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May 2011 |
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 560 OC
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Tuesday, 31-May-2011 12:11:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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DiGiTaL MoNkEY has reviewed the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 560 OC. Despite being the smallest GTX 560 we've looked at, they've managed to squeeze two 100mm fans onto it:
Click for the review!
MSI Giveaway Voting!
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Monday, 30-May-2011 20:32:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Now's the time to vote for your favourite entry from our recent MSI motherboard giveaway contest!
So, this week is National Cyber Security Awareness Week. Didn't we just have one of these recently? This year's National Cyber Security Awareness Week will be held from 30 May to 3 June. Events and activities held during the week across Australia will help Australians understand cybersecurity risks and how to protect their personal and financial information online.
Meanwhile Jeff reminds us that CeBIT is on this week in Sydney. They've cunningly timed it to coincide with Computex Taipei, which will surely have all the marketing people busy over there. The tenth anniversary of CeBIT Australia promises to be the biggest and most extensive BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY EVENT OF 2011.
Gigabyte have a motherboard on the way with an integrated SSD. The new board, dubbed the Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-iSSD, uses Intel’s new Z68 chipset and will feature a tiny m-SATA SSD module that effectively functions as a small Intel Solid State Drive 311.
Speaking of which, NGOHQ and HWSecrets both took a look at Intel's Smart Response Technology. Intel's SRT lets you use a low capacity SSD to boost the performance of a mechanical drive by using the SSD as a cache.
PeteOdeath pointed out this cool timelapse video of the Very Large Telescope at work. What makes this time lapse particularly amazing--because we’ve all seen plenty of time lapse videos of the night sky--is the four telescopes in the foreground. Watching these instruments work against a black background would be endlessly fascinating on its own. Unfortunately you won’t be able to pay them too much attention. Because damn, what a sky. It is pretty amazing, but also slightly motion-sickness inducing, even though I don't normally suffer from that!
Techgage have an Intel P67 roundup. We've been a little short on motherboard content lately, so to kick things back into action we're taking a look at four P67-based motherboards at once - all benchmarked using our newly revised test suite. The boards we're looking at are the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe, GIGABYTE P67A-UD4, Intel DP67BG and MSI P67A-GD65.
Linus Torvalds has confirmed his earlier comments and is moving the Linux Kernel to version 3.0 after years of 2.6. The whole renumbering was discussed at last years Kernel Summit, and there was a plan to take it up this year too. But let's face it - what's the point of being in charge if you can't pick the bike shed color without holding a referendum on it? So I'm just going all alpha-male, and just renumbering it. You'll like it.
Clinton sent in some concerns about Skype installing some malware, but it seems it was just an error. This latest update from EasyBits included elements of their desktop games organizer in error, but it neither installs nor un-installs correctly. This update has been disabled while we work with them to correct the problems and user experience.
GamePron demonstrated how easy it is to play censored games in Australia. I expected some kind of note saying they’d picked up my game and burnt it, but no. I guess the Customs guys are about a diligent as you’d expect when being asked to enforce a law so ridiculous that it makes other countries laugh at us. A printed out sticker on the parcel read, “Cleared — Customs”.
Today's timewasters are circle the cat from Marty, which I'm sure we've seen before but is quite fun, and My Balls (ahem) from Matt.
ASUS GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP
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Sunday, 29-May-2011 16:55:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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DiGiTaL MoNkEY has taken a look at the ASUS GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP video card. This has a slick black PCB, custom cooler, and some impressive stock speeds. It's not too shabby at overclocking, either:
click for the review!
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 29-May-2011 14:09:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Jetway NC85-E350-LF Fusion Motherboard on on eTeknix.
Biostar TA880GB+ Motherboard on HWSecrets.
AMD Phenom II X4 980BE CPU on Metku.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Nokia E7: A Swansong on InsideHW.
Maingear eX-L 15 Notebook on PCPerspective.
HP 100B All-in-One PC on TechReviewSource.
Audio Visual:
ASUS PA246Q monitor on InsideHW.
AOC Aire Black E2243FWK LED Monitor on HotHardware.
Ttesports Shock Gaming Headset on RBMods.
Cases:
Fractal Design Arc midtower on Vortez.
In-Win BUC PC Gaming Case on LegitReviews.
BitFenix Shinobi Window on TechReaction.
Thermaltake Level 10 GT Chassis on OCIA.
Lian Li PC-P80N Full Tower/HPTX Case on HWHeaven.
NZXT H2 Classic Mid Tower on OCOnline.
Input Etc:
Genius SlimStar 8000 Wireless Keyboard/Mouse Set on APHNetworks.
Gigabyte Aivia M8600 Gaming Mouse on NinjaLane.
Enermax Acrylux Keyboard on OC3D.
EpicGear MeduZa Hybrid Dual Sensor Technology Gaming Mouse on VR-Zone.
Verbatim Store 'n' Go FireWire 800 / USB 3.0 for Mac on DragonSteelMods.
Video Cards:
Gainward GeForce GTX 590 3GB Premium Edition on RWLabs.
Zotac GTX 580 Amp! Edition on XSReview.
MSI R6850 Cyclone IGDS Power Edition on NeoSeeker.
Storage:
Silicon Power V20 120GB SandForce SF-1200 SSD on Tweaktown.
OCZ Agility 3 SSD on Guru3D.
Crucial m4 256GB SSD on TechSpot.
Mach Xtreme MX-GX USB 3.0 16GB Thumb Drive on Tweaktown.
Seagate Barracuda Green 2 TB Hard Disk Drive on HWSecrets.
G-Technology G-RAID Mini Dual-Drive Storage System on RealWorldLabs.
Crucial M4 128GB SSD on TheSSDReviews.
Samsung 470 Series 256GB SSD - Long Term Test Results on LegitReviews.
OCZ Agility 3 240GB SATA 3 SSD on TheSSDReview.
Misc:
Lexmark Genesis S816 All-in-One Printer on HWSecrets.
NZXT Sentry Mesh 30W Fan Controller on Tweaktown.
Corsair AX1200 1200W 80Plus Gold PSU on VR-Zone.
Thanks to Chris, mshagg, Boyd, Banger and GillR this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 26-May-2011 21:58:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Antec's Soundscience Rockus 3D|2.1 speakers on TechReport.
Samsung PL210 14 Megapixel Digital Camera on TechWareLabs.
Microlab SOLO6C Powered Stereo Speakers on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
GIGABYTE Z68X-UD3H-B3 (Intel Z68) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Motherboard on Overclockers.com.
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD5-B3 Intel Z68 Motherboard on PCStats.
Intel Core i5-2390T Processor on iXBTLabs.
Prebuilt & Portable:
Foxconn Netbox NT-A3500 on TechPowerUp.
Asus 2400ET All-In-One Touchscreen Desktop on HotHardware.
Asus U36JC notebook on TechReviewSource.
Storage:
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD on ITShootout.
QNAP TS-119P+ Single Bay HOME/SOHO NAS on Tweaknews.
PQI S535 256GB SSD on LegitReviews.
Power Supply:
Kingwin Lazer Platinum 550W on SilentPCReview.
Logisys PS350MA on HWSecrets.
Cooling:
Titan Hati CPU Cooler on XtremeComputing.
Cooler Master LapAir Laptop Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Cases:
Cubitek HTPX-Tank tower on PureOC.
Moneual MonCaso Sonamu G100 on HWSecrets.
Video Cards:
Inno3D iChill Freezer X Series GeForce GTX 560 on HWHeaven.
AMD FirePro V7900 and V5900 Professional Graphics Cards on PCPerspective.
PowerColor HD 6670 1 GB on TechPowerUp.
HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo X on eTeknix.
Misc:
G.SKILL Sniper F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2 2x4GB DDR3 RAM on APHNetworks.
Portal 2 PC Game on Tweaktown.
Enermax Acrylux Keyboard on XSReviews.
Contest: The Witcher 2 - Assassins of Kings
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Thursday, 26-May-2011 02:36:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's been no shortage of contests on OCAU this month, and here's another, courtesy of The Witcher 2 - Assassins of Kings. You can win yourself a copy of the game AND an MSI video card, AND a cool mouse+pad, with 5 more copies of the game and mouse+pad bundles going to runners-up.
click for more info!
The Minister for Home Affairs and Justice has released some draft guidelines for an R18+ classification for computer games. The draft guidelines can be read here. If you wish to provide feedback, please complete the online survey. The survey closes on Wednesday 22 June 2011. Feedback will be collated to provide advice to classification Ministers in considering the proposed draft Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games.
The domain space is set to become more complicated with custom top level domain extensions possibly on offer soon. The global body governing internet domain names will soon allow organisations and companies to replace the ''com'' in website addresses with their own name - at a cost of more than $US200,000.
Sony's woes continue, with their Canadian and Greek websites being hacked. Following the infamous PSN breach last month and an attack on the company's Greek online music service earlier this week, Sony Ericsson has now seen another intrusion that extracted personal data of more than 2,000 Canadian Eshop customers. Fortunately, the company claims that passwords taken were encrypted and no credit card details were lost, but this is still worrisome nevertheless.
Telstra will be bandwidth throttling phones soon, instead of surprising people with enormous bills. In a statement released late last night, Telstra finance chief John Stanhope said customers deserved to be able to enjoy the full capabilities of their Telstra mobiles on plans without fear of a large, unexpected bill. “By slowing data speeds once a customer has exceeded their data allowance, and not charging for the extra data, customers stay connected without fear of a hit to the hip-pocket,” the executive said.
With the final Shuttle mission soon, and no replacement in sight, NASA have surprised us with a manned exploration craft. NASA on Tuesday announced a plan to build a spacecraft that will fly astronauts into deep space, taking them as far as near asteroids and even Mars. The new spacecraft, called the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, will be based on an earlier concept for the Orion vehicle, a spacecraft originally intended to ferry astronauts to the moon, the space agency announced during a press conference. The new spacecraft, which will be built by Lockheed Martin, will be designed to carry four astronauts on 21-day missions.
Cray have revealed their first GPU-powered supercomputer. Hardware-wise though, the XK6 is not that different from its CPU-based brethren. The blade is basically a variant of the XE6, replacing four of the eight AMD Opteron sockets with NVIDIA Tesla GPU modules. Each four-node blade consists of two Gemini interconnect chips, four Opteron CPUs, and four NVIDIA Tesla 20-series GPUs. The Tesla in this case is the X2090, a compact form factor of the M2090 module that was introduced last week. Like the M2090, the X2090 sports a 665 gigaflop (double precision) GPU, 6 GB of GDDR5, and 178 GB/second of memory bandwidth. A XK6 cabinet can house up to 24 blades (96 nodes), which will deliver something in the neighborhood of 70 teraflops. Cue "how does it Fold?" comments. :)
A recent fibre-optic speed record has been claimed by NBN Co as demonstrating that the largely fibre-based NBN is on the right track, thanks JD. However Alan Jones is more impressed by frickin' laser beams, thanks Scott. Jones said the announcement was proof that the NBN would be outdated by the time it was built, without realising the network was based on exactly the same technology.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 26-May-2011 00:06:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Cooler Master Silencio 550 on eTeknix.
SilverStone Raven SST-RV03B-W EATX Tower on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master Elite 371 Midtower on OCIA.
Sentey Optimus GS-6000 on ThinkComputers.
Silverstone Raven 3 (RV03) on TechSpot.
Thermaltake Chaser MK-1 on LegitReviews.
Motherboard & CPU:
ECS Elitegroup H67H2-I LGA1155 Mini-ITX Sandy Bridge Motherboard on FutureLooks.
GIGABYTE Z68X-UD7-B3 (Intel Z68) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 Motherboard on HWSecrets.
ECS H67H2-M Black Deluxe on Guru3D.
Foxconn P67 Rattler on OC3D.
Input Etc:
Scosche freeKEY BTKB Bluetooth Keyboard on LegitReviews.
NZXT Avatar S mouse on OCClub.
NZXT Avatar S Gaming Mouse on NeoSeeker.
QPAD MK-80 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Raptor LK 1 Gaming Keyboard on XSReviews.
Power Supply:
OCZ ZX Series 850W on TechPowerUp.
Sentey Golden Steel Power 850W on HWSecrets.
Sentey GSP850 PSU on ReviewStash.
Video Cards:
Asus ENGTX460 GTX 460 Voltage Tweak Edition on Tweaknews.
HIS 6950 IceQ X Turbo X 2GB on ViperLair.
Sapphire Ultimate Radeon HD 6670 Review with Passive / Silent Cooler on HWHeaven.
PowerColor HD6950 PCS+ on OCClub.
Storage:
OCZ Technology Vertex 3 240GB Retail Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
Thecus N3200XXX NAS on TechSpot.
OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 120GB SSD on LegitReviews.
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS Edition SSD on BenchmarkReviews.
HornetTek D-Slim Portable DVD Drive on PureOC.
OCZ Technology Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Patriot Memory Supersonic USB 3.0 Flash Drive on Modders-Inc.
Video Cards:
AMD FirePro V5900 on Phoronix.
AMD FirePro V7900 on Phoronix.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E220s laptop on TechReviewSource.
Acer Iconia Tab A500 on TBreak.
Antec High Current Pro 750W on TechPowerUp.
HP Elitebook 8560p on TechReviewSource.
HTC Flyer Tablet on TechReviewSource.
Misc:
Brink PC game on OCModShop.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings on Techgage.
XFX's Triple Display Monitor Stand on TechReport.
TRENDnet 450Mbps Dual Band Wireless N USB Adapter on MadShrimps.
Patriot G Series AMD Black Edition DDR3-1333 4GB Dual Channel Memory Kit on ThinkComputers.
Prolimatech Genesis CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Wednesday Midday
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Wednesday, 25-May-2011 12:53:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Today is apparently Geek Pride Day, thanks Rmack. It has been celebrated on May 25 since 2006, celebrating the premiere of the first Star Wars film in 1977. It shares the same day as three other science-fiction fan 'holidays' - Towel Day, for fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy by Douglas Adams, Star Wars Day, and the Glorious 25 May, for fans of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
Duke Nukem Forever has gone gold! This means the game is essentially finished (after more than a decade) and there now exists a gold master disk which is what all the retail disks will be copies of. Release early next month, if there's no more delays.
A 22yo Australian student has found the universe's missing mass, thanks Mick. I'm imagining it was behind some giant interstellar couch all along. The School of Physics put out a call for students interested in a six-week paid astrophysics research internship during a recent vacation period, and chose Ms Fraser-McKelvie from a large number of applicants. Dr Pimbblet, lecturer in the School of Physics put the magnitude of the discovery in context by explaining that scientists had been hunting for the Universe’s missing mass for decades.
Meanwhile NASA are officially no longer trying to contact the Spirit rover, which seems to have succumbed to the Martian winter. Spirit landed on Mars on Jan. 3, 2004, for a mission designed to last three months. After accomplishing its prime-mission goals, Spirit worked to accomplish additional objectives. Its twin, Opportunity, continues active exploration of Mars.
There's some new Mac malware, thanks SteveO. The trojan horse is called Mac Defender. It's a web pop-up containing a spoof message that tells customers their machines are infected by a virus and they must install anti-virus software. If customers agree to install the software, the program sporadically loads porn websites on their computer.
The "reveal trailer" for CoD:MW3 has been released, thanks Marty. Looks pretty impressive if you like your action explodey.
From John: Although there’s been lots of leaked photos and specs of the new 990 series amd motherboards, I noticed that Gigabyte seem to be the first out of the blocks with an official listing of a huge 990FX m/board, with six PCI Express slots and six SATA 6gig connectors, four USB3s etc. Discussion here.
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer is already pretty desireable, but now it seems to be overclockable, to an extent. Xda-developers forum member netarchy has already uploaded a custom kernel for the Eee Pad Transformer that allows you to overclock the chip to make it run at up to 1.4GHz – which is a 40% improvement over the stock 1GHz clock speed that it came with. Of course, at that speed, performance is not stable at all, but for those who want to achieve a balance can give it a go at 1.2GHz that ought to keep everyone happy.
Carsales are having a contest where you can win a Ford Focus car. Ford and Carsales.com.au invite you to put the all-new Ford Focus through its paces in a series of tests. 12 lucky entrants will receive an all-new Ford Focus for 6 weeks, a flip camera, and a license to entertain! Document the tests, get the most votes…and you get to keep the car! Discussion here.
Which reminds me, this Friday is your last chance to win an MSI motherboard, and later this month the BitFenix case contest closes too.
Tuesday Night Reviews
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Tuesday, 24-May-2011 23:55:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z68X UD7 B3 Motherboard on NinjaLane.
MSI Z68A-GD80 Motherboard on Guru3D.
ECS P67H2-A2 (B3) Motherboard on TechPowerUp.
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro (Intel Z68) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASRock H61M/U3S3 Motherboard on HWSecrets.
Video Cards:
MSI 6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition on PureOC.
PowerColor PCS+ AX6950 Vortex II on BenchmarkReviews.
Gigabyte GTX 560 (GV-N56GOC-1GI) on Pro-Clockers.
AMD FirePro V7900 and V5900 Professional Graphics Cards on HotHardware.
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC on BenchmarkReviews.
Audio Visual:
Roccat Kulo Stereo Gaming Headset on Metku.
NuForce uDAC-2 USB DAC on EverythingUSB.
Warpia StreamHD Wireless PC to TV 1080p Display Adapter SWP120A on DragonSteelMods.
soundscience rockus 3D | 2.1 Speaker System on OCOnline.
Storage:
Patriot 128GB Torqx 2 SSD on RBMods.
Crucial M4 512GB SATA 3 SSD on TheSSDReview.
MyDigitalSSD 50mm Bullet Proof mSATA PCIe 64GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Samsung PM800 128GB mSATA SSD on TheSSDReview.
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS SSD vs Crucial M4 and Intel 510 on HWHeaven.
Cases:
Enermax SpineRex ECA5010 gaming case on TechReaction.
Cooler Master Silencio on OC3D.
Cooler Master Silencio 550 Chassis on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake Level 10 GT Full Tower on FutureLooks.
NZXT H2 Classic aluminium case on OCClub.
SilverStone Raven RV03 Full-Tower on Techgage.
BitFenix Shinobi on HWSecrets.
Zalman Z9 Plus midtower on PureOC.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Motorola Xoom WiFi 32GB on TBreak.
Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch 2011 Edition on Tweaktown.
Gateway DX4850-45 HTPC on TechReviewSource.
RIM BlackBerry Playbook on HotHardware.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play on TechReviewSource.
Memory:
G.Skill RipjawsX F3-17000 CL9D 2133MHz Memory Kit on eTeknix.
Patriot Division2 Viper Xtreme 4GB DDR3 RAM kit on TechWareLabs.
Sharp have been showing off their new giant TV with super high definition. Can you imagine owning a TV with 16 times the resolution of HDTV (or, in other words, about the same resolution as IMAX)? That’s 7,680×4,320 pixels, and today Sharp (in cooperation with Japanese national TV broadcaster NHK) showed a 85-inch LCD TV boasting that spec, also known as Ultra HDTV or Super Hi-Vision.
Texas Memory Systems meanwhile have a new monster SSD. 900GB in size and 2GB/s sustained? Yes please, but I suspect the pricetag will be terrifying. The new card, aimed at server manufacturers, boasts 330,000 sustained I/Os per second (IOPS) and 2GB/sec random sustained external throughput compared to the RamSan 10/20, which offered up to 20,000 sustained IOPS and 700 MB/sec random sustained external throughput.
Koopz sent in this cool desk mod. Peter from the Netherlands has managed to fit a pretty bombastic set of components -- 4.5GHz Core i7-980X, two ASUS GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards in SLI, over 12TB of storage with an SSD boot disk, and two PSUs providing 1,500W of power in total -- together with a water-cooling setup and the inevitable glowing lights inside one enclosure, which just so happens to also serve as his desk.
Shell are planning to build the biggest man-made floating object to harvest ocean gas. The floating liquified natural gas facility will dwarf the biggest warships, weighing in at 600,000 metric tons. By contrast, the U.S.’ next-generation Ford-class supercarrier will displace 101,000 metric tons of water. Shell says its ship will be able to withstand a category 5 typhoon. In some ways, it’s more of a mini-island than a ship, designed to be moored in the same spot off the northwest coast of Australia for 25 years.
A quantum computer has apparently reached production. D-Wave, a company that studies almost exclusively quantum computer technology, has managed to launch the first 128-qubit processor computer after several years of research. The company named the computer „D-Wave One”. The price tag is not available yet and people can find out how much the computer costs only after they have contacted the company’s sales department.
If you're wanting to play with Chrome OS but can't afford a Chromebook, TechSpot have a guide to running it from a USB stick or as a virtual machine. Although Hexxeh recommends USB images for the best experience, the easiest way to try out Chromium OS without even rebooting your computer is running it as a virtual machine. More importantly, since Chromium OS will not run on all hardware, this is the way to go if you've got an incompatible machine and just want to give it a quick look.
New Zealand's copyright woes continue, with public internet at risk, including libraries. "The legislation appears to assume that, first of all, the account holder is a single person and the only person using the machine, which of course in a library is not what happens. The whole thing is an absolute nightmare and we really don't see how it is going to work."
Monday Morning Reviews
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Monday, 23-May-2011 01:03:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS P8H67-I Deluxe Socket 1155 Motherboard on Pro-Clockers.
Zotac H67ITX Motherboard on HWSecrets.
ASUS P8H67-I Deluxe H67 mITX Motherboard on APHNetworks.
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe Mini-ITX on SilentPCReview.
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme on Vortez.
Zotac H55ITX-C-E Motherboard on Modders-Inc.
ASRock Z68 Pro3-M (Intel Z68) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ECS H67H2-M H67 Motherboard on eTeknix.
Audio Visual:
Tt eSports Shock One Gaming Headset on BenchmarkReviews.
SteelSeries 7H Pro Gaming Headset video review on Tech-Reviews.
Canon PowerShot A800 digicam on TechReviewSource.
Antec rockus 3D 2.1 speaker system on XSReviews.
Input Etc:
Wacom's Intuos4: A Photographer's Perspective on Techgage.
ZOWIE CELERITAS Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
Scythe Susanoo CPU cooler on PureOC.
Prolimatech Genesis CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
XSPC Fittings, Tubing, and RadStand Roundup on PureOC.
Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler on DragonSteelMods.
Cases:
LanCool First Knight PC-K63 Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
AZZA Toledo 301 on OCClub.
Corsair Graphite Series 600T White edition on Guru3D.
Corsair Obsidian Series 650D Mid Tower on LegitReviews.
Silverstone Fortress FT03 on OC3D.
AZZA Toledo 301 on HWSecrets.
HDPLEX H3.SODD Fanless Mini-ITX Media Case on SilentPCReview.
Video Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 6790 IceQ X Turbo 1 GB on TechPowerUp.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1GB Vapor-X on Tweaktown.
MSI R6970 Lightning on PCPerspective.
Power Supply:
SilverStone Strider Gold 750W on Phoronix.
Corsair Builder CX430 V2 430W on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Seagate GoFlex Slim 320GB USB 3.0 Hard Drive on BigBruin.
Thanks to Chris, Sam, smack01, Tarrasque and Mitsimonsta this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Here's some more things that people have reviewed for us in the forums:
The White Pages will now not be delivered by default in Sydney and Melbourne. Also, the residential book no longer supports the way consumers are searching for information, they're increasingly going online or using mobile phones and personal address books to search for residential information. You can still order some if you like.
AusCERT was on at the Gold Coast this week. The 10th annual Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) conference started today. The exhibition floor seemed unusually roomy, and regular attendees agreed that the conference seemed much quieter than usual.
Meanwhile the PM has switched on the first mainland NBN test site in sunny Armidale, describing this as making history. NBN preparations for Arimidale took 10 months with 105km of fibre being laid. Around 3000 premises will be able connected to the network but only a small number will gain access to the NBN at launch. More customers will be able to connect to the fibre network in the coming months.
Google's chairman has said they will fight an anti-piracy bill, even if it passes, with more info here. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on Wednesday said the search company would fight legislation aimed at shutting down access to file-sharing websites that offer pirated content. He argued that it would set a “disastrous precedent” for freedom of speech worldwide.
The Guardian have an article about science videos on YouTube, with a few interesting channels highlighted. I have been recognised four times now. Four times! I knew you would be impressed. And what has brought me such notoriety? Is it my fancy suits, my outrageous tabloid lifestyle, or is it my world famous impression of a teapot? No. I make videos about maths on YouTube.
von Stalhein sent in this Sysadmin Flogger, in case someone needs a little extra motivation in the office.
ZXR meanwhile noticed that the Centre for Disease Control have a page about surviving a Zombie Apocalypse. Wait, that scares me more than reassures me. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.
Here's a massive 111 Gigapixel explorable image of Seville in Spain. The result of several months of work is the biggest panoramic photograph of the world; a 613,376-pixel wide by 181,248-pixel high photograph, consisting of 9,750 images, taken at an altitude of 60 meters from the highest platform of Torre Schindler, in Isla de la Cartuja.
Today's timewasters are this NZ Army shooting game spotted by Boyd, and a very NSFW Duke Nukem promo game, which is definitely Not Safe For Work at all, and did I mention not safe for work? I think I did. Fun, though.
Folding@Home Update
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Friday, 20-May-2011 12:30:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's an update on our Folding@Home efforts from leroyxx:
Just to let you know that we arrived in 5th place for the Chimp Challenge - full results here or here. We also have a fun half May Challenge running right now here with prizes: 1st = ~1 million points, 2nd = 4Gb (2x2) G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600Mhz.
There's lots more happening, the June Challenge is up here with 1st prize showing off our new site sponsor - a MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II, kindly sponsored by Craig @ Data Retriever (another sponsor) & our Folding Fund); 2nd is 4Gb (2x2) G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600Mhz (Sponsored by our Folding Fund). This will start in June, but the entries are open now.
There is also nominations for the Iron Folder for May here - Voting opens on the 24/25th of May and Voting for Iron Folder Of The Year, part 1 here which is open for 7 days, with the top 4 going into a second poll for outright winner of the IFOTY, again with 7 day voting period.
Friday Midday Reviews
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Friday, 20-May-2011 12:21:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Tactic3D Sigma Gaming Headset on Tweaknews.
LG Infinia 47LW5600 TV on TechReviewSource.
Razer Chimaera 5.1 Wireless Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Mobile Monitor Field Monitor Pro 15.4-Inch Portable LCD Monitor on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
RAZER Onza Tournament Edition Professional Gaming Controller on MadShrimps.
Roccat's Alumic Double-sided Gaming Mousepad on Metku.
Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Azurues Optical Mouse on APHNetworks.
Motherboard & CPU:
Inexpensive AMD Processor Roundup on iXBTLabs.
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 (Intel Z68) Motherboard on TechSpot.
ASUS E35M1-I DELUXE (Fusion E-350) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Motherboard on HWSecrets.
ASUS P8P67 PRO on TechPowerUp.
ASRock P67 Pro 3 LGA1155 Sandy Bridge Motherboard on FutureLooks.
ASUS P8P67 Pro on TechReaction.
ASRock 890GX Extreme4 on PureOC.
ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution Intel P67 Motherboard on ThinkComputers.
Intel Core i7-990X Gulftown Processor and DX58SO2 Motherboard on PCPerspective.
MSI 890FXA-GD70 Motherboard on iXBTLabs.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Doro PhoneEasy 410gsm Cell Phone on HWSecrets.
Samsung Series 9 900X3A-A01CA Laptop on TheSSDReview.
Google Chromebook – To the Cloud with a Rented Computer on MegaTechNews.
Sony Xperia Play smartphone on TBreak.
amsung Droid Charge 4G Verizon Smartphone on HotHardware.
Toshiba Satellite M645-S4118X notebook on TechReviewSource.
MSI X-Slim X370 13.4" Fusion Powered Ultraportable on HotHardware.
Power Supply:
Sentey Golden Steel Power GSP850-SM 850W on Tweaktown.
Athena Power AP-MFATX35 350W on HWSecrets.
NZXT HALE90 750W on TechPowerUp.
LEPA G700-MA on HWSecrets.
Corsair CX430 V2 on HWSecrets.
Video Cards:
Zotac Geforce GTX 550 TI on RBMods.
MSI N560GTX Ti Hawk on BenchmarkReviews.
ASUS Radeon HD 6870 on LegitReviews.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 1GB on eTeknix.
Memory:
G.Skill Ripjaws X 2133MHz 8GB Kit on OC3D.
Crucial ballistix sport DDR3 1600 8GB kit on TechWareLabs.
Storage:
Patriot Memory 32GB LX Pro Class 10 SDHC Card on BigBruin.
Verbatim Store'n'Go 1 TB USB 3.0 on TechPowerUp.
Misc:
Corsair Graphite Series 600T – Special Edition White case on TechReaction.
Sumo Titan bean bag chair on TechReport.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
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Friday, 20-May-2011 12:02:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If you enjoyed our GTX 560 review earlier this week, you might be interested in a few more on some other sites:
HWHeaven, Tweaktown (and here), TechPowerUp (and here and here), TechReport, LegitReviews, Bjorn3D, Vortez, InsideHW, OC3D, HotHardware, OCClub, PureOC (and here), TechARP, NeoSeeker, Guru3D and Techgage.
MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning
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Friday, 20-May-2011 03:03:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Next across DiGiTaL MoNkEY's test bench is the MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning. MSI seem to have gone all-out on this high-end video card, with custom PCB, power circuitry and their now-familiar Twin Frozr III cooler. Does the end result pay off?
Click for the review!
VTX3D Radeon HD 6790 1GB
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Thursday, 19-May-2011 22:43:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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DiGiTaL MoNkEY has taken a look at the VTX3D Radeon HD 6790 1GB. This is a more budget-focussed video card, but still manages to catch the eye:
Click for the review!
Photography Gallery
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Thursday, 19-May-2011 21:27:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum:
Thursday Evening Reviews
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Thursday, 19-May-2011 20:06:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced on PureOC.
Corsair Obsidian 650D full tower on Vortez.
Lian Li PC-A04 mATX Case on Overclockers.com.
In Win BUC on BenchmarkReviews.
Fractal Design Arc Midi Tower on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master Centurion 5 II on OCClub.
Cooling:
Zalman CNPS9900 MAX CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Cooler Master NotePal LapAir on TechReaction.
Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Zalman CPPS11X Tower CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Thermaltake Frio OCK CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Noctura NH-C14 Heatsink on NinjaLane.
Storage:
Patriot Torqx 2 Solid State Drive Preview on Tweaktown.
Patriot Torqx 2 Phison SSD Tests on BenchmarkReviews.
Buffalo CloudStor Pro (2TB) on TechReviewSource.
OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD on XSReviews.
Thermaltake Max 5G 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure on APHNetworks.
OCZ Technology Vertex 3 SSD Form Factor: Bigger isn't Always Better on Tweaktown.
Patriot Torqx 2 128GB on LegionHW.
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 18-May-2011 16:42:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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An Australian technology journalist has been arrested for recieving some photos used to demonstrate a Facebook insecurity. Detective Superintendent Hay used an analogy to describe why Grubb was targeted. "Someone breaks into your house and they steal a TV and they give that TV to you and you know that TV is stolen," he said. Surely in that example the person is just giving me my TV back, but anyway, this whole thing seems very odd, especially given the actual "hacker" has not been arrested.
Also fairly lame is this apparent media stunt by Vodafone, pretending a shipment of Xperia Play smartphones has been stolen. The tweet said Vodafone has suffered a major security breach and the shipment of phones had been stolen. However Vodafone New Zealand spokesman Matthew East told The Australian this morning the company had made up the claim on Twitter for marketing purposes.
There are some free goodies in store for people returning to the PlayStation Network. Two PS3 games from the following list: LittleBigPlanet, Infamous*, Wipeout HD/Fury, Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty, Dead Nation*.
You can now run Linux in your browser, because Qemu has been ported to javascript. Since javascript is slower than native code, one would expect slower boot times for the Linux, but it boots amazingly fast. With a very minimal download and couple of seconds, your browser window boots into an actual Linux based on commandline. Ofcourse CLI-only makes the OS snappy for executing all your shell commands. Amazing stuff.
Bing and Facebook have teamed up for a "social search". According to Microsoft: “The best decisions are not just fueled by facts, they require the opinions and emotions of your friends. Search is now more than a fact finder — [In this update] we’re marrying fact-based search results with your friends’ street smarts to combine the best data on the Web with the opinions of the people you trust the most and the collective IQ of the Web.”
Meanwhile Lamborghini have announced their new supercar, the Aventador. Today’s world is extremely high-tech and many new players have entered the arena. Lamborghini has been promoting its carbon-fiber monocoque technology and the Aventador’s 2.9 second 0-62mph, but will that be enough? More here and discussion here.
MSI GTX 560 Twin Frozr II OC
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Tuesday, 17-May-2011 23:05:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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DiGiTaL MoNkEY has taken a look at this new video card from MSI, their GTX 560 Twin Frozr II OC. This is a cut-down version of the GTX 560 Ti GPU, but MSI wrap it up with an impressive custom cooler:
Click for the review!
AusPC and BitFenix Case Giveaway
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Tuesday, 17-May-2011 13:46:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AusPC and BitFenix are teaming up to give away some fancy cases. The contest is pretty simple - design an awesome PC using a BitFenix case at the AusPCMarket website, and the best two designs will win a free case when judged at the end of the month!
Click for details!
Also remember there's a motherboard from MSI in another contest and Warcom have an iPad2 up for grabs as well.
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews
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Tuesday, 17-May-2011 13:19:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Motherboard on LegitReviews.
ASRock Z68 Pro3 (Intel Z68) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ECS HDC-I Mini-ITX Fusion Board on MadShrimps.
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro on Bjorn3D.
MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3) Motherboard on HWSecrets.
AMD Phenom II X4 980 BE 3.70 GHz on TechPowerUp.
ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution Motherboard on Overclockers.com.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Sapphire Edge HD mini PC on InsideHW.
Lenovo IdeaPad U260 on TBreak.
Samsung NC110-A01 notebook on TechReviewSource.
Lenovo T420: The Ultimate Business Machine notebook on InsideHW.
Dell Venue Pro Windows Phone 7 Smartphone on HotHardware.
Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone on TechReviewSource.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 on TechSpot.
Storage:
Patriot Torqx 2 128GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
Samsung Spinpoint F4EG EcoGreen 2TB HDD on TheSSDReview.
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Max IOPS SATA 3 SSD on TheSSDReview.
Intel's Smart Response; SSD Caching Tested on Techgage.
ADATA Nobility N005 16 GB USB 3.0 on TechPowerUp.
Cooling:
Swiftech Polaris 120 CPU Cooler on OCIA.
Xigmatek Thor's Hammer CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Antec KÜHLER H2O 620 CPU Cooler on FunkyKit.
Intel Stock Thermal Compound on HWSecrets.
Power Supply:
OCZ ZX 850W on OCOnline.
OCZ ZX Series 850W Modular on ThinkComputers.
Video Cards:
MSI N560GTX-Ti Hawk on OCClub.
HIS 6790 IceQ X Turbo on ViperLair.
Sapphire Vapor-X HD 6870 1GB, Toxic HD 6870 1GB, HD 6850/6870 1GB cards on iXBTLabs.
Cases:
Corsair's Obsidian Series 650D enclosure on TechReport.
NZXT H2 vs Fractal Designs R3 on OC3D.
Corsair Obsidian 650D Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Lian Li PC-C50B HTPC Chassis on eTeknix.
Input Etc:
Speedlink Strike FX Wireless Gamepad on XSReviews.
CM Storm Sentinel Z3RO-G gaming mouse on Vortez.
Misc:
G.Skill Ripjaws-X Series PC3-17000 16GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Razer Chimaera Wireless Headset on GamingNexus.
Space Shuttle Endeavour Launch
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Monday, 16-May-2011 20:44:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Well, whenever I link these on the news page they get aborted, but here goes nothing. In about two hours the Space Shuttle Endeavour will launch into its final mission, and the second-last Shuttle mission ever (Atlantis is doing the last one). As usual you can watch the launch on NASA TV.
OCAU MSI Z68A-GD80 Giveaway!
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Monday, 16-May-2011 15:07:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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MSI are giving away a MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3) Motherboard to one lucky OCAU reader - to see how to enter, check out the thread:
Click for details!
The PlayStation Network will be back up soon, thanks tusker. It will be a phased restoration. The phased restoration will be on a country by country basis beginning in the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East.
One person who won't be affected by the PSN outage is serial killer Ivan Milat, who has been refused a playstation in his cell. As a protest against not being allowed to play games, he refused all meals starting Tuesday May 3rd. By Thursday, May 12th, his weight had dropped from 85kg to 60kg.
RamblingThoughts has info on the state of digital radio in Australia. Radio broadcasters continue to launch new digital-only services with up to 20 new DAB+ only stations on air in each market, plus an additional 13 short-term or pop-up stations. There are now more than 80 different digital radio models on sale in Australia, across 700 retail outlets plus online stores. The average sales price has fallen to AUD$105.
BenchmarkReviews looked at the Lucid Virtu graphics virtualisation technology in the new Z68 chipset. Lucid (formerly LucidLogix) appeared on the enthusiast horizon with their "Hydra" technology, which purported to enable vendor-agnostic multi-GPU systems. Users would be able to combine the performance of different video cards from different vendors, rather than being constrained to the cards required by ATI CrossFireX or NVIDIA SLI. Hydra didn't work as well as had been hoped, but the introduction of Intel's new Z68 chipset came with an announcement that Intel had licensed Lucid's "Virtu" GPU virtualization technology.
Jimmy sent in this TV news story on broadband. US network PBS compare the current state of broadband in the US, UK and Netherlands. Not heavy on the tech-side, but touches on points relevant to the NBN debate - effect on business and the like. A guy on a houseboat has better internet than you. :)
IntelInside sent in this amazing Photopic Sky Survey. The Photopic Sky Survey is a 5,000 megapixel photograph of the entire night sky stitched together from 37,440 exposures. Large in size and scope, it portrays a world far beyond the one beneath our feet and reveals our familiar Milky Way with unfamiliar clarity. Some blurb on SMH here. When he realized the work was too monumental, Risinger quit his day job as a marketing director of a countertop company to devote himself full-time to the project.
HardCoreWare compare memory for Sandy Bridge. Which DDR memory kit is best for Sandy Bridge? We seek to find out, as we take kits from five of the leading memory manufacturers and put them to the test. What follows is the toughest conclusion we've had to come to in quite some time.
LegitReviews unlocked a Radeon HD 6950 to 6970. Upgrading the AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics to a Radeon HD 6970 proved to be an enlightening experience. Testing the same card with multiple levels of shaders, core speeds and memory frequencies showed exactly how each of these things can have an effect in different ways. The largest gains came from completely unlocking the potential of the Radeon HD 6950 by fully flashing the BIOS, effectively turning it into a Radeon HD 6970.
PCMark 7 has been released, including a free version allowing unlimited benchmarking runs. Windows 7 only, though. Techgage checked it out.
There's some info and speculation about Intel's upcoming Silvermont Atom architecture, on Anandtech and Engadget. Silvermont however changes everything. It is the first new redesign of the Atom architecture and it marks the beginning of Atom being on a tick-tock cadence. Say goodbye to 5 year updates, say hello to a new architecture every 2 years.
The Collins book of Official Scrabble Words has been updated to include 3,000 new words, including thang, grrl and Facebook. Urrrgghh. The additions of the terms “fiqh,” or Islamic jurisprudence, and “qin,” a Chinese musical instrument, offer new moves for players stuck with the letter Q, without having to suffer the interminable wait for a U to come along. (Until now, “qi,” the Chinese term for life force, was the accepted favourite.)
Facebook meanwhile have been caught in an alleged smear campaign against Google. The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”
BeHardware have an insight into component return rates - to one vendor at any rate. The first question is of course where the stats come from. They’re taken from a large French e-tailer, whose database we have had direct access to. We were, then, able to extract the stats we wanted directly. Of course they’re limited to the products sold by the retailer, but unfortunately there isn’t any other way of getting hold of reliable stats. Who would believe for example any returns rates given by the manufacturers themselves?
TomsHardware report on the world of OEM PSUs. Do you think that all power supplies are manufactured by the brand on the label? Think again. We show what makes a good PSU and reveal who builds them. You can actually find lots of quality (instead of just scrap metal) behind some of the budget labels.
Back to Intel, with some new SSD technology, covered on PCStats and LegitReviews. Intel's 311-series 20GB Larson Creek SSD is all about Smart Response technology, a hard drive caching algorithm which is part of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology v10.5! This is one of the main features of the Z68 Express Chipset and we take a closer look at this drive along with SRT on a Gigabyte Z68 motherboard.
Sunday Night Reviews
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Sunday, 15-May-2011 21:08:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
The Intel Z68 Chipset – A Polished Cougar Point Motherboard Platform on FutureLooks.
Jetway HI08 P67 motherboard on Guru3D.
GIGABYTE X58-USB3 (Intel X58 Express) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition AM3 Processor on eTeknix.
Asus Sabertooth P67: an Armored LGA1155 Mainboard on XbitLabs.
Audio Visual:
Tt eSPORTS Shock Gaming Headset on Vortez.
Genius SW-G2.1 1250 4-Piece Gaming Speakers on Pro-Clockers.
Plantronics Audio 995 Digital Wireless Stereo Headset on eTeknix.
Netgear NeoTV 550 HD Network Media Player on LegitReviews.
Cooling:
Cooler Master CM Storm SF-19 Strike Force Notebook Cooler on eTeknix.
Larkooler KU3-241 Watercooling Kit on XSReviews.
Noctua NH-C14 – Built To Perform CPU cooler on TechReaction.
Thermaltake Jing CPU Cooler on iXBTLabs.
Black Pearl: Zalman CNPS11X Extreme Cooler on XbitLabs.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Infuse 4G Smartphone Sneak Peek on HotHardware.
MSI GT680R Notebook Review: Sandybridge for Gamers on PCPerspective.
LG Optimus 2X (G2x / P990) Android Phone on HWHeaven.
Video Cards:
AMD Radeon HD 6790 Overclocking Guide on LegionHW.
GeForce GTX 580 SLI vs. GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 6990 on XbitLabs.
Cases:
Video Perspective: Corsair Obsidian Series 650D on PCPerspective.
Cooler Master Storm Enforcer on TechREACTION.
Thermaltake Armor A30 on NinjaLane.
Thermaltake Armor A30 on APHNetworks.
Enermax Hoplite System Case on XbitLabs.
Input Etc:
CM Storm Sentinel Z3RO-G Gaming Mouse on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake eSports Challenger Ultimate Gaming KB & Black Element Gaming Mouse on FutureLooks.
Nexus SM-8000B silent mouse on RBMods.
Power Supply:
Corsair TX750 V2 750W & TX850 V2 850W PSUs on OCClub.
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1050W on NinjaLane.
Mushkin Enhanced Joule 800W on Tweaktown.
Enermax NAXN 82+ 750W on HWSecrets.
Storage:
G.SKILL Phoenix EVO 115GB Solid State Drive on APHNetworks.
ineo I-NA559N Pro 5-Bay NAS Server on Tweaktown.
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE USB 3.0 Portable Drive on EverythingUSB.
Plextor PX-B120U BD Rom drive on XSReviews.
Misc:
ASUS RT-N56U Dual-band Gigabit Wireless-N Router on ThinkComputers.
Saturday Night Reviews
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Saturday, 14-May-2011 22:32:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Memory:
Patriot Viper Xtreme Division 2 DDR3-1600MHz (2 x 2GBs) Kit on TheSSDReview.
Kingston X58 Triple Channel kit 2250Mhz Cas 9 on MadShrimps.
G.Skill Sniper 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory Kit on BigBruin.
Kingston HyperX Genesis PC3-12800 4GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Android 3.0 Tablet on HotHardware.
Sony VAIO VPC-L218FX prebuilt desktop on TechReviewSource.
Getac V100 Fully Rugged Convertible Tablet PC on FutureLooks.
HP ProBook 6360b laptop on TechReviewSource.
Motherboard & CPU:
Sapphire Pure Fusion Mini E350 on TechWareLabs.
Gigabyte X58A-OC Review: By Overclockers, For Overclockers on Overclockers.com.
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3 on TechPowerUp.
MSI P67A-GD80 (B3) on NeoSeeker.
Gigabyte G1.Assassin Socket 1366 Motherboard on Pro-Clockers.
MSI P67A-G43 LGA 1155 on ReviewDesk.
Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3 Motherboard on iXBTLabs.
Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3 Motherboard on HWSecrets.
Gigabyte G1.Assassin on NeoSeeker.
Thanks to Gaz, Sahie, Pugs, Nath Null Object and James this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Some more interesting stuff from people in the forums:
Watch out for any black cats and things, it being Friday 13th! :)
Google have unveiled some Chromebook notebooks running their Chrome OS. More here. Because the laptop runs on a stripped-down system, first-time setup takes three minutes, and the computers boot up in 8 seconds, Sundar Pichai, an executive for the Chrome group, said during the presentation.
VIA meanwhile have a Quad-core Processor, that they have ingeniously named QuadCore. Today, Via is announcing a new product, the QuadCore processor, that combines a pair of Nano X2 chips on a single package to deliver a low-cost, low-power CPU whose position in the market is fairly distinctive. More here.
I didn't realise that YouTube has entire legal films on it, many of which you can watch for free. Even some Australiasian classics! :)
DarkAvernus posted this Australian LAN Survey in the forums. The Australian LAN Survey for 2011 will be conducted over a two week period from the 11th of May 2011 through to the 25th of May 2011 and will ask the general community what they think about current events, what they would like to see in the future as well as what is hampering E-Sports within Australia.
TomsHardware say you shouldn't be surprised if your cheapy PSU explodes. Beyond the solutions from well-known vendors, there is a very large number of cheap, no-name products out there, many of which are really easy to find on auction sites at really attractive prices. To get an idea of what lies behind these purported bargains, we bought three of them using Buy It Now. Obviously, we did not give away our real identities to the seller, ensuring we'd receive the same hardware as everyone else.
XbitLabs looked at GPU performance in WoW:Cataclysm. DirectX 11 API is already quite a mature piece of software that has been with us for a couple of years. Unfortunately for end-users its actual implementation in real life applications has been slow. But recently Blizzard has officially released its World of Warcraft: Cataclysm 4.1 Patch, which should attract just that bit more attention to this. Read on to find out why.
LegitReviews compared 15 web browsers. With Flash 10.2 and HTML5 taking off we figured that it would be a good time to look at the performance of 15 of the most used web browsers again. Read on to see which is fastest browser as we run seven tests to find out which is fastest and supports the most features.
TechSpot meanwhile compared 13 budget video cards. Along with wallet-friendly HD 6000 and GTX 500 products, many older mainstream cards have been demoted to the budget bracket. We'll compare the most relevant ones in this review, with a total of thirteen graphics card models tested.
From mrs_dan77: Just letting you know that the Iron Chef Easter voting is now underway. The voting thread can be found here, with the full entry thread found here, and rules and discussion found here. Voting closes on Wednesday, 18th May. Who's cuisine reigns supreme?
Intel Z68 Express
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Friday, 13-May-2011 02:37:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Intel have released the Z68 Express chipset. This takes the best features of P67 and H67 and offers the full package in one chipset for Sandy Bridge CPUs.
Coverage on OC3D, Guru3D, Tweaktown (and here), HWSecrets, Bjorn3D, Vortez, PC Perspective (and here), LegitReviews, HotHardware, Tech Report, HWHeaven, OCClub, PureOC, BenchmarkReviews and eTeknix.
Discussion in our Intel Hardware forum.
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 12-May-2011 23:39:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
In Win Dragon Rider on APHNetworks.
Thermaltake Level 10 System Case: Gaming Tower on XbitLabs.
Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced on TechReaction.
Silverstone Raven RV02-E White Ltd Edition on OC3D.
Cooler Master Storm Enforcer Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Sentey Burton (GS-6500) on OCOnline.
Audio Visual:
Boxee Box D-Link DSM-380 Media Player on MissingRemote.
Nikon Coolpix P500 digicam on TechReviewSource.
Head-Direct HiFiMAN HE-6 Headphones on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Mach Xtreme GX 16 GB USB 3.0 on TechPowerUp.
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Max 5G Active Cooling 3.5'' External HDD Enclosure on MadShrimps.
Patriot Supersonic 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on ThinkComputers.
Intel 311 Solid State Drive Tests on BenchmarkReviews.
Video Cards:
AMD Radeon HD 6570 512 MB on HWSecrets.
AMD Radeon HD 6790 on XbitLabs.
GeForce GT 440 512 MB GDDR5 vs. 1 GB DDR3 on HWSecrets.
MSI Radeon HD 6950 2GB Twin Frozr III PE on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870 1GB SOC on APHNetworks.
HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo on ViperLair.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Wednesday, 11-May-2011 21:06:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a snapshot of what's going on in some of the forums. You can also find new interesting things you might have missed via the Who's Online page, the New Posts page and the Live forum view. Also try the Today's Posts link (find it on the Quick Links menu) and the handy Who Quoted Me? feature.
Intel's LGA1155 Ivy Bridge 7 Series Chipsets Outed, Have USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0 in Intel Hardware.
NVIDIA To Allow SLI For AMD 990FX/F Series Chipsets in AMD Hardware.
How vacuum tubes were made. Fascinating Mullard doco in Electronics, thanks mutman.
Arduino powered servo arm for Hot Water service in Electronics.
Mosfet Circuit in Electronics.
Recovered a few degrees after a clean! in Extreme Cooling.
RASA RX240 kit-HAF912 ADV, a noobs opinion :D in Extreme Cooling.
Glider Pro - Now Free For Macs! in Apple Hardware & Software.
HOWTO Cross Flash LSI 1068e card in Storage & Backup.
Post your oldest working hdd - PICS! in Storage & Backup.
16cores - Is this your new ZFS ESXi Server motherboard? in Storage & Backup.
German insurance giant switches 10,000 PCs to Ubuntu Linux in Other Operating Systems.
Recipe: Baking a Faulty SD Card Working in Photography & Video.
Samyang 14mm f2.8 UWA God in Photography & Video.
18TB Raid 6 Home Server/ HTPC Worklog in Modding.
Planetary Conjunction Pre-Dawn Eastern Sky in Science.
Cookbook: Modernist Cuisine in Geek Food.
What good sci-fi series are still ongoing? in Entertainment.
The Hangover Part II in Entertainment.
Why you shouldn't drink (unfiltered) tap water in Lifestyle.
Australia Prepares to End 150 Years of Equity Market Isolation in Career, Education & Finance.
How I Saved My Porsche From A Flood By Floating It in Motoring.
Great Office Meltdowns in The Pub.
Ant nest inside my keyboard in The Pub.
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 11-May-2011 16:52:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Warcom are running some giveaways in the Sponsor Specials forum, including an iPad 2. Simply purchase $50 or more at Warcom and you instantly go into the draw to win an Apple 32GB White iPad with Wi-Fi + 3g! There's other prizes for Liking their Facebook and subscribing to their newsletter, too.
If you missed TeslaDownunder on TV last night, you can view it here. What you didn't get to see was that I took 6 minutes to start the show after the judges OK. As I went to start, There was no power! I had to undo my gear and scamper off stage to turn on the power at the distribution box which had been left off for safety reasons. But when I got there it was dark and I didn't have a torch. I took a stab that these switches were up for on.
If you want to pretend to be a NAVY SEAL, you can now attack Osama bin Laden's hideout in CS:S. Osama bin Laden’s final hiding spot in Abbottabad, Pakistan, has been made into a playable map for Counter-Strike: Source. Honestly, we’re a little surprised that it took this long.
A new Google Music service is being launched soon. "We're launching a beta service called Music Beta by Google that lets users upload their personal music libraries to their own account on Google's servers," Levine told CNET. Users can "access those libraries anytime or anywhere from web connected devices". I'm pretty sure AC/DC won't be thrilled.
This French site reports on a photographer who shows gamers next to their avatars. Some are similar, some aren't. 'Mazing.
Apple is apparently the world's most valuable brand now, whatever that really means. Word must have spread to Beijing, where a small riot broke out at an Apple Store. Meanwhile a supercomputer expert has confirmed that an iPad is as fast as early supercomputers.
Finally, the big story today is that Microsoft are set to acquire Skype. "Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world." Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Microsoft Skype Division, reporting directly to Ballmer. WSJ have some info too.
A few people sent in this image, which I guess sums up the community's concerns about the Microsoft/Skype move:
Some more reviews from the forums!
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews
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Tuesday, 10-May-2011 16:29:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Panasonic TC-P50ST30 3D plasma TV on TechReviewSource.
ASRock Vision 3D 137B HTPC with NVIDIA 3DTV Play on HotHardware.
Sharkoon X-STATIC SP Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Epson EX7200 LCD Projector on Tweaknews.
Cooling:
Lamptron FC8 Fan Controller on Techgage.
Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler on TBreak.
Deepcool Z5 Thermal Compound on OCOnline.
Scythe Mine 2 CPU Cooler on iXBTLabs.
Zalman CNPS11X Extreme CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte P67A-UD7 Motherboard on eTeknix.
Aria.co.uk Gladiator 1155 i5 4.4GHz Bundle on OC3D.
Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Hex-Core Processor on LegitReviews.
Sapphire Pure Black P67 Hydra Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Asrock H61M / USB3 Motherboard on RBMods.
ECS H67H2-M & H67H2-I motherboards on OCClub.
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme on PureOC.
Cases:
BitFenix Shinobi on eTeknix.
Thermaltake Armor 60 on Metku.
Corsair Obsidian 800D on Metku.
Thermaltake Chaser MK-I on Vortez.
SilverStone FT03 Micro ATX on OCIA.
Cooler Master Elite 371 on BenchmarkReviews.
Cubitek HPTX-Tank on TechPowerUp.
In Win Dragon Slayer on APHNetworks.
Sentey Black Box Series BX1-4284 Mid Tower on BigBruin.
Azza Toledo 301 Budget Gaming Tower on Pro-Clockers.
NZXT Tempest EVO on DragonSteelMods.
Lian Li Lancool PC-K63 – First Knight Series on TechReaction.
Akasa Raptor White Chassis on eTeknix.
IN WIN BUC Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Prebuilt & Portable:
HP Pavilion dv6 (Sandy Bridge) on TBreak.
MID M80003W Series Android 2.2 Tablet on FutureLooks.
HP Mini 210 Review: Fusion is Fast, but Atoms Last on PCPerspective.
Samsung Sens R540 notebook on InsideHW.
Power Supply:
Antec HCP-1200 Watt Power Supply on Tweaktown.
ADATA BN-550 Power Supply on HWSecrets.
Corsair AX850 850W on TechPowerUp.
Misc:
CoolerMaster Sentinel ZERO-G game mouse on Guru3D.
Zotac's GeForce GTX 580 AMP²! video card on TechReport.
G.Skill Sniper Series PC3-12800 8GB Kit on Tweaktown.
MSI Australia, OCAU Major Sponsor
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Tuesday, 10-May-2011 03:37:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I'm very pleased to announce that MSI Australia have come onboard as an OCAU Major Sponsor. They've been involved with the site on-and-off for years but this marks the beginning of a longer-term commitment, which is very welcome. MSI Australia are of course the Australian arm of MSI, a major player in the motherboard and graphics cards markets since 1986. Did you know for example that in 1987 they introduced the world's first overclockable 286 motherboard? :)
They join our existing Major Sponsors Scorpion Technology and Computer Alliance. CA have been with us for nearly 10 years now!
Thanks of course also to our other sponsors, and remember, keep an eye on the Sponsor Specials forum!
TeslaDownunder on TV!
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Tuesday, 10-May-2011 03:10:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Our very own TeslaDownunder will be featuring on Australia's Got Talent, tonight on Channel 7 at 7:30pm. Much other equipment was constructed for this show including a bank of 6 arc welders to be used as needed for voltage isolation or ballast, and two 3 phase distribution boxes. Also extended black backdrops and a vast foil earthing system / partial Faraday cage not to mention a new capacitor bank and power factor correction.
Discussion here.
TIM Shootout with Corsair H70
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Monday, 9-May-2011 17:18:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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SiliconAngel has compared a few Thermal Interface Materials, using Corsair's H70 all-in-one watercooler:
click for the article!
Mandatory internet filtering is a hot topic in Turkey now. A plan to require Internet users in Turkey to choose one of four content-filtering packages is unconstitutional and violates the right to freedom of expression, legal experts and civil-society groups have said.
Akeldema sent in this story about a computer going mad. "After being retrained with the elevated learning rate, DISCERN began putting itself at the centre of fantastical, delusional stories that incorporated elements from other stories it had been told to recall," the university said. "In one answer, for instance, DISCERN claimed responsibility for a terrorist bombing."
A game developer has created a USB stick PC for $25 USD. Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has a HDMI port in one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux.
A US judge has ruled that an IP address is not a person. "The list of IP addresses attached to VPR's complaint suggests, in at least some instances, a similar disconnect between IP subscriber and copyright infringer… The infringer might be the subscriber, someone in the subscriber's household, a visitor with her laptop, a neighbor, or someone parked on the street at any given moment."
Also in the USA, video games are considered a legitimate art form. Of course, any developer who wants federal funding for his or her next game will be competing with filmmakers, TV producers, radio stars and now internet productions too. Still, it means that an aspiring game-maker with an idea for an artistic game - which would have to be available for free, mind you - might have a shot at making it without being beholden to a larger publisher.
Oddball link of the day: a remote kissing device from Japan. A plastic tube projects out of a device that is connected to a motor, which is then connected to the computer. The person in turn moves the tube with his tongue, which moves the straw on the other end, and vice versa. The researchers claim that this should accurately portray the feeling of a french kiss. Yeah, that sounds exactly like it.
Lots of people reviewing things in the forums lately, which is great. I probably miss half of them, so if you see anything cool in the forums which should be on the news page, email the URL to news@overclockers.com.au!
Google are looking to expand Street View to include the insides of buildings. Google photographers are currently visiting businesses in select cities in the US, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Any business can apply for a photo shoot, and demand will help us decide where to send our photographers next. More here.
BitFenix have a tshirt design contest, where you can win a case. If you can't draw to save your life or failed art in third grade, don't worry! You can still win a Shinobi by rating your favorite t-shirt designs! Some signup and facebookery shenanigans required, but it's open to anyone worldwide.
The Australian Synchrotron is in financial peril. The Sunday Age understands the synchrotron's board has made contingency plans for its closure, with funds due to run out in June next year - just five years after it opened. Last week's state budget gave no extra funds to the facility, which supports the work of 2500 scientists, has 120 highly skilled staff and is producing scientific discoveries of world importance.
From Wombo, about StolenCameraFinder.com: One of my friends just tipped me off to this very cool website/webcrawler. Essentially you tell them the serial number from a camera that has been stolen from you, it will then go out searching for photos on the web since it was stolen. If you don't know the serial just drag a photo that was taken with the camera and it will automatically extract it. They also have a plugin for Chrome that will grab EXIF details for photos and send them to their website in the hope that it comes across a photo taken with your old camera or somebody elses.
This is a bit left field (and a couple of weeks old) but dadust2 sent word of concerns about OCZ's finances following an analysis of their reporting. "OCZ has misrepresented its SSD growth and has financial irregularities that are nearly impossible to reconcile," a short seller at Copperfield Research wrote, referring to solid-state drives. The report also alleged CEO Ryan Petersen has failed to disclose a criminal background involving charges of theft, drug violations, and forgery. A "short seller" has an interest in the stock dropping, but beyond that I don't really know what the deal is there.
Techgage report on Linux SSD TRIM support. Owning an SSD that supports TRIM is great, but while Windows users have the benefit of having TRIM enabled for them, Linux users need to take the manual route - at least, at this point in time. In this article, we tackle the simple process of doing so, and also show how to verify that TRIM is indeed working as it should be.
Check out this amazing kinetic sculpture of San Francisco, 35 years in the making. The elaborate sculpture is comprised of multiple "tours" that move pingpong balls through neighborhoods, historical locations, and iconic symbols of San Francisco, all recreated with a little glue, some toothpicks, and an incredible amount of ingenuity. He admits in the video that there are several toothpick sculptures even larger than his, but none has the unique kinetic components he’s constructed.
Also quite stunning is Jaguar's upcoming electric supercar. Four electric motors at the wheels produced a combined 778 bhp and a whopping 1,180 lb-ft of torque. That's good enough to propel the 1,350 kg body from 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds and reach a top speed of 200 mph.
Sunday Evening Reviews
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Sunday, 8-May-2011 20:02:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Imation Grand Entertainer media centre on TBreak.
Antec Sound Science rockus 3D Speaker System on DragonSteelMods.
Corsair's Gaming Audio Series SP2500 2.1 speakers on TechReport.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Sabertooth TUF Motherboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Sapphire Pure Black P67 Hydra on Phoronix.
ECS H67H2-I motherboard on Guru3D.
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition AM3 Processor on eTeknix.
Zotac Mini ITX M880G board on XSReviews.
MSI Z68A-GD80 (Intel Z68) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
Roccat Apuri USB management thingy on TBreak.
Logitech K750 Wireless Keyboard on TBreak.
Video Cards:
XFX HD Radeon 6790 on OCClub.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 and HD 5830 1GB Xtreme on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
AquaComputer Cuplex Kryos XT on PureOC.
Prolimatech Genesis CPU Cooler on HWHeaven.
Evercool Transformer 3 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Kyocera Echo Dual-Screen Android Phone on HotHardware.
Sony VAIO Y Series 11.6-inch Notebook on LegitReviews.
iCarpus Mobile Phone and Gadget Stand on Virtual-Hideout.
Power Supply:
Silverstone Strider Plus ST50F-P 500W on TechPowerUp.
Kingwin Lazer Platinum Series 550W on PCPerspective.
Misc:
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1.5 TB Portable (USB 3.0) Hard Disk Drive on TechARP.
SilverStone SST-FT03B Micro ATX case on Tweaktown.
G.Skill RipjawX F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL Memory Kit on Bjorn3D.
Portal 2 (PC) game on YouGamers.
Here's some yummy threads from our Geek Recipes forum:
In case you missed it, OCAU now has official twitter and facebook pages. We also set up Tapatalk (discussion here) recently too, which makes it a bit easier to view the forums on a mobile phone. Anyway, thanks to Shaun, Nathan and Cameron this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
The 2011 Chimp Challenge kicked off this morning, but you can still get involved!
Intel have announced Tri-Gate or 3D transistors. The three-dimensional Tri-Gate transistors represent a fundamental departure from the two-dimensional planar transistor structure that has powered not only all computers, mobile phones and consumer electronics to-date, but also the electronic controls within cars, spacecraft, household appliances, medical devices and virtually thousands of other everyday devices for decades. More info on Anandtech, PC Authority, CNET and InformationWeek, thanks dasuperham.
Plane nuts will get a kick out of the world's largest model airport, on display in Germany. The incredible model is based on Hamburg Airport and features 40 planes and 90 vehicles that autonomously move around the airport. It took seven years to build and cost a staggering $4.8 million.
A few people sent word that NASA's Gravity Probe B has proven Einstein correct. The experiment, launched in 2004, used four ultra-precise gyroscopes to measure the hypothesized geodetic effect, the warping of space and time around a gravitational body, and frame-dragging, the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates. GP-B determined both effects with unprecedented precision by pointing at a single star, IM Pegasi, while in a polar orbit around Earth. More here and here.
ScienceDaily report on flexible computers. The smartphone prototype, called PaperPhone is best described as a flexible iPhone -- it does everything a smartphone does, like store books, play music or make phone calls. But its display consists of a 9.5 cm diagonal thin film flexible E Ink display.
If you're watching the V8 Supercars soon you might see The Stig racing. Or at least, ex-Stig Ben Collins. It has been revealed Collins will be one of 28 international drivers drafted in for the October event, formerly know as Indy.
WikiLeaks have revealed US pressure on NZ over copyright laws. According to the cables, the US actively lobbied several cabinet members while New Zealand was working through its copyright reform in 2008. The attention was similar to that shown to Canada, Sweden and Spain.
The last World War 1 combat veteran in the world has passed away in Perth. Beloved for his wry sense of humor and humble nature, the British-born Choules — nicknamed "Chuckles" by his comrades in the Australian Navy — never liked to fuss over his achievements, which included a 41-year military career and the publication of his first book at the age of 108.
Surely the pinnacle of man-in-a-shed engineering, the AppleCrate II is a parallel computer built with Apple IIs. This "hi-rise" construction makes the "stack" quite rigid and sturdy, while eliminating the need for a space-consuming exoskeleton. It also has the advantage of leaving the top board unobstructed so that I/O cards can be plugged in, allowing it to serve as the host machine for the AppleCrate. (In fact, I used 17 boards so that the top board can serve as master and leave 16 slave machines for parallel programs.)
Here's a YouTube video showing the new Android 3.0 tablet from ASUS. Android 3.0 is the host of this exciting product from ASUS that should really shake up the tablet market. I'm compare the Transformer and its unique features to the iPad 2. Watch the video for more!
I'm a fan of cats and strongly opposed to cat cruelty, but I have to say, this video is fantastic. This video was the result of a legitimate ongoing problem we have had with cats in our area. Washing cat urine off our doors and cars was becoming an increasingly time consuming and frustrating part of our weekly routine. Not to mention the many nights lost sleep with cat fights, we have even had property damage. I think the cats got off with just a scare anyway.
Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials forum if you're shopping around. In there our various sponsors have threads with deals on cookware, tiny PCs, powerboards and extension cords, ipad protectors, fitness supplements, web hosting, hard drives, office chairs, media servers, CPUs and a range of other goodies.
It also seems a few of our sponsors are doing one-day-only specials, so it's definitely worth checking in there regularly.
Friday Midday Reviews
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Friday, 6-May-2011 12:50:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Sabertooth P67 motherboard on TechReport.
Intel Xeon E3-1275 Review: Sandy Bridge Goes Professional on TomsHardware, thanks IntelInside.
Asus P8P67 Standard Motherboard on NinjaLane.
Intel DP67BG: LGA1155 Mainboard from the Extreme Series on XbitLabs.
Antec KÜHLER H2O 620 all included liquid cpu cooler on TechWareLabs.
ASRock Z68 Pro3 and Extreme4 (Intel Z68) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Intel Core i3-2120 Processor on APHNetworks.
Memory:
G.Skill Sniper 8GB DDR3-1600 on PureOC.
Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3-2133 RAM Kit on TechWareLabs.
Crucial Ballistix Sport PC3-12800 8GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
HIS Radeon 6870 IceQX on XSReviews.
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II/OC, MSI R6870 Hawk, MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II on iXBTLabs.
MSI N560GTX-Ti nVidia GTX 560 Ti HAWK Edition on FutureLooks.
AMD Radeon 6990 4GB on eTeknix.
Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP! Edition 1GB on ThinkComputers.
PowerColor HD 6950 Vortex II 2 GB on TechPowerUp.
Power Supply:
Chieftec Nitro SPS-750C 750W on TechPowerUp.
Antec High Current Gamer 750W on ThinkComputers.
NZXT HALE90-750-M on Bjorn3D.
Arctic C1 Portable Universal Charger on OCOnline.
Audio Visual:
SecondRun.tv 2.5 Movie and TV Plugin on MissingRemote.
Corsair SP2500 High-power PC Speaker System on Metku.
Corsair SP2200 2.1 Gaming Speakers on Techgage.
Logitech Ultimate Ears 100 Noise Isolating Earphones on Tweaktown.
Canon PowerShot SX230 HS digicam on TechReviewSource.
Ultimate Ears 100 In-Ear Headphones on Tweak.dk.
Antec Soundscience Rockus 3D 2.1 speakers on NeoSeeker.
Genius SW-G2.1 1250 4-Piece Gaming Speakers on TechReaction.
Cooling:
Xigmatek Loki, Gaia and Aegir CPU Cooler Review Roundup on LegitReviews.
Coolink Lapchilla Super-Quiet Laptop Cooler on eTeknix.
Xigmatek LOKI SD963 CPU cooler on TechReaction.
Cooler Master NotePal Infinite EVO Laptop Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
CoolerMaster NotePal LapAir Notebook Cooler on eTeknix.
Thermaltake Jing CPU Cooler on OCClub.
Thermaltake FrioOCK CPU cooler on XbitLabs.
Deep Cool Ice Matrix 600 and ThermoLab Trinity CPU coolers on XbitLabs.
Cases:
Cooler Master Centurion 5 II on HWSecrets.
Xigmatek Elysium Super Tower on Tweaknews.
Antec One Hundred on BenchmarkReviews.
Antec Toledo 301 on NinjaLane.
Corsair Obsidian 650D on HWHeaven.
Aerocool Xpredator on HWSecrets.
Nexus Prominent 9 on HWSecrets.
Xigmatek Pantheon Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
CM Storm Enforcer Mid Tower on OCIA.
SilverStone Raven RV03 on HWSecrets.
Storage:
Patriot 32GB Supersonic USB 3.0 Flash Drive on MadShrimps.
Kingwin EZ-Dock2 USB 3.0 on PureOC.
OCZ Technology Vertex 3 120GB Retail Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
Kingston SSDNow V+100 vs. Samsung 470 Series 256 GB SSD on HWSecrets.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Apple iMac 27-inch (Thunderbolt) on TechReviewSource.
Digital Storm's Enix Gaming System on HotHardware.
HTC Thunderbolt on PCPerspective.
HTC Droid Incredible 2 on TechReviewSource.
ASUS K53E 15.6-inch Notebook on LegitReviews.
Input Etc:
Gigabyte Aivia M8600 Mouse on HWSecrets.
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on HWSecrets.
Verbatim Wireless Mini Travel Mouse DragonSteelMods.
Misc:
Ubuntu 11.04 on BusinessComputingWorld.
GIGABYTE GTX 580 Super Overclock
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Thursday, 5-May-2011 16:44:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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DiGiTaL MoNkEY's second review for today is of the GIGABYTE GTX 580 Super Overclock. This is a blisteringly fast video card with a very impressive custom cooler:
Click for the review!
GIGABYTE G1.Assassin Motherboard
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Thursday, 5-May-2011 12:14:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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DiGiTaL MoNkEY has taken a look at the G1.Assassin motherboard from GIGABYTE. This is a feature-packed X58 board with a focus on enthusiasts and gamers. Plus it's got a cool military theme, if you like that kind of thing:
Click for the review!
Photography Gallery
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Wednesday, 4-May-2011 21:14:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum:
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 4-May-2011 03:16:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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MSI have revealed the winners in their Master OC Arena AUNZ Qualifier contest. Congratulations to Uncle.Fester and Deanzo they are now invited to compete in the APAC finals in Jakarta. Hopefully they can achieve Top 4 result there and qualify for the Grand finals in Taipei so lets cheer them on and give them all the support we can.
Sony have revealed another data breach, with 25M people's info exposed. Hackers may have stolen the personal information of 24.6 million Sony Online Entertainment users, the company said on Monday. More than 20,000 credit card and bank account numbers were also put at risk. This is in addition to the recent leak of over 70 million accounts from Sony’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. They have shut down all Sony Online Entertainment games, thanks Callan.
TechSpot play around with triple-monitor gaming. By utilizing three monitors games can become roughly 3x more demanding as the graphics card is required to render an overwhelmingly higher number of pixels. Whereas we commonly test graphics cards at single monitor resolutions of 1680x1050 (22”), 1920x1200 (24”) and 2560x1600 (30”), today we are taking these and adding two more LCD monitors for effective resolutions of 5040x1050, 5760x1200 and 7680x1600.
Charg3r sent in a video about online filter bubbles. As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.
HWSecrets have a thermal paste roundup. Following up on our Thermal Compound Roundup - April 2011 review, we are adding five more thermal compounds to our roundup, for a total of 20 different models from Antec, Arctic Cooling, Arctic Silver, Biostar, Cooler Master, Coolink, Deepcool, Evercool, Gelid, Noctua, Prolimatech, Spire, Thermalright, Thermaltake, Tuniq, Xigmatek, and Zalman.
MissingRemote have a guide to building an HTPC, while eTeknix repaired a graphics card with an oven. This process is commonly used by Board Refurbishers the world over! But, how many of us have a pro re-bake oven? Very few.
Shaun spotted this cool pendulum video. Here's another one showing the same effects.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 4-May-2011 02:21:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
AMD 870 Motherboard Roundup on iXBTLabs.
ASUS P6X58-E WS Workstation Motherboard on Pro-Clockers.
ECS H61H2-M on TBreak.
Quantum Force P67 Rattler Motherboard on NinjaLane.
Gigabyte H67A-UD3H ATX Motherboard on OCIA.
ASUS K53 Review: Mass Market Dual-Core Sandy Bridge on PCPerspective.
MSI P67A-GD80 (B3) Intel P67 Motherboard on ThinkComputers.
Mini, Portable & Prebuilt:
Toshiba Satellite L655-S5161 on TechReviewSource.
Targus Mini Stand Video Review on Tech-Reviews.
Asus Eee Pad Transformer on HotHardware.
Hands-on with the BlackBerry Bold 9900 on TBreak.
A Look At The Motorola Xoom - Android 3.0 Arrives on HotHardware.
Zotac ZBOX AD02-Plus-U on Bjorn3D.
HP TouchSmart 610 desktop PC on TechReviewSource.
Video Cards:
MSI GTX560-Ti OC SLI on OC3D.
HIS Radeon HD 6790 1GB IceQ X Turbo on Tweaktown.
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti HAWK on Tweaktown.
Sapphire Radeon 6570 and 6670 on PureOC.
XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition on OCClub.
Cases:
Cooler Master Infinite EVO on TechReaction.
Thermaltake Level 10 Full-Tower Chassis on eTeknix.
InWin BUC ATX Computer Gaming Case on Modders-Inc.
Thermaltake Level 10 GT on TechWareLabs.
Corsair Obsidian 650D Mid-Tower on Techgage.
SilverStone Fortress FT03 on TechPowerUp.
Antec LanBoy Air Fully-Modular Computer Chassis on FutureLooks.
Antec Lanboy Air Case on RBMods.
Cooling:
Antec KUHLER H2O 920 Liquid Cooling CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Nexus ViR-2300 Aluminium Edition Real Silent CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Storage:
Corsair Performance 3 2x128GB SSD RAID Report on Tweaktown.
Netgear Stora Home Media Network Storage on LegitReviews.
Intel SSD 320 Series (25nm) - 300GB on FunkyKit.
Icy Dock SSD 4 in 1 SSD RAID Cages and SSD Conversion Kits on TheSSDReview.
Misc:
FSP AURUM Gold 600W PSU on APHNetworks.
AC Ryan PlayOn!HD 1TB and Mini media players on Guru3D.
Total War: Shogun 2 game on TurnedOn.
Roccat Kone [+] mouse on TBreak.
AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition
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Tuesday, 3-May-2011 23:05:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD have released their AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition CPU. This seems likely to be the speed bump for Phenom II on AM3, and is a quad-core CPU at 3.7GHz.
Coverage on TechWareLabs, Bjorn3D, PCPerspective, Guru3D, NeoSeeker, BenchmarklReviews, PureOC, OCClub, Overclockers.com, TechReport, LegitReviews, HotHardware, LegionHW and HWHeaven.
There's a couple of cool OCAU photos in the news box - firstly Paul spotted this very cold OCAU Mug from James086. Also cool (but not for the person involved) is this story about some credit card fraud - Anthrox spotted OCAU on the screen in the photo. :)
This is Privacy Awareness Week. This year, public and private sector organisations across the Asia Pacific region will celebrate Privacy Awareness Week 2011 with a broad range of a programs and initiatives, all in the interest of promoting awareness of privacy issues.
South Korea has banned youngsters from gaming online after midnight. Yonhap news agency reported the new law - which bans anyone under 16 from playing online into the early hours - was passed by lawmakers worried about growing levels of addiction to gaming among youngsters.
NewScientist report on a new fibre optic speed record. Two separate research groups have just lapped the field, setting a world record by sending more than 100 terabits of information per second through a single optical fibre. That's enough to deliver three solid months of HD video- or the contents of 250 double-sided Blu-ray discs.
Facebook have been copping some flak over copyright takedowns on their site, thanks psyc0de. Facebook is so eager to protect copyright that the mere accusation of copyright infringement is enough to get an account locked. Ars found this out the hard way Thursday morning when our own Facebook page became inaccessible, with no warning, no explanation, and no clear appeal process. To make matters worse, Facebook is not responsive to inquiries about account lockout, and the company provides absolutely zero useful direction on how to rectify a complaint.
RamblingThoughts ponder the eBook and Book Publishing industry in Australia. Think back just over three years. Amazon in the USA had just announced a new ebook reader product called the Kindle, to much excitement – over there at least. Back in Australia at the time, ebook readers were not entirely unknown, but we were faced with limited options when it came to buying the ebooks themselves, along with eye-watering prices for relatively uninspiring readers. My wife just bought a Kindle, and she loves it - and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it too. I'll do a review if I can get it out of her hands for long enough.
Guru3D have updated their VGA charts, to help you make some sense of product numbers etc. So our charts might not be perfect but the the VGA charts will show you the baseline performance of products we have tested in recent times brining you a comprehensive and fairly reliable indication of graphics performance, we'll add future results over time. The VGA charts are for your reference only. There will be no comments on product performance, it's just a quick way to find results in a selection of modern games.
OCClub checked out Mushkin's headquarters. So I wasn't sure what to expect and how much I was allowed to shoot photos for, but I must say they let me do what I want and wondered where I wanted. I can tell you it was so hard not to touch anything ... I was really struggling not to drool over anything. I now bring you the compound and all of the stuff they have on their shelves waiting to move.
Tech Report wish that GPUs had a volume knob. I've long been a vocal proponent of robust, user-configurable fan speed controls on motherboards. With that horse beaten to within an inch of its life, it's time to saddle up a new pony: graphics cards are long overdue for better fan speed controls.
In case you've been hiding in a cave in Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden has been killed, with an announcement from President Obama confirming it today. "Tonight, I can report to the people of the United States and the world, the United States had carried an operation that has killed Osama Bin Laden, a terrorist responsible for killing thousands of innocent people," Obama said in a statement. Discussion here.
This isn't a game, but it's a very nice timelapse video which will chill you out for a few minutes, thanks Steve.
Monday Morning Reviews
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Monday, 2-May-2011 02:06:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Zacate E-350 Performance on iXBTLabs.
Biostar TH67XE Ver. 5.2 Motherboard on iXBTLabs.
Intel Desktop Extreme DX58SO2 Motherboard on LegitReviews.
Storage:
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
Intel SSD 510 Series 120GB on TechSpot.
ICY DOCK MB974SP-B Internal 4-bay Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
LSI 9265-8i 6Gbps MegaRAID Card RAID 5 Tested on TheSSDReview.
Power Supply:
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 760W on PureOC.
Antec TruePower New 750W on eTeknix.
Audio Visual:
AOC e2343F2 LED Monitor on TBreak.
IOGEAR USB HD Video Adapter on EverythingUSB.
Portable & Prebuilt:
iPad 2 Tablet on HWSecrets.
Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 Preview: Both Tablet and Netbook on InsideHW.
HP Pavilion dm1z Fusion-Based Ultralight Notebook on HotHardware.
Acer Iconia Tab A500 tablet on TechReviewSource.
Video Cards:
AMD Radeon HD 6670 on HWSecrets.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SO on Guru3D.
XFX Radeon HD 6950 XXX Edition on NeoSeeker.
Inno3D GTX 560 Ti iChiLL Edition vs PowerColor Radeon 6870 PCS++ on HWHeaven.
Software:
An In-Depth Look at Ubuntu 11.04 on Techgage.
AMD Catalyst 11.4 Windows 7 Driver Analysis on Tweaktown.
Cases:
NZXT H2 Silent Classic on XSReviews.
Enermax SpineRex on HWSecrets.
Silverstone Raven RV03 Enthusiast Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Antec ISK-100 mini-ITX case on TechPowerUp.
Lian Li PC-V1020 on Vortez.
Misc:
Cisco Linksys E1500 Wireless-N Router on TechReviewSource.
Razer Onza Tournament Edition Controller on TBreak.
Patriot Viper Xtreme DDR3-1600 Tri-Channel 6GB Kit on FunkyKit.
Xigmatek Loki SD963 Heatsink on FrostyTech.
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