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March 2018 |
Slightly rushed this week due to holidays and interstate travel and all that kind of stuff. Hope you're having a great Easter! :)
     
     
     
     
     
Wednesday Night Reviews
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Wednesday, 28-March-2018 23:43:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
AMD EPYC 7401 Consumer Tested on Tweaktown.
Dual Intel Xeon Gold 6154 Processor on Tweaktown.
AMD Ryzen 2 (Pinnacle Ridge) - All You Need To Know on TechARP.
SuperMicro H11SSL-NC Server Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
Cooler Master Masterkeys Pro L – NVIDIA Edition on OCAholic.
HAVIT HV-KB395L Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
Cooling:
Corsair Hydro Series H115i Pro RGB 280mm Liquid CPU Cooler on FunkyKit.
EK Fluid Gaming A120 & A240 Liquid CPU Cooling Sets on NikKTech.
EK-MLC Phoenix 360 CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Crucial's MX500 500 GB and 1 TB SSDs on TechReport.
Intel SSD DC P4510 NVMe PCIe on LegitReviews.
Audio Visual:
MSI Immerse GH60 Gaming Headset on NeoSeeker.
Sennheiser CX 6.00BT Bluetooth Earphones on APHNetworks.
Networking:
TP-Link AC2600 Wi-Fi Range Extender on FunkyKit.
ASUS RT-AC86U AC2900 Wi-Fi Router on Tweaktown.
LanReel retractable network cable on LanOC.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Huawei P20, P20 Pro + P20 Lite Smartphones Revealed on TechARP.
Dell XPS 13 9370 (2018) Review: An Evolutionary Leap on PC Perspective.
Software:
Far Cry 5 Benchmark Performance Analysis on TechARP.
Far Cry 5 Benchmarked: 50 GPUs Tested on TechSpot.
Far Cry 5 PC graphics performance analysis and benchmark review on Guru3D.
Misc:
Stormforce Crystal 1070 Ti video card on Vortez.
In Win 305 case on ThinkComputers.
Forum Projects
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Tuesday, 27-March-2018 18:53:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a few interesting projects and reviews from the forums. You can keep on top of things in the forums via the recent activity feed or the new posts page. To see activity in threads you subscribe to, check out your latest alerts.
Also, the alert system is a little different in our new xenForo platform than earlier on vBulletin. So, it's worth checking your watched threads list from time to time in case you missed an alert.
If you see a bright light in the sky this Easter, it will of course be the second coming of Jesus. Or the Chinese space station crashing to Earth, thanks Axe. According to the latest predictions, it will begin its fiery descent into Earth's atmosphere somewhere in a window between March 30 and April 3 — possibly around April 1. But there are concerns the bus-sized spacecraft is out of control. That means some debris from the fireball could hit the Earth anywhere in a band between 43 degrees north and south of the equator.
The latest tech segment to get into legal hot water is capacitor manufacturers, who have been fined for price-fixing behaviour in Europe. The European Commission has issued a £221 million fine to a wide range of capacitor manufacturers for participation in a pricing cartel that saw the cost of consumer electronics hiked between 1998 and 2012.
Linux Mint have a cool little Mintbox Mini 2 tiny desktop PC, now powered by a Celeron. The most important of these upgrades comes in the form of the processor, which goes from an AMD A4 Micro-6400T to an Intel Celeron J3455. Based on the Geekbench 4 scores, the new Mini 2 provides a fourfold boost in performance over the original. Even against the Mintbox Mini Pro, which uses an AMD A10-Micro 6700T chip instead, the Mini 2 is over 50 percent faster.
Meanwhile TechSpot benchmarked Windows on ARM. Microsoft has come up with strange ideas over the years. Their latest one is running Windows on ARM (again), with the help of Qualcomm and some daring manufacturing partners to bring a new OS variant that can emulate x86 software. We get hands on with the first Windows on ARM device, the HP Envy x2, for some serious benchmarking.
The South Korean government is looking at turning office PCs off automatically to stop people over-working. The shutdown initiative in the Seoul Metropolitan Government is set to roll out across three phases over the next three months. The programme will begin on 30 March, with all computers switched off by 20:00. The second phase starts in April, with employees having their computers turned off by 19:30 on the second and fourth Friday that month. From May on, the programme will be in full-swing, with computers shut off by 19:00 every Friday.
Monday Afternoon Reviews
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Monday, 26-March-2018 13:23:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Antlion Audio ModMic 5 Computer Microphone Video Review on APHNetworks.
Reolink Argus 2 Wireless Battery Powered Security Camera on OCClub.
Razer Nommo Chroma speakers on Vortez.
Software:
ARK Park VR Game & Performance on BabeltechReviews.
Windows 10 Pro vs. Five Linux Distributions In Various Benchmarks on Phoronix.
Storage:
Transcend JetDrive 825 SSD Upgrade Kit for MacBook on Tweaktown.
Hewlett-Packard SSD EX900 M.2 on BenchmarkReviews.
Misc:
ADATA XPG Spectrix D40 RGB DDR4-3000 16GB on Tweaktown.
ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming ITX/ac Motherboard on FunkyKit.
The Sony Xperia XZ2 + Xperia XZ2 Compact Revealed on TechARP.
Linksys VELOP Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi System on MadShrimps.
NZXT H400i case on OCInside.
SteelSeries Apex M750 Aluminum Core Mechanical Esports Keyboard on NikKTech.
Thanks to Axe and Timbot this week!
     
     
     
     
     
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 23-March-2018 15:19:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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South Korea are working on deploying 10Gb internet, thanks aftahours. Local telcos KT and LG Uplus, as well as SK Broadband, the fixed-line subsidiary of SK Telecom, are planning to roll out 10Gb internet as early as May this year. KT, the leader in fixed-line, has had limited deployment of 10Gb internet in Seoul and Pyeongchang since 2016. The science ministry aims to find equipment developers through the public order that will cooperate with telcos and broadcasters for faster adoption. Gigabit internet is widely commercialised, with 6.7 million estimated users.
Meanwhile in Australia, iiNet and Internode are having to compensate customers over NBN speeds, thanks Axe. “Internet service providers must provide accurate information to customers about the speeds they can access on the NBN," Ms Court said. “Many customers could not reach the maximum speeds advertised by iiNet and Internode because their connection was not capable of delivering it. “Some customers couldn’t even receive the maximum limit of lower speed plans,” she said.
MUTMAN spotted this 100TB SSD from Nimbus Data. While existing SSDs focus on speed, the DC100 is optimized for capacity and efficiency. With its patent-pending multiprocessor architecture, the DC100 supports much greater capacity than monolithic flash controllers. Using 3D NAND, the DC100 provides enough flash capacity to store 20 million songs, 20,000 HD movies, or 2,000 iPhones worth of data in a device small enough to fit in your back pocket. For data centers, a single rack of DC100 SSDs can achieve over 100 petabytes of raw capacity.
HotHardware are getting retro, showing how to build a Commodore 64 on the cheap using a Raspberry Pi Zero. The Commodore 64 holds a Guinness World record as the highest-selling single computer model of all time. After its initial release in August 1982, the C64 went on to sell millions of units – outselling all other popular 8-bit machines at the time, including the Apple II. For many long-time technology geeks, including me, the Commodore 64 was the first personal computer they ever owned. So, it’s no surprise that all these years later, the machine still hold a special place in our hearts.
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 23-March-2018 15:02:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Retro review: Core i7 2600K Tested in 2018 - Time to upgrade? on Guru3D.
SuperMicro C7Z370-CG-IW ITX Motherboard on FunkyKit.
Audio Visual:
CORSAIR HS60 SURROUND Gaming Headset on MadShrimps.
Dropping cable with the Nvidia Shield TV on LanOC.
Audioengine A5+ Wireless Speakers on TechSpot.
Cases:
Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-OMEGA on ThinkComputers.
NZXT H200i on OCAholic.
Storage:
ASUSTOR AS1002T NAS on Modders-Inc.
Seagate Barracuda Pro 12TB HDD on TechGage.
Input Etc:
CORSAIR K63 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Patriot's Viper V570 FPS-MMO hybrid gaming mouse on TechReport.
GAMDIAS Hermes P2 RGB Optical Mechanical Keyboard on LegitReviews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2018) Review: 6th Gen Workhorse, HDR Brilliance on HotHardware.
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Benchmarks on Phoronix.
Misc:
Corsair ML140 PRO RGB 140mm Magnetic Levitation fans on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Toughpower iRGB PLUS 1200W on NikKTech.
Wednesday Midday Reviews
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Wednesday, 21-March-2018 12:33:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
ADATA EMIX H30 + SOLOX F30 Bundle headset and sound card on TechPowerUp.
ASUS Strix Fusion 500 Headset on Guru3D.
HyperX CLOUD Alpha Pro Gaming Headset on NikKTech.
Storage:
Silicon Power Bolt B10 USB 3.1 External SSD on MadShrimps.
Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA SSD on LegitReviews.
Cases:
NZXT H700i Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
BitFenix Enso on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master MasterMouse MM530 on TechPowerUp.
Portable & Prebuilt:
iBUYPOWER Slate 9200 Gaming Desktop on ThinkComputers.
Dell XPS 13 2018 (9370) Preview on TechARP.
Power Supply:
FSP Hydro PTM 750W Power Supply on APHNetworks.
Gamdias ASTRAPE P1 650G Power Supply on FunkyKit.
Software:
Kingdom Come: Deliverance game on OCClub.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus performance analysis on OCClub.
Misc:
Sumo Lounge Switch Convertible Bean Bag Chair on BigBruin.
TRENDnet Four Channel DVR Kit on Tweaktown.
Cougar Attack X3 RGB Speedy Video Review keyboard on Modders-Inc.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 20-March-2018 13:23:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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IBM have a new tiny computer. March 19 is the first day of IBM Think 2018, the company's flagship conference, where the company will unveil what it claims is the world's smallest computer. They're not kidding: It's literally smaller than a grain of salt. But don't let the size fool you: This sucker has the computing power of the x86 chip from 1990. Okay, so that's not great compared to what we have today, but cut it some slack — you need a microscope to see it.
Meanwhile Intel have redesigned its CPUs to patch the recent security issues. As promised, Intel has redesigned its upcoming 8th-gen Xeon and Core processors to further reduce the risks of attacks via the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, CEO Brian Krzanich wrote. Those fixes are on top of the software updates already issued, which now patch "100 percent" of vulnerable Intel products launched in the past five years, he affirmed.
Here's an interesting article from 2015, about how you can try out Stephen Hawking's speech system. For 3 years, Intel Labs worked in close collaboration with Hawking to acutely address his needs and in January of 2014, they announced the first stable release that Hawking would use to replace his decades-old speech system. There was a near instant 10x improvement to all common tasks such as conducting a web search or opening a Word document. Fast-forward a few months and now Intel has open sourced the whole platform to allow researchers and hackers to broaden its use for people with disabilities of all backgrounds.
Facebook are in hot water after a major data breach. The social media company's share price fell by 6.8 per cent, as its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faces calls from US and European politicians to explain an enormous data breach. Of particular interest is how political analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested the private data of more than 50 million Facebook users without their consent to support Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign.
A power outage has disrupted Samsung's NAND output. A half-hour power outage at Samsung’s fab near Pyeongtaek, South Korea, disrupted production and damaged tens of thousands of processed wafers. Media reports claim that the outage destroyed as much as 3.5% of the global NAND supply for March, which may have an effect on flash memory pricing in the coming weeks.
The Gold Coast now apparently has the fastest internet in Australia. The cable's fibre count provides internet 10times faster than the NBN. It's a major coup for the city's Mayor Tom Tate who boasted: "We're way ahead of the game". The fibre-optic cable runs 45 kilometres and has been installed to make the Games the safest in history.
Is this the future? Cheap, quick 3D-printed houses. Last week at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, construction technologies startup ICON and housing nonprofit New Story unveiled their version of a 3D printed house. The model is 650 square feet and consists of a living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and shaded porch. It went from zero to finished in under 24 hours, and it cost less than $10,000. Equivalent homes built in developing countries will cost a mere $4,000 each.
Cooling:
CORSAIR Hydro H115i Pro Low Noise 280mm RGB Liquid CPU Cooler on NikKtech
Noctua Chromax on LanOC
Games:
The American Dream Interview (PC) (PS4) (VR) on Gaming Nexus
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PS4) on Gaming Nexus
Moss (PS4) (VR) on Gaming Nexus
Q.U.B.E. 2 (XBO) on Gaming Nexus
Storage:
AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad X on TweakTown
CalDigit AV Pro 2 USB-C Storage Hub 3TB on TweakTown
Crucial MX500 1 TB SSD on OCInside
Intel SSD 760p 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD on Legit Reviews
MyDigitalSSD SBX M.2 NVMe SSD on PC Perspective
Crucial MX300 M.2 525 GB on TechPowerUp
Silicon Power Armor A62 4TB USB 3.1 Gen 1 Portable Hard Drive on NikKTech
Motherboard:
MSI B350M Gaming Pro with Ryzen 5 2400G on Guru3D
MSI Z370 SLI Plus on ocaholic
Keyboard/Mouse:
Razer Mamba HyperFlux + Firefly HyperFlux on Vortez
SteelSeries Rival 600 Gaming Mouse on Madshrimps
MSI Vigor GK70 Gaming Keyboard on Modders-Inc
Phone:
Samsung Galaxy S9 on TechARP
Huawei Mate 10 Pro on Hot Hardware
Misc:
Nitro Concepts Series S300 Gaming Chair on Tech Powerup
NZXT H700i Computer Case on APH Networks
WiZ Colors Hero Smart Lamp on ThinkComputers.org
Logitech G560 RGB PC Gaming Speakers on Legit Reviews
D-Link EXO AC2600 Wireless Router on TweakTown
Humble Bundle have a heap of DIY electronics books in their current bundle, which might be useful if you're getting into Arduino or similar. Or maybe you'd prefer to learn Klingon instead. Regardless, seeing as it's Friday again..
     
     
     
     
     
Thursday Afternoon
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Thursday, 15-March-2018 16:47:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Professor Stephen Hawking has died aged 76 - this despite at one point not being expected to survive beyond his mid-20s. He died on Albert Einstein's birthday, but shares his birthday with Elvis Presley, so perhaps we shouldn't read too much into that kind of thing. I think his legacy to most people will be his ability to convey the joy and passion of exploring and understanding the universe, to share his incredible knowledge in widely understandable language, and to demonstrate that it is possible to excel and succeed despite even incredible obstacles. In my early teens I happened to be given two copies of "A Brief History of Time" for one birthday and read it a few times over the following years. He certainly helped shape my early interest in science and technology, and I have followed his career and public output ever since. Let's hope that we can collectively get our act together and avoid fulfilling some of his more cautionary predictions of recent times. Rest in peace. People are sharing their thoughts in this thread.
There's a slightly odd story doing the rounds about AMD CPU security issues. Israeli security research firm CTS-Labs has published a white paper detailing nine flaws in AMD processors that they claim leave users open to devastating attacks with no mitigation strategies; these attacks include a range of manufacturer-installed backdoors. However, the way they were disclosed was unconventional and has attracted a backlash. The security community tore into the company, who quickly became a subject of jokes and ridicule. Discussions on social media quickly moved to theories that CTS Labs was trying to short AMD stock using "manufactured" vulnerabilities in an attempt to buy shares at lower values. But the flaws have been independently confirmed and currently there are no patches, so stay tuned. Discussion in this thread.
There's also a widespread Samba security issue. On a Samba 4 AD DC the LDAP server in all versions of Samba from 4.0.0 onwards incorrectly validates permissions to modify passwords over LDAP allowing authenticated users to change any other users' passwords, including administrative users and privileged service accounts (eg Domain Controllers). Patches are available.
HardOCP checked out a 10-year old PSU. Doing computer PSU reviews for over a decade, and keeping full documentation on those, gives us ability to do something that whets computer PSU enthusiasts' appetites. We get to take some of those PSUs that have been in service for 10 years and retest those. Cooler Master is back on the load bank! How does it look after a decade of service?
Amiga fans might want to roll themselves up in this article about the Amiga consciousness, which is part history, part, uh, philosophy. There exists a global community, a loosely knit consciousness of individuals that crosses boundaries of language and artistic disciplines. It resides in both the online and physical space, its followers are dedicated, if not fervent. The object and to some extent, philosophy that unites these adherents, is a computer system called the Commodore Amiga.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 15-March-2018 15:35:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
3840x1600 Ultrawide Monitors: How 160 Lines Can Make All the Difference on PC Perspective.
Gigabyte Aorus H5 Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
ROCCAT Khan Pro Gaming Headset on NikKTech.
SteelSeries Arctis Pro + GameDAC headset and DAC on TechPowerUp.
SteelSeries Arctis Pro + GameDAC on Vortez.
Cooling:
Cooler Master MASTERAIR MA610P CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Phanteks Glacier C350i CPU Water Block on TechPowerUp.
Input Etc:
ASUS ROG Strix Flare Mechanical Keyboard Revealed on TechARP.
iKBC MF108 V.2 Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master Masterkeys MK750 Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Corsair Dark Core RGB SE Wireless Gaming Mouse & MM1000 Mouse Pad on ThinkComputers.
SteelSeries Rival 600 mouse on Vortez.
Storage:
Intel SSD DC P4510 NVMe PCIe on HotHardware.
TekQ Rapide 240GB Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSD on Tweaktown.
Synology DiskStation DS918+ on Modders-Inc.
Silverstone MS09 SATA m.2 Enclosure on Tweaktown.
ADATA XPG GAMMIX S10 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD on LegitReviews.
Halos CatDrive 1TB Networked Drive Review Update on BigBruin.
Misc:
G.Skill Sniper-X DDR4 3600 MHz 16GB memory on Guru3D.
ASUS ROG STRIX RX Vega 56 O8G GAMING video card on HardOCP.
ASRock X299E-ITX/AC Motherboard on FunkyKit.
SilverStone Redline RL06 case on HWAsylum.
Final Fantasy XV PC Game Review & 25 card performance/IQ evaluation on BabelTechReviews.
Forum Focus: Motoring Worklogs
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Wednesday, 14-March-2018 14:39:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Our Motoring forum has always been busy, with popular subforums like the Technical discussion area and the more recent Motorcycles forum. With the European summer on the way our Motorsport forum is going to get busy again soon. However today we're looking at recent threads in the Worklogs subforum:
GeForce Partner Program
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Tuesday, 13-March-2018 14:45:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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HardOCP have published a very interesting article looking into the GeForce Partner Program from nVIDIA. They are concerned that this program will have a strongly negative effect on competition in the GPU market.
The crux of the issue with NVIDIA GPP comes down to a single requirement in order to be part of GPP. In order to have access to the GPP program, its partners must have its "Gaming Brand Aligned Exclusively With GeForce." I have read documents with this requirement spelled out on it.
What would it mean to have your "Gaming Brand Aligned Exclusively With GeForce?" The example that will likely resonate best with HardOCP readers is the ASUS Republic of Gamers brand. I have no knowledge if ASUS is a GPP partner, I am simply using the ROG brand hypothetically. If ASUS is an NVIDIA GPP partner, and it wants to continue to use NVIDIA GPUs in its ROG branded video cards, computers, and laptops, it can no longer sell any other company's GPUs in ROG products. So if ASUS want to keep building NVIDIA-based ROG video cards, it can no longer sell AMD-based ROG video cards, and be a GPP partner.
There's a good video explanation here from Hardware Unboxed. Discussion in this thread in our Video Cards forum.
Tuesday Midday Reviews
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Tuesday, 13-March-2018 12:24:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
SuperMicro SUPERO C7Z370-CG-IW Z370 LGA1151 on MadShrimps.
ASRock X299 Extreme4 on TechPowerUp.
ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Gaming-ITX/ac Motherboard on FunkyKit.
ASROCK X370 PRO4 (AMD X370) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Cases:
SilverStone Primera PM01-RGB Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Corsair Carbide 275R on OCAholic.
Phanteks Evolv Shift X Case on ThinkComputers.
Portable & Prebuilt:
OnePlus 5T Review: The Hard To Beat $500 Smartphone on TechGage.
Microsoft Surface Pro LTE cellular-connected laptop on TheVerge.
Misc:
TP-Link Archer C5400 V2 AC5400 Tri-Band MU-MIMMO Gigabit Router on NikKTech.
Cooler Master MASTERLIQUID ML120L RGB CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Kingston Digital KC1000 960GB PCIe NVMe SSD on LegitReviews.
The days of "keyboard pizza" may be over, with Apple patenting a crumb-resistant keyboard. The filing suggests a number of ways in which the problem might be eradicated, discussing the application of gaskets, brushes, wipers and flaps to block gaps, the installation of a membrane beneath each key and even a "bellows" effect in which each key stroke forces air through the board, pushing irksome crumbs out. Now, what to do about the grime that builds up on your co-worker's mouse..
Windows 10 S was apparently a separate simplified version of W10 for laptops and tablets, but will now be simply a mode of Windows 10 for all installs. Microsoft expects that the “majority of customers” will enjoy Windows 10 in its new S mode, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows wrote in a blog post Wednesday night. The stunning endorsement of Windows 10’s S mode—which was formally confirmed as a mode of Windows 10 just about a day ago—was made by Joe Belfiore, who told me via Twitter that he expected the transition to take place in 2019.
Tweaktown have a Raven Ridge Overclocking Guide. AMD's Raven Ridge CPUs have been out for a few weeks, and today we will teach those of you who just jumped on the APU train how to overclock the new CPUs. We found some interesting things on this journey, and we had help from AMD as well. Due to the early nature of the platform, AMD recommended we overclock through Ryzen Master instead of the UEFI so that that motherboard vendors can get things in order.
Intellectual property legal wrangling continues in Australia, with safe harbour rules the latest aspect. Late last year the federal government tabled a bill that, if passed, will expand Australia’s safe harbour rules. The proposed legislation will extend the Copyright Act’s safe harbour provisions to the disability, education, library, archive and cultural sectors.
For today's timewaster, you can play Mario Kart in Google Maps. March 10, also known as “Mario Day” for the “Mar10” abbreviation, brings Mario Kart to Google Maps’ turn-by-turn navigation. By typing in a location to get directions as normal, a prompt asking to start navigation will come up. By pressing “directions,” a “?” block, similar to those found in Mario games will appear next to the “start” button. This now shows Mario in his own kart directing you, rather than the usual arrow. Aww, now that I look at it, it just puts Mario into normal maps, it's not really a playable thing.
But anyway, here's something that's NOT a timewaster, a new online tool to check your melanoma risk. The Melanoma Risk Predictor is designed to provide an estimation of a person's risk of developing melanoma over the next 3.5 years.
Storage:
Crucial MX500 500GB Solid State Drive on APH Networks
QNAP TS-431P2 4-Bay NAS on TechPowerUp
ASRock Ultra Quad M.2 Card 16-lane AIC on TweakTown
DREVO ARES 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD on Legit Reviews
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD on Madshrimps
SanDisk Extreme 510 Portable SSD 480GB on LanOC Reviews
Keyboard/Mouse:
Dream Machines DM3 Mini Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse on TweakTown
AZIO ATOM Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers.org
Sound Blaster Vanguard K08 RGB Mechanical Keyboard on Modders-Inc
Corsair MM1000 Qi Wireless Charging Mouse Pad on TweakTown
CORSAIR K68 RGB Keyboard + PBT Keycaps on TechPowerUp
Portable:
Acer Switch 7 Tablet on Techspot
Samsung Galaxy S9+ on Hot Hardware
Videocard:
Galax/KFA2 GeForce GTX 1050 Ti EXOC on Guru3D
Revisiting the GeForce GTX 680 on Techspot
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio on OCInside
AMD RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled on LanOC
Case:
Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L on Vortez
Thermaltake View 71 Tempered Glass Edition Full Tower Case on ThinkComputers.org
NZXT H400i on LanOC
Fractal Design Meshify C Mini on LanOC
Antec P110 Luce on TechPowerUp
DeepCool QuadStellar on Guru3D
Stratos Mid-Tower Case Video Review on Modders-Inc
Motherboard:
Z370 Motherboard Charts: 8 Models tested - MSI Z370 SLI Plus on Ocaholic
Asus ROG Strix X299-XE Gaming on LanOC
ECS Z370-Lightsaber Motherboard on Neoseeker
MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon on LanOC
MSI B350M Gaming Pro (AMD B350) Motherboard on TweakTown
Cooling:
Fractal Design Celsius S36 Pre-Filled CPU Water Cooling System on NikKTech
Raijintek Orcus 240 RGB CPU Cooler on Vortez
Misc:
MYNT Bluetooth Tracker on ThinkComputers.org
Fe (XBO) on Gaming Nexus
Gamdias HEPHAESTUS P1 Gaming Headset on Benchmark Reviews
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G Raven Ridge CPUs on LanOC
ThiEYE V5s 4K Action Camera on FunkyKit
If you want to get in on the next season of GT-Sport racing on OCAU, register in that thread. But given it's Friday afternoon, here's some Pics of Misc.
     
     
     
     
     
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 9-March-2018 15:05:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some info on Google's new Quantum processor, Bristlecone. Today we presented Bristlecone, our new quantum processor, at the annual American Physical Society meeting in Los Angeles. The purpose of this gate-based superconducting system is to provide a testbed for research into system error rates and scalability of our qubit technology, as well as applications in quantum simulation, optimization, and machine learning.
Intel have a new Optane SSD, aimed at the mainstream market and available in 58GB or 118GB form. Reviews on Tech Report, The SSD Review, PC Perspective, Legit Reviews, Tweaktown and HotHardware.
FOTW noticed this story about staff at Australia's Bureau of Meterology being question by Police over unauthorised crypto mining. Two Bureau of Meteorology employees are being investigated by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for allegedly running an elaborate operation involving the use of the bureau's powerful computers to "mine" cryptocurrencies, ABC News has learned. Federal police officers executed a search warrant at the bureau's Collins Street headquarters in Melbourne on Wednesday last week (February 28). The officers spoke to two IT employees, according to people with knowledge of the raid.
TechPowerUp look at FF XV Performance. Square Enix has finally brought Final Fantasy XV to the PC, with vastly improved graphics, a large range of graphics options and an optional 4K texture pack. We test the game on 15 graphics cards, take a look at VRAM usage, both with and without the texture pack and investigate how well the game makes use of multiple CPU cores.
Tech Report spoke with GlobalFoundries about the next generation of chip fabbing. GlobalFoundries, born out of AMD's manufacturing arm many moons ago, made a statement last year when it served as the sole source for AMD's Ryzen and Epyc CPUs and a wide range of Radeon GPUs. Now that 14-nm LPP is a mature process, GloFo is looking toward the future at its Fab 8 manufacturing facility in upstate New York. 7-nm Leading Performance, or 7LP, is the company's next major stop on the road towards the limits of silicon, and that process may eventually mark one of the first times we'll see the use of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) in the mass production of semiconductor products.
The Government has asked the ACCC to cut the NBN some slack until it's finished being built. “It may be that, when the NBN is complete, stronger connection and repair timeframes could be considered, for example, taking into account the greater availability of network infrastructure.” Such a delayed response runs counter to Telstra’s submission to the same inquiry, which argues for “targeted” intervention by the end of June this year. It also puts pressure on the ACCC, which has already publicly indicated it will act sometime this year. Meanwhile letters from ISPs have started arriving at the AggCave, with indications that the NBN will be available in May. Woo?
Interesting Forum Threads
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Thursday, 8-March-2018 12:34:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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You can keep on top of things in the forums via the recent activity feed or the new posts page. To see activity in threads you subscribe to, check out your latest alerts.
Also, the alert system is a little different in our new xenForo platform than earlier on vBulletin. So, it's worth checking your watched threads list from time to time in case you missed an alert.
Meanwhile, here's a snapshot of what people are discussing in the forums:
Does your mechanical keyboard "ping" or "resonate" when typing? in Overclocking & Hardware.
High end air vs AIO in 2018 in Overclocking & Hardware.
Easiest way to transfer Windows to new SSD? in Storage & Backup.
SpaceX StarLink in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
Nokia is finally back, and it's looking good! in Google Android.
Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ in Google Android.
Steam account hacked - all good now in PC Games.
Ion Maiden - 2018 - Build Engine - 3D Realms in PC Games.
FPV R/C Cars in Other Toys/Hobbies.
Pens, Paper & Ink - Offical OCAU club/thread in Other Toys/Hobbies.
Looking to become a 3 knife kitchen. Advice welcomed. in Geek Food.
Got a maccas question? Ask away in Geek Food.
2018 F1 Silly, Pre-season and Season Discussion in Motorsport.
Sudden loss of strength in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Fat Bastards Trying to Get Fit - support thread in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Australian Property in 2018 in Career, Education & Finance.
PayID - Coming in 2018 in Career, Education & Finance.
Social Engineering in Current Events.
The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every iPhone Model In Existence in Current Events.
I hate most people in The Pub.
Possible attempt at an insurance scam by the iPhone seller? in The Pub.
How did you win today? in The Pub.
How did you fail today? in The Pub.
Wednesday Lunchtime Reviews
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Wednesday, 7-March-2018 12:48:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Intel X58 (Core i7 920 & i7 980X) versus AMD Ryzen & Intel Coffee Lake on HWInfo.
MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK on Anandtech.
Cases:
Corsair Carbide 275R Tempered Glass Mid Tower on PC Perspective.
Cooler Master MasterBox MB600L Mid-tower on Techgage.
Corsair Carbide 275R on Guru3D.
Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Flow Edition on OCAholic.
Portable & Prebuilt:
MINIX Neo N42C-4 Mini-PC Review: A Palm-Sized Quad-Core With Windows 10 Pro on HotHardware.
Asrock DeskMini Z370 GTX 1060 mini-PC on TechSpot.
Furniture:
Gamdias ACHILLES P1-L RGB Gaming Chair Unboxing & Build on HardOCP.
Pursuit Ergonomic Chair by UPLIFT Desk on HardOCP.
Storage:
Morro Data CacheDrive G40 and G80 on Tweaktown.
QNAP TS-431X2-8G 10GbE NAS Server on NikKTech.
Misc:
Roccat Khan Pro headset on TechPowerUp.
ASUS ROG STRIX RX Vega 56 O8G GAMING video card on HardOCP.
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews
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Tuesday, 6-March-2018 15:25:51 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Arozzi Colonna Microphone on Vortez.
Sbode M400 Bluetooth Speaker on TechGage.
HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless Gaming Headset on PC Perspective.
Cooling:
The Best CPU Coolers on TechSpot.
Deepcool Captain 240EX RGB on TechPowerUp.
Corsair H150i PRO RGB CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
AeroCool P7-L240 RGB CPU Liquid Cooler on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master MasterAir MA610P on OCInside.
Misc:
Cooler Master: MasterBox Q300L case on Modders-Inc.
DJI Mavic Air drone on FunkyKit.
Mionix Castor Ice Cream Edition Mouse on LegitReviews.
Lenovo Yoga 920 2-In-1 Ultrabook on ThinkComputers.
Monday Afternoon
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Monday, 5-March-2018 15:34:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A bizarre incident over the weekend has led to 23,000 HTTPS certificates being revoked. When Rowley asked for proof the certificates were compromised, the Trustico CEO emailed the private keys of 23,000 certificates, according to an account posted to a Mozilla security policy forum. The report produced a collective gasp among many security practitioners who said it demonstrated a shockingly cavalier treatment of the digital certificates that form one of the most basic foundations of website security. Discussion here.
Far Cry 5 is arriving later this month, and Techgage have a hands-on look at the Solo and Co-op campaigns. Far Cry 5 takes a detour from the standard fare tropical shootouts to introduce a seemingly calm Montana, and in particular, its fictional Hope County area. As you’ll quickly find out after starting your FC5 adventure, Hope County isn’t an appropriate name, unless you’re merely hoping to escape it as quickly as possible. GamingNexus also have a preview, as well as looking in detail at Joseph Seed, one of the major characters.
NikKTech compared some WiFi repeaters or range extenders. We added one at Casa Del Aggington recently and it's hugely improved the signal quality at the far end of the house from the AggCave. Looking for ways to extend your wireless local network but you don’t know which repeater / range extender to trust? Follow us as we put three of the most popular WiFi AC (802.11ac) models today through rigorous testing to find out exactly what they are capable of.
Anandtech have info on some new WD NVMe SSDs, thanks Genesis. Western Digital has announced their first client NVMe SSDs with their SanDisk 64-layer 3D TLC NAND. These drives are also the first to feature Western Digital's new in-house NVMe SSD controllers. This is a major shift in strategy away from third-party controllers (mostly Marvell) toward complete vertical integration. The new SSDs are called the Western Digital SN720 and Western Digital SN520. Branding for these is a bit of a mess with the drives bearing the Western Digital name and model numbers that almost fit in with the HGST Ultrastar SN200 and SN260 enterprise NVMe SSDs, but the product information is on the SanDisk website and the target market is similar to that of SanDisk's business/OEM drives like the X400 and X600 SATA SSDs.
Tweaktown has a Skylake-X Overclocking Guide. Intel's Skylake microarchitecture has come a long way since it was introduced. The basic microarchitecture is used in Kaby Lake CPUs, Kaby Lake-X CPUs, Coffee Lake CPUs, and with slight modifications in Skylake-X CPUs. At the time of Skylake launch, Intel called the microarchitecture its "best ever". Its domination, even in recent times, reflects the strength of the microarchitecture. However, with the launch of Skylake-X, Intel made some actual modifications to improve upon the original architecture.
Tech Report meanwhile examine how much of a performance impact to expect from Intel's Spectre and Meltdown patches on a recent laptop. With all that in mind, my Kaby Lake laptop running Windows 10 should be the best-case scenario for post-Spectre patch performance. Until Intel issues stable microcode updates for Haswell and older CPUs, we won't be able to gauge just what the effects of Spectre-cide might be for those systems—and that assumes big PC companies and motherboard makers plan to go to the effort of issuing new firmware for their older products in the first place.
Another oddball story concerns fake iPhone X notches on Android phones. I’ve been coming to Mobile World Congress for close to a decade now, and I’ve never seen the iPhone copied quite so blatantly and cynically as I witnessed during this year’s show. MWC 2018 will go down in history as the launch platform for a mass of iPhone X notch copycats, each of them more hastily and sloppily assembled than the next.
Monday Afternoon Reviews
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Monday, 5-March-2018 14:10:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
Team Group’s $99 480 GB SSD Review – SSD vs. SSHD on BabelTecHReviews.
SilverStone MS09 m.2 SATA External SSD Enclosure on BenchmarkReviews.
Promise Apollo Cloud 2 Duo 8TB on Tweaktown.
iStorage diskashur2 2TB External HDD on Tweaktown.
Patriot Scorch 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD on FunkyKit.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Acer Predator Triton 700 Gaming Laptop on TechARP.
Razer Blade Stealth (Early 2018) Review: Almost There on PC Perspective.
Input Etc:
Genius SlimStar 8008 keyboard and mouse on TechPowerUp.
MSI Vigor GK40 Gaming Keyboard on NeoSeeker.
Corsair K63 Wireless Gaming Lapboard on Tweaktown.
Cases:
Fractal Design Meshify C Mini mATX Computer Case on APHNetworks.
Fractal Design Meshify Mini C on Guru3D.
Fractal Design: Meshify C Mini – Tempered Glass Edition on Modders-Inc.
Enermax’s Equilence Mid-tower Chassis & Liqtech TR4 280 AIO Cooler on Techgage.
Cooling:
Silverstone FHP141 Fan on TechPowerUp.
Corsair HD120 RGB Fans on ThinkComputers.
Cooler Master MASTERAIR MA410P CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Misc:
noblechairs EPIC on Vortez.
Ayo: A Rain Tale game on BabelTechReviews.
Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 Sound Card on Vortez.
Thanks to Dan and HyRax1 this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 1-March-2018 13:14:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-G GAMING (WI-FI AC) (Intel Z370) on Tweaktown.
ASRock X299 Taichi XE Intel LGA 2066 on OCInside.
ASROCK X399M TAICHI (AMD X399) on Tweaktown.
MSI Z370 Gaming M5 on OCAholic.
GIGABYTE Z370 HD3P (Intel Z370) on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
Creative Chrono Portable Splash-proof Bluetooth Speaker and FM Radio Clock on MadShrimps.
Divoom Timebox Mini Pixel LED Bluetooth Speaker on ThinkComputers.
Storage:
Intel SSD 600p Series 512 GB on TechPowerUp.
ADATA XPG Gammix S10 M.2 Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
Input Etc:
August Smart Keypad on BigBruin.
Cherry MX Board Silent keyboard on TechPowerUp.
Misc:
Final Fantasy XV for Windows PC game on Guru3D.
NZXT H700i Mid-Tower case on BenchmarkReviews.
GEIL Super Luce RGB DDR4-3000 16GB Memory Kit on FunkyKit.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Shoot-Out: ASUS Strix And Zotac AMP Extreme on HotHardware.
Chuwi SurBook 2 in 1 PC Tablet on TechPowerUp.
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