been to a few factories it dawned on me that many of the large factories (the ones with windows) often have green floors but I never bothered to ask why. So, I went to Google.
My search returned an interesting article titled "Lessons Learned From 7 Years of China Factory Visits".
It’s been almost two hours now. There is a hot-ass cup of green tea sitting on the conference table in front of me. A large free-standing air conditioner unit is blowing warm air. Everybody (except me) is barking at each other in Chinese. We’ve been looking at the same mechanical sketches for an hour. The English translations offered by our sourcing agent are remarkably succinct. 5 minutes of aggressive back and forth in Chinese is time and time again reduced to statements like: “This product very difficult to assemble.
”Ya don’t say?
After reading over the lessons you begin to see a clear picture of China and why products are built the way they are. In one of the latest Hardware Asylum Podcast episodes Darren and I talk about Computex and the colorful people I encounter along the way. One discussion centered on the CaseLabs vs Thermaltake and the question on if TT stole their design. I fully believe that TT stole the design however, they won't admit it because to steal a design requires the blueprint. What they did was "reverse engineer" the design based on photos and the actual product to create their own version.
The lessons in this article talk about that and why it is important to basically block China from your e-comm stores. There is no copyright in China and they will do whatever they can to ensure the product is built as quickly as possible even if that means borrowing designs from the last thing they built.
Now, if I could only find my green floor answer
