Deal for Apr 25th - Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS @ $405

Subject: General Tech | April 26, 2013 - 01:27 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

If you are shopping around for a 24" IPS LCD then today's deal might be custom made for you. The Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS is currently discounted by 26% and comes with free shipping. It is a full 1920x1200 display with HDMI, DVI-D and DisplayPort inputs and even better it has a ghosting time of 11 ms and an input lag so low as to be undetectable which makes it perfect for gaming.

Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS-panel LCD Monitor with HDMI & DisplayPort
Dell is offering UltraSharp U2410 24-inch LCD Monitor for $404.99 with FREE shipping. Use $99.01 instant savings and extra 10% coupon code: 0Q0C74SWNZC42$ to get final price.

Only 346 days to go ... where will you be when WinXP dies?

Subject: General Tech | April 26, 2013 - 01:23 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: winxp, microsoft

In just under a year the venerable Windows XP OS will hit end of life and will no longer be supported by Microsoft.  This could be a rather unpleasant experience for many businesses that still rely on WinXP to provide compatibility for legacy applications.  Windows 7 is becoming more difficult to acquire, with Microsoft pushing Win8 as their preferred product to sell with systems and introducing Win7 to executives is daunting enough without trying to explain why their Win8 computer now looks more like a cell phone.  That is bad enough, but explaining to them why a custom built peice of software will no longer function due to incompatibility will be even worse and pointing out that the issue could have been prevented if they had only approved your budget requests to upgrade the software will be less than helpful.  Your younger users will never notice, they are far more concerned with convincing someone that they should be allowed to work on whatever device is their current favourite but you can be guaranteed you will be spending time with upper management explaining why Microsoft doesn't care that they don't want to switch OSes and that due to security agreements with clients those managers have no choice but to upgrade.  The Register put together some numbers showing how unprepared the UK market is; the situation in North America will be similar.

"The lack of a business case was cited as the key barrier to Windows XP application migration in 79 per cent of these organisations. This is why large volumes of unsupported applications post-Windows XP are a concern for 80 per cent of CIOs and IT leaders."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Mutant hybrid upstart joins pushback against storage giants @ The Register
• Intel presents its Future Showcase for KitGuru
• Tenda W300M Wireless N300 Portable AP/Router @ Kitguru
• HWBOT TeamCup 2013 Stage 4 @ Madshrimps
• Win One of Five Antec Mobile Product Bundles @ eTeknix
• Win 'The Showdown Effect' Game Codes @ eTeknix

Help PC Perspective Expand by Contributing to our Indiegogo Project!

Subject: Editorial | April 26, 2013 - 11:40 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, pcper, Indiegogo

UPDATE 4/26/13: We are extremely excited to see that we have met our first goal for our Indiegogo project!  We are eternally grateful for our fans and readers that are supporting us in this endeavor.  We are going to start putting together orders for the set materials and I am very excited about the direction this is pointing us in.  There is still room to improve the project though and we have lots of great perks available for those of you that are still looking to contribute to the cause!  Oh, and we should have our T-shirt design ready early next week as well.  Thank you EVERYONE for reading PC Perspective!!

And for those of you looking for a bit more insight into our total goals, here is another mock up of the set!

Yesterday evening, the team at PC Perspective launched a project that will help us grow and expand our coverage of technology and computer hardware. Using the crowd funding service called Indiegogo.com, we are doing a fund drive to help improve the quality of our video content and enable us to do more, unique styles of content.

If you are anything like us, you love technology.  Motherboards, graphics cards, processors, SSDs, monitors, laptops, tablets, cell phones and more.  And you also love reading about them, hearing about them and seeing them, dissecting them and finding out what makes them tick.

I am confident that high quality video content is the future of our medium and while we have been able to do quite a lot with the basic technology and setup we have here today, my goal is to be able to bring the readers regular, high quality video content on all aspects of technology.  We want to not only have video reviews for products but we want to be able to do near-daily content updates on the news of the day while balancing that with long-form interviews of personalities that make the industry function.  We have dabbled in some of these content types and the responses have been great, but we need a higher quality setup to really do it right.

Our goal with this project is to build the funds necessary to turn our office in Florence, KY into a high tech video production outlet that starts with a quality set design and better quality equipment.

Other than supporting one of your favorite online outlets, we have also lined up some sweet perks for contributors to our project.  We have ad-free versions of the site, Tshirts and access to the PC Perspective Gold Club that has some pretty ridiculous giveaways!  If you support us even further you can get some individual time with our team to tell us why you supported us, answer your questions or even join us for an episode of the PC Perspective Podcast!  

Come visit the offices, join the process of creating a new show or make fun of Josh's laugh in person - it's all possible!

So if you have the means and you want to support our cause, if you have enjoyed any of our articles, podcasts or video reviews, consider helping to fund our project!

Support PC Perspective's Indiegogo Project

Visit the page to contribute!!

Razer takes a moment to Vent, announces Razer Comms

Subject: General Tech | April 26, 2013 - 02:46 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: razer, Comms, Teamspeak, Ventrillo

The Steam overlay makes text communication easy between any combination of friends in game and out. Despite the popularity, just about every team has a voice over IP (VoIP) solution to coordinate within a match. Talking is simply superior to typing while simultaneously attempting to not get yourself killed, crashed, or otherwise not-winning. Teamspeak and Ventrillo are the two most popular solutions for clan voice communication; while both are free applications for clients, some uses require server license fees over and above the actual server cost itself.

Razer found a niche it wanted to fill.

Razer Comms is a free service, currently in beta, for text and audio chat. Using the overlay metaphor, the application tries to be very unobtrusive to the game it rests upon. The service apparently uses good-quality codecs, according to the little hear-say I overheard the last couple of days. They also advertise that the service, since it is not owned by the clans which use it, will hide each user's IP address. While there is very little you can do to someone by knowing their IP address, and most of that could be circumvented by powercycling your modem, it does have some limited advantages.

In terms of a business model, unless the service develops some way of gaining revenue, the only way I can rationalize Razer funding this project is boosting their brand power. Razer already has some level of infrastructure from their Synapse projects and it is possible that the company is willing to eat the loss with the expectation of increased hardware sales. If this service will continue to be both free and ad-free, I cannot see any other reason for Razer to bother besides: eat the loss, make gamers happy, and wait for them to want a new mouse or tablet.

I can also see a slim chance, a very very slim chance, that Razer hopes to contiuously expand this service into a full gaming platform as Valve did with Steam. A fun thought, but nothing I would actually expect at this point.

Razer Comms is currently only available for English Windows users, although other languages will arrive soon.

Noctua Offers Free Alternative Mounting Kit for Low-Profile NH-L9a Cooler

Subject: Cases and Cooling | April 26, 2013 - 12:30 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: noctua, nh-l9a, hsf, cooler, mini-itx, low profile cooler

Noctua, an Austrian company known for its high-end air CPU coolers has announced that it will be offering up alternatvie mounting kits to users of its low profile NH-L9a cooler that have incompatible motherboards. Certain mini-ITX motherboards that place components on the back of the motherboard around the processor socket are incompatible with the company’s existing SecureFirm 2 mounting kit because the backplate cannot be installed.

The new alternative mounting system for the NH-L9a CPU cooler uses Noctua’s NM-APS3 spacers that go in place of the standard backplate. The spacers go in between the motherboard and screws, but are small enough to not run into any components installed in the area normally reserved for a CPU backplate. Two such boards that Noctua has found to be incompatible are the mini-ITX AsRock FM2A75M-ITX and AsRock FM2A85X-ITX.

Users with an incompatible motherboard and NH-L9a cooler can obtain the alternative mounting kit for free by contacting Noctua’s customer service line and providing them with a proof of purchase (scan, photo, or electronic invoice) receipt for both the Noctua cooler and an incompatible motherboard. Additionally, Noctua will be including both the standard SecureFirm 2 and alternative mounting kits in the retail NH-L9a cooler box from now on.

It is nice to see Noctua continuing its tradition of good customer care. They many not be as popular as other cooler vendors in the US but it seems they are a company willing to go the extra mile for its enthusiast customers.

It's not a phone, it's an email device! Meet the Blackberry Q10

Subject: Mobile | April 25, 2013 - 07:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: blackberry, blackberry q10

Touchscreen phones might get all the recognition in the press and with the cool kids but for the hard working type who can never truly get away from their email, nothing beats a physical QWERTY keyboard.  Users who prefer Bolds and Curves to flashy touchscreens are finally going to be gifted with the new Blackberry Q10, with very similar specs to the already released Z10.  For those of us that don't tend to see our phones as an entertainment device but simply as work tool the size of the screen really does not matter as much as a responsive and easy to use keyboard.  The Inquirer had a chance to review the new Q10 and you can catch their comments here.

"3.1" 720x720 Super AMOLED touchscreen, physical QWERTY keyboard, dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, 4G and HSDPA connectivity, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, 8MP autofocus rear-facing camera with LED flash and HD 1080p video, 2MP HD 720p front camera, Blackberry 10 mobile operating system, 119.6x66.8x10.4mm, 139g

Price £579.95 SIM-free."

Here are some more Mobile articles from around the web:

Mobile

• All thumbs on deck with the BlackBerry Q10 @ Ars Technica
• Samsung Galaxy S 4: The empire strikes back with a faster, sleeker handset @ Ars Technica
• Samsung Galaxy S4 hands-on @ The Inquirer
• Blackberry Z10 Smartphone Review @ Legit Reviews
• Sony Xperia Z Smartphone @ Tweaktown
• COBY Kyros Internet 10 Touchscreen Tablet (MID1045) Review @ Madshrimps
• Eminent WiFi Travel Reader and WiFi Travel Router @ Hardawre.info
• Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 @ The Inquirer
• Seidio Ultimate Screen Guard for Nexus 4 @ LanOC Reviews
• Cooler Master NotePal A200 Laptop Cooler Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• ASUS VivoBook S500C Touchscreen Ultrabook Laptop @ Tweaktown
• Gigabyte P2742G-CF1 Review @ TechReviewSource

Triathlor? Seriously Enermax?

Subject: Cases and Cooling | April 25, 2013 - 06:06 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: PSU, modular psu, enermax, TriAthlor, 650W

Platimax, Triathlor and NAXN; perhaps Enermax is not gifted at picking names for their PSUs but for the most part they are known for creating solid PSUs which do the job they are intended to.  Setting aside the name, this 650W mostly modular PSU has four 12V rails that combine to a peak of 54A, 648W which is certainly enough to power a modest multi-GPU system.  [H]ard|OCP put it through their own special brand of torture and were pleased with the results, a pass on all of their testing albeit results which trail the competitions offerings.  That keeps this PSU in the running as far as performance but at a current cost of $120 and perhaps higher in the future, it is hard to recommend this PSU over ones that do not cost as much and provide power of a quality at least equal to if not better than the Triathlor.

"Today we bring you an "athletic" power supply from Enermax that weighs in at 650 watts. The new Triathlor series sports plenty of features that enthusiasts will like including Silent Cooling, Flexible Cable Management, is marketed as being Rock Stable at All Loads. Enermax ads that, "The Triathlor FC is not a blinky poser."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

• Corsair CX Series Modular CX600M 600 W @ techPowerUp
• Enermax Platimax 1350w Modular Power Supply @ FunkyKit
• Rosewill SilentNight 500-Watt 80 PLUS Platinum @ Tweaktown
• PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III 750W Power Supply Review @Hi Tech Legion
• Rosewill Fortress 750-Watt 80 PLUS Platinum @ Tweaktown
• Enermax Triathlor FC 650-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze @ Tweaktown
• Corsair AX1200 Fully-Modular 1200W Power Supply Review @ ModSynergy
• Corsair AX and AXi Series Power Supplies Review: Small Letter Big Difference @ X-bit Labs
• Cooler Master V Series 1000 W @ techPowerUp
• Antec Mobile Products A.M.P. Mobile Power Roundup @ eTeknix

Can 3,000,000 Surface buyers be wrong?

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 02:43 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: winRT, win8, surface, microsoft, sales, Surface Pro

Believe it or not, according to The Inquirer's sources Microsoft managed to sell three million Surface and Surface Pro tablets, accounting for 7.5% of sales in the first quarter of 2013.  In comparison Apple accounts for a hair under 50% of branded tablet sales, with Android tablets making up the rest of the market.  For a company not generally associated with hardware, apart from the Zune, Microsoft has made a definite impact on tablet sales with their new OS and hybrid machines.  They do not define the split between Surface and Surface Pro, nor mention how many buyers did not realize the limitations of WinRT, regardless this is good news for Microsoft if not for some of their traditional partners such as ASUS and Acer.

"TABLET UPSTART Microsoft managed to capture 7.5 percent of the global 'branded' tablet market in the first three months of the year."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Fusion-io buys NexGen @ The Register
• Microsoft to unveil new Xbox console on May 21 @ The Register
• Western Digital profits down despite revenue rise @ The Register
• MySQL Founders Reunite To Form SkySQL @ Slashdot
• Another blow for Flash as Unity gaming engine kills support @ The Register
• SECTOR Pilot Master R3273679025 Review @ NikKTech
• Sony NEX-VG30 @ Hardware.info
• Ninjalane Podcast - The Tech of Concerts

Corsair Goes Small with Obsidian Series 350D Micro ATX PC Case

Subject: Cases and Cooling | April 25, 2013 - 02:30 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: SFF, Obsidian Series 350D, obsidian, corsair

Fremont, California — April 25, 2013 — Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components, today announced the Obsidian Series 350D High Performance Micro ATX PC case. Available with a solid or windowed side panel, the Obsidian Series 350D brings unprecedented expansion and cooling options to smaller, more portable, high-performance PCs.

Like larger cases in the premium Obsidian Series line, the Obsidian Series 350D sports a clean, black, brushed-aluminum styling. The case is also designed for fast and neat builds with tool-free access and drive installation as well as an innovative cable routing system.

The Obsidian Series 350D case supports both Micro ATX and mini ITX motherboards and has plenty of interior space for liquid CPU cooling, dual 3.5” hard drives, dual 2.5” SSDs, dual 5.25” drives, and dual full-length graphics cards. It also has five expansion slots and five fan mounting points with room for two 240mm radiators. The front panel provides convenient access to USB 3.0 and audio connectors.

“The Obsidian 350D’s versatile expansion options give builders the ability to pack a lot of performance into a smaller form factor,” said Thi La, Senior VP & GM of Memory and Enthusiast Component Products at Corsair. “Its stylish, compact design makes it a perfect high-performance PC case for smaller living spaces or for gaming LAN parties.”

The MSRP is $109.99.

Podcast #248 - AMD HD 7990, CrossFire Frame Rating improvements, 4K TVs and more!

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 02:13 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: video, Xe, seiki, raidr, podcast, nvidia, Never Serttle, hd 7990, GA-Z77N-WiFi, frame rating, crossfire, amd, 4k

PC Perspective Podcast #248 - 04/25/2013

Join us this week as we discuss AMD HD 7990, CrossFire Frame Rating improvements, 4K TVs and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malventano

Program length: 1:16:34

1. 0:01:20 Update on Indiegogo: You guys rock!
2. Week in Review:
   1. 0:06:30 AMD Radeon HD 7990 6GB Review
   2. 0:15:30 Frame Rating: AMD previews prototype driver
   3. 0:27:30 Gigabyte Z77N-WiFi Mini ITX Motherboard
   4. 0:29:30 AMD Releases Latest Generation of G-series Embedded Products
3. News items of interest:
   1. 0:37:40 Seiki 50-in 4K 3840x2160 TV Preview
   2. 0:48:45 ASUS RAIDR Teases keep happening
   3. 0:52:00 Western Digital Xe HDDs SAS
      1. WD mobile Blue Series 5mm thin
   4. 0:57:15 Hook Retina display up to your PC
   5. 0:59:00 Raja Koduri returns to AMD
   6. 1:01:30 More Never Settle games??
   7. 1:02:45 Sound Blaster still a thing?
4. Hardware/Software Picks of the Week:
   1. Ryan: Seiki 4K TV - more support from enthusiasts! and wet puppies
   2. Jeremy: This is not news people, NFC is a feature but if you are paranoid you can check with this app
   3. Josh: The hoarder in me wants one!
   4. Allyn: Put your bits on an ioSafe. Put your 'papers' here.
   5. Tim: BT Sync, it's in public alpha now so go grab it!
5. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
6. http://pcper.com/podcast
7. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
8. Closing/outro

Deal for April 25th - Dell UltraSharp U2913WM 29" 2560 x 1080 @ $495

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 02:11 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

Today only you can get your hands on the Dell UltraSharp U2913WM we featured back on the 19th at an even lower price.  For a total of $495, shipping is free, you can upgrade your display significantly.  Before you sneer at the 2560 x 1080 resolution, realize that you would be able to run multiples of this monitor without needing a triple TITAN SLI rig.  For those of us who's eyes have been around the sun many dozens of times, the slightly larger resolution is also welcome.

Dell UltraSharp U2913WM panoramic 29" 2560 x 1080 LED-backlit LCD Monitor
Dell Works is offering 29-inch UltraSharp U2913WM 2560 x 1080 LED-backlit LCD Monitor for $494.99 with FREE shipping. Use $150 instant savings and extra 10% coupon code: 0Q0C74SWNZC42$ to get final price. Backed by 3-year Advanced Exchange Warranty and Premium Panel Guarantee.

Insync Extending Support for 0.9.x Versions As it Improves The Upgrade Process To Its New 1.0 Client

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 10:00 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: insync, google drive, file sync, cloud storage

Insync -- a service that extends the functionality of Google Drive and (among other things) allows users to sync Google Drive files (and documents) with their local computer for offline access -- has announced that it is extending support for version 0.9.x clients due to users expressing concerns over upgrade issues. The company released a new version 1.0 desktop client last month that added a number of new features, and the older clients were scheduled for end-of-life support.

Unfortunately, in order to upgrade to the new Insync 1.0, users needed to re-download all of their files stored on Google Drive. In an email to users, Insync sympathized with users' concerns over needing to re-download all files (especially those with extensive libraries of files and/or low data caps) of their files simply to upgrade the client-side application.

Insync has announced that it is working on a solution that will allow users to upgrade to the new (and improved) client without needing to re-download files from Google Drive, which is currently necessary to bring the client in sync with the cloud storage service. There is no ETA on the new client, but the company is reportedly hard at work on fixing the issue.

In the meantime, users can continue using their current desktop clients without worrying about file sync and tech support ending.

ARM Details First Quarter 2013 Finances, Company Revenue Up 26% YoY

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 01:14 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: SoC, mobile, ARMv8, arm

British chip design company ARM recently released an unaudited financial report with details on its Q1 2013 performance. The mobile SoC giant announced that it saw 2.6 million ARM chips in the first quarter of this year, a 35% improvement over last year and further evidence that ARM still dominates the low-power mobile market.

In fact, the chip designer made $94.9 million in licensing all those ARM chips, which was a big chunk of the company’s total Q1 2013 revenue of $263.9 million. Revenue was up by 26% versus the first quarter of the previous year (Q1 2012), which was only $209.4 million. Further, ARM’s profit (pre-tax) is 89.4 million pounds or approximately $137 million USD.

ARM saw revenue from both licensing and royalties increase year over year (YoY) by 24% and 33% which indicates that more companies are jumping into the mobile and embedded markets with ARM chips or licenses to make custom designs of their own. According to the report, the company sold five-times more Mali GPUs, saw a 50% increase in ARM-powered embedded devices, and noticed a 25% increase in ARM mobile devices year over year respectively. ARM has also started moving ARMv8 (64-bit ARM) licenses. Of the total 22 licenses in Q1 2013, 7 of the licenses were for ARM’s Cortex-A50 series processors along with a single ARMv8 license (a total of 9 to date). In Q1 2013, ARM also sold three Mali GPU licenses, and one of those was for the company’s high-end Skymir GPU.

In all, ARM had a good first quarter and is showing signs of increased growth. With ARMv8 on the horizon, I am interested to see the company’s numbers next year and how they compare year over year as ARM attempts to take over the server room in particular. The profits and revenue are modest in comparison to X86 giant Intel's Q1 2013 results, but are not bad at all for a company that doesn’t produce chips itself!

You can find ARM's Q1 2013 report here.

XFX Announces Malta Dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990

Subject: Graphics Cards | April 24, 2013 - 10:14 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: xfx, malta, hd 7990, GCN, dual gpu, amd

Now that AMD’s dual-gpu Malta graphics card is official, cards from Add-In Board (AIB) partners are starting to roll in. One such recently announced card is the XFX Radeon HD 7990 card. The XFX card is based on the reference AMD design, which includes two Radeon HD 7970 GPUs in a Crossfire configuration.

The two GPUs can boost up to 1GHz clock speeds and feature a total of 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 ROPs, and 8.6 billion transistors. The card also includes 3GB of GDDR5 memory per GPU running off a 384-bit bus. It supports AMD’s Eyefinity technology and offers up one DL-DVI and four mini-DisplayPort video outputs.

The XFX HD 7990 uses the reference AMD heatsink as well, which includes a massive aluminum fin stack with five copper heatpipes that run the length of the heasink and directly touch the two 7970 GPUs. Three shrouded fans, in turn, keep the heatsink cool.

The dual-GPU monster is eligible for AMD’s Never Settle bundle which includes eight free games. With purchase of the HD 7990 (from any eligible AIB), you get free key codes for the following games:

• Bioshock Infinite
• Crysis 3
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Far Cry 3
• Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
• Hitman: Absolution
• Sleeping Dogs
• Tomb Raider

The XFX press release further assures gamers that the card can, in fact, play Crysis 3 at maximum settings at a resolution of 3840 x 2160. The company did not mention pricing, however.

For those interested in AMD’s new Malta GPU, check out our review as well as how the card performs when paired with a prototype AMD driver that seeks to address some of the frame rating issues exhibited by AMD's Crossfire multi-GPU solution.

PowerColor Launches HD 7990 V2 Based On Official AMD Malta GPU

Subject: Graphics Cards | April 24, 2013 - 07:09 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: amd, powercolor, hd 7990, malta, dual gpu, crossfire

PowerColor (a TUL corporation brand) launched its dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 V2 graphics card, and this time the card is based on the (recently reviewed) official dual-GPU AMD “Malta” GPU announced at the Games Developers Conference (GDC). The new HD 7990 V2 graphics card features two AMD HD 7970 cards in a Crossfire configuration. That means that the Malta-based card features a total of 4096 stream processors, and a rated 8.2 TFLOPS of peak performance.

The PowerColor HD 7990 V2 joins the company’s existing Devil 13 and HD 7990 graphics cards. The new card sports a triple-fan shrouded heatsink that is somewhat tamer-looking that the custom Devil 13. Other hardware includes 3GB of GDDR5 RAM per GPU clocked at 1500MHz and running on a 384-bit bus (again, per GPU) for a total of 6GB. Both GPUs have clock speeds of 950MHz base and up to 1GHz boost.

The new GPU has a single DL-DVI and four mini-DisplayPort video outputs. PowerColor is touting the card’s Eyefinity prowess as well as its ZeroCore support for reducing power usage when idle. The board has a TDP of 750W and is powered by two PCI-E power connections. In all, the HD 7990 V2 graphics card measures 305 x 110 x 38mm. While PowerColor has not released pricing or availability, expect the card to be available soon and around the same price (or a bit lower than) as its existing (custom) HD 7990.

The full press release can be found here.

Sapphire heads to the Edge again with the new VS8 Mini PC

Subject: Systems | April 24, 2013 - 06:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: sapphire, htpc, edge VS8

Sapphire continues to improve their Edge mini-PCs, the VS8 sports an quad core A8-4555M @ 1.6GHz with HD 7600G, 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 500GB 2.5-inch SATA hard drive, not the most powerful GPU on the planet but more than enough for an HTPC.  The entire system is 19.7x18.2x3.1cm, about the size of a 5.25" drive and has both WiFi and BlueTooth connectivity.  For outputs you can choose between Mini Display Port and HDMI for video and optical and line out for audio as well as a line in if you need that connectivity.  TechSpot really liked this machine but they would like to see a more expensive model with an SSD inside to really make the system snappy.

"While full-sized desktop computers are still around, tablets and smartphones have proven that technology has come far enough to essentially cram a fully capable computer into a space that is suitable for your pants pocket, a purse, or a small backpack. This idea of shrinking hardware hasn’t been overlooked by manufacturers as several now feature space-saving designs based on mobile hardware.

Such is the case with Sapphire’s new Edge VS8 mini-PC powered by AMD’s A8 APU. The system is hardly any larger than an external optical drive, while still packing 4GB of DDR3 memory, Radeon HD 7600G graphics, a 500GB SATA HDD, built-in support for Bluetooth 3.0 as well as 802.11 b/g/n wireless and a bevy of rear I/O connections."

Here are some more Systems articles from around the web:

Systems

• ASRock VisionX HTOC 321B Ivy Bridge mini-PC @ techPowerUp
• CompuLab Intense PC System Review: Fanless Ivy Bridge @ AnandTech
• Pivos XIOS DS Media Player @ Bjorn3D
• Pivos Xios DS Media Player Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• Pivos XIOS DS Media Box @ Funky Kit
• Roku 3 Review @ TechReviewSource
• WD TV Play Review @ TechReviewSource
• Belkin @TV Plus review: TV always, everywhere @ Hardware.info
• Pivos Technology XIOS DS Media Play Smart TV Companion Review @ Madshrimps

AMD Catalyst 13.4 (WHQL) and AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta

Subject: General Tech | April 24, 2013 - 05:27 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: catalyst, graphics drivers, catalyst 13.4, Catalyst 13.5 beta

AMD Catalyst 13.4 includes all of the latest performance optimizations and fixes available in AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3, and is Microsoft logo certified.

AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta includes additional performance improvements and fixes not found in AMD Catalyst 13.4

Feature Highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 13.4
Includes support for the for the AMD Radeon HD 7990 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7790 Series

AMD Catalyst 13.4 includes support for the following OpenGL 4.3 features:

• GL_ARB_compute_shader o GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect
• GL_ARB_shader_storage_buffer_object o GL_ARB_arrays_of_arrays
• GL_ARB_clear_buffer_object o GL_ARB_ES3_compatibility
• GL_ARB_explicit_uniform_location o GL_ARB_fragment_layer_viewport
• GL_ARB_invalidate_subdata o GL_ARB_program_interface_query
• GL_ARB_shader_image_size o GL_ARB_stencil_texturing
• GL_ARB_texture_buffer_range o GL_ARB_texture_query_levels
• GL_ARB_texture_storage_multisample

Performance Highlights of AMD Catalyst 13.4 (vs. AMD Catalyst 13.1): Includes all of the performance improvements found in AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3 on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series

• Resolved issue highlights of AMD Catalyst 13.4 (vs. AMD Catalyst 13.1) AMD Catalyst 13.4 includes all of the fixes found in AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3
• Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, Guild Wars 2,Tomb Raider and Hitman Absolution
• Resolves Texture flickering seen in DirectX9.0c applications.
• Resolves slight corruption seen in Tomb Raider with TressFX enabled for CrossFire and single GPU configurations
• Fixes graphical corruption on objects and textures in Call of Duty - Black Ops 2

AMD’s latest Catalyst Application Profile:

AMD Catalyst 13.4 CAP1 (Can be used with AMD Catalyst 13.4 and AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta – note, the CrossFire profiles are already included in AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta )

AMD Catalyst Application Profiles include support for AMD single GPU, AMD CrossFire, AMD Dual Graphics, and AMD Enduro Technology configurations

• The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct: Fixes image quality issues when enabling Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center
• Crysis 3: Improves CrossFire performance in 3 and 4 GPU configurations
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Improves CrossFire performance
• Unigine Heaven: Improves CrossFire performance in 3 and 4 GPU configurations ·
• Hitman Absolution: Resolves application issues when running application at 1680x100 with 8xAA enabled

AMD Enduro Technology profile updates:

• Alien Colonial Marines – acm.exe
• BioShock Infinite – BioShockInfinite.exe
• Crysis 3 – Crysis3.exe
• GodMode – GodMode.exe
• Grid 2 – grid2.exe
• Hawken – HawkenLauncher.exe
• Neverwinter – gameclient.exe
• SimCity – SimCity.exe
• Sniper Elite Nazi Zombie Army – NZA.exe
• The Walking Dead Survival Instinct – WalkingDead.exe
• Tomb Raider – TombRaider.exe
• Kapersky Anti-virus - avt.exe

The latest available AMD Catalyst CAP can always be found here:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx

Feature Highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 13.4 Linux Driver:

This release of AMD Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new features: RHEL 6.4 production support OpenCL console mode support Kernel 3.7 and 3.8 support

AMD Catalyst™ 13.5 Beta high-lights (vs. AMD Catalyst 13.4/AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta) on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series.

Download the driver here: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-5WINBetaDriver.aspx

· AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta Includes support for the for the AMD Radeon HD 7990 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7790 Series

Resolved Issues: · Tomb Raider: Corruption is no longer seen on the AMD Radeon HD 7790 when Tress FX is enabled

BitTorrent Releases First Public Alpha of Its Sync P2P Storage Service

Subject: General Tech | April 24, 2013 - 05:17 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: torrent, sync, p2p, folder sync, file sync, cloud storage, bittorrent

BitTorrent took the wraps off of its Sync application yesterday. The new Sync service uses the BitTorrent P2P protocol to sync encrypted files across all of your devices. It is a service that I have been wanting to see for a long time now, in fact, which was why I was ecstatic when I found out about the BitTorrent Labs program. I managed to get into the private alpha a couple of weeks ago, and have been testing it ever since. Being in an alpha state, it is still a bit rough around the edges but it shows promise and while I encourage everyone to read the full review for more details, I think it is something I can at least recommend that you should try out!

BitTorrent Sync creates a folder in your home/user folder called SyncApp, and any files or folders that you place in that folder are synced across your devices. Additionally, you can choose existing folders to sync outside of the default SyncApp folder, which is really nice.

The encryption is a bit complicated, but you are given a secret code (decryption key) when you choose to sync a folder, and you need to enter this code on any devices you want to sync. One cool feature of this setup is that you can also generate secret codes that allow temporary and/or permanent read-only access. The master code will allow read and write access, and temporary codes can also be given write access, which would be good to share files for a limited time when collaborating on a project. Even better, the Sync application will allow you to use a custom (base64 encoded) key that is longer than 40 characters if you feel the default keys are not long/secure enough.

The BitTorrent Sync app for Windows--The SyncApp folder is the folder it syncs by default.

The application will sync over WAN or LAN, with a preferrence towards syncing with computers on the same local network. Changes and file syncs are initiated almost instantly, though the actual transfer speed will depend on your network connections.

It is a free app that allows you to sync as many files and folders as you want securely, and it's worh a look in my opinion. Combined with a VPS that allows P2P applications (Backupsy is one that will make an exception for Sync users), you can create your own Dropbox-like sync solution without those pesky file size limits. (Though, currently, you would be missing out on Dropbox's versioning functionality. I hope to see that remedied in future releases.)

You can find more information as well as download links for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux versions of Sync on the BitTorrent Labs website.

Yes, you may be able to tell from this post that I'm excited about Sync--I am. I'm glad someone that can actually code (as in, not me) has finally put together a program that I've been wanting for a long time, and that it generally works well from what I've been able to test so far. It's just my opinion though, if you do try it out let me know what you think of Sync!