General Gaming Article |
- iBuypower Erebus Review
- Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean Reach 16.7 Percent Android Penetration
- Windows 7 Gets Ready to Leapfrog Windows XP on Desktop
- Facebook Stock Hits New Low, Keeps Sinking
- Bid Farewell to Intel's Atom D2700 Processor
- RIM to Launch 4G LTE PlayBook August 9 in Canada; U.S. and Other Territories in Coming Months
- Apple, Judge Both Ticked at Samsung for Leaking Rejected Evidence to Press
- Commodore 64 Turns 30 Years Old, Still the Best Selling PC of All Time
| Posted: 02 Aug 2012 02:27 PM PDT Boutique look and feel without the boutique priceWE USED TO SAY that iBuypower should really be named iStealpower, because we've never understood how the company can sell such well-configured systems for such low prices. With its new Erebus line, iBuypower is maintaining its low-price strategy while stepping upmarket to compete with boutique vendors. Is the Erebus priced low enough to purchase on a whim? No, but considering what iBuypower packs into the rig, it's a pretty good deal. First up: The Erebus uses a custom NZXT-built case that takes its cues from Corsair's groundbreaking 800D. Not to be upstaged, the Erebus case is almost an inch or two bigger in all dimensions, and it's designed to be jam-packed with rads. The Erebus we reviewed had a massive quad radiator plus two dual radiators—with room for more. The Erebus case is designed for water cooling, and that quad radiator is integrated into the top of the unit with a plug you can use to top off its reservoir. It's an impressive case, with the only major ding against it being its pass-through USB 3.0 cables—that's so 2011. You'll be hard pressed to find a new motherboard that doesn't use internal USB 3.0 headers.
The Erebus is built within a massive tower akin to Corsair's 800D and is fully outfitted for water cooling. iBuypower stuffs a liquid-cooled 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K inside the Erebus, along with an Asus Rampage IV Extreme board, 32GB of DDR3/1600, a 1,200-watt Corsair PSU, a 120GB Force GT SSD, a 2TB hard drive, and a pair of liquid-cooled EVGA GTX 580 cards. The magic here is the 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K. It's the little brother of the Core i7-3960X, with the main difference being the loss of 100MHz off its top speed, and a cache that's cut down from 15MB in the X to 12MB in the K. Both procs seem equally adept at overclocking, though, and iBuypower takes the K to a very stable 4.7GHz. We ran Prime95 on the box for several hours with no issues. We also ran the GPUs overnight with no instability. So how does the Erebus perform? Quite well. It managed to set a record in ProShow Producer 4.0, just edging out the Maingear Shift we reviewed in our February 2012 issue. In terms of its application performance, it's pretty much dead even with the Sandy Bridge-E machines we've reviewed from Falcon Northwest, Digital Storm, and Maingear. That's good company to be in. Where the Erebus falls behind—by just a bit—is gaming performance. It's not terrible—two liquid-cooled GeForce GTX 580s can't be terrible—but the Falcon Northwest Mach V used overclocked 580s with 3GB frame buffers. The Digital Storm HailStorm had tri-SLI'd 580s. And Maingear went plumb crazy with essentially quad-SLI'd 580 cards. In most games, you won't see a difference; in fact, iBuypower's rig runs close to the others in Far Cry 2 and STALKER even at 2560x1600. But in the synthetic 3DMark11 and DX11 Unigine Heaven 2.5 tests, the iBuypower lags, coming in last place with 34fps in Heaven. Maingear scores best, with 69fps; tri-SLI, FYI, will give you 50.8fps, and the 3GB GTX 580 cards hit 42fps. The real story here is iBuypower's pricing: The Falcon weighs in at $6,993, the Digital Storm at $7,640, and the Maingear is just nuts at $8,876. Priced at $5,000, there's no denying that the Erebus is a steal. It doesn't sport a fancy paint job, but it's no slouch in performance and looks pretty damn nice, too. |
| Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean Reach 16.7 Percent Android Penetration Posted: 02 Aug 2012 12:41 PM PDT
Jelly Bean adds another 0.8 percent to the pool of devices running an Android 4.x build, and though that's a rather meager number, also keep in mind that it practically just came out and is only available (officially) on the Nexus 7 tablet. Put into perspective, that's not bad. Android 2.3.x (Gingerbread) still claims the lion's share of Android devices with a 60.6 percent share of active Google devices, followed by Android 2.2 (Froyo) at 15.5 percent, Android 2.1 (Eclair) at 4.2 percent, and Android 1.x (Cupcake and Donut) accounting for a combined 0.7 percent, which is less than Jelly Bean. Image Credit: Android Developers Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Windows 7 Gets Ready to Leapfrog Windows XP on Desktop Posted: 02 Aug 2012 09:39 AM PDT
That prediction is based on data from Net Applications, which has Windows 7 usage pegged at 42.21 percent. Windows XP's share of the desktop market is just slightly higher at 42.86 percent, and barring any surprises, it will give up the lead by the end of the month. Looking back a year ago, it was quite a different picture. At the end of July 2011, Windows XP accounted for 52.8 percent of the worldwide desktop OS market, compared to Windows 7 at 29.66 percent. Windows 7 has made up considerable ground since then, and while the impending release of Windows 8 threatens to stagnate 7's OS growth, it could also boost it if users don't warm up to the Metro UI. Are any of you still rocking Windows XP? Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Facebook Stock Hits New Low, Keeps Sinking Posted: 02 Aug 2012 08:52 AM PDT
The falling stock price is in reaction to Facebook's quarterly earnings report last week. Investors weren't all that keen on the results, even though revenue was a third higher than a year prior. Analysts and investors are skeptical of Facebook's ability to grow its business long-term, and the market is reacting to those concerns. As of this writing, Facebook's stock has dipped another 2.71 percent to $20.32. Equally concerning to the falling share price is the loss of top level talent, as noted by AllThingsD. It's hard enough to right a ship that appears to be sinking, but even tougher when those manning the ship start jumping overboard. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Bid Farewell to Intel's Atom D2700 Processor Posted: 02 Aug 2012 08:25 AM PDT
Plain and simple, Intel's Atom architecture feels a little long in the tooth. One could argue that Intel's Atom line has always felt that way, and we wouldn't begrudge them for it. The Atom D2700 is a 10W dual-core processor clocked at 2.13GHz with 1MB of L2 cache and support for up to 4GB of DDR3-1066 memory. The integrated graphics core is clocked at 640MHz. That's fine for low-power applications, but at $52, it was a rather expensive slice of netbook silicon. With much more powerful Ultrabooks (Intel) and ultra thins (AMD) coming down in price, it's hard to shed a tear about anything netbook related. For those of you who don't agree, not to worry, the D2700 hasn't been completely phased out yet. Shipments will continue until the end of September, and parts will likely linger in the market place for some time after. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| RIM to Launch 4G LTE PlayBook August 9 in Canada; U.S. and Other Territories in Coming Months Posted: 02 Aug 2012 07:49 AM PDT
"We're excited to bring customers the first BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with support for 4G LTE networks," said David J. Smith, Executive Vice President, Mobile Computing at Research In Motion. "The new 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook offers a broad range of premium features, including a stunning 7 inch display, front and rear facing HD video cameras, HDMI out and stereo speakers, and it also offers premium performance on high speed cellular networks, helping customers to be more productive than ever and to make the most of their time on the go." The 4G LTE version of RIM's PlayBook is the same as the current version, except of course the new model supports wireless 4G LTE networks. It will ship with the latest BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2 software and come pre-loaded with various apps and tools. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Apple, Judge Both Ticked at Samsung for Leaking Rejected Evidence to Press Posted: 02 Aug 2012 07:06 AM PDT
According to InformationWeek, the slides cite comments from an interview with Apple designer Shin Nishibori in which he said he conceived the iPhone design by studying Sony's Walkman design concepts. Judge Koh refused to allow them as evidence, much to the chagrin of Samsung's legal team. "In 36 years of trial work, I have never begged the court for anything. I'm begging the court now to reconsider," John Quinn, one of Samsung's lead attorneys, implored the court. Judge Koh at one point threatened to sanction Quinn for talking over her response. Plain and simple, the slides were rejected as evidence, so Samsung shared them with the press, which are posted at AllThingsD. Naturally, this didn't sit well with either Apple or Judge Koh. Apple has asked Judge Koh to issue sanctions against Samsung for tampering with the jury, according to Arstechnica, calling it a "deliberate attempt to influence the trial." Samsung contends it never issued a press release, just "a brief statement" to select members of the press, and did so after the jury was already selected. Buckle your seat belts, folks, this ride's just getting started. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Commodore 64 Turns 30 Years Old, Still the Best Selling PC of All Time Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:21 AM PDT
The first Commodore 64 system was released in August 1982 for $595. As its name suggests, the C64 had 64K of RAM. More importantly, it had decent sound and graphics (16 colors!) for its era, along with TV output. The NTSC version shipped with an 8-bit MOS Technology 6510 processor clocked at 1.023MHz. That's all less than pedestrian by today's standards, but in 1982, it was quite the machine. Sales estimates range from over 12 million units up to 17 million units during the course of its life. So, what has become of Commodore since then? The original company filed for bankruptcy in 1994, and while you can no longer purchase real Commodore systems, a company called Commodore USA has licensed the trademark and sells PC clones. These systems are essentially mini-ITX nettops dressed up in C64 digs and come with Commodore 64 emulation software. What was your first PC? Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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It would be silly to sit here and pretend that fragmentation doesn't exist in the Android ecosystem, or that Android 4.0.x (Ice Cream Sandwich) and 4.1.x (Jelly Bean) are going to reverse unify Android devices. Be that as it may, the latest Android builds are making headway, particularly Ice Cream Sandwich, which is now installed on 15.9 percent of all active Android devices.
Windows 7 is two months away from becoming the second newest consumer desktop operating system from Microsoft (it already is, if you count the Windows 8 Release to Manufacturing, or RTM), but will it surpass Windows XP in market share before Windows 8 is made generally available to the public? It's going to be a tight race, but it looks like Windows 7 will jump ahead by the end of August.
Facebook's much anticipated initial public offering (IPO) turned out to be a pretty big disappointment, and things have only gotten worse since then. The social network's share price fell to $20.88 by the end of Wednesday's trading session, which is 45 percent below its IPO price of $38 and a new low price, dipping below the previous low of $21.61, which occurred a day earlier.
It's not always easy to say goodbye, but in some cases, well, it just plain feels good. Intel's discontinuation of its Atom D2700 processor is one of those moments. With the third quarter now well underway, Intel killing off its fastest Atom processor, as the D2700 is has been 
Our readers who live north of the border will be the first to get their hands on Research In Motion's (RIM's) upcoming 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet when it launches in Canada on August 9, 2012, RIM announced today. Customers living in the U.S., Europe, South Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean will have access to the updated device "in the coming months," though no specific time frame was given.
The patent dispute between Apple and Samsung isn't just an ugly affair, it's turning downright fugly. Samsung managed to tick off both Apple and U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh by sharing evidence with the press that was ruled inadmissible, specifically a set of PowerPoint slides showing Apple did to Sony what the company claims Samsung has done to them -- copying designs.
Like many 30-somethings, the Commodore 64 provided me with my first glimpse into the world of PC gaming. I remember giggling when enemies would kill themselves out of shame if I managed to hop past them in The Last Ninja, and being delightfully frustrated with the puzzles in Maniac Mansion. Karnov, WWF WrestleMania, and Jordon vs Bird: One on One were three other titles that were frequently loaded. As primitive as each of those games are compared to today, it's still hard to believe that the Commodore 64 platform is 30 years old. What's even more mind boggling is that it's still the greatest selling single PC model ever.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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