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Help me OCAU, I am addicted to Factorio.. seriously, that game is like crack. Thanks to Axe and Simon this week!
     
     
     
     
Wednesday Night Reviews
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Wednesday, 13-January-2021 23:40:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
Gigabyte Aorus Raid 2TB SSD on FunkyKit.
Corsair MP400 1TB on LanOC.
Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 NVMe Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
Cooling:
NZXT Kraken X63 RGB LCS CPU cooler on Guru3D.
Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 Sub-Zero AIO CPU Cooler on FunkyKit.
Deepcool Castle 240R AIO CPU Cooler on FunkyKit.
Audio Visual:
EPOS Sennheiser GSX 300 Gaming Series External USB Sound Card on NikKTech.
HiFiMAN HE400i 2020 Edition headset on TechPowerUp.
Cases:
Thermaltake Divider 300 TG ARGB on TechPowerUp.
Cougar MX660 Mesh RGB Gaming Case (video review) by OCClub.
Misc:
Epomaker GK96LS Keyboard Review - Left-Handed Numpad! on TechPowerUp.
ASUS Prime Z490-A Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Forum Projects
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Monday, 11-January-2021 00:40:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Time to catch up on some more cool projects and reviews from the forums. Another good way to see what's going on in there is to hit the New Posts link. Enjoy!
Sunday Night Reviews
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Sunday, 10-January-2021 23:53:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z490I AORUS Ultra on TechPowerUp.
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 + Radeon RX 6800: Tested at 1080p, 1440p and 4K on TechSpot.
Audio Visual:
FiiO BTA30 HiFi Bluetooth Audio Receiver & Transmitter on NikKTech.
Porsche Design AOC Agon PD27 monitor on LanOC.
ROCCAT Elo 7.1 Air Gaming Headset on Tweaktown.
HyperX QuadCast S Gaming Microphone on ThinkComputers.
Creative SXFI GAMER USB-C Gaming Headset on MadShrimps.
Tribit QuietPlus 50 Bluetooth Headphone on FunkyKit.
Input Etc:
Vortex 10 Keyboard Review - A 10th Anniversary Poker Celebration on TechPowerUp.
Dream Machines DM6 Holey S on TechPowerUp.
Power Supply:
Cougar BXM850 and GEX850 Power Supplies (video review) by OCClub.
Chieftronic PowerUp 850 W on TechPowerUp.
Video Cards:
ASUS Radeon RX 6900 XT STRIX OC LC on Guru3D.
VR Wars: The Red Devil RTX 6900 XT versus the RTX 3090 Founders Edition on BabelTechReviews.
Colorful iGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-V on Vortez.
Red Devil RX 6900 XT 50-game Review vs. the RTX 3090 FE on BabelTechReviews.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-U9S chromax.black CPU Cooler on APHNetworks.
Phanteks First AIO Cooling Solution Glacier One 240 MP on Modders-Inc.
AeroCool Mirage 5 CPU ARGB CPU Air Cooler on NikKTech.
Storage:
Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD on NikKTech.
HP EX900 Pro 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD on TechPowerUp.
Lexar Professional 1066x microSDXC SILVER Series Card on HWAsylum.
TerraMaster F5-221 NAS on Guru3D.
Samsung SSD 980 Pro vs. Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus on TechSpot.
Misc:
Genesis Irid 353 ARGB Review - Compact with a Glass Front case on TechPowerUp.
Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB White DDR4-3200 32GB Memory Kit on ThinkComputers.
Aruba InstantOn Networking Platform on Tweaktown.
OnePlus Nord N10 5G US-Edition: Solid Value, With Limitations phone on HotHardware.
Thanks to Dan, Axe, mpot and Andrew this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Retro Gaming January 2021
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Friday, 8-January-2021 00:37:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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This month's "Retro Let's Play" is Warhammer: Dark Omen from 1998. Warhammer Dark Omen, released for both Windows 9x platform and PSX, The gameplay is unit-oriented battlefield tactics with infantry, cavalry, and archer squads and artillery pieces as well as supporting hero and wizard units. The game freely mixes in 3D/pixel based landscapes, cannons, flintlock pistols and steam-powered tanks with bows, cavalry and magic using the Warhammer fantasy rule-set set.
click for the thread!
While we're here, the Retro Racing game for January is Car & Driver from 1992. I don’t know how I stumbled on to this game, but I remember playing it quite often on my dads PC. I guess my brother probably bought it. I found the way they used the keyboard interesting. Rather than the usual holding down the key and the steering gradually getting tighter they used the whole numpad. 7 and 9 were light turns, 4 and 6 were medium and 1 and 3 were tight. It was a different method of “simulating analogue” compared to most others.
click for the thread!
Tuesday Night Reviews
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Tuesday, 5-January-2021 23:21:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Memory:
Silicon Power XPOWER Turbine RGB 32GB DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory Kit on FunkyKit.
Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB (White) DDR-3200 MHz CL16 2x16 GB on TechPowerUp.
Mushkin Redline DDR4-4000 CL18 2x8GB on NeoSeeker.
Storage:
TerraMaster 4GB RAM NAS Upgrade on NeoSeeker.
WD Blue SN550 SSD Review: Superb, Budget NVMe Storage on HotHardware.
Silicon Power US70 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD on NikKTech.
Audio Visual:
Razer BlackShark V2 Gaming Headset on Thinkcomputers.
EPOS GSP 601 headset on Vortez.
HyperX Cloud II Wireless + 7.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
Cases:
Cooler Master MasterBox NR200 mITX on APHNetworks.
Antec P10 FLUX on TechPowerUp.
Tuesday Morning
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Tuesday, 5-January-2021 00:48:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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2021 and still no flying car. I mean this is just getting silly now. Anyway, time to clear out the newsbox:
Australia's national anthem has been slightly changed for 2021. From January 1, 2021, the second line of Australia's national anthem will change from, "For we are young and free" to "For we are one and free". Governor-General David Hurley has agreed to the Commonwealth's recommendation to make an amendment to the anthem for the first time since 1984.
Also, Flash is dead. Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Flash Player after December 31, 2020 and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems. Some users may continue to see reminders from Adobe to uninstall Flash Player from their system. See below for more details on how to uninstall Flash Player. You can still play some classic Flash games on the Internet Archive.
The Government meanwhile are looking into a right to repair for Australia. We have been asked to look at the barriers and enablers of competition in repair markets and the costs and benefits of a regulated ‘right to repair’, including facilitating access to embedded software in consumer and other goods. We have also been asked to look at arrangements for preventing premature or planned product obsolescence and the proliferation of e-waste, and means of reducing e-waste through improved access to repairs. They are accepting submissions on the topic until February 1st 2021.
BabelTechReviews compared the EVGA RTX 3070 FTW3 Ultra vs. the RX 6800 in 35 games. EVGA sent BTR a RTX 3070 FTW3 Ultra ($609) and ... a reference RX 6800 ($569) from AMD. Since these cards have become direct competitors because of being priced within 7%, they each deserve a full review.
Similarly, TechSpot compared the RTX 3070 vs. Radeon RX 6800 in 41 games. It's time for a GPU shootout to see how the GeForce RTX 3070 and Radeon RX 6800 compare by benchmarking them head to head in 41 games. That's ton of games to be tested and more than twice what we included in our day one review for both graphics cards.
Phoronix report on a new ARM CPU which seems ready to take on the big players. While the talk in recent weeks has been about the performance of Apple's M1 ARM chip and then rumors there might be a 32 core chip in the pipe, there is already something much stronger: Ampere Altra has begun shipping and its flagship 80-core SoC with up to two sockets per server can easily take on the AMD EPYC 7742 "Rome" and Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 "Cascade Lake" performance across a variety of workloads. Here is our initial look at the Ampere Altra performance on Linux in our independent performance benchmarks.
HotHardware meanwhile cover the best selling and most played Steam games for 2020. Though it has been a rough and long year, 2020 is finally ending. Throughout the year, gamers have been distracted by many games, both new and old. Now, Steam is releasing its “Best of 2020” games based on gross revenue and player stats to show what gamers have enjoyed this year.
Finally, I stumbled across this in the forums and don't know if I linked it years ago, but anyway it deserves another mention: DonutKing's tour of a Soviet Arcade Machine Museum. You might remember a few years ago there was some photos of a Soviet arcade museum doing the rounds. Well, I was in Moscow and stopped in for a visit.
Blame my hangover or the general post-Xmas pre-New Year time vortex, but I only just realised it's Friday today, so here's some Retro Misc Pics. The usual apologies if they are a bit spicier than we would normally allow on the news page nowadays. Also, the last one I think is a reference to Swine Flu - if only we knew then what was in store in future!
28th May 2009:
    
26th May 2009:
  
  
22nd May 2009:
     
     
15th May 2009:
     
     
8th May 2009:
     
     
1st May 2009:
     
     
Hungover New Year Reviews
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Friday, 1-January-2021 13:27:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
addlink S92 2TB QLC M.2 PCIe SSD on Tweaktown.
Kingston KC2500 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD on TechPowerUp.
WD My Passport SSD Portable Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
Synology DS1621+ 6-bay NAS on TechPowerUp.
Portable & Prebuilt:
ASRock DeskMini X300 Mini PC on Tweaktown.
Nokia 8 V 5G UW phone on HotHardware.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-D15S chromax.black CPU Cooler on APHNetworks.
DEEPCOOL AS500 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
EK Water Blocks EK AIO 240 D-RGB AIO Liquid Cooling System on NikKTech.
Video Cards:
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X on HotHardware.
MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X TRIO on Guru3D.
Sapphire Radeon RX 6800 NITRO+ on Guru3D.
MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio on TechPowerUp.
EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming on FunkyKit.
Audio Visual:
Elgato Wave:1 USB microphone on TechPowerUp.
Corsair HS70 Bluetooth Headset on Guru3D.
Corsair HS70 Bluetooth headset on TechPowerUp.
Cases:
DEEPCOOL MACUBE 110 MICRO ITX CASE on Modders-Inc.
Cougar BLAZER Essence (video review) by OCClub.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2 on OCInside.
Genesis Irid 503 ARGB on TechPowerUp.
Memory:
Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 16GB 2666MHz 2x16GB CL18 SODIMM on MadShrimps.
Patriot Viper Steel RGB 64GB DDR4-3600 CL20 Memory Kit on FunkyKit.
Input Etc:
Sharkoon Light˛ 100 mouse on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master SK622 Bluetooth Mechanical Keyboard on APHNetworks.
CORSAIR K60 RGB PRO Low Profile Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on MadShrimps.
Misc:
Nuki Keypad Combo Bundle smart lock on NikKTech.
ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme motherboard on TechPowerUp.
Sunday Evening Reviews
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Sunday, 27-December-2020 20:00:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Nanoxia Deep Silence 8 Pro case on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master Masterbox NR200 on FunkyKit.
Storage:
Corsair TBT100 Thunderbolt 3 Dock on TechPowerUp.
Yottamaster TB2-T3 Thunderbolt 3 NVME External SSD Enclosure on NikKTech.
Patriot Memory Viper VPN100 PCIe 2TB M.2 SSD on MadShrimps.
Video Cards:
ASRock Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X on TechPowerUp.
Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 3070 Ultra W OC-V on NeoSeeker.
AORUS RTX 3080 Master on Vortez.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Origin Neuron Gaming Desktop PC on TechSpot.
Cyberpower PC Ultra 7 RTX Elite gaming PC on Vortez.
Lenovo Yoga 7i Review: Premium Intel Evo Laptop On A Budget on HotHardware.
Realme 7 5G Review: A Great 5G Phone That’s Also Affordable on HotHardware.
Misc:
FSP Hydro PTM Pro 1200W Power Supply on APHNetworks.
Steinel CAM Light Review and Installation Guide on FunkyHome.
Noctua NH-U12S chromax.black CPU Cooler on NeoSeeker.
Boxing Day Afternoon
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Saturday, 26-December-2020 15:29:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I've reached the "food coma" stage of the Xmas break so here's some news catchup. Firstly I don't generally link Build Guides as they tend to just be piles of affiliate links, but anyway it can be useful to see what bits people are recommending. So here's a Gaming System guide from NeoSeeker and a DIY System Guide from HotHardware.
Cyberpunk 2077 continues to dominate the headlines, and HotHardware checked out performance with the v1.05 patch. Tweaktown meanwhile benchmarked it at 8K. Cyberpunk 2077 is here if you can believe it, and it is by far one of the best-looking games ever made -- and the best-looking game of 2020. You have to have the right hardware, and the beefiest, most bad ass PC hardware you can buy -- but oh boy, is it worth it.
TechSpot took a look at DirectX 12. DirectX has been with us for 25 years, providing developers with the tools to make incredible games. The latest version, DX12 was released in 2015 but in the past couple of years, Microsoft have been expanding the software library to cover ray tracing and machine learning, and eventually, data management. Big next-gen titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs: Legion are using some of these DirectX 12 extras. So what exactly are they? What can these enhancements do and how will they make games better for us all?
ArsTechnica have an interesting article about some real-life Wargames that nearly triggered WWIII back in the 80's. Thirty-two years ago, just months after the release of the movie WarGames, the world came the closest it ever has to nuclear Armageddon. In the movie version of a global near-death experience, a teenage hacker messing around with an artificial intelligence program that just happened to control the American nuclear missile force unleashes chaos. In reality, a very different computer program run by the Soviets fed growing paranoia about the intentions of the United States, very nearly triggering a nuclear war.
Also on the retro side of things, here's a flashback to what made the Amiga great. To most people, the Amiga is probably synonymous with the Amiga 500 and that machine was, above all, a video game: something into which you plonked 3.5" floppy disks that transported you to strange, wonderful worlds and hours of fun. To this group, the gamers, the operating system wasn't important. They probably booted Workbench 1.3 only once, took a good look at the garish blue and orange interface, and decided that enough was enough, before going back to blasting enemies in Silkworm.
Saturday Afternoon Reviews
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Saturday, 26-December-2020 14:33:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock X570 TAICHI – RAZER EDITION on FunkyKit.
ASRock W480 Creator Motherboard on OCInside.
MSI MEG X570 Unify on Guru3D.
NZXT N7 Z490 Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASRock X570 PG Velocita Motherboard on Tweaktown.
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Processor on ThinkComputers.
Input Etc:
1STPLAYER LANG MK8 Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Redragon M913 Impact Elite mouse on TechPowerUp.
OCC Reviews the GSkill KM360 Tenkeyless Mechanical Keyboard and Keycaps on OCClub.
Memory:
Mushkin Redline Black 32GB DDR4 3600MHz CL18 Dual-Channel Kit on NikKTech.
Patriot Viper Steel RGB Series DDR4-3600 32GB (2 x 16GB) Memory on FunkyKit.
Patriot Viper 4 Blackout DDR4 4000 16GB Kit on OCClub.
Mushkin Redline FrostByte Black DDR4 16GB (2 x 8GB) 4000MHz on FunkyKit.
Audio Visual:
Creative SXFI AIR (w/ Super X-Fi Gen 2) headphones on TechPowerUp.
Audeze Penrose Wireless Gaming Headset on NeoSeeker.
AOC PD27 GAMING MONITOR on Modders-Inc.
Cooler Master MH Series (MH630, MH650, MH670) Gaming Headsets on ThinkComputers.
Merry Christmas! Thanks to Axe, Dan and Armunn this week. I hope you're enjoying a safe and relaxing holiday, as much as can be expected at the moment. It's certainly been an interesting year, from a personal perspective, as well as on OCAU and worldwide. In 2021 it'll be 20 years since we moved onto vBulletin, setting up the database we still use now under XenForo. So a handful of users will see their accounts turn 20 years old. OCAU has actually seen a bit of a resurgence this year in terms of traffic, no doubt due to COVID-related issues. Anyway, I'm certainly still enjoying being part of this community and I hope you are too. Hopefully things return to normality around the world as soon as possible, and here's to many more years of OCAU!
     
     
     
     
Retro Let's Play December 2020 - Shinobi
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Thursday, 24-December-2020 11:54:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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This month's Retro Let's Play is Shinobi from Sega in 1987 - originally an arcade game. History wise the word Shinobi basically means Ninja; A ninja or shinobi was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan.
click for the thread!
Monday Night Reviews
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Monday, 21-December-2020 22:43:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Power Supply:
Cooler Master V650 SFX Gold PSU on FunkyKit.
Corsair CX750F RGB 750W on APHNetworks.
Corsair CX750F RGB on LanOC.
Audio Visual:
Samsung Odyssey G9 Review: Super-Ultrawide monitor on TechSpot.
Gravastar Venus Wireless Speaker on NikKTech.
Gigabyte M27F Gaming Monitor on FunkyKit.
AOC U32U1 Porsche Design Monitor on OCInside.
Cougar Immersa Pro Prix Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
Corsair HS75 XB Wireless headset on TechPowerUp.
Schiit Hel Gaming DAC/Amp on Tweaktown.
Corsair iCUE Nexus mini status screen on ThinkComputers.
Cougar Phontum Pro Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
Creative Sound Blaster AE-7 PCIe Sound Card on NikKTech.
Cooling:
Thermaltake ToughFan 12 on OCInside.
Scythe Ninja 5 air cooler on Guru3D.
Input Etc:
Gazzew Boba U4 Silent Tactile Switch for keyboards on OCClub.
SteelSeries Aerox 3 Wireless Ultra Lightweight Wireless Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps.
Xtrfy M42 mouse on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master MM720 Mouse on Modders-Inc.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Performance Preview on HotHardware.
Gigabyte AORUS 15G XB (Intel 10875H + RTX 2070 Super Max-Q) laptop on TechPowerUp.
Misc:
PlayStation 5 Review: The golden era of console gaming on Tweaktown.
HyperX Fury RGB 64GB DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory Kit on FunkyKit.
Immortals Fenyx Rising game on OCClub.
SilverStone Grandia GD09-C case on APHNetworks.
XFX Radeon RX 6800 XT Speedster Merc 319 Black video card on TechPowerUp.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB M.2 NVME SSD on Tweaktown.
Thanks to Armunn and Kenny this week! I know there's a few too many Cyberpunk ones but they had me chuckling. Next week it's Christmas!
     
     
     
     
     
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