Posted 07/03/09 at 09:22:43 AM by Paul Lilly

Seagate, who originally planned to serve up enterprise SSD products in 2008 and later changed its target date to sometime in 2009, has suffered a setback in SSD development that may end up delaying the release until at least 2010, according to an investment bank briefing note.

"Notably in the last two weeks, we heard that Seagate (the company we think is closest in terms of market penetration) had another setback in its efforts to design an enterprise storage drive to compete with ZeusIOPS," wrote Kevin D. Vassily, an analyst at investment bank Pacific Crest Securities.

It remains unclear exactly what kind of setback Seagate is running into, but Vassily did bring up LSI in his note, the company Seagate picked to design and supply controller silicon for its SSDs. If Seagate is forced to find a new supplier, it might be mid-2011 or later before Seagate is able to ship SSDs in any volume, Vassily says.

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storage, seagate, flash, hardware, ssd, solid state drive, build a pc

Posted 07/03/09 at 09:04:37 AM by Paul Lilly

AMD has its head in the cloud, and that may not be such a bad thing. The chip maker this week released another Opteron 1000 Series processor, codenamed Suzuka, with performance per watt and compatibility taking center stage.

"The flexibility of four cores and a low-cost infrastructure gives customers an edge when designing for a cost-effective or power-efficient platform," John Freuhe, director of business development for server and workstation products at AMD, wrote in a blog post.

Suzuka, which was designed for cloud computing, Web servers, small business servers, and other applications where lower power consumption is the primary focus, runs at 2.9GHz with 6MB of cache. And because Suzuka is based on the same core as Shanghai, existing AM2 platforms should only need a BIOS update to run the chip.

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amd, server, cpu, processor, hardware, Opteron, quad-core, build a pc, cloud computing, power management, suzuka

Posted 07/02/09 at 06:30:07 PM by Paul Lilly

There's been a major push this past year in being more energy conscious when it comes to computing, and one way Philips plans to do that is by making sure your LCD monitor doesn't consume more power than it needs to.

Called the Brilliance LCD, the upcoming display will feature a built-in sensor capable of detecting whether or not you're sitting in front of your monitor. Get up to grab a cup of coffee or go powder your nose and the monitor will dim its display, a move Philips says will cut power consumption by half. Once you return, the display lights back up and all is as you left it.

Because not everyone sits the same distance from their monitor, the sensor comes configurable for anywhere between 30cm and 120cm, and is completely independent of the host system's software or operating system.

No word yet on price or availability.

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monitor, philips, display, Peripherals, hardware, build a pc, motion detection

Posted 07/02/09 at 10:44:52 AM by Paul Lilly

SpeedFan is still our favorite software program for adjusting fan speeds and maintaining an optimal balance between cooling and noise, but software solutions don't have anywhere near the sex appeal as some dedicated hardware fan controllers, the newest being NZXT's Sentry 2.

The Sentry 2 installs in a 5.25-inch drive bay and works with any fan that uses voltage control. But it's the sleek looking touch screen that might be the biggest draw. NZXT claims an "ultra fast selection and response time," with the display including temperature readout in both Celsius and Fahrenheit.

Up to 5 fans can be either manually controlled or automatically adjusted based on temperature. Settings are stored after the power is off too, so you needn't worry about finding the best balance of noise to performance only to have it go by the wayside during a power outage.

NZXT tells us the Sentry 2 will be available later this month with an MSRP of $30.

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hardware, nzxt, build a pc, touch screen, sentry, fan controller, perhipherals

Posted 07/02/09 at 09:35:33 AM by Paul Lilly

EVGA set out to prove it's not the size of the motherboard that matters, but how you use it. And with the release of the X58 SLI Micro, you can use any speed grade Core i7 processor you want along with a pair of Nvidia graphics cards all in a micro-ATX package.

In addition to 2-way SLI support, the new mobo also crams 6 DDR3 memory slots (supporting up to 12GB of triple channel DDR3-1600MHz+) and 6 SATA II 3GB/s ports onto the mATX board. Other features include 100-percent solid state capacitors, VDroop control, an onboard temperature monitor, support for up 12 USB ports, a single LAN port, a passive heatsink for cooling the chipset, RAID 0/1/0+1/5 and JBOD support, and 8-channel onboard audio, all decked out in a red and black color theme.

The board is available now for $200.

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evga, motherboard, sli, hardware, build a pc, x58, micro atx, matx

Posted 07/01/09 at 07:10:15 PM by Paul Lilly

We'll admit that a soundcard isn't the first thing that came to mind when we heard you could order the "Tube Delight" online. But that's exactly what it is, and it's the funkiest USB audio solution we've ever seen.

The portable PC soundcard comes encased in a transparent vacuum tube with a fade-in-out blue LED for power-on and idle status indication. It supports 16-bit 16KHz/32KHz/48KHz recording and playback with both rated at THD+N -73dB and SNR 85dB, and comes with the obligatory 3.5mm headphone and microphone ports.

Hong Kong vendor Brando has the USB soundcard on sale now for $32, which is as cheap as you'll ever find anyone selling anything having to do with a Tube Delight.

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usb, soundcard, Peripherals, hardware, build a pc, Brando, vacuum tube

Posted 07/01/09 at 10:39:52 AM by Gordon Mah Ung

Motherboards can’t just sit quietly in your case and service your parts anymore. Today, motherboards also must advertise to the entire world that you have one badass system. Hoping to outdo all others, DFI’s LAN Party UT X58 Core i7 motherboard features a massive heat pipe appendage, called the “Flame Chiller,” that juts out the back of your case.

The idea is to transport heat from the heatsinks attached to the board’s power regulators and chipset to outside the case, where it can be cooled by the exhaust from the case. Does it work? The concept makes sense, but we’re a bit skeptical of the small contact patch the heat pipe makes with the board. The external heatsink never got hot in our tests, but we typically don’t overclock test boards far enough to overheat voltage regulators. The Flame Chiller looks cool, though!

This board’s not all about flash and panache, however. The board’s tri-SLI implementation is certainly better than on other X58 boards we’ve tested. While other boards’ x16 PCI-E slot arrangements force you to either buy a specific case enclosure or hack-saw off a portion of your videocard to get a tri-SLI configuration up and running, the LAN Party UT X58’s tri-SLI will work in most cases.

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hardware, mobos, reviews, build a pc, dfi, DFI LAN Party UT X58

Posted 07/01/09 at 10:00:49 AM by Paul Lilly

Alienware, a boutique OEM vendor who made a name for itself building high end gaming PCs offered in distinct looking cases, has just released its first monitor, the OptX AW2210, and it doesn't have any tentacles or other alienesque features protruding from the side.

"The ultimate gaming experience requires more than just a great PC," explained Frank Azor, Dell Gaming. "Alienware is building an ecosystem around our machines to give gamers the complete gaming experience."

It's not too surprising to see Alienware release a monitor, considering that Dell, an active player in the LCD display market, now owns the OEM.

The 21.5-inch widescreen TN panel boasts 1920x1080 full HD resolution, a 2ms response time, 16.7 million colors, an 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, two HDMi ports, four USB ports, and a titl/swivel/height adjustable stand.

It's available now for $299 direct from Dell.

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monitor, widescreen, alienware, display, hardware, build a pc, optX AW2210