Tech News
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Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290x 8GB Tri-X Video Card Review at Modders-Inc
Ever wonder what AMD based video card makers are doing during the Radeon recession?
Sapphire has long been AMD's leading partner in the GPU arena. With the growing popularity of 1440, 2K and 4K gaming, manufacturers have been taking "liberties" with the GPUs such as factory overclocks, higher power delivery, and more memory (VRAM). The Sapphire Vapor-X 290x is slightly different from other 290x's as it houses 8 gigabytes of RAM vs. 4 Gigabytes …
Seems they are still making Radeon 290X cards, just now with better cooling.
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GIGABYTE GTX 980 G1 GAMING Video Card Review @ [H]
Gigabyte might not be your first choice in gaming video cards but, in the realm of high performance cards with a custom PCB the 980 G1 Gaming is a good one to look at.
Today we have the GIGABYTE GTX 980 G1 GAMING, which features the WINDFORCE 600W cooling system and a high factory overclock. We will make comparisons to the competition, find out how fast it is compared to a GTX 980, and you won't believe the overclocok we achieved! We will make both performance and price comparisons.
I got to see this card at CES and can stay it isn't as impressive as the EVGA GTX 980 Classified but is right up there in terms of build quality and doesn't break the expansion card height standards.
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IP Address Configuration with Hyper-V: Pro Tip
I recently resurrected my old Slackware based email server project and decided that instead of handling all of my email the server would act as a spam proxy and forward all the good email to my commercial server. My hosting situation only allows me one physical machine and for this to work I needed to run Slackware virtually and route the messages internally.
As some of you may be aware when dealing with a co-located server you are given a block of IP addresses that are then bound to the NIC so you can assign them to IIS, Email, FTP etc.. For this project I wanted to bind my new VM to an unused IP address and then route email between the machines using DNS.
Sounds simple enough, I prepared my new Slackware VM offline and then uploaded it to the server. From there I created the virtual machine and attached the new VHD (virtual hard drive) and all appeared to be good. The problem was I could ping and access external websites however, I was unable to ping the host machine. The host machine could ping the guest however it couldn’t access any resources on the guest. I tried pulling up a web application on the guest machine and got the "server cannot be contacted" message. I then tried accessing a SAMBA share and was prompted for a login and password.
It was almost like the machine was there but it wasn’t on the same network.
I checked ifconfig on the Slackware VM and it was hard coded to the address I wanted and DNS was setup correctly and would resolve external sites such as google.com but wouldn’t resolve hardwareasylum.com which was hosted on the host machine.
It was around this time that I started hitting Google looking for a solution and could not find anything related to my particular situation. In fact most people were complaining they could ping the guest machine but the guest couldn’t get out. Of course the solution for that is to setup your virtual network to use a physical NIC and that will allow you to access more than just the local machine. My system was setup that way and I checked and rechecked it many times.
I was about to give up until I tried one final thing.
In the situation where you are running a Hyper-V VM and the guest (VM) can access external sites but cannot contact the host and when the host machine cannot access the guest machine.
Unbind the Guest (VM) IP address from the physical NIC on the Host machine.
As it turns out there was an IP conflict but, it wasn’t getting recorded in the event logs or preventing the guest machine from accessing the Internet. When the host machine tried to access the guest it was getting confused as to what IP address to use and I suspect was using the instance that was bound to the physical NIC and not the one running internally on the Guest VM.
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EVGA GTX 980 Classified Backplate Love
The final step in any 2Ghz LN2 overclocking adventure is making the golden card look good and what better way than with an official EVGA 980 Classified backplate.
You can get these for most modern EVGA video cards from their online store. The stock level can vary depending on demand so check back often.
Installing one of these is actually quite simple and I wrote up a mini guide on how to install an EVGA backplate. While actual screw locations will change the process is the same
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Enermax Liqmax II 240 water cooler @ HardwareOverclock
This cooler looked pretty good at CES and looks like it has performance features too.
This new liquid CPU cooler has a patented cold plate design for maximum cooling performance. The shunt inside the micro fin structure minimizes the “Boundary Layer” effect, eliminates hot spots much quicker and ensures a perfect heat dissipation. Also the fans are very specially. With a small switch at the back, the peak speed can be changed in three steps. The fan therefore offers three various RPM ranges: Silent Mode / Performance Mode / Overclock Mode. Within the selected mode, the fan is controlled automatically via PWM.
The site looks to be very "not English" but the photos look good.
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Asus GTX 980 Strix @ LanOC Reviews
Silly ASUS Strix are for kids.
Big kids, with rather fat wallets and deep pockets for maximum cash infusion.
The final piece needed to get our In Win D-Frame Mini build together was a powerful video card that runs cool, quiet, and matches the red and black theme of the build. For a short while I ran a reference GTX 980 but quickly switched to the Asus GTX 980 Strix. Well today I’m going to take a closer look at the card to see what it Is all about, how it performs, and how well it overclocks. Going off previous Strix reviews we can expect it to run well and stand out in the noise department as well assuming the Strix cooler can keep the GTX 980 running cool.
I'm rather curious about this card and what all it can offer aside from excellent thermals and a name only cereal killers can love.
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Deepcool Gamer Storm Captain 360 @ techPowerUp
Deepcool is known for some really amazing cases and coolers with their latest design being the Trinity case they built for CyberpowerPC. Some of their older products are the Steam Punk inspired cube case and a variety of AIO watercoolers and gaming heatsinks.
The Storm Captain is one of those large AIO coolers designed to maximize performance and that is it.
All-in-one liquid coolers are proving to be ever more popular. In response, Deepcool is setting themselves apart with their all new Gamer Storm Captain 360. Featuring a unique LED-illuminated, reactor-style pump with a visible coolant channel and a 360 mm radiator, it has some serious specifications, and style.
I'll have to get in contact with Deepcool again seems I have not only been neglecting them but also missing out on some of their hot new products.
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Asylum Review Block: All Memory All the Time
I've been working on a memory review for the past couple weeks and with any luck it should get posted in the next couple days. Until then check out some of these DDR4 based memory reviews from around the web.
Web Reviews
- Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400Mhz Memory Review @ Hardware Slave
- Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR4-2666 16GB Memory Kit Review @ Hardware CanucksYep, both Crucial based reviews. I'm both jealous and sad at the same time.
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MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING Overclocking Review @ [H]
Gaming is as gaming does and the MSI gaming does pretty good. Of course when you compare it against the EVGA GTX 960 SSC it can be a little slow.
We push the new MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING video card to its limits of performance by overclocking to its limits. This NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 GPU based video card has a lot of potential for hardware enthusiasts and gamers wanting more performance. We compare it with other overclocked cards to see if the GTX 960 can keep up.
I do like the overclock they were able to get and how the core clock was set in the 1440Mhz range with a Boost clock of 1557Mhz. The memory clock is similar to what I was able to get on the EVGA so from an overclocking standpoint they seem to be comparable.
Go Samsung!
I would be interested to see why the boost clock didn't scale the same. Maybe MSI dialed it back to get higher core clocks and appease those who share GPUz screenshots.
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Synergy of Style and Design: A Review of the Corsair Graphite 780T @ Techgage
Don't get me wrong here but, as a designer, I am often torn between what "is good design" and when "a design that is good". I will agree that the Corsair 780T looks good but in terms of design, it is a mangled copy assembled from other famous cases you can already buy.
All too often, design and style exist in conflict with each other. Form follows function, as the saying goes. But sometimes, we see products which are as beautifully-styled as they are well-designed. Corsair’s Graphite 780T full-tower becomes a perfect example of this – it’s great looking and functional. Let’s check it out.
Thing is, design is in the eye of the beholder and what might look like a jumbled mess to some might be a perfect match to someone else. And, it also helps to have a good marketing message.
