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August 2014 |
iRacing V8 Supercars
(3 Comments)
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Sunday, 31-August-2014 23:29:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It seems there's an iRacing series associated with the real-world V8 Supercars. Mojododo let us know that OCAU featured in a recent round, with Michael Fabian winning the Oulton Park race in an OCAU-livery car. Congratulations!
click for the report!
Storage:
ICY DOCK EZConvert Air MB382SP Storage Enclosure on TweakTown
Western Digital My Cloud EX2 on Techware Labs
OWC ThunderBay IV RAID 5 Edition External Storage Drive on TweakTown
ICY DOCK Black Vortex 3.5" Drive Cage on TweakTown
Corsair Voyager Air 2 1TB Wireless Hard Drive on eTeknix
QNAP TurboNAS TS-470 Pro NAS Server on NikKTech
Mouse:
Roccat Kone XTD Gaming Mouse on Benchmark Reviews
SteelSeries Sensei Wireless Laser Mouse on APH Networks
CM Storm Mizar, TteSports Saphira and Balista MK-1 Gaming Mice on eTeknix
Case:
Corsair Obsidian 450D Chassis on Techgage
Silverstone Raven RV05-BW Chassis on eTeknix
Corsair Graphite Series 380T case on Techreport
Corsair Graphite 380T on Techpowerup
Corsair Graphite Graphite 380T on Guru3D
Corsair Graphite 380T on Vortez
Corsair Graphite 380T Mini-ITX Chassis on eTeknix
Videcoard:
MSI Radeon R9 280 3GB Twin Frozr Gaming OC in CrossFire on TweakTown
MSI Z97 XPOWER AC on OCC
Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate on PureOverclock
Asus Strix GTX 750 Ti OC Edition Video Card on Futurelooks
Sapphire Radeon R7 260X 2GB OC in CrossFire Video Card on TweakTweak
Misc:
Tt eSPORTS CRONOS Gaming Headset on NikKTech
be quiet! Power Zone 1000W Modular Power Supply on eTeknix
Dune HD Connect Universal Media Player on NikKTech
Antec Kuhler H2O 1250 Water Cooler on OC Inside
DDR4 Roundup featuring Corsair, Crucial and G.Skill on Hardware Heaven
Intel has launched three new high-end Haswell-E processors for the brand new Intel X99 chipset based platform that was also launched today along with the new LGA 2011-v3 socket. This means that you’ll have to get a new motherboard with an LGA 2011 v3 socket, but your old LGA 2011 CPU cooler will still work as the CPU cooler mounting holes remain the same. This new platform also ushers in support for DDR4 memory! So, in addition to the new processor, chipset and socket, there is a major advancement with regards to the DRAM!
Read more at Legit Reviews and more Haswell-E and X99 Motherboard Reviews below.
Haswell-E CPUs:
Intel Octacore i7-5960X Haswell-E on Madshrimps
Intel i7-5960X Haswell-E on LanOC
Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E Processor on ThinkComputers
Intel Core i7-5960X processor on Techreport
Intel Core i7 5960X EE (Haswell-E) CPU and X99 Chipset on TweakTown
The Intel Core i7-5960X 8-core Processor on PC Perspective
The Intel Core i7-5960X on Hardware Heaven
Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition on Techgage
Intel Core i7 5960X Extreme Edition on OCC
Core i7 5960X Haswell-E Review DDR4 Performance on Ocaholic
Core i7 5960X Haswell-E on Bjorn3D
Core i7 5960X - 5930K and 5820K processor on Guru3D
Intel Core i7-5960X CPU on Hot Hardware
Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition on Vortez
Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Processor on Benchmark Reviews
Intel Core i7-5960X 8-Core Haswell-E Processor on Legit Reviews
Intel Core i7 5960X Haswell-E Processor on eTeknix
X99 Motherboards:
MSI X99S GAMING 7 (Intel LGA 2011-3) on Tech Powerup
Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard on Techreport
ASUS X99-Deluxe LGA2011-v3 Motherboard on Legit Reviews
ASUS X99 Deluxe on Ocaholic
ASRock X99 WS on Ocaholic
ASRock X99X Killer Fatal1ty (Intel X99) Motherboard on TweakTown
Asus X99 Deluxe on Bjorn3D
MSI X99S Gaming 9 AC Motherboard on Guru3D
ASUS X99 Deluxe Motherboard on Guru3D
ASUS X99 Rampage V Extreme on Guru3D
Gigabyte X99 SOC Force Motherboard on Guru3D
MSI X99S Gaming 9 on Bjorn3D
Asus X99 Deluxe on LanOC
Well, this week has been a complete writeoff. I haven't been this sick in a loooong time. The first picture pretty much sums me up at the moment. Anyway, thanks to RP this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
If you're a Chrome user and the forums are looking a bit weird today, it might be to do with a recent update to that browser. There's more info and a workaround in this thread.
Valve are being sued by the ACCC, apparently for not offering refunds. Valve is being sued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) over allegedly making "false or misleading representations" when it comes to consumer guarantees. Turns out that even though Valve does not have a physical presence Down Under, the studio's still bound by local consumer law.
Owen spotted ASIC accidentally blocking 250,000 websites instead of two, due to not understanding shared hosting. "This demonstrates that at the time, the people that ASIC was tasking to block websites did not understand even the basics of how websites work. That's both hilarious and frightening."
Meanwhile with the mandatory data retention debate still in full swing, the AFP are sheepishly admitting they published highly sensitive information by mistake. Guardian Australia can reveal that the AFP provided documents to the Senate, which were then made publicly available online on parliamentary sites and other sources for several years, and which accidentally disclosed information about the subjects and focus of criminal investigations and telecommunications interception activities.
But it's not all bad news, with new legislation to streamline classificiation of content having passed through Federal Parliament. Legislation for a faster, more reliable and cost effective classification of content such as mobile and online games was passed through Federal Parliament today. The reforms deliver on the Coalition Government's commitment to have a modern National Classification Scheme to better handle ever-changing content in a dynamic media environment.
Nintendo have spoken out about changing their focus away from casual gamers, and back to more passionate gamers. "Their attitude is, 'okay, I am the customer. You are supposed to entertain me.' It's kind of a passive attitude they're taking, and to me it's kind of a pathetic thing. They do not know how interesting it is if you move one step further and try to challenge yourself [with more advanced games]."
Microsoft's recent patch for a flawed patch was apparently flawed, and even Windows Update can't save us now. The security bulletin says that "Microsoft strongly recommends that customers who have not uninstalled the 2982791 update [i.e., the old version, released on Patch Tuesday] do so prior to applying the 2993651 update [the new version]." This recommendation applies to users whether they are having problems with the old update or not. Note that Windows Update and Automatic Updates do not remove the old version.
NASA are making progress on their Space Launch System. The first flight test of the SLS in 2017 will be configured for a 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit to test the performance of the integrated system. As the SLS evolves, it will be the most powerful rocket ever built and provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons) to enable missions even farther into our solar system.
There's only a couple of days left to snag one of the Fractal Design NODE 804 review samples in the forums. FD are giving away 10 to OCAU readers on the proviso they write a review of the case within 3 weeks. So if you want to give it a go, get your entry in by Sunday.
Storage:
SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD on OCC
Synology DS415play Four Bay NAS on TweakTown
Samsung 845DC PRO Enterprise SSD on TweakTown
Verbatim Store 'n' Save 1TB USB 3.0 Desktop Hard Drive on ModSynergy.com
Motherboard:
Gigabyte-Z97X-UD3H on Ocaholic
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK Motherboard on Techgage
Asus ROG Maximus VII Formula (Intel Z97) Motherboard on TweakTown
Gigabye GA-Z97X Gaming GT LGA1150 ATX Motherboard on Futurelooks
PSU:
Corsair HX750i Power Supply on ThinkComputers
Corsair RM Series 1000W on Tech Powerup
Mouse:
Tt eSPORTS THERON Gaming Mouse on Legit Reviews
Aorus Thunder M7 Mouse on Hardware Heaven
Gaming:
The Walking Dead Zen Pinball (PS4) on Gaming Nexus
Risen 2: Dark Waters 2-Years Later on OCC
Misc:
AVerMedia ExtremeCap U3 Capture Device on Hardware Secrets
Motorola Moto E Smartphone on Techspot
HIS Radeon R9 280 IceQ X2 OC 3GB Overclocked Video Card on TweakTown
Aerocool DS200 Mid-Tower on Vortez
bequiet! Shadow Rock Slim Heatsink on Hardware Asylum
MSI GS70 Stealth Pro Gaming Laptop on Techspot
Forum Projects
(1 Comments)
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Wednesday, 27-August-2014 21:58:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a few reviews and projects from people in the forums:
Wednesday Night
(10 Comments)
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Wednesday, 27-August-2014 21:15:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Mostly getting back up to speed again now..
A cost-benefit analysis of the NBN has been released, and it claims the current Government's plan is better than the previous one's. An independent panel commissioned by the Government found the Coalition's multi-technology plan to roll out high-speed internet had greater net benefits than Labor's model of fibre to the premises. The review modelled four scenarios and found the Government's model would deliver about $18 billion in net benefits compared to almost $2 billion under Labor. More here.
There's now a 64-bit version of Chrome for Windows. 64-bit Chrome offers many benefits for speed, stability and security. Our measurements have shown that the native 64-bit version of Chrome has improved speed on many of our graphics and media benchmarks. For example, the VP9 codec that’s used in High Definition YouTube videos shows a 15% improvement in decoding performance. Stability measurements from people opted into our Canary, Dev and Beta 64-bit channels confirm that 64-bit rendering engines are almost twice as stable as 32-bit engines when handling typical web content. Which would make it about 1000x more stable than the Firefox install on this PC lately.
Seagate have shipped the first 8TB drives. An important step forward in storage, the 8TB hard disk drive provides scale-out data infrastructures with supersized-capacity, energy-efficiency and the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) in the industry for cloud content, object storage and back-up disaster recovery storage.
Tweaktown have a circuit and overclocking guide to Gigabyte's Z97X-UD5H board. A new feature TweakTown is Motherboard Circuit and Overclocking articles. Check out Steven Bassiri's guide covering the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H motherboard.
If you've ever wondered if pushing the pedestrian crossing button actually does anything, News.com.au have the answer. And more importantly, will smashing the button repeatedly hurry it up even more, or are you just earning yourself death stares from fellow walkers? Whether you’re a waiter or a button-pusher, here are the answers you’ve been waiting for. Spoiler: it depends.
Apple is said to be releasing a 12.9 inch iPad for early 2015. Apple currently produces iPads with 9.7-inch and 7.9-inch displays. The Cupertino, California-based company has been working with suppliers for at least a year to develop a new range of larger touch-screen devices, said the people.
Apparently you can work out the best place to put your WiFi router to get the best reception in your home, using physics. A few posts back I was concerned with optimising the WiFi reception in my flat, and I chose a simple method for calculating the distribution of electromagnetic intensity. I casually mentioned that I really should be doing things more rigorously by solving the Helmholtz equation, but then didn’t. Well, spurred on by a shocking amount of spare time, I’ve given it a go here.
Daron sent in news about an ATM that has opened in Canberra that accepts and exchanges cryptocurrencies. The alternative online currencies are gaining traction nationally, with observers estimating there are close to 50,000 users in Australia.
PC Perspective have a guide on Delidding your Intel Haswell CPU. The delidding procedure involves physically removing the heat spreader from the CPU, exposing the CPU die.
Tech Powerup have posted a i7-4790k vs i7-4770k comparison guide. Intel released the Intel Core i7-4790K, which created quite the stir with Intel Core i7-4770K owners. Does the Intel Core i7-4790K outperform the Intel Core i7-4770K in every way or does it fall a little flat? If you already own a 4770K, is the upgrade worth it?
A British couple have been accused of stealing £10,000 by exploiting their debit card that was apparently increasing their balance instead of reducing it. Both the man and the woman pleaded guilty to fraud, because though they didn’t realize it wasn’t just a magic “opposite day” kind of thing at first, once they did, they kept on taking advantage of the card.
The Lobby group Gotta Love Logan and Mayor Pam Parker have pressured Google into removing an unflattering image that appeared in search results of the race riots that happened in Woodridge in January last year. Instead, a search now returns a map of Logan and an idyllic image of a local public swimming pool.
After Google's deal to acquire Twitch had fallen through, Amazon.com has agreed to buy the videogame streaming site for $1.06b (AUD) cash. Though little-known outside of tech and gaming, Twitch, founded in 2011, is the fourth-largest source of US internet traffic, behind only Netflix, Google and Apple, according to network researcher DeepField.
Storage:
ADATA Premier SP610 256GB SATA Solid State Drive on Future Looks
Plextor M6 Pro SSD on HardwareHeaven
Transcend SSD370 128GB SSD on PureOverclock
Silicon Power Slim S70 240GB SSD on NikKTech
Plextor M6 PRO SSD with PlexTurbo Caching Layer Technology on TweakTown
Synology DiskStation DS415play on Legion Hardware
Motherboard:
Asus H97-PRO Gamer Motherboard on Hardware Secrets
MSI Z97I AC (Intel Z97) Mini-ITX Motherboard on TweakTown
Case:
Streacom FC08 Evo Case on ocaholic
Corsair Carbide Air 240 Chassis on Techgage
CM HAF Stacker 935 Mod-Tower Case on PC Perspective
Cooling:
Cryorig R1 Universal CPU Cooler on Madshrimps
DeepCool MAELSTROM 240 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler on NikKTech
Mouse:
XTracGear Ripper Mousing Surface on APH Networks
Roccat Kone Pure Military Edition Mouse on HardwareHeaven
Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Hybrid Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers.org
Misc:
ASUS Xonar Essence STX II 7.1 Sound Card on TechPowerUp
Intel Haswell-E and X99 Chipset on ThinkComputers.org
ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q on TweakTown
Digital Storm Bolt II Small Form Factor PC on Legit Reviews
One Piece Unlimited World Red (PS3) on Gaming Nexus
HIS R9 290 iPower IceQ X2 OC 4GB GDDR5 Video Card on Madshrimps
Amazon Fire Phone on Hot Hardware
Adata XPG 2933 MHz DDR3 on Guru3D
Far out, I seem to be flitting from flu to flu lately. Spent most of today passed out in bed, dosed up to my eyeballs..
Time's running out to offer your thoughts on the Online Copyright Infringement Discussion Paper from the Attorney-General and Communications Minister. Submissions are sought from interested members of the public. We encourage all members and supporters to make a submission. Below is a summary of the proposals in the Discussion Paper, followed by a guide to making a submission and our suggestions on answers to specific questions. The closing date for submissions is Monday 1st September 2014.
There was an earthquake in California, and people wearing fitness trackers provided an interesting insight into its effects, thanks Tabris. Napa, Sonoma, Vallejo, and Fairfield were less than 15 miles from the epicenter. Almost all (93%) of the UP wearers in these cities suddenly woke up at 3:20AM when the quake struck. Farther from the epicenter, the impact was weaker and more people slept through the shaking. In San Francisco and Oakland, slightly more than half (55%) woke up. As we look even farther, the effect becomes progressively weaker — almost no UP wearers in Modesto and Santa Cruz (and others between 75 and 100 miles from the epicenter) were woken up by the earthquake, according to UP data.
Speaking of gadgets, you can now use them on Qantas and Virgin, for the whole flight. Travellers on Qantas and Virgin will be able to keep their electronic devices powered on during all phases of flight from Tuesday. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority on Monday approved applications from both airlines that will allow passengers to keep their phones, tablets and e-readers on even during take-off or landing. The devices will need to remain in "flight mode" throughout the flight.
If you've fallen behind on the whole 3D printing thing, engadget have a field guide to get you up to speed. Sure, 3D printing is such a tech industry buzzword that you’d have to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to escape news of its impending onslaught. But there’s good reason for all the fanfare: 3D printing is poised to upend current manufacturing standards by making industrial fabrication methods democratic. Imagine: Any object you want or need can be (somewhat) instantly “printed” at home. Let that sink in for a bit.
Meanwhile, AMD are celebrating 30 years of graphics and gaming innovation in a recent Twitch video.
Cooling:
Deepcool MaelStrom 240 all-in-one liquid cooler on Ocaholic
Zalman Reserator 3 Max Dual all-in-one liquid cooler on TechPowerUp
Storage:
Crucial MX100 256GB Solid State Drive on Madshrimps
Kingwin EZ-Clone USI-2535CLU3 USB 3.0 Storage Adapter on TweakTown
Kingston V310 SSD on HardwareHeaven
QNAP HS-210 Network Attached Storage on APH Networks
Samsung EVO 32GB SDHC UHS I Memory Card on TweakTown
Case:
Thermaltake Core V71 Full-Tower Case on Legit Reviews
In Win 901 on Tech PowerUp
Streacom FC8 EVO Fanless Chassis on PureOverclock
XFX Type-01 Bravo on Vortez
Motherboard:
Supermicro X9SRL-F-O (Intel C602) Server Motherboard on TweakTown
ASUS Maximus VII Impact on Ocaholic
ASUS P9A-I/C2550/SAS/4L (Intel Avoton) Server Motherboard on TweakTown
Phone/Portable:
Samsung Galaxy S5 Sport on Hot Hardware
Rosewill Powerbank RCBR-13020 11,200mAh Mobile Battery on TweakTown
Networking:
D-Link DIR-880L AC1900 Wi-Fi Router on Bigbruin
Netgear EX6200 Wifi Extender on Hardware Heaven
Misc:
ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit on Think Computers
Elite Screens ezCinema Plus 100” on LanOC
AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Thunderbolt 2 Expansion Chassis on TweakTown
ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit on Legit Reviews
Tesoro Lobera Supreme Full Color Illumination Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on NikkTech
Sniper Elite 3 (PS4) on Gaming Nexus
Antec High Current Pro Platinum 1000W (HCP-1000) Power Supply on NikkTech
Roccat Kave XTD 5.1 Digital Headset on Benchmark Reviews
HIS Radeon R9-290X Hybrid ICEQ on Guru3D
Thanks to Jonas and t1mbot this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Interesting Forum Threads
(1 Comments)
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Thursday, 21-August-2014 17:33:18 (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.
Big air or (AIO) water? in Overclocking & Hardware.
Quick thoughts about the Bitfenix Colossus Venom in Overclocking & Hardware.
AMD announces new Athlon and FX chips in AMD x86 CPUs and chipsets.
How to test SSD is ok? in Troubleshooting Help.
Munich, Germany realizes that deploying Linux was a disaster in Other Operating Systems.
Onewheel skateboard - segway meets hoverboard in Hobby Engineering.
Toshiba Encore 8 and Windows 8 as a tablet OS in Portable & Small Form Factor.
[Review] 30" First F301GD Live (updated with calibration) in Video Cards & Monitors.
McDonald’s to begin home deliveries in QLD's most obese region in Geek Food.
South America in 8 weeks time for 6+ months in Holidays & Travel.
‘Impossible’ space drive tested by NASA in Science.
HSV to build "Superute" in Motoring.
How to change your Spark Plugs and Re-Gap them in Motoring.
The robot (automation) revolution is coming in Career, Education & Finance.
It appears I am a dabbler in Career, Education & Finance.
Buying property in the US - NYC in Career, Education & Finance.
The Emerging Education of Tomorrow in Career, Education & Finance.
Why is unemployment the highest it's been since 2002? in Career, Education & Finance.
What is your resting heart rate? in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Any OCAU Doomsday preppers? in Lifestyle.
Netflix CEO: We Surpassed HBO in Subscriber Revenue, Reached 'Milestone' in Entertainment.
Metadata retention scheme now a go in Politics & Policies.
Assume Disney build a lifesize Star Destroyer: What to add? in The Pub.
Had a great idea but missed my chance - figure I'm not alone in The Pub.
Thursday Afternoon
(2 Comments)
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Thursday, 21-August-2014 16:58:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The ATO have announced they will not be treating Bitcoin as money, instead taxing it like a non-cash barter transaction, which has been received as bad news for the industry. "The way they've chosen to interpret how it should be applied is unfortunately very stifling for emerging Australian digital currency businesses and the industry as a whole," said Ron Tucker, the chair of the Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association and a partner at BitTrade, a digital currency trading service. "It's essentially a double GST effect. It is adding 10 per cent tax on the entire supply of the Bitcoin."
Steve Ballmer has stepped down from Microsoft's board, thanks Skymaster. Since leaving Microsoft, "I have become very busy," Ballmer added, citing his purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, civic activities and teaching. "I have confidence in our approach of mobile-first, cloud-first, and in our primary innovation emphasis on platforms and productivity." Ballmer noted that he holds more Microsoft shares than anyone apart from index funds, and expects "to continue holding that position for the foreseeable future."
Banshee sent in an update to Tech Report's SSD Endurance Experiment. Have we really not mentioned this since June? I feel for the subjects of our SSD Endurance Experiment. They didn't volunteer for this life. These consumer-grade drives could have ended up in a corporate desktop or grandma's laptop or even an enthusiast's PC. They could have spent their days saving spreadsheets and caching Internet files and occasionally making space for new Steam downloads. Instead, they ended up in our labs, on the receiving end of a torturous torrent of writes designed to kill them.
Mario spotted this series of articles about young(ish) innovators, and one one vietnamese-australian with a talent for big data. When Ng’s results became public in 2012, they sparked a race at Facebook, Microsoft, and other companies to invest in deep-learning research. Without any human guidance, his system had learned how to detect cats, people, and over 3,000 other objects just by ingesting 10 million images from YouTube videos. It proved that machines could learn without labored assistance from humans, and reach new levels of accuracy to boot. The technique is now used in Google’s image search and speech-recognition software.
eTeknix have a graphics card overclocking guide featuring the AMD Gigabyte R9 270. This article is aimed at a specific set of people, those who have little or minimal knowledge about graphics card overclocking, but we hope that even more experienced overclockers may be able to pick up a few tips or tricks from this article.
A couple of updates - SiliconAngel pointed out that the recent Windows patch rollbacks affect many versions, not just 8.1. Lihan from Fractal Design let me know that the review contest in the forums IS an OCAU exclusive so all 10 prizes will go to OCAU readers. Very nice!
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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(link)
Thursday, 21-August-2014 16:15:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Cooltek Antiphon mid-tower on OCAholic.
CM HAF Stacker 935 Mod-Tower on PCPerspective.
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Full-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Networking:
Netgear R8000 Nighthawk X6 AC 3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router on LegitReviews.
Linksys RE6500 Portable AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender on Tweaktown.
Storage:
Angelbird SSD wrk 512GB on CustomPCReview.
AMD Radeon R7 Series SSD 240 GB on OCAholic.
AMD Radeon R7 SSD 240 GB on TechPowerUp.
Thecus N2310 Soho/Home NAS Server on MadShrimps.
Western Digital Red 6TB NAS HDD RAID on Tweaktown.
Angelbird SSD wrk 256GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
AMD Radeon R7 240GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
Seagate Wireless Plus 2TB Mobile Device Storage on NikKTech.
Kingston SSDNow V310 SSD (960GB) on TheSSDReview.
Power Supply:
TYLT Energi 3K Battery Pack Mobile Travel Charger on Tweaktown.
Seasonic X Series XM2 1250W on TechPowerUp.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 on OCAholic.
PowerColor TurboDuo Radeon R9 280 3GB OC CrossFire on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
ROCCAT Ryos MK Pro Mechanical Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
SteelSeries Sensei Wireless on Vortez.
Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury Gaming Mouse on LegitReviews.
Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury gaming mouse on TechSpot.
AMDIAS HADES Extension Mouse on HWHeaven.
Audio Visual:
Asus' ROG Swift PG278Q G-Sync monitor on TechReport.
AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable Capture Device on HWSecrets.
Misc:
Zotac's Zbox ID92 mini-PC on TechReport.
Raijintek Pallas Low Profile Heatsink on HWAsylum.
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming GT Motherboard on ThinkComputers.
MicroQuill SmartHeap Overview - Improve your SPEC CPU2006 Scores on Tweaktown.
Fractal Design Contest
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 20-August-2014 12:18:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Fractal Design are running a contest in the forums (although it doesn't seem to be OCAU-specific). You can win one of their new cases if you're willing to review it:
click for the thread
Wednesday Morning
(9 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 20-August-2014 02:36:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Quite a few people have pointed out that Whirlpool are being sued over negative posts in their forums. A financial services business licensed through National Australia Bank is suing an online forum for refusing to remove an allegedly fake and negative post about its services, claiming it has damaged its reputation with would-be clients. More coverage on Slashdot, reddit, smartcompany and the SMH.
Some more positive news from Jimbogimp: Awesome news from Newcastle based ELMOFO this weekend. In a world first we won TWO races in the SuperSports Series at Wakefiled Park over petrol vehicles. Here's a pretty decent write up on what transpired. Here's the thread and some rudimentary mobile phone footage. All the guys are pretty stoked and currently preparing for the final round in about 10 weeks time.
From Davros123, info about a Kickstarter thermal imager: Full disclosure: I saw this on Hackaday and immediately backed this project (my first kickstarter backing) but thought it might make a good front page news item for ocau readers too. I plan to use this to improve the energy efficiency of my home (ie. target air leaks) but I know our members would also find it very useful for analysing heat flows from PC's and other devices.
Case:
Corsair Carbide Air 240 Micro-ATX Chassis on eTeknix
Cooler Master Elite 110 mini-ITX case on Techreport
Corsair Carbide Spec 01 Gaming Case on Madshrimps
Cooltek Antiphom Case on Ocaholic
Storage:
Angelbird SSD wrk 512 GB on TechPowerUp
Angelbird SSD wrk SSD Review (512GB) on The SSD Review
Angelbird SSD WRK 256 GB SSD on Guru3D
Samsung XP941 128GB PCIe SSD on TweakTown
Angelbird SSD wrk 256GB SSD on Legit Reviews
Angelbird SSD wrk 512GB on PC Perspective
Kingston HyperX FURY 240GB SSD on Nikktech
Kingston HyperX FURY 240 GiB SSD on Hardware Secrets
AMD Radeon R7 Series 240GB SSD on Hot Hardware
AMD Radeon R7 SSD on Tech Report
AMD Radeon R7 240GB Gaming SSD on TweakTown
OCZ AMD Radeon R7 SSD Review (240GB) on The SSD Review
AMD Radeon R7 SSD on Hardware Heaven
AMD Radeon R7 Series 240GB SSD on Guru3D
Mouse:
EVGA TORQ X10 Gaming Mouse on Techgage
Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury Mouse on Hardware Heaven
XTracGear Carbonic Mousing Surface on APH Networks
Misc:
LUXA2 PL2 6000mAh Leather Power Bank on NikkTech
D-Link DSP-W215 Wi-Fi Smart Plug on TweakTown
HIS Multi View Display Adapters on PureOverclock
Diamond UGA USB 3.0/2.0 to DVI/HDMI/VGA Adapter on OCC
Cooler Master Nepton 280L AIO Liquid CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers
XFX PRO 450W Core Edition Non-Modular Power Supply on eTeknix
Ultra Street Fighter IV PC Game on TweakTown
MSI / Blizzard Contest
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 18-August-2014 16:56:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Blizzard and MSI are giving away some stuff to celebrate the launch of the GT72 Dominator gaming notebook. Looks like a pretty easy one to enter:
click for the thread!
Monday Afternoon
(9 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 18-August-2014 16:21:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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EFA have made a Can I Watch It? website, showing the difficulty of legally obtaining new release movies in Australia. We know that Australian theatrical, DVD and VOD releases lag behind the rest of the world by as much as months. Australians aren't reluctant to pay for content - a Pocketbook study found that despite the fact that it is actively geoblocked in Australia, Nexflix is the second most popular paid-content media company in Australia. With a desire to keep up with the rest of the world and a willingness to pay for it, are there legal digital alternatives to movie piracy in Australia?
Microsoft are advising to roll back some Win8.1 patches issued recently. Since the patch rollout, it's been discovered that four individual updates are causing random BSoD issues for its users, with KB2982791, a kernel-mode related driver, being the biggest culprit. Because of the bug's severity, Microsoft is recommending that anyone who updated go and uninstall a couple of the specific updates, or rollback using Windows Restore. Discussion here.
5tumpy sends word that they need at least one more team for the OCAU Fantasy Football league, so if you're keen, find out more towards the end of this thread.
Sharks have been attacking the internet, or at least, undersea cables. Vision has emerged showing sharks munching away on the cables, mistaking them for dinner. Google has been forced to take action, reinforcing parts of the trans-Pacific fibre-optic cables and wrapping them in material to keep the sharks at bay.
|Renegade|'s Race for Charity is gaining momentum in the forums. When I saw the record broken in Mariokart, I certainly found respect for the four guys that pulled it off, but I knew straight away that it was worth taking it one step further in the interest of charity. Here we are.
MadShrimps report from Gigabyte Extreme OC 2014 in Germany. At the EOC the best overclocking teams of Germany have a chance to prove who is still king. The main organizer behind each event is Germany’s finest Roman Hartung also known as der8auer at HWBot.org. This year besides Gigabyte also G.Skill, Intel, Seasonic and Gelid solutions provided the required hardware and funds to allow this clash of the titans to take place at the Know Cube at the Heilbronn Tech University.
Meanwhile eTeknix compared AMD Gaming Evolved and NVIDIA Gaming Experience. At the core of both these GPU software offerings is the assumption that it should make life easier for gamers with features such as game-optimisation and automated driver updates. But they should also give gamers more unique functionality and incentives to use the software: such as rewarding gamers for using the software and giving them premium software capabilities like hardware level gameplay recording.
BC sent in this comic book auction.. at $1.75M and climbing. This is THE comic book that started it all. This comic features not only the first appearance of Superman, Clark Kent and Lois Lane, but this comic began the entire superhero genre that has followed during the 76 years since. It is referred to as the Holy Grail of comics and this is the finest graded copy to exist with perfect white pages. This is .... the Mona Lisa of comics and stands alone as the most valuable comic book ever printed.
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 17-August-2014 16:10:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
GIGABYTE Z97N-GAMING 5 (Intel Z97) Mini-ITX on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK Z97 Motherboard on APHNetworks.
ASUS Z97-Deluxe & Z97-A on OCClub.
ASUS Maximus VII Formula on OCAholic.
Storage:
Brinell Single-Action Stick 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on NikKTech.
OCZ ARC 100 240GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GB SSD on TechSpot.
Kingston SM2280S3 120GB M.2 SATA SSD on LegitReviews.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB Vapor-X OC on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte GeForce 750Ti Ultra Durable BLACK EDITION on MadShrimps.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 Smart Phone on LegitReviews.
Shuttle Slim-PC DS81 w/ Pentium G3258 on TechPowerUp.
Cases:
Corsair Carbide Air 240 cube case on TechPowerUp.
Corsair Carbide Air 240 on Guru3D.
Corsair Carbide AIR 240 on Vortez.
Video Perspective: Corsair Carbide Air 240 Micro-ATX on PCPerspective.
Cooling:
Thermalright Archon IB-E X2 CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Deepcool MaelStrom 120 all-in-one watercooler on OCAholic.
Audio Visual:
GAMDIAS HEPHAESTUS headset on Vortez.
ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q G-SYNC Monitor on HotHardware.
BenQ RL2240HE 60Hz 21.5-inch LED Gaming Monitor on Tweaktown.
Misc:
Corsair HX750i PSU Launch Review on HWHeaven.
Roccat ISKU FX Gaming Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
It's Friday again!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 15-August-2014 12:59:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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EFA have a petition against data retention, thanks alch. Police and intelligence agencies already have broad powers to request that information about the communications of specified individuals be retained to support their investigations. What they're seeking now is for that information to be retained for two years for ALL Australians, even if you're not being investigated.
The new reversible USB standard has been finalised. The USB Promoter Group has announced that the greatest invention in the known universe — the reversible Type-C USB connector — is finally ready for mass production. I can already hear the Mac fanboys telling us they've had reversible connectors for ages.
President Obama seems to have spoken out in support of net neutrality. The F.C.C. is trying to decide whether telecommunications companies should be able to strike deals with powerful firms like Netflix and Amazon for faster delivery of videos and other data to consumers. Mr. Obama’s statement about “the next Google” highlights one of the biggest problems with such agreements: Small and young businesses will not be able to compete against established companies if they have to pay fees to telephone and cable companies to get content to users in a timely manner.
Some high-tech undies have had an advertisement banned for false claims. The advertising watchdog has banned a hi-tech underwear brand – backed by Sir Richard Branson as “underpants for superheroes” – from claiming its “mesh of pure silver” can protect men’s genitals from radiation emitted by mobile phones.
DirectX 12 will be particularly helpful on thermally-constrained devices like tablets, say Tech Report. On those devices, cutting CPU utilization will free up part of the limited power and thermal budget so that it can be spent on graphics. The result, then, won't just be better performance with lower-clocked CPUs. Users will also get to enjoy stronger overall GPU performance.
They also spoke to AMD's newly appointed Gaming Scientist. Huddy gave us some dirt on the incoming wave of FreeSync monitors, but that wasn't all. He also provided an update on Mantle, and he revealed some interesting details about AMD's role in the development of the next-gen OpenGL API.
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 14-August-2014 23:48:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming G1 Motherboard on HWAsylum.
MSI Devils Canyon Roundup on LanOC.
MSI Z97 XPOWER AC on Bjorn3D.
MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC on Bjorn3D.
AMD A10-7800 Kaveri APU on NeoSeeker.
Power Supply:
Corsair HX750i PSU on Guru3D.
LUXA2 EnerG 6600mAh Portable Battery Bank on Tweaktown.
CHIL PowerShare Reactor 5.1 Amp Multi-Device Charger on NikKTech.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Asus C200 Chromebook on TechWareLabs.
ASUS X200MA: 11.6-inch Bay Trail Notebook on SilentPCReview.
Video Cards:
GeForce GTX 650 Ti vs. GTX 750 Ti on OCAholic.
Sapphire Tri-X R9-290X on Vortez.
Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Zone Edition (Silent/Passive Cooler) on HWHeaven.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
NZXT Kraken X31 & X41 Liquid CPU Coolers on SilentPCReview.
Storage:
OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB PCIe SSD on NeoSeeker.
OCZ ARC 100 SSD on HWHeaven.
OCZ ARC 100 Series 240GB Value SSD on Tweaktown.
OCZ ARC 100 Series SSD on Guru3D.
OCZ ARC 100 240GB SSD on LegitReviews.
OCZ ARC 100 240GB on LegionHW.
OCZ ARC 100 240GB Solid State Drive on HotHardware.
OCZ ARC 100 240GB SATA SSD on PCPerspective.
OCZ's Arc 100 solid-state drive on TechReport.
OCZ Arc 100 240 GB on OCAholic.
OCZ ARC 100 SSD on TheSSDReview.
OCZ Arc 100 240GB SSD on TechSpot.
Toshiba HG6 256GB (THNSNJ256GCSU) SSD on NikKTech.
Cases:
Phanteks Enthoo Pro on TechPowerUp.
Deepcool Steam Castle B Micro-ATX on Tweaktown.
DeepCool Steam Castle mATX on eTeknix.
BitFenix Neos on BenchmarkReviews.
Networking:
Netis Beacon N300 Wireless Gaming Router on TechWareLabs.
D-Link DIR-880L AC1900 Wireless Router on Tweaktown.
Forum Projects
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Wednesday, 13-August-2014 14:37:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some more projects and reviews from the forums:
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 13-August-2014 11:15:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's some preview info on Intel's Broadwell architecture on HotHardware, PCPerspective and LegitReviews. No other semiconductor manufacturer in the world is building chips at the level of Intel's 14nm (nanometer) process node; even large memory manufacturers like Toshiba and Samsung are just now hitting 19nm. As we've reported previously, the processor Intel is rolling out for its first volume production vehicle at 14nm is code named "Broadwell." And, as we learned in a recent meeting at the Intel's Hillsboro, Oregon development and fab center, the first processor family based on Intel's Broadwell microarchitecture, will be known as Core M.
Meanwhile over on Anandtech they checked out AMD's 5GHz Turbo CPU. While AMD’s FX-9590 CPU has been in systems for over a year, it suddenly comes to market as a retail package for end-users to buy with a bundled liquid cooling system. This 220W CPU that has a turbo speed of 5.0 GHz still sits at the top of AMD’s performance stack, despite subsequent improvements in the architecture since. We have decided to grab ASRock’s 990FX Extreme9 and an FX-9590 for a review to see if it still is the AMD performance CPU champion.
The IBM PC turned 33 recently. Trying to re-create some of the excitement of an event that happened 33 years ago is a challenge for anyone but a good place to start is with the bald facts. On the 12 August 1981, IBM, at that time the largest computer company in the world, launched the IBM PC.
Everlong sent in this quite cool Hyperlapse video idea. We present a method for converting first-person videos, for example, captured with a helmet camera during activities such as rock climbing or bicycling, into hyper-lapse videos, i.e., time-lapse videos with a smoothly moving camera. Makes more sense when you watch the sample video.
If videos are your thing and you're looking for a job, one Sydney startup says they have the world's best internship. An Australian start-up is offering one university graduate what it claims is “the world’s best internship” with a $100,000 role that it will customise to suit the successful applicant. Sydney-based internet company Alphatise, which only launched in Australia last week, will open applications for the role today, with applicants required to submit a 60-second video pitch.
But if the thought of applying for 40 jobs a month is getting you down, mpot noticed an app which could help. However, if the legislation does pass the Senate, those out of work will no doubt be happy to know the entire process can be automated with one simple Android app - DoleBludger. The free app lets you attach documents from your mobile device, and then send them off to the politicians of your choice, selected via party, state, and name. The app will even present a 'DoleBludgener of the Week', to "See which politician is out there trying to tear up your benefits this week."
The ABC has a radio programme covering data retention and privacy in Australia. To protect against home-grown terrorism and other criminal threats, the government wants telecommunications companies to retain details of your phone and internet use for two years. So should we trade off privacy for security or is this surveillance by the state a threat to civil liberties?
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 13-August-2014 01:27:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Core i7-4790K vs i7-4770K Gaming-Performance on OCAholic.
Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 “Ivy Bridge-EP” Processor on eTeknix.
ASUS Z97 Pro (Intel Z97) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
AMD A10-7800 APU Processor on BenchmarkReviews.
ASRock Z97 OC Formula on OCaholic.
Storage:
Synology DS412+ - Network Attached Storage on FunkyKit.
Samsung 850 PRO 256GB on PureOC.
Corsair Flash Voyager GTX on HWHeaven.
Kingston HyperX Fury 240GB SATA SSD on FutureLooks.
SSD Endurance Diary with OCZ Vector 256 GB on OCaholic.
Cases:
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Full-Tower on Tweaktown.
Phanteks Case Accessories on ThinkComputers.
Phanteks Enthoo Pro on FunkyKit.
Cooler Master N600 on ThinkComputers.
Fractal Design Core 3500 on Guru3D.
Input Etc:
Tesoro Lobera Supreme keyboard on Vortez.
Gigabyte Aivia Osmium keyboard on OCAholic.
SteelSeries Sensei Wireless Gaming Mouse on Techgage.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Nvidia's Shield Tablet on TechReport.
VicoVation Marcus 3 XHD 1296p Car Dash Camera on NikKTech.
Asus Zenfone 5 on TechSpot.
Video Cards:
ASUS GeForce GTX 750 STRIX OC Edition on OCAholic.
GIGABYTE Radeon R9 280 WINDFORCE 3GB OC on Tweaktown.
AMD Eyefinity on Vortez.
Audio Visual:
Orbit Concepts DELOOP Headphone Bag on MegaTechReviews.
ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q 144Hz G-Sync Gaming Monitor on Tweaktown.
ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q 27-in Monitor on PCPerspective.
ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q G-SYNC Monitor on OCClub.
Misc:
Sumo Omni Reloaded foldy chair on Phoronix.
Cooler Master V750 PSU on HWHeaven.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare game on GamingNexus.
Monday Morning
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Monday, 11-August-2014 00:52:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Russian hackers have apparently gathered a huge pile of stolen data, thanks slavewone. A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, security researchers say.
IBM are mimicking the human brain again. A lot has changed in the three years since IBM first unveiled a prototype of its human brain-inspired SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) chip. That single-core prototype has now been significantly scaled up, leading to a new, production-ready SyNAPSE chip that blows past its predecessor with 1 million neurons, 256 million synapses and 4,096 neurosynaptic cores, all the while only requiring 70mW of power.
Classic PC gaming label Sierra may be coming back, but there's not much info. Sierra Interactive used to be one of the great developers (and publishers) in the world of PC gaming. They've been dead for a while now, but this teaser website put up by Activision suggests a return (at GamesCom) is imminent.
Some geeks are controlling an abandoned satellite. For the first time in history, an independent crew is taking control of a NASA satellite and running a crowdfunded mission. They’re doing it all from a makeshift mission control center in an abandoned McDonald’s in Mountain View, CA, using old radio parts from eBay and a salvaged flat screen TV.
HyRax1 noticed that Sam Sung no longer works for Apple and is auctioning off his business card for charity. An image of his business card was found to be quite comic by the tech community. It went viral, but he had very little to say about the matter, as Apple’s policies wouldn’t allow him to comment much on the case. He is no longer working for Apple and has a single business card left. What to do with this one-of-a-kind piece of paper?
Monday Morning Reviews
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Monday, 11-August-2014 00:09:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
AMD A10-7800 & A6-7400K APUs Run Great On Linux on Phoronix.
Gigabyte Z97N-Gaming 5 Motherboard on HWHeaven.
Power Supply:
Super Flower Leadex Platinum 1000W Modular PSU on eTeknix.
Cooler Master V750 Semi-Modular PSU on eTeknix.
Cooling:
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme Liquid CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Cooler Master Nepton 280L Liquid CPU Cooler on HWHeaven.
Storage:
Silicon Motion SM2256 with Toshiba TLC A19 Flash SSD on Tweaktown.
Leef Supra 3.0 and Ice 3.0 16GB Flash Drive on LegitReviews.
Toshiba THNSNJ HG6 256 GB SSD on TechPowerUp.
Audio Visual:
Wavemaster Moody 2.1 Rev 2 Speaker on eTeknix.
BitFenix Flo Premium PC Headset on NikKTech.
Misc:
D-Link DCH-S150 Wi-Fi Motion Sensor on Tweaktown.
BitFenix Prodigy M Micro-ATX case on Tweaktown.
Kingston HyperX Fury HX318C10FK2/16 2x8GB DDR3 RAM on APHNetworks.
AVADirect Quiet Gaming PC on Tweaktown.
Sacred 3 PC game on Techgage.
Thanks to KonMan, Smat and Russell this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 8-August-2014 13:08:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
AMD A10-7800 and A6-7400K on PCPerspective.
MSI Z97 MPower Motherboard on ThinkComputers.
Storage:
Silicon Power Slim S60 240GB SSD on NikKTech.
Samsung SSD 845DC EVO Solid State Drive on HotHardware.
Crucial MX100 512GB SSD on Tweaktown.
SanDisk Extreme PRO 240 - 480 and 960 GB SSD on Guru3D.
Transcend SSD340 (256GB) on Anandtech.
Misc:
G.Skill TridentX 4x8GB DDR3-2666 CL12 1.65V on OCAholic.
Striker Capsule Task Light on BenchmarkReviews.
OtterBox Preserver Waterproof Case for Galaxy S4 on ModSynergy.
Phobya Pure Performance Kit 240LT CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master V550 PSU on PureOC.
Lian Li PC-Q36 Mini-Tower on Tweaktown.
TeamAU is #1!
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Thursday, 7-August-2014 20:20:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's an update from youngpro:
My name is James 'youngpro' Trevaskis, I am a member of the Team Australia Overclocking group. Originally founded in 2008 with the intention of bringing Australian overclocking to the world, our group has grown to include the best overclockers from Australia and New Zealand.
The past 12 months has been hugely successful for us. We won he HWBOT Country cup in December 2013, took out competitions at Computex this year, held all the global world records at once (which has never been done before) and finally we are number 1 in the world rankings.
click to enlarge!
HWBOT is the global hub of overclocking, it maintains lists of all the records including individual and team rankings. Our recent records have pushed us to 1st place in the rankings.
Many of you have given us support over the years which we greatly appreciate. It assists us in developing overclocking locally, globally and keeping Australia at the top.
Here's the HWBOT news post, our Facebook and blog.
Thursday Afternoon
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Thursday, 7-August-2014 15:29:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Yesterday I mentioned the Cryptolocker variant targeting Synology NASs, and today in the forums |Renegade| has detailed his experience with network shares being encrypted. I thought I'd share this little story with the teams out there in Corporate IT land. May I hope that you avoid this issue entirely and that you catch it quicker than we could.
The BBC meanwhile have some good news for Cryptolocker victims. The malicious program encrypted files on Windows computers and demanded a substantial fee before handing over the key to the scrambled files. Thanks to security experts, an online portal has been created where victims can get the key for free. The portal was created after security researchers grabbed a copy of Cryptolocker's database of victims.
Attorney-General George Brandis has fairly spectacularly failed to explain the data retention scheme. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the policy would capture "the sites you’re visiting". But his office later clarified this was not the case and that this would require a warrant. Now Senator Brandis has confused matters again, telling Sky News that web addresses would be captured by his proposal to strengthen the powers of law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. After repeated questions over whether the sites people visited would be captured, he conceded they would be, but confusingly contradicted himself by saying his policy wouldn’t extend to web surfing.
AMD are apparently going to enter the SSD market. The AMD SSD is part of a partnership with Toshiba, which recently bought out the bankrupt OCZ Technology SSD maker. Much like the DDR memory deal, it looks like the partner is doing all the heavy lifting while AMD puts its name on it.
Gizmodo have an interesting article about whether downloading movies is illegal or not. Unlike some, I don’t support the notion that if a movie, TV show or album is too expensive, it’s ok to download it. In the same way as it’s not ok to sneak into a cinema or a gig if I don’t like the ticket price. We’re talking about entertainment here, not a lifesaving drug which a patent owner is refusing to make. But, despite what the copyright owners’ associations would have you believe, copyright infringement by downloading for personal use is not theft and it’s not a crime. Here’s why.
NZ motorcycling legend Burt Munro has broken another record - 36 years after his death. His astute son John realized a mathematical error was made on one of Burt’s runs. It was for the AMA Land Speed Record in Classs S.A. 1000 on the 26th Day of August, 1967, on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. It was achieved on an Indian 953cc Fuel Streamliner. The old record was listed at 183.586 mph.
Thursday Midday Reviews
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Thursday, 7-August-2014 11:56:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 on XbitLabs.
MSI Z97 MPOWER on XbitLabs.
Cases:
Cougar MX300 on HWSecrets.
Thermaltake Commander G41 full tower on OCClub.
NZXT H440 ATX Computer Enclosure on FutureLooks.
BitFenix Comrade Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Cooltek W1 cube case on TechPowerUp.
Audio Visual:
Tt eSPORTS Sybaris Wired & Wireless Bluetooth NFC Enabled Headset on eTeknix.
IK Multimedia iLoud Studio-Quality Portable Speaker on NikKTech.
LUXA2 GroovyW Bluetooth Speaker & Wireless Charging Station on ThinkComputers.
Diamond's Xtreme Sound XS71HDU on TechReport.
Tt eSPORTS Verto Stereo Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Video Cards:
ASUS Strix GTX 780 6GB on PCPerspective.
ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II on OCAholic.
Radeon R9 270 vs. GTX 750 Ti on OCAholic.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black GHz Edition on XbitLabs.
Storage:
Toshiba Q Series Pro 256GB Three-Drive SSD RAID on Tweaktown.
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4 6TB on NeoSeeker.
Misc:
Tt eSPORTS POSEIDON Z Illuminated Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on LegitReviews.
Cooler Master V750 Semi-Modular 750W PSU on TechPowerUp.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 6-August-2014 02:29:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Skymaster pointed out this ransomware affecting Synology NASs, which seems to be a variant of Cryptolocker. Based on our current observations, this issue only affects Synology NAS servers running some older versions of DSM (DSM 4.3-3810 or earlier), by exploiting a security vulnerability that was fixed and patched in December, 2013. At present, we have not observed this vulnerability in DSM 5.0. There's an earlier thread in their forums here too. Discussion in our forums is here.
EFA are concerned that a mandatory data retention scheme seems to have been fast-tracked by the Government. EFA is alarmed that Cabinet’s National Security Committee has signed off on the fast-track implementation of a mandatory data retention scheme, apparently citing the ‘rising threat of home grown terrorism’. The Daily Telegraph reports [paywalled] that the government is believed to be seeking “an interim data retention measure…to be introduced as early as September to meet what spy agencies claim is an immediate need in the face of heightened fears of potential terrorist attacks on Australian soil”. More coverage here.
EFF meanwhile have started awarding Stupid Patent of the Month awards. But in an effort to highlight the problem of stupid patents, we’re introducing a new blog series, Stupid Patent of the Month, featuring spectacularly dumb patents that have been recently issued or asserted. With this series, we hope to illustrate by example just how badly reform is needed—at the Patent Office, in court, and in Congress.
NASA will be extracting oxygen from CO2 on Mars with a new rover mission in 2020. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) is one of seven instruments NASA will strap to the 2020 rover, totaling approximately $130 million in value.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 6-August-2014 02:04:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB Vapor-X OC on Tweaktown.
ASUS Republic of Gamers Striker Platinum GTX 760 4GB SLI on eTeknix.
ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II OC 2 GB on MadShrimps.
Storage:
Netgear ReadyNAS 516 on LegionHW.
Thecus N2560 Dual-Bay NAS Server on PCPerspective.
Synology DS414slim on TechPowerUp.
Intel SSD DC P3700 1.6TB PCIe NVMe Enterprise on Tweaktown.
Kingston SSDNow V310 960GB SSD on LegitReviews.
QNAP TS-451 Four Bay SOHO NAS on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
MSI Z97I Gaming AC mini-ITX on Techgage.
ASUS Z97-DELUXE on HWSecrets.
AMD A10-7800 Kaveri on LanOC.
Input Etc:
XTracGear Ripper Mouse Pad on BenchmarkReviews.
CM Storm QuickFire Rapid-i Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on LegitReviews.
Cases:
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe full tower on Guru3D.
SilverStone Raven SST-RV05B-W Full-Tower on Tweaktown.
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe full tower on ThinkComputers.
Cooling:
EKWB ASUS GTX 780 Ti DCII OC Full Cover Water Block on MadShrimps.
Enermax Liqtech 240 All-In-One CPU cooler on OCAholic.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Inateck MP1300 Macbook Air Laptop Bag on OCModShop.
PC Specialist Vanquish 270X System on eTeknix.
Asus MeMO Pad 7 (2014) on TechSpot.
Power Supply:
Seasonic SS-760XP2 760W on NikKTech.
Arctic Home Charger 4500 USB Adapter on FunkyKit.
Misc:
Gods Will Be Watching (GWBW) PC Game on Tweaktown.
Able Planet NC350SCT Headphones on OCModShop.
I'm normally not much of a fan of "unboxing" stories, but here's an interesting one from Errol. We've done unboxing of smartphones, tablets, even servers before. But supercomputers? Welcome to the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth, Western Australia, where we watched the unboxing of a machine that might well break the record for the largest supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere. (We won't know until its switched on!)
The Large Hadron Collider will be up and running again soon - at full power, hopefully. CERN's 27-km Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is gradually restarting after being shut down for 16 months following a major maintenance and upgrade programme. CERN scientists hope that the upgrade – costing SwFr 150m (€124m) – will now boost the energy of the collider to the full design energy of 13 TeV.
Still on the sciency side of things, it turns out Alan Turing was right - about biology, this time. Researchers have shown that BMP and WNT proteins are the so-called 'Turing molecules' for creating embryonic fingers. Findings explain why polydactyly -- the development of extra fingers or toes -- is relatively common in humans, affecting up to one in 500 births, and confirms a fundamental theory first proposed by the founding father of computer science, Alan Turing, back in 1952.
The piracy debate continues, with Malcolm Turnbull saying copyright owners need to tackle infringement directly. "It is absolutely critical that rights owners have got to be prepared to actually roll their sleeves up and take on individuals," he said. "They've got to be prepared to sue people, sue mums and dads and students who are stealing their content. They can't expect everyone else to do that for them." Discussion continues here.
Mouse:
Aorus Thunder M7 Mouse on Vortez
Rapoo 7100p Mouse on Channel Pro Network
Storage:
Synology DiskStation DS414slim NAS on Hardware Heaven
Kingston HyperX Fury 240GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix
WD Red and Red Pro HDD NAS on TweakTown
Case/PSU:
Cooler Master N600 Mid Tower on Benchmark Reviews
Chieftec DX-02B Full-Tower Chassis on eTeknix
EVGA SuperNOVA P2 1200W on TechPowerUp
Portable:
Sony Xperia M2 Android Smartphone on Megatech News
Algiz 10X Ruggedized Tablet on Channel Pro Network
Games/Movies:
Deception IV: Blood Ties on Gaming Nexus
Ghostbusters: Mastered in 4K (1984) Blu-ray Movie on TweakTown
Motherboard:
ASUS Z97-A (Intel Z97) Motherboard on TweakTown
ECS Z97 Machine Motherboard on Madshrimps
Videocard:
Sapphire Vapor-x R9 290X TRI-X OC Video Card on HardOCP
ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB OC Edition Video Card on TweakTown
Misc:
Thermalright True Spirit 140 Power CPU Cooler on Nikktech
AMD A10-7800 Kaveri on LanOC
Arctic Home Charger 4500 USB Adapter on Funkykit
Diamond Dual-Band 2.4GHz/5.0GHz Wireless 802.11n Range Extender on OCC
Thanks to HyRax1 and bugayev this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
In case you're wondering what the big deal about Net Neutrality is, Sprint in the USA have given us a very good example with their new prepaid plan. The Virgin Mobile Custom plan, sold under Sprint’s Virgin Mobile brand, provides unlimited access to one of four social media services – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest – on top of your data plan for $12 a month. An additional $10 will net unlimited use of all four, while $5 more grants unlimited streaming from any one music app.
Closer to home, Gizmodo wonder whatever happened to the IT Pricing Inquiry. One year ago today, the guns fell silent on the IT Pricing Inquiry. The Parliamentary Committee tasked with finding why we pays more for gadgets, software, music and movies fired the final shot in the form of a report to the government on how to solve the availability crisis Australia had found itself in. One year on, and nothing has happened. The Australia Tax is as bad as it ever was, and content piracy is now at epidemic levels. We’re at a tipping point, and the government isn’t doing a thing to help.
However Malcolm Turbull has turned the focus onto content owners to help people get content without having to pirate it. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called on content owners to help limit copyright infringment by making material more widely and affordably available for Australian audiences.
My phone camera has pretty much completely replaced the other cameras in my life. Techspot think I'm not alone, and have an article about smartphone camera hardware. For many people smartphone cameras have replaced standalone point-and-shoots as the go-to device for everyday photography, as they're easier to access and more compact to carry with you. But just what goes in to making a good smartphone camera? What hardware do companies use? What do pixel sizes and f-stops really mean? In this article I'll be exploring the hardware, key terms associated with photography, and some comparisons along the way.
iFixit checked out the Oculus Rift DK version 2. Oculus VR took the world by surprise last year with the Oculus Rift. This year, they seek to push their own self-created envelope with the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2. We may not have flying cars, hoverboards or (commercial) teleporters, but we do have the latest virtual reality tech. Join us as we ogle the wizardry in the Oculus Rift DK2, teardown style.
That free copy of the Sims 2 may have come with a catch, in the form of SecuROM. By now, everybody should know that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Let's apply that to EA, shall we? The publisher is giving away copies of The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection, for free... and not mentioning that it includes the controversial SecuROM anti-piracy software.
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 1-August-2014 13:15:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable & Prebuilt:
NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet on HotHardware.
Digital Storm Vanquish II (Level 4) Gaming PC on HotHardware.
NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet on Anandtech.
First impressions of Nvidia's Shield Tablet on TechReport.
NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet and Controller on PCPerspective.
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD's A10-7800 processor on TechReport.
AMD Kaveri Update: A10-7800 APU on HotHardware.
AMD Kaveri A8-7600 and A10-7800 APU on LegitReviews.
AMD A10-7800 “Kaveri” APU on eTeknix.
AMD A10-7800 Kaveri APU on Guru3D.
AMD A10-7800 Kaveri APU on TechSpot.
Biostar Hi-Fi Z97WE on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Thecus N7710-G NAS Server on NikKTech.
Phison S10 Quad-Core Performance SSD Controller on Tweaktown.
Akitio Neutrino Thunder D3 Thunderbolt / USB 3.0 DAS on Tweaktown.
Samsung 845DC PRO Review (400/800GB) on TheSSDReview.
Diamond MDS3900 DisplayLink USB to HDMI/DVI/LAN Mini Ultra Dock on Tweaktown.
USH-1 SD Card Roundup on HWHeaven.
Video Cards:
HIS IceQ R9 290X iPower Hybrid iTurbo 4GB on Tweaktown.
Palit GTX 750 Ti KalmX 2 GB on TechPowerUp.
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 680 AMP! on TechnologyX.
Cases:
SilverStone PT13 Ultra Compact Mini-ITX Thin Chassis on eTeknix.
Thermaltake Urban T81 on PureOC.
NZXT H440 Mid-Tower on ThinkComputers.
Power Supply:
PSU deathmatch: Cooler Master V750 vs. Rosewill Capstone-750-M on TechReport.
Seasonic Platinum Series 1200W on TechPowerUp.
Misc:
Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury Gaming Mouse on PCPerspective.
Kingston HyperX Cloud headset on OCAholic.
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