| Enthusiast Mini-ITX Case "NCASE M1" Blows Past Funding Goal, Limited Pre-Orders Available Posted: 20 Aug 2013 11:22 AM PDT  Little case is in high demand
A couple of enthusiasts from [H]ardOCP's forum came up with the idea of building a mini ITX case for enthusiasts, figuring that if they went through with the project, there would be enough demand to keep it afloat. They were right. The NCASE M1, which we covered back in February of this year, has blown past its goal of generating $67,500 on Indiegogo, raising more than twice as much with still 12 days to go. In fact, it took just 24 hours for the project to reach its funding goal after it went live on August 10th, Six hundred cases were then made available for purchase, and within a week, all enclosures were claimed and over $135,000 was raised. 
If you've been following the project but missed out on your chance to pre-order one through Indiegogo, you can still claim a case via NCASE's website. A limited amount of additional M1 enclosures are available now, with preorders being accepted until midnight September 1, 2013, the company said. Pricing starts at $205 for cases for U.S. orders. For those of you who are new to the M1, it's a small form factor (SFF) chassis designed by NCASE and built by Lian Li. It supports mini ITX and mini DTX motherboards, and though it's a tiny chassis, you can fit a single 120mm radiator or 240mm slim radiator in there to water cool your parts. The case supports up to three 2.5-inch mounts, up to three 3.5-inch mounts, a slim slot-load optical drive, CPU coolers up to 5.1 inches (130mm), and graphics cards up to 12.5 inches (317.5mm) in length. It also has two USB 3.0 ports along with mic and audio jacks on the front I/O panel. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AMD, Nvidia Release Beta Graphics Drivers for Splinter Cell Blacklist Posted: 20 Aug 2013 09:13 AM PDT  Gamers, grab your drivers!
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist is now available to purchase for PC (and the usual crop of consoles), and if you've already grabbed your copy or plan to pick it up, you might want to check out the latest beta drivers for your graphics card. It doesn't matter whether you roll with AMD or Nvidia, both GPU makers released new beta drivers aimed, in part, at optimizing performance for Blacklist. Let's start with AMD. The company's Catalyst 13.8 Beta 2 driver improves performance in Blacklist by up to 9 percent at 2560x1600 with Ultra settings enabled. It also bumps up performance in a number of other titles, including Saints Row 4, Final Fantasy XIV, Van Helsing, Far Cry 3, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, and a few others. There are some known issues to be aware of. CrossFire configurations, when used in combination with Overdrive, can result in the secondary GPU motoring along at 99 percent, among other quirks. Switching gears to Nvidia, the company's 326.80 beta drivers include an SLI profile for Blacklist. Generally speaking, gamers can expect up to a 19 percent bump in performance in certain PC games. Nvidia also added support for additional tiled 4K displays and Extended support for tiled 4K displays. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Asus Z87-Deluxe Quad is First to Strike with Intel Thunderbolt 2 Certification Posted: 20 Aug 2013 07:47 AM PDT  New board from Asus wields dual Thunderbolt ports
Asus claims its new Z87-Deluxe Quad motherboard is the world's first slice of silicon certified by Intel with Thunderbolt 2 technology. Not only does it feature certification for the latest Thunderbolt spec, but it has two Thunderbolt 2 ports, which together allow for up to 12 simultaneously connected devices. Each port is capable of up to a 20Gbit/s transfer rate, and both are backwards compatible with first generation Thunderbolt devices. "Z87-Deluxe Quad has been subjected to a tremendous amount of compatibility, BIOS, as well as video/audio and other tests to verify its quality and design," said Joe Hsieh, Asus Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Motherboard and Desktop System Business Unit. "Being the world's first certified motherboard for Thunderbolt 2 technology also means setting the standard for all of the upcoming products, which is something that Asus has always done." Intel's first generation Thunderbolt standard has two upstream and two downstream transfer channels with a maximum transfer rate of 10Gbit/s. Thunderbolt 2 combines the four channels into a pair of 20Gbit/s bi-directional channels, and in doing so, it offers 4X the bandwidth of SuperSpeed USB 3.0. Along with DisplayPort 1.2 support, Thunderbolt 2 is able to deliver high-speed video to 4K/2K displays while at the same time offer communication with other high-bandwidth devices, Asus says. Outside of Thunderbolt 2, the Z87-Deluxe Quad has a single HDMI port, four DIMM slots, three PCI Express slots, 10 SATA 6Gbps ports, eight USB 3.0 ports with USB 3.0 boost, eight USB 2.0 ports, and a UEFI BIOS. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Lian Li Launches Slim PC-V360 Micro ATX Case with Side Mounted Radiator Support Posted: 20 Aug 2013 07:16 AM PDT  Don't be fooled by its small size
We're still fans of hulking computer cases that are big enough to qualify as a studio apartment, but we're also willing to concede that not everyone needs or even wants a large computer case. Small form factor (SFF) enclosures are growing in popularity, and riding the wave is Lian Li, which today announced its new PC-V360, a slim, brushed aluminum mini tower designed for micro ATX setups. Though its relatively small at 7 inches (W) by 15.2 inches (H) by 18.8 inches (D), there's enough room to cram a powerful system inside inside, including graphics cards up to 12.2 inches in length, power supplies up to 11 inches, and even accommodate water cooling. There's a hinged bracket directly across the CPU that allows builders to side-mount a 240mm radiator. The PC-V360 sports a tool-less design throughout, starting with the side panels that pop right off. Once inside, Lian Li says all the storage drives -- both 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch -- can be mounted with thumbscrews. In addition, both drive cages can be taken out by removing a couple of thumbscrews. Microcenter gets first dibs on the PC-V360 and will sell it for $140. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Microsoft Issued Half a Dozen Problematic Patches Last Tuesday Posted: 20 Aug 2013 05:15 AM PDT  Patches? We don't need no stinkin' patches!
Microsoft has certainly had better Patch Tuesdays than the one that occurred last week. Throughout the week, the Redmond software giant has been pulling faulty security updates and re-issuing patches, and assuming it's all sorted out now, the total number of bad updates comes to six. They include KB 2876063, KB 2859537, KB 2843872, KB 2843638, KB 2843639, and KB 286846. All six were released on Tuesday. One of the patches -- KB 2876063 -- was intended to patch a remote code execution hole in Exchange Server 2013. But after installing the update, the content index for mailbox databases shows as failed and the Exchange search host controller service is renamed, TechEye.net reports. That wasn't the only problem. A Windows kernal patch has been causing problems with some games, in particular Rift and Defiance, both of which are prone to crash after authentication. It's even been linked to Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) errors on Windows 7 systems. At least four of the patches for Active Directly Federation Services (ADFS) have been pulled for various problems, some of which have been re-released. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Asus Intel Core i5 15.6-inch Notebook, NZXT Phantom 820 Case, and More! Posted: 20 Aug 2013 05:00 AM PDT |
