General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Galaxy S4 Catches Fire, Samsung Tries to Silence Customer

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 04:30 PM PST

Galaxy S4One customer's burnt phone turns into a PR disaster

YouTuber ghostlyrich was appropriately alarmed when his Samsung Galaxy S4 caught fire after he started charging the phone. He uploaded a video of the damage to YouTube to prove to Samsung that the phone was defective. The three-minute video shows off a partially melted micro-USB cable and a burned charging port. Gadgets malfunction all the time, but Samsung's response is more than a little disheartening. 

Samsung's reply was a settlement proposal that offered a replacement phone only if ghostlyrich deleted his YouTube video, promised not to upload similar material, waived his right to sue, and would also "irrevocably release, remise, quit claim and forever discharge Samsung." 

Ghostlyrich has responded by uploading another video which has since generated over 400,000 views—over five times the 70,000 view count on his original video. Samsung's attempt to put the incident to bed has completely backfired into a lose-lose situation leaving a customer without a phone and a company with a burnt image.

How do you think Samsung should have handled the situation? Tell us in the comments.

AMD Radeon R9 290X: Press Board vs. Retail Board

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 03:38 PM PST

Are retail R9 290X boards slower than press samples, and does the AMD driver update fix it?

R9 290xLast month AMD launched the Radeon R9 290X GPU, and overall it went very well for AMD as the card was heralded for its incredible price-to-performance ratio compared to Nvidia's top silicon. Shortly after the launch however, a few media outlets got ahold of some retail boards and found them to be much slower than the cards sent to them by AMD. Naturally, people suspected foul play, but AMD insisted it was just a driver issue, in that retail boards and press boards were using different fan speeds, thus delivering different levels of performance. It quickly issued a new driver with Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.2 and we decided to test and see what the problem was, how the press board differed from the retail board, and whether AMD's latest drive resolved the issue.

So what is the issue?

When the Radeon R9 290X launched, we learned that AMD's Hawaii GPUs handle clock speeds a bit different than cards that have come before it. Instead of shipping with a guaranteed base clock speed, the Hawaii cards instead have a "maximum clock speed" that they can reach if they are running cool enough. You can also dictate what the card's maximum temperature is through the AMD PowerTune software, and once the card reaches that temperature it begins to throttle in order to stay below that threshold. On the Radeon R9 290X, by default it will run at 1,000MHz if it's nice and cool, but once it gets up to 94C it will begin to throttle since by default its max temp is 95C. So, at 94C it will begin to throttle, and will drop down to 940MHz, or 850MHz, or even lower if it's really stressed out. It's impossible to accurately predict with 100 percent certainty how an individual card will throttle, as all cards will behave slightly differently due to environmental factors as well as differences between individual chips, which is why people were curious about how other cards "in the wild" would behave.

In our tests, we found the R9 290X would throttle a tiny bit to around 900MHz or so once it reached 94C, which isn't too far off the mark. When the card throttles by 50-100MHz, performance isn't affected much. However, other media outlets were reporting that it throttled much more than that, even going as low as 727MHz and staying there for awhile. Nvidia also made this claim with a scary PowerPoint presentation prepared for the launch of the GTX 780 Ti. Tom's Hardware said the retail boards it purchased were slower than the less expensive R9 290 boards. 

This caused AMD to release a statement to The Tech Report, stating, "A media outlet has uniquely reported instances of AMD Radeon R9 290X boards purchased in retail that have exhibited an uncharacteristic level of performance variance as compared to press samples issued by AMD. We're working to secure the board(s) in question for further analysis.  Boards purchased by other media outlets have not exhibited similar characteristics that we're aware of. In the meantime, we've identified areas where variability can be minimized and are working on a driver update which will minimize this variance.  We will provide an update shortly."

Shortly thereafter, AMD released a new driver named Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.2 that promised to normalize fan speeds across all Radeons R9 290X GPUs. 

Retail versus press boards

Our retail test board - a still shrink wrapped PowerColor R9 290X Overclocked.

Amidst all this hoopla we scored ourselves a retail board made by Powercolor (a third party sent us the board for testing). The card was still wrapped in plastic and had never been touched by human hands. To begin our tests, we ran all of our benchmarks with both the press sample Radeon R9 290X and the PowerColor using the original driver we used for testing -- Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9. Here are the benchmark results:

 

Radeon R9 290X benchmarks at 2560x1600 with the "original" Beta 9 driver

R9 290X Beta 9

Best scores are bolded.

As you can see, just looking at this chart indicates there's a problem, as the press board is clearly faster than the retail card using the same driver. This was the same behavior indicated by reports from other media outlets, and Nvidia as well. However, by leaving the driver the same and swapping out the GPUs we were able to track down the source of the problem...

Click the next page to read our analysis on the problem.

 

The fan on the press board is set to run at a maximum of 40 percent under load, which in its default "quiet" mode is 2,125rpm.

The fan on the retail board is set to run at a maximum of 40 percent under load, which in its default "quiet mode is 2,025rpm.

We also independently verified the fan speeds using a digital tachometer. It required us to place a reflective sticker on the GPU's blower fan, and then a laser tracks how many times it sends back a signal during a short interval.

We also noticed on Legitreviews that Editor Nathan Kirsch recognized that his press board and a retail board were running different versions of the card's BIOS. We checked and sure enough our cards were also running different versions of what appears to be the same BIOS. The press board's BIOS was numbered "015.039.000.007" while the PowerColor board's BIOS was numbered "015.039.000.006," which appears to be one revision older.

When we asked AMD About the different BIOSes, it just said, "the variance was due to fan speeds, which we can control through the driver." 

Here is that driver, which is the "Beta 9.2" driver designed to "minimize the variance."

Benchmarks at 2560x 1600 with the Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.2 "fix" driver

R9 290X Beta 9.2

Best scores are bolded.

As you can see, with the Beta 9.2 driver installed, the retail board achieves performance parity with our press board.

When we reached out to AMD and asked them to tell us specifically what caused the variance in fan speed between the retail boards and our press board, we received the following response. "The variance in production was larger than what we saw before launch." Apparently AMD set all the fans to run at "40 percent" and figured this would translate into the same fan speed for all GPUs. However, according to AMD, because of the way PowerTune fine-tunes voltages, fan speeds, and clock speeds, that 40 percent setting still leaves enough room for there to be differences in fan speeds, which translates to perfomance differences.

To corrrect this situation, AMD issued the new driver (13.11 Beta 9.2 and all versions beyond that) which normalized all GPU fans at 2,200rpm in Quiet Mode on the R9 290X. For the one retail board we have tested, the resolution totally worked.

Why does the variance only favor AMD?

The most curious aspect of this whole fiasco is that AMD says it's being caused by "variance," which it didn't see in pre-production. Now, variance would normally imply that you'd see some boards that are faster than the press board, and some that are slower, but in this case all of the retail boards tested by the media have been the same speed or slower than the press boards. In fact, we can't recall a single website that has found a retail board that is faster than one of the press review units. This does not appear to us as "variance" but more like AMD cherry-picking review samples. To be fair, we are certain Nvidia tests every GPU it sends to media as well, but we don't believe it tests a dozen cards and then sends the best one to a particular media outlet. We don't know if AMD did that for the R9 290X or not but it certainly appears that the review cards are as good as it gets.

To its credit, AMD is addressing these issues, or at least acknowledging them. In its latest statement to the Tech Report, it wrote, "These changes [in PowerTune] will also result in some degree of run-to-run test variability based on environmental and operational conditions in un-controlled test environments."

Regarding the question of why the variance only favors AMD, it wrote, "Reasonably we would expect the variability to occur both above and below the performance of the press samples, however it appears that most reported performances are biased towards the low side."

AMD concludes its statement by saying, "We are actively investigating these reports and we will update when we have completed our investigation."

At this point, it seems unlikely we will ever get to the bottom of this situation because the average website can't go out and buy a dozen GPUs to test. We also looked online to see if we could get a larger sample of boards and the R9 290X was sold out at every major online retailer. Whether the cards are sold out because AMD sent very few to the channel or if they are just super popular, we're not sure, but we don't recommend the R9 290X as the R9 290 is a much better deal since it delivers performance that is very close to its big brother for $150 less. In fact, nothing in this story changes or reflects our feelings on the R9 290X. It's a great card, but AMD made the R9 290's performance a bit too close to it in our opinion, making the 290X irrelevant.

That said, if AMD conducts an "investigation," we are very curious to see what it comes up with in terms of an answer. What is abundantly clear is that AMD's first attempt at marketing its GPUs using only the maximum clock speed isn't working out so well very far, so perhaps it'll rethink this approach in the future.

We're also getting very close to the release of R9 290X boards with custom PCBs and cooling solutions, so we are very curious to see how those bad boys measure up to the press boards as well.

Reminder: Windows 8.1 Preview License Expires in January 2014

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 01:02 PM PST

Windows 8.1The free ride is coming to an end

If you've been sitting pretty with a Windows 8.1 Preview license and have intentions of sticking with it for any length of time, you may want to add a retail copy to your holiday wish list and start dropping hints for your friends and family. Microsoft posted a reminder on its TechNet blog giving users a heads up that the Windows 8.1 Preview license will expire sometime in January 2014, though the Redmond software giant didn't specify an exact date.

"Plans should be made to move to the released version of Windows 8.1 or return to the prior OS version as soon as possible to avoid interruption in use of the device on which the Windows 8.1 Preview was installed," Microsoft stated.

How you update from Windows 8.1 Preview to Windows 8.1 (or Windows RT 8.1) will depend on how the Preview version was installed. You can reference a special webpage Microsoft setup with detailed instructions on how to make the transition. To summarize, if you installed the Preview from the Windows Store or installed the Preview using media while Windows 8 was running, you can download the update from the Windows Store.

If you installed the Preview by booting from ISO media, you can updated to the final version of Windows 8.1 Pro using the Windows Store, but your system won't activate until you buy a license and product key.

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Asus Allows Color Customization of GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II Cards Using Bundled Stickers

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 12:02 PM PST

Asus GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II

A Geforce GTX 780 Ti card with red and gold stickers included

Asus has figured out another way to make its GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II graphics card stand out from the crowd (as if the custom cooling solution wasn't enough). The upcoming card will come bundled with red and gold stickers that you can apply to the part for a custom look. Use of the stickers is totally optional, of course, and you can leave the black colored heatsink alone if you want. Otherwise, the stickers allow you to add semi-custom accents that are a little bit like racing stripes.

Color options aside, Swedish language website sweclockers.com posted what it claims are final specs for the upcoming card (GTX780TI-D2OC-3GD5). Assuming the info is accurate, the card will ship with 3GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 7,000MHz on a 384-bit bus. The GPU base clockspeed is set at 954MHz and the boost speed is 1020MHz, and it has 2,880 CUDA cores.

It will also sport a pair of modified 8-pin power connectors, along with a native Dual-Link DVI-I port, Dual-Link DVI-D port, HDMI output, and a DisplayPort.

No word yet on price or release date.

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Samsung's Magician 4.3 Software Supercharges Your 840 Pro and Evo SSDs

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 11:27 AM PST

Samsung 840 ProSamsung's caching technology unlocks an insane speed boost on select SSDs

One thing we didn't cover in Samsung's earlier unveiling of a 1TB 840 Evo mSATA solid state drive (SSD) is the immediate availability of the company's Magician (version 4.3) software. This is notable because it introduces two big upgrades to Samsung's current SSD product lineup, including RAPID (Real-time Accelerated Processing of I/O Data) Mode for Samsung's 840 Pro family of SSDs, and a security features for the company's Evo SSD line. It's the RAPID Mode that really excites us, however, as it offers a significant speed boost to an already insanely fast SSD lineup.

We touched on this technology in our examination of Samsung's standard size Evo 1TB review back in July, but to recap, what it does is a take a portion of the host system's DRAM and CPU and uses those resources for caching purposes.

"RAPID Mode performs host level read acceleration and write optimization by utilizing free DRAM system memory and is designed to dramatically increase overall PC performance," Samsung says. "Previously only available on the 840 Evo, bringing this to the 840 Pro will enable current and future 840 Pro users to achieve storage subsystem performance faster than the SATA 3.0 interface allows."

Samsung Magician

What kind of speed boost? Samsung says by enabling RAPID Mode, users will see over 1,000MB/s sequential read speeds, or twice that of typical high-performance SATA SSD (and tens that of an average HDD), in certain situations. It achieves this by caching frequently used files in system memory. You can switch the mode on and off in software, but since it only requires 50MB of RAM and an 840 Pro or Evo drive to be activated, you might as well leave it on.

As for the security upgrade, the Magician software also enables TCG/OPAL on Samsung 840 Evo SSDs, It's a security specification defined by Trusted Computing Group that allows for better manageability and multi-level authentication.

You can download the Magician 4.3 software now.

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Intel Plans to Attack Every Tablet Category in 2014

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 08:50 AM PST

Intel Chipset Inside and AndroidWatch out ARM, Intel's coming out swinging

It's fair to say that Intel missed the boat on mobile in terms of tablets and smartphones, and in doing so, inadvertently conceded the market to ARM. The good news for Intel is that it's early in the game, and the bad news for ARM is that we're going to see a much more aggressive Intel target the mobile sector in 2014 than what we've seen before. From entry-level tablets to high-end slates, Intel's processor roadmap has them all covered.

The Santa Clara chip maker has already launched Bay Trail-T with support for Windows 8/8.1. By the end of the year, expect to also see Android-supported models, according to Digitimes and its sources within Taiwan's tablet supply chain.

Based on what they've seen, Intel is getting ready to launch entry-level 7-inch Bay Trail (Z3735D Series) tablets running Android ranging in price from $99 to $129. Sounds ultra aggressive, though this isn't the first we've heard of Intel launching a $99 tablet.

Larger models up to 8 inches will run $149 to $199 and be available in the first quarter of 2014. Following that, Digitimes' sources say Bay Trail and Cherry Trail platforms will infiltrate 8-inch to 10-inch tablets priced at $199 to $249, and 10-inch models above $249.

Cherry Trail, which is based on Intel's 14nm Airmont architecture with support for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 8/8.1 and Android, will come later in the year around September 2014. Intel also plans to release Windows and Android supported tablets running Willow Trail, which is based on its 14nm Goldmont architecture.

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Samsung Launches First 1TB mSATA SSD, High Capacity Ultrabooks Can't Be Far Behind

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 08:14 AM PST

Samsung 840 Evo mSATA SSD BoxBig capacity stuffed into a small size SSD

Ultrabooks and laptops in general aren't getting any chunkier these days, and to accommodate increasingly thin profiles, mSATA form factor solid state drives (SSDs) are taking the place of 2.5-inch drives. That doesn't mean you'll need to give up storage space. Samsung today launched its 840 Evo mSATA SSD line, among which is the industry's first 1TB mSATA-based SSD, the company claims.

These drives are an extension of Samsung's Evo family introduced back in July. They're about a quarter of the size of a traditional 2.5-inch SSD, yet offer the same high density and performance. The drives use 128Gb NAND flash memory built from a 10nm-class manufacturing process. Note the "class" qualifier, which doesn't mean these are 10nm chips -- they're actually built on a 19nm process.

Samsung 840 Evo mSATA SSD

Tricky marketing aside, these drives are a mere 3.85mm thin and weigh just 8.5 grams. They're available in 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities. The 1TB model boasts 98,000 random read and 90,000 random write IOPS, as well as 540MB/s sequential write and 520MB/s sequential read performance.

The 840 Evo mSATA SSD line will be available later this month. No pricing information has yet been announced.

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Newegg Daily Deals: Corsair Hydro Series H55 Quiet Cooler, Intel Core i5 4430 Haswell, and More!

Posted: 09 Dec 2013 07:12 AM PST

Corsair Hydro Series H55newegg logo

Top Deal:

Liquid cooling used to be a scary thing for the uninitiated. It required lots of research, patience, technical know-how, and a little luck never hurt. These days self-contained liquid coolers are as comon as the cold, most of which don't require any maintenance. If you've been thinking about going down that road, check out today's top deal for a Corsair Hydro Series H55 Quiet Edition Liquid CPU Cooler for $65 with free shipping (normally $77; additional $10 mail-in-rebate). It's easy to install, great for small cases, and never needs refilling or priming.

Other Deals:

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS for $135 with free shipping (normally $150; additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Intel Core i5-4430 Haswell 3.0GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54430 for $175 with free shipping (normally $190; use coupon code: [EMCWVXR25])

Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive for $110 with free shipping (normally $135; use coupon code: [EMCWVXR27])

Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model BLS2KIT8G3D1339DS1S00 for $120 with free shipping (normally $140)
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