General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Comcast Plans To Raise Subscriber Bandwidth Caps, Add Additional Data Options

Posted: 17 May 2012 11:36 AM PDT

Comcast has fallen under fire recently for the way it handles its Xfinity app on the Xbox 360 console; basically, the company doesn't count the bandwidth against subscribers' monthly data cap. It sounds great for Comcast customers, but critics -- including Netflix's Reed Hastings -- say the practice is a violation of Net Neutrality. Perhaps to silence the screams for blood, Comcast announced today that it plans on increasing its data cap and trying out some new data management approaches.

The current Comcast policy entails a hard 250GB bandwidth cap. Top it too many times and Comcast could cut you off. That looks like it's changing in the future.

Comcast VP Cathy Avgiris described the possible "flexible data usage management approaches" on the company's blog today. One approach involves the data cap being raised to 300GB, with additional bandwidth available at the example rate of $10 for 50GB. (That's obviously subject to change.) The second trial approach is basically the same, but customers with more expensive Internet packages receive even higher bandwidth caps.

If you're not in a trial market, Comcast will "suspend enforcement of our current usage cap as we transition to a new data usage management approach, although we will continue to contact the very small number of excessive users about their usage."

Unfortunately, there's no word on when the trials and changes are actually going to take place.

EVGA Recalls Some GTX 670 Superclock Cards

Posted: 17 May 2012 11:04 AM PDT

Ruh-roh! Being an early adopter of technology often means putting up with headaches while a product's kinks get worked out, and it seems that's holding true for at least some early GTX 670 buyers. EVGA apparently forgot to quality test a small batch of GTX 670 Superclock cards and is recalling them as a result.

HardOCP's Kyle Bennett heard the first whispers and asked EVGA what was going on. Here's what the company told him:

EVGA has isolated this problem to an early batch of GTX 670 Superclock cards (P/N: 02G-P3-2672-KR) that were not properly screened during QA/QC procedure. We have already been working with our partners to retest this particular batch. In the meantime, our R&D has also done numerous tests, burn in and component quality verification to confirm that the EVGA GTX 670 Superclock is a well designed product.

The rep didn't mention whether there were specific defect concerns or a way to identify potentially untested cards. Several threads in EVGA's GTX 600-series subforum mention GTX 670s crashing shortly after installation; maybe the cause is related? In any case, those forum users report that the RMA process is painless, and EVGA told Bennett that they'd be replacing customers' recalled GTX 670 Superclocks with GTX 670 FTW cards to help make up for the headache.

Is your EVGA GTX 670 Superclock acting up? The company told HardOCP that customers should contact Jacob Freeman at jacobf@evga.com to get the RMA ball rolling.

Follow Brad on Google+ or Twitter

Valve Gives Steam Users The Gift Of Remote Game Downloads

Posted: 17 May 2012 10:33 AM PDT

If your trigger finger starts itching for a new FPS frag fest while you're out-and-about and away from your PC, Steam now offers the gaming equivalent of calamine lotion: remote game management. Yup, Valve's made it possible to install new games on your PC while you're "busy" at work. Yay instant gratification!

The feature's been in beta testing for a couple of weeks, but Valve made it official and pushed the function out to all Steam users yesterday. It's super simple: just log in to your account using Steam's website or its mobile apps and start managing your game library, including installations. If Steam detects that you're buying a game from a remote location, it'll even ask you if you want to install the game on you home PC immediately. Of course, the Steam client will have to be running on your home PC in order for all that magic to happen.

Follow Brad on Google+ or Twitter

MSI Cooks Up Norris Edition Gaming PC, Forgets to Add Chuck

Posted: 17 May 2012 06:39 AM PDT

MSI's 'Gamer's Choice Edition GTX 680 Norris Edition' is a high-end gaming PC, but it's not an official Chuck Norris system, because a gaming PC implies eventual obsolescence and Chuck Norris would never allow that to happen. There are millions of PC gamers in the wild, because Chuck Norris allows there to be, and as far as we know, there's only one Norris Edition system, an obvious reference to the martial arts master and Internet sensation.

So we've established that MSI's latest system is missing Chuck, but otherwise the recipe includes plenty of promising ingredients. It starts with a liquid cooled (Corsair Hydro Series H100) Intel Core i7 3770K processor (Ivy Bridge) overclocked to 4.4GHz. There's also an MSI brand GeForce 680 GTX graphics card (N680GTX Twn Frozr 2GD5/OC), an MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard, 16GB of DDR3-1866 memory, 120GB Corsair Force GT solid state drive, 2TB Seagate hard drive spinning at 7,200 RPM, and Corsair TX650 power supply. All this comes wrapped in Corsair's Graphite Series 600T mid-tower chassis.

According to overseas reports, like this one at Golem.de, MSI's Gamer's Choice Edition GTX 680 Norris Edition PC launches on May 20, 2012 for an introductory price of 1,899 euros (about $2,413). On May 31, the price jumps to 1,999 euros (~$2,540). No word on whether Chuck Norris will allow this system to launch in the U.S., and if so, how much it would sell for in the States.

RunCore Rolls Out InVincible Solid State Drive with Self Destruction Mechanisms

Posted: 17 May 2012 05:04 AM PDT

RunCore's latest solid state drive offering is an oxymoron in the tech world, or perhaps the company was being ironic when naming its new SSD line 'InVincible' when 'Impenetrable' might have been a better choice. Naming scheme aside, the neat thing about RunCore's InVincible line is that the drives feature a pair of self-destruction modes, including one that wipes out data by overwriting the entire disk -- otherwise known as zeroing out -- and one that's, um, a bit more permanent.

"A less subtle method is the physical destruction of your SSD by applying an over-current to the NAND flash memory and thereby physically destroying these," RunCore explains. "The RunCore InVincible product series is catering to embedded computer systems requiring high-speed serial switched fabric interconnects for rugged design implementation and more flexible power ranges. Delivering optimized storage options particularly in mission-critical fields such aerospace, military and general industrial applications."

RunCore uploaded a video of the self-destruct feature to YouTube (see below), and these folks aren't fooling around. Within seconds of activating the physical self-destruct mode, the InVincible SSD starts to smoke. The chips inside end up burned and cracked.

No word on how much these suicidal drives cost or when paranoid data hoarders will be able to purchase them.

Eurocom's Ultranportable 'Monster 1.0' Laptop Now Available to Purchase

Posted: 17 May 2012 05:02 AM PDT

Technically speaking, Eurocom's new Monster 1.0 laptop isn't an Ultrabook, nor is the company claiming it to be. Instead, Eurocom introduces the Monster 1.0 as a mobile system that "packs the performance of a gaming beast into a 4-pound ultraportable design." So it's an ultraportable, which means it isn't quite as svelte as an Ultrabook, but it's also better spec'd with up to an Intel Core i7 3820QM processor, 16GB of DDR3-1600 memory, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, and 1TB of storage.

The Monster 1.0 is Eurocom's take on the 11.6-inch Clevo W110ER making the rounds, the same one that's helping depressed Alienware M11x fans snap out of their funk from hearing the news that Dell is discontinuing the mini-sized gaming notebook.

Pricing starts at $825 for the Monster 1.0, though a baseline configuration is much more subdued than the specs mentioned above. We're talking a Core i5 2410M processor, 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory, and 500GB hard drive, though it does come with Nvidia's Kepler-based GeForce 650M as a standard option. Upgrading to the above mentioned configuration ups the price to $2,123, and if you're going to spend that much, you might as well upgrade the HDD to a solid state drive.

You can play around with configuration options here.

Image Credit: Eurocom

Adata Gooses XPG Xtreme Series RAM to 2133MHz, Rolls Out 8GB and 16GB 2133X Kits

Posted: 17 May 2012 05:01 AM PDT

If you have a need for some serious speed in your system setup, Adata hopes to be your Top Gun with its new flavors of XPG Series DDR3 memory. Now available at a blistering 2133MHz, Adata's new XPG Xtreme Series 2133X kits come in 8GB (2x4GB) and 16GB (2x8GB) dual-channel kits, though there's nothing stopping you from picking up a pair and running them in a quad-channel configuration.

The new kits operate at a standard 1.65 volts and push latency settings of 10-11-11-30 for up to 34.1GB/s of bandwidth. To ensure reliable performance, Adata says it essentially cherry picks the chips in these memory kits, which are "selected through a strict filtering process" and then slapped on a high performance 8-layer Printed Circuit Board (PCB)..

Intel Extreme Memory Profiles (XMP) 1.3 are also supported and compatible with Intel's P67, X79, Z68, Z75, and Z77 platforms.

The new kits are available now in the U.S. and Canada for $90 (8GB) and $190 (16GB).

Image Credit: Adata
Posted by Shri Krishna

Total Pageviews

statcounter

View My Stats