AMD RX 580 Explained & Benchmarked! (By Hardwarecanucks)

Here is the review that we anticipated. Enjoy the review video by Hardwarecanucks

Source

Scythe Announces SlipStream 140XT Fan Series

Japanese peripherals maker Scythe announced a pair of cost-effective 140 mm fans, the SlipStream 140XT and the 140XT PWM. The 140XT (3-pin, non-PWM) is available in four variants based on their top speeds, the 500 RPM SM1425XT12SL, the 800 RPM SM1425XT12L, the 1200 RPM SM1425XT12M, and the 1700 RPM SM1425XT12H. The 140XT PWM (4-pin PWM connector), comes in just the one flavor, the 1300 RPM SM1425XT12M-P. Both fans feature the same basic-looking design, measuring 140 x 140 x 25 mm, with square frames that feature mount-holes for both 140 mm and 120 mm fan-size standards. Both feature 500 mm-long cables for those hard to reach headers on your motherboard, and sleeved bearings that yield 30,000 hours MTBF.

The SM1425XT12SL has a speed tolerance level of ±30%, can push 27.2 CFM of air at its rated speed of 500 RPM, with a noise output of 9.6 dBA. The SM1425XT12L tolerates ±20%, pushes 43.5 CFM of air, with a noise output of 14.3 dBA. The SM1425XT12M pushes 65.2 CFM of air, with a noise output of 23.2 dBA. The SM1425XT12H is the most pushy fan of the lot, driving 92.4 CFM of air, with 36.4 CFM noise output. The SM1425XT12M-P pushes a maximum of 70 CFM of air at 1300 RPM, with 24.7 dBA noise output.

Source

Corsair Announces Dominator Platinum Light Bar Upgrade Kits

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced the release of the Dominator Platinum Light Bar Upgrade Kits. The new kits allow PC enthusiasts to enhance and customize the lighting of their Dominator Platinum DDR3 PC memory kits.

Each Dominator Platinum Light Bar Upgrade Kit includes two light bars which replace the existing bars on the memory modules, and translucent colored inserts (in Cerulean Blue and Arctic White) which allow users to customize the lighting color. The light bars are designed with new top openings to radiate more light upwards. A supplied installation tool allows users to install the kits in a matter of minutes.

"Since the launch of our Dominator Platinum memory, we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from enthusiasts about its design and performance," said Thi La, Senior VP and GM of Memory and Enthusiast Component Products at Corsair. "We created the Light Bar Upgrade Kits as part of our ongoing commitment to helping our customers enhance their Dominator memory and customizing their PCs."

For more information, visit the product page.

Source

Antec Introduces GX700 Case

Antec introduced the GX700, which it touts as a "rugged" case, which could be explained by the generous use of steel in the front-panel, such as 5.25-inch bay doors (not spacers), and fan intake. The ATX mid-tower may not feature detachable drive cages, but claims sufficient room (29.5 cm or 11.5-inch) room for graphics cards. It features four 5.25-inch bays, which are covered with individual bay doors, and five 3.5-inch bays that can each hold 2.5-inch drives. Its motherboard tray features cutouts at the right spots. Cooling includes two 140 mm top exhaust fans (which can be swapped for a 240 mm-long radiator), two 120 mm front intakes (optional), a 120 mm rear exhaust, and provision for two 120 mm side intakes. Measuring 500 mm (H) x 200 mm (W) x 450 mm (D), it weighs about 6.3 kg. Its front-panel includes two each of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0/1.1 ports.

Source

Olympic London 2012, Malaysia's Badminton Shuttler, Dato Lee Chong Wei gets Silver Medal.

Malaysia's Badminton shuttler, world number 2, Dato Lee Chong Wei gets silver medal after defeated by world's number 1, Lin Dan, 21-15, 10-21, 19-21. Our dear Dato Lee, he gave his best in the match and we all will always be proud of his spirit and determination in the game. You are the best, Dato Lee.

Lee is returning the shuttle

Swedish Retailers Begin Listing ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II

Several Swedish online retailers have begun listing ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II graphics card ahead of its worldwide launch. The card is listed at roughly 3,350 to 3,551 Swedish Kronor (US $492 to $521), including local taxes. The lowest price before taxes is 2,679 Kronor ($393.5). Looking at these prices, we expect US pricing to be in the $380-$420 range, before taxes. None of the retailers detailed the card, let alone post pictures of it. Based on the 28 nm GK104 silicon, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is expected to feature 1,344 CUDA cores, and 2 GB of memory across a 192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

Source: VideoCardz

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 WindForce 2X Graphics Card Pictured

Here are some of the first pictures of Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 WindForce 2X graphics card, which was released towards the end of July, without much fuss. The pictures reveal what is a combination of a non-reference design compact PCB design by Gigabyte, making use of its Ultra Durable VGA component selection (2 oz copper PCB, Japanese solid-state capacitors, binned memory chips, ferrite core chokes, low RDS (on) MOSFETs), and its WindForce 2X cooler. The PCB uses a 4+2 phase VRM to power the GK104 GPU. It draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors.

The card ships in two variants, one that sticks to NVIDIA-reference clock speeds, and an OC variant (941 MHz core, 1019 MHz GPU Boost, 6.00 GHz memory). The cooler uses a compound heatsink. Its design consists of a main central aluminum heatsink which draws heat from the GPU, while two satellite aluminum fin heatsinks draw heat from the GPU through two 8 mm-thick copper heat pipes. The heatsink is ventilated by a pair of 100 mm fans, which spin at low speeds and claim low noise levels. Gigabyte's WindForce 2X graphics card is expected to cost less than its flagship WindForce 3X. Find a review at the source.

Source: Expreview

COUGAR Introduces the Challenger Gaming Case

COUGAR, leading German PC case and power supply brand, officially announces their latest high-end PC gaming case, the COUGAR Challenger. The CHALLENGER mid-tower case is particularly targeting gamers demanding for huge upgradeability capacity, best airflow and optimized ventilation characteristics.

COUGAR's specific black and orange color combination paired with the large metal-mesh front bezel lend it an aggressive yet stylish appearance. But the ultimate design high-light is to be found right on the top of the case: to power up your computer you first have to lift a cover lid just like a pilot unlocks the missile button to fire. A safety feature to prevent accidental touch, which at the same time makes you feel in gaming mode right away. To play even most advanced games, the COUGAR CHALLENGER offers sufficient space for powerful graphics cards of up to 410 mm length.

Play as long as you want
To play even most advanced games, the COUGAR CHALLANGER offers sufficient space for powerful graphics cards of up to 410 mm length. This is achieved by a unique 3-Mode drive cage concept. In standard mode there is 300 mm of space, by using a special HDD track mechanism you can relocate the drive cage to you gain another 30 mm, and when removing it entirely you get the maximum of 410 mm.

Ventilation meets convenience
It's already a given for COUGAR to provide for vented PCIe slots at the back, and have advanced ventilation options on the front bezel. But now the German brand goes one step further. Innovative air filters on the bottom PSU cover and the side panel prevent dust from entering the inside and piling up there, BUT on top of things, COUGAR made things much more effective and convenient. These filters are now attached on the outside with a magnetic mechanism, allowing for easiest assembly and disassembly. This way it is incredibly easy to take the dust filters off at any given time, without the need to open the case, and simply clean them under your water standpipe for a minute, dry them and put them back on. Deal done, and your ventilation has been re-optimized within minutes a not efforts at all. A large 20 cm intake LED-fan in the front and an 12 cm rear Turbine exhaust fan come pre-installed and therefore provide for excellent ventilation characteristics right out of the box.

Easy and Tidy Upgrade
As PC enthusiast and gamers are constantly working on improving and upgrading their systems, it is of utmost importance to always have easy and clean access to the entire system. Therefore the COUGAR Challenger comes with a huge cutout on the motherboard backplate, allowing for spacious room to install or exchange CPU coolers. In addition, the newly designed cable management keeps cables away from the setup and tunnels them in a way so users can easily keep track of their hardwares' lifelines and change them conveniently at will. As a matter of course, this also is precondition for optimized ventilation characteristics of the overall setup.

Ready for the real liquid cooling
As liquid cooling is strongly coming back these days, COUGAR is taking these needs fully in account, giving users the thumbs up for highly advanced cooling solutions. A total of three liquid cooling hose holes on the rear panel allows for a maximum of accessibility. By default, COUGAR implements rubber protection of these holes, so users don't need to worry about potentially sharp edges cutting into the hoses by un-careful handling.

Source

Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Specifications Detailed

A little earlier this week, specifications of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 650 graphics processor were reported. An even newer report by DonanimHaber details its sibling, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, designed for the sub-$250 market. The new GPU is based on the NVIDIA's newest GK106 silicon, while the GTX 650 sticks to the GK107, and is essentially a beefed-up GeForce GT 640. These are the specifications of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti we're looking at:

• 28 nm GK106 silicon
• 960 CUDA cores
• 192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
• 1 GB and 2 GB memory options
• Q4-2012 launch

Source: DonanimHaber

Assassin's Creed 3 to take place during the American Revolution

After much speculation it has been confirmed that Assassin's Creed 3 will take place during the American revolution. Images with hints of this have been floating around the internet for a few days now but Ubisoft has released the official box-art for Assassin's Creed 3, which confirms that the game will indeed take place during the American Revolution. Prior to this several images were seen on Kotaku, Game Informer, and Shacknews leading to this speculation. No word yet on a release date or if the game will use the intrusive DRM that previous titles did.

Source: Shacknews

AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series Specs. Table Leaked

Japanese media has got a hold of the specifications table of AMD's Radeon HD 7800 series products, the HD 7870 and HD 7850. Hermitage Akihabara has not cited a source as such, so we assume it vouches for the accuracy of this table. The table reveals Radeon HD 7870 as having 1280 stream processors, a 256-bit wide memory bus width (derived from the memory bandwidth and clock speeds figures provided in the table), 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and clock speeds of 1.00 GHz core, with 1200 MHz (4.80 GHz effective) memory. This SKU has a typical board power of 175W.

The slide details the HD 7850 as having 1024 stream processors, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, the same 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface, with the same memory clock speed as the HD 7870, but with a lower core clock speed of 860 MHz. the board power for the HD 7850 is mentioned to be under 130W. Interestingly, 2 GB is standard memory amount for both cards. The Japanese site mentions the official launch date of HD 7800 series as being March 8, but also goes on to add that market availability (we're assuming they mean the Japanese market), is only expected on/after March 19.

Sources: Hermitage Akihabara, VR-Zone, and 456,000+ search results for "AMD Radeon HD 7800 Specifications" on Google

Borderlands 2 PC uses Steamworks

More and more publishers seem to be seeing Steamworks as the best viable DRM on the market and 2K Games is no exception. All PC editions of Borderlands 2 will use Valve's Steamworks suite as their DRM. Steamworks supports snazzy features beyond simple copy protection, Gearbox's shooter-RPG will also use it for multiplayer matchmaking, Steam Cloud storage, achievements, auto-updating, downloadable content, "and more." How Steamworks... works is that if you buy a boxed edition of Borderlands 2, you'll need to register the game with a Steam account, and launch it through Steam. The box will still contain a disc to install the game from, but you'll have the option to download it directly through Steam whenever you please. Digital distributors other than Steam will simply sell you a product key to activate on Steam. Steamworks was to be expected, really, as 2K Games has used it for PC editions of games it's published since Mafia II in 2010. It briefly dabbled in Games for Windows Live before then but, thankfully, that was a short-lived experiment.

Borderlands 2 is coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 18. As ever, a selection of shiny things are on offer as pre-order bonuses.

Source: Shacknews

Cougar Officially Launches the Evolution BO and Evolution Galaxy PC Cases

German feline-loving firm Cougar has now rolled out two more Evolution Series full tower PC cases, the Evolution BO (which we mentioned back in January) and the Evolution Galaxy. These models feature similar specs but come with their own color theme - black and orange for the EBO and black and white for the EG.

Seen below, Cougar's cases measure 223 (W) x 523 (D) x 514 (H) mm, and have a steel 'skeleton', an I/O panel with two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports, a top-mounted 3.5-inch/2.5-inch SATA drive dock, a built-in fan controller, six external 5.25-inch bays (with tool-free mounting systems), four internal 3.5-inch trays, and eight PCI slots. The Evolution BO also packs a 120 mm Vortex HDB rear fan.

Both the Evolution BO and Evolution Galaxy have a recommended price tag of $94.99.

Source

Battle-Ready MSI GT685 Gaming Laptop Comes to Thailand

MSI is rolling out its new generation GT685—the ultimate gaming machine. In addition to featuring the Intel second generation Core™i7 quad core processor, it is the first laptop to sport the nVidia GeForce GTX 580M, the world’s fastest discrete graphics card, 32G DDR3 of memory, and accelerated dual hard disk architecture. It comes with Dynaudio and THX TruStudio Pro smart wrap around sound as well as a full HD screen. The MSI GT685 was awarded Editor's Choice by Thai IT mag Notebook4game.com and to ensure that it remains the top-selling gaming NB brand in Thailand, MSI is holding activities on university campuses to give gaming enthusiasts the opportunity to experience its gaming laptops.

Source

Intel Core i7-3820 Overclocked to 5.666 GHz

GUN'G'STAR of TeamRussia successfully achieved an overclocking record of 5.666 GHz for the quad-core Intel Core i7-3820 processor; a feat that validates the LGA2011 i7-3820 of being a generally good chip for overclocking, despite being "Limited Unlocked" (BClk multiplier being unlocked only to a few notches above its stock setting). GUN'G'STAR achieved a clock speed of 5,665.99 MHz using a BClk speed of 131.74 MHz, a multiplier value of 43x, and core voltage of 1.6V. The chip was assisted with GeIL-made DDR3-1600 memory sitting on all four channels, and ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard. Only 2 out of 4 cores of the i7-3820 were enabled for the feat, HyperThreading was disabled. Extreme cooling was used. The CPU-Z validation can be accessed here.

Source: Expreview

ASUS Z9PE-D8-WS Motherboard Up For Pre-Order

ASUS' dual-LGA2011 workstation motherboard, the Z9PE-D8-WS, has been listed by Canadian retailer NCIX for pre-order. It is priced at CA $632.98 (US $634.56). The store page does not go on to mention availability, except that orders will be shipped whenever there are inventories. Given its pre-order listing, we expect the product-launch of the Z9PE-D8-WS not to be too far, considering Intel's launch of a large number of "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon processors is just around the corner (within Q1, 2012). The Z9PE-D8-WS is designed to support 2P configurations based on Xeon "Sandy Bridge-EP" processors. The motherboard is further detailed here. To PC enthusiasts, it presents a potential alternative to EVGA's SR-X.

Image Courtesy: VR-Zone

Lumus OE-31 Turns You Into a Cyborg

Display technology vendor Lumus showed off its newest optical engine, the OE-31. Taking advantage of the very latest tech., the OE-31 is a compact transparent HUD that you can stick into motorcycle helmets, prescription glasses, sunglasses, fashion eye-wear to even skiing (and we'd imagine diving) glasses. The optical engine is a little more than just a small display, it is backed by a small sensor that sees things from your perspective (in a mechanical sense), and overlays information accordingly (such as a GPS overlay for bike helmets, or finding your way around The Pentagon), in other words, it's an augmented reality engine that's a lot more compact.

The new sensor design allows for a 19-degree field of view and a full-color, 640x360 picture display, which Lumus believes will be sufficient for reading a lot of text, its viewing experience should be comparable to watching a 40-inch screen from 10 feet away.

Source: Engadget

Mass Shipments of Ivy Bridge Delayed to June

In what could come as a disappointment to some, Intel has reportedly put off mass-shipments of its third-generation Core processors (codenamed "Ivy Bridge") to June. The company, however, will go ahead with its April launch schedule, and will issue small shipments of these chips. This information comes from sources among notebook manufacturers.

This delay, however, doesn't appear to be linked to Intel's ability to ship the new 22 nm chips. Sources say that most notebooks vendors are having a very hard time digesting inventories of current-generation "Sandy Bridge" Core processors, and so the delay is merely to help them ship the last of their notebooks running current-generation chips, and to minimize the impact of the onset of new chips. Notebook vendors are currently seeing lukewarm demand.

Source: DigiTimes, Image Courtesy: LegitReviews

Radeon HD 7800 Series Inbound for March, NVIDIA Kepler in April: Report

AMD's Radeon HD 7800 series performance GPUs that target cost-benefit sweet-spots will be launched in the first half of March. The launch will include Radeon HD 7870 and Radeon HD 7850. The two SKUs are based on a new 28 nm ASIC codenamed "Pitcairn". Little is known about its specifications at this point, from reliable sources at least.

In April, AMD's rival NVIDIA will get its GeForce Kepler family of GPUs, all guns blazing. In April alone, NVIDIA is expected to launch a high-end part, the GeForce GTX 690, a performance part, the GeForce GTX 660, and mainstream part GeForce GTX 640. The three will be based on three new ASICs built on the 28 nm process, the GK110, GK104, and GK106, respectively.

April will be the most interesting month for PC enthusiasts as Intel will launch its third-generation Core processor family, codename "Ivy Bridge". Little is known about AMD's high-end Radeon HD 7990 "New Zealand".

Source: DigiTimes

NVIDIA Prepares GeForce GTX 560 SE to Thwart Radeon HD 7770

For an immediate relief from the market-threat looming in the sub-$200 segment with the introduction of AMD's Radeon HD 7770, NVIDIA is planning to carve out a new SKU based on the 40 nm GF114 GPU, the GeForce GTX 560 SE. The new SKU will be positioned below the GeForce GTX 560 (non-Ti), and target price-points well within $200. The new SKU is identical to the OEM-only model GeForce GTX 555. Its specifications follow:

• Based on 40 nm GF114 ASIC
• 288 CUDA cores
• 48 TMUs, 24 ROPs
• 192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
• 1 GB standard memory amount (asymmetric memory chip arrangement à la GTX 550 Ti)
• Clock speeds: 776 MHz core; 1553 MHz CUDA cores; 952 MHz (3.828 GHz effective) memory, 92 GB/s memory bandwidth

Source: VR-Zone