General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

We Heard The New iPad Has Thermal Issues, But Ours Seems Just Fine

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 04:05 PM PDT

Maybe we just got lucky.

Mac|Life Is Giving Away a New iPad!

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 12:04 PM PDT

In case you haven't heard, there's this new product on the market called an "iPad." It's some sort of tablet with a screen, we guess?

No, no, we kid. Of course the new iPad is out, and a big deal, and it's got a glorious screen and tons of apps and all that good stuff. What's more, our sister site Mac|Life is giving away a new iPad, for free, and all you have to do is visit them on social media and comment on their article. Even if you're not the worlds biggest Apple fan, can you turn down the chance to win a sweet new gadget for nothing more than 30 seconds of your time?

Click here to enter!

AMD FX-8120 Bundled With Liquid Cooling Shows Up Online

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 11:28 AM PDT

In a bid to create more of a one-stop-shopping experience for Bulldozer-loving overclocking fanatics, AMD recently announced plans to roll out a FX-8150 bundled with a liquid cooler a little while back. There were just a few problems: at $370 to $400, the kit is really expensive for what it offers, and it still hasn't actually become available yet. Despite that, a new, similar kit pairing a liquid cooler with a FX-8120 proc has popped up online.

The WOX bundle sports a "FD8120FRGUWOX" SKU and is already available for pre-order over at shopblt.com, CPU World reports. (Yep, the same shopblt.com that posted an Asus GTX 680 for sale early.) At $310, it comes in quite a bit cheaper than the FX-8150 bundle, but keep in mind that you can pick up a standard heatsink/fan-cooled FX-8120 for $190 at Newegg (though the MSRP is $205).

For those of us that need a refresher, the Socket AM3+-ready  FX-8120 sports 4 dual-core Bulldozer modules for 8 cores total, 8MB of L2 cache, 8MB of shared L3 cache, and a 3.1GHz core frequency that can shoot up to 4 GHz with AMD's Turbo Core technology. 

Unfortunately, there's no word on the scheduled availability of the water-cooled FX-8120. (Or the water-cooled FX-8150, for that matter.) Do these bundled kits hold appeal for any of you, or would you rather roll your own?

Report: Windows 8 To Launch In October With Limited ARM Availability

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 10:48 AM PDT

In case you haven't heard, Windows 8 is coming. To be a little bit more specific, most analysts think it's coming later this year -- sometime in the fall, actually. Now we've got something more than vague speculation to back that up. Reporters from Bloomberg talked to anonymous "people with knowledge of the schedule" who claim that Windows 8 is on pace to be wrapped up this summer and launched in October, complete with a lineup of both ARM- and x86-based devices.

The same sources say you shouldn't expect Windows 8 ARM tablets to flood the streets right at launch; the same sources says that ARM devices will have less availability than x86 devices because Microsoft is keeping an iron fist clenched around the number and quality of ARM offerings.

If it's true, the new operating system would be in prime position to take advantage of the holiday rush and IDC could actually be proven correct about Windows 8 and Ultrabooks giving PC sales a shot in the ARM this year.

Nvidia GTX 680 Rumor Roundup: Specs, Leaks, Pics And More

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 10:25 AM PDT

While the new Radeon 7000 video cards seem to be launching and garnering headlines on an almost daily basis, it would be foolish to forget that AMD is far from the only 800 lb. gorilla in the discrete graphics room. As regular reader JohnP regularly reminds us, several signs point to Nvidia releasing the Kepler-based GeForce GTX 680 on March 22nd. That's just a couple of days away, so we thought we'd do a quick round-up of the various GTX 680 rumors floating around the web.

The picture above, courtesy of Chip Hell, gives us a good of the GTX 680's exterior, but as we all know, it's what's inside that counts. Fortunately, PCOnline.com.cn released what it claims is a leaked side from an Nvidia press deck -- one that shows off all the technical details we're looking for. The GeForce GTX 680 reportedly sports a 1006MHz base clock speed that can be boosted to 1058MHz, 2GB of 256-bit GDDR5 memory, PCI-E 3.0 support, 1536 CUDA cores, and a 195W TDP through two 6 pin PCI-E connectors.

Several e-tailers from around the world have prematurely listed various makes and models of the GTX 680, and their details corroborate the info above.  TechPowerUp has been doing a bang-up job of keeping up with the springing leaks. A couple of days ago, the publication reported seeing a Zotac GTX 680 up for sale on Dutch e-tailer ComCom.nl for roughly $560 USD. Yesterday, the Asus GTX680-2GD5 reared its head on the U.S.-based shopblt.com for $566, while today, TechPowerUp sighted overclocked GTX 680s from MSI and EVGA on sale at the Canadian NCIX.com. Both the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Superclocked and the MSI GeForce GTX 680 OC carry sticker prices of $578. The MSI model is listed as having a clock speed of 1056MHz and 2GB of 6GHz (effective) GDDR5 memory. Fudzilla claims the MSRP will drop from $549 to $499 come release day, though they note "there are no talks regarding the official Recommended Retail Price."

The image above comes courtesy of HKEPC.com, which claims to have gotten ahold of a GTX 680 and run it through the benchmark gauntlet. Check the link to see how the GTX 680 stacks up to both the GTX 580 and the Radeon HD 7970 in several different tests. (Hint: pretty friggin' well.)

As always, all Internet rumors should be taken with a handful of salt. With that being said, whaddaya think about Kepler?

Dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 Graphics Card Exposes Itself

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:23 AM PDT

A Chinese website has posted a naked picture of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7990 graphics card. It's a partial snapshot that shows one of the two GPUs AMD crammed onto this pixel pushing monster, which supposedly consists of a pair of Tahiti XT graphics cores, the same as found on AMD's Radeon HD 7970 videocard. If the information is correct, the card will launch in April, after Nvidia's Kepler rolls into town.

As detailed in the post over at INPAI.com.cn, the Radeon HD 7990 sports a pair of 28nm Tahiti XT GPUs, each with 2,048 stream processors, 128 texture units, 32 raster units, and 3GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus. The GPUs are clocked at 850MHz and the memory races along at 1,250MHz, or 5GHz effective.

For the sake of comparison, a single-GPU 7970 card features a 925MHz core clockspeed and 1,375MHz memory clockspeed (5.5GHz effective), and is priced at $550.

Image Credit: inpai.com.cn

Windows 8 Will Boost PC Shipments in Second Half of 2012, IDC Says

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:46 AM PDT

Apple CEO Tim Cook can talk all he wants about the post-PC era, we're not buying it. Neither is International Data Corporation (IDC), which today said it expects worldwide PC shipments to pick up steam as the year goes on and have a strong second half of 2012. The first half of the year will only see "modest growth," but between the launch of Windows 8 and excitement generated by Ultrabooks and other ultra-thin notebooks, IDC expects second half sales to be much stronger.

This will be in stark contrast to 2011, in which PC vendors faced a "tenuous economic recovery" and went toe-to-toe with "emerging computing devices," which we take to mean tablets. PC shipments in mature markets like the U.S. and Europe declined 9 percent in 2011 compared to 2010, IDC says.

In 2012, IDC expects PC growth to be 5 percent for the year, most of which will take place in the second half of the year.

"Many consumers are holding off making PC purchases at the moment because tablet devices like Apple's iPad are proving to be a powerful distraction," according to Bob O'Donnell, vice president of Clients and Displays at IDC. "However, end user surveys tell us that few people consider media tablets as replacements for their PCs, so later this year when there is a new Microsoft operating system, available in sleek new PC form factors, we believe consumer interest in PCs will begin to rebound."

Bolded by us for emphasis because it's refreshing to hear someone else say what we've been preaching from the beginning.

New WoW: Mists of Pandaria Trailers Show Off Gorgeous Scenery

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:15 AM PDT

As recovered WoW addicts, we're still not entirely sold on Mists of Pandaria as fuel to rekindle our old flame, but we are certain of one fact: we like pretty things. At the very least, WoW: MoP (which sounds like some sort of as-seen-on-TV miracle cleaning device) has some serious good looks going for it. The game engine may be rapidly approaching its eighth birthday, but you wouldn't know it based on Blizzard's stellar art direction. Gleaming green forests, towering Chinese temples, a dungeon full of knife-fighting monkeys – what else do you really need? A release date? Well, we don't have that. But we do have four trailers. That's better than one measly release date, right? Don't answer that.

Study Finds Teens Still Like to Text, Captain Obvious Unavailable for Comment

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:14 AM PDT

Water is still wet, fire is still hot, and the air we breathe is still rich with oxygen. And in other news, teenagers are still really into text messaging. In case you had any doubts, Pew Internet rounded up a whole bunch of teens to discuss their smartphone and texting habits, and found that teens 12-17 years old send 60 text messages on any given day, up from 50 text messages in 2009.

Around 75 percent of teens are doing it (texting, that is), and the majority of those sending more text messages are between the ages of 14-17 years old, who went from a median of 60 texts in day in 2009 to 100 texts currently. Older girls text the most, sending 100 messages a day on average, compared to half as many for boys of the same age.

It should come as no shocker to discover it's no longer hip to talk on a landline. In 2009, 30 percent of teens surveyed said they talked daily with friends on a landline. And now? That number is down by more than half (14 percent). Talking in general is fast becoming uncool, with only 26 percent of teens (both those with and without a mobile phone) actually communicating verbally with their friends every day, down from 38 percent in 2009.

There are lots more stats to digest in the full report.

Image Credit: Flickr (Jhaymesiviphotography)

Seagate Announces Terabit Areal Density Milestone, Promises 60TB Hard Drives

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:04 AM PDT

Seagate has become the first hard drive maker to achieve a storage density of 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) per square inch, the company said Monday. It managed this feat using a next-generation recording technology called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). The company foresees 3.5-inch hard drives based on this technology reaching "extraordinary" storage capacities over the next decade. Hit the jump for more.

Seagate expects the first HAMR drives to boast double the storage capacity of current perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) hard drives when they hit the market later this decade, eventually leading to 3.5-inch hard drives with a capacity of up to 60 terabytes over the following 10 years. To help you better appreciate its latest achievement, Seagate pointed out that "bits within a square inch of disk space, at the new milestone, far outnumber stars in the Milky Way, which astronomers put between 200 billion and 400 billion."

From the press release: "The maximum capacity of today's 3.5-inch hard drives is 3 terabytes (TB), at about 620 gigabits per square inch, while 2.5-inch drives top out at 750 gigabytes (GB), or roughly 500 gigabits per square inch. The first generation of HAMR drives, at just over 1 terabit per square inch, will likely more than double these capacities – to 6TB for 3.5-inch drives and 2TB for 2.5-inch models. The technology offers a scale of capacity growth never before possible, with a theoretical areal density limit ranging from 5 to 10 terabits per square inch – 30TB to 60TB for 3.5-inch drives and 10TB to 20TB for 2.5-inch drives."
Posted by Shri Krishna

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