According to Intel that will increase sequential read and write performance to 520MB/s, which makes the Series 520 the fastest SSDs they have ever produced.

Read the full article right here.

You will notice that if you go for long lifespan a long-lived card that overclocking the old fashioned way will not disappoint. A good GHz on the GPU (default = 800 MHz) is certainly something you can achieve. However voltage tweaking will bring you towards another level alright, roughly 1150 MHz.

Read our article right here.

Today we released an updated Beta revision of Afterburner, this application successfully secured the leading position on graphics card utilities. We're happy to see MSI Afterburner is leading the overclock applications. MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 Beta 12 is ready

Changes list includes:

• Memory clock limit has been extended to 180% on AMD RADEON 79x0 graphics cards in unofficial overclocking mode
• Added low-level clock frequencies monitoring for AMD RADEON 79x0 graphics cards
• Added PowerTune adjustment slider for AMD HD 6xxx and 7xxx series graphics cards
• Improved overclocking profiles format provides compatibility with future graphics cards. Please take a note that existing overclocking profiles (startup overclocking profile and profile slots) will be ignored and must be recreated in new version
• MSI On-Screen Display server has been upgraded to v4.3.2. New version gives the following improvements:
• Added gamma corrected video capture support
• Framerate limit ratio for video capture in no longer controlled via the server's profiles. Now it can be adjusted directly into MSI Afterburner's video capture properties
• Added Direct3D9Ex support (DOTA 2 and Darkness 2 demo)
• Improved desktop windows notification mechanism eliminates unwanted beeps occurring on some systems during the server startup / shutdown
• Output video dimensions are now cropped to be multiple of 16 to improve compatibility with some third party MJPG decoders
• Improved OpenGL On-Screen Display coordinates calculation for framebuffer coordinate space mode
• Now "Enable compatibility with modified Direct3D runtime libraries" option is compatible with Direct3D9 game engines using double FPU precision (MassEffect series)

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HIS Radeon HD 7950 review

It is time for the second product based of the series 7900 though, the Radeon HD 7950 launches today. AMD took the Tahiti XT GPU sliced away some shader units, clocked it a notch slower and planted it onto a new PCB lined up with a new cooler. Overall the R7950 will not disappoint, good performance, impressive power consumption and great heat and noise levels. But will a 400 EUR pricetag however justify this product ?

Direct URL:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-review/

PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 PCS+ review

PowerColor is the first in our line-up of R7950 reviews with a customized model. It is the PCS version that clocks in at a cool 880 MHz on the graphics core with it's memory clocked default at an effective data rate of 5000 MHZ. Armed witha custom cooler it is silent, and even cooler compared to the reference model.

Direct URL:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/powercolor-radeon-hd-7950-pcs-review/

Radeon HD 7950 Crossfire review 2 and 3-way

We have three Radeon HD 7950 cards in house -- anyone smells Crossfire ? We'll setup these three cards up in multi-GPU mode (two and three-way) clock them standard and test multi-GPU performance -- taking it to the next level, multi-GPU gaming. As if you figured just one card would be interesting, you have no idea what's coming at you with two and three cards. Have a peek at the offering, and then march onward into the review, hihoo Tahiti PRO

Direct URL:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7950-crossfire-review-2-and-3way/

That is to say, it will look for third-party technologies, though it did not specify what exactly they would be.

4G/LTE broadband support is one feature that is most likely to be part of AMD's plans, though nothing is certain.

"We are looking for certain pieces of IP to add to our [existing] portfolio," said Rory Read, chief executive officer of AMD, according to X-bit Labs.

Nevertheless, even if the Sunnyvale, California-based company scores the IP licensing deals it wants, that, alone, will not ensure success.

To truly thrive, it needs to sign some deals with companies, or at least one with a major player on the consumer industry. As it happens, there might already be such an agreement, and the way AMD defines the other party suggests it might be either Samsung or Apple.

"What if you get a large player across tablets, maybe even across smartphones. laptops, desktops, smart televisions? [That player] is creating a chip solution [that combines x86 IP with theirs], that may change the way people buy things in the future," Mr. Read said. Apple and Samsung are the only companies that can truly be said to have a big presence on all those market segments. Either way, even if the client demands that the chips feature special blocks of some sort, it will be quite a victory for AMD.

Taking only a short look at the Assassin, this wouldn't appear to differentiate itself too much from the all the other twin tower coolers available in the market, but, moving closer, one gets to see that the company went with a unique heatsink concept which uses a diamond-shaped pattern.

While Deep Cool didn't reveal too much about this technology, it appears that its role is to lower the turbulence produced by the installed fans.

In turn, this could help lower the system's noise as the Assassin can be fitted with no less than three cooling fans.

Only two fans are shipped together with the Assassin, one measuring 140mm while the other measures 120mm, and the larger of these two is placed right between the twin towers to draw hot air through the heatsink.

The second one is placed so that it could push fresh air into the Assassin and both of these come with a rubber cover frame to minimize vibrations.

The heat dissipated by the fans is drawn from the copper base covering the CPU through eight 6mm thick heatpipes.

No information regarding the maximum cooling capacity of the Assassin was provided, but the cooler looks like it will be able to keep up with pretty much any high-performance CPU available out there, even when overclocked.

The Deep Cool Assassin is shipped together with a universal mounting system, which supports all of Intel's and AMD's recent sockets, including LGA 2011, LGA 1155, LGA 1366 and AM3+.

The word „Gigas“ is part of the Greek language and means „giant“. In the modern language, the prefix „giga“ can be found in many different areas to quantify the sheer size. Gigabyte or Gigawatt are such examples and the new chassis from Xigmatek carries the name „Gigas“ for good reason.
 
The shell of the cube chassis is constructed of Aluminum, which give the chassis that extraordinary look and feel. With the single piece spanning across the left, front and right of the chassis, completely eliminating any ugly gaps between these areas. Plenty of openings allow for ample ventilation and have been placed in the rear, side and front of the chassis, with the one in the front shaped like an X for Xigmatek.

Two 5.25 inch drive bays in the front next to a perfectly placed I/O panel, which holds not only the power and reset buttons, but also the two USB 2.0 and a single USB 3.0 plug. The latter may be connected directly to the 20-pin header of modern motherboards. Naturally, two status LEDs and a pair of audio connectors can also be found on the I/O panel..

Upon removing the six screws holding the top cover in place, one may access the innovative interior  layout, which is the absolute strength of the Gigas. The motherboard, be it of the Micro-ATX or ITX, is simply placed on the floor of the chassis as this panel also acts as the board tray. Expansion cards and ATX power supply are to be installed horizontally within the chassis, as this is the most efficient use of the limited space.

Two large air vents on the left side of the chassis give access to fresh air for the PSU and graphic card so that even the longest (up to 35 cm) and fastest graphic cards keep cool under any circumstance. Two 120 mm fans, rotating at up to 1.000 RPM push cool air across the components, further reducing the overall temperature within the Gigas.

To pull hot air out of the case, the Gigas may hold an additional two 120 mm units in the rear of the chassis. These are to be installed above each other, which generates a healthy flow of air across the hard drive cage and the CPU cooler,

Each of the two hard drive cages can hold up to three 3.5 inch hard drives, with an additional 2.5 inch SSD mounting on the underside of each unit, for a total of eight drives. A third cage, intended for two 5.25 inch drives can be found in the front of the chassis. For additional support of these parts, a metal beam has been installed within the chassis, while still allowing CPU coolers with an impressive height of 18.5 cm to be installed with the Gigas.

With all these features and the incredible and innovative use of space, the Xigmatek Gigas performs like a giant, able to hold high-end components without breaking a sweat. Xigmatek rounds up the impressive list of engineering achievements with their „Mono Cool“ fan controller, also part of the Midgard (II) cases, with which one may adjust the speed of up to three fans within the chassis.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash solutions, today announces their Quadra series, overclocked, quad-channel DDR3 memory kits, targeted at the extreme enthusiast market.

Gamers and enthusiasts already know about Intel’s i7-3960X 6-Core processors and now they are scrambling to find DRAM worthy of their new rig. The Quadra, DDR3 Quad-kits, come in 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz and pairs perfectly with the i7 processors, which now handles 4 channels of memory. By fully populating all 8 slots of memory with Super Talent’s 4GB DIMMs, users will experience reduced loading times with all their high-system-requirement programs. Now more time can be spent using a computer than waiting on it.

Validated using the X79 chipset, the 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz overclocking DDR3 DIMMs are now available either individually or as a kit of four modules.

The German court is also preparing to hear new suits and countersuits between Apple and Samsung. Apple vs. HTC suits are also pending. The situation in Germany has devolved under a bewildering mess, but as far as the available information indicates, the only thing that remains officially banned at this point is the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 -- although the iCloud/MobileMe could soon join it.

At the end of the presentation held by Lisa Su, SVP and general manager, Global Business Units at AMD, during the Financial Analyst Day, the Sunnyvale-based chip maker included a series of performance projections for its upcoming chips.

These cover the performance of its chips, as well as that of Intel’s ULV processors, in 3DMark Vantage, where testing has shown that an A6-Series Trinity APU with a 17 Watt TDP scores 2355 points.

According to AMD, this is twice as fast as a Sandy Bridge Core i5 2537M CPU (1158 3D Marks), which is one of the most popular processors to be used in today’s Ultrabooks.

Furthermore, even after taking into account the assumed 30% graphics improvement brought by Ivy Bridge, the A6 ULV accelerated processing unit is still expected to be 56% faster.

When compared with a 25W A10-Series low-voltage APU, this difference grows even bigger, as the AMD chip scores an impressive 3600 points, which represents a 139% performance increase over the projected Ivy Bridge score.

Both ULV and LV Trinity APUs will feature quad processing cores and are designed to fit in ultrathins approximately 18mm thick.

The computing cores will go by the name of Piledriver and, much like the current Llano APUs, lack any sort of Level 3 cache memory, as AMD wanted to increase the die area available to the on-board GPU.

Compared to Llano, Trinity APUs will also bring support for a series of new instructions sets introduced with the Bulldozer architecture, such as AVX and AES-NI, as well as for DDR3-2133 memory. AMD’s Trinity APUs are expected to arrive in mid-2012.

Creative today also introduced the Aurvana X-Fi 2 Noise-Canceling Headphones, which utilize active noise cancellation to reduce ambient noise by up to 90 percent, and feature X-Fi audio technology for improved sound quality and a virtual surround sound effect that is ideal for watching in-flight entertainment.

The Creative X-Fi Crystalizer utilizes algorithms to make any digital audio sound better by intelligently and selectively restoring the highs and lows that were lost during MP3 or other compression. The Creative X-Fi CMSS-3D virtually transforms stereo headphone playback into the more immersive listening experience of a surround sound speaker system. Users can independently select noise cancellation, X-Fi Crystalizer, X-Fi CMSS-3D and volume with convenient controls on the headphones. All of the technologies can be enjoyed together for up to nine hours from two AAA batteries. The headphones can also be used without audio technologies in passive mode.

Technical Specifications of the Creative HN-900

Headphones

- 40 mm Neodymium magnet drivers
- Frequency Response of 20 Hz ~ 20 kHz
- Noise Reduction Level of -18 dB (85%)
- Impedance of 290 ohms
- Sensitivity at 1 kHz of 100 dB/mW

Microphone

- Omni-directional
- Frequency Response of 100 Hz ~ 10 kHz
- Impedance of <2.2 kohms
- Sensitivity at 1 kHz of -38 dBV/Pa
- Cable length of 1.5m detachable with inline microphone
- Approximate battery life of up to 40 hours from 1 x AAA alkaline battery.
- Product weight of 168 grams

Technical Specifications of the Creative Aurvana X-Fi 2

- 40 mm Neodymium magnet drivers
- Frequency Response: 20 Hz - 20 kHz
- Noise Reduction Level: 20 dB
- Impedance: 450 ohms (on), 72 ohms (off)
- Sensitivity (1 kHz): 105 dB/mW (on), 95 dB/mW (off)
- Oxygen-Free Copper cables
- Gold-plated connectors, including airline adapter
- 1.5m (5 ft) standard cable and 1.5m (5 ft) extension (iPhone compatible)

The Creative HN-900 noise-canceling headphones are now available at creative.com and InMotion Entertainment at the suggested retail price of US$99.99. The Creative Aurvana X-Fi noise-canceling headphones will be available in February 2012 at the suggested retail price of US$199.99.

The price of copper has increased by over US$600 per tonne in only a few weeks' time and even though motherboards only use a few hundred grams of copper, the increased cost per tonne is still going to have an adverse effect on motherboard pricing. It's also likely lead to increased costs of other computer components such as high-end graphics cards which use 10 layer PCBs.

On top of everything else, wages in China are going up which is further helping to increase the cost for the motherboard makers. Even so, according to Digitimes, Asus is expecting to see an increase in motherboard shipments by 10 percent, with Gigabyte expecting an increase of as much as 20 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same quarter last year.

Update: We were contacted by Gigabyte with regards to this story and the company stated that it is not expecting any increase to the pricing of its motherboards and the information posted on Digitimes is incorrect as far as Gigabyte is concerned. Gigabyte is expecting to launch its next generation of LGA-1155 motherboards at similar price points as its current LGA-1155 motherboards, depending on the feature set on offer. The company is also expecting to see improved performance of the new motherboards compared to its current range of LGA-1155 models.

Change-log:

• GP (GPU/APU) Benchmarks: optimisations for APUs, both current AMD and future Intel when using complex kernels that overwhelm them. APU mode can run different kernels on CPU & GPU part, selecting the best for each device.
• Dedicated high-performance GPUs will still execute the "heavier" kernels which allow better compute core utilisation but are too large for APUs.
• File System Benchmark: reduced run-time and test file size while maintaining score quality (i.e. similar margin of error). You can test slow drives even on systems with large disk caches (i.e. large memory)
• Ranker: is finally operational after over 1 month outage due to server transfer gone wrong; most benchmark results have been restored. With 41 benchmarks and over 200,000 scores in popular benchmarks the total number or scores is somewhat large.
• Cache/Memory Latencies Benchmark: here is a public article detailing our methodology on measuring cache/memory latencies, why, what and how is measured, and how our results relate to manufacturer results.

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