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Computex 2013: New Haswell-Ready PSUs From SeaSonic Pictured

Subject: General Tech, Cases and Cooling, Shows and Expos | June 7, 2013 - 03:56 PM |
Tagged: seasonic, PSU, m12II evo, m12II bronze, haswell, computex 2013, computex

Following Intel's announcement of new Haswell sleep states, various power supply manufacturers have released compatibility lists detailing which PSUs are able to deliver the low load necessary to support the power sipping sleep states on the 12V rail (which has not been much of a concern until Haswell).

One such PSU manufacturer was Seasonic, who has quite a few Haswell-ready power supplies across several lineups including its Platinum, G, and M12II series, among others. Included in that compatibility list were two new power supplies that Seasonic is showing off at Computex this week: the Seasonic Platinum 1200 and Seasonic M12II Bronze Evo Edition.

SeaSonic Platinum 1200

The Platinum 1200 is a high-end modular power supply that is capable of powering beefy multi-GPU setups. It is 80+ Platinum rated and is up to 92% efficient at 50% load.

Platinum 1200.jpg

Sesonic M12II Bronze Evo Edition

The Seasonic M12II Bronze Evo Edition is an updated version on past models and includes two SKUs that come in at 750W and 850W. It is a fully modular unit with flat black cables and fan control tech. It is 80+ Bronze and Energy Star rated, and is compatible with Intel's 4th Generation Core processors.

M12II 850 Evo Edition PSU.jpg

Also read: The full list of Haswell-compatible Seasonic power supplies @ PC Perspective.

Source: SeaSonic

ARM was right, they can steal server rooms from under the noses of AMD and Intel

Subject: General Tech | June 7, 2013 - 03:18 PM |
Tagged: arm, 64bit, servers

With Calxeda and Applied Micro showing off ARM64 based servers at Computex this year, in addition to the existing products coming from Marvell and Dell, DigiTimes prediction that 64bit ARM processors will quickly grow in popularity seems to be based in fact.  It was not too long ago that many thought that ARM was fooling themselves if they thought they could take server space from AMD and Intel but it looks like they were right to develop server chips.  With low power usage becoming more popular than processor overkill and modularity growing in importance ARM seems poised to perform far beyond expectations.  Expect to see a lot more new on ARM64 processors and products over the coming months.

PinkyBrain.jpg

"Although Intel platforms are still the mainstream in the server industry, since 64-bit products have a broader range of applications, and ARM has been aggressively promoting related products, sources from the server industry expect more 64-bit ARM-based products to appear in the market between the end of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

Source: DigiTimes

Dell UltraSharp U2413 1920 x 1200 24" IPS @ $459

Subject: General Tech | June 7, 2013 - 12:29 PM |
Tagged: deals

Dell's UltraSharp U2413 1920 x 1200 24" IPS claims a 6ms response time which makes it suitable for gaming, as well as offering superior colour support.  As it is a new model it supports HDMI, DisplayPort 1.2, DVI-D and mini DisplayPort inputs as well as acting as a 4-port USB 3.0 hub.

u2413.jpg

Top Deal

Additional Deals

Source: LogicBUY

E3 2013: Bludgeon that horse again! Xbox One DRM

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Systems, Shows and Expos | June 6, 2013 - 08:46 PM |
Tagged: xbox one, E3 13, E3

So heading up to E3, Microsoft decided to drop their DRM bombshell so it would get buried over the next couple of days. In terms of permissiveness, the Xbox One is not nearly as bad as feared; of course, it is still terrible in certain ways.

Microsoft will allow games to be played offline on the Xbox One... for 24 hours. If your internet connection has been offline for longer than that period (unclear whether the timer starts when internet goes out or from last update) then your system will be locked to live TV and disc-based movies. Games and apps, even ones which should have no online functionality, will cease to function until you reconnect with Xbox servers.

This also means that if the Xbox servers have an outage lasting between 24 hours and "taken offline forever", all gaming and apparently apps will cease to function on the Xbox One.

And people wonder why I freak out about Windows Store.

xbox-one-front.png

It's like if Wall-E grew a Freddie Mercury

But at least they will allow some level of used-game transfer... if the publisher agrees. Check out this statement from Microsoft Studios:

In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.

So this will be an interesting experiment: how will revenue and profitability be affected for game publishers who deny used game sales? I honestly expect that used game sales actually promote the purchasing of more games and that initiatives to limit used game transfers will reduce user engagement. Of course Microsoft is now taking all of the flak from Sony, who may or may not be considering the same practice, but I am sure at least Microsoft is hoping that everyone will forget this when shiny new trailers erase the collective gamer memory.

In return, however, Microsoft is being fairly permissive when it comes to how many users can be licensed on a single disk. Up to ten family members are allowed access to your collective library.

And, after all, it should not be a surprise that a console game disappears when Microsoft shuts down their servers: consoles were always designed to be disposable. I have been proclaiming that for quite some time. The difference is now, people cannot really deny it.

Source: Microsoft

Computex 2013 / E3 2013: Unreal Engine 4 Partners Program

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Shows and Expos | June 6, 2013 - 05:42 PM |
Tagged: unreal engine 4, ue4, E3 13, E3, computex

We are bleeding through the overlap between Computex and E3 media windows; this news has a somewhat relevant fit for both. Unreal Engine 4 is coming and I expect we will see one or more demos and UE4-powered titles over the next week. In fact, I would be fairly shocked if we do not see the end of the Elemental Demo with the Xbox One E3 keynote. We may also potentially see Unreal Engine 4 running on mobile devices and maybe even HTML5 at some point throughout the tradeshow, either canonically through Epic or via a licensee product.

This morning, Epic opened the Unreal Engine 4 Integrated Partners Program (IPP). Of course they already have a couple of members, most of which were partners with Unreal Engine 3.

The founding IPP partners are:

  • Wwise from Audiokinetic
    • Manages large databases of sound effects and voice-overs
    • Manages subtitles and multiple dubbings of voice clips
  • Autodesk Gameware from Autodesk
    • Contains multiple packages including Beast, Navigation, and Scaleform
    • Scaleform is a Flash rendering engine for HUDs, menus, etc. developed using Flash Professional in 2D or 3D. It is what StarCraft II, Mass Effect, and Borderlands uses.
    • Beast is a lighting toolkit for global illumination, radiosity, etc.
    • Navigation is an AI solver, predominantly for pathfinding.
  • Simplygon from Donya Labs
    • Reduces polygon count of models so they take up less processing resources especially as they get further away from the camera.
  • Enlighten from Geomerics
    • Another Global Illumination solver, most popular usage being Battlefield 3.
  • SpeedTree for Games from IDV
    • Makes a bunch of efficient trees so studios do not need to hire as many minimum wage peons.
  • Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB) from Intel
    • Helps developers manage C++ threading for multicore systems.
    • Deals with memory management and scheduling tasks
  • morpheme from NaturalMotion
    • Animation and physics software for designers to create animations
    • Works with NVIDIA PhysX
  • euphoria from NaturalMotion
    • Simulates animations based on driving conditions via the CPU, most popular usage being GTA IV.
  • PhysX and APEX from NVIDIA
    • You probably know this one.
    • GPU-based rigid body, soft body, fluid, and cloth solvers.
    • Allows for destructible environments and other complex simulations.
  • Oculus Rift from Oculus VR
  • Bink Video from Rad Game Tools
    • ... is not included! Just kidding, that stuff'll survive a nuclear apocalypse.
    • Seriously, check in just about any DirectX or OpenGL game's credits if it includes pre-rendered video cutscenes or video-textures.
    • I'll wait here.
    • In all seriousness, Rad Game Tools has been licensed in over 15,500 titles. It's been a meme to some extent for game programmers. This should be no surprise.
  • Telemetry Performance Visualizer from Rad Game Tools
    • Allows developers to see graphs of what their hardware is working on over time.
    • Helps developers know what benefits the most from optimization.
  • RealD Developer Kit (RDK) from RealD
    • Helps game developers create stereoscopic 3D games.
  • Umbra 3 from Umbra Software
    • Determines what geometry can be seen by the player and what should be unloaded to increase performance.
    • Sits between artists and programmers to the former does not need to think about optimization, and the latter does not need to claw their eyes out.
  • IncrediBuild-XGE from Xoreax
    • Apparently farms out tasks to idle PCs on your network.
    • I am not sure, but I think it is mostly useful for creating a pre-render farm at a game studio for light-baking and such.

We still have a little while until E3 and so we do not know how E3 will be, but I highly expect to see Unreal Engine 4 be a recurring theme over the next week. Keep coming back to PC Perspective, because you know we have a deep interest in where Epic is headed.

Source: Epic Games

AMD pays a visit to Chromebook manufacturers

Subject: General Tech | June 6, 2013 - 03:54 PM |
Tagged: amd, Chromebook

Don't hold your breath but AMD might be looking to expand their mobile market share by supplying Chromebook OEMs with AMD processors.  This would be a big win for AMD who have seen Intel taking their mobile customers but will also be a big win for the consumer as the mobile devices would have better graphics and be available at a lower price.  DigiTimes also mentions discussions with Baidu, Tencent and China Mobile about server chips but as of yet there are no firm plans to move into the handset market.

chrmbk.jpg

"As the IT market is gradually stepping into a generation filled with mixed platforms, AMD is reportedly planning to join Google's Chromebook supply chain, hoping to penetrate Intel's dominance in the notebook market with better price/performance ratio products, according to market watchers."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

Source: DigiTimes

Podcast #254 - NVIDIA GTX 770, Haswell and Z87 Reviews, AMD Richland APUs and ton of Computex news!

Subject: General Tech | June 6, 2013 - 01:42 PM |
Tagged: podcast, video, haswell, gtx 770, amd, Richland, nvidia, computex, asus, Transformer, 4k

PC Perspective Podcast #254 - 06/06/2013

Join us this week as we discuss the NVIDIA GTX 770, Haswell and Z87 Reviews, AMD Richland APUs and ton of Computex news!

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, Allyn Malventano and Morry Teitelman

Try our Beta Roku Channel! (Live content only)

Program length: 1:41:16

  1. Week in Review:
    1. 0:02:00 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 Review - GK104 Speed Bump
    2. 0:09:15 The Haswell Review - Intel Core i7-4770K Performance and Architecture
    3. 0:18:00 ASUS ROG Maximus VI Extreme Motherboard Review
    4. 0:31:20 ASUS Gryphon Z87 TUF Micro-ATX Motherboard Review
    5. 0:36:00 MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming Motherboard Review
    6. 0:40:00 AMD A10-6800K and A10-6700 Review: Richland Finally Lands
  2. News items of interest:
    1. 0:56:20 AMD wants you to BE INVINCIBLE
    2. 1:03:25 ARM Cortex-A12 and Mali-T622 Announced, Shipping 2014
    3. 1:06:45 AMD Releases the Opteron X-Series: Low Power for Micro-Servers
    4. 1:08:30 Water Cooling Radiator Comparison: Thickness vs Fin Density
    5. 1:11:20 Computex 2013: ASUS PQ321 is a 31.5" 4K monitor
    6. 1:14:10 NVIDIA Launches New High-Performance 700M Graphics Cards
    7. 1:15:30 Computex 2013: ASUS Keynote -- Transformer Pad Infinity, FonePad Note, MEMO Pad HD7, VivoPC, Router RT-AC68U, Transformer Book Trio
    8. 1:18:45 Western Digital shrinks 1TB 2.5" WD Blue HDD down to 7mm
    9. 1:20:00 Computex 2013: Corsair Launches Carbide Air 540 and 330R Mid Tower Cases
    10. 1:22:10 Computex 2013: ASUS Working On GTX 770 Poseidon With Hybrid Waterblock and Air Cooler HSF
    11. 1:24:05 Computex 2013: ASUS Unveils First Mini-ITX ROG Motherboard: The Z87 Maximus VI Impact
    12. 1:26:55 Computex 2013: Gigabyte Launches New GB-XM1 SFF Brix PCs With Haswell and Kabini CPU Options
    13. 1:28:15 Computex 2013: Gigabyte Shows Off GA-990FXA-UD7 AM3+ Motherboard That Hints At 5GHz AMD FX Processor
    14. 1:32:30 Computex 2013: Intel renames new Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt 2
  3. 1:35:30 Hardware/Software Picks of the Week:
    1. Jeremy: Something I have to test for work
    2. Josh: Nice little (inexpensive) G34 barebones
    3. Allyn: Humble Indie Bundle 8
    4. Morry: XSPC Razor GTX 680 waterblock
  4. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  5. http://pcper.com/podcast
  6. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  7. Closing/outro
Be sure to subscribe to the PC Perspective YouTube channel!!

 

Source: PC Perspective

Dell U3014 30" UltraSharp 2560 x 1600 @ $1250

Subject: General Tech | June 6, 2013 - 12:25 PM |
Tagged: deals

Continuing this weeks theme of monitor deals is the Dell U3014 30" IPS display, an updated version of their long running Ultrasharp 30" series.  The specs remain similar to the old U3011 with new connectivity options, a 4-port USB 3.0 hub, DisplayPort 1.2 and mini-DisplayPort 1.2 along with legacy connections.  With a $250 instant rebate now is a good time to jump on this deal if you were planning on moving your display up to the big leagues.

delu3014.jpg

Top Deal

Additional Deals

Source: LogicBUY

Computex 2013: First official Windows 8.1 preview

Subject: General Tech, Shows and Expos | June 6, 2013 - 03:29 AM |
Tagged: computex, Windows 8.1, windows blue

Jensen Harris, member of the Windows User Experience (UX) team at Microsoft, performed a video walk-through of the new Windows interface. Of course, as I always say when discussing Windows 8, the real problems will arise with the Windows Store and certification requirements; interface problems annoy, censorship problems harm.

But, disclaimer aside, the interface of Windows 8.1 seems much more useable.

First and foremost is the Lock Screen. People enjoy digital photo frames and a locked tablet certainly looks more classy than any other that I have seen. It will collage photos together, stored locally and shared from a phone or Skydrive over wireless, with a thin font date and time. Combined with a decent resolution IPS display, that could be an interesting way to encourage users to leave their device on its charger. Not to mention, the frame would continually synchronize with Skydrive and thus receive new photos without end-user interaction; it is useful, for instance, for the family of an elderly person who wants to keep in touch but actively rejects technology.

The All Apps screen lists all applications installed on screen. This allows users to take a little weight off of the Start Screen and, instead of using it as a launcher, use the All Apps screen as a launcher and use the Start Screen as a nexus of important information. If you wish to use the Start Screen as a launcher, similar to pinned icons for Windows 7, you will have more choice in icon size to either fit more apps or give tiles with relevant information more space.

Screen splitting was pretty horrendous in Windows 8. An application could either be in full screen, be a sidebar app, or take up the room not taken by a sidebar app. If you have multiple monitors, bringing up the Start Screen would shuffle everything around pretty much ensuring that you do not have more than a couple of apps focused at any given time. Windows 8.1 allows you to split apps directly down the middle and, if you have a large display, allow you to fit three or four applications on screen at once.

Unfortunately, and I contacted Paul Thurrott last week to confirm I was up to date, there does not seem to be any multiple monitor enhancements in Windows 8.1. If you have want to punch through your second display because of applications from the Windows Store, keep using the desktop.

Or, if you wish to try it out for yourself, Windows 8.1 will be available for public preview on June 26th.

Source: Microsoft

Not Computex 2013: StarCraft II is changing. Free to play (with friends) and potential new Steam-like Battle.net

Subject: General Tech | June 6, 2013 - 02:40 AM |
Tagged: Starcraft II, HoTS

Big news for fans of Blizzard titles, as if we did not have enough news items. While the majority of this news pertains to fans of StarCraft II, Diablo and Warcraft players should pay attention. You have more to digest than the crumbs Kerrigan let fall to the ground.

The first news is most relevant if you have not yet played StarCraft II yet have a friend or friends who keeps nagging you to play with him, her, or them. A new feature, called "Spawning", allows Battle.net accounts to piggyback on the expansion level of party members. Actually, they even encourage it with XP boosts and a custom CarBot-illustrated achievement. This will also upgrade the free StarCraft: Starter Edition in a party with a Wings of Liberty or Heart of the Swarm owner to whatever expansion level is highest in the party. Starter can be promoted to Wings of Liberty or Heart of the Swarm, and Wings of Liberty can be promoted to Heart of the Swarm until the party breaks up.

The only restriction that I feel is worth mentioning: you, still, are only able to select the Starter Edition race (currently Terran) if you only have a Starter Edition account.

Of course there are other restrictions. You are unable to play the campaign, for instance. But, for the most part, the rest seem quite logical. This might also have some indirect relevance beyond Starcraft. If successful, I can see Blizzard implementing Spawning into their other franchises such as Diablo. Of course, this is just speculation of what might be at this point.

battlenet-launcher-01.jpg

Image, MMO-Champion

The other story comes from mmo-champion who posted screenshots of a unified Battle.net launcher. I was immediately suspicious, but after checking out the linked Battle.net Support Pages I am more convinced. The launcher looks quite a bit like Steam and that is really the only way to describe it. Each page is laid over a faded background image and players can choose from one of over a hundred avatars.

We then of course enter into the question, "Why would Blizzard spend so much effort for their handful of games?"

Who knows... yet, at least.

Source: MMO-Champion

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