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March 2017
Misc Pics (24 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 31-March-2017  15:16:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Stay safe out there if you're affected by the flooding!








Friday Midday (1 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 31-March-2017  12:23:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Intel have launched a new Optane Memory product. To quote HotHardware's coverage: The Intel Optane Memory devices we’ll be discussing here looks like other current generation 80mm M.2 “gumstick” type solid state drives. However, Intel Optane Memory is meant to be used as an accelerator for systems featuring relatively low-speed storage devices, like hard drives. More coverage on Tweaktown, Tech Report, LegitReviews, Anandtech and PC Perspective. Discussion here.

Samsung meanwhile unveiled the Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones. It's critical they get this right, as everyone is pretty wary after the exploding Note 7 issue. Coverage on HotHardware, TechARP and HWSecrets. Discussion continues here.

Matt sent in this story about a class action against microsoft over Windows 10 upgrades, with more coverage here. In a break from tradition, Microsoft offered Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and 8.1 for the first year of its release. This unusual offer was matched with a set of increasingly aggressive promotions within Windows itself. In the early days of the upgrade offer, there were even some users reporting that it installed automatically. Three plaintiffs claim specific harm was caused by the operating system. Hrm, good luck with that one.

There's been a performance update released for the game "Ashes of the Singularity", for Ryzen users. I'm not sure that's a good precedent. Many of you will recognize Ashes as the flagship title for Mantle when AMD made that move to change the programming habits and models for developers, and though Mantle would eventually become Vulkan and drive DX12 development, it did not foretell an overall shift as it hoped to. Can AMD and its developer relations team continue to make the case that spending time and money (which is what 400 developer hours equates to) to make specific performance enhancements for Ryzen processors is in the best interest of everyone? We’ll soon find out. More coverage on LegitReviews and HotHardware.

Alch noticed that the Festival of the Web is on in Perth in early April. Featuring dozens of exciting activities from dawn to dusk focused on our digital age, the Festival will bring together entrepreneurs, academia, industry, government and the Perth community over eight jam-packed days at the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre and co-located venues.

Today's timewaster is Quickdraw with Google. It's like pictionary with an AI. Your doodles will help ensure the ultimate enslavement of humanity.



Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 31-March-2017  11:47:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Input Etc:
Cherry MX-Board 3.0 Blue Switch keyboard on TechWareLabs.
Vortex Core Mini Keyboard on FunkyKit.
WASD CODE Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Fnatic GEAR CLUTCH G1 Optical Mouse on NikKTech.
ROCCAT SUORA FX Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
SteelSeries' Rival 700 gaming mouse on TechReport.
Epicgear Morpha X Fully Modular Optical and Laser Gaming Mouse on eTeknix.
Corsair Gaming K63 Mechanical Keyboard on eTeknix.

Motherboard & CPU:
MSI X370 XPower Titanium Motherboard on NeoSeeker.
ASUS ROG Strix Z270G Gaming on OCAholic.
Intel i7-7700K vs. AMD Ryzen R7 1700 in Gaming on LanOC.
Asus ROG Maximus IX Hero (Z270) on FunkyKit.
Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming 5 on Guru3D.

Storage:
WD Black PCIe NVMe SSD Review (512GB) on TheSSDReview.
iStorage datAshur Pro 8GB Encrypted Flash Drive on Tweaktown.
Drobo 5N2 5-bay NAS on PC Perspective.
Noontec-TerraMaster D2-310: Direct Attached Storage on Modders-Inc.

Misc:
MJX Bugs 3 Brushless Drone on ModSynergy.
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 6 case on Modders-Inc.



Gigabyte Motherboards (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 31-March-2017  00:33:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg

If you're a designer or photographer or other creative type, Dino from Gigabyte is running a little contest to get some feedback about what you look for in a motherboard:


click for the thread!



Wednesday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 29-March-2017  12:45:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Processor on ThinkComputers.
ASUS PRIME X370 PRO motherboard on Vortez.
GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5 (AMD X370) Motherboard on Tweaktown.

Cooling:
Scythe Mugen 5 CPU Cooler on APHNetworks.
Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 CPU Cooler on FunkyKit.
NZXT Kraken X52 Liquid CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Thermalright True Spirit 140 Direct on TechPowerUp.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Alienware 13 laptop on TechSpot.

Storage:
Samsung EVO Plus 128GB MicroSDXC Memory Card on LegitReviews.
Lexar JumpDrive P20 Flash Drive on PCPerspective.

Cases:
Be Quiet! Pure Base 600 Window Mid-Tower on NikKTech.
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 6 on ThinkComputers.
BitFenix Shogun E-ATX on BenchmarkReviews.
be quiet! Pure Base 600 Window on Vortez.

Audio Visual:
Samsung 4K Blu-ray Player on HWSecrets.
Asus Xonar Essence STX II 7.1 on OCInside.
The 360° Honor VR Camera Preview & Demo on TechARP.

Memory:
Ballistix Sport LT Red 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 Memory Kit on MadShrimps.
Corsair Vengeance LED DDR4-3200C16 32GB on OCAholic.



Tuesday Morning (3 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 28-March-2017  00:38:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg

All the best to the QLD folks in the path of Cyclone Debbie. Stay safe! Tropical Cyclone Debbie has intensified to category four and is expected to hit the north Queensland coast on Tuesday morning, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has warned. Discussion and updates are happening in this thread.

A 103-year-old car has been saved by a 3D printer. Australia is home to the only surviving 1914 Delage Type-S grand prix car in the world, and thanks to a world-first feat of technology this much-loved centurion is still on the road.

Speaking of which, LanOC went to a RepRap Festival in Indiana. While the name most likely isn’t obvious to most people, but RepRap is the community around 3d printing. So unlike Maker Fairs where 3d printing is also very popular, this time the entire event is exclusively focused on it. This event started off as a small get together of friends in a garage and is quickly growing out of control. A few of the big names in 3d printing were there and we have the chance to stop and talk with a few people. We also brought the camera along so I figured I would make a quick post to share what we saw.

Back to cars, and BlueRaven sent word of a new electric car record at the Nurburgring. Video here on YouTube. Back in October 2016, the NIO EP9 all-electric supercar shaved a cool 15 seconds off the electric vehicle lap record at the Green Hell - the Nordschleife at Germany's iconic Nürburgring. Here's a full and uninterrupted onboard video of the record-breaking lap. It's bizarrely quiet! Discussion thread here.

LegitReviews checked out some motherboards using a thermal camera. Thermal performance is important to PC gamers and enthusiasts, so we wanted to take a look at VRM thermal performance on some of the AMD X370 motherboards that we have in our possession for testing. Those boards would be the ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero, GIGABYTE GA-AX370-Gaming 5 and the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM.

eTeknix have been testing Ryzen and Intel GTX 1080 Ti. I initially tested on stock only and matched that with the stock performance on the i7-5820K, as we do with all GPUs on that chip as it’s our graphics card test bench. I did the same with the 7700K as I had access to it and my whole trip was to give us some metric for the stock and overclocked gaming performance of Ryzen. However, many of you wanted the Intel chips to be overclocked, and we’re not going to shy away from what our readers want, and we’re going above and beyond.

Cooler Master have an ANZ Edition of their Case Mode World Series 2017. Earlier in February, Cooler Master announced the Case Mod World Series 2017. This global case modding competition invites anyone from first-time tinkerers to seasoned veterans to make and submit their creations from Feb 3rd to May 3rd. Today Cooler Master announced the Case Mod World Series 2017 "ANZ Edition". All Case Mod World Series 2017 entries from Australia and New Zealand will be automatically entered in to the "ANZ Edition" competition.



Monday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 27-March-2017  23:08:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Crosshair VI Hero on Guru3D.
ASUS ROG STRIX Z270G Gaming on OCAholic.

Cases:
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 6 on FunkyKit.
Supermicro GS50-000R on HWInsights.
Thermaltake Core P3 on HWSecrets.
Cougar Panzer Max on TechPowerUp.

Storage:
Silicon Power S56 240GB TLC SSD on MadShrimps.
Kingston HyperX Savage 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on Tweaktown.
Toshiba OCZ VX500 SSD on LanOC.

Networking:
Netgear Orbi mesh wifi on PC Review.
Skyroam Global WiFi Mobile Hotspot on TechnologyX.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (helio X20) Phablet on TechARP.
Dell XPS 15 (9560) laptop on HotHardware.
NVIDIA’s SHIELD (2017) on Techgage.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform Performance Preview on PC Perspective.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Benchmark First Look on HotHardware.

Misc:
THINKWARE F770 Dashcam on Techgage.
AZIO MK MAC Mechanical Keyboard on APHNetworks.
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing RGB 360 Edition Liquid CPU Cooler on NikKTech.



Sunday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 26-March-2017  11:13:12 (GMT +10) - by aftahours

CPU:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Processor on Madshrimps
AMD Ryzen R7 1700 on LanOC

Input etc:
Bloody B820R RGB Gaming Keyboard on Benchmark Reviews
Gamdias Hermes P1 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on TweakTown
Gamdias Hermes RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on TechARP

Case:
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Tempered Glass Edition Full Tower Case on Custom PC Review
AeroCool Project7 P7-C1 Tempered Glass Edition on OC Inside
Antec Cube Certified By EKWB Mini-ITX Case on NikKTech
AeroCool Project7 P7-C1 PC Case on OC Inside
Cougar QBX Kaze on ocaholic

Videocard:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti Founders Edition Video Card on OCC
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Aero ITX OC on Guru3D

Cooling:
Noctua NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 CPU Cooler on FunkyKit
NZXT Kraken X42 Liquid CPU Cooler on TweakTown
Swiftech MCP655-PWM Pump on techPowerUp
Phononic HEX 2.0 Thermoelectric CPU Cooler on PC Perspective

Motherboard:
Asus ROG STRIX Z270I Gaming Mini-ITX Motherboard on TweakTown
Gigabyte AORUS GA-AX370-Gaming 5 on Vortez

Misc:
Corsair ONE Pro SFF Gaming PC on TweakTown
MSI GS43 7RE Phantom Pro Laptop on Vortez
Acer Predator X34 34-Inch G-Sync Ultrawide 21:9 Gaming Monitor on eTeknix
Linksys WRT3200ACM AC3200 MU-MIMO Gigabit WiFi Router on eTeknix

Storage:
Patriot LX Series 256GB MicroSD Card on Think Computers
Glyph 2TB AtomRAID Portable SSD on The SSD Review

Audio:
Rosewill EX-500 & EX-700 Headphones on techPowerUp
SteelSeries Arctis 7 Wireless Gaming Headset on Legit Reviews



Misc Pics (37 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 24-March-2017  14:59:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Friday again! BTW, it would be totally fine with me if this rain would stop now.. no, really. :/









Photography Gallery (6 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 23-March-2017  16:19:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg

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



















Thursday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 23-March-2017  15:44:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg

It looks like online poker will be banned in Australia soon. "The original 2001 law was meant to stop online gambling of many kinds, but it didn't, there was a loophole. There is quite an active online poker community in Australia. I don't think it will succeed for those really determined. If you have a [virtual private network] or offshore account, you will still play. It's a stupid situation to be in," he said. More coverage here and here. Discussion here.

OCInside report from CeBIT 2017 in Germany. CeBIT 2017 Hanover computer fair report with new water- and air coolers, cases, motherboards, graphics cards, power supplies, SSDs, drones, 3D printers and more. The CeBIT 2017 in Hanover, Germany again showed a lot of interesting products. The OCinside.de CeBIT 2017 report shows with more than 200 images and a short video an overview of new IT products.

Here's a strange one from aftahours, Google removing some tab closing functions from Chrome. Chrome engineers are planning to remove two options from Chrome that allow users to quickly close a large number of tabs with just a few clicks. The options, named "Close other tabs" and "Close tabs to the right" reside in the menu that appears when a user right-clicks on a Chrome tab. The menu options have existed in Chrome since its birth and were inspired by options introduced in the Firefox browser a few years back.

There's a World Science Festival underway in Brisbane at the moment, thanks aftahours. Lots of activities and giveaways, it seems.



Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 22-March-2017  14:59:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
Benchmarks Of Many ARM Boards From The Raspberry Pi To NVIDIA Jetson TX2 on Phoronix.
ASRock X370 Taichi (AMD X370) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Z270/Z170 Motherboard Charts: 26 Models tested - Supermicro C7Z270-CG on OCAholic.
ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero (AMD X370) Motherboard on Tweaktown.

Audio Visual:
UE BOOM 2 "Reka One - Lost Time" Edition speakers on TechPowerUp.
Rowkin Bit Stereo Bluetooth Headset on TechWareLabs.
EKEN H8 Pro 4K Action Camera on ModSynergy.
HyperX Revolver S headset on Vortez.
V-MODA Forza Earphones on APHNetworks.

Input Etc:
Silverstone ES02-USB 2.4GHz Wireless PC Remote Control Kit on Modders-Inc.
GAMDIAS Hermes RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on TechARP.
Das Keyboard 4 Professional on TechPowerUp.
ROCCAT Skeltr Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
Cougar Minos X3 mouse on Vortez.
HAVIT HV-KB389L RGB Backlit Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on NikKTech.

Cases:
be quiet! PURE BASE 600 Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
be quiet! Pure Base 600 on OCAholic.

Networking:
TRENDnet TEW-827DRU AC2600 StreamBoost MU-MIMO WiFi Router on NikKTech.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Amazfit Pace GPS Smartwatch Review: Sleek, Attractive, And Great Battery Life on HotHardware.
Lenovo Yoga Book on PC Perspective.
IQI i3 Android Smartwatch on MadShrimps.

Software:
Mass Effect: Andromeda Graphics Performance Tested on TechSpot.
Mass Effect: Andromeda benchmarked on GTX 1080 Ti on Tweaktown.

Misc:
Silverstone SST-SF02 Noise Absorbing Foam on Modders-Inc.
OPSEAT Master Series Gaming Chair on LanOC.
Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4 on Guru3D.



Motherboard Reviews from the Forums (3 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 21-March-2017  00:07:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg

OCAU forums member "headin2001" is becoming quite a prolific reviewer - this month he's taken a look at two motherboards for Intel Kaby Lake CPUs. They're hugely detailed reviews, well worth highlighting on the news page - so, enjoy!


click for the review of the
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS IX FORMULA

click for the review of the
Asrock Z270 Extreme4



Monday Afternoon (13 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 20-March-2017  17:23:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg

With the 2017 motorsport season officially underway, Tony_L let me know he has created a 2017 Motorsport Calendar over in the Wiki.

The game Outlast 2 has been refused classification in Australia, essentially banning it. That's not necessarily the end of the road for Outlast 2, though. In its report, the Board noted that it "is of the opinion that without the depiction of implied sexual violence listed above, the game can be accommodated within the R18+ classification." That means that if Red Barrels is willing to change that scene, it could resubmit the game for classification and possibly get it to market.

Seagate have some 12TB Enterprise HDDs. Seagate has introduced its second-generation of helium-filled HDDs. These drives will be aimed at capacity-demanding enterprise and cloud applications, and the new drives store up to 12 TB of data. The new drive uses eight platters, which is more than the first generation model, but its power consumption remains below typical air-filled HDDs. The new capacity point from Seagate should enable customers to increase the amount of data they store per standard rack by 20% when compared to previous-gen models.

Intel meanwhile have some new Optane SSDs. A year and a half after first publicly unveiling their new 3D XPoint non-volatile memory technology, Intel is launching the first product incorporating the new memory. The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X is an enterprise PCIe 3 x4 NVMe SSD that Intel promises will be the the most responsive data center SSD with lower latency than all of the fastest NAND flash based competitors. More coverage on TomsHardware, HotHardware, TechReport, Tweaktown, and PC Perspective.

PC Perspective also look into improving thermal performance of Kaby Lake CPUs. While there is risk inherent in tinkering with the heat spreader and die of the Kaby Lake processor, the use of a delidding device like the RockIt 88 De-Lid Kit reduces the potential for damage significantly over other delidding methods (such as the vice method explored in the previous article). The temperature decrease from simply cleaning and reapply high performance thermal paste to the die to heat spreader interface was significant enough to remove a stability factor from overclocking. There's a de-lidding guide in our Intel Hardware forum, too.

Microsoft seem to be forcing Ryzen owners to Windows 10, by blocking updates to Windows 7 and 8.1. A recently published Knowledge Base article suggests that Microsoft is going to block Windows Updates for owners of the latest Intel and AMD processors if they try to run Windows 7 or 8.1. Last year, Microsoft announced a shift in the way it would support Windows. Going forward, new processors, including Intel's Kaby Lake and AMD's recently-released Ryzen, would require the newest version of Windows. Users of Windows 7 and 8.1 would be out of luck, with Microsoft having no plans to support the new chips on the old operating systems.



Sunday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 19-March-2017  11:57:41 (GMT +10) - by aftahours

Audio:
Logitech G900 Chaos Spectrum on Lan OC
V-MODA Forza Metallo Earphones on APH Networks
HyperX Cloud Revolver S Gaming Headset on Legit Reviews
iClever BTS05 & BTS06 Waterproof Bluetooth Speakers on ThinkComputers.org

Input:
Corsair Lapdog Game Control Center on Benchmark Reviews
EpicGear Morpha X Modular Gaming Mouse on Hardware Asylum
HyperX Alloy FPS mechanical gaming keyboard on Tech Report
Mad Catz RAT 8 Gaming Mouse on techPowerUp
EpicGear MorphaX Modular Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit
G.Skill Ripjaws RIPJAWS KM570 MX Gaming Keyboard on TweakTown

Network:
Tenda AC6 AC1200 Smart Dual-Band Wireless Router on Big Bruin
Linksys Velop Mesh Whole Home Wireless System on TweakTown

CPU:
AMD Ryzen R7 1700 AM4 8-Core Processor on eTeknix
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X 3.6 GHz on techPowerUp
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, and 1700 Processor on Neoseeker

Case:
Lian-Li PC-T60 Case on Hardware Secrets
Enermax Steelwing on ocaholic

Phone:
Infinix Zero 4 Pro, Zero 4 & HOT 4 Pro Smartphones on TechARP
Oppo R9s Plus on PC World

Misc:
ADATA XPG SX8000 PCIe NVMe 512GB SSD on Legit Reviews
GTX 1080 Ti vs. The TITAN XP Overclocking Showdown on BabelTech
Ghost Recon: Wildlands on Hot Hardware
Cooler Master MasterLiquid MAKER 92 CPU Cooler on TweakTown
EVGA Z270 Classified K Motherboard on Think Computers



Misc Pics (39 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 17-March-2017  14:59:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Hope the rain hasn't affected you too badly. Got a bit exciting here but managed to avoid getting flooded. Anyway, thanks to Axe and Alan this week!









AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 17-March-2017  00:04:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg

AMD have unveiled their Ryzen 5 CPUs, a more budget-oriented sibling of the Ryzen 7 released recently. These ones are 4- and 6-core. Coverage on PC Perspective, HotHardware and TomsHardware.

Meanwhile AMD have provided a community update to address some concerns raised since the first launch. While these findings have been great to read, we are just getting started! The AMD Ryzen™ processor and AM4 Platform both have room to grow, and we wanted to take a few minutes to address some of the questions and comments being discussed across the web.

Discussion continues in our AMD x86 Hardware forum.



Thursday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 16-March-2017  23:45:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI on NeoSeeker.
MSI Z270 GAMING M7 on Vortez.
Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 on Modders-Inc.
AMD B350 Micro-ATX Motherboards on OCAholic.
Ryzen Versus Core i7 In 11 Popular Games on TomsHardware.

Audio Visual:
NVIDIA Shield Android TV 2017 on Guru3D.
Genius SW-2.1 375 PC Speakers on FunkyKit.

Cases:
BitFenix Portal Compact Mini-ITX Chassis on Tweaktown.
RAIDMAX Monster II on OCClub.
BitFenix Portal Mini ITX on Guru3D.
X2 Isolatic 6020 ATX Mid-Tower on NikKTech.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Lenovo IdeaCentre Y910 Gaming All-In-One on TechSpot.
Lenovo Legion Y720 & Y520 Gaming Laptops Revealed on TechARP.
2017 Samsung Galaxy A7 (SM-A720F) on TechARP.
Maingear Vybe Review: Dual GTX 1070s And Kaby Lake Cranked To 5GHz on HotHardware.

Video Cards:
GTX 1080 Ti SLI Performance in 25 Games on BabelTechReviews.
ASUS GTX 1080 Ti Strix OC 11 GB video card on TechPowerUp.

Misc:
Razer Ornata Chroma - Mechanical Membrane Gaming Keyboard on MadShrimps.
Scythe Mugen 5 CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Crucial Ballistix Elite 16GB DDR4-3466 Dual Channel Memory Kit on FunkyKit.



Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 15-March-2017  15:03:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
NVIDIA Jetson TX2 Benchmarks on Phoronix.
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Tested on AMD Ryzen versus Intel Kaby Lake on LegitReviews.
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 on Guru3D.
Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Gaming K5 Motherboard on FunkyKit.
Asus Crosshair VI Hero on LanOC.
AMD Ryzen 1700 on Vortez.

Cooling:
RAIJINTEK THEMIS Evo CPU Cooler on Technoyard.
CRYORIG A40 Ultimate Closed Loop Water Cooler on APHNetworks.

Cases:
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 3 on OCInside.
Aerocool Aero-1000 on TechPowerUp.
Lian-Li PC-K6S on FunkyKit.

Networking:
D-Link DHP-P339AV PowerLine AV 500 3-Port HD Media Starter Kit on ModSynergy.
Synology RT-2600ac wireless router on TechReport.

Input Etc:
Nanoxia Ncore Retro Aluminum Mechanical Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Tt eSPORTS Ventus R Optical Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.
AZIO MK Retro Mechanical Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.

Misc:
Team Group Dark 16GB DDR4 memory on Vortez.
Huawei Mate 9 smartphone on TechSpot.



Interesting Forum Threads (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 14-March-2017  15:50:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a snapshot of what people are up to in the forums. Remember that OCAU has official Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages - if you can follow or like us on those, it helps us keep you up to date.

Cinebench Benchmarking and Ranking Thread in Overclocking & Hardware.
OCAU Ryzen Overclocking discussion/ Guide / Owners Thread in AMD Hardware.
Network Management Software in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
What if I don't want the NBN... *shock horror* in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
Are Headphone Amplifiers worth it in PC Audio.
New server build /w LSI 9265 RAID5 benchmark in Storage & Backup.
Reskilling in IT in Business & Enterprise Computing.
BYOD observations in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Soldering 101 in Electronics & Electrics.
Arduino Beginner in Electronics & Electrics.
Toaster oven reflow soldering in Electronics & Electrics.
If I had a ? machine, i would make a ? widget in Hobby Engineering.
The Moon is really far away, Earth and planets and space and so on in Science.
Old World Maps\Astronomy in Science.
Horse meat - where? in Geek Food.
Construction Bricks Discussion - Lego, Lepin, Megablocks, Decool, etc in Other Toys/Hobbies.
Scale Model Gallery in Other Toys/Hobbies.
Solar Power: The Callan Project in Lifestyle.
Australian Property in 2017 - Predictions & General Discussion in Career, Education & Finance.
South Australia without power in Current Events.



Rocket Launch (5 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 14-March-2017  01:16:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg

This from Quadbox: Overclockers Australia has a fair few rocket-launch enthusiasts, and mostly rocket launch times are at awful times for most Australians. Today (Tuesday) is a rare exception. SpaceX is launching one of their Falcon 9 rockets, with a geostationary television-broadcast satellite, at a forecast time of 5:34am GMT, which works out to 4:34pm for people in NSW and Victoria, and 3:34pm in QLD.

For those of you who are spaceflight enthusiasts, and for those of you who are just curious and have twenty minutes to kill at that time, streams can be had here, and via the spacex youtube channel here.



Monday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 13-March-2017  15:25:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Elon Musk has offered to resolve South Australia's energy issues. Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric car giant Tesla, has thrown down a challenge to the South Australian and federal governments, saying he can solve the state’s energy woes within 100 days – or he’ll deliver the 100MW battery storage system for free. This has produced quite the twitter storm, which continues today. After speaking to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for an hour on Sunday, the Tesla CEO resumed his Twitter campaign on Monday morning, offering what appears to be a heart-felt thank you to Australians who have supported his clean energy agenda.

PCPerspective looked into reports of issues between AMD's Ryzen processors and the Windows 10 Scheduler. The testing you see here was a response to many days of comments and questions to our team on how and why AMD Ryzen processors are seeing performance gaps in 1080p gaming (and other scenarios) in comparison to Intel Core processors. Several outlets have posted that the culprit is the Windows 10 scheduler and its inability to properly allocate work across the logical vs. physical cores of the Zen architecture. As it turns out, we can prove that isn't the case at all.

Have you been having trouble tracking down an AM4 board? I haven't heard any complaints, but if you have, LegitReviews may have an explanation. If you’ve looked at building an AMD Ryzen 7 system you’ll find that the processors are pretty easy to find, but good luck finding a motherboard. Most of the AMD motherboards based on the X370 and B350 chipsets are out of stock and back-ordered. It doesn’t matter what brand you are looking for as ASUS, ASRock, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI are all selling out quickly due to the limited quantities available.

On my Windows 10 machine recently I got a strange spammy system popup when launching Chrome, trying to get me to use Microsoft's Edge browser instead. Apparently these ads now extend to File Explorer, thanks aftahours. Microsoft made a lot of changes in Windows 10 that helped it put the mistakes of Windows 8 in the rear view mirror. Not all of Microsoft’s ideas are good, though. The company has shown a tendency to get a little too casual with how it promotes its services within Windows. You might even call these “ads.” Microsoft would, of course, dispute that description. Some of these things that look very much like ads have started showing up in File Explorer. Specifically, Windows 10 has started nagging people to buy a subscription to OneDrive.

It's not too uncommon to have a media or gaming room in your house, but Phoronix set up a dedicated VR space. I had setup the HTC Vive VR system in the "basement server room" to deal with the mess of cables, but after using this VR headset for a few days I quickly realized I needed a better area for engaging with virtual reality. After making a custom-built desk and moving where I have the HTC Vive "play room" configured, the experience is much better.

On a related note, Microsoft have demonstrated their Windows Mixed Reality in a recent video. Windows Mixed Reality (previously Windows Holographic) is Microsoft’s shell for navigating content when wearing VR and AR headsets, and is expected to reach the mass market this year as part of the Creators Update and a wave of cheap Mixed Reality headsets from a wide variety of Widows OEMs such as Acer.

IBM say quantum computers are going to be here soon, so developers should get ready. Most researchers agree that the theoretical machines are still years away from actually being made, despite advances towards creating a working quantum computer. But IBM says that its work has shown enough promise to get working on programming the machines.

Optus seem to be getting a bit heavy-handed with NBN migrations, thanks Axe. Optus is ignoring the NBN's 18-month switchover commitment and threatening to cut off cable customers within weeks, using strongarm tactics to sign them up as Optus NBN customers before they can consider changing provider.



Monday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 13-March-2017  14:45:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
The Ultimate MSI Z270 Gaming M7 Motherboard Build Guide on Tweaktown.
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Processor on MadShrimps.
AMD Ryzen 7 Gaming Performance Examined on TechARP.
The 32-Core AMD Naples CPU Tech Report on TechARP.

Video Cards:
NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti on Vortez.
Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti CPU Showdown: i7 7700k Vs Ryzen R7 1800x Vs i7 5820k on eTeknix.

Storage:
QNAP TVS-673 High-Performance Business NAS on MadShrimps.
ADATA SD700 512GB Portable SSD on Tweaktown.
SilverStone RM420 NAS chassis on ComputingOnDemand.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Fierce PC Dragon Blood on Vortez.
ECS LIVA Z on OCClub.
HTC U Ultra smartphone on PCWorld.

Software:
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands Performance Testing on LanOC.
A Look at NVIDIA Turf Effects in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands on LegitReviews.

Misc:
Arozzi Arena Gaming Desk on NikKTech.
Tesoro Zone Balance Gaming Chair on APHNetworks.
Corsair K70 LUX RGB Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 240 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.



Misc Pics (22 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 10-March-2017  14:50:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to aftahours and schnappy this week!









GTX 1080 Ti Reviews (3 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 10-March-2017  07:59:41 (GMT +10) - by aftahours

The first lot of NVIDIA's GTX 1080 Ti reviews are out. Unveiled last week at GDC, this new flagship card is based on Titan X's GP102 GPU, and is pushing up the clockspeeds and pushing down the prices of the older generation cards.

Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition on LanOC
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Tech Report
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Techspot
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition 11 GB on Tech PowerUp
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on PC Perspective
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Techgage
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti On Linux on Phoronix
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on TweakTown
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition on Neoseeker
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Hot Hardware
Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition on Hardware Asylum
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Guru3D
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Graphics Card on eTeknix
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founder's on Anandtech
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Video Card on HardOCP
Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti on ARS Technica

Discussion continues in this thread.



Thursday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 9-March-2017  15:32:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The top story of the last couple of days would have to be the CIA Hacking Tools release by Wikileaks. There's a huge political aspect to this which I am going to avoid but from a technical standpoint it's interesting. Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive. To my mind this isn't that surprising, given it's pretty much what the CIA does, but I think it's the scope of their reach which has people concerned - potentially 85% of smartphones, also TVs and other devices have been compromised. Also, the EFF's position is that the CIA shouldn't keep exploits secret but should share them for the benefit of citizens. Apple say they have already patched many of the vulnerabilities listed. Discussion continues in this thread.

PCPerspective have an article about overclocking the Ryzen 7 1700. During my Ryzen 7 1700 testing, I went through some overclocking evaluation and thought the results might be worth sharing earlier than later. This quick article is just a preview of what we are working on so don’t expect to find the answers to Ryzen power management here, only a recounting of how I was able to get stellar performance from the lowest priced Ryzen part on the market today.

TechSpot look at Ryzen gaming performance. AMD Ryzen processors made a strong impression last week, however time constraints resulted in more questions than answers when it came to the four games we managed to benchmark in time for launch. As promised, we're back to follow up on our initial 1080p testing with a more in-depth look at Ryzen's gaming performance across a 16 titles played at 1080p and 1440p resolutions.

Tech Report consider the impact of minimum FPS figures in benchmarking. In the wake of AMD's Ryzen launch, I've been reading a lot of comments around the web about the inclusion or usefulness of the "minimum frame rate" in many reviewers' results. Readers seem to think folks who report a minimum frame rate alongside an average are providing a more complete picture of gaming performance from these new CPUs. That may be true in a way, but the picture is still about as shallow as reporting a frames-per-second average on its own.

HotHardware meanwhile look into AMD's Zen-based server CPUs, codenamed Naples. As we’ve mentioned in the past, Naples is an up to 32-core / 64-thread variant of Zen, targeted at enterprise and data center applications. Today, we can reveal a few more technical details and discuss some interesting performance comparisons AMD made against one of Intel’s flagship 2P Xeon configurations. Spoiler alert – Naples looked very strong.

TechARP cover NVIDIA's Jetson TX2. NVIDIA just announced the Jetson TX2 embedded AI supercomputer, based on the latest NVIDIA Pascal microarchitecture. It promises to offer twice the performance of the previous-generation Jetson TX1, in the same package. In this tech report, we will share with you the full details of the new Pascal-based NVIDIA Jetson TX2!



Thursday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 9-March-2017  11:12:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
MSI Z270 XPower Gaming Titanium Edition on OCAholic.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X AM4 8-Core Processor on eTeknix.
Athlon X4 860K CPU on HWSecrets.

Storage:
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V6 10TB SATA III HDD on NikKTech.
Drobo 5C Five-Bay USB-C DAS on Tweaktown.
ADATA SU800 SSD Ultimate on BenchmarkReviews, our review here.
Crucial MX300 Limited Edition 750GB 2.5" SSD on ModSynergy.
Asustor AS6202T NAS on Guru3D.

Software:
Wildlands PC graphics performance benchmark review on Guru3D.
Ghost Recon Wildlands: Performance Analysis on TechPowerUp.

Audio Visual:
Sennheiser Momentum Headphones on ModSynergy.
Logitech G533 Wireless 7.1 Surround Gaming Headset on PCPerspective.

Misc:
FSP Twins 500 W Redundant PSU on TechPowerUp.
ROCCAT Suora FX Gaming Keyboard on FunkyKit.
Raijintek Pallas Low Profile CPU Cooler on TechnoYard.
Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 PC on TechSpot.
MSI GTX 1060 Aero ITX 6G OC on LanOC.
Amped Wireless Ally Plus Whole Home Wi-Fi System on Tweaktown.



Tuesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 7-March-2017  17:52:24 (GMT +10) - by aftahours

Cooling:
X2 Eclipse Advanced Universal Tower CPU Cooler on FunkyKit
NZXT Kraken X62 Liquid CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.org
Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 Direct CPU Cooler on TweakTown
NZXT Kraken X42 All-In-One CPU Liquid Cooler on HardOCP

RAM:
GEIL EVO Potenza DDR4-2400 16GB Memory Kit on FunkyKit
Ballistix Tactical 32GB DDR4-3000 Memory Kit on Madshrimps
DDR4 Memory Scaling on AMD AM4 Platforms For Ryzen on Legit Reviews

CPU:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 and 1700X CPU on TweakTown
Intel 7th Generation Core i3 7350K Processor on OCC
Athlon X4 860K CPU on Hardware Secrets

Audio:
66 Audio REVOLUTION Wireless Headphones on NikKTech
Fnatic Gear DUEL Gaming Headset on APH Networks

Videocard:
EVGA GTX 1070 SC2 with iCX Technology on Hardware Asylum
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Hot Hardware

Misc:
Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) on Gaming Nexus
The Truly Ergonomic Mechanical Keyboard on Tech Powerup
MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium Motherboard on LanOC
AMD Ryzen SSD Storage Performance on TweakTown

PSU:
BitFenix Whisper M 450W & 850W PSU on Anandtech
Topower SilentEZ 350W Power Supply on Hardware Insights



Monday Afternoon (12 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 6-March-2017  16:50:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Another 74 piracy sites may be blocked in Australia, if movie studios get their way. This second case has occurred because the studios are trying to stay ahead of the pirating sites, which often change names or web addresses to avoid blocks. If granted, it means Australian courts have blocked access to 135 piracy sites.

Robot delivery is one step closer - in the USA, at least. Virginia has made robotics history. The commonwealth is the first state to pass legislation allowing delivery robots to operate on sidewalks and crosswalks across the state. The new law goes into effect on July 1 and was signed into law by the governor last Friday. The two Virginia lawmakers who sponsored the bill, Ron Villanueva and Bill DeSteph, teamed up with Starship Technologies, an Estonian-based ground delivery robotics company, to draft the legislation. Robots operating under the new law won’t be able to exceed 10 miles per hour or weigh over 50 pounds, but they will be allowed to rove autonomously.

APHNetworks are looking for the sweet spot when building a NAS. In our report today, I would like to propose the same idea for those who are looking for a high performance, high capacity network attached storage solution. My goal is to try to strike the sweet spot in delivering a massive amount of storage, while ensuring this setup is also optimal in power efficiency, features, dependability, and performance, all without totally breaking the bank. You know, a setup that will surprise and impress your friends at the same time, just like the Honda Accord.

ComputerWorld have an article about the DVD, at 20 years old. It was 20 years ago this month that consumer electronics companies Sony and Toshiba launched a new home video format called Digital Video Disc, or DVD. The format promised a four-fold increase in resolution over VHS and the permanence of music CDs, in that the video would not degrade as you played it.



Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 6-March-2017  11:20:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg

CPU & Motherboard:
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Processor on MadShrimps.
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Linux Benchmarks on Phoronix.
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X on Guru3D.

Cooling:
Corsair HD120 RGB PWM Fan Kit on BenchmarkReviews.
Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 Direct CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.

Input Etc:
COUGAR Revenger Optical Gaming Mouse on NikKTech.
Roccat Suora FX Keyboard on Modders-Inc.

Audio Visual:
Samsung CF791 34-Inch Curved Widescreen on ThinkComputers.
LG B6 OLED 4K TV on HWSecrets.

Misc:
Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC HD WiFi Access Point on CustomPCReview.
Corsair Carbide Air 740 case on OCaholic.



Misc Pics (22 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 3-March-2017  15:16:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Friday again! Thanks to Dan and Simon this week.








AMD Ryzen Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 3-March-2017  12:06:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg

After much anticipation, the independent reviews of AMD's new Ryzen CPUs have hit the web. Is this finally the CPU family that will challenge Intel and bring real competition to the market?

AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 7 1700X, and Ryzen 7 1700 CPUs on Tech Report.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, And 1700 Reviews And Benchmarks on HotHardware.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X and 1700 Processor on LegitReviews.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, and 1700 Processor on OCClub.
The AMD Zen and Ryzen 7 Review: 1800X, 1700X and 1700 on Anandtech.
AMD Ryzen Review: Ryzen 7 1800X & 1700X on TechSpot.
AMD Ryzen 7 CPUs on LanOC.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU on Modders-Inc.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Linux Benchmarks on Phoronix.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X processor on Guru3D.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (14nm Zen) on Hexus.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X on Vortez.
The AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Review: Now and Zen on PCPerspective.
Charts CPU Performance Content Creation: 15 CPUs tested - AMD Ryzen 7 1700X on OCAholic.
AMD Ryzen 7 Performance In 3D Rendering & Video Transcoding on TechARP.
How To Decode The AMD Ryzen Model Numbers on TechARP.
AMD Ryzen review: ?Which CPU is best: Intel or AMD? on PCWorld.
Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 motherboard on LanOC.
Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370-Gaming 5 motherboard on PCWorld.
AMD AM4 Cooler for AMD Ryzen on OCInside.
AMD Ryzen Motherboards Explained - What AMD AM4 Chipset To Buy on LegitReviews.
RyzenMaster and HPET can make your Ryzen computer run slower on PCWorld.

Discussion continues in this thread.



Gigabyte/AMD HWBOT Competition (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 2-March-2017  14:51:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg

To celebrate the impending arrival of Ryzen, there's an overclocking competition in the forums. It's being organised on HWBOT and sponsored by AMD and Gigabyte. You can win one of two Gigabyte Aorus motherboards!


click for the thread!



Wednesday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 1-March-2017  23:21:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Maximus IX Hero Motherboard on Guru3D.
ASUS ROG Maximus IX Apex Overclocking Motherboard on HWAsylum.
ASUS ROG Strix Z270I Gaming on OCAholic.
Biostar Racing Z270GT4 mATX motherboard on TechPowerUp.
Intel Kaby Lake Core i3-7350K versus non-K Showdown on MadShrimps.

Audio Visual:
Kogan curved 4K UHD 55-inch LED LCD TV on PCWorld.
EpicGear Melodiouz Analog In-Ear Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
Cougar Immersa Vs Megara Headset Head-to-Head on eTeknix.
Tt eSPORTS Cronos RGB 7.1 Gaming Headset on Bjorn3D.
Antlion Audio ModMic 5 on eTeknix.

Portable & Prebuilt:
MSI's Trident 3 compact gaming PC on TechReport.
HP Elite x3 Windows 10 Smartphone on HotHardware.
The HP Spectre x360 (2017) 2-in-1 Laptop First Look on TechARP.
LG G6 Hands-On Preview smartphone on HotHardware.

Input Etc:
Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S White keyboard on Vortez.
Rosewill RK-9300 Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
HyperX Alloy FPS Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Modders-Inc.
Creative Sound BlasterX Siege M04 mouse on Vortez.
ROCCAT Skeltr Smart Communication Gaming Keyboard on MadShrimps.
Tesoro Excalibur SE Spectrum Mechanical Keyboard on APHNetworks.
Roccat Suora FX Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on eTeknix.

Cooling:
Reeven Polariz RFC-4 Fan Controller on BenchmarkReviews.
REEVEN Four Eyes Touch Fan Controller on FunkyKit.
Cooler Master Masterliquid Pro 240 Liquid Cooler on TechnoYard.

Storage:
QNAP TVS-873 NAS on PCReview.
Corsair Force MP500 480GB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD on Tweaktown.
TerraMaster F2-220 Small Business/Home Cloud Storage NAS on NikKTech.
Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) 6.1 NAS software on eTeknix.

Misc:
Aeotec DSB45 Z-Wave Water Sensor on BigBruin.
SilverStone ES02-USB PC Remote Switch Kit on ThinkComputers.
Patriot LX Series micro SDXC Class 10 256 GB Flash Memory on Modders-Inc.
GTX 1080 Founders Edition SLI Testing video cards on LanOC.
Thermaltake View 31 TG Mid Tower case on NikKTech.




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