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October 2019 |
The first message on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, was sent fifty years ago this week. The world wide web wouldn’t be possible without ARPANET, a government-funded research effort launched at UCLA in 1969. Leonard Kleinrock, a professor of computer science at the university and one of the “fathers of the internet,” takes us back to 3420 Boelter Hall and the day interconnectivity changed forever. That makes OCAU turning 20 this year even more bizarre. OCAU is nearly half as old as the internet itself. Crikey.
Intel have released the Core i9-9900KS CPU, which aims to be the fastest thing on the block. There's reviews on HotHardware, Tweaktown and Phoronix. The Core i9-9900KS is not something totally new, however. As the “S” in its name implies, the Core i9-9900KS is something akin to a special edition of the existing Core i9-9900K. The processors are built from the same slab of silicon – an 8-core, Coffee Lake-refresh based die, packaged up for Intel’s LGA1151 socket. What makes the Core i9-9900KS different from its predecessor are its base and turbo boost clocks, in addition to its TDP. Whereas the Core i9-9900K has a base-clock of 3.6GHz and a single-core turbo boost clock of 5GHz, the Core i9-9900KS cranks the base clock up to an even 4GHz and all eight of its cores can turbo up 5GHz.
NeoSeeker have a guide to building a stellar gaming PC. In this article, I’ll show you how to build a powerful and exotic-looking gaming PC for about $3000 USD... I managed to put together an impressive combination of hardware for this build. My objective is to end up with an awesome looking gaming PC that’s capable of running the most demanding AAA titles at 4K resolution without breaking a sweat. I picked parts that are easy to work with, have great performance, and match the overall color theme.
Phoronix have a performance shootout between Apple macOS 10.15 vs. Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 19.10. In addition to this month bringing the release of the Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine", Apple also shipped macOS 10.15 "Catalina" as the sixteenth major release of their macOS operating system. So with that it makes for an interesting time seeing how macOS 10.15 competes against both Ubuntu 19.10 and Windows 10 on an Apple MacBook Pro. Here are those results from dozens of benchmarks.
SpaceX are on the way to having approval to launch their Starlink satellite internet service in Australia. SpaceX is planning to provide broadband services via an initial constellation of 12,000 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, though it recently filed in the US to launch up to 30,000 more satellites than first expected in order to power the global internet service. The services could be live as soon as next year.
NSW drivers can now get a digital license, assuming the website is working again. The digital driver’s licence was opened up to all NSW licence holders overnight but as word spread, so did problems with the service.
Wednesday Night Reviews
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Wednesday, 30-October-2019 22:31:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Inno3D GTX 1660 SUPER Twin X2 on Vortez.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super on HotHardware.
Palit GeForce GTX 1660 Super GamingPro OC on TechPowerUp.
ASUS DUAL GTX 1660 SUPER EVO OC on BabelTechReviews.
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GAMING X on Guru3D.
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GAMING X on Tweaktown.
Palit GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GamingPRO OC on Guru3D.
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER AMP on Guru3D.
Gigabyte GTX 1660 SUPER GAMING OC on Guru3D.
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Super AMP on TechPowerUp.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Super Gaming Pro OC on TechPowerUp.
ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 Super Phoenix on TechPowerUp.
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Super Gaming X on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master ELV8 RGB GPU Brace on FunkyKit.
MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Super Gaming X on ThinkComputers.
Storage:
Synology DS620slim 6-bay NAS on TechPowerUp.
SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD on Vortez.
Buffalo LinkStation SOHO 4TB NAS on Tweaktown.
Memory:
Team Group 16 GB Vulcan Z DDR4 3200 MHz Kit on Modders-Inc.
Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB DDR4-3200 16GB Dual Channel Memory Kit on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
Corsair HS60 Pro Surround Headset on OCClub.
NVIDIA SHIELD TV 2019 Review: AI Enhanced Android TV Streaming on HotHardware.
Sennheiser GSP 670 headset on TechPowerUp.
Misc:
Corsair ONE i164 Compact Gaming PC on TechGage.
Cooler Master MasterFan SF120M on Vortez.
iBUYPOWER Snowblind Element case with window LCD on LANOC.
Iron Photographer
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Monday, 28-October-2019 18:56:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's an update from Deftone2k: Ok we have the new winner for the Iron Photographer Comp for August 2019. The theme was open. The winner was JohnnyWazza and his entry was named 'Lisbon Streets II'.
click for the thread!
I've been a bit slack in posting this so October is nearly over, but you can still get your votes for September and entries for October in. September's theme was "Open" and this month's theme is "Song Title & Silence".
Monday Evening
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Monday, 28-October-2019 18:39:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Catching up on some bits and bobs from the newsbox..
One thing I did miss was the deadline for submissions regarding online age verification in Australia, for anyone wanting to gamble or view porn. Following a referral from the Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator the Hon Anne Ruston and the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, the Hon Paul Fletcher MP, the Committee resolved on 10 September 2019 to conduct an inquiry into age verification for online wagering and online pornography. One possible solution would involve face recognition. Riiight.
Tweaktown set out to build a Mac Pro killing PC, with help from Supermicro and Intel. Supermicro came to us a few months ago and asked us to build a machine similar to the new Mac Pro, and we took on that challenge. Our configuration will use a CPU with 50% more cores than their entry-level machine, with more DRAM in a faster configuration, an SSD with double the capacity, and a much faster GPU. We will also come in thousands of dollars cheaper than the $6K Apple is asking for their new Mac Pro.
They also built a PC around ASRock's Phantom Gaming Alliance components. ASRock decided to take a different approach and create an alliance of vendors who specialize in their own respective areas. They teamed up with CoolerMaster, T-Force, GEIL, NZXT, and INWIN to produce an ecosystem of hardware that is thoroughly tested to be compatible. For this guide we will use a Phantom Gaming motherboard.
Techspot have a guide to using a PS4 controller on your PC or Mac. Microsoft's Xbox controller has been the default gamepad for PC gamers for some time now, but you may prefer Sony's competing — and also quite good — DualShock 4 controller. The good news is, you can easily configure it to work on Windows or macOS.
TechARP have some info on a new "Secured-core PC initiative", with details from Microsoft. Microsoft and their hardware partners just announced the Secured-core PC initiative to combat threats that target the PC’s firmware and operating system. They also have info from AMD. With help from Akash Malhotra, AMD Director of Security Product Management, here is everything you need to know about how AMD CPUs work in a Secured-core PC device!
HotHardware meanwhile report on Intel's Tremont platform. Late last year, at its Architecture Day event, Intel revealed a new, low-power microarchitecture, codenamed Tremont, that would power and array of processors and SoCs targeting products across the client, data center, 5G networking, and Internet of Things markets. While Intel did disclose the codename and show-off a Foveros-based SoC featuring Tremont -- codenamed Lakefield -- it did not dive deep on the microarchitecture or discuss its inner-workings. Today, however, at the Linley Fall Processor Conference that’s currently underway, Intel discussed Tremont in-depth and revealed its main features, microarchitectural enhancements, new instructions, and expected performance levels.
Here's a funny one from IntelInside, about an eagle nearly bankrupting a Russian tracking program with roaming text messages. A steppe eagle has nearly bankrupted a Russian bird-tracking programme with roaming text messages after he flew to Iran and began transmitting backlogged GPS data. Scientists from the Siberian Environmental Centre were forced to turn to crowdfunding, with donations flooding in since the story made national news.
Monday Afternoon Reviews
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Monday, 28-October-2019 17:54:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
MSI Immerse GH50 headset on Vortez.
Creative Pebble V2 Minimalistic 2.0 USB Speakers on MadShrimps.
Elgato Stream Deck XL: Simply, A Streamer's Best Friend on Tweaktown.
Memory:
Team Group T-Force Dark Z DDR4 3600MHz on Vortez.
V-Color Prism II RGB 16GB DDR4-3600 Memory Kit on FunkyKit.
Cooling:
ID-Cooling SE 224 RGB CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master MasterFan SF360R ARGB fan on OCInside.
Misc:
Liectroux X6 Window Cleaning Robot on NikKTech.
Homematic CCU2 controller on FunkyHome.
MyDigitalDiscount SBXe 960GB NVMe PCIe Gen3.1 M.2 SSD on Tweaktown.
Corsair M55 RGB Pro and Nightsword RGB mice on LanOC.
Falcon Northwest Talon: A 12-Core Ryzen Powered Battle Station on HotHardware.
FSP CMT510 Plus case on APHNetworks.
Outer Worlds Benchmark Test & Performance Analysis on TechPowerUp.
Silverstone SX700-G PSU on LanOC.
I thought I better give an update on here before word spreads around from other sources. In short: a couple of months ago I took up a full-time position with Amazon Web Services in Sydney, working within their Datacentre Operations group. It's a hands-on role doing server maintenance and other fun datacentre stuff. Why? Well, OCAU has been a full-time thing for nearly 20 years but doesn't really offer much of a challenge nowadays, so I'm looking to get involved with something bigger and a bit more exciting. A regular pay-packet will be a welcome bonus, I must admit! Of course I still love OCAU, I'm very proud of it and I intend for it to continue long into the future. In fact from OCAU's perspective I don't think much will change, as I'll still be active in the forums and posting news, misc pics etc. There's no conflict between my AWS work and my OCAU work, but I will be keeping them separate. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say, to make sure there's no confusion or concern among OCAU readers.
Sunday Afternoon
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Sunday, 27-October-2019 14:56:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A report has been released into the Australian Government hack from a week ago, but it's unlikely we'll ever see it. A “very interesting” report on the hacking of the networks of Australia’s three largest political parties and Parliament by a “sophisticated state actor” is unlikely to ever be made public, even in redacted form, according to the Senate president. Appearing before a Senate Estimates hearing on Monday afternoon, Senate president Scott Ryan confirmed he had received a report into the hacking incident a week ago, and is now awaiting a “layperson’s briefing” because he couldn’t understand about 20 per cent of the technical aspects.
Wired report on a new study which casts doubt on gaming disorder diagnoses. Since the World Health Organization proposed new diagnoses for "hazardous gaming" and "gaming disorder" last year, there's been an ongoing scientific debate about which way the causation for these issues really goes. Does an excessive or addictive relationship with gaming actually cause psychological problems, or are people with existing psychological problems simply more likely to have an unhealthy relationship with gaming?
There's been a recent breakthrough in quantum computing, although what it actually means is still being debated. The breakthrough was described in a paper published in science journal Nature. It followed weeks of controversy since a draft leaked over whether Google's claim of "quantum supremacy" was valid. IBM said a supercomputer employing a different set-up could solve the same challenge in under three days, while chipmaker Intel said "quantum practicality" remained years away.
Phoronix looked at per-clock performance of the i7-1065G7 from Intel. Following this week's Intel Core i7-1065G7 Ice Lake Linux benchmarks there was some questions and speculations about the per-clock performance of this long-awaited Intel microarchitecture update. Here is some additional data shedding light on the clock frequencies under load and ultimately how the per-clock performance compares to the common Intel previous-generation mobile CPUs.
I don't even know where to begin with this one: bluetooth-connected rosary beads. “Once the prayer begins, the smart rosary shows the user’s progress throughout the different mysteries and keeps track of each rosary completed,” writes Vatican News. It was designed by GadgeTek, a division of computer company Acer, and pairs with an iOS or Android app you can download right now.
Australian MotoGP Grand Prix
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Sunday, 27-October-2019 11:56:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It's the Australian MotoGP Grand Prix weekend, with the main event at 3PM ADST. Moto3 is about to get underway, so tune in, and keep up to date in this thread.
Thanks to Axe and Mark this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 24-October-2019 23:53:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Super Gaming Z Trio on TechPowerUp.
MSI Radeon RX 5700 GAMING X on Tweaktown.
MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming Z TRIO on Guru3D.
GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING OC 8G on FunkyKit.
Audio Visual:
CORSAIR VOID RGB ELITE Wireless Gaming Headset on MadShrimps.
Nyrius Aries Pro Wireless HDMI Kit on HotHardware.
Input Etc:
HyperX Alloy FPS Pro Mechanical TKL Keyboard on TechARP.
HyperX Pulsefire Dart & ChargePlay BaseHyperX Pulsefire Dart & ChargePlay Base mouse on NeoSeeker.
Power Supply:
Fractal Design ION SFX 650G on Tweaktown.
FSP Hydro G PRO 1000W on Tweaktown.
Misc:
Autonomous SmartDesk 2 Hybrid Edition on ThinkComputers.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep Review: Hello Moonmen on Tweaktown.
Fortnite Chapter 2 GPU Benchmark Update on TechSpot.
Intel Core i7-1065G7 Ice Lake Linux Performance Benchmarks on Phoronix.
InWin 309 case on TechPowerUp.
Threadripper Air Cooling Roundup on LanOC.
Huami Amazfit GTR 47mm Smartwatch on NikKTech.
Tuesday Night Reviews
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Tuesday, 22-October-2019 23:11:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Memory:
Zadak Spark RGB DDR4 4133 MHz 4x 8GB on Guru3D.
HyperX FURY RGB 16GB DDR4-3200 Memory Kit on FunkyKit.
Input Etc:
Zowie S2 Black mouse on TechPowerUp.
Thermaltake Premium Level 20 RGB Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit.
Cooler Master MP510 Mouse Pad on TechPowerUp.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15-Inch) on Anandtech.
Dell XPS 13 two-in-one on ArsTechnica.
Networking:
AVM FRITZ!Repeater 3000 AC Wireless Repeater on NikKTech.
ASUSTOR AS-U2.5G USB-C 2.5Gbe Network Adapter on Tweaktown.
Storage:
SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Go 256GB on Tweaktown.
QNAP QNA-UC5G1T USB-C-to-5Gbe Adapter on NASCompares.
Misc:
ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Taichi X OC+ Graphics Card on ThinkComputers.
ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme Workstation Motherboard on ServeTheHome.
If you still use a Yahoo Group for community discussion, be aware that Yahoo will be deleting them all on December 14th. Indeed, from tomorrow you won't even be able to post in them. Looking through the directory today, you can still find groups with thousands of members, and some groups have been active as recently as this year. Sadly, it seems that almost all of that internet history is going to be erased. In a support document, Yahoo says that, effective December 14th, it will be deleting all content that has been posted to Yahoo Groups. And it’s going to largely shut down the service even sooner, as you won’t be able to upload new content to your groups starting this Monday, October 21st.
Tweaktown have an Intel Core i9 9900K/KF Overclocking Guide. We give you the lowdown on overclocking Intel's Core i9 9900K/KF CPU on various brand motherboards with loads of tips and information.
Phoronix meanwhile compare AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon Cascade Lake in an unusual enterprise workload. One of those workloads that was recently added to the Phoronix Test Suite / OpenBenchmarking.org is Facebook's RocksDB, the company's embedded database that is forked from Google LevelDB. With RocksDB being designed to exploit many CPU cores and modern SSD storage, here are some benchmarks looking at how the Xeon Platinum 8280 stacks up against various new AMD EPYC 7002 series processors.
Two NASA astronauts recently completed the world's first all-female spacewalk. Christina Koch and Jessica Meir floated feet-first out of the International Space Station’s (ISS) Quest airlock on Friday lunchtime UK time, tasked with replacing a failed power control unit.
Telstra chairman John Mullen reckons the NBN was a waste of time because the normal private-sector competition would have provided a superior product by now anyway. "It is always easier to comment with the benefit of hindsight, but it is my view that over the last 10 years private sector competition between strong players such as Telstra, Optus, TPG and others was always going to build 100 Mbps broadband access and speed to the majority of the population of Australia, in an ongoing competitive landscape and at no cost whatsoever to the taxpayer," he said.
This has to be the ultimate DIY - making your own IC. Without further ado, I present the first home(garage)made lithographically-fabricated integrated circuit – the “Z1” PMOS dual differential amplifier chip. I say “lithographically-fabricated” because Jeri Ellsworth made the first transistors and logic gates (meticulously hand wired with conductive epoxy) and showed the world that this is possible. Inspired by her work, I have demonstrated ICs made by a scalable, industry-standard, photolithographic process.
Sunday Night Reviews
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Sunday, 20-October-2019 22:06:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Tt eSPORTS Shock Pro RGB Gaming Headset on NikKTech.
Spotcam HD Cloud Camera on FunkyHome.
Tronsmart Element T6 Plus Bluetooth Speaker on FunkyKit.
Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless Gaming Headset on Tweaktown.
Cases:
Thermaltake A700 TG full-tower on TechPowerUp.
Corsair 465X RGB video review by OCClub.
Streacom DA2 Mini-ITX on Tweaktown.
Silverstone Lucid LD03 ITX on Modders-Inc.
Silverstone Lucid LD03 on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
GIGABYTE AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD on Vortez.
Team Group Cardea II 1 TB NVMe SSD on TechPowerUp.
Patriot P200 512GB SSD on Modders-Inc.
iStorage datAshur PRO2 on NeoSeeker.
AKiTiO Node Lite SE Thunderbolt 3 on Tweaktown.
Patriot P200 Performance SSD on HWAsylum.
Addlink S70 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD - Is a cheap Amazon SSD worth it? on Guru3D.
Power Supply:
Fractal Design Ion+ 760W Platinum on APHNetworks.
EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G5 on NikKTech.
Video Cards:
GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER GAMING OC on Tweaktown.
XFX RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra on LanOC.
ASRock RX 5700 XT Taichi on Vortez.
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Super WindForce OC 8G on ThinkComputers.
Networking:
ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AC2900 AC2900 Wireless Router on Tweaktown.
ASUSTOR AS-U2.5G USB-C 2.5Gbe Network Adapter on Tweaktown.
Misc:
ESP8266 Module on FunkyHome.
Autonomous Kinn Chair Review: Ergonomic, Unique Materials And Style on HotHardware.
ZADAK Spark RGB DDR4 4133MHz memory on Vortez.
Hands on with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on GamingNexus.
SilentiumPC Navis EVO ARGB 240 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Friday again!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 17-October-2019 23:44:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Intel Core i7-10710U Benchmarked: 14nm+++ Comet Lake on TechSpot.
ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3 on TechPowerUp.
ASRock X570 Steel Legend on Vortez.
MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi on OCClub.
ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 on Vortez.
Memory:
ADATA XPG Spectrix D60G DDR4-3200 16GB Memory Kit on ThinkComputers.
Patriot Viper RGB 16GB DDR4-3600 Memory Kit on FunkyKit.
Input Etc:
G.Skill KM360 Keyboard on Guru3D.
CORSAIR K57 RGB Wireless Gaming Keyboard on FunkyKit.
SteelSeries Sensei Ten mouse on LanOC.
SteelSeries Sensei Ten Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps.
Corsair K57 RGB Wireless keyboard on TechGage.
Cooling:
Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 on OCInside.
Cooler Master MasterAir MA620M RGB Cooler video review by OCClub.
Alphacool EISBAER Ex BLACK LCS AIO cooler on Guru3D.
Portable & Prebuilt:
MSI Trident X 9th (Intel Core i7-9700K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080) on TechPowerUp.
Dell XPS 13 Review: A Near-Perfect Intel 10th Gen Laptop on HotHardware.
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact X570 Review & Guide
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Wednesday, 16-October-2019 08:54:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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OCAU Forums member headin2001 has provided a hugely detailed review of the ROG Crosshair VIII Impact X570 motherboard from ASUS, for AMD Ryzen CPUs. He even covers how to get the most out of it when using some extreme cooling like LN2. Previously, the Impact has always been widely know as an extremely capable memory overclocking board, due to it's tighter in nature mini-ITX form factor and we still continue this trend on the new chipset. This time around though, in order for the engineers to fit all of the VRM components on-board instead of the former daughter board, as well as the AMD X570 Chipset, ASUS have now extended the board and extra 33mm to a mini-DTX form factor. This may mean checking compatibility with your chosen case, but should still fit a variety of small form factor cases. What we have is a seriously small, seriously capable motherboard in a perfect balance of engineering bliss and in my opinion, a very good looking package.
click for the thread!
Tuesday Night
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Tuesday, 15-October-2019 22:59:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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We haven't heard much about the Bloomberg report on alleged Supermicro spy chips from a year ago, but Wired have an article showing how it could be done - but not that it was. The NSA dismissed it as a false alarm. The Defcon hacker conference awarded it two Pwnie Awards, for "most overhyped bug" and "most epic fail." And no follow-up reporting has yet affirmed its central premise. But even as the facts of that story remain unconfirmed, the security community has warned that the possibility of the supply chain attacks it describes is all too real.
PCWorld report on some big 'n fast memory kits. On Thursday, Corsair became the first memory vendor to commercially ship DDR4 RAM that can break the 5GHz barrier on Ryzen 3000-based systems. The company’s 16GB Vengeance LPX kit, a pair of 8GB modules, are based on Micron dies and can hit 5GHz with a CAS Latency timing of 18 at 1.5 volts.
TechSpot have a shootout between the AMD Radeon RX 5700 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super. Today we've got a massive 41 game benchmark comparing the GeForce RTX 2060 Super and Radeon RX 5700 head to head. This big comparison includes new titles such as Borderlands 3, Gears 5 and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. All the results are brand new and were gathered during the last week using the latest display drivers as well as the latest game versions.
Phi was very excited to discover some black Noctua coolers, and thought you all should know. Noctua today introduced the long awaited all-black versions of its award-winning NH-D15, NH-U12S and NH-L9i CPU coolers. Staying true to the successful formula of the original models, the new chromax.black versions with their black fans and black coated heatsinks combine the same signature quiet cooling performance with a sleek stealth look.
With the passing of Alexei Leonov recently, the first human to spacewalk, it seems appropriate that TechSpot have an article on the new high-tech space race. Quite a good recap of the space race so far, as well. But now there is a new race -- not of countries, but one fought by companies. Capitalism, growth, and business opportunities are the new fuels, and the goals are even bigger: not just back to the Moon, but on to Mars and beyond.
New firmware for the Raspberry Pi 4 lets you overclock it. If you're interested in overclocking your Raspberry Pi 4, you'll need to get comfortable with the Linux command line and have an SD card with the latest version of Raspbian Buster which, as of this publication, is the build released on September 26, 2019. It's free to download from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and installation is as simple as plugging an SD card into your PC and flashing the Raspbian image using an image writer like Etcher.
I stumbled across this interesting video on the transhumanism movement, where hobbyists and hackers modify their own bodies with technology. It’s been argued that humans are no longer evolving, but now a growing number of people are integrating technology directly into their bodies.
Monday Night Reviews
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Monday, 14-October-2019 21:58:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Corsair VOID RGB ELITE Wireless headset on LanOC.
Corsair HS60 Pro Surround Gaming Headset on NeoSeeker.
Corsair HS60 PRO Surround Headset on Guru3D.
Storage:
Patriot P200 512GB Solid State Drive on APHNetworks.
Team Group’s USB 3.1 Gen 1 Portable PD400 240GB SSD on BabelTechReviews.
BIOSTAR S120 - 256GB SATA SSD on FunkyKit.
Input Etc:
Dark Project ME1 gaming mouse on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master MM710 Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit.
CORSAIR K57 RGB Wireless Gaming Keyboard on NikKTech.
Fnatic STREAK Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
MSI Radeon RX 5700 Gaming X on Guru3D.
XFX Radeon RX 5700 DD Ultra 8GB GDDR6 on MadShrimps.
Portable & Prebuilt:
OnePlus 7T Review: Fast, Premium And A Fantastic Android Value on HotHardware.
Intel Gen 11 Graphics Takes Fight To AMD In Dell XPS 13 2-In-1 on HotHardware.
Networking:
EnGenius Neutron EWS377AP Wi-Fi 6 Managed Indoor Access Point on Tweaktown.
Netgear Nighthawk AX12 Wi-Fi 6 router on Guru3D.
EnGenius ESR580 Dual Pack Home Mesh Network on Modders-Inc.
Cooling:
Scythe Ninja 5 CPU Cooler video review by OCClub.
Cooler Master ML240P Mirage AIO on OCInside.
Scythe Fuma 2 CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
Software:
Gears 5 Benchmarked at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K on Tweaktown.
Adrenalin Software Edition 19.10.1 Performance Analysis on BabelTechReviews.
Misc:
Defender 4K CCTV Security on Tweaktown.
Silicon Power XPOWER Turbine RGB DDR4 32GB 3200MHZ CL16 Quad-Channel Kit on NikKTech.
Corsair iCUE 465X RGB Mid-Tower ATX on NeoSeeker.
Win a Matrexx-EX Custom Gaming PC from PLE Computers
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Saturday, 12-October-2019 19:12:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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OCAU Sponsors PLE Computers have another contest, with a $2500 gaming PC up for grabs:
click for the thread!
Thanks to Axe and Simon this week!
     
     
     
     
     
     
Wednesday Night
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Wednesday, 9-October-2019 23:29:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for their work on Lithium-Ion batteries. Prof Mark Miodownik, a materials expert at University College London, said it was right that lithium-ion batteries were celebrated. “They are one of the most influential pieces of materials science that influence the modern life of everyone on the planet,” he said. “It is remarkable too that although 30 years old, they have not been eclipsed by a better battery technology even now, which makes you realise what a remarkable discovery they are.”
Meanwhile Intel have announced a new mobile platform, with a focus on performance and battery life. Back in 2012 Intel gave the PC industry a much-needed shot in the arm when it introduced its Ultrabook initiative. This required any laptops that wanted to qualify for the badge to match certain criteria in terms of size, weight and battery life. The results were some fantastic laptops that were not only lightweight but also long-lasting and powerful. Now Intel is at it again with Project Athena, which should prove good news for anyone who wants a top-quality Windows laptop that’s designed for the 2020s.
It's almost surprising this hasn't been done before, but a new version of Flight Simulator will use Bing satellite imagery for scenery, among other improvements. All of this data results in an environment that is often breathtakingly lifelike, and it means that the entire planet is effectively what we used to call a “high detail area,” only more realistic. For the tech-savvy, many of the scenery areas boast a resolution of 3 centimeters per pixel, while the default in FSX was about 1 meter per pixel. Throw in 1.5 trillion trees, individual blades of grass modeled in 3D, and a complete overhaul of lighting and shadows, and the result is an unprecedented level of detail for a flight simulator of any kind. True VFR flight, day or night, with real-world landmarks is now possible everywhere on the planet.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia will now be archiving Australian video games. The announcement was made at the opening of the new exhibition Game Masters, which will be on show in Canberra from 27 September to 9 March 2020. Jan Müller, CEO of the NFSA, said: ‘Today we welcome video games into our collection of more than 3 million items. The collection represents the cultural diversity and breadth of experience of all Australians, and it is constantly evolving just like our creative industries. We aim to be the national leader in collecting multimedia and new media content, and it would be impossible to accurately represent modern life without games. It is essential that games be collected alongside other audiovisual media, to ensure their continued preservation and access.’
Just noticed my trusty Wunderlist seems to be slowly morphing into something called "Microsoft ToDo". Hmm, my crappy-sense is tingling..
Wednesday Evening Reviews
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Wednesday, 9-October-2019 20:57:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Input Etc:
HyperX Alloy Origins Keyboard on TechPowerUp.
HyperX Alloy Origins Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Storage:
Kingston A2000 SSD on Vortez.
Promise Pegasus32 R4 TB3-USB-C DAS on Tweaktown.
Team Group Cardea II NVMe 1 TB SSD on Guru3D.
Video Cards:
HIS Radeon RX 5700 XT IceQX2 on FunkyKit.
GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GAMING OC on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ear Headphones on NikKTech.
Samson G-Track Pro Microphone on ThinkComputers.
Tunai Square and Tunai Button Bluetooth Adapter on FunkyKit.
Cases:
Aerocool Playa RGB Flow Mid-Tower on NikKTech.
NZXT H210i ITX case on TechPowerUp.
Software:
GRID (2019) game on OCClub.
Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince on OCClub.
Autodesk Maya Viewport & Arnold Rendering Performance on TechGage.
Misc:
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G APU on ThinkComputers.
FSP Dagger Pro 650 W PSU on TechPowerUp.
G.SKILL Trident Z Neo 3600MHz memory on Vortez.
Monday Night Reviews
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Monday, 7-October-2019 22:58:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) on TechPowerUp.
ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3 on Guru3D.
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs. Intel Core i9 9900K Performance In 400+ Benchmarks on Phoronix.
ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3 on FunkyKit.
Storage:
Patriot Memory P200 512GB 2.5 SSD on MadShrimps.
ASUSTOR Nimbustor 4 AS5304T 2.5G NAS Server on NikKTech.
Corsair MP600 500GB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD on Tweaktown.
Patriot Viper VP4100 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD on Tweaktown.
Patriot P200 1TB SATA3 SSD on Guru3D.
Memory:
Ballistix Elite DDR4-4000 2x8GB DDR4 RAM on APHNetworks.
Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB Memory DDR4-3200MHz 16GB Kit on FunkyKit.
Mushkin Redline DDR4-3200 MHz CL16 2x8GB on TechPowerUp.
Ballistix Elite DDR4 16GB 4000MHz on LanOC.
Audio Visual:
Creative Stage Bluetooth Sound Bar with Subwoofer on Modders-Inc.
Tribit Flybuds Wireless Earbuds on FunkyKit.
DJI Ronin-SC Pro Combo Stabilizer on FunkyKit.
Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE headset on TechPowerUp.
Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless on TechPowerUp.
Yeskamo 8 Channel NVR (video review) by OCClub.
SteelSeries ARCTIS 1 Wired Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
Networking:
D-Link COVR 2202 Tri-Band WiFi Mesh System on BigBruin.
Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 Review: Ultra Fast, Affordable Next-Gen Wi-Fi on HotHardware.
Misc:
Fractal Design Ion+ Series 760 W PSU on TechPowerUp.
Logitech G613 Wireless Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
MSI PS63 Modern 8RC (Prestige Series) Laptop on FunkyKit.
SilverStone Raven RVZ03 Addressable RGB Case on HWAsylum.
CORSAIR Hydro X Series XD5 Pump/Reservoir Combo on TechPowerUp.
Asus RX 5700 Strix video card on LanOC.
Borderlands 3 Benchmarked at 8K on Tweaktown.
I'm still away at Inline Hockey Nationals, so here's Misc Pics from March 2009:
10th March 2009:
     
     
16th March 2009:
     
     
20th March 2009:
     
     
27th March 2009:
     
     
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 3-October-2019 10:49:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Thermaltake Core P5 TG V2 Black Edition Open-Frame Chassis on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake S500 TG on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Kingston A2000 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSD on Tweaktown.
iStorage datAshur PRO2 256GB Secure USB 3.2 Gen 1 Flash Drive on NikKTech.
Micron 5210 Ion Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
ADATA 1 TB SU750 2.5" SSD on Modders-Inc.
Patriot P200 1 TB on TechPowerUp.
QNAP TS-351 3-Bay NAS on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
Masterkleer Water Cooling Tube on OCInside.
Shuriken 3 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Video Cards:
ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Taichi OC+ on Tweaktown.
ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Taichi OC+ on Guru3D.
GeForce RTX SUPER Linux Compute Performance - 18 GPU NVIDIA OpenCL Comparison on Phoronix.
Tuesday Morning
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Tuesday, 1-October-2019 12:17:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Facebook are apparently trialling hiding likes in Australia. From Friday, some Australian users will no longer be able to see the number of likes - or reactions - on another person's Facebook post. The controversial change has been trialled by sister platform Instagram in several countries since July. Facebook said removing likes from view was an attempt to reduce social pressure among users.
Axe sent word of a match-fixing investigation in Australian eSports. Victoria Police are investigating whether at least six matches played by the team earlier this year were fixed. Two semi-professional players involved in the suspect matches were arrested but have not been charged. The other four players in the team who competed are not suspected of any wrongdoing. It is the first major Australian investigation into corruption in esports, the fastest growing sport in the world.
BabeltechReviews compared the RTX 2080 Super vs. the RTX 2080 Ti using the Vive Pro. We present a ten-game VR performance showdown between the RTX 2080 SUPER and the RX 2080 Ti Founders Editions measuring frametimes and unconstrained performance using the Vive Pro and FCAT VR.
Phoronix meanwhile compared Xeon vs EPYC for open-source rendering. With Intel seemingly ramping up work on their open-source OSPray portable ray-tracing engine now that they have pulled it under their oneAPI umbrella as part of a forthcoming rendering tool-kit, I figured it would be the latest interesting candidate for benchmarking of AMD EPYC 7742 vs. Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 performance. In addition, the Embree ray-tracing kernels are also being benchmarked as part of this performance comparison. That reminded me of POV-Ray for some reason, which seems to have recently turned 25.
Phoronix also have a Linux Gaming Performance roundup with 26 GPUs. We finally have our hands on NVIDIA's current RTX 20 SUPER graphics card line-up and have been putting the RTX 2060/2070/2080 SUPER cards through their paces under Linux. For the first of our long awaited NVIDIA RTX SUPER Linux benchmarks, first up is a look at the Linux gaming performance under a variety of native OpenGL/Vulkan games as well as Steam Play (DXVK+Proton) titles while testing a total of 26 graphics cards this round on the very latest AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce drivers.
TechPowerUp compared encrypted USB drives. Three of the products came from Kingston, which no doubt is a brand our readers will be familiar with, and the other two are from Securedata, a relatively new company started in 2007 with a focus on all things secure and data. Their Securedrive business unit in particular is responsible for the two devices here, although they also cater to data recovery, forensics, and back up alike..
HotHardware look into scaling games for modern displays. The problem that modern hardware has with all of these games, both young and old, is scaling the image to fit on our LCD or OLED displays. That's where both Nvidia and Intel come in. At GamesCom, both Nvidia and Intel separately introduced updated drivers that could scale resolutions on the GPU using integer scaling. Integer scaling sounds pretty self-explanatory, and it is: the selected resolution is multiplied by whole numbers to fit the screen. For example, a monitor with a resolution of 2560x1440 can be filled with a 1280x720 image by doubling the height and width of the pixels. It looks kind of blocky to use as a Windows desktop resolution, but for the right kind of game, like retro or retro-inspired titles, it gives razor-sharp edges to the pixels that make up the image on your monitor.
However they also reckon a Raspberry Pi 4 is perfect for retro gaming. While aimed at emerging markets for folks new to computers, the Pi really caught on with retro gamers and "makers" in general from the start. The latest Pi has a whole lot more computing horsepower than the last iteration, but software support hadn't quite caught up—until just now. The LibRetro team released Lakka version 2.3 with a ton of new features, a retro gaming focus, and perhaps the most important is official support for the Raspberry Pi 4.
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