News Archives

Our news archive search is now powered by Google. You can search the main site or the guest-viewable forums. To search the entire forums, log in and use the forum search engine. Search the main OCAU site with Google: Search OCAU Forums with Google: View News : Last 7 Days, Last 14 Days, Last 30 Days. View Monthly Archives. Wednesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 26-July-2017  04:10:57 (GMT +10) - by booj Cases: Raijintek Paean on techPowerUp. Corsair Carbide 600C on Techgage. Phanteks Evolv Shift SFF Chassis on TweakTown. Phanteks Evolv Shift on techPowerUp. Cooling: Watercool HEATKILLER IV PRO CU-NI CPU Waterblock on Funky Kit. NZXT Kraken X42 on Guru3D. Input etc: Logitech G900 Chaos Spectrum Wireless Gaming Mouse on Legit Reviews. Logitech BRIO on LanOC Reviews. Monitors: Acer Predator XB271HU bmiprz 144-165 Hz on techPowerUp. Acer Predator XB252Q High Speed 240Hz G-Sync Gaming Monitor on Hot Hardware. Mobile: LG X power 2 Smartphone on APH Networks. Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 Tablet & S Pen on TechARP. Misc: GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Gaming 7 Motherboard on TweakTown. Gigabyte AORUS RX 580 GTR 8 GB on techPowerUp. λutonomous-λ SmartDesk 2 on Modders-Inc. Aeotec DSA03202-V1 Z-Wave Minimote on Bigbruin. MJX Bugs 2 WiFi (B2W) GPS FPV Brushless Camera Drone on ModSynergy. Tesoro A3 Tuned In-Ear Pro Earphones on APH Networks. Iron Man at Sydney Knife Show (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 24-July-2017  10:46:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg If you've been wanting to see ASIGN_Baz's Iron Man Suit in person, you can catch him in action at the Sydney Knife Show next month. If you haven't seen the worklog, it's definitely worth checking out! click for the worklog! "It took over 3 years of weekend's and spare time along with blood sweat and tears to build, but Barry Armstead toughed it out and now has an awesome Iron man suit to show for it. With help and guidance from a few of the Canberra knife making community Barry was able to learn a new skill set to help make this dream a reality. He learnt how to make knives and money raised from the sale of these helped fund the build. The suit wasn't made just for Barry though, his intention from the start was to bring a smile to the face of children in hospital by suiting up and letting them get close to a superhero. Barry has already raised money for The Starlight Children's Foundation and this is the charity he'll be supporting when he makes an appearance at The Sydney Knife Show on Sunday 6th August. Bring your children (or your inner child) along and have a photo taken of the Ironman MKIV suit Barry has created and donate a gold coin to a very worthy Charity. We hope to see you there." Monday Morning (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 24-July-2017  10:32:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg TechSpot compared AMD Ryzen 5 1600 vs Intel Core i7-7800X in 30 games. After comparing Intel's new Core i7-7800X and AMD's Ryzen 5 1600 in productivity workloads, we're back by popular request to learn whether Intel still takes the cake when it comes to high-end gaming. There was a huge cryptocurrency heist recently, this time affecting Ethereum. This is a very interesting article which gets you up to speed on the technology and even the psychology surrounding the issue. Around 12:00 PST, an unknown attacker exploited a critical flaw in the Parity multi-signature wallet on the Ethereum network, draining three massive wallets of over $31,000,000 worth of Ether in a matter of minutes. Given a couple more hours, the hacker could've made off with over $180,000,000 from vulnerable wallets. But someone stopped them. McLaren have a World's Fastest Gamer competition. I'm finding it tricky to find specific information but maybe that's part of the challenge. It seems to be conducted via rFactor 2 and the prize is "a job in eSports", but if you're keen, have a dig around for more info. The latest update I could find is here, and there's registration details here. If you're sick of Firefox taking ages to open tabs, good news: you can now open 1691 tabs in 15 seconds. So that's handy. Graph of startup time with 1691 tabs across Firefox versions 20, 30, 40 and 50 - 56. The Y axis is minutes. Yes, Firefox 51 took almost 8 MINUTES to start up. However, as of Firefox 55 it only takes 15 seconds. For 1691 tabs. Really. I no longer fear restarts. Lately, I just restart Firefox for fun sometimes. HardOCP have posted their list of the 5 greatest motherboards of all time. Of all time! Some motherboards had something special about their design which made them more memorable, interesting, desirable, influential, and ultimately a favorite among enthusiasts. These are the criteria I will use to separate run of the mill excellence from what I consider some of history's best motherboards. Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 24-July-2017  09:45:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg Video Cards: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti LIGHTNING Z on Tweaktown. Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080 11Gbps on eTeknix. Input Etc: HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on CustomPCReview. Bloody AL90 Blazing Laser Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown. Tt eSPORTS Draconem RGB Gaming Mousepad on Modders-Inc. Audio Visual: Focal Spark Earphones on APHNetworks. VisionTek SoundTube Pro Wireless Speaker on LanOC. Logitech G433 7.1 Wired Surround Gaming Headset on LegitReviews. Portable & Prebuilt: ASUS ROG Zephyrus GX501 GTX 1080 Max-Q Gaming Notebook on PC Perspective. The HP OMEN Gaming Laptop & Desktop PCs Revealed on TechARP. Misc: Kingston 32GB DataTraveler microDuo 3.0 on BigBruin. Antec Cube Designed By Razer Mini-ITX Case on NikKTech. EKWB Water Cooling Kit EK-KIT L360 R2.0 on Modders-Inc. Misc Pics (28 Comments) (link)  Friday, 21-July-2017  15:08:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg Friday again! Firstly, Simon sent in this one, saying "I found this photo of Agg working on an early OCAU server" .. har haarrr. :) and now for the rest. Thanks to Axe this week! Friday Afternoon (2 Comments) (link)  Friday, 21-July-2017  12:27:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg Google Home launched in Australia yesterday. I couldn't resist grabbing one, and if you have too, jump into the thread on OCAU to share anything cool you've been doing with it. In the meantime there's coverage on SMH, LifeHacker, The Australian and Gizmodo. Google Home is a voice-activated, always-listening powered speaker: if you start a phrase with the words "OK Google", it'll hear it and interpret the words that you speak next, whether it's a specific phrase like "what's the weather like today?" or a natural language question like "what was the name of the winner of Eurovision in 2010?". The Google Assistant can translate, calculate, convert, and control other network-connected devices in your home. Oh, and it'll actually play music as well. Also from Google, it seems Google Glass has come back from the dead - with a different focus. Yes, that’s Google Glass on her frames. But she’s not using it to check her Facebook, dictate messages, or capture a no-hands video while riding a roller coaster. Erickson is a 30-year-old factory worker in rural Jackson, Minnesota. For her, Glass is not a hip way to hang apps in front of her eyeballs, but a tool—as much a tool as her power wrenches. It walks her through her shifts at Station 50 on the factory floor, where she builds motors for tractors. Viking have a new 50TB SSD. If capacity is king, then all hail the new 50TB solid state drive from Viking Technology, the most capacious SSD on the planet. Viking also launched a 25TB model. Both are part of the company's Ultra High-Capacity (UHC) Silo series and come housed in a standard 3.5-inch form factor casing for easy deployment. As you might imagine, these are intended for data centers, not general consumers, and are outfitted with a 6Gbps SAS interface. Meanwhile if you want to get retro, HotHardware show you how to build an Amiga emulator on the cheap with a Raspberry Pi 3. Messing around with old Amiga hardware can be fun, but it can also be costly, especially in the U.S. where the Amiga wasn’t as pervasive. Thankfully, there are a myriad of ways to emulate the Amiga on virtually any platform from Android smartphones to powerful PCs. The Raspberry Pi 3, however, represents a flexible, affordable option that’s tiny, easy to configure, and can actually be many times faster than any of the original Amigas. If you’re crazy – like me – you can even overclock the Raspberry Pi 3 to squeeze even more performance from the platform. There's a popular Amiga thread in our Retro forum. FOTW spotted some fake Ryzen CPUs being sold on Amazon. There’s nothing new here in actual fact – there’s been a long and unfortunate history of selling cheap processors in the packaging of more expensive models – and in this case, as PC Gamer reports, there have been several incidents where customers have ordered a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU on Amazon and have received an Intel Celeron chip instead. The fake Intel CPU comes in AMD’s correct packaging and has the Ryzen logo on it, but a closer inspection of the product reveals that logo is just a sticker. Also from FOTW, news that Microsoft have stopped supporting Windows 10 on some Atom PCs. Microsoft has been preventing PCs with Intel Atom Clover Trail processors from obtaining the latest Windows 10 Creators Update. While many devices with Intel’s Atom Clover Trail chips were released in the Windows 8 era, Microsoft offered a free Windows 10 update to keep the tablet / laptop hybrids up-to-date. ZDNet revealed earlier this week that compatible drivers are preventing owners from updating to the Windows 10 Creators Update, and Microsoft has now confirmed to The Verge that it no longer supports Intel Atom Clover Trail processors for its latest Windows 10 updates. The ACCC are investigating broadband performance and are looking for volunteers - but you only have until the end of the month to apply. We need volunteers across many different retail service providers over a range of broadband technologies and on different retail speeds and plans. We’ll be testing NBN services, as well as some ADSL and next generation fibre services. At this stage, the program will not test mobile, satellite or fixed-wireless broadband services. Friday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 21-July-2017  12:04:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: ASRock X299 Taichi Motherboard on Tweaktown. ASRock Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming K4 on Vortez. ASUS PRIME X299-A on Vortez. Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 3 X299 Motherboard on eTeknix. Storage: Toshiba's XG5 1TB NVMe SSD on TechReport. Transcend ESD220C 120GB Portable SSD on Tweaktown. Silicon Power xDrive Z50 Dual USB Flash Drive on MadShrimps. Western Digital My Passport Ultra (4TB) on FunkyKit. Audio Visual: 1MORE Triple Driver In-ears on TechPowerUp. EpicGear Melodiouz In-Ear Gaming Headset on ThinkComputers. D-Link Omna 180 Cam HD DSH-C310 camera on PCWorld. Video Cards: ASUS ROG STRIX X299-E Gaming on Guru3D. EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 GAMING 11 GB on FunkyKit. Input Etc: Gaming Mouse Roundup: Corsair Sabre RGB, G.Skill RIPJAWS MX780, SteelSeries Rival 500 on HotHardware. Ozone Strike Pro Spectra on Vortez. Misc: ThruNite TN12 (2016) XP-L v6 LED Tactical Flashlight on LegitReviews. Functional Prints: Solar Light Peg on LanOC. G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4-3600 32GB Memory Kit on Tweaktown. CRYORIG A40 all-in-one liquid CPU cooler on TechPowerUp. Wednesday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 19-July-2017  12:04:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg Storage: MyDigitalSSD Boost 1TB Portable SSD on LegitReviews. Lexar JumpDrive Tough 64GB USB 3.1 Flash Drive on Tweaktown. ADATA XPG SX950 240GB Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers. HP S700 Pro 512GB SSD on Guru3D. Portable & Prebuilt: ECS LIVA Z Plus mini-PC on TechPowerUp. ASUS ROG Zephyrus GX501 laptop on HotHardware. Audio Visual: SteelSeries Arctis 7 on TechPowerUp. Azden SMX-30 Video Microphone on FunkyKit. Input Etc: Corsair K68 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews. Cooler Master MasterMouse S Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps. Misc: GSKill Trident Z 4133Mhz RGB CL19 DDR4 Dual Channel Memory on HWAsylum. Corsair Spec-04 Mid-Tower Gaming Chassis on eTeknix. ASUS TUF Z270 Mark 1 Motherboard on PCPerspective. Google WiFi on PCWorld. Tuesday Afternoon (11 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 18-July-2017  17:17:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg AMD have revealed more details about Threadripper, with coverage on PC World, PC Perspective and HotHardware. We already know a lot of about Threadripper, AMD’s answer to the X299/X99 high-end desktop platforms from Intel, including that they would be coming this summer, have up to 16-cores and 32-threads of compute, and that they would all include 64 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 for a massive amount of connectivity for the prosumer. Now we know that there will be two models launching and available in early August: the Ryzen Threadripper 1920X and the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X. The new Game of Thrones episode aired last night, but Australians trying to watch it legally on Foxtel were disappointed by a major outage. Thousands of customers tuned in to Foxtel's streaming service Foxtel Now to watch the much-anticipated seventh season premiere, only to be met with an error message. The Australian Government continues its war on encryption, with a focus on corporations. The Australian government is implementing laws that'll pressure tech giants like Facebook and Google to decrypt messages for terrorist and criminal investigators, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced on Friday, reports the ABC. Investigators would ask for assistance from Apple, Facebook, Google and others in cases regarding terrorism, pedophile rings and drug trafficking. Draxonic spotted this stash of free Microsoft ebooks for download. Let’s try giving away a bunch of free eBooks, reference guides, Step-By-Step Guides, and other informational resources to our customers and partners around the world. Needless to say, the concept was extremely the first year (over 1,000,000 FREE eBooks downloaded), and it has grown and grown over the past few years (over 3.5 Million downloaded three years ago and we surpassed that by a lot last year!) It's a Microsoft blog so seems to be legit. Tuesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 18-July-2017  17:04:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg Input Etc: HyperX's Alloy Elite mechanical gaming keyboard on TechReport. Evoluent Reduced Reach Right Handed Keyboard on TechPowerUp. Logitech G Pro Gaming Mouse and Keyboard on LegitReview. HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on HWAsylum. HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Keyboard on LanOC. HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers. HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown. ROCCAT Isku+ Force FX Keyboard on APHNetworks. Video Cards: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti LIGHTNING Z on Tweaktown. AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition 16GB Liquid-Cooled on PCPerspective. Storage: Apacer Z280 M.2 PCIe 240GB SSD on NikKTech. 8TB WD Gold Datacenter Drive (WD8002FRYZ) on TechARP. Cooling: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 on OCInside. Cooler Master MasterFan Pro RGB on eTeknix. Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 Direct CPU Cooler on NikKTech. Misc: Oppo A77 smartphone on PCWorld. Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WIFI AM4 motherboard on Modders-Inc. Saturday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Saturday, 15-July-2017  14:56:38 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium on OCC. MSI Z270 Gaming M7 on PC World. Asus Prime X299-Deluxe on TweakTown. Storage: ASUSTOR AS6404T Network Attached Storage on APH Networks. SanDisk Extreme 900 960GB Portable SSD on Legit Reviews. WD My Passport SSD 1TB External Drive on Legit Reviews. HP SSD S700 Solid State Drive on Benchmark Reviews. TeamGroup T-Force Cardea 240GB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD on TweakTown. Cases: VIVO CASE-V08 on OCC.5 on ocaholic. Cooler Master MasterBox Lite on ocaholic. Cooling: be quiet! Silent Loop 360 on Guru3D. Thermaltake Contac Silent 12 CPU cooler on The Tech Report. Audio: Patriot Viper V370 7.1 Gaming Headset on Funky Kit. Sennheiser Game Zero on LanOC Reviews. Portables & mobiles: ASUS ZenBook 3 UX390UA Laptop on PC Perspective. Huawei P10 on Techspot. Misc: MSI Trident 3 Arctic Gaming PC on Techspot. Shuttle XPC Slim DS77U Barebone on Madshrimps. Ballistix Elite 3466 MHz DDR4 on techPowerUp. Misc Pics (41 Comments) (link)  Friday, 14-July-2017  14:42:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg Friday again! Posting this from our snow trip. :) Thursday Night (4 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 13-July-2017  19:00:05 (GMT +10) - by booj Cryptocurrency miners are reporting on the sudden spike in Ethereum mining difficulty. Something this writer can attest to. TweakTown reports Ethereum price drops to a two-month low, while difficulty goes through the roof, hitting ALL miners overnight. More at OC3D. Intel have launched their Xeon Scalable Processor Family aimed at enterprise applications. They will combat AMD's EPYC series of processors. Coverage on PC Perspective, Hot Hardware and Anandtech. The Juno spacecraft recently made a close pass of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, offering the best ever imagery of one of the solar system's most iconic features. Now the first pictures have been revealed, with more to come here. Amazing! Net Neutrality is a hot topic today, with a day of Internet-Wide action aimed at drawing attention to the topic. Some of the world's biggest tech companies joined forces with 80,000 websites in support of the "Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality". The new Audi A8 is the first production car to offer Level 3 autonomy. This means the driver does not even have to pay attention while moving. Go ahead, Audi’s saying, read your newspaper or just zone out while traffic creeps along. Amazon's Prime entertainment service is poised to overtake the number of cable TV subscribers in the US. According to estimates from Morningstar, nearly 79 million U.S. households now have an Amazon Prime membership*, up from around 66 million at the end of last year. That compares to a projected 90 million U.S. households that will pay for cable or satellite TV this year, according to S&P Global. What a way to go.. Jet blast from a departing airplane killed a thrill-seeking tourist on a St. Maarten beach known for its views of low-flying airliners on approach. Thursday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 13-July-2017  09:54:43 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC on TweakTown. Intel Core i5 7640X on Guru3D. Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming K5 on PC World. MSI X370 Krait Gaming on Modders Inc. Storage: ADATA XPG SX7000 M.2 PCIE Gen3x4 256GB SSD on Funky Kit. Corsair Neutron NX500 400GB on Techspot. Networking: ASUS XG-C100C NIC on PC Perspective. Asus RT-AC1900P wireless router on The Tech Report. Cases: Streacom FC8 Alpha ITX Case on OC inside. In Win 301 Mini Tower on Benchmark Reviews. Notebooks & Mobile: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet (2nd Gen) on Hot Hardware. Dell Inspiron 13 5000 (5368 / 5378) 2-in-1 on TechARP. DOOGEE Y6 Moonlight Blue Smartphone on Madshrimps. Azpen A848 Projector Tablet on TechwareLabs. Misc: EWin Racing Flash Series XL Gaming Chair on NikKTech. MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z 11 GB on techPowerUp. ROCCAT Nyth Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers. BenQ ZOWIE XL2720 Monitor on Vortez. Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450 on techPowerUp. TP-Link LB130 WiFi LED Bulb with RGB on LanOC Reviews. Tuesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 11-July-2017  11:51:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg Audio Visual: GAMDIAS HEBE M1 RGB headset on Vortez. SteelSeries Arctis 3 7.1 Surround Gaming Headset on NikKTech. Creative Sound BlasterX G5 External Soundcard & Headphone Amp on Techgage. 1440p at 165 Hz: The Ultimate Gaming Experience? on TechSpot. Antlion Audio's ModMic 5 add-on microphone on TechReport. Azpen A848 Projector Tablet on TechwareLabs. Motherboard & CPU: Intel Core i9-7900X X-Series 10-Core Processor on eTeknix. Intel Core i7-7740X Skylake-X Processor on eTeknix. GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Gaming 9 Motherboard on Tweaktown. Cooling: Aqua Computer cuplex kryos NEXT CPU Water Block on TechPowerUp. Noctua New A Series Fans and Accessories on FunkyKit. Storage: HP SSD S700 500GB on NeoSeeker. HP S700 Pro 512GB Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers. CalDigit Tuff 1TB Portable SSD on Tweaktown. Lexar JumpDrive P20 128GB & S57 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Comparison on NikKTech. Input Etc: ROCCAT Leadr Wireless Multi-Button RGB Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps. GAMDIAS Zeus P1 RGB mouse on Vortez. AZIO Retro Classic mechanical keyboard on LanOC. Fnatic Gear RUSH G1 Silent Backlit Mechanical Keyboard on NikKTech. Software: Oculus Rift – Robinson: The Journey, Obduction & The Unspoken – AMD vs. NVIDIA Performance on BabeltechReviews. Tekken 7 Review: King of the Iron Fist on Tweaktown. Misc: Loftek 15 Watt LED Floodlight on APHNetworks. MJX Bugs 8 / Bugs 6 Brushless FPV Racing Drone on ModSynergy. GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on HWSecrets. Teamgroup T-Force Night Hawk RGB DDR4 on Guru3D. FSP Amport 62 6-port USB Charger (4 Comments) (link)  Sunday, 9-July-2017  15:16:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg I've taken a look at a new 6-port USB charger from FSP. If you have a phone supporting Quick Charge 3.0 you'll be able to charge it super-fast, but even if you don't, this is still a handy gadget: click for the review! Sunday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Sunday, 9-July-2017  08:17:29 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: Intel Core i7 7740X on Guru3D. GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Gaming 3 on PC Perspective. Intel Kaby Lake-X Review: Core i7-7740X & Core i5-7640X on Techspot. Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming K5 on Guru3D. ASRock X299 Taichi on techPowerUp. Graphics: AKiTiO Node External Thunderbolt Graphics on PC Perspective. Sapphire Radeon RX 580 Nitro+ in CrossFire on Hexus. Storage: Apacer ASMini 240GB Portable SSD on TweakTown. Inateck FD1101 Aluminum HDD Dock on TweakTown. Apacer AC730 1TB Military-Grade Portable HDD on TweakTown. ASUSTOR AS6404T Consumer NAS on TweakTown. Input etc: AZIO Retro Classic Mechanical Keyboard on APH Networks. Tt eSPORT MEKA Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Legit Reviews. Originative SABER68 Keyboard on techPowerUp. Corsair K68 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers. Razer Lancehead Tournament Edition Gaming Mouse on CPCR. Cherry MX Board Silent Keyboard on Benchmark Reviews. Audio: ASUS ROG STRIX Magnus Mic on Vortez. Plantronics RIG 800HS Headphones on Legit Reviews. Misc: Autonomous DIY SmartDesk Kit Business Edition on LanOC Reviews. Misc Pics (21 Comments) (link)  Friday, 7-July-2017  14:25:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg Friday again! Firstly a picture from Doc-of-FC, of a 49.7 megapixel OCAU - the biggest yet? click to enlarge! And now for your regularly-scheduled Misc Pics: Friday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 7-July-2017  14:23:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg Gizmodo have info on the huge Tesla battery coming to Adelaide. Tesla is building the world's largest lithium-ion battery in South Australia — an installation 60 per cent larger than any other large-scale battery energy storage system on the planet. In partnership with the SA government and French renewables company Neoen, alongside the third stage of the Hornsdale Wind Farm, the PowerPack battery farm will top 100 megawatts of capacity and provide 129 megawatt-hours of energy generation to the region — load balancing the state's renewable energy generation and allowing emergency back-up power if a shortfall in energy production is predicted. Meanwhile you can explore NSW placenames with Muru View. Muru View (Muru – meaning path in Darug) is an interactive data visualisation drawing from the State Library of New South Wales Indigenous language collections. The data used in the interactive is over 120 years old, and is drawn from the survey forms collected by the Royal Anthropological Society of Australasia. We open this historic data to encourage dialogue and discussion around the words and meanings that have been recorded. Tweaktown have a fan control guide for Z270 Motherboards. Our comprehensive cooling fan control guide for Intel Z270-based motherboards will have you being a fan expert in no time at all. Tech Report look into remote starting your PC. Commercially-available remote power switches make turning a PC on and off from a distance a simple task, but our resident microcontroller enthusiast thought of a few ways such a product might be improved. Join us as we see whether those ideas could be implemented for about $10 in parts. Phoronix have a 27-CPU comparison on Ubuntu. If you are looking to get an AMD Zen CPU on a budget, the cheapest Ryzen 5 CPU in the current line-up is the 1400 model, which for $160 USD will get you a quad-core processor plus Hyper Threading and clocks up to 3.4GHz. Here are some benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 5 1400 on Ubuntu 17.04 compared to various other Intel and AMD CPUs over the years. A glimpse at the future maybe from MIT, with combined CPU and RAM. Instead of relying on silicon-based devices, the chip uses carbon nanotubes, which are sheets of 2-D graphene formed into nanocylinders, and resistive random-access memory (RRAM) cells, a type of nonvolatile memory that operates by changing the resistance of a solid dielectric material. The researchers integrated over 1 million RRAM cells and 2 million carbon nanotube field-effect transistors, making the most complex nanoelectronic system ever made with emerging nanotechnologies. Thursday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 6-July-2017  09:06:37 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: Intel Core i7-7740X X-Series Kaby Lake-X CPU on TweakTown. MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK motherboard on Guru3D. MSI B350M Mortar AM4 Motherboard on Modders-Inc. Storage: QNAP TS-653B 6-bay QTS-Linux Combo Quad-core NAS with PCIe Review on Madshrimps. Intel SSD 545s Series SSD on Hot Hardware. TerraMaster D2-310 on Anandtech, Cases: AZZA Titan 240 Mid-Tower Chassis on TweakTown. be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 on techPowerUp. Input etc: Razer Lancehead on Techspot. Bloody B820R Light Strike RGB Gaming Keyboard on TweakTown. Creative Sound BlasterX Vanguard K08 Keyboard on techPowerUp. ROCCAT Leadr on Vortez. Tt eSPORTS Ventus X Plus Smart Gaming Mouse on Modders-Inc. Misc: Apacer Panther Rage Illumination DDR4-2400 16GB on TweakTown. TP-Link Deco M5 Whole Home WiFi System on ThinkComputers. Eurocom Sky X9E3 (GTX 1080 SLI) on techPowerUp. AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition CrossFire on PC Perspective. Intel Skulltrail vs. Intel Skull Canyon on techPowerUp. Tuesday Afternoon (1 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 4-July-2017  16:59:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg Apparently our Medicare records are for sale on the dark web. The Federal Government has confirmed it’s urgently investigating the security breach and has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police. A journalist from The Guardian revealed he was able to purchase his own Medicare card details from a vendor on the dark web for just $30, from a device called ‘the Medicare machine’. Meanwhile we have stepped up our cyber warfare efforts, targeting hackers. The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has been directed to use its offensive cyber capabilities to "disrupt, degrade, deny, and deter" organised offshore cyber criminals, just as they'd do against foreign military targets or terrorist organisations. "The recent WannaCry and Petya ransomware attacks have affected governments, businesses, and individuals around the world," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Friday. "Our response to criminal cyber threats should not just be defensive. We must take the fight to the criminals." HotHardware have thrown their hat into the Ethereum mining ring, with a GPU and Optimisation guide. Cryptocurrency mining is a big buzz topic in technology these days. And why not? Utilizing your computer to digitally mine what seems like free money only begs the question, "where do I sign up?" Your machine will actually be "mining" or processing transactions for a decentralized currency, the hottest variant of which is called Ethereum. TechARP had an immersive experience with IBM's Watson. A Monash University team of final year students then showed what they accomplished with IBM Watson in just a few weeks, despite not having any programming abilities. Specifically, they showed how they can mine Twitter to not just determine how often people were talking about a fast food brand, they also used IBM Watson to determine whether the tweets were positive or negative in nature. Axe spotted this article about the birth of the iPhone, 10 years ago. Apple’s iPhone, which went on sale 10 years ago this week, began with a grudge. “It began because Steve hated this guy at Microsoft, ” said Scott Forstall, Apple’s former software chief and one of the top deputies to the company’s late co-founder Steve Jobs. More iPhone history here, here and here. Tuesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 4-July-2017  05:27:41 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 3 on LanOC Reviews. ASRock Z270 Gaming-ITX/ac on OCinside. AMD Ryzen PRO Processor on TechARP. Graphics Cards: Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1070 Gaming Box on Techspot. Radeon Vega Frontier Edition 16GB on PC Perspective. MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z on Guru3D. Power Supplies: Seasonic FOCUS PLUS Gold (FX) 650W on PC Perspective. Corsair RM650x on Funky Kit. Input etc: Cooler Master Devastator 3 Keyboard and Mouse Combo on Madshrimps. Cooler Master MasterKeys L PBT on techPowerUp. Audio: SteelSeries Arctis 5 Headset on techPowerUp. Razer Hammerhead BT on LanOC Reviews. V-MODA Crossfade II Wireless Bluetooth Headset on APH Networks. Mobile: Sony Xperia XZ Premium on PCWorld. Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 Tablet on TechARP. Misc: Synology DS1517+ SMB 10Gbe NAS on TweakTown. Anidees AI Crystal Cube Lite Dual-Chamber Chassis on TweakTown. TP-Link Archer C3150 Wireless Router on APH Networks. Nixeus NX-EDG27 27-inch, 2560×1440 IPS, 144Hz FreeSync Gaming Monitor on Custom PC Review. MSI Core Frozr XL CPU Cooler on Neoseeker. SLI Laptop (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 3-July-2017  11:37:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg Here's an impressive project from bennyg - squeezing an SLI 1070 dual-GPU setup into a four year old laptop: click for the thread! Misc Pics (18 Comments) (link)  Friday, 30-June-2017  14:57:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg Another week lost to flu. :/ Nearly better now though. Thanks to Rob and Metamorphosis this week! Friday Afternoon (3 Comments) (link)  Friday, 30-June-2017  14:52:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg AMD have unveiled their Ryzen PRO workstation CPUs, and in doing so, revealed some info about the Ryzen 3. If you were paying close attention to this morning’s announcement of AMD’s new Ryzen Pro SKUs, then you likely noticed something interesting: the non-X PRO chips all have the same performance specifications as their standard consumer counterparts. Specifically, both of the non-X PRO SKUs with existing Ryzen 5 & 7 counterparts have the same core counts, clockspeeds, and TDPs. And for the final 2 Ryzen PRO 3 SKUS? Well, AMD has inadvertently shown their hand here when it comes to forthcoming Ryzen 3. More here on TechReport, while Ryzen discussion continues here. GoodGearGuide have more info on the crypto-mining cards from AMD and nVIDIA. It’s damned near impossible to buy a reasonably priced graphics card right now. First AMD’s Radeon cards disappeared, then GeForce cards began to dry up too. The culprit? Cryptocurrency miners chasing price bubbles in Etherium, Zcash, et cetera. But new mining-dedicated graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia’s hardware partners might help ease the dearth of gaming hardware. TechSpot have an ETH mining benchmark article, and there's a very active crypto-mining thread here on OCAU. There's more under-the-hood info on the current ransomware issue here, thanks mpot. Given the circumstances of this attack, Talos assesses with high confidence that the intent of the actor behind Nyetya was destructive in nature and not economically motivated. Talos strongly recommends users and organizations decline to pay the ransom. Any attempts to obtain a decryption key will be fruitless as the associated mailbox used for payment verification and decryption key sharing has been shut down by the posteo.de. More worryingly, it seems like the program was always going to destroy the data, not allow it to be recovered. Discussion continues here. If I say WTF, what do you think of? Probably not the World Taekwondo Federation, which is why they're changing their name. Adaptation to the digital age has not been easy for the World Taekwondo Federation. On the eve of the World Taekwondo Championships in South Korea, federation president Chungwon Choue announced it would be changing its name due to “negative connotations” with its acronym. Google have been slapped with a $2.7B fine relating to anti-trust behaviour in the EU. The European Commission found that the U.S. tech giant denied "consumers a genuine choice" by using its search engine to unfairly steer them to its own shopping platform. Regulators said that Google must change its behavior within 90 days or face additional penalties. There's a quite neat breakdown of the census data on the ABC website. If Australia were just 100 people, what would it look like? New census data gives us an opportunity to find out, and provides some surprising insights into the state of the nation. Today's timewaster is InspiroBot, which randomly generates inspirational quote pictures not much more silly than the real ones. Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 30-June-2017  05:28:11 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: ECS Z270-Lightsaber on Neoseeker. Intel Skylake-X Core i7-7800X on Vortez. GIGABYTE X370-Gaming K7 on TweakTown. BIOSTAR X370GTN Gaming on TweakTown. AMD Ryzen 7 AGESA 1006 performance and DDR4 memory review on Guru3d. Smartphones: Blackberry KEYone phone on PCWorld. Samsung Galaxy S8+ on PC Perspective. Monitors: ASUS ZenScreen MB16AC USB-C Portable Monitor on Phoronix. AOC Agon AG241QG G-Sync Gaming Monitor on OC inside. Notebooks: Alienware 17 R4 2017 Gaming Laptop on Hot Hardware. Alienware 13 on PC World. Input etc: Tt eSports Ventus X RGB Gaming Mouse on Funky Kit. CORSAIR GLAIVE RGB Gaming Mouse on NikKTech. Networking: TP-Link TL-PA9020P AV2000 2-Port Gigabit Passthrough Powerline Adapter Kit on NikKTech. Linksys EA8300 Max-Stream AC2200 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router on Madshrimps. Misc: Stanley FatMax Lithium-Ion LED/HID Flashlight on ModSynergy. Holy Stone F181 Explorer Drone on ModSynergy. Adata Ultimate SU900 256GB SSD on The Tech Report. Corsair Hydro GFX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on The Tech Report. Wednesday Afternoon (9 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 28-June-2017  15:39:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg Time for some news catchup. Firstly, another worldwide ransomware attack is underway. Company and government officials reported serious intrusions at the Ukrainian power grid, banks and government offices, where one senior official posted a photo of a darkened computer screen and the words, "the whole network is down." The attack was reportedly affecting websites in Great Britain, Norway and India, as well, and at least one major U.S. company said it was affected. Meanwhile speed cameras in Victoria were hit by the WannaCry wave recently. Victoria Police has suspended 8000 tickets issued for speed and red light infringements after finding the WannaCry ransomware that infected 55 road safety cameras was more widespread than initially thought. Gigabyte have a new Epyc-compatible server motherboard, which can handle 1TB of RAM. This blue beauty is a Socket SP3 motherboard in an E-ATX form factor. It supports Epyc 7000-series processors with up to 32 cores and TDP ratings of up to 180 watts. Even though the MZ31-AR0 is a single-socket motherboard, it has two EPS 12V CPU power connectors. Some of that power will likely go toward driving the aforementioned sixteen DIMM slots. SemiAccurate report on the security features of Epyc. Epyc has a bunch of new instructions, full crypto hardware, and new platform options that are going to do quite well in the enterprise and cloud spaces. These markets are increasingly concerned with security and after the woeful showing by Intel around security coupled with their continued bungling of messaging and implementation on the subject, AMD has a golden opportunity. Still on security, with hackers leaking Windows 10's source code and other Microsoft data. The leak contains more than 32 terabytes of data and includes both the Windows 10 source code and other code intended only for internal use at Microsoft, the Register reported. The files, confirmed by Microsoft to be legitimate, include much of the code that Windows 10 uses to work with PC hardware, including its built-in USB, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth drivers. nVIDIA have some crypto-mining cards in the works. Devoid of any GeForce or GTX branding, these cost controlled cards focused on mining lack the usual array of display outputs and have much shorter warranties (rumors point at a 3 month warranty restriction imposed by NVIDIA). So far Asus, Colorful, EVGA, Inno3D, MSI, and Zotac "P106-100" cards based on GP106 (GTX 1060 equivalent) silicon have been spotted online with Manli and Palit reportedly also working on cards. A Debian Linux developer has pointed out a flaw with hyper-threading on recent Intel CPUs, thanks Axe. Officially, Intel hasn't acknowledged the problem, but engineers at Dell and Intel have told me that the problem, and its fix, exists. This processor/microcode defect has been found on Intel Skylake and Intel Kaby Lake processors with hyper-threading enabled. Besides these 6th and 7th generation Intel Core processors, its also found on its related server processors, such as Xeon v5 and Xeon v6, and some select Intel Pentium processor models. More info here on HotHardware. Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 28-June-2017  13:28:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg Portable & Prebuilt: Dell Latitude E7280 Ultra Slim Laptop on FunkyKit. ASUS Zephyrus With GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q Gaming Laptop on HotHardware. Input Etc: Adesso AKB-636UB Typewriter Keyboard on TechPowerUp. ASUS ROG Strix Evolve mouse on Vortez. Motherboard & CPU: GIGABYTE Z270X-Designare Motherboard on Tweaktown. Overclocking the Core i9-7900X on TechSpot. MSI Z270 GAMING M7 on TechPowerUp. Intel Core i7 7740X Benchmarks On Linux on Phoronix. Intel Core i9 7900X Linux Benchmarks on Phoronix. GIGABYTE GA-AB350 Gaming 3 on Vortez. Storage: Intel Optane in RAID 0 - World's Fastest System Disk on Tweaktown. Toshiba XG5 NVMe SSD on TheSSDReview. Intel SSD 545S Series 512GB Review - IMFT 64-Layer TLC on PCPerspective. Intel SSD 545s 512GB SATA SSD on LegitReviews. Toshiba XG5 NVMe SSD on HotHardware. Cases: SilverStone Redline RL06 - PRO Case on Modders-Inc. Cougar Panzer on OCAholic. Misc: TP-Link Deco M5 Mesh Wi-Fi Router System on CustomPCReview. WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam on BenchmarkReviews. Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB Liquid Cooler on MadShrimps. Tuesday Evening Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 27-June-2017  17:35:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 3 motherboard on Guru3D. Intel Core i7-7740X Processor on ThinkComputers. Gigabyte AB350N Gaming WiFi on LanOC. Cooling: Alphacool Eisbaer 120 CPU AIO Water Cooler on HWAsylum. Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 Direct CPU Air Cooler on PCPerspective. Bykski FOUR CPU Waterblock on TechPowerUp. REEVEN Polariz RFC-04 Fan Controller on FunkyKit. Storage: WD Red 10TB NAS HDD on Tweaktown. Intel SSD 5 545s 512GB SATA III SSD on Tweaktown. Misc: Linksys EA9500 MAX-STREAM AC5400 MU-MIMO Gigabit Router on NikKTech. Xiaomi Mi 6 smartphone on TechSpot. Patriot Viper V570 RGB Laser Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown. SilverStone Primera PM01-RGB Computer Case on APHNetworks.

All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
Interested in advertising on OCAU? Contact us for info.