December 2016

Misc Pics (26 Comments) (link)  Friday, 30-December-2016  14:05:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg See you in 2017! *drops mic* Friday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 30-December-2016  14:01:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg Cyber warfare is very much a real thing today, with President Obama responding to Russian cyber activity by expelling a number of Russian diplomats from the USA, among other sanctions. Today, I have ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election. These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior. SK Hynix have another NAND fab on the way. SK Hynix has been expanding its NAND Flash manufacturing FAB in Cheongju since the completion of which in 2008. Plus, it starts to utilize the upper floor of the M14 to manufacture 3D NAND Flash from next year. Nevertheless, in order to grow further, it is important to secure production facilities in advance to deal with NAND Flash market growth to be led by 3D NAND solutions. Additionally, considering it takes more than 2 years normally to build a semiconductor FAB, the Company has determined to build the additional FAB as a result. Meanwhile Qualcomm have been hit with a huge fine for patent licensing issues. South Korean regulators say that Qualcomm's patent-licensing methods violate Korean unfair competition laws, and the company must pay a fine of 1.03 trillion won, or about $850 million or £695 million. Qualcomm has said it will fight the massive fine in court. Here's a cool in-depth look at Intel's groundbreaking 8008 processor. Intel's groundbreaking 8008 microprocessor was first produced 45 years ago.1 This chip, Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor, is the ancestor of the x86 processor family that you may be using right now. I couldn't find good die photos of the 8008, so I opened one up and took some detailed photographs. These new die photos are in this article, along with a discussion of the 8008's internal design. Discussion here in our Retro forum. Android modders will be sad to hear of the demise of CyanogenMod. This isn’t the disaster that losing Alan Rickman or Leonard Cohen was, but is a pretty sad development, as CyanogenMod brought a lot of old phones to life, especially those whose manufacturers refused to provide further Android updates for them. Wired have five achievable security resolutions for the New Year. The challenge of protecting yourself can feel so overwhelming that it’s tempting to give up on security altogether. There’s no disputing that adding more protection to your life does require some work and inconvenience. But emphasis is on some. Just like locking your bike instead of simply leaning it against a tree, taking digital security precautions is slightly annoying but very doable. So do it! Python fans will enjoy this Radio National interview with Eric Idle and John Cleese. When the Monty Python team came up with The Lumberjack Song, it was their first song. But over the years the role of music increased in the Python output on TV and film, and in live shows, and has since spawned musicals like Spamalot. Andrew Ford talked to Eric Idle and John Cleese about music and songs, getting the rhythm right and the joys of Roget's Thesaurus. OCAU xenForo Test (7 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 29-December-2016  16:18:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg OCAU will probably migrate to xenForo at some stage. There's a test install you can play with here: https://xenforo.overclockers.com.au/ Feel free to sign up and look around, post messages, test it on mobile, etc. Please don't sign up using a username that you know belongs to someone else. Please do report any issues, or ask any questions, in this thread. Thursday Morning (1 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 29-December-2016  10:32:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg A couple of articles from EFA: firstly, they feel that blocking file-sharing websites won't stop illegal downloaders. Importantly, the court refused a request that the ISPs be required to ban new domains or IP addresses as they pop up (the “whack-a-mole” problem). This is a win for due process, because it ensures that the court maintains control over the process. But it also shows that this is largely a symbolic victory. The experience from overseas shows how easy it is for a site such as The Pirate Bay to change its address faster than courts can keep up. They also caution about privacy issues with health trackers. The flow and movement of data is also creating more questions around consent and privacy. Many people remain unaware of where data is going and how it is then used. A recent draft report indicates 13% of Australians own a wearable device like the one Suzanne uses to track her running, walking and sleep. How many people know the well-being and location data these wearable devices collect travels back to the companies that sell them and is used in ways we know little about? An interesting twist on all this is the potential for smart gadgets to assist law enforcement, although in this case Amazon refused to provide the data. Amazon's Echo devices and its virtual assistant are meant to help find answers by listening for your voice commands. However, police in Arkansas want to know if one of the gadgets overheard something that can help with a murder case. According to The Information, authorities in Bentonville issued a warrant for Amazon to hand over any audio or records from an Echo belonging to James Andrew Bates. Bates is set to go to trial for first-degree murder for the death of Victor Collins next year. Closer to home, people are concerned that relaxed data retention laws could lead to the data being used in civil cases. Internet law expert John Selby, of Maquarie University, said the review raised the possibility that data retention laws, initially justified on national security grounds, could grow to include measures well beyond their original intent. "Such provisions may have seen even stronger public resistance to the law if they had been included at the time," Dr Selby said. Simon sent word that Steam have been fined $3M for failing to honour warranty requirements in Australia. A court found in May that Steam's website breached Australian Consumer Law because it stated consumers were not entitled to a refund and had no access to minimum quality guarantees. Steam must now introduce a compliance program and place an notice in size 14 type on its Australia website informing consumers about their rights. Intel's new Kaby Lake processors seem to be overclocking friendly - although liquid nitrogen was used to really push this one. The highest performing Kaby Lake processor Intel currently plans to offer is the Core i7-7700K. It runs at a stock clock speed of 4.2GHz, with Turbo increasing that to 4.5GHz. That's impressive, but as HotHardware reports, Russian website OCLab (translated) managed to get hold of a 7700K and decided to see what it could really do. Today's timewaster is from Callan: an online spirograph! Thursday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 29-December-2016  10:00:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg Cases: Spire PowerCube 715 micro ATX Chassis on FunkyKit. Raijintek Styx on TechPowerUp. SilverStone Kublai KL07 Silent Case on HWAsylum. Video Cards: Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mini (4GB GDDR5) on FunkyKit. Inno3D iChill X3 GeForce GTX 1080 Review (8GB GDDR5X) on FunkyKit. Portable & Prebuilt: MSI GT73VR Titan Pro gaming laptop on TechSpot. Gigabyte BRIX Gaming UHD Review With Teardown And Rebuild Action on HotHardware. Storage: OLALA iDisk ID100 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on APHNetworks. Samsung SSD 960 Pro 1 TB M.2 NVMe on OCInside. MyDigitalSSD BOOST 1TB External SSD on BenchmarkReviews. Misc: Seagate 512GB SSD Game Drive for Xbox on Tweaktown. Mod-One Case Feet Overview on Modders-Inc. Rosewill RMS-16003 Dual Monitor Desk Mount on ThinkComputers. Shadow Warrior 2 Performance Analysis on OCClub. Linksys WRT3200ACM AC3200 MU-MIMO Gigabit Wi-Fi Router on MadShrimps. Edifier R980T Powered Bookshelf Speaker System on NikKTech. ASUS X99-A II Motherboard on PCPerspective. ROCCAT Suora FX Gaming Keyboard on MadShrimps. Boxing Day Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 26-December-2016  04:14:20 (GMT +10) - by aftahours Storage: Crucial MX300 M.2 525GB SSD on Madshrimps Corsair Force MP500 480GB M2 SSD on Guru3D Corsair Force MP500 480GB M.2 NVMe SSD on Legit Reviews Samsung 750 EVO Full Capacity Roundup on PC Perspective Lexar Professional 512GB SDXC UHS-I Memory Card on TweakTown Seagate Backup Plus 5TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive on NikKTech Cooling: Corsair HD120 RGB LED High Performance 120mm PWM Fan on FunkyKit REEVEN BRONTES RC-1001b CPU Cooler on TweakTown Thermaltake Pacific W3 CPU Water Block on FunkyKit Thermalright Le Grand Macho RT CPU Cooler on TweakTown RAM: Crucial Ballistix Tactical DDR4-3000 32GB Memory Kit on ThinkComputers.org Team Group T-Force Night Hawk 3000 MHz DDR4 on Tech Powerup Portable & Prebuit: Cybertron CLX Ra System on Hot Hardware Zotac's Zbox Magnus EN1070 mini-PC on Tech Report Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U Versus Skylake Core i7-6500U on Legit Reviews AVADirect Avant Mini Cube Gaming PC on Custom PC Review The Flash Plus 2 Smartphone on TechARP Mouse: Ozone Exon F60 Origen Optical Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro M Mechanical Keyboard on APH Networks Videocard: NVIDIA Titan X (Pascal) on ocaholic The RX 480 vs. the 290X vs. the GTX 1060 on BabelTech Reviews Quadro P6000 And P5000 on Hot Hardware Misc: Arozzi Arena Gaming Desk on LanOC SilverStone Strider Platinum 1000W Power Supply on PC Perspective Caselabs Bullet BH7 Gaming Chassis on LanOC SteelSeries Arctis 3 Headphones on Vortez Miscy Picsmas! (25 Comments) (link)  Friday, 23-December-2016  14:45:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg Thanks to Dan, BM and mpot this week! As usual at this time of year the news page will quieten down as holidays and family time takes over. I hope you have a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for being part of OCAU in 2016, and here's to a great 2017! :) Wednesday Afternoon (3 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 21-December-2016  15:04:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg PlayerAttack have posted their thoughts on the Aussie Pirate Bay ban and some possible collateral damage. So the only real solution is to block a website by its IP address, and this is where everything falls apart. Today, as I mentioned, ThePirateBay uses a third party CDN, and has an IP address that is assigned to Cloudflare. Cloudflare, like most CDNs, shares its IP addresses among customers, so banning the IP for ThePirateBay may also impact some of Cloudflare’s other users – and these aren’t trivial. These are customers like Cisco, one of the world’s largest IT hardware providers, and the NASDAQ stock exchange. 46% of all internet traffic is web traffic and a large amount of that web traffic comes from CDNs. Meanwhile, CIO wonder if site blocking will stop pirates in Australia. I haven't read the article, but spoiler: no. Moreover, the researchers suggest that the continuing difficulty Australians meet when trying to access the latest films and television programmes through legal channels is likely to see illegal streaming rates remain relatively high in Australia. “But without legitimate means of access, consumers feel they have no choice but to download the content illegally,” they said. A few people sent word that NBN Co have changed how they inform people about NBN availability - now giving less info. NBN Co has abandoned the three-year construction plan it pledged to update every quarter in favour of an address checker web function which removes mention of the type of fixed-line technology end users will receive. Telstra meanwhile have a secret testing lab. Launched in the early 1980s, the lab began testing mobile devices in 1993 when Telstra launched Australia’s first digital mobile network, 2G, and it hasn’t looked back. In 2015, tests on more than 60 new mobile devices and at least 200 software updates were conducted. This is serious business. And mistakes are costly. Mistakes including a massive outage that wreaked havoc on 8 million consumers in March this year. eTeknix report on a year with NVMe RAID 0 in a real-world setup. There are a lot of misconception and some right information out there when it comes to the combination of solid state drives with RAID setups and what better way is there to get to the root of them than to create a real world test setup and find out. I have been running this setup for a year now and it is time to take a closer look at how well the two drives in my setup have performed. TechSpot are getting retro with their best 3Dfx Glide games. Having a specialized 3d API was arguably both the highlight and the downfall for pioneer 3Dfx. The Glide API combined with Voodoo hardware truly enhanced the gaming experience. If you are old enough, odds are you owned a 3Dfx card and played some of these games. Let us take you a trip down memory lane and remember some of the best. Also from the "Memory Lane" department (courtesy of BlueRaven) is this 1984 DAK Electronics catalogue. The catalogue features an awesome collection of very Retro gear with an hilariously enthusiastic write-up for each one. Hifi, computer equipment, telephony and general gadgetry all included. Today's timewaster is Radio Garden from BurningFeetMan. Tune in to radio stations nearby or across the world! Very cool. Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 21-December-2016  14:40:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg Audio Visual: HyperX's Cloud Stinger headset on Tech Report. SteelSeries Arctis 5 Gaming Headset on FunkyKit. Portable & Prebuilt: ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1050 Ti MINI on Guru3D. ASUS ZenFone 3 (ZE552KL) Smartphone on TechARP. MSI GS63VR 6RF Stealth Pro laptop on TechSpot. GIGABYTE BRIX BKi5A-7200 (Kaby Lake) Mini PC on Tweaktown. Gigabyte's P57X v6 gaming notebook on TechReport. Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 Razer Edition Gaming Desktop on ThinkComputers. Input Etc: Bloody B830 Mechanical Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews. Bloody B840 Keyboard on TechPowerUp. EpicGear ZorA Optical Gaming Mouse on eTeknix. Logitech G900 Chaos Spectrum Mouse on TechPowerUp. Software: Shadow Warrior 2 on OCClub. Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation on OCClub. Misc: M3D Micro 3D Printer on Tweaktown. MJX Bugs 3 Drone on ModSynergy. Secretlab TITAN Gaming Chair on Tweaktown. Energenie MiHome Gateway & Sensors Smart Home on eTeknix. Ring Stick Up Cam and Solar Panel on BigBruin. Team T-Force Night Hawk DDR4-3000 16GB Memory Kit on Tweaktown. AUKEY CC-T7 Dual Port Car Charger on BigBruin. Thermalright Macho Direct CPU Cooler on Tweaktown. AMD Radeon Pro WX Series Workstation Graphics Review: Polaris Goes Pro on HotHardware. Monday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 19-December-2016  22:07:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg Storage: Patriot Hellfire 240GB NVMe M.2 SSD on FunkyKit. KFA2 GAMER SSD L 480GB on MadShrimps. Audio Visual: ROCCAT Cross headset on Vortez. Sennheiser Momentum Headphone on ModSynergy. Stealth 350VR Multi-Format Gaming Headset on eTeknix. Noontec Zoro II Limited Edition Wireless Wi-Fi Headphones on NikKTech. Insta360 Nano 360 Camera on FunkyKit. Logitech C922 Pro Stream Webcam on LanOC. Portable & Prebuilt: Asrock Beebox-S 7200U: Kaby Lake vs. Skylake mini-PCs on TechSpot. PowerColor Devil Box Redux on OCClub. Lenovo Phab 2 Pro Review: The First Tango AR Smartphone on HotHardware. LG G5 Android Phone on APHNetworks. Input Etc: ROCCAT SKELTR Smart Communication Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown. EpicGear DeFiant Mechanical Keyboard Set on HWAsylum. Roccat Suora FX Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews. ROCCAT KIRO Modular Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown. Cases: Cooler Master MasterBox 5t Computer Case on APHNetworks. IN WIN 509 ROG Certified E-ATX on NikKTech. Cooler Master Mastercase Maker 5t on eTeknix. Memory: GeIL EVO X HILM DDR4-3000 16GB Dual-Channel Kit on Tweaktown. Mushkin Redline Ridgeback DDR4-3200 16GB RAM Kit on Tweaktown. Misc: Arozzi Vernazza Gaming Chair on Tweaktown. Swann DVR8-4550 8-Channel Full HD Security Kit on eTeknix. LiteHawk QUATTRO NEON Drone on ModSynergy. NerdyTec COUCHMASTER CYCON lapdesk on Vortez. ROCCAT Sova MK Gaming Lapboard on ThinkComputers. Cooler Master 212 LED CPU Cooler on eTeknix. Misc Pics (34 Comments) (link)  Friday, 16-December-2016  14:43:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg Thanks to Psychobunny and Dan this week! Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 16-December-2016  07:04:14 (GMT +10) - by aftahours RAM: Corsair Dominator ROG 3200C16 on ocaholic Mushkin Redline DDR4-2800 16GB Dual-Channel Kit on TweakTown Input: ROCCAT SUORA FX Gaming Keyboard on Vortez Logitech C922 Pro Stream Webcam on Techgage Software: Simplify3D 3D Printer Software on LanOC For Honor - Single player (PC) (PS4) (XBO) on Gaming Nexus For Honor - Multiplayer (PC) (PS4) (XBO) on Gaming Nexus Final Fantasy XV (PS4) on Gaming Nexus Videocard: Zotac GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme 8 GB on techPowerUp XFX RX 480 XXX GTR on OCC Portable & Prebuilt: HP Spectre x360 13 w023dx Convertible on NotebookCheck Dell Rose Gold XPS 13 (Intel Kaby Lake) Laptop on TweakTown AMD BF1 Box on TweakTown Acer Swift 7 Ultrabook on Hot Hardware Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming K3 LGA1151 Motherboard on Madshrimps.be MSI Z170M Mortar Motherboard on FunkyKit Misc: Arozzi Arena Gaming Desk on Legit Reviews Crucial MX300 2TB SSD on Guru3D Scythe Kabuto 3 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.org Creative iRoar Go Portable Speaker on Hardware Asylum Fractal Design Define C Case on ocaholic Thursday Afternoon (10 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 15-December-2016  15:45:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg Australia's Federal Court has ordered that five websites be blocked from access in Australia. The Federal Court has ordered internet companies to block five copyright-infringing websites, including torrent website The Pirate Bay. Internet companies now have 15 business days to implement the blocks. The Federal Court has allowed internet service providers (ISPs) to choose the method of blocking. The ATO has suffered a major data storage failure, although early reports of 1PB of lost data have been rebuffed. The ATO started experiencing problems on Monday, after both its primary and back-up storage systems crashed. As a result, data was corrupted and — after lengthy troubleshooting — had to be restored from other back-up sources. Yahoo meanwhile have disclosed that one billion user accounts have had their details leaked in August 2013. “The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers,” Lord added. Tweaktown have a quick guide to upgrading the storage in an Xbox One. I have always loved hacking, not the hacking that gets you into people's systems undetected to play spy games, but the kind that has you modifying things like game consoles to accept copies of game discs you backed up or in the case of the original Xbox, taking the internal 10GB HDD and replacing that with a 300GB drive and then taking things further by installing every game you own on that drive, so you never need the discs again. I am still very skeptical about the practicalities of drone deliveries, and it's surely not coincidental that Amazon have a new drone delivery breakthrough or announcement in the leadup to Christmas each year, but here we are again: they've completed their first drone delivery to a customer. It's already been three years since Amazon first revealed its somewhat audacious plan to make deliveries by drone. But the company is quite serious about this, and today it is announcing that it complete the first Amazon Prime Air drone-powered delivery. The company recently launched a trial in Cambridge, England -- and on December 7th, Amazon completed its first drone-powered delivery. It took 13 minutes from order to delivery, with the drone departing a custom-built fulfillment center nearby. Here's a gallery of old IT equipment from the Commonwealth Bank. Wednesday Night Reviews (2 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 14-December-2016  22:21:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg Input Etc: COUGAR Attack X3 RGB Gaming Keyboard on FunkyKit. Bloody B840 LK Optic Mechanical Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews. EpicGear DeFiant EG MMS Mechanical Keyboard Kit on LegitReviews. Corsair Harpoon RGB gaming mouse on OCAholic. Portable & Prebuilt: Alienware 15 R3 laptop on TechSpot. HP Spectre x360 laptop on TheVerge. Intel Compute Stick Core m3 Review: Skylake On A Thumbstick on HotHardware. Misc: MJX Bugs 3 Brushless Quadcopter Drone on ModSynergy. Rosewill RMS-16003 Dual Arm Monitor Desk Mount on BigBruin. Radeon Crimson Driver December 2016 Performance Analysis on Guru3D. Smart Home Automation Review – Taking Control of Your Home on eTeknix. EK Thermosphere GPU Waterblock on FunkyKit. SilverStone Redline RL05 case on TechPowerUp. ACME Zoopa Q420 Cruiser Quadrocopter on MadShrimps. Western Digital Blue 1TB SATA III SSD on Tweaktown. SilverStone SFX ST45SF V3.0 450W PSU on HardOCP. AMD RYZEN (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 14-December-2016  16:18:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg AMD have officially unveiled their Zen processor family, under the product name RYZEN. Today at its fan-focused event, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) unveiled new information and gave enthusiasts hands-on time with its upcoming high-performance desktop processors based on the innovative "Zen" core architecture (codenamed "Summit Ridge") in advance of the official launch in Q1 2017. Drawing inspiration from the core's name and AMD's desire to push high-performance CPUs to a new horizon, AMD introduced Ryzen™, the brand which will span across "Zen"-based desktop and notebook processor families. Additionally, AMD introduced SenseMI, a set of sensing, adapting, and learning technologies built into the AMD Ryzen™ processor that combine with multiple other advances in architectural, platform, efficiency, and processing technology to address the demanding needs of gamers and enthusiast PC users. Coverage on Guru3D, Anandtech, Tweaktown, TechARP, Tech Report and HotHardware. Discussion continues in this thread in our AMD x86 CPUs and Chipsets forum. FSP Hydro 700W and Hydro G 850W PSUs (5 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 13-December-2016  16:11:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg Today on the testbench we have a couple of PSUs from FSP. There's a 700W unit from their more value-oriented range and an 850W with all the bells and whistles: Click for the review! Tuesday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 13-December-2016  14:29:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg The ACCC's ScamWatch are warning about "undelivered parcel" scams this Christmas. “Scammers typically send emails pretending to be from Australia Post or FedEx, to try and trick you into believing you have an ‘undeliverable package’. In some cases, these emails may include your name and address and include legitimate-looking company information, complete with fake logos.” ... “Australia Post will never call you out of the blue to request payment or send you an email asking you to click on an attachment. If you receive an email about an undeliverable package, don’t open any attachments or download files – delete it straight away,” Ms Rickard said. AMD have announced Radeon Instinct, a platform for machine-learning applications. "Radeon Instinct is set to dramatically advance the pace of machine intelligence through an approach built on high-performance GPU accelerators, and free, open-source software in MIOpen and ROCm," said AMD President and CEO, Dr. Lisa Su. Coverage on HotHardware, Tech ARP, Anandtech, PC World and Tech Report. As expected, when one of the most popular TV shows in the world moves over to a subscription-only service, it becomes the most pirated show in history. Amazon paid a reported $160m (£130m) for three series of The Grand Tour, which stars former Top Gear presenters Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, after Clarkson was sacked by the BBC in March 2015. But figures from Muso, data analysts of the piracy market, suggest unprecedented numbers of people are avoiding paying £79 a year to sign up for Amazon’s online streaming service, Amazon Prime, and instead downloading the show illegally. The Federal Government is suggesting an NBN Tax to help cover the cost of the rollout. Carriers will be required to pay the charge for each broadband service they have provided during at least part of a month on local access lines that are capable of providing normal download speeds of 25 Mbps. Unsurprisingly, it is not a popular idea with ISPs. Here's a BIOS flash mod to unlock more processors in your Radeon RX 460. The AMD Radeon RX 460 unlocking process involves nothing more than a simple firmware update and can result in a performance upgrade of 12.5%. The Radeon RX 460 is considered a solid choice in terms of price/performance. It comes by default with 56 TMU and 896 Stream Processors in the form of the Polaris 11 GPU architecture. But here’s how to get an additional 8 TMUs and 128 Stream Processors. Tuesday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 13-December-2016  12:16:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg Storage: Thecus N4810 Consumer NAS on Tweaktown. Crucial MX300 525GB SSD on NikKTech. PhotoFast iType-C 64GB OTG on Tweaktown. Video Cards; We retest Radeon Chill on TechReport. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 PCI-Express Scaling on TechPowerUp. AMD Radeon Crimson ReLive Drivers on TechPowerUp. Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition on TechReport. The AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition Revealed on TechARP. Cases: NZXT S340 Elite on ThinkComputers. Aerocool DS-230 Tower on FunkyKit. Misc: NuBryte Touchpoint Smart Home Solution on BigBruin. Arozzi Vernazza Series Gaming Chair on LegitReviews. Gears of War 4 DirectX 12 Graphics Performance Analysis on eTeknix. Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W PSU on OCAholic. GeIL EVO X GEX416GB3200C16DC 2x8GB DDR4 RAM on APHNetworks. Sunday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Sunday, 11-December-2016  10:00:27 (GMT +10) - by booj Storage: Thecus N4810 NAS on Guru3D. G-Technology G-RAID 20TB Thunderbolt 2 Device on TweakTown. Drobo 5C on Funky Kit. Promise Technology Apollo Cloud 4TB NAS on NikKTech. Synology DS416j Surveillance Bundle on techPowerUp. Cases: Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t on Legit Reviews. Cooler Master MasterBox 5T on Vortez. Cooler Master Masterbox 5t on eTeknix. Lian Li PC-Q37WX on ocaholic. Streacom BC1 Open Benchtable on Hot Hardware. Input etc: HyperX Alloy FPS Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on NikKTech. Razer Ornata Chroma Keyboard on eTeknix. Cougar Revenger Gaming Mouse on Madshrimps. Razer DeathAdder Elite on TechSpot. COUGAR Minos X3 Gaming Mouse on Funky Kit. Smartphones & Portables: OPPO F1s Selfie Expert on TechARP. ASUS ZenFone 3 (ZE552KL) on TechARP. LG G Pad III 8.0 Android Tablet on APH Networks. Lenovo Yoga Book on TechwareLabs. Misc: Sennheiser PXC 550 Wireless Headphone on Funky Kit. SeeMeCNC Rostock MAX v3 on LanOC Reviews. ASRock G10 Gaming Router on OCInside. MSI RX 480 Gaming X 8G on OCC. Misc Pics (20 Comments) (link)  Friday, 9-December-2016  14:59:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg Thanks to scarletxi and Gaz this week! Friday Afternoon (6 Comments) (link)  Friday, 9-December-2016  14:59:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg The Samsung vs Apple battle continues on, with the latest ruling being the throwing out of $400M in damages. A unanimous Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the almost $400 million in damages Samsung was ordered to pay Apple in a long-standing dispute over the patents of elements of smartphones. The justices ruled that Samsung does not have to pay Apple patent damages based on the profits for the entire device, only the components at issue, and reversed and remanded the case back down to a lower court. The new Bluetooth spec has been officially ratified. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group officially ratified its version 5, which includes a modular set of optional extensions for throughput, range, and other features. Chip makers, including Cypress and Nordic, are already sampling parts supporting the specs that do not include mesh networking, a piece delayed until mid-2017. The Pebble smartwatch brand seems to be dead, leaving customers in the lurch. “One-to-one Pebble support is no longer available” and “any Pebble currently out in the wild is no longer covered by or eligible for warranty exchange.” This means, no matter when you purchased or received your Pebble device, you are on your own—and if your device dies, you’re simply out a device. Any warranty you might have been promised from Pebble directly is void. Windows 10 will apparently overtake Windows 7 within a year. It's interesting that it didn't overtake it during the time that, you know, Windows 10 was free. Extrapolating those adoption lines, we can see that Windows 10 is on track to overtake Windows 7. While the December 2017 date shown in the graph might be a bit optimistic, there's no doubt that a year or so from now, the dominant desktop OS will be Windows 10, not Windows 7. Forum Projects (1 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 7-December-2016  13:40:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg Catching up on some cool projects from our Modding forum: Master_09 has an open-air watercooled PC Nateid03 has a ghetto-ish All-in-one cooler SLI setup while newlife has been volt-modding a GTX 950 alexciobanu has a blue-themed PC Butcher9_9 made a wooden headphone stand and mad_mic3 has a helicopter-themed PC project Wednesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 7-December-2016  11:37:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg Cases: Rosewill Gram mid-tower on TechPowerUp. Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t on Modders-Inc. Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t on ThinkComputers. Cooler Master MasterBox 5t on FunkyKit. Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5t on HWAsylum. Cooler Master MasterCase Maker 5T on HWAsylum. Cooler Master MasterBox 5t on OCClub. Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 550W G3 Power Supply on PC Perspective. Linkworld LPW1685-70 on HWInsights. Input Etc: Speedlink OMNIVI gaming mouse on Vortez. Cougar Deathfire EX Mouse and Keyboard Bundle on eTeknix. Misc: Portal Self-Optimizing Urban AC2400 WiFi Router on BigBruin. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Graphics Performance Analysis on eTeknix. Wanhao Duplicator i3 - Budget 3D Printer on PCReview. The Flash Plus 2 smartphone on TechARP. Teamgroup T-Force Night Hawk 3000 MHz 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 memory on Guru3D. Z170 Motherboard Charts: 20 Models tested - EVGA Z170 Classified K on OCAholic. AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100 And WX 5100 Workstation Graphics: Polaris Goes Pro on HotHardware. Fatal1ty by Monster's FXM 200 gaming headset on TechReport. ADATA SC660 240GB Portable SSD on Tweaktown. Tuesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 6-December-2016  13:22:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K (14nm+ Kaby Lake) on Hexus. ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R3.0 motherboard on OCAholic. Cooling: Noctua NH-D15S versus NH-D15 CPU Cooler on LegitReviews. Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 140 Closed Loop Water Cooler on APHNetworks. Storage: Strontium iDrive Nitro Lightning 64GB Card Reader on Tweaktown. Plextor S2C 512GB Entry-Level SATA3 Solid State Drive on eTeknix. TerraStation F2-220 2-Bay SMB Cloud Storage NAS on eTeknix. ADATA Premier SP550 480GB Solid-State Drive on Techgage. Cases: Corsair Carbide Series Air 740 on TechReport. Deepcool GamerStorm GENOME Liquid-Cooled Case on PCPerspective. Misc: Stanley FatMax LEDLISL Lithium-Ion LED Flashlight on ModSynergy. Linksys WRT3200ACM MU-MIMO Wireless Router on ThinkComputers. AK Racing PRO X Gaming Chair on NikKTech. XCELLON AC & USB Power Bank (PB-1200AC) on ModSynergy. Razer Kraken 7.1 V2 Surround Sound Gaming Headset on MadShrimps. AUKEY KM-G3 Keyboard on TechPowerUp. Monday Night (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 5-December-2016  23:54:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg Tech Report have been playing around with the Internet of Things, to make dumb machines smarter. Sometimes I forget things. In particular, I forget to transfer my clean but wet laundry from the washing machine to the dryer. When this happens, I have to waste time, detergent, electricity, and water to re-wash the clothes. My wife's sister has an expensive race-car-red washing machine that plays a few cheerful musical notes when the cycle is finished. That reminder is helpful, and my better half likes the little tune, but I figured I could get crafty and make the dumb old washer and dryer whisper in my ear through the internet. Here's how I did it. PCI SSDs are all the rage in laptops now. The number of notebooks built to use SSDs, which are based on NAND flash, exceeded analyst expectations this quarter, and the industry is on pace to surpass the 50% adoption rate in the 2017 to 2018 timeframe, according to a report from DRAMeXchange. However Sniper sends word that the prices of SSDs are spiking due to NAND shortages. We began reporting on the first signs of the looming NAND shortage all the way back in May, and have touched on the domino effect in many articles over the ensuing months as it unfolded. Now the shortage is in full swing: DRAMeXchange reported that the average price of MLC SSDs rose this quarter between 6%-10%, while TLC SSDs also rose 6%-9%. We also reached out to Trendfocus, whose projections indicate even higher price hikes at both the retail and OEM level. BC spotted this interesting article about one aspect of autonomous cars. It should be technically and theoretically possible for an autonomous car to drive with input not just from its array of cameras and sensors, but from a set of pre-recorded data from another car. The data that can be recorded – and, in the case of almost every drive-by-wire car made today is recorded – is significant: throttle position, steering wheel angle, brake pressure, weight balance, speed, wheel slippage, and, of course, GPS data about where the car goes. Sunday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Sunday, 4-December-2016  06:01:20 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards: GIGABYTE X99-Ultra Gaming Motherboard on Techgage. Gigabyte Z170X-Designare on Hot Hardware. Graphics Cards: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti G1 Gaming OC on Guru3D. ASUS STRIX GAMING RX 480 OC on eTeknix. ASUS GTX 1050 Ti STRIX OC 4 GB on techPowerUp. KFA2 GeForce GTX 1080 HOF 8GB on Madshrimps. Storage: WD My Passport 4TB 2016 Edition Portable External Hard Drive on Legit Reviews. Seagate IronWolf ST10000VN0004 10TB Hard Drive on APH Networks. Seagate Skyhawk 10TB on OCC. Cases: Corsair Carbide 270R Mid-Tower on eTeknix. Thermaltake The Tower 900 on Funky kit. Audio: V-Moda Crossfade Wireless Headset on LanOC Reviews. Creative iRoar Go on Vortez. Cougar Immersa Gaming Headset on ocaholic. Genius HS-930BT Headset on Funky Kit. Networking: D-Link Performace Series DIR-890L AC3200 Enthusiast Router on eTeknix. TP-Link Archer C3200 Wireless Tri-Band Router on Funky Kit. Input etc: Fnatic Gear Clutch G1 Optical Gaming Mouse on eTeknix. Thrustmaster TMX on PC Perspective. ROCCAT SOVA MK Gaming Lapboard on TweakTown. Zalman ZM-K900M RGB LED gaming keyboard on The Tech Report. Fnatic Gear Clutch G1 Optical Gaming Mouse on TweakTown. AUKEY KM-G3 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on PC Perspective. Misc: Dell XPS 13 (Kaby Lake) on Hot Hardware. Corsair Magnetic Levitation ML120 & ML140 PRO LED Fan onTechgage. Misc Pics (22 Comments) (link)  Friday, 2-December-2016  14:26:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg This may be a weird batch - after 3 days of gastro I'm pretty much hallucinating at my desk. :) But anyway, thanks to danstoejam and Axe this week! Thursday Night (8 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 1-December-2016  22:07:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg Here's some info from Malakai about the 2G shutdown in Oz: Telstra will be the first carrier to switch off its 2G network on the first of December, at which time anyone using a 2G mobile phone or a 2G SIM card will no longer be able to make phone calls or send text messages. Even calls to emergency services may no longer connect. Also Optus will switch off its 2G network in April - affecting Virgin Mobile, amaysim and Dodo customers - while Vodafone's 2G network will be decommissioned in September 2017. A lesser known side-effect of the shutdown of the 2G network is that most dual SIM phones except the very latest and greatest ones can only use the secondary SIM via the 2G network. So many people using dual SIM phones might be caught unawares when their secondary SIM stops working tomorrow. Or today, even! More info here and here. Google's powers now extend to messing with the spacetime continuum.. kinda. No commonly used operating system is able to handle a minute with 61 seconds, and trying to special-case the leap second has caused many problems in the past. Instead of adding a single extra second to the end of the day, we'll run the clocks 0.0014% slower across the ten hours before and ten hours after the leap second, and “smear” the extra second across these twenty hours. For timekeeping purposes, December 31 will seem like any other day. PC bits retailer MSY are in hot water over warranty issues. “The ACCC alleges that MSY Technology breached the Australian Consumer Law by misrepresenting consumers’ rights to a repair, replacement, or a refund when they have purchased faulty products,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said. “Businesses must not mislead consumers about their consumer guarantee rights. Consumers who have purchased a faulty product have a right under the consumer guarantees to remedies which businesses cannot restrict, alter, or remove.” I don't normally link buyer's guides, but I thought it might be interesting to see what people are looking at during the run up to Xmas. Tech Report have a Christmas Gift Guide, while Techgage have a GPU Upgrade & New Build guide. On the lookout for a new graphics card? We’ve put together a guide to help you pick the right graphics card for your budget. For new builds or upgrades, there are an assortment of GPUs to pick in each price range. Competative eSports on a budget, to ultrawide or multi-monitor gaming, there’s something for everyone. Techspot also looked at real-world storage performance. To test and visualize how storage performance impacts the user experience in real world scenarios we recorded how quickly our Core i7-6700K test system completes various tasks using Samsung’s new 960 Evo 500GB SSD, then compared against the value-minded Crucial MX300 and the WD Red Pro 4TB mechanical hard drive. Thursday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 1-December-2016  14:41:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg Cooling: BarrelCool Rifle Chamber Fan on BenchmarkReviews. Antec KUHLER H2O H1200 Pro AIO Liquid CPU Cooler on NikKTech. Input Etc: Realforce RGB keyboard on LanOC. Roccat Skeltr Keyboard on Modders-Inc. Prebuilt & Portable: Fierce PC BlackFire Apex prebuilt PC on Vortez. Lenovo Ideapad Y900 17-inch Gaming Laptop on ThinkComputers. ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe Smartphone on HotHardware. Gigabyte Brix Gaming UHD Mini-PC on LegitReviews. Storage: ADATA SV620 480GB Portable SSD on Tweaktown. Drobo 5C DAS (Directly-Attached Storage) on OCAholic. ZOTAC SONIX PCI-E SSD 480GB on FunkyKit. Cases: be quiet! Dark Base 900 Pro Full-Tower on Tweaktown. Fractal Design Define Mini C Micro-ATX on PCPerspective. Misc: Watch Dog 2: PC graphics performance benchmark review on Guru3D. AMD Athlon X4 880K Processor Review & Overclocking to 4.5 GHz on LegitReviews. SilverStone Ensemble Series EB03 and EB01-E Audio Amp DAC on HWAsylum. MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X video card on OCAholic. XFX TS Series 750W PSU on PCPerspective.

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