General Gaming Article |
- Newegg Daily Deals: Intel Core i7-4790K, Intel Core i5-4690K, and More!
- Asus Lays Claim to First USB 3.1 Gen 2 Certified Motherboard
- Some Lenovo PCs Download Software Even After Clean Installing Windows
- Verizon Tests Ultra-Fast 10Gbps FiOS Internet Service
- What every PC builder should know about RAID Levels
- Best Backup Software
| Newegg Daily Deals: Intel Core i7-4790K, Intel Core i5-4690K, and More! Posted: 12 Aug 2015 01:23 PM PDT Top Deal: You know that euphoric sensation you get when you build a new PC? It's a wonderful feeling, and if you're due for an upgrade, then get to it before the summer months are in the rear view mirror. You can even bring along your DDR3 memory, provided you're willing to dance with Devil's Canyon (the same goes for Skylake, though DDR3-based Skylake boards aren't out yet). If so, then check out today's top deal for an Intel Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Desktop Processor for $330 with $2 shipping (normally $340 - use coupon code: [INTELBTS03]). This quad-core Haswell part has plenty of speed, with four cores (and eight threads) racing at 4GHz to 4.4GHz. Other Deals: Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon 3.5GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor for $231 with $2 shipping (normally $240 - use coupon code: [INTELBTS42]) Intel Core i3-4170 Haswell 3.7GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor Intel for $115 with free shipping (normally $125 - use coupon code: [INTELBTS43]) Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 3.0GHz LGA 2011-v3 Desktop Processor for $997 with free shipping (normally $1050 - use coupon code: [INTELBTS50]) FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster - PlayStation 4 for $35 with free shipping (normally $50 - use coupon code: [EMCAWKK99]) | |||||||||||||||
| Asus Lays Claim to First USB 3.1 Gen 2 Certified Motherboard Posted: 12 Aug 2015 01:09 PM PDT Gen 2 is the real deal Asus is in full brag mode over the claim that its TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2/USB 3.1 is the world's first motherboard to achieve SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps certification for USB 3.1 Gen 2 data transfer speeds. According to Asus, its Z97 Sabertooth board had to pass a series of tests set forth by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). It's not just a raw speed thing -- the certification process also includes signal quality checks, stress tests, and sustained transmission capabilities. "USB-IF certification is a proven testing and evaluation process that is absolutely necessary for product interoperability and reliability," said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF President and COO. "As the next generation of USB technology hits the market, we strongly encourage consumers to look for USB-IF-certified products, such as the ASUS TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2/USB 3.1 motherboard, to ensure the best possible user experience." It's a Generational thing When shopping a motherboard or system with USB 3.1 listed on the spec sheet, be sure that it's a Gen 2 spec if you want the fastest speed available. It's an important distinction, and somewhat confusing, as USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 Gen 1 are basically the same thing. Or in USB-IF's words (PDF), "USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 3.0 terms are synonymous" -- both top out at 5Gbps. That's still a huge gain over USB 2.0 (480Mbps), but only half of USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps), which is what many people think of when they see USB 3.1.
A real world example of this is Apple's Retina Macbook, the one with a single USB 3.1 Type-C connector and no other ports. Even though it sports a fancy Type-C connector and is labeled as USB 3.1, it's a Gen 1 spec, so really it's USB 3.0 in a pretty dress or spiffy suit. Asus TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2/USB 3.1 USB shenanigans aside, the Sabertooth Z97 is a "military grade" motherboard for socket LGA 1150 processors. It has four DIMM slots supporting up to 32GB of DDR3-1866 memory, two PCI-E 3.1 x16 slots, a single PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot, three PCI-E x1 slots, half a dozen SATA 6Gbps ports, two rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, two rear USB 3.0 ports, four rear USB 2.0 ports, and a host of other features. The board is available now for $175. | |||||||||||||||
| Some Lenovo PCs Download Software Even After Clean Installing Windows Posted: 12 Aug 2015 10:25 AM PDT Poor timing, Lenovo Lenovo's reputation took a hit when it was discovered earlier this year that it was pre-installing an adware program called Superfish that ended up being a security risk, and now if faces even more criticism for what some consider a sketchy BIOS feature. Here's the deal -- some Lenovo laptops are configured to download the company's software and utilities even after wiping the storage drive and performing a clean Windows installation. How so? As a user on ArsTecnica's forums discovered, it's a so-called BIOS feature called Lenovo Service Engine (LSE). The way it works is when a user installs Windows, the BIOS checks for a filed called autochk.exe located in C:\Windows\system32 to determine if it came from Microsoft or is signed by Lenovo. It's then overwritten with a custom version that, upon booting up, creates two more files, LenovoUpdate.exe and LenovoCheck.exe, which initiate a service to download Lenovo's software when there's an Internet connection. That's not all. The Next Web points out that it also sends "system data to a Lenovo server to help us understand how customers use our products." Supposedly that information doesn't include personally identifiable information, though these types of hidden or otherwise little known tricks don't instill a lot of trust. It's also worth mentioning that the feature Lenovo took advantage of is a Microsoft sanctioned mechanism called the Windows Platform Binary Table. It was introduced in 2011 and received its first update last month, but until now, there weren't many mentions of it online. There's a document that outlines the method, which Microsoft modified to make clear that it's it's intended for "critical software," including things like "anti-theft software." The wording seems to be in response to how Lenovo was using the feature. To Lenovo's credit, it released a disabler tool sometime between April and May of this year, though it's not automatically downloaded to affected systems. Users must both know about the tool's existence and manually download/run it. According to Lenovo, the feature is not present in the BIOS firmware included on all PCs shipped since June. Prior to that, several laptops, 2-in-1 systems, and desktop PCs were affected, a full list of which (along with Lenovo's statement on the matter) can be found here. Since this was a Microsoft sanctioned feature that Lenovo was using, it's possible that other OEMs and system builders were using it as well. | |||||||||||||||
| Verizon Tests Ultra-Fast 10Gbps FiOS Internet Service Posted: 12 Aug 2015 09:26 AM PDT Leaving Google Fiber in the dust I'd be thrilled if Google announced that its Fiber Internet service was coming to my area. It's not that I'm discontent with Charter and the 60Mbps service I currently subscribe to, but to have access to 1Gbps Internet service (downloads and uploads) for $70 per month? Yes, please! Ever thought of what comes next? Verizon has, and while most of us aren't seeing speeds anywhere near 1Gbps, Big Red just finished testing a next-generation fiber-optic technology that allows for a 10Gbps data transfer rate, the company announced. That's to say that 10Gbps isn't coming to your residential neighborhood anytime soon, though the potential technology for such a thing is there and being tested. Specifically, it's called NG-PON2, or "next-generation passive optical network." Verizon's even looking beyond 10Gbps with claims that NG-PON2 has the legs to reach 80Gbps, which is 80 times faster than Google Fiber. The neat thing about NG-PON2 is that it isn't just a theoretical technology, nor is it limited to tests in a lab. Not an inside, lab, anyway. Verizon tested NG-PON2 with a business customer and also with a residential home located three miles away from the company's central office in Framingham, Massachusetts. "The advantage of our FiOS network is that it can be upgraded easily by adding electronics onto the fiber network that is already in place. Deploying this exciting new technology sets a new standard for the broadband industry and further validates our strategic choice of fiber-to-the-premises," said Lee Hicks, vice president of network technology for Verizon. Verizon said it will request proposals later this year for the purchase of hardware and software for its new NG-PON2 platform. Businesses will likely be the first customers, though with the adoption of 4K video content and an estimated 25 billion Internet connected devices expected by 2020, consumers might not be all that far behind. | |||||||||||||||
| What every PC builder should know about RAID Levels Posted: 12 Aug 2015 12:30 AM PDT Conquering the RAID levelsWhen it comes to building PCs, for enthusiasts, it's all about performance. Everyone loves to brag about CPU speed or GPU power. We get it, because we do, too. All too often though, storage gets left behind in the conversation. Many may be led to think "Hey, I've got an SSD and HDD. What more could I want?" As it turns out, you may not know what you're missing. A redundant array of independent (or inexpensive) disks—RAID for short—is one way to skirt around the limitations of SATA throughput. What RAID does is pretty much the opposite of partitioning. RAID combines many physical (or logical) storage devices into a single logical storage device. Partitioning, on the other hand, splits a physical or logical device into many logical devices that can be formatted, encrypted, or backed up separately. When we build systems here at Maximum PC, we find that two is very often better than one. We see this all the time with video cards. Two GTX 980s offer better performance than a single Titan X, for instance. But unlike video cards, the performance gains of RAID can stack much more drastically, depending on the level. Hold on, what are RAID levels?When we talk about RAID, a level is referring to the type of array. There are many RAID levels out there. Some are more common, like RAID 0 and RAID 1, while levels like RAID 60 are considered more exotic. Most motherboards only support the more common levels, but don't get upset quite yet. For most use cases outside of a server room, the common levels are plenty good enough. Also, don't think that the higher the RAID level, the faster or "better" the array. Actually, it's quite the opposite: RAID 0 is considered the most lightning-fast (and most risky) RAID level out there. Before we continue about RAID levels, we have to understand the concept of parity. Simply put, parity is when a copy of a block of data exists somewhere else on the array. When a device fails for some reason, the data can be recovered from the parity block. It's important to know that data parity is not the same as a backup. The parity block in RAID is written at the same time the primary data block is. That means when you save an image file, parts of that image file are saved in the parity blocks that make up the file. At the same time, when you delete the file, it is also deleted from the parity block. If a virus corrupts the data in the file, you can bet that the data in the parity blocks contain corrupted or infected data as well. In this sense, it is best to think of RAID parity data as a hedge against physical failure of a device, not a backup solution. Heed this warning, young Padawan. RAID 0: The speed demonAh, RAID 0. How we all love thee. RAID 0 is the Evil Knievel of RAID levels. It takes chances, and gets lots of performance in trade. To understand why, we have to revisit the idea of parity. RAID 0 doesn't use parity. Instead, it takes chunks of data (called chunks or stripes) and "stripes" them across all of the devices in the array. Say there's a file that's 64KB in size, and the RAID is set up across two drives using 16KB stripes. When writing a file, the first 16K and third 16KB would be written to the first drive in sequence, while the second and fourth 16KB blocks would go to the second drive. This doesn't sound all that impressive on its face. MORE: How to set up RAID in Windows and Linux What's impressive about RAID 0 is that these two streams are written at the same time, which theoretically halves the time of writing the data to a single drive. The same holds true for reading data. In practice, there is some overhead to using RAID (and this varies based on implementation), so don't expect data rates to be exactly double. There's a downside to all of this speed: When something fails, it fails hard.
RAID 0 drive failure: Yeah, it's kind of like that. Like we said, RAID 0 doesn't have any data parity. That means when one drive fails, there is no backup of the data anywhere. Since the data for each file is striped across two or more drives, a single drive failure means that a significant portion of each file is gone. That results in a failure for the whole array. Taken to its obvious conclusion, this means that RAID 0 multiplies the chances of failure across all of the drives in the array. One bad drive can ruin the whole thing. That's why builders should never use old drives in a RAID 0 array; it's the equivalent to strapping a brand-new rocket motor to a rusty mountain bike from 1997. Bad things will happen, it's just a matter of when. If you really crave the speed, go with new, identical drives and make regular backups. RAID 1: The saviorIf RAID 0 is all speed and glory, then RAID 1 is the cautious type. When you have an array in RAID 1, you're choosing data safety. It drives in the slow lane while wearing a reflective vest and water wings. MORE: How to set up RAID 1 in Windows and Linux The way RAID 1 works is pretty darned straightforward: When you write a file to RAID 1, every device in the array gets a copy. That means that an array in RAID 1 is incredibly robust when it comes to drive failure protection. As long as there's one or more dives still working, all you have to do is swap out the dead drive and keep on rockin'.
When one drive fails, the others keep on going in RAID 1. Just as RAID 0, however, there's a penalty—but with RAID 1, the penalty is speed. No matter how many drives you have in RAID 1, the performance will resemble that of a single drive. There are some exceptions, but usually any performance increases that could be realized in RAID 1 are only available in big UNIX servers with specialized hardware. Since we're working with PC hardware, just make the assumption that RAID 1 reads and writes will be only as fast as the drives and interfaces used. RAID 5: The great compromiseRAID 5 is special in that it fits somewhere between RAID 0 and 1. It offers parity and striping for a mix of protection and speed. This RAID level provides what is called "distributed parity." To perform this act of trickery, RAID 5 needs a minimum of three drives to work. MORE: How to set up RAID 5 in Windows and Linux When a file is written to an array in RAID 5, the first two pieces of data are striped across two drives, just like in RAID 0. The third drive gets a full parity block, as if the two pieces were written on RAID 1. The next two pieces are written to the first and third drives, while the parity block is written to the second drive, and so on. Here's how the data is arranged using this method:
As you can see, if any one drive fails, the entirety of the data (A-F) can be recovered somewhere else in the array. This makes RAID 5 pretty robust in most circumstances, but the array can only sustain one failure. If a drive fails, it needs to be replaced immediately, and the data on that drive needs to be rebuilt. The calculations for rebuilding a RAID 5 array is expensive (in terms of compute time, not dollars) and takes some time, but the array will still be usable while it is being rebuilt. A "healthy" RAID 5 array has all of its data intact, and can provide read performance of a RAID 0 setup of one less drive (n-1). When an array is missing data or had a failed drive, it is considered "degraded." A degraded array is slower, and can be considered as risky as RAID 0.
With RAID 5, a degraded array can still work, but it can't afford a second blow. A degrade array is a liability for servers, and failed drives in RAID 5 should be replaced immediately. It is for this reason that the Linux RAID software, mdadm, has the email software Postfix as a dependency. The software can be set up to automatically send emails when there is a failure that requires attention. Write speeds in RAID 5 are about as fast as RAID 1 or a single drive, since the parity information has to go down a single SATA pipe. It is also important to note that RAID 5 should not be used with SSDs. (We used SSDs for the sake of testing only.) RAID 5 is bad for SSDs because it keeps TRIM (the set of commands that keeps the SSD cells healthy and cleared) from working properly. This means that with continued normal use full of writes and deletes, the SSD memory cells will slowly grow corrupted. Use with caution. RAID 10: The best of both worldsWhen we get into the double digits with RAID, the levels cease to be unique flavors of their own. Instead, they become a mixture of levels that deliver the best both have to offer. RAID 10 is the simplest of these mixes. RAID 10 (or RAID 1+0) requires a minimum of four drives to work. In a four-drive RAID 10, the first two drives are combined in RAID 1. The other two drives are combined in their own RAID 1 pair. The two pairs, treated like logical drives, are then striped in RAID 0. MORE: How to set up RAID 10 in Windows and Linux The advantage to RAID 10 is that you get the speed of RAID 0, but the array acts as if there is only half the number of drives present. This coupled with the minimum requirement of four drives makes RAID 10 the most financially taxing of the common RAID levels.
You'll need to save up if you want to have a RAID 10 setup with high-capacity SSDs. On the upside, RAID 10 offers the robust data protection of RAID 1 paired with RAID 0's speed. Many consider RAID 10 to be the best option for this reason. On the downside, many motherboards only support RAID up to four SATA ports. (RAID that is implemented in the OS can overcome this limitation.) There is a flipped version of RAID 10 called RAID 0+1. RAID 0+1 is just like RAID 1, but reversed. RAID 0 arrays are combined in RAID 1. Each "drive" in the RAID 1 layer is made up of an array in RAID 0, so the speed is about the same as RAID 10. Both RAID 10 and RAID 0+1 offer the same performance and protection, so RAID 0+1 is less common in order to keep things simple. The ExoticsOther more "exotic" RAID levels include other variations on RAID 10, like RAID 50 or 60. These types of arrays are even more costly to set up. (RAID 50 requires at least six drives.) The computations are also more expensive for the CPU, so many of these levels render better performance with dedicated RAID hardware. The other single-digit RAID levels are variations of RAID 5, but handle the parity in different ways. RAID 6 offers "double parity," so an array can sustain more than one drive failure. RAID 4 stripes data like RAID 5 but keeps all of the parity blocks on a single drive with a method called "dedicated parity." In the next article in this series, we'll take a look at how the different RAID levels perform compared to a single drive. | |||||||||||||||
| Posted: 12 Aug 2015 12:00 AM PDT Backup solutions battle it out for supremacyComputing is filled with bothersome chores that take away from all the things we'd really like to be doing on our personal rigs—like: gaming, benchmarking, overclocking, and web browsing. One of the most troublesome tasks is maintaining backups of all your important documents, media, and files. It's something we all have to do, but none of us really enjoy doing. Backing up files and folders can take hours with the less-than-stellar upload speeds provided by local ISPs. In an effort to make regular backups less of a chore, we've decided to sort through the massive assortment of backup software to find the ultimate solution. We're looking for something that's easy to use, reasonably priced, and works quietly in the background. Fortunately, with all the competition out there, most of the applications on our list have achieved a sort of basic competency that makes them all viable options. We've also included dedicated backup software to address the need to back up partitions on hard drives and to do things like cloning Windows installs. Most users don't need these advanced features, but they're super helpful when a crucial system encounters a fatal error or something like a driver install goes wrong. Dropbox There's no way we can talk about backing up files without mentioning the elephant in the room: Dropbox. It's the first big hit we can remember and it's established itself as a juggernaut in the world of cloud-based backup solutions. Unfortunately, its free plan offers just 2GB of storage. That's a meager amount in the context of the ever-expanding file sizes of even mobile photos. While 2GB should be fine for most document backups, if you expect to store any amount of music, video, or photos, you'll need to step up to a paid plan—or a competing product. DropBox offers a 1TB plan for $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. The great thing about Dropbox is that it's just about the most feature-packed online software on our list. It supports nearly every modern device—iOS, Android, OS X, and Windows, just to name a few—and has a usable web interface for impromptu access. Even more than that, it supports files of all types and lives inside of a single folder on your computer. Right-click files to get shareable Dropbox links and even control which files and folders within the main folder are synced with other devices and online. What's particularly useful about Dropbox and the other cloud-based solutions on our list is that you don't need separate external backups. Because Dropbox syncs across multiple devices and the main Dropbox server, you already have redundancy and don't need to manually backup files. Google Drive As with Dropbox, Google Drive is cloud-based software with dedicated apps for most of the major operating systems. It also has a full-featured website that's existed in numerous iterations since its start as Google Docs. Where it begins to separate itself from Dropbox is the 15GB allotted to every single Google Drive. That's over seven times the storage offered by the free Dropbox plan and that doesn't even include the unlimited photo storage provided by Google through Google Photos. Drive offers quite a few paid storage plans that range from 100GB to 30TB. The former is $1.99 a month and the latter costs a whopping $299.99 a month. It's great that Google allows you to tailor your monthly cost to your personal needs. Plus you still get the initial 15GB of free storage allotted to all accounts. As far as the feature set and interface are concerned, Dropbox and Drive are neck-and-neck. The tiebreaker is simply the dramatically larger free storage space granted to Drive users and the various tiers of paid storage. It's hard to beat 15 gigs of document, music, and video storage as well as unlimited photo storage. Drive pulls out ahead if you're a heavy user of Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides. The web interface has easy access to Google's other online apps and Google Docs will be stored locally in the form of Google Document files. Install a Chrome Extension and you can get offline access to your documents, too. Just like Dropbox, right-click sharing is a cinch and the online portal also offers revision control. Microsoft OneDrive OneDrive is Microsoft's offering, and it matches Google in providing 15GB for free users. Anything stored in the OneDrive folder syncs with Microsoft's servers and OneDrive folders on all of your other devices. The biggest drawback to OneDrive is that it seems half-baked in comparison to the more polished offerings from Google and Dropbox. The online interface is a bit of a mess and the local feature set is pretty much zilch aside from the OneDrive-connected folder. There's no revision control of files, and aside from some simple Skype chat integration, there's not much here that isn't already available on Drive and Dropbox in a more user-friendly package. The paid plans start at $1.99 a month for 100GB and goes up to $6.99 a month for 1TB with Office 365 bundled in. OneDrive's ace-in-the-hole is its integration with Microsoft Office and Office 365. If you're heavily embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem for things like email and document editing, it might be a good idea to use OneDrive as your go-to backup for documents. Microsoft's first-party applications like Word will actively connect to the OneDrive server to fetch the latest documents and files instead of relying on potentially unsynced local folders. CrashPlan CrashPlan sits in a weird spot between web-based and local backup solutions. Install the application and you'll get free backups of all of the files on your system to a local folder—e.g., an external hard drive—or another computer. Pay the $5.99 monthly cost or $59.99 for an entire year and you'll get unlimited storage space for your backups on CrashPlan's servers. It's hard to recommend CrashPlan over some of the other options in this roundup because of its dated interface and lack of standout features like the stellar online access provided by Dropbox and Google Drive. To make matters worse, it even lacks the ability to clone partitions and system installations, despite being a standalone application. The main draws are the unlimited storage plan, the ability to schedule backups, and direct control over the CPU usage of the backup utility while the "User is away" or when the "User is present." Acronis True Image 2015 Some users require complete backups of their entire PC and Acronis True Image 2015 promises just that. It's regularly available for $49.99 and sports a fashionably modern interface that fits right in with Windows. Although the price tag doesn't include a cloud storage subscription, True Image 2015 still offers a boatload of features that will appeal to power users looking for fine control over their backups. Pick the frequency of backups and schedule them down to the minute. True Image offers useful options like "Run the backup only when the computer is idle" and even offers email notifications about the backup process. Unlike web-based solutions, True Image allows users to back up their entire PC as well as individual disks, partitions, folders, and files. Spring for the $99.99-a-year Acronis True Image Unlimited and you'll get the application along with unlimited cloud backup. At the same time, True Image also offers a folder-syncing option that mimics the synced-folder functionality of Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Pick a folder on your system and you can sync it with the cloud and across supported devices. There's also a Clone Disk utility, an option to create rescue media, and even an option to adapt system backups for restoration to computers with "dissimilar hardware." The major downside of the local, software-based True Image is that there's no easy access to backed up files online. You can look at synced folders with a mobile application, but you don't have the near-instantaneous access afforded by the web clients of competing services like Drive and Dropbox. EaseUS Todo Backup Get past EaseUS Todo Backup's weird name and it's competitive with Acronis True Image 2015. It has most of the features you'd expect from a backup software and is available for just $29.99. What's even more surprising is that a free version is available with support for scheduled backups, disk and partition cloning, as well as the ability to create bootable media. The paid version adds extra features like technical support, email notifications, backup to FTP servers, and the ability to exclude files from your backups. Again, as with True Image 2015, the main draw of EaseUS Todo Backup is its ability to create images that can completely restore your PC. Instead of saving just your important files, Todo Backup will maintain all of your applications, files, and settings through a complete restore of your Windows installation. The main difference between this and True Image is a slightly cheaper cost that's a result of a pared-down feature set. The biggest exclusion is the lack of a cloud-backup option and no parity in terms of syncing individual folders for easy, remote access. If Todo Backup can do everything you need, it's a great way to augment the on-the-fly access and easy folder backups afforded by free, cloud-based systems. Use Drive or Dropbox in their free configurations alongside Todo Backup for the best of both worlds. The WinnerIt's hard to pick just one winner because no one software is the best at everything. Truly effortless backup is best served by Google Drive, especially if you can pack everything into the free 15GB plan offered by Google. On the other hand, if you need to backup system drives or individual partitions, Drive isn't enough. You'll need something like Acronis True Image 2015 to clone drives and backup files locally. So we've decided to pick two winners; one web-based solution and one full-fledged application. Google Drive is our pick for anyone looking to back up and easily access individual files—if only because of its storage-size advantage and web interface. If you need anything more, Acronis True Image 2015 probably has what you're looking for. That said, we're big fans of augmenting Google Drive (and its 15GB free storage) with EaseUS Todo Backup Free—easily the best of both worlds for a total cost of $0. |
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