September 2017

Misc Pics (16 Comments) (link)  Friday, 29-September-2017  14:12:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg Far out - this entire week was a complete write-off due to flu. :( Thanks to metamorphosis and Simon this week! Wednesday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 27-September-2017  22:26:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: Intel Core i9-7980XE 18-Core Processor on LegitReviews. Ryzen 3 vs. Core i3 benched on GTX 1060/1070 & RX Vega on Tweaktown. Intel Core i9-7960X 16-Core Processor on ThinkComputers. Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 3 motherboard on OCAholic. Audio Visual: HyperX Cloud Alpha Gaming Headset on LegitReviews. Rosewill Nebula GX50 USB headset on TechPowerUp. Portable & Prebuilt: Zotac's Zbox Magnus EN1080K small-form-factor PC on TechReport. Asus' Tinker Board single-board computer on TechReport. ASUS Tinker Board Is An Interesting ARM SBC For About $60 USD on Phoronix. Input Etc: Cooler Master MasterKeys L PBT Mechanical Keyboard on APHNetworks. Cooler Master MasterSet MS120 Keyboard+Mouse Combo on Modders-Inc. Cases: Phanteks Eclipse P300 on TechPowerUp. In Win 101 on APHNetworks. Misc: EWin Racing Champion Series Gaming Chair on NikKTech. Marseille mCable Gaming Edition HDMI cable on PC Perspective. HP OfficeJet Pro 8740 Printer on Tweaktown. Koolance VID-NX1080 GPU Water Block on TechPowerUp. G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 32GB 3000MHz DDR4 (F4-3200C16Q-32GTZR) memory kit on MadShrimps. Tuesday Afternoon (2 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 26-September-2017  16:14:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg Australia will soon have its own space agency. Most developed nations have a space agency, including New Zealand, and there are concerns Australia may be not be capitalising on the growing industry. The Federal Government will detail the long-term plans at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, where the Opposition will also reveal its own plan. Discussion in this thread. TomsHardware reckon the iPhone 8 is comfortably the world's fastest. The "Bionic" part in the name of Apple's A11 Bionic chip isn't just marketing speak. It's the most powerful processor ever put in a mobile phone. We've put this chip to the test in both synthetic benchmarks and some real-world speed trials, and it obliterates every Android phone we tested. Here's an interesting blog: This Day in Tech History. Yesterday for example, marked the anniversary of probably the first Personal Computer - and it's not the one you might have expected. September 25, 1973. Micro Computer Machines of Canada introduces their MCM/70 microcomputer at a programmer’s user conference in Toronto. Possibly the earliest commercially manufactured device that can now be considered a personal computer, the MCM/70 gained customers at companies such as Chevron, Mutual Life Insurance, NASA, and the US Army. The company worked closely with Intel on the design of their computer and made very early use of the Intel 8008 processor, of which the basic design was used for the future Intel 8086. Microsoft, Facebook and Telxius just laid down the fastest trans-Atlantic cable. The cable is capable of transmitting 160 terabits of data per second, the equivalent of streaming 71 million HD videos at the same time, and 16 million times faster than an average home internet connection, Microsoft claims. The cable will be operational by early 2018. Telstra meanwhile have quietly turned on their Internet of Things network. The network was upgraded with long-time partner Ericsson to enable CAT-M1 devices, a technology that allows low-power, wide-area technology to connect to licensed spectrum. CAT-M1 devices can run on a single battery for years and are suitable for mobility, voice support and moderate bitrates in the order of hundreds of Kbps, such as vehicle telematics, asset tracking, consumer and healthcare wearables and smart electricity metering. Telstra’s IoT network covers three million square kilometres across Australia and 99 percent of the population. Hisense have a competition to win a 4K TV and a 3-day trip to PAX in Melbourne. If you could choose a video game to visit or live in, which would it be and why? Perhaps you dream of exploring the stars and naming flora and fauna like in No Man’s Sky? (Kinda). Perhaps you’re an old-school adult who remembers the first ever iteration of Super Mario Bros and you’ve longed to visit a world down a drainpipe? Hrm, looks like it might require a FB account to enter. 18-core and 16-core Core X CPUs (0 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 26-September-2017  01:10:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg Intel have unveiled new Core X CPUs, taking aim squarely at the high-performance desktop market. The Core i9-7980XE with 18 cores and the Core i9-7960X with 16 seem to be on track to re-take the crown, but with a hefty pricetag attached. Here's some reviews: The Intel Core i9-7980XE and 7960X Review: Skylake-X at $1999 and 18-cores on PCPerspective. Intel Core i9-7980XE 18-Core Processor on LegitReviews. Intel Core i9-7980XE 18-Core Processor on ThinkComputers. Intel Core i9 7980XE Linux Benchmarks: 18 Core / 36 Threads For $1999 USD on Phoronix. Intel Core i9 7960X Linux Benchmarks on Phoronix. Intel Core i9 7980XE & Core i9 7960X on OCClub. Intel Core i9-7980XE & 7960X on TechSpot. Intel Core i9-7980XE and i9-7960X CPU on Tweaktown. Intel i9-7980XE and i9-7960X - Core-X Again on LanOC. Intel Core i9-7980XE And Core i9-7960X Review: Intel Attacks AMD Threadripper on HotHardware. Discussion continues in this thread. Monday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 25-September-2017  23:35:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg Video Cards: ASUS ROG Radeon RX Vega 64 STRIX Gaming (8GB) on Guru3D. AMD Radeon RX VEGA 56 8GB on eTeknix. Motherboard & CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16c 32t Processor on eTeknix. MSI X299 SLI Plus Intel X-Series Motherboard on eTeknix. MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Threadripper Motherboard on eTeknix. Audio Visual: X2 KONDOR / X2-HS7007-USB Gaming Headset on FunkyKit. Jabra Elite Sport True Wireless Earbuds on NikKTech. Corsair Void Pro RGB Wireless Special Edition on FunkyKit. Asus ROG Strix XG27VQ monitor on TechSpot. Corsair Void Pro RGB Gaming Headset on eTeknix. Storage: Areca ARC-8050T3 12-Bay Thunderbolt 3 RAID DAS on Tweaktown. Crucial BX300 480GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix. Misc: Vertagear SL5000 Gaming Chair on TechPowerUp. ASUS ROG Rapture (GT-AC5300) Enthusiast Router on eTeknix. Seasonic FOCUS Plus 850 Gold 850W PSU on APHNetworks. Gigabyte Aorus X3 Plus R7 Gaming Notebook on eTeknix. Cooler Master Mastermouse MM530 RGB Gaming Mouse on eTeknix. Thermaltake Core G21 Tempered Glass Edition case on eTeknix. Misc Pics (24 Comments) (link)  Friday, 22-September-2017  15:03:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg Thanks to Rezin amd t1mbot this week! Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 22-September-2017  11:50:08 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: EVGA X299 Micro on Hardware Asylum. Supermicro Z270 C7Z270-CG on Funky Kit. MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC on Anandtech. Storage: Plextor M8Se 256GB & 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD on TweakTown. TerraMaster F2-420 2-Bay Quad-Core NAS on Legit Reviews. Input etc: CHERRY B.UNLIMITED 3.0 Keyboard & Mouse Kit on Madshrimps. iKBC F108 RGB Keyboard on techPowerUp. Gigabyte Aorus K7 keyboard and Aorus M3 mouse on Guru3D. Corsair K70 LUX RGB on Vortez. Cases: Thermaltake View 31 Tempered Glass RGB Edition on Hexus. RAIJINTEK Asterion Classic Aluminum Chassis on Modders-Inc. Cooling: Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 on Phoronix. Cooler Master MasterFan Pro RGB Fan and RGB Controller on OC Inside. Reeven Kiran RGB 120mm Fan on Modders-Inc. Systems: AVADirect BattleBox Ultimate X370 Gaming System on ThinkComputers. HP Omen Desktop PC on Techspot. Misc: TP-Link Archer C3150 Dual-Band Wireless Router on TweakTown. Philips BDM4037UW 40-Inch Curved 4K UHD LCD Display on NikKTech. Moto Z2 Play on Hot Hardware. Thursday Afternoon (1 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 21-September-2017  14:25:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg I wasn't aware of this lawsuit between Asetek and Cooler Master, but it seems a court has sided with CM for now. Back in April 2017, Cooler Master lost a dispute in the court against Asetek, a company that specializes in CPU and GPU liquid solutions over patent infringement. As result, Cooler Master is required to compensate a huge sum of $600,000 for violating U.S. patents 8240362 and 8245764 which belonged to Asetek. However, the table has turned in the favor of Cooler Master, as the court in the Hague has annulled a European patent of Asetek for water cooling in the Netherlands because of lack of inventiveness. Tech Report have a system guide posted. Ryzen 3, Ryzen Threadripper, new Core i7 and Core i9 CPUs, and a tectonic shift in graphics card pricing have made for a tumultuous couple of months in the world of DIY PCs. We're here to help navigate these turbulent waters with a new System Guide. Tweaktown looked into Threadripper's hardware modes. We spend time investigating and testing AMD's various hardware modes for its Threadripper CPU to see what difference they make it performance. If you like large scale free-battle games, you'll be happy to know that Battle Royale will be free from the 26th of September. The team at Epic is excited to announce that Fortnite Battle Royale will be available for FREE beginning September 26! The Fortnite Battle Royale mode takes the gameplay of battle royale games and adds all of the action-building pieces unique to Fortnite. This 100-player PvP world will allow you to locate weapons and supplies, destroy enemy cover, drop traps, and build your way to victory. While I'm here, it seems that Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is free on Humble Bundle at the moment, too. Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee® is provided via Steam key for Windows. For key redemption, a free Steam account is required. Discussion in this thread. Finally, a few people pointed out that eBay Australia are celebrating their 18th Birthday by offering 18% off site-wide tonight only. Conditions apply, obviously. Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 20-September-2017  14:27:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: AMD X399 TR4 Threadripper Motherboard Buyer's Guide on Tweaktown. AMD A12-9800 Review: Infecting The AM4 Platform on TechSpot. GIGABYTE AX370 Gaming K7 AM4 Motherboard on HardOCP. Power Supply: Seasonic PRIME 650 Platinum on HardOCP. be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W on HardOCP. Audio Visual: HyperX Cloud Revolver S on TechPowerUp. SilverStone Ensemble EBA02 Headphone Holder on APHNetworks. Cases: Riotoro Prism CR1280 Full Tower RGB on Guru3D. Thermaltake View 28 RGB Riing Edition on Vortez. Misc: The $12 RGB Strip For Your Monitor on ThinkComputers. PUBG CPU Core Benchmarks – How Many Cores Do You Need on LegitReviews. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 on HotHardware. 8K benched: RX Vega 64 vs. GTX 1080 Ti vs. TITAN Xp SLI on Tweaktown. ROCCAT Isku+ Force FX Gaming Keyboard on Modders-Inc. Tuesday Aaaarrrrrvo News (4 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 19-September-2017  15:12:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg Avast, mateys! I've not done a piratey news post since 2013, but those mangy curs Straylight and vellanet reminded me that today be International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and now there even seems to be an Australian version, so open up your buccaneers and listen.. If you've downloaded CCleaner in the last month, beware the malware it was spreadin', lest it scuttle your PC: Now this is an ironic flub-up. Popular utility tool CCleaner (short for ‘Crap Cleaner’), which promises to clean up your system for enhanced performance, was hacked to distribute malware directly to its users, Cisco Talos reports. The Dread Pirate Banshee sent word that it's not all been plain sailing for SpaceX, with a blooper reel showin' their various mishaps. Thar she blows! If the booty you're chasing is a Ryzen CPU in an ITX case, LanOC have a roundup for ye: Well even months after the Ryzen launch ITX boards were basically not available, but that is all starting to change with boards getting in stock from Gigabyte, Asrock, and Biostar. Well to celebrate that I decided to bring together a collection of at least most (I’m sure someone will contact me asking for X brand) of the ITX sized coolers that currently have AM4 support. A few of the coolers I got in are pushing the limits of ITX. But today I’m going to check each of them out, make sure they fit an AM4 ITX board (and ram), and test each cooler for noise and temperatures using Ryzen CPUs from the R7, R5, and R3 platforms. Hopefully, we will get a better idea of what fits, what doesn’t, what looks amazing, what is quiet, and what will work with each level of performance. Phoronix cast a beady eye over how EPYC compares with its Opteron ancestors. By now you have likely seen our initial AMD EPYC 7601 Linux benchmarks. If you haven't, check them out, EPYC does really deliver on being competitive with current Intel hardware in the highly threaded space. If you have been curious to see some power numbers on EPYC, here they are from the Tyan Transport SX TN70A-B8026 2U server. Making things more interesting are some comparison benchmarks showing how the AMD EPYC performance compares to AMD Opteron processors from about ten years ago. Meanwhile, those land-lubbers at Techspot have compared Core i7 vs. Ryzen 5 with Vega 64 & GTX 1080, yarrr. By using the Core i7-7700K and Ryzen 5 1600, each with the Vega 64 and GTX 1080 at 1080p and 1440p we have some very interesting results to go over. Further, we suspect these are typical hardware combinations many are considering for building a new high-end rig when gaming is a big factor. Man the poop deck! Another sea battle is underway at BabelTech, with the RX Vega 56 vs. GTX 1070 FE facing off in an overclocking showdown. Previously, we found that the stock-clocked $399 reference version of the RX Vega 56 is about 8-9% faster than the $399 stock-clocked reference GTX 1070 FE using 28 PC games. This time, we will test 20 PC games, and overclock the GTX 1070 FE and the RX Vega 56 each as far as they will go to see where they stand in relation to each other fully overclocked. It be quite a day for duellin', with the ROG Zenith Extreme vs ASRock X399 Taichi on FunkyKit. It’s an epic battle between two of the most awesome X399 motherboards on the market. the Asus ROG Zenith Extreme and the ASRock X399 Taichi. We put these two motherboards to the test to find out which one is the real winner. The Verge make the interesting point that we expect a PC to last for years, but accept a phone costing the same amount to last much less long. I usually spend about $1,300 on a new computer, and I usually expect it to stay in good shape for about four years — if not more. So if I’m spending over $1,000 on an iPhone, how long should I expect to use it for? Err, yarr? That wily old sea-dog elvis has announced that the latest "Retro Let's Play" is Super Mario 64, from way back in 1996. Currently ranked #1 in HG101's Top 47,858 Games of All Time (scroll down to their Episode 15 podcast if you want to hear their detailed discussion), it's hard to find a gamer (or even non-gamer) who hasn't heard of Mario. First appearing as "Jumpman" in the 1981 arcade classic "Donkey Kong", Mario has served as Nintendo's major mascot for almost their entire console gaming history. Super Mario Brothers, which first appeared on the NES in 1985, is often credited as a final nail in the coffin for the video game crash that started in 1983, and resulted in the rise of home video game systems booming in popularity. Time for me to return to the briny depths, but first, here's our ever-popular TLAPD mascot: Yarrr! Tuesday Morning Reviews (2 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 19-September-2017  09:34:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: ECS Z270H4-I LGA1151 Motherboard on MadShrimps. Asus' ROG Strix Z270E Gaming motherboard on TechReport. GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming 8 Motherboard on PCPerspective. ASRock X399 Professional Gaming Motherboard on Tweaktown. Initial Benchmarks Of The AMD EPYC 7601 On Ubuntu Linux on Phoronix. Audio Visual: Reolink Argus Wireless Battery-Powered Security Camera on OCClub. Kanto YU4 Desktop Computer Speakers on APHNetworks. Video Cards: AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 on TechARP. ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 1080 Ti 11G on Modders-Inc. Misc: SteelSeries Apex M750 keyboard on Vortez. Kingston KC1000 960GB PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers. Keeping Intel Core X-Series CPUs Cool With Noctua Air Cooling on Phoronix. Sunday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Sunday, 17-September-2017  09:57:38 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: ASUS TUF X299 Mark I on Guru3D. Gigabyte Aorus GA-Z270X-Gaming 8 on The Tech Report. ASRock X399 Taichi on Funky Kit. MSI X399 Gaming Carbon Pro AC on Hexus. Storage: Crucial BX300 480 GB on techPowerUp. Buffalo TeraStation TS5410 8TB 10Gbe NAS on TweakTown. Transcend StoreJet 25C3N 1TB Portable HDD on TweakTown. Corsair Neutron NX500 NVMe PCIe Gen.3 x4 Add-In Card SSD on NikKTech. Silicon Power Armor A85 1TB External Hard Drive on Hexus. Mobile: ASUS ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro (ZD552KL) on TechARP. MSI GS63VR Gaming Notebook on PC Perspective. Misc: Reeven Naia 240 AIO Cooler on Modders-Inc. Corsair HX1000 Platinum 2017 on ocaholic. CHERRY B.UNLIMITED 3.0 Keyboard on Vortez. GeIL EVO X AMD Edition DDR4 on Vortez. AOC AGON AG271QG 144-165 Hz on techPowerUp. AVA Direct Avant Mid-Size on LanOC Reviews, Linksys Velop Mesh Wireless Router on APH Networks. Misc Pics (33 Comments) (link)  Friday, 15-September-2017  14:54:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg Thanks to Rezin and Simon this week! Friday Afternoon (1 Comments) (link)  Friday, 15-September-2017  14:12:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg NASA's Cassini Mission comes to an end in a few hours, crashing into Saturn after successfully orbiting it for 13 years. On its final orbit, Cassini will plunge into Saturn's atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour, sending back new and unique science to the very end. After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft burns up like a meteor, becoming part of the planet itself. Here's a look back at some of its discoveries and images. Discussion in this thread. HWInfo rounded up 17 PCI-Express SSDs for a shootout. There is a lot of renewal and progress in the area of fast storage. Time to cover all the recent developments, including a test of 17 PCI-Express SSDs. This way you have an overview of the state of affairs in this market. The last time we created an overview of the market for PCI-Express SSDs was early 2016. Right now, the situation is a lot different in comparison. This is not shocking, considering the pace at which developments are implemented in this segment. This pace will probably stay the same or even increase, as more and more manufacturers succeed in introducing competitive PCI-Express SSDs. Bitcoin pricing is on a wild ride, thanks to concerns about Chinese Government regulation. The Wall Street Journal reports that China's central bank has put together a draft of the ban on exchanges after a months-long investigation the cryptocurrency. At the moment, details are thin and reports are only indicating that exchanges based in China, such as OKCoin and Huobi, would have to cease their operations. It remains to be seen if exchanges outside the country will be blocked by government's central firewall. Tweaktown on the other hand are looking into ETH mining performance. Ethereum cryptocurrency mining benchmarks... a fight to the mining death between AMD and NVIDIA's best GPUs! Meanwhile the "Colorful" brand have introduced a crypto-targeted motheroard, with eight PCIe x16 slots. This board is 485 mm in length, and 195 mm in width, and probably won't fit in even HPTX cases for its intended use, but is suited for custom rack-type setups. It only includes the most bare-essential features to set up a mining rig with up to eight graphics cards, with 2-slot spacing between each card. Remember when graphics cards were used for games? ;) Techspot do, and have a budget eSports shootout. It's time for another GPU battle, though this one is a bit different with GPUs under $100: from AMD we have the Radeon RX 550 and on Nvidia's side is the GeForce GT 1030. Our focus will be primarily on eSports titles including CS:GO, Overwatch and Dota 2 running on a Ryzen 3 test bench. HotHardware compared some Intel Z270 motherboards. Today we are going to take a look at three popular Intel Z270-based motherboards targeted at power users and gamers, produced by enthusiast favorites Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI. The three boards we've rounded-up here cover a wide range of price points. The Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming K5 and ASUS ROG STRIX Z270F Gaming boards represent more mainstream segments, while the MSI Z270 XPOWER Gaming Titanium targets the ultra high-end. Thursday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 14-September-2017  23:28:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg Cases: Raijintek Thetis Window Chassis on ThinkComputers. Raijintek PAEAN on Modders-Inc. BitFenix Nova TG on Guru3D. Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Tempered Glass on OCAholic. Silverstone Kublai KL07 on TechPowerUp. SilverStone Case Storage Series CS350 on Phoronix. Cooling: Antec H2O H1200 Pro AIO CPU cooler on OCInside. Game Max Iceberg 240mm Liquid Cooler on KitGuru. Power Supply: Seasonic FOCUS Plus Platinum 550W PSU on PCPerspective. Unitek 10-Port USB Charging Station on ThinkComputers. Aerocool Project 7 P7 650W Platinum on KitGuru. Corsair TX-850M 850W on Hexus. Misc: ASUS ROG Swift PG248Q 24” Gaming Monitor on FunkyKit. DockCase Connectivity Dock for MacBook 15" on Tweaktown. Wednesday Afternoon (3 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 13-September-2017  13:36:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg Science Fiction author and long-time tech writer Jerry Pournelle has passed away. Science fiction author Jerry Pournelle passed away earlier this week after a sudden illness at the age of 84. He helped popularize the military science fiction genre with novels such as Janissaries and The Mercenary, but is also credited with a major milestone: the first author to write a novel entirely on a computer. Apple have unveiled the iPhone X, named for the 10-year anniversary of the original iPhone. The Home button is removed, and Tap to Wake is now a feature. You can also use Raise to Wake, then swipe up from the bottom of the display to unlock the iPhone or return to the Home screen. Swipe up and pause to enter multitasking. It's also nearly two freaking grand in Australia. There's more about the X and iPhone 8 models which were also launched recently in this article, and discussion in this thread. Meanwhile, with the news that phones only last a year, some are wondering if we really need a new model so often. Apple and other tech firms have been criticized for "planned obsolescence": Deliberately making products with short life spans so consumers quickly find them obsolete and resort to buying the latest model. More than 337,000 people have signed a petition created by consumer group SumOfUs last summer urging Apple against this practice. Just how bad is it? How impractical would an old phone be today? The only way to find out would be to try to use one. Actually that article doesn't really go into the issue as much as I'd hoped. Oh well, I'll be over here with my Galaxy S 5, yelling at a cloud. If you've been experiencing game stuttering since the Windows 10 Creator's Update, you're not alone - but Microsoft are working on a fix. Since April, a certain set of gamers have been complaining about frame rate stuttering and slow system performance after installing the Windows 10 Creators Update to their gaming PCs. Despite following the usual steps of reinstalling drivers, and disabling Xbox Game DVR, the issues still persisted over the past five or so months. Well, months later, a post in the Microsoft Answers forum about this very issue has gathered up tons of comments, and the company has finally come out and acknowledged the problems, saying a fix will be coming soon. Wednesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 13-September-2017  11:26:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: Asus ROG Zenith Extreme X399 (Ryzen Threadripper) Motherboard on FunkyKit. BIOSTAR A320MH Pro Gaming Motherboard on Tweaktown. Cooling: FSP Windale 4 CPU cooler on TechPowerUp. Noctua NF-A20 and NF-A12x15 fans on Vortez. Audio Visual: Creative Sound Blaster Roar Classic Lite speakers on Vortez. Edifier R1010BT Desktop Computer Speakers on APHNetworks. Storage: QNAP TS-453Bmini-8G NAS Server on NikKTech. ADATA SX8000 M.2 512 GB SSD on Guru3D. Portable & Prebuilt: ASUS ZenFone AR Review: Google Tango And Daydream VR Take Center Stage on HotHardware. Gigabyte's Aero 15 gaming laptop on TechReport. Input Etc: Drevo Calibur 71-Key Mechanical Keyboard on ThinkComputers. HyperX Alloy FPS and FPS Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on PCPerspective. Corsair K70 LUX RGB keyboard on OCAholic. Misc: Cougar Armor Gaming Chair on TechPowerUp. Mean:IT 5PM LUM RED Case on Modders-Inc. RX Vega 56 vs. GTX 1070 FE – 28 Game Showdown on BabelTechReviews. P-Link Archer C5400v2 Wireless Router on Tweaktown. Forum Projects (1 Comments) (link)  Monday, 11-September-2017  18:53:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg Catching up on a few reviews and projects from the forums: FIREWIRE1394 reviewed the ALBATROZ Xplorer 550M KB/M havabeer is building a jetski trailer Zenskas shows off some high-speed Tasmanian NBN bleckers built himself a DIY PCB re-flow oven Alby1976 installed a backup dashcam battery alexciobanu built an impressive Dead Space PC __Ripjaws__ reviewed the Armageddon Decatron case as well as the SHAW Micro HERO case and finally the SHAW ECO MK3 Full ATX case Monday Afternoon (1 Comments) (link)  Monday, 11-September-2017  13:14:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg Australian researchers are working on a new type of quantum computer. This might just be the final piece of puzzle in the realm of silicon-based quantum computers. “Although we only have its blueprint, the development of this device is as crucial as the 1998 seminal paper by Bruce Kane on silicon quantum computing ” stated Andrea Morello, the research team leader. “Similar to Kane’s paper, our project is a proposal and the qubit is yet to be built.” Morello explains. “Our experimental data suggests that the project is possible and hopefully we shall demonstrate this later. But I think this research is as visionary as Kane’s original paper.” Their paper is here on Nature. On the other hand, one academic has labelled Australia's NBN a national tragedy. Professor Tucker concludes: “This situation is nothing short of a national tragedy and a classic example of failed infrastructure policy that will have long-term ramifications for Australia’s digital economy.” The news comes after reports that Australia has slower internet speeds than Kenya or Latvia – and is continuing to sink dramatically down the world rankings. The academic paper can be read here, thanks Tony_L. HardOCP compared Threadripper waterblocks. We have reached out to every company that has sent us a press release on its new Threadripper waterblock, and asked for a sample. Some have never responded back, some have refused samples for not giving them free advertising, and others have stepped right up to have their products reviewed. And lastly we have simply purchased some Threadripper waterblocks as well. Google upset a lot of people by announcing that Google Drive is going away, but apparently that's not quite the case. First and foremost, the Google cloud service known as Drive is going to be just fine, for now. If you log in to your Google account and utilise Drive's storage through a web browser, you probably won't notice any changes. But the Google Drive app for PC and Mac is officially being deprecated and the company's developers announced in a blog post that it will no longer be supported starting December 11. Instead, you'll need to choose from one of two new apps. PC Perspective checked out NVIDIA WhisperMode. Attempting to address the problem of loud gaming notebooks, NVIDIA released a technology called WhisperMode. WhisperMode launched alongside NVIDIA's Max-Q design notebooks earlier this year, but it will work with any notebook enabled with an NVIDIA GTX 1060 or higher. This software solution aims to limit noise and power consumption of notebooks by restricting the frame rate of your game to a reasonable compromise of performance, noise, and power levels. Concerns about Kaspersky continue, with Best Buy removing their products from shelves. Kaspersky Lab, which boasts it has more than 400 million users, has strongly denied any links to the Russian government. But some federal lawmakers are pressing for legislation that would ban the U.S. government from using Kaspersky's software. They are on heightened alert about Russian hackers, some suspected of being backed by its government, in the wake of their interference in the U.S. presidential election. I generally advise people just to use the in-built Microsoft antivirus nowadays, seems to do the job. Wikimedia have a competition involving taking photos of Australian Monuments. Australia is participating in Wiki Loves Monuments for the first time in 2017. Photographs of any registered heritage places are eligible for consideration in the judging. The competition will be open for entries from 00:00(AEST) 1 September 2017 until 23:59(AWST) 30 September 2017. LegitReviews played around with ETH mining on Radeon RX Vega 64. Over the weekend we started seeing stories that AMD Radeon Vega 64 air cooled models could get 43.5 MH/s at just 130 Watts of power when mining Ethereum using Claymore’s miner. His numbers got us interested in seeing what was going on though, so we grabbed our well known Kill A Watt P3 P4400 series power meters that we've used for over 15 years and our Vega graphics cards to see what all the hubbub is about. We'll also be trying out the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled edition for the very first time for this article. Meanwhile, in response to my earlier question about Bitcoin ATMs in Australia, a few people sent in this link which shows where 16 of them are. Thanks! Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 11-September-2017  06:50:32 (GMT +10) - by booj Motherboards & CPUs: Intel Core i7-7820X 8-Core Processor on ThinkComputers. ASRock Z270 Taichi on TweakTown. MSI X399 GAMING PRO CARBON AC on TweakTown. Input etc: GAMDIAS HERMES P1 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Madshrimps. HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Keyboard on APH Networks. Bloody B820R Light Strike Keyboard on techPowerUp. HyperX Alloy Elite on Vortez. Audio: Lioncast LX50 Headset on OC Inside. Sound BlasterX AE-5 Pro Gaming Sound Card on Hardware Asylum. Creative MUVO 2C on Vortez. Mobile: Huawei Mate 9 on Hot Hardware. Motorola Moto Z2 Play on Techspot. ASUS VivoBook S15 (S510U) Laptop on TechARP. Misc: G.SKILL Trident Z RGB on Vortez. Enermax Revolution SFX 650W PSU on Funky Kit. MIFCOM Savage 1080 Ti system on ocaholic. Fractal Design Meshify C Case on Guru3D. Radeon RX Vega 64 vs GeForce GTX 1080 FCAT Analysis on Guru3d Misc Pics (26 Comments) (link)  Friday, 8-September-2017  15:11:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg Thanks to Rezin, BFM and Dan this week! Friday Morning (4 Comments) (link)  Friday, 8-September-2017  11:45:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg Australia could get a lot more Bitcoin ATMs soon. A joint venture between blockchain firm DigitalX and ATM provider Stargroup could see a "large-scale" rollout of machines that allow Australians to buy and sell Bitcoin. Announcing the cooperation to the market this morning, Stargroup's CEO Todd Zani said the project could put the management of cryptocurrencies into the hands of ordinary Australians. That article says there's already a few Bitcoin ATMs around - anyone know where? Forbes have a story about the creation of Threadripper. To delve deeper into Threadripper’s origins, I spoke to some of AMD’s big guns as far as Threadripper was concerned; AMD Senior Vice President and General Manager Jim Anderson along with Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Marketing John Taylor ,who have both been heavily involved in the Threadripper project; also Sarah Youngbauer of AMD’s communications team, plus James Prior, who’s AMD Senior Product Manager and closely involved in the Threadripper inception. AMD are definitely making ground on Intel according to one big reseller. Sales of AMD’s new Ryzen processor for consumer PCs may be gaining more ground than many investors and market analysts have been predicting. A big hardware reseller in Europe, Germany’s Mindfactory, makes sales data public. Starting in March, the launch of the first AMD Ryzen processors, the shift from Intel to AMD at this retailer has been astonishing. Lenovo have been fined for shipping spyware on 750,000 laptops. Acting FTC chairman Maureen Ohlhausen told Inverse Tuesday during a teleconference that some 750,000 Lenovo laptops — sold between August 2014 and June 2015 — came pre-installed with a program called VisualDiscovery, made by the Palo Alto, California-based firm SuperFish. The software would act as a “man-in-the-middle” between a consumer’s browser and the website they visited. More info here. FunkyKit have a simple guide to Overclocking an i5-7640X to 5.1GHz. In this article, we’ll show you how to overclock the Intel Core i5-7640X (Kaby Lake-X) from the default speed of 4.0GHz to a whopping 5.1GHz, by simply changing 3 BIOS options on the ASRock X299 Taichi motherboard. An Australian "hacker", although I'm not sure the title really applies, has caused issues with police radio. A pirate broadcaster posing as a police officer interfered in a police chase this week in Australia, forcing officers to call off the pursuit of two suspected armed robbers. The incident took place on Tuesday when officers from Victoria Police were called to intervene in alleged armed robbery that took place in the town of Sale. Was this coordinated as part of the robbery? Sounds like something out of a movie. Apple have dropped into third place in the smartphone market, with Huawei moving up to second behind Samsung. Researchers at Counterpoint also point out that Huawei has a weak presence in the South Asian, Indian, and North American markets, which “limits Huawei’s potential to the near-to-mid-term to take a sustainable second place position behind Samsung.” Its strongest market is China, and it’s also popular in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Does this count as a timewaster? With Sick City hitting Early Access, the game is now available for everybody to download at www.sickcity.com. Until October 15th, all registered users will be able to play the full version of the game completely free of charge. Also, supporters now have the chance to buy Sick City and receive exclusive content for their trust in the game. Thursday Afternoon Reviews (1 Comments) (link)  Thursday, 7-September-2017  17:03:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg Storage: WD Blue And SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD on HotHardware. WD Blue 3D & SanDisk Ultra 3D 1TB SATA III SSDs on Tweaktown. Zotac 10 Year Anniversary Sonix 480GB PCIe Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers. Input Etc: Patriot Viper V770 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown. Tesoro Excalibur SE Spectrum on OCAholic. Portable & Prebuilt: Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 (SM-T825) Tablet & S Pen on TechARP. Razer Blade Stealth (Mid 2017) laptop on TechSpot. Video Cards: ASUS Radeon ROG RX Vega 64 STRIX 8GB video card on Guru3D. Clutch Chairz Throttle Series Gaming Chair on PC Perspective. ASRock X299 Taichi Motherboard on FunkyKit. Distrust: PC Survival Game on BenchmarkReviews. Cougar Immersa Pro Gaming Headset on NeoSeeker. Wednesday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Wednesday, 6-September-2017  12:56:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: ASRock X299 Gaming i9 on TechPowerUp. MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC on Guru3D. ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME (AMD X399) on Tweaktown. Video Cards: RX Vega 64 Liquid “Unleashed” 28-game OC vs. the GTX 1080 FE on BabelTechReviews. GALAX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti HOF: Performance King with LCD on Tweaktown. Portable & Prebuilt: GIGABYTE P56XT (Intel Kaby Lake) Gaming Laptop on Tweaktown. MSI GE63VR 7RE Raider laptop on Vortez. Misc: DJI Mavic Pro vs DJI Spark – Hands On drones on FunkyKit. Corsair VOID Wireless PRO RGB headset on OCAholic. Arozzi Vernazza World Of Tanks Edition Gaming Chair on NikKTech. Asus BRT-828 AC2600 Dual-WAN VPN WiFi Router on FunkyKit. Adata's SD700 portable SSD on TechReport. Lian Li PC-O11 case on OCAholic. Swiftech Apogee SKF "Heirloom Series" CPU Water Block on TechPowerUp. Monday Afternoon (4 Comments) (link)  Monday, 4-September-2017  16:45:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg If your internet seems slow, it may be because of the continuing cable issues between Sydney and HK. Internet service providers iiNet and Internode today issued an alert to their customers advising of the damage. The main cable breakage that will impact Australian customers occurred an estimated 54 kilometres off the coast of Hong Kong, it said. “We have temporarily routed via the US and redirected peering while the issue is outstanding,” the advisory from the companies said. Or it could just be the continuing NBN dramas. There's nothing wrong with fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), nothing at all – but nbn™, the company building Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN), has decided to move more than a million premises onto other technologies. One way to get NBN access would be to fly Qantas in future. “The rollout of wi-fi on the Qantas domestic network (A330 and 737 aircraft) is expected to accelerate in late September 2017, once the current trial is complete and final regulatory approval for the new service is confirmed,” the airline said in a statement. The trial uses ViaSat equipment and internet services from NBN Co’s Sky Muster satellites on specified flight routes. AMD recently unveiled the third Threadripper CPU, the 8-core, 16-thread 1900X. Tweaktown have more info. AMD's X399 platform has just become significantly more affordable. With confirmed pricing of $549 USD SEP (suggested price), the 1900X is slightly more expensive than the 1800X, which chimes in with 8-cores and 16 threads as well, but they are not the same CPU. The 1900X also offers a 4.2GHz XFR, which is the highest for an 8-core AMD part. The CPU offers a 3.8GHz base clock and up to 4.0GHz boost clock. Discussion continues in this thread in our AMD Hardware forum. SanDisk have a new MicroSD card - apparently the largest ever at 400GB. The 400GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card was unveiled on Thursday morning at the IFA 2017 conference, offering 144GB more storage than any other microSD card on the market. The new card also supports 100MB read speed, A1 app performance, and UHS Speed Class 1 for the best performance available. There's a new version of ReactOS, which is a good prompt to admit this is the first I've heard of it. Turns out it's a free open-source Windows-compatible operating system. Imagine running your favorite Windows applications and drivers in an open-source environment you can trust. That's ReactOS. Not just an Open but also a Free operating system. They go on to say: In order to track ReactOS compatibility with Windows behavior, 1,088,893 unit test cases have been added since 0.4.5. This new release has been tested through 14,238,159 unit test cases, failing just 18,419 (a 0,129% ratio failure). Still, ReactOS is marked as Alpha for the moment. Discussion here. Huawei have a new mobile CPU, taking aim at Samsung and Apple. Yu believes the new Kirin 970 chip’s speed and low power can translate into features that will give its phones an edge over the Apple iPhone 8 series, set to be unveiled on Sept. 12, and Samsung’s range of top-line phones announced this year. Huawei is the world’s No. 3 smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple. Meanwhile it seems Sun Microsystems has finally been killed off. The news from the ex-Sun community jungle drums is that the January rumours were true and Oracle laid off the core talent of the Solaris and SPARC teams on Friday (perhaps hoping to get the news lost in the Labor Day weekend). That surely has to mean a maintenance-only future for the product range, especially with Solaris 12 cancelled. A classic Oracle “silent EOL”, no matter what they claim as they satisfy their contractual commitments to Fujitsu and others. The current "Retro Let's Play" is Snatcher from 1988. "Snatcher" is noted for being a very early example of the visual novel video game. Set in a cyberpunk world, you follow protagonist Gillian Seed who has joined the organisation JUNKER in search of mysterious androids called "Snatchers" who are murdering people and replacing them with robotic clones. Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Monday, 4-September-2017  10:32:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: ECS Z270-LIGHTSABER and Z270H4-I Motherboard on PC Perspective. Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard on ThinkComputers. Portable & prebuilt: Shuttle XPC nano NC03U Barebone on MadShrimps. LG V30 hands-on: Believe the hype on TechSpot. LG V30 Hands-On First Look: Make Way For A Fantastic Android Flagship on HotHardware. Razer Stealth Laptop on Linux on Phoronix. HTC U11 smartphone on TechSpot. Storage: QNAP TS-253B Network Attached Storage on APHNetworks. Two PCIe NVMe SSDs Tested On Six Motherboards By Intel and AMD on LegitReviews. HP SSD S700 PRO 1TB Solid State Drive on BenchmarkReviews. HP S700 Pro 1 TB SSD on Guru3D. Input Etc: Mionix Naos QG mouse on TechPowerUp. ROCCAT LEADR Wireless RGB Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown. Misc: Be quiet! Shadow Rock TF 2 CPU Cooler on NikKTech. Rosewill ORBIT-Z1 case on TechPowerUp. Renew Your Old PC With The NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 on TechARP. Misc Pics (35 Comments) (link)  Friday, 1-September-2017  13:21:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg Early this week! Thanks to mag911 and Dan. Remember it's Father's Day on Sunday! Friday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 1-September-2017  13:17:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg Input Etc: SteelSeries Rival 500 MOBA/MMO Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown. SteelSeries QcK Prism mouse on Vortez. Tesoro Excalibur SE Spectrum keyboard on TechPowerUp. SteelSeries Rival 310 Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit. Kingston HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on NeoSeeker. Cooling: Gigabyte ATC700 AORUS CPU cooler on Guru3D. CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi CPU cooler on TechPowerUp. FSP Windale 4 and 6 CPU Air Cooler on PC Perspective. Software: F1 2017 game on OCClub. Destiny 2 Benchmarked: 30 GPUs Tested on TechSpot. Storage: Crucial BX300 480GB SATA6G SSD on Funkykit. Western Digital My Passport SSD 1TB USB 3.1 on Tweaktown. Toshiba N300 6TB High Reliability Hard Drive For NAS on NikKTech.

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