Overclockers Australia!
Make us your homepage. Add us to your bookmarks  
Major Sponsors:

News
Current
News Archive
SEND NEWS!

Site
Articles & Reviews
Forums
Wiki
Podcast
Pix
Search
Contact

Team OCAU
Folding Team
Seti@Home Team
Climate Prediction

Misc
OCAU Sponsors
OCAU IRC
Online Vendors
Motorcycle Club

February 2013
Thursday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 28-February-2013  13:18:23 (GMT +10) - by booj

Graphics Cards:
Asus GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II OC 2 GB on Xbit Labs.
Zotac GeForce GTX Titan on HardwareHeaven.

Storage:
AsustorR AS-604T 4-Bay NAS on Xbit Labs.
OCZ Vector SSD on Benchmark Reviews.
WD My Passport 500GB USB 3.0 Portable HDD on ThinkComputers.

Cases:
Cooler Master HAF XB LAN Box on Modders-Inc.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 on Hardware Secrets.
SilverStone Sugo SG09 on Phoronix.
Nox Xtreme Coolbay VX on techPowerUp.

Cooling:
Thermalright AXP-100 Low-Profile CPU Cooler on TweakTown.
Deepcool Frostwin CPU Cooler on Xbit Labs.
Thermalright Archon SB-E X2 CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Noctua NH-L9i Low Profile CPU Cooler on PureOverclock.

Audio:
Cooler Master Storm Sirus Headset on XtremeComputing.
Asus ROG Vulcan ANC Pro Gaming Headset on eTeknix.
Cooler Master CM Storm Ceres-400 Gaming Headset on Neoseeker.
Audyssey Wireless Speakers on NikKTech.

Input etc:
Gigabyte Force M7 Thor Laser Mouse on APH Networks.
Roccat Kone XTD 8200DPI Wired Gaming Mouse on Legit Reviews.
FUNC MS-3 Gaming Mouse on HardwareHeaven.

Notebooks:
Razer Blade (R2) Gaming Laptop (Video Review) on HardwareHeaven.
Asus G75VW-DH72 Gaming Notebook on TechwareLabs.
Toshiba Satellite C875-S7340 on TechReviewSource.

Misc:
G.Skill TridentX F3-2666C11Q-16GTXD 4x 4GB 2666 MHz C11 on techPowerUp.
Antec High Current Pro 1000W Power Supply on Funky Kit.



Gaming For a Cause (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 28-February-2013  12:50:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg

This update from Matt:

Tontsekz here - I run the Gamingforacause.org.au website and just wanted to give a big thank you to all members of OCAU that donated towards the stream. A good portion of the initial donations came from OCAU members.

If any OCAU members wish to join me for a game I'd be honored to have them join in. The timetable is up on the website and I'll be advertising server names so that players can join me.

The stream kicks off at 8:00am Brisbane time on Saturday!



Wednesday Night (1 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 27-February-2013  23:54:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The ABC's website has apparently been hacked, thanks Folken. AUSTRALIA'S national broadcaster is reviewing its cyber security arrangements after one of its program websites was hacked and the personal details of almost 50,000 users were posted online.

They're certainly not alone at the moment. According to a Friday "Recent Cyberattacks" blog post from Matt Thomlinson, general manager for trustworthy computing security at Microsoft, the company "recently experienced a similar security intrusion" to the attacks that penetrated the networks of Apple and Facebook.

I can't think of 12 different ways to mount fans to radiators, but HotHardware can. We tested 12 different configurations for cooling a 120 mm radiator of a liquid cooling solution. Which one is the best? Check it out!

TheSSDReview have been building a home server. We now have a 24TB server running Windows Server 2012 Essentials – capable of not only backups, but created to do literally anything we want, including gaming, storing massive amounts of media, and even live-streaming/encoding on the fly. The best part of it all? How simple the entire process turned out to be!

Meanwhile Techspot cover triple monitor gaming on a budget. We're going to mix things up a little this time. Instead of using each camp's ultra-pricey dual-GPU card (or the new $999 Titan), we're going to see how more affordable Crossfire and SLI setups handle triple-monitor gaming compared to today's single-GPU flagships.

Alch spotted this Konami easter egg in Google's new Chromebook. Meanwhile, Engadget aren't too impressed by it, or at least, the pricing. For an MSRP that is on par with some of the best laptops in the world, the Pixel doesn't provide anywhere near as much potential when it comes to functionality. It embraces a world where everyone is always connected and everything is done on the web -- a world that few people currently live in.



Tuesday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 26-February-2013  12:18:51 (GMT +10) - by booj

Graphics Cards:
Diamond 7870 GHz Edition on PureOverclock.
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC GHz Edition on Funky Kit.
GeForce GTX Titan on Bjorn3D.

Storage:
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V.3 4TB SAS 6Gb/s HDD on NikKTech.
Lexar JumpDrive Triton 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on TweakTown.
OCZ Vector 256GB SSD on Custom PC Review.
SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD on APH.
Kingston SSDNow V300 128GB SSD on Pro-Clockers.

Cases:
NZXT Phantom 630 on ThinkComputers.
Fractal Design Node 605 on Vortez.
Cooler Master HAF XB on Futurelooks.

Cooling:
Corsair H90 CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Corsair Hydro Series H90 and H110 on PC Perspective.

Input etc:
SteelSeries Free Mobile Wireless Controller on Madshrimps.
Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard on Legit Reviews.

Misc:
Biostar Hi-Fi Z77X (Intel Z77) Motherboard on TweakTown.
Dell Inspiron 17R-5721 Notebook on TechReviewSource.
Netgear ProSafe GS110T Gigabit SmartSwitch on Benchmark Reviews.
Wavemaster MX3+ 2.1 Speaker System on eTeknix.
NZXT HALE90 V2 1000w PSU on techPowerUp.



Team.AU World Record (2 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 26-February-2013  00:07:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Team.AU have been up to their usual shenanigans, and picked up the 3DMARK06 global world record while they were at it:


click for the thread!



Monday Night (2 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 25-February-2013  23:31:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Plextor are giving away three SSDs to three lucky OCAU readers. We will pick up three favorite sentences and each of them can get one free 128GB M5Pro Xtreme SSD.

The US Government seems closer to directly accusing China of cyber-warfare. When the Obama administration circulated to the nation’s Internet providers last week a lengthy confidential list of computer addresses linked to a hacking group that has stolen terabytes of data from American corporations, it left out one crucial fact: that nearly every one of the digital addresses could be traced to the neighborhood in Shanghai that is headquarters to the Chinese military’s cybercommand.

The Verge checked out Google Glass, hands-on. What was a total oddity a year ago, and little more than an experiment just 18 months ago is now starting to look like a real product. One that could be in the hands (or on the heads, rather) of consumers by the end of this year. A completely new kind of computing device; wearable, designed to reduce distraction, created to allow you to capture and communicate in a way that is supposed to feel completely natural to the wearer. It’s the anti-smartphone, explicitly fashioned to blow apart our notions of how we interact with technology.

PCMag checked out a pre-built PC with a $7000+ USD pricetag. The launch of Nvidia's new GeForce GTX Titan graphics card has lit a fire underneath multiple boutique computer manufacturers. Falcon Northwest has built a new version of its Mach V desktop tower—the Mach V (Triple Titan)—to take advantage of the Titan's capabilities, with support for up to three of the new graphics cards and a six-core Intel Core i7 3970X CPU overclocked to 4.7GHz.

ArsTechnica meanwhile looked inside the PlayStation 4. The PS4 eschews expensive custom chips like the Cell in favor of one of AMD's accelerated processing units (APUs). This APU shares surface-level similarities with the chips you can pick up for your desktop from Newegg or Amazon, but the details are very different: it combines eight CPU cores based on AMD's Jaguar architecture and a GPU capable of 1.84 TFLOPS of raw performance on the same die.

Guru3D have a Crysis 3 VGA Performance Roundup posted. So then, in this review we'll look at Crysis 3 VGA Graphics benchmark performance with roughly 22 graphics cards. The new and very popular title is looking daunting from a graphics point of view. But as a result how will it perform on a selection of different graphics cards ? This review will cover all these basics and then more so you know what choice to make either graphics card or in-game settings wise.

Quadrocopters are going to enslave us all one day, but meanwhile they can do some cool stick-throwing, thanks asher. This video shows two quadrocopters capable of not only balancing an inverted pendulum, but also of launching it off the vehicle and catching it again.

The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand have had a victory, to the tune of $600 or so - but at some cost. The local body representing big record labels claims to have spent around $250,000 chasing alleged music pirates but so far has hauled only 12 people to the Copyright Tribunal. The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (Rianz) scored a win at the tribunal this week, with a Telecom customer who pirated music being ordered to pay it $616.57.

With the 2013 motorsport season officially underway, I thought I should remind people that each year we have a Motorsport Calendar available at ocau.com/ms. Bring on the racing!



Bauhn AMiD-9743G Android Tablet with 3G and GPS (46 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 25-February-2013  02:42:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

ALDI had another cheapy tablet on sale this weekend, so I thought I'd compare it to the one from a few months ago. This one adds 3G connectivity and a GPS reciever, but how different is it otherwise?


click for the review!



Sunday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 24-February-2013  16:34:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Cooling:
Noctua NF Series Fan Roundup on Neoseeker.
Enermax ELC 120 Liquid CPU Cooler on eTeknix.

Motherboard & CPU:
ECS A85F2-A Golden for AMD Socket FM2 APUs on TechPowerUp.
GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WiFi (Intel C606) on Tweaktown,
ASRock FM2A85X-ITX Motherboard on HWSecrets.
ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP (Intel H77) on Tweaktown.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Blackberry Z10 Smartphone on HWHeaven.
Origin EON17-S Gaming Notebook on Tweaktown.
Cyberpower Fangbook: Extreme Gaming Gone Mobile on Bjorn3D.

Storage:
Patriot Gauntlet 320GB Wireless Hard Drive on eTeknix.
ADATA DashDrive Air AE400 Wireless Storage Reader on CustomPCReview.

Cases:
Lian-Li PC-N1 Intel NUC Replacement Case on LegitReviews.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 Chassis on Pro-Clockers.

Video Cards:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Video Card on LegitReviews.
Nvidia's GeForce GTX Titan on Tech Report.
GTX TITAN: The beast to unseat the best! on Bjorn3D.

Input Etc:
AZiO Levetron Mech5 Modular Mechanical Keyboard on NeoSeeker.
CM STORM TRIGGER Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on NikKTech.
Gigabyte Aivia Osmium Mechanical Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Revisiting the CM Storm Trigger Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on OCClub.

Misc:
Trendnet N300 Easy-N-Range Extender on RBMods.
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 550W PSU on ThinkComputers.
Diamond Multimedia Mini Rockers Mobile Bluetooth Speakers on MegaTechReviews.



Misc Pics (39 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 22-February-2013  13:17:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to KonMan and damo this week!







And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.



Friday Midday (5 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 22-February-2013  12:36:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Internode have been crowned home ISP of the year, and not just because they host OCAU. :) Internode topped the survey for nine months of last year. Fellow iiNet subsidiary Westnet and Internode's parent company took out the award for the other three months.

Meanwhile the ACCC says they will be coming down hard on ISPs in 2013, regarding plans and contracts. At a Committe for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) event today in Sydney, ACCC chairman Rod Sims launched the consumer body’s new Compliance and Enforcement Policy, which seeks to emphasise that some forms of conduct are detrimental to consumer welfare. These include cartel conduct, anti-competitive agreements and misuse of market power.

If you think Google Glass sounds cool, you could try to get one.. if you have $1500 and can fly to the USA to get it. The deadline for applications is February 27th. If you are chosen, we will reach out to you with an invitation to become a Glass Explorer (please remember to follow us so that we can contact you directly). Explorers will each need to pre-order a Glass Explorer Edition for $1500 plus tax and attend a special pick-up experience, in person, in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Also hinting at the future is this 3D printing pen concept. 3D printers are getting smaller and cheaper all the time, but they're still not exactly mainstream. The 3Doodler is an attempt to change that — it's a small pen-style device that its creators call both a "world's first" and "the most affordable way to 3D print." It won't be able to print pre-rolled objects such as Nokia phone cases, of course, but instead lets you draw your designs into existence by moving it through the air. Like many 3D printers, the 3Doodler uses ABS plastic that is heated and instantly cooled.

Ubuntu is now available on tablets. With unique multitasking productivity, effortless navigation and defence-ready security, Ubuntu raises the bar on tablet design and sets a new standard for the post-PC era. Bright. Brilliant. Beautiful. And naturally neat.

Sounding like something out of a movie, a huge diamond heist has occurred in Switzerland. Police say the theft occurred late Monday at Brussels Airport. According to authorities, a group of eight men cut a hole in a perimeter security fence, drove out to the tarmac and removed diamonds possibly worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the cargo of a Helvetic Airways' Fokker 100 jet operating for Swiss International Airlines.

Anandtech checked out AMD's Opteron 6300. So is the new Opteron "Abu Dhabi" a few percent faster or is it tangibly faster when running real world code? And are the power consumption gains marginal at best or measureable? Well, most of our benchmarks are real world, so we will find out over the next several pages as we offer our full review of the Opteron 6300.

From Hoff: The meteorite that struck central Russia last week, which injured around 1,000 people as it broke apart over a section of the Ural Mountains and sent shockwaves across the ground below, was but one of thousands that have impacted our planet over the past four millennia. Now you can see the location of every recorded meteorite impact on Earth going back to 2,300 BCE all in one heat map created by Javier de la Torre, cofounder of geo software companies Vizzuality and CartoDB.



Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Reviews (2 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 22-February-2013  02:48:31 (GMT +10) - by booj

Full reviews of the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan have been released. For the time being at least, all cards are reference models.

Anandtech
Hardware Canucks
Hardware Zone
Hexus
HiTechLegion
HotHardware
Guru3D
Overclockers Club
Overclockers.com
PC Gamer
PC Perspective
techPowerUp
Tech Radar
Toms Hardware

Multi GPU reviews:
techPowerUp
Guru3D

Discussion continues in this thread.



Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 22-February-2013  02:04:25 (GMT +10) - by booj

Graphics Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 7850 iPower IceQ Turbo 4GB Crossfire on Legion Hardware.
MSI GTX 670 Twin Frozr Power Edition OC 2GB on eTeknix.

Storage:
Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB SSD on Techgage.
MyDigitalSSD BP4 Slim 7 Series SSD (240GB) on The SSD Review.
Mushkin Atlas 480GB SSD on The SSD Review.
Synology DiskStation DS213+ and QNAP TS-269 Pro on Custom PC Review.
Asustor AS-604T 4-bay NAS Server on Madshrimps.

Cooling:
Sapphire Vapor-X CPU Cooler on PureOverclock.
NZXT Respire T40 CPU Cooler on PureOverclock.
Cooler Master Notepal A200 Dual Fan Laptop Cooling Pad on Pro-Clockers.

Power Supplies:
Sentey LTP1000-SM 1000W 80 PLUS Platinum on TweakTown.
Seasonic Platinum 520 Fanless 520-Watt 80 PLUS Platinum on TweakTown.

Cases:
Cooler Master Storm Stryker on APH Networks.
Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX on Benchmark Reviews.
Cooler Master HAF XM Full Tower on eTeknix.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 Midi Tower on NikKTech.
Lian Li PC-Q02 Mini-ITX on Modders-Inc.

Input etc:
Zowie AM Ambidextrous Mouse on eTeknix.
Razer Ouroboros Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse on HardwareHeaven.

Audio:
X-mini UNO Capsule Speaker on ThinkComputers.
JDSLabs O2+ODAC DAC & Headphone Amplifier on techPowerUp.

Misc:
Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H (Intel Z77) on TweakTown.
Western Digital WD TV Play Media Player on Legit Reviews.
Acer Iconia Tab W510 Windows 8 Hybrid Tablet on HotHardware.
Canon Pixma MG6320 All In One Printer on TechReviewSource.



PS4 (5 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 21-February-2013  11:54:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The Playstation 4 is being revealed as we speak, with a live video stream currently airing. There's a discussion thread with lots of details here, thanks to DiGiTaL MoNkEY.


Project Ayr (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 21-February-2013  11:15:51 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Slipperyskip has finished his latest work, Project Ayr. As we've come to expect from him it is small, but perfectly formed. He also very kindly chose OCAU as the place to host the only complete worklog of this project.


click for the worklog!



Photography Gallery (1 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 20-February-2013  20:36:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum.



















Wednesday Afternoon (11 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 20-February-2013  14:05:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Mpot sent in this article about a shadowy Chinese hacker group. The group, known as Advanced Persistent Threat” (APT1) was outed today in a 60-page report by security firm Mandiant, which has been tracking the army unit for six years. The company also released a technical, step-by-step video (below) of how one of the hackers steals information. “The sheer scale and duration of sustained attacks against such a wide set of industries from a singularly identified group based in China leaves little doubt about the organization behind APT1,” concludes the report.

He also spotted a story about someone tracking down their camera as having been used in a review before being sold as new. Both cameras were sold as new, but the second one I received came in the wrong box. I bought a “body only” (just the camera, no lens), while the box was for the camera + lens package. This wasn’t too surprising, as retailers often split up the camera + lens packages to meet demand and/or make a slightly bigger profit. No big deal. I remember when I first turned the camera on, the shutter count was already around 60, which was a little odd, but again no big deal. I figured maybe Canon took some test shots or something, who knows.

Here's a transparent smartphone concept from Jason. As he notes, it looks nightmarishly easy to lose. The glass is opaque when powered off, but it appearance transforms when electricity is applied. According to Polytron's website, "the liquid crystal molecules line up, the incident light passes through, and Polyvision looks clear." Technically, the glass design isn't completely see-through — the batteries and SIM card remain visible, as does the power switch up top.

MaximumPC list some old bits of PC hardware which were good bang for buck back in the day. I think I've owned about half of them over the years. :) Dual-proc men (and women) have always gotten gouged on price—you literally had to pay for the privilege of running two processors. Abit’s BP6 shattered that price lock by giving you a dual-proc board that let you run and overclock two Socket 370 Celerons—a config the Celery was never supposed to support!

If you've had trouble with McAfee products on OS X recently, you're not alone. A certificate revocation list [CRL] hosted by Apple Worldwide developer servers lists the reason for the cancellation as a "key compromise," but McAfee officials said they never lost control of the sensitive certificate which is used to prove applications are legitimate releases. The revocation date shows as February 6, meaning that for seven days now, customers have had no means to validate McAfee applications they want to install on Macs.

Techgage upgraded to an SSD, and had some dramas. In advance of the busiest season at the office I work at, I wondered if adding an SSD to the slightly-aging Dell I use would offer a considerable gain in performance, and thus make the onslaught of work easier to deal with. Little did I realize, upgrading a Dell business PC requires a lot of patience, planning and snacks. I realised last night that I haven't reinstalled this PC since about 2009.. which is probably why it's so flippin' slow lately.



Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Previews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 20-February-2013  11:32:44 (GMT +10) - by booj

Nvidia have allowed sites to preview their upcoming flagship GeForce GTX Titan GPU. Full reviews are to follow later in the week.

Coverage on:
Anandtech
Bit Tech
Guru3D
Hardware Canucks
Hardware Heaven
Hexus
HotHardware
Legit Reviews
Ninjalane
Overclockers Club
PC Perspective
Techgage
Toms Hardware



Wednesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 20-February-2013  11:15:02 (GMT +10) - by booj

Graphics Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 7850 4GB iPower IceQ Turbo on Guru3D.
MSI R7970 Lightning on Vortez.

Storage:
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate G3 64GB on PureOverclock.
OCZ Vector 256GB SSD on Pro-Clockers.
Adata DashDrive Elite 500GB - External USB3.0 Hard Drive on Funky Kit.

Cooling:
Swiftech H220 Compact Drive II CPU Water Cooler on TweakTown.
Scythe Grand Kama Cross Rev. B CPU Cooler on Xbit Labs.
Scythe Katana 4 vs. Thermalright TRUE Spirit 90 on Xbit Labs.
Coolink Corator DS LGA2011 on techPowerUp.

Cases:
Cougar Spike Micro-ATX on Legit Reviews.
Fractal Design Node 304 on ThinkComputers.
Xigmatek Asgard Pro on techPowerUp.
Fractal Design Define XL R2 on Hardware Secrets.
Cooler Master Silencio 650 on XSReviews.

Power Supplies:
Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W on APH.
Kingwin Power Force 850-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze on TweakTown.

Input etc:
Azio L3VETRON GM2000 Gaming Mouse and Mech5 Mechanical Keyboard on OCC.
Cooler Master CM Storm Sentinel Advance II Gaming Mouse on Modders-Inc.

Audio:
House of Marley Redemption Song On-ear Headphones on TechwareLabs.
Asus Orion Pro Headset on Neoseeker.
Sennheiser PC 363D 7.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset on HardwareHeaven.
Wavemaster Moody 2.1 Speaker System on eTeknix.

Misc:
HP Pavilion Sleekbook 15z-b000 on TechReviewSource.



Tuesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 19-February-2013  02:08:03 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards:
Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 on Legit Reviews.
Gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4 on PC Perspective.

Storage:
Western Digital Red Hard Disk Drives on Xbit Labs.
HighPoint RocketStor 5322 on OCC.
Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB Enterprise Hard Drive on Techgage.

Memory:
Crucial Ballistix Tactical LP and Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP on Xbit Labs.
Avexir MPower Series DDR3 2400MHz 8GB Memory Kit on eTeknix.

Cooling:
NZXT Cryo X60 Laptop Cooler on Rbmods.
Thermalright Archon SB-E X2 on PureOverclock.
NZXT Kraken X60 Liquid CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
be quiet! Shadow Rock TopFlow SR1 CPU Cooler on NikKTech.

Input etc:
Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse on Legit Reviews.
Das Keyboard Model S Professional on Benchmark Reviews.

Audio:
Azio Levetron GH808 Gaming Headset on Custom PC Review.
Razer Star Wars: The Old Republic Gaming Headset on Madshrimps.
Tritton Pro+ 5.1 Surround Headset on Gaming Nexus.

Smartphones & Tablets:
Samsung ATIV Smart PC 500T Windows 8 Tablet on Hot Hardware.
Sony Xperia Tablet S on TweakTown.
Nokia Lumia 620 Smartphone with Windows Phone 8 on HardwareHeaven.
Google Nexus 4 Smartphone on TweakTown.
Samsung ATIV 500T and MS Surface Pro on SCPR.



Monday Afternoon (2 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 18-February-2013  14:39:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg

CERT Australia have a new report (which confusingly has "2012" in the title) about cyber-security in Australia. The inaugural Survey was designed to obtain a better understanding of how cyber incidents are affecting the businesses that form part of Australia’s systems of national interest – the businesses that partner with CERT Australia. The findings from the survey provide a picture of the current cyber security measures these businesses have in place; the recent cyber incidents they have experienced; and their reporting of them.

Steam for Linux is officially available now, after a long beta test. To mark the occasion, Valve has discounted more than 50 Linux titles by as much as 75 percent for one week until February 21.

Engadget report on a beer-dispensing arcade machine. The minds at McKinney creative agency may have come up with the greatest reward for arcade victors -- an ice cold pour of beer. Created as a marketing tool for Big Boss Brewing Company, the aptly named Beercade features The Last Barfighter, a Street Fighter-like arcade game set inside a biker bar. To begin, two players place their cups in the tray below their respective tap, which replaces the machine's coin slots.

Timbot sent in this info page about Intel's Xeon Phi supercomputer coprocessor. More info and discussion in this thread.

Meanwhile AMD have said they WILL have new GPUs this year and earlier reports are wrong. PCWorld reached out to AMD in the wake of all the hub-bub to get a feel for the situation, and while there are still plenty of questions up in the air, I was told by a chortling AMD representative, "We will certainly have new [GPU] products in 2013." The company plans to clarify its 2013 plans for the Radeon brand later this week. More info here.



Saturday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Saturday, 16-February-2013  11:32:23 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards:
ASRock 990FX Extreme9 on Hardware Secrets.
Gigabyte Z77X UD4H on Ninjalane.

Storage:
OCZ Vector 256GB on OCC.
Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB SSD on XtremeComputing.
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD on TweakTown.
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate G3 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on NikKTech.
Transcend SSD320 256GB on PureOverclock.
SanDisk Extreme 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on TweakTown.
Seagate Wireless Plus 1TB Wireless Hard Drive on Bigbruin.

Cases:
NZXT Phantom 630 on Guru3D.
Silverstone Precision PS08 on techPowerUp.
Fractal Design Node 304 on HardwareHeaven.

Power Supplies:
Rosewill Tachyon Series 1000W on PC Perspective.
Fractal Design Newton R3 1000W on techPowerUp.
Enermax Triathlor FC 650W on Hardware Secrets.

Input etc:
Rosewill Gaming Keyboard RK-8100 on Benchmark Reviews.
AZiO Levetron GM2000 Gaming Mouse on Neoseeker.
Roccat Lua Classic 3-Button Gaming Mouse on Madshrimps.
Thermaltake Level 10 Mouse on OCIA.
Gigabyte Force M7 Thor Gaming Mouse on PureOverclock.

Misc:
Asus GTX 660Ti DirectCU II TOP Graphics Card on eTeknix.
Cooler Master Seidon 120M Liquid Cooler on Vortez.



Misc Pics (35 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 15-February-2013  12:54:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to Sabz, mpot and Sciby this week!







And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.



AMD Trinity A10-5800K & GIGABYTE F2A85X-UP4 (13 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 15-February-2013  02:06:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg

AMD have brought their Trinity APUs to the desktop, and dirtyd has been playing with the A10-5800K unit on an F2A85X-UP4 motherboard from Gigabyte. He does a little overclocking and even breaks out the dry ice, to find out if these low-power CPU+GPU combos are of any interest to gamers:


Click for the review!



Friday Morning (8 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 15-February-2013  01:55:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Mortal Kombat is to be finally released in Australia. Congratulations are in order for NetherRealm, who will finally be able to release Mortal Kombat in Australia. The Komplete Edition of the game has has benefited from the brand new R18+ adults-only rating, succeeding where the original game failed (twice), and the handheld version was considered too violent.

It seems there'll be no new GPUs from AMD this year. AMD's product manager for desktop graphics products Devon Nekechuk, in an interview with Japanese publication 4Gamer.net, revealed that his firm won't be launching any new Radeon GPUs in 2013, and that the company would instead play out the year on its current Radeon HD 7000 series' performance, with price adjustments and possible performance increments through driver updates.

Mpot spotted this Microsoft Surface tear-down. It's a laptop! It's a tablet! It's a lablet! It's…it's…Microsoft's Surface Windows 8 Pro, and it's about to go down on the teardown table.

Mpot also noticed you can now buy an iPhone running Android - if you live in Brazil. Brazilian regulators have ruled that Apple does not have exclusive rights to use the "iPhone" trademark in the country. But the US tech giant has already lodged an appeal against the decision with the Brazilian regulators. The ruling is the result of a local company, Gradiente Eletronica, registering the name in 2000, six years before the US firm.

PCMag tested a tough NAS. We happened to have another Synology NAS (a DS1511+) in the lab which I used to see if I could still access the data from the disks on the N2 after it was soaked. Sure enough, I was able to read and access the data without incident. Next, the N2 was placed into a 500 degree oven for two hours. After removing from the heat and taking off the two doors that protect the drives, I was able to see the cooling mechanisms take place. The ceramic plates had water bubbles that formed to counter the high heat and protect the drives.

For those interested in the longevity of SSDs, Tweaktown are doing an endurance test. Today we start on an adventure. Despite reviewer's claims, Samsung has never stated the endurance life of its new TLC NAND flash used in the new 840 SSD. We're going to find out just how many program erase cycles the flash can take... in time.

Here's a cool DNS easter egg: try using tracert to 216.81.59.173. I've tested it and it works from my machine, but for the lazy, here's a capture file. Thanks Symon!



Thursday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 14-February-2013  11:35:34 (GMT +10) - by booj

Graphics Cards:
EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC 2 GB on techPowerUp.
HIS Radeon HD 7750 Low Profile on Funky Kit.

Storage:
Micron P400m 200GB Enterprise SSD on TweakTown.
Micron P400m 200GB Enterprise SSD on HotHardware.
MyDigitalSSD BP4 120GB SSD on The SSD Review.
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 512GB Flash Drive on Techgage.

Cooling:
NZXT Respire T20 CPU Cooler on PureOverclock.
NZXT Kraken X60 CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.

Audio:
Oblanc NC2-2 U.F.O Headset on Techreaction.
Mad Catz F.R.E.Q.5 Red Stereo Gaming Headset on NikKTech.

Input etc:
Razer Orbweaver Mechanical Gaming Keypad on Custom PC Review.
Roccat Kone XTD Gaming mouse on Rbmods.
Cooler Master CM Storm QuickFire TK Compact Mechanical Keyboard on Pro-Clockers.
A4Tech Ultracore3 V7 Gun3 Gaming Mouse on Benchmark Reviews.
Eagle Tech Bluetooth Mini Keyboard with Speakerphone on TechwareLabs.

Misc:
Origin EON11-S Gaming Notebook on TweakTown.
DropCam Wireless IP Camera on Modders-Inc.
Cougar Spike Mini Gaming Case on Pro-Clockers.
Crucial Ballistix Tactical LP & Sport VLP 1600MHz DDR3 Memory Kit on Legit Reviews.
ECS A85F2-A Golden Motherboard on OCC.



Interesting Forum Threads (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 13-February-2013  14:11:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a few interesting threads from the forums. Remember, OCAU has official Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages. If you can add us via the various services it's much appreciated and helps us get the word out, and keep you up to date. :)

Coolermaster HAF XB in Overclocking & Hardware.
Games with interactive environments- what happened? in PC Games.
Steam database hints at Halo 3 in PC Games.
Why do we tolerate buggy games? in PC Games.
Games that make you a better gamer in PC Games.
Wildstar in PC Games: MMOs.
Media Browser 3 Announced in HTPC.
XBMC 12 (Frodo) Final Out Today in HTPC.
The best way to keep iPads happy in Business & Enterprise.
Openoffice.org fails as MS Office replacement in Business & Enterprise.
Remember Lotus Notes? It's Still a $1 Billion IBM Business in Business & Enterprise.
Enterprise sysadmin currently unemployed and worried in Business & Enterprise.
Ocean Spray & Gatorade drinks comparison - US vs. Australia in Geek Food.
Cooked @ Pop up restaurant on the weekend in Geek Food.
Re-painting a motorcycle frame in Motoring.
Why are traffic lights so dumb? in Motoring.
New Corvette NOT coming to Australia in Motoring.
Budget Bathroom Reno in Lifestyle.
Tell me about your job that you LOVE in Career, Education & Finance.
How To: Make People Think You’re A Bigger Deal Than You Actually Are in Career, Education & Finance.
QLD - Experienced teachers given $50 000 tax free to resign in Career, Education & Finance.
Academic Publication Bias (In medicine) in Sport, Fitness & Health.
The unsustainable laptop program? in Politics & Policies.
Today our son left home in The Pub.



Wednesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 13-February-2013  10:42:04 (GMT +10) - by booj

Storage:
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G3 64GB Flash Drive on ThinkComputers.
Intel DC S3700 800GB Enterprise SSD on TweakTown.
OCZ Vector 256GB SSD on OCIA.
Thecus N5550 NAS on Legion Hardware.
Samsung 840 Series SSD on Hot Hardware.

Cases:
Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 on APH Networks.
Cubitek Mini Cube Case on HardwareHeaven.
Zalman MS800 on Hardware Secrets.
Cubitek Mini Cube ITX on Pro-Clockers.
Lian Li PC-V700 Mid Tower on Modders-Inc.
NZXT Phantom 820 on Benchmark Reviews.

Cooling:
NZXT Kraken X40 Liquid Cooler on Guru3D.
SilverStone NT01 Pro Low Profile HTPC CPU Cooler on eTeknix.

Input etc:
CM Storm Sentinel Advance II Gaming Mouse on Madshrimps.
GX Gaming Gila MMO/RTS Professional Gaming Mouse on TweakTown.
Tt eSPORTS Knucker Keyboard on Vortez.

Audio:
Eagletech Arion Foldable Bluetooth 3.0 Headset on TechwareLabs.
HiFiMAN RE-400 In-ears Headphones on techPowerUp.

Portable & Prebuilt:
OverclockersUK Ultima 10.1" IPS Android 4.1 Tablet on eTeknix.
Prestigio MultiPad 7.0 Prime Duo on t-break.
HP Pavilion 20-b010z All in One on TechReviewSource.

Misc:
ASRock Z77E-ITX Mini-ITX motherboard on Tech Report.
Sparkle Calibre X680 Video Card on PureOverclock.
Netgear R6300 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router on eTeknix.



Tuesday Evening (5 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 12-February-2013  18:07:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Australia's Federal Parliament is officially demanding information about technology pricing in Australia.. Federal Parliament has issued documents formally compelling major technology vendors Apple, Microsoft and Adobe to compulsorily appear before its committee investigating price hikes on technology products sold in Australia, in a move that finally ends months of stalling by the vendors, who have proven unwilling to voluntary discuss their pricing strategies in public. Discussion here.

IBM's Watson supercomputer isn't just good at playing Jeopardy, but is also getting some use in health-care. Pricing was not disclosed, but hospitals and health care networks who sign up will be able to buy or rent Watson’s advice from the cloud or their own server. Over the past two years, IBM’s researchers have shrunk Watson from the size of a master bedroom to a pizza-box-sized server that can fit in any data center. And they improved its processing speed by 240%.

This is a few months old, but there's a roundup of USB chargers on Ken Shirriff's blog. The chargers are rated from 1 to 5 energy bolts, with 5 bolts the best. The overall rating below is the average of the ratings in nine different categories, based on my measurements of efficiency, power stability, power quality, and power output. The quick summary is that phone manufacturers provide pretty good chargers, the aftermarket chargers are worse, and $2 counterfeit chargers are pretty much junk.

The ACCC are keeping an eye on service-specific throttling by ISPs. Telstra and other internet service providers could be investigated if they slow down file-sharing programs like BitTorrent in favour of providing their own video content to customers, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says.

Tech Report have an glimpse into the future of chip-making. The opportunity doesn't come along every day to get a detailed peek into the future of computing from the people who are building it. Last week, I had just such a chance.

LegitReviews looked at Intel's 525 series mSATA SSDs. SSDs have slowly started shrinking in form factor from 2.5" with 9.5mm height to 7mm height and now the biggest reduction in size of all, the mSATA drive. These diminutive drives pack the same performance punch as their larger counterparts complete with a 6Gbps interface but will fit in devices that 2.5" drives have no chance of fitting. Intel set us up with five different capacities of their new 525 Series mSATA drives so come have a look to see how they compare. HardCoreWare checked 'em out as well.

IntelInside noticed a mysterious porn bug on Google. Google is trying to figure out the cause of a mysterious search bug that returns pages and pages of almost exclusively pornographic and adult results when users enter certain equations or search strings.



Geek Food (2 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 11-February-2013  18:35:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's some more yummy threads from our Geek Recipes forum:


Bacon Cups with Egg & Ranch
by RETARD

American Style Pork Ribs
by cuahtemoc

Pan Fried Snapper & Linguini
by RETARD


Lamb Leg on Spit
by cuahtemoc

BLT Sandwich
by ItsDanK

Japanese Chicken Karaage
by sbm888


aXLe made a
Gingerbread House

Rosemary Smoked Lamb Ribs
by Wolfy

Iced Coffee Wars
by sbm888



Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 11-February-2013  11:27:06 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards & CPUs:
Asus ROG Maximus V Extreme on techPowerUp.
AMD Bulldozer FX-4130 on Vortez.
Intel Core i5 3570K on Guru3D.

Storage:
Kingston HyperX Predator USB 3.0 512GB on t-break.
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V.3 4TB HDD on NikKTech.
Intel SSD 335 vs. Intel SSD 330 on Xbit Labs.

Cooling:
Corsair H100i Liquid Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Cooler Master Seidon 120M Liquid CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Thermalright SilverArrow CPU Cooler on Xbit Labs.
Phanteks PH-TC12DX CPU Cooler on Techreaction.

Cases:
Corsair Carbide Series 500R on ThinkComputers.
Azza Silentium 920 on Pro-Clockers.
Enermax Ostrog Midi Tower on NikKTech.
Thermaltake Chaser A31 on Vortez.
Raidmax Cobra on Computing on Demand.

Audio:
RHA SA950i Portable Headphones on Benchmark Reviews.
Sound Blaster Axx SBX20 Bluetooth Portable Speaker on TweakTown.
Razer Chimaera 5.1 Surround sound gaming headset on Rbmods.

Misc:
Tt eSPORTS Level 10M Gaming Mouse on PureOverclock.
Kingston HyperX Limited Edition PC3-19200 16GB Quad Channel Memory Kit on TweakTown.
Razer Blade (R2) Gaming Laptop on HardwareHeaven.
HIS 7970, 7950 and 7850 IceQ Graphics Cards on Xbit Labs.



Saturday Afternoon (3 Comments) (link)
 Saturday, 9-February-2013  14:27:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The Pirate Bay's documentary TPB: Away From Keyboard is now available to download and view. You can donate, or pay to watch it if you like, or you can watch it on YouTube. ArsTechnica have some thoughts on it here. The non-narrated, largely Swedish-language film profiles the three co-founders during their prosecution by the Swedish government and doesn’t address—other than through filmed court testimony—the fourth co-defendant, businessman Carl Lundström. Discussion in this thread.

Also worth being aware of: another emergency Flash update. While Flash versions for OS X and Windows are the only ones reported to be under attack, Thursday's unscheduled release is available for Linux and Android devices as well. Users of all affected operating systems should install the update as soon as possible.

Unsurprisingly the response to Telstra's planned P2P throttling trial has been negative, with coverage here, here, here, here and here, thanks Timbot. David Thodey, CEO at Telstra, has downplayed the peer-to-peer throttling trial at a media conference following the release of Telstra’s half-year financial results. “It’s been a little bit over-hyped because we’re really only just looking at how we can manage the traffic on the network better,” Thodey said. “There really isn’t anything heinous here at all.”



Misc Pics (27 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 8-February-2013  14:28:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg

It's Friday again!







And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.



Friday Afternoon (3 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 8-February-2013  14:26:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Dell are set to return to private ownership. Michael S. Dell is betting his stake in the company and some $700 million of his fortune that he can meet those challenges and turn around a business he started in 1984 in his dormitory room at the University of Texas.

Farmers have shown support for the upgraded NBN plan. Broadband speeds for fixed wireless satellite services for regional and remote areas are going to double, giving users faster rates than many city dwellers. This will follow an NBN upgrade from June this year, the government says. Speeds on the fixed wireless network will more than double for downloads - from 12 megabits per second (Mbps) to 25Mbps. For uploads, the boost will be from 1Mbps to 5Mbps.

HotHardware have an AMD A85X Motherboard Roundup. We have had a few weeks with three A85X motherboards, the Gigabyte F2A845X-UP4, ASRock FM2A85X Extreme4-M, and Asus F2A85-V Pro, and AMD’s top of the line Trinity A10-5800K APU, which combines 4 unlocked Piledriver CPU cores (stock 3.8GHz, turbo 4.2GHz) with an integrated Radeon HD 7600D GPU with 384 Radeon Cores at 800MHz.

There's another critical vulnerability in UPnP, thanks Will. Security researchers from Croatia-based security firm DefenseCode claim to have found a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) implementation developed by Broadcom and used by many routers with Broadcom chipsets. The news comes after researchers from security firm Rapid7 earlier this week reported critical vulnerabilities in two other popular UPnP implementations -- the Intel/Portable UPnP SDK (software development kit) and MiniUPnP SDK -- that are used in tens of millions of network-enabled devices.

Gizmodo have a Sony VAIO giveaway happening. It’s time for round two! Giz has teamed up with Sony Australia and Intel Australia to give away almost $6000 of Sony Vaio Duo 11s hybrids. All you have to do to enter is grab an old piece of technology and explain why you need to UpTrade to a VAIO Duo 11 from Sony.

In case you haven't had enough Gabe Newell footage lately, here's his DICE 2013 keynote.



Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 8-February-2013  09:53:05 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards:
Zotac Z77-ITX WiFi Mini-ITX on The Tech Report.
ECS A85F2-A Golden Motherboard on Pure Overclock.
AMD A85 Series FM2 Motherboard Round Up on Futurelooks.

Storage:
MyDigitalSSD BP4 2.5-inch 240GB SSD on TweakTown.
OCZ Vector 256GB SSD on HardcoreWare.
Adata XPG SX900 128GB SSD on PC Perspective.
Western Digital Black WD2002FAEX 2TB HDD on Madshrimps.
OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD on Pro-Clockers.

Cases:
Xigmatek Asgard 381 on techPowerUp.
Fractal Design Define XL R2 on TweakTown.
NZXT Phantom 630 on Pro-Clockers.
SilverStone Precision Series PS07 on ThinkComputers.

Power Supplies:
Seasonic Gold Series X-750 on PC Perspective.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 850-Watt on TweakTown.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 850-Watt on Hardware Heaven.
Lepa G1600 1600 Watt PSU on Guru3D.
FSP Raider 550w on XSReviews.

Portables:
BlackBerry Z10 on Techspot.
Dell XPS 13 (2013) on TechReviewSource.
Asus VivoBook X202E 11.6-inch Notebook on Techgage.
Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro on TechReviewSource.
Amazon Kindle Fire HD Tablet on ThinkComputers.
Google Nexus 7 Tablet 16GB on Funky Kit.

Misc:
Noctua NH-L9i Low Profile Heatsink on Ninjalane.
Leetgion El'Druin RPG Gaming Mouse on techPowerUp.



Wednesday Morning (19 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 6-February-2013  10:58:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Gigabyte have a new prize draw. To celebrate the forthcoming Chinese New Year of the Snake, we’re inviting all HWBOT members to consider shedding their CPU-Z skin and adopt ours. All submissions on any hardware platform, submitting any benchmark screenshot featuring the GIGABYTE OC CPU-Z, will be automatically entered in a weekly prize draw to win a GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI motherboard.

Giga Fool sent in this cool submarine cable map. TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map has been updated for 2013. The latest edition depicts 244 cable systems that are currently active or due to enter service by 2014. There's an interactive version to explore.

Telstra may be clamping down on peer-to-peer soon, thanks IntelInside. Telstra confirmed the move in a statement after a source contacted Fairfax Media, publisher of this article, to say the telco planned to introduce throttling as a "trial" that was likely to become permanent and which required users to opt out if they didn't want to take part in it.

There's a new 3DMark, with coverage on LegitReviews, Tweaktown and PC Perspective.

The bones found a few months ago in Leicester in the UK have been confirmed as Richard III. Experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch's family. Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley, from the University of Leicester, told a press conference to applause: "Beyond reasonable doubt it's Richard." Richard, killed in battle in 1485, will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral.

Here's some new car tech info from slick: Car technology has moved a long way and the safety obsessed nuts over at Volvo reckon there will be zero injuries or deaths in their vehicles by 2020. Driver-less cars from Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo will be available as early as 2014. They'll have technology which will allow the car to drive itself in heavy traffic at speeds up to 60km/h. Some vision of the Audi driver-less technology on youtube.



Wednesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 6-February-2013  10:44:24 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards & CPUs:
ASRock Z77 Extreme11 (Intel Z77) on TweakTown.
ECS NM70-I2 (V1.0) Mini-ITX Motherboard on Madshrimps.
Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H on Hardware Canucks.

Storage:
Mushkin Chronos 240 GB SSD on techPowerUp.
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD on Techgage.
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD on eTeknix.
Plextor M5M mSATA SSD on HardwareHeaven.
Intel 335 Series 240 GB SSD on [H]ardOCP.

Cases:
Cooler Master HAF XB on Techspot.
Azza Silentium 920 on Neoseeker.

Cooling:
Zalman LQ320 CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Prolimatech MK-26 CPU Cooler on OCC.
Cooler Master NotePal I100 Laptop Cooler on Modders-Inc.

Smartphones:
Samsung Galaxy S3 on Benchmark Reviews.
HTC One X+ on t-break.
Samsung ATIV Odyssey on Legit Reviews.

Misc:
Hauppage HD PVR 2 Gaming Edition on XSReviews.
Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch NP540U3C-A01UB on TechReviewSource.
Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Knucker Keyboard on APH.



Tuesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 5-February-2013  08:09:04 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards & CPUs:
ASRock Z77 OC Formula Motherboard on Madshrimps.
Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe Mini-ITX on The Tech Report.
Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 (Z77) on eTeknix.
Gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4 Mainboard and AMD A10-5800K Processor on Xbit Labs.
Biostar Hi-Fi A85W (FM2) on Legit Reviews.

Memory:
Kingston HyperX Beast DDR3-2133 64GB Memory Kit on ThinkComputers.
G.Skill TridentX 8GB 2400C10 Dual Channel RAM Kit on Madshrimps.

Cooling:
Zalman CNPS9900DF CPU Cooler on Xbit Labs.
Evercool Silent Shark (HPO 12025) CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Corsair H110 liquid cooler on Guru3D.
Evercool Silent Shark CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.

Cases:
Azza Silentium 920 on Hardware Secrets.
Lian Li PC-B12 on APH Networks.
Fractal Design Node 605 HTPC Chassis on TweakTown.

Input etc:
Zowie AM Gaming mouse on Rbmods.
Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse on Madshrimps.
Gigabyte Aivia Krypton Keyboard on Vortez.

Ultrabooks:
Dell Latitude 6430u on HotHardware.
HP Spectre XT TouchSmart on TechReviewSource.

Misc:
GeForce GTX 660 Graphics Cards Roundup on Xbit Labs.
Dune HD TV-303D Universal FullHD Network Media Player on NikKTech.
OCZ Vector 256GB SSD on Bjorn3D.
SilverStone Strider Plus ST60F-PS 600 W PSU on techPowerUp.
Oblanc NC-2 U.F.O. and NC1-1 Cobra Headsets on PureOverclock.



Monday Morning (7 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 4-February-2013  00:34:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Mpot sent word that Twitter has been hacked. Twitter is coming forward as the latest site to be hacked. The social network said in a blog post Friday afternoon that approximately 250,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information including user names and email addresses. More here.

Gabe Newell gave a speech recently, reflecting on his career and Valve. Gabe Newell, founder of Valve Corp. On Productivity, Economics, Political Institutions & The Future of Corporations: Reflections of a Video Game Maker. It's an hour-long video but very interesting from a quick skim through.

Meanwhile EA have suffered a $45M loss last quarter. BMO Capital Markets analyst Edward Williams also noted that some of EA's troubles are beyond its control, as the entire industry is suffering from a downturn in demand as consumers await next-gen hardware from Sony and Microsoft. "The guidance pretty clearly represents a lot uncertainty in the market and that uncertainty stems from recent performances as consumers are pretty aware of new consoles coming," he said.

We haven't heard about bitcoins in a while, but they're still going it seems, with a new faster mining chip. Yifu Guo, a digital media student on hiatus from NYU-Poly, has released the first batch of ASICs, which are chips custom-built to do one thing: mine Bitcoins. These ASICs are capable of mining Bitcoins at a far higher rate than is possible with common computer equipment — Guo's design, called the Avalon V1, can mine Bitcoins about 50 times faster than a high-end rig, and offers a much more attractive price-to-performance ratio.

Tabris pointed out this cool panoramic video of a helicopter flying over a volcano.

Today's timewaster is either this ninja game, or this fairly horrifying Surgeon Simulator which knowsfords pointed out via his explanatory video. Never before has the word "simulator" been so misused!



Sunday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 3-February-2013  23:36:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Audio Visual:
Liquid Image Torque HD Video Goggles on TechWareLabs.
a.m.p SP1 Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker & Speakerphone on NikkTech.
Steelseries Mobile Gaming & Headphone on eTeknix.

Cases:
SilverStone SST-TJ04B-EW Evolution on ComputingOnDemand.
Fractal Design Node 304 mini-ITX on Vortez.

Storage & Memory:
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX PREDATOR 512GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on NikkTech.
ADATA XPG Gaming Series V2.0 PC3-19200 16GB Dual Channel Memory Kit on Tweaktown.
Kingston SSD Now 300V 120GB SSD on OCClub.
Intel SSD 525 Series Full Capacity Roundup on PCPerspective.

Power Supply:
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX750G Gold Power Supply on PCPerspective.
SilverStone PP06B Individual-Sleeved PSU Cables on Pro-Clockers.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 750W on HWSecrets.

Misc:
Cooler Master Seidon 240M Water AIO CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Acer Iconia Tab W510-1422 tablet on TechReviewSource.
AMD Phenom II X4 955, Phenom II X4 960T, Phenom II X6 1075T and Intel Pentium G2120 CPUs on iXBTLabs.
Inno3D GeForce GTX 670 iChill, Inno3D GeForce GTX 660 Ti video cards on iXBTLabs.



Misc Pics (19 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 1-February-2013  11:20:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to sabz, Holdenkicks and biofrog this week!







And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.



Friday Morning (2 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 1-February-2013  11:19:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Everlong spotted this cool custom adjustable desk case with a worklog here. After making a couple of desks its time to take it to another level this time i came up with some ideas to lift the desk with lifting columns.I also decided to lift the sreens with a lift column. The desk can be used by small and big people you can even stand up and work at the desk.

Alch sent in this new 1.8 billion pixel camera (not 1.8 billion megapixel, Mr Editor) which is unsurprisingly made for the US Defence Dept. Once combined, the chips create a 1.8 billion pixel real-time video spanning a 29 square kilometre area at 15 framed per second which is then beamed back to the spooks in their offices half-a-world away. These operatives can then zoom in on any area of interest at will.

Meanwhile our Defence techs are continuing to embrace Linux. Contractor BAE's Linux systems engineer, Jamie Birse, told linux.conf.au attendees that more than 1000 operational, development and research systems were in line to be shifted off proprietary Tru64 and VMS-based systems onto Intel-based servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. More than 600 systems have already been migrated.

A few people sent word of Gaming for a Cause. On the 19th of December a good friend of mine Kylie and her husband Eric gave birth to a healthy baby boy via a Caesarean Section. Shortly after her operation Kylie lost a lot of blood which lead to her heart stopping and was saved after 25 minutes of CPR. Kylie has since been diagnosed with severe brain damage to the portion of the brain that controls motor function and consciousness. As a result of all that has happened Eric has had to close his business and needs to travel in excess of 130km each day to be with Kylie as well as support his family through this tough time. Donations are encouraged if you can help out. More info here.



Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 1-February-2013  09:44:21 (GMT +10) - by booj

Storage:
SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD on TweakTown.
Plextor M5 Pro Extreme SSD Review (256GB) on The SSD Review.
Toshiba THNSNF256GCSS 'Thin Sniff' 256GB SSD on TweakTown.
RaidSonic ICY BOX IB-RD2121StS 2x2.5" to 3.5" HDD/SSD RAID Converter on NikKTech.

Memory:
Kingston HyperX '10th Anniversary' DDR3 1866MHz 8GB Memory Kit on eTeknix.
G.Skill TridentX F3-2400C10Q-32GTX on Neoseeker.

Cooling:
Phanteks PH-TC90LS Low Profile CPU Cooler on Rbmods.
Phanteks PH-TC12DX CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Corsair Hydro Series H90 on techPowerUp.
Reveen Arcziel 12 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.

Power Supplies:
Rosewill Tachyon 650W on Legit Reviews.
Fractal Design Newton R3 600W on ThinkComputers.

Cases:
Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX on TweakTown.
NZXT Phantom 630 Ultra Tower on eTeknix.
Silverstone Grandia GD07 HTPC Enclosure on Metku.
Cooler Master CM Storm Scout 2 on Modders-Inc.
SilverStone SUGO SST-SG09B on TweakTown.

Portable & Prebuilt:
RIM BlackBerry Z10 on t-break.
Dell XPS One 27" with Touch All-in-one (2710) Desktop on HardwareHeaven.

Misc:
ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 on techPowerUp.
SteelSeries Flux Luxury Edition Gaming Headset on Madshrimps.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 Super OverClock on HotHardware.
CM Storm QuickFire TK Mechanical Keyboard on Neoseeker.




Advertisement:

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

Hosted by Micron21!
Advertisement:

Recent Content


Mini Server Rack
Gashapon



SpaceX Starlink



T-Force Cardea
Zero Z330 NVMe SSD



Team Group T-Force
Vulcan G SSD



Synology DS720+ NAS



Raspberry Pi 4
Model B 8GB



Retro Extreme!