General Gaming Article

SanDisk Extreme II 480GB SSD Review
NZXT Kraken X60 Review
HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Review
Microsoft Admits That Some Xbox One Disk Drives Are Having Problems
Official EVGA Version of Catzilla Benchmark Now Available to Download
Lenovo's Flex 10 Laptop Brings Bay Trail to Town for $550
Valve Starts Testing Steam Reviews in Open Beta, Gives Gamers a Voice
Intel Demonstrates First 64-bit Android Tablet
Google Responds to Microsoft's Scroogled Campaign with Witty Retort
Newegg Daily Deal: Thermaltake Water 2.0 All-in-One Cooler, CM GX 650W PSU, and More!

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 03:57 PM PST

Second swing at Extreme SSD scores a hit

The last time we saw the SanDisk Extreme SSD it wasn't exactly "extreme." It was a fine drive and all, and we awarded it a "what a nice boy" verdict of 8 because it was decent, but it didn't blow off our anti-static leashes or anything. The problem was it was a "me, too" SSD, using 24nm toggle NAND and an LSI SandForce SF-2281 controller, which was all the rage in the ancient SSD era of 2012. Times have changed though, and SandForce isn't the only game in town anymore. SSD manufacturers are now trying to separate themselves from the pack of wannabes by going with different combinations of controllers and NAND flash, and that's the tactic SanDisk has employed this time around by changing both the NAND flash and the controller, making the SanDisk Extreme II SSD an all-new drive.

The Extreme II offers relatively extreme performance, but not in all benchmarks.

At the heart of the new drive beats Marvell's third-generation SSD controller, the 88SS9187 "Monet," released this year and found so far in the Crucial M500 and Plextor M5 Pro SSDs. It offers eight NAND channels and supports up to 1GB of external DDR3 memory (external to the controller, not the SSD). Inside the drive's belly is new 19nm SanDisk toggle NAND, which is also being used by Corsair and Seagate in their newest SSDs. The NAND is rated for 3,000 program/erase cycles, which works out to roughly 80 terabytes written over the course of the drive's life. That's about 40GB of writes per day, which would be considered enough data-writing to warrant an intervention by family and friends. The drive also comes with a five-year warranty— superb—but a fairly bare-bones drive utility that shows you smart values and updates firmware—not superb.

The most unique attribute of the Extreme II is what SanDisk calls Tiered Caching, which utilizes both volatile DDR RAM and non-volatile SLC NAND for cache, instead of just DDR like most SSDs on the market (besides SandForce drives, which never used external cache). The secondary SLC NAND cache helps with small writes, which are common in desktop workloads, as they are written to the SLC NAND in groups at high speed before being written to the MLC NAND, resulting in improved performance.

We saw that improvement in our Sony Vegas test, which encodes a 20GB video file to the SSD as fast as it can handle it—the Extreme II completed the test in record time. Its sequential-read and -write speeds were also quite good with compressed and incompressible data, putting it shoulder-to-shoulder with the fastest drives available. It scored surprisingly low in PCMark Vantage, however, and its 32QD IOPS score of 40K-plus was about half what its counterparts could produce, harming the Extreme II's overall ranking. Though the Extreme II isn't quite as fast overall as the Samsung 840 Pro, it is much less expensive, and it's slightly faster than the Corsair Neutron GTX, just not in all tests, making it an overall much-better-than-average drive, but not Kick Ass.

$440, www.sandisk.com

NZXT Kraken X60 Review

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 03:35 PM PST

X marks the spot

In the world of enthusiast system cooling, water is the new black. Even the fanciest, biggest air cooler can't seem to keep up with a good closed-loop liquid cooler these days. NZXT ups the ante by expanding from the standard 12cm form factor to 14cm. It may not seem like much, but the increased surface area gets impressive results, especially when the Kraken X60 doubles it to 28cm.

In Norwegian mythology, a kraken is a giant sea monster similar to a squid.

This super-size beast won't fit in most older cases, though. You can check NZXT's website to see if yours is worthy, but it's not a comprehensive chart. There are also two different standards for fan spacing right now: 15mm and 20mm. This is the size of the gap between the screw holes of adjacent fans; 15mm puts the fans right against each other, while 20mm leaves a little space. The X60 is a 15mm cooler. You can't knock NZXT for creating a part that doesn't fit everywhere—it's just something to be aware of before you start flinging your money around.

Installation is pretty breezy. You snap a bracket onto the pump, put some screws into the bracket, and then set this arrangement down on the CPU socket. The bracket captures the screws so they don't fall out during installation. However, the capturing mechanism is difficult to undo if you accidentally insert the nearly identical-looking LGA2011 screws instead of the LGA1150/1155 versions (why vendors can't color-code the screws we don't know). LGA1155/1150 and AMD motherboards get a plastic backplate, which is not ideal; the metal bits you insert into the backplate (to secure the screws you've attached to the pump) could get twisted out of place and strip the hole, making it difficult to install the screws securely. It would be nice to see a metal backplate, like on the similar Corsair H100i. However, it's nice that the screws are designed to tighten abruptly, so you're unlikely to crack the backplate from excessive torque.

As for cabling, it's pretty straightforward. All wires are integrated into the pump, and the fan connectors, USB cable (to communicate with the fan control software), and SATA cable (to power the pump) are long enough for a variety of case layouts. They're even sleeved in classy black braiding. The liquid tubing is also long, flexible, and rubberized.

We discovered right away that the extra size of this radiator and its fans gave us a combination of impressive cooling and impressive noise level. Even with our internal testing tool thrashing the CPU harder than Prime95, the X60 never rose above a moderate drone when set to Silent mode—while holding a 4.13GHz i7-3960X overclock to the mid-60s Celsius. Its dual fans hovered around 975rpm during this test. We could force them up to 1,500rpm by engaging Extreme mode, but it was super loud and only lowered temps by 4 C. There's also a Custom mode where you can chart several points where you want the fan speeds to be at certain temperatures.

Compared to the H100i, it's a tough call; the X60 gets a slight edge for not needing a firmware update (or needing to search Google for one) and having the control software bundled on a CD. Both items make setting up a new computer much easier. But at the $120 level, a metal backplate isn't too much to ask for.

$120 (street), www.nzxt.com

HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Review

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 03:24 PM PST

15.6-inch Ultrabook both delights and disappoints

The Spectre XT TouchSmart is HP's creme-de-la-creme consumer Ultrabook. In some ways, it lives up to that lofty mantle; in others, it doesn't. The notebook is attractive all right, in a brushed-metal-chassis, black-island-keyboard kind of way. We also like that the interior is free of branding, save the Beats Audio logo on the speaker grill. But if the term "Ultrabook" conjures up images of dainty thin-and-lightness, the Spectre TouchSmart XT will cure you of that. The 15.6-inch all-aluminum body looks sleek enough—and its .87-inch height is within Intel's Ultrabook specification—but its lap weight of nearly five pounds (close to six pounds with the power brick) will surprise you with its heft. At least it did us.

The notebook's quad speakers—two up top and two underneath—get pretty loud, but even the Beats audio won't have you ditching your headphones.

Nevertheless, there are advantages that conceivably offset the weight issues. The Spectre XT TouchSmart offers a relatively large display, keyboard, and touchpad, all of which impressed us with their quality. The display, framed by the slimmest of bezels, is an IPS panel with 1920x1080 resolution and a crisp, colorful picture. The keyboard seems spacious, the keys have decent travel by island-style standards, and we had no problems typing at a brisk pace. It's also backlit, natch. The glass-surface touchpad feels wonderful.

The large body also accommodates a bunch of ports, including Ethernet, HDMI, two USB 3.0, and—as proof of the Spectre's elevated status—a Thunderbolt port. Given the Spectre XT's size and weight, you might expect to find an optical drive, but it lacks that.

Under the hood, the Spectre XT TouchSmart loses some luster. Its 1.9GHz i7-3517U should give the notebook some performance chops, but in our benchmarks, the CPU never came close to its 3GHz Turbo Boost potential, producing scores that were 30 percent lower than a competing notebook with the same CPU. It was even bested by HP's own budget-minded Envy 4, which had a slightly lower-clocked 1.7GHz Core i5-3317U and half the RAM. We'd expect this kind of performance throttling from a more space-constrained body; or maybe HP was primarily interested in keeping fan noise at bay, because the Spectre XT TouchSmart is certainly quiet even under heavy load.

The questionable component choices continue, with primary storage handled by a 500GB 5,400rpm HDD plus a 32GB SSD cache drive. That seems a bit pedestrian for a premium product. At least the cache enables SSD-like boots and restarts, 13 and 22 seconds, respectively. Theoretically, it should also speed up the performance in commonly used programs but we didn't experience any noticeable improvement in repeated runs of CrystalDiskMark—results were consistently in line with an HDD's limits.

Battery life was also unimpressive, totaling just three hours, 20 minutes in our high-def video rundown test.

Granted, as far as "premium" notebooks go, $1,400 isn't that high a price. The fancy-schmancy Toshiba Kirabook that we reviewed last month was two grand. And like that one, the Spectre XT comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, two years of Norton AV, and dedicated support service. But still we're left wondering how premium a notebook this is when it's kind of heavy to carry, performance is somewhat compromised, and battery life is weak.

$1,400, www.hp.com

Microsoft Admits That Some Xbox One Disk Drives Are Having Problems

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 03:15 PM PST

Damaged disks not included

The Xbox One broke all sorts of Xbox first-day sales records when it launched last Friday with over 1 million units sold across the 13 territories it launched in. It isn't the Red Ring of Death, but Microsoft has acknowledged that it's aware that a small subset of users is affected by broken disk drives.

"The issue is affecting a very small number of Xbox One customers. We're working directly with those affected to get a replacement console to them as soon as possible through our advance exchange program. Rest assured, we are taking care of our customers," said a Microsoft representative to IGN.

It's been eight years since the launch of the Xbox 360 which was marred by the infamous Red Ring of Death. Users have also reported the usual laundry list of problems: random crashes, restarts, and blank screens. Over 150 gamers reported disk drive issues to Kotaku.

Sony's PlayStation 4 has had its fair share of problems too with users complaining about a "blue light of death."

Official EVGA Version of Catzilla Benchmark Now Available to Download

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 01:33 PM PST

Download the 720p version for free

Are you an EVGA fan? Do you love the Catzilla benchmark? If so, get ready to have your mind explode, because EVGA has teamed up with ALLBenchmark, makers of the popular Catzilla benchmark, to release an official EVGA version. Pretty wicked, right? Just as with the regular Catzilla benchmark, you can download the EVGA Catzilla benchmark free, though testing is limited to 720p (HD).

That's something to be aware of before spending time downloading the 500MB benchmark. However, if you're willing to pony up a bit of green (dollars, not catnip), you can order the Basic ($1.49) or Advanced ($4.99) version from within the benchmark. The Basic upgrade adds Full HD 1080p testing, along with PC configuration recommendations, the ability to record your last score for each profile on toplists, and the ability to upload scores to Facebook.

If you step up to the Advanced version, you get the same upgrades, plus 1440p testing, custom parameters, the ability to send your score HWBot and other sites, archiving, and the ability to save scores to disk and manually upload to ALLBenchmark's website.

Interested? If so, you can download the EVGA version of Catzilla from EVGA's website, or watch the video below if you just want to see what it looks like.

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Lenovo's Flex 10 Laptop Brings Bay Trail to Town for $550

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 12:19 PM PST

A notebook with a split personality

There's not much fanfare surrounding the launch of Lenovo's new Flex 10 laptop with Intel's Bay Trail architecture inside. Perhaps that's because the Flex line itself isn't new, though the 10-inch model hasn't been released before. The Flex 10 features a 10.1-inch touchscreen display with a 1366x768 (HD) resolution. What's unique about the Flex 10 is that the screen flips 300 degrees into stand mode so that you can tap away at the display.

Otherwise, it sits like a normal laptop with Lenovo's AccuType keyboard and multitouch touchpad that's optimized for Windows 8. The laptop itself is less than an inch thick and weighs under 3 pounds, Lenovo says.

The guts of the machine is comprised of up to an Intel quad-core Pentium N3510 processor, up to 4GB of DDR3L memory, up to 500GB of storage, and integrated graphics. It also has two USB ports (1 x USB 3.0 and 1 x USB 2.0), HDMI output, an audio combo jack, stereo speakers, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11n Wi-Fi, 720p webcam, and Windows 8.1.

Pricing for Lenovo's Flex 10 laptop starts at $550.

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Valve Starts Testing Steam Reviews in Open Beta, Gives Gamers a Voice

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 11:30 AM PST

Share your gaming experience with others on Steam

Want to help other gamers make informed purchasing decisions? Valve is giving you an expanded voice on Steam to leave reviews, good or bad, of any game you've played. Simply called Steam Reviews, the beta launch of this new initiative is an evolution of the Recommendation system that has been a part of Steam since 2010. If you're written Recommendations before, you can make them visible as Reviews by changing the appropriate setting in your user profile.

"Users considering a purchase on Steam may now browse reviews from friends and the community, leave comments on reviews, and indicate which reviews they found helpful," Valve explains. "Once a user has played a game or used a software title on Steam, they are able to write a review of that product and share their experience with everyone on Steam."

The reviews don't create an overall score or rating for a particular game at this time, though Valve is looking to implement that feature sometime during the beta. Also, it's not necessary to have purchased a game through Steam to leave a review, though you do have to launch it via Steam.

Developers are able to respond to reviews, though they can't delete a user review, at least not directly. They can report reviews they find abusive or offense, as can other users, which will draw the attention of a moderator to make a final decision.

The Steam Reviews beta is open to any Steam user.

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Intel Demonstrates First 64-bit Android Tablet

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 09:27 AM PST

Moving to 64-bit could introduce big performance gains in some apps

Intel has a lot of catching up to do in the mobile space. The big dog on campus in mobile is ARM, which powers many of the smartphones and tablets currently available. One thing Intel is looking at to change the tide is 64-bit computing in mobile, which it demonstrated during an investor meeting. The demonstration consisted of an Android tablet with a 64-bit Atom processor inside based on Silvermont.

It's the first Android tablet to run a 64-bit chip, though not the first 64-bit tablet -- that distinction belongs to Apple's iPad Air, which is based on the Cupertino company's custom A7 SoC. According to Intel, simply moving to a 64-bit architecture is enough to improve performance by up to 40 percent in some applications, including Photoshop.

"What we are doing with our product roadmap and SoCs is that we drive to lower costs and profitable stages But that is not enough What we really want to do is to take a lot of the innovation and differentiation we are able to do up on the PC and bring that down into tablets," Intel chief Brian Krzanich said, according to XBitLabs.

Performance alone won't be enough for Intel to dominate mobile. Intel is also looking at making tablets cheaper. In fact, Intel says you'll see tablets with its hardware inside selling for below $100 this holiday season.

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Google Responds to Microsoft's Scroogled Campaign with Witty Retort

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 08:37 AM PST

A battle of wits

Microsoft has a bug in its shorts over Google's dominance in the search space and figured the way to stomp it out is by attacking its rival in a snarky campaign called "Scroogled." The Redmond software giant is going all out here by not only dedicating a website to calling Google out for various privacy shenanigans, but also selling a line of Scroogled products, including coffee mugs, hoodies, hats, and t-shirts.

"Keep calm while we steal your data" is the tagline found beneath Google's Chrome logo on some of the Scroogled products up for sale. It's yet another play on the "Keep Calm and Carry On" motivational poster produced by the British government a few months ahead of World War II.

So, what does Google have to say about all this?

"Microsoft's latest venture comes as no surprise; competition in the wearables space really is heating up," Google said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Oomph, talk about a knuckle shot to the jejunum. Google's witty retort points out that while the sultan of search is focusing on the future with its Google Glass wearable device, Microsoft's version of "wearables" boils down to some basic clothing, once again falling behind the competition.

Microsoft isn't necessarily wrong with some of its claims against Google, but this is the sort of thing that happens when you poke the bear.

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Newegg Daily Deal: Thermaltake Water 2.0 All-in-One Cooler, CM GX 650W PSU, and More!

Posted: 25 Nov 2013 06:23 AM PST

Thermaltake Water 2.0 newegg logo

Top Deal:

It's bad. It's so bad. There's coolant all over the place -- on your video card, all across your motherboard, and even splashed up into your hard drive. And was that a blue spark you saw before you pulled the plug? Just when you tally up how much you spent on your home brewed water cooling setup, you wake up in a cold sweat and realize it was just an awful dream. Phew! Now that you've been given a second chance, why not try an all-in-one liquid cooling system? If it's a no-fuss liquid cooler you're after, have a look at today's top deal for a Thermaltake CLW0217 Water 2.0 Extreme/All-in-One Liquid Cooling System for $80 with free shipping (normally $100; additional $25 mail-in-rebate). It's quiet, effective, and easy to install!

Other Deals:

Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Mechanical PC Gaming Keyboard– Cherry MX Blue (RZ03-00381900-R3U1) for $110 with free shipping (normally $140)

Cooler Master GX - 650W Power Supply with 80 PLUS Bronze Certification for $90 (normally $100 additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Thermaltake Chaser Series Chaser MK-I (VN300M1W2N) Black SECC ATX Full Tower Computer Case for $125 with free shipping (normally $160 additional $25 Mail-in rebate)

HIS IceQ H787Q2G2M Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card for $170 with free shipping (normally $210 additional $30 Mail-in rebate)