| Build a PC: Recommended Builds (June 2014) Posted: 05 Jun 2014 02:20 PM PDT Baseline, performance, and ultra PC builds! What time is it? It's time to Build a PC with our Blueprints! This month, we've built three rigs at three approximate price points: Budget, Baseline, and Performance. Budget gives you an economical workhorse, Baseline gets you a powerful system for gaming and content creation at 1080p, and Performance beefs everything up across the board. These rigs are lab-tested and editor-approved. Prices listed here reflect print time and may not match the ones you find elsewhere online. In addition, Newegg has jumped on board to offer packaged deals for each of the builds below in an attempt to offer a better overall value. To see these bundle prices, click the "Buy-or-get-more-info-at-Newegg" button at the bottom of each build. Feedback is welcome. Tell us what you think! Note: Some of the prices/links listed below may not show up properly if this page is ad-blocked. 
| Ingredients | | Part | Component | Price | | Case | NZXT Source 210 Elite | $50 | | PSU | Corsair CX500 500W | $30 | | Mobo | Biostar TA970 ATX | $80 | | CPU | AMD FX-6300 | $110 | | Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | $35 | | GPU | SAPPHIRE DUAL-X 100370L Radeon R7 265 | $160 | | RAM | 2x 4GB G.Skill Ares F3-1600C9D-8GAO | $69 | | Optical Drive | None | | | SSD | Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SH103S3/120G | $90 | | HDD | Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM003 | $65 | Total = $689
| Click here to see the live bundle price:  | AMD's FX-6300 CPU remains a great value for budget-minded gamers, ensuring another month in this build, and the Biostar TA970 motherboard is a solid platform for the money. You could save more scratch with a micro-ATX board, but we prefer the additional expansion slots. We've swapped the Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti for a Radeon R7 265, since you get moderately better performance for the same cost. We've changed the RAM due to the usual market fluctuations. The last time this build appeared, it had a Kingston SSDNow V300 solid-state drive. It has since come to our attention that certain units now have asynchronous DRAM chips, which impacts performance. The Samsung 840 Evo, meanwhile, is snappy all around, and it comes with a polished software package for further tweaking. 
| Ingredients | | Part | Component | Price | | Case | Corsair Vengeance C70 | $108 | | PSU | Rosewhill Hive 750W | $92 | | Mobo | Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 | $153 | | CPU | Intel Core i5-4670K | $240 | | Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | $35 | | GPU | EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB 02G-P4-3765-KR | $260 | | RAM | 2x 4GB G.SKILL Ares Series F3-1600C9D-8GAO | $69 | | Optical Drive | Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD Burner | $20 | | SSD | Samsung 840 EVO 250GB | $150 | | HDD | Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM003 | $65 | Total = $1192
| Click here to see the live bundle price: | The Corsair TX750M is a great power supply, but its price has gone up a bit, so we're replacing it with the Rosewill Hive-750. We've switched our RAM because of price variations too. Other than that, we're sticking with the Intel Core i5-4670K CPU because of its combination of high performance and reasonable pricing. The Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 board has a surprising amount of premium features for the price, like isolated audio circuits and intelligent network load balancing. The Nvidia GTX 760 is still a great value for gaming, and EVGA's version with the "ACX" cooler will keep things quiet. The 250GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD has a great combo of performance and tweaking software, with its "Rapid Mode" enabling a 2GB RAM buffer for an extra boost of speed. 
| Ingredients | | Part | Component | Price | | Case | NZXT Phantom 530 | $130 | | PSU | Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1000w | $160 | | Mobo | Asus Sabertooth X79 | $320 | | CPU | Intel Core i7-4820K | $305 | | Cooler | Corsair Hydro Series H100i | $95 | | GPU | EVGA GeForce GTX 780 03G-P4-3784-KR | $530
| | RAM | 4x 4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL | $150 | | Optical Drive | LG WH14NS40 Blu-ray Burner | $70 | | SSD | Samsung 840 Evo 500GB MZ-7TE500BW | $255 | | HDD | Seagate Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001 | $110 | TOTAL = $2125
| Click here to see the live bundle price: | The "Performance" tier remains stable with a beefy Core-i7 4820K and an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard. These are both high-octane parts, and we're adding a Corsair H100i closed-loop liquid cooler for the CPU, to help it reach some high overclocks. We used this board for a long time in a previous test rig, so we know that it's solid and dependable. We've upgraded the power supply from 850 watts to 1,000 watts, to give you even more room to add more video cards (which are the hungriest part of an enthusiast rig). We've used the 720-watt version in previous Build Its. Speaking of cards, we could upgrade from an Nvidia GTX 780 to a 780 Ti, but a roughly $200 gap is hard to justify, given the relatively modest gains in performance. This regular 780 is also overclocked anyway. We did splurge on a Blu-ray burner, though, so maybe we're just a little eccentric. There's a lot of competition to the Samsung 840 Evo, but we stick with it because none of the others have anything quite like Samsung's "Magician" tweaking software. |
| Valve Adds Unfinished Game Warning to Steam Early Access FAQ Posted: 05 Jun 2014 10:34 AM PDT  Steams updated FAQ warns that some Early Access titles may never finish
The new message from Valve regarding Steam Early Access is 'caveat emptor,' more or less. More specifically, Valve decided to update its Steam Early Access FAQ page to warn gamers that some titles may never end up finished and released, so don't make a purchase unless you're stoked to play the game in its current form. Apparently Valve felt it was a necessary clarification following the Earth: Year 2066 fiasco. In case you missed it, Valve yanked Earth: Year 2066 from Early Access back in May and gave customers full refunds. The game was in such shoddy form that gamers felt bamboozled and became outraged at the developers. The amended FAQ for Early Access doesn't give developers the green light to screw over gamers, but it does serve as a warning for less extreme cases. "Early Access is a full purchase of a playable game. By purchasing, you gain immediate access to download and play the game in its current form and as it evolves. You keep access to the game, even if the game later moves from Early Access into fully released," Valve explains. Note the use of the word "if" not "when," meaning it's not guaranteed that an Early Access title will ever be complete. If that's not obvious enough, Valve adds in another entry that gamers "should be aware that some teams be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state." You can read more here. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| IDC Predicts 'Internet of Things' to Top $7 Trillion by 2020 Posted: 05 Jun 2014 09:49 AM PDT  The IoT market is set to explode
We're becoming an increasingly connected society, and before you know it, even your toaster will deliver relevant news and sports scores scorched onto your morning bagel (maybe not, but wouldn't that be cool?). Growth around the Internet of Things (IoT) has been steady the past few years, though at least one firm believes it's getting ready to balloon in a big way. Market research firm IDC believes the market for IoT solutions will grow from $1.9 trilling in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020. To be clear, IDC defines the IoT as a network of networks of uniquely identifiable endpoints (or "things") that communicate without human interaction using IP connectivity -- be it locally or globally. With that definition in hand, IDC says consumers continue to adopt IoT in their homes, cars, and other aspects of daily life. "The worldwide IoT market is exploding, and IDC's research examines the full breadth of the IoT ecosystem, including intelligent and embedded systems shipments, connectivity services, infrastructure, purpose-built IoT platforms, applications, security, analytics, and professional services," said Carrie MacGillivray, Program Vice President, Mobile Services, IoT, and Network Infrastructure at IDC. "IoT solutions are at the heart of IDC's view of the 3rd Platform and the four pillars — mobility, social business, big data/analytics, and cloud — resulting in millions of applications available to billions of end points." IDC believes IoT product offerings will be increasingly differentiated over the coming years, leading to intensified competition. This will be especially true around holistic solutions that embrace smart analytics and applications, IDC says. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Maingear Squeezes Liquid Cooled CPU and GPU into SFF Torq Gaming PC Posted: 05 Jun 2014 09:13 AM PDT  Liquid cooling-obsessed boutique builder thinks inside the small box
Setting up a liquid cooled rig is challenging enough on its own. But liquid cooling a small factor PC? That's taking things to whole new level. In fact, Maingear says its Epic Torq gaming system is the first small form factor PC in the world to feature liquid cooling for both the CPU and GPU. We'll take Maingear's word for it, but either way, the Torq is an intriguing system that can outfitted with some seriously powerful hardware. The Torq supports up to an Intel Core i7 4790K processor overclocked up to 5GHz, up to an Nvidia GeForce Titan Z or AMD Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card (both are dual-GPU parts), up to 16GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR3-2133 RAM, and up to three drives (up to 1TB SSDs and/or up to 4TB HDDs). It also ships with onboard GbE, onboard 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 860W Corsair Professional Digital Series AX860 PSU, 240mm radiator for the CPU, 120mm side fans, 180mm front intake fan, four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, eSATA, S/PDIF, HDMI, DisplayPort, an various Windows options. "Upgrading will also be simple with its standard sized components and easy to remove side panels. The Torq has plenty of storage with up to three hard drives with SSD and Mechanical drives available, and the front panel offers easy access to USB 3.0 ports and audio connectors," Maingear says. Not all configurations have to be as extravagant as the one outlined above. Pricing starts at $1,599 with immediate availability. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Barnes and Noble Inks Deal with Samsung to Co-Create Branded Nook Tablets Posted: 05 Jun 2014 08:48 AM PDT  The Nook is getting a makeover courtesy of Samsung
Talk of tablets rarely falls on the Nook, which fair or not has been largely overshadowed by competing slates. Looking to change that, Barnes and Noble has teamed up with Samsung to develop co-branded Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook tablets featuring B&N's digital reading experience. The new device will mesh Samsung's Galaxy Tab 4 hardware with customized Nook software. Come early August, the new BFFs will launch a Galaxy Tab 4 Nook in a 7-inch form factor, B&N announced. They'll be prominently displayed alongside traditional Nook e-reader devices an sold at each of B&N's nearly 700 locations across the U.S., as well as on the company's website. The partnership means B&N no longer has to focus on hardware design, which will greatly reduce its investment and goes a long way towards rationalizing the struggling Nook business. Furthermore, it should give the company's Nook division a much needed boost -- during its last reported quarter, B&N said Nook sales dropped 50.4 percent. What isn't so easy to speculate is Samsung's angle here. The company is already a major competitor in the tablet space and hardly needs a deal like this. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Plextor Pairs M6 Pro Solid State Drive Line with PlexTurbo Side Caching Software Posted: 05 Jun 2014 07:32 AM PDT  PlexTurbo software gives M6 Pro SSD series a serious performance boost
Every so often, we hear from Plextor, the former go-to company for high performance optical drives back when that was a thing. Now the company focuses primarily on solid state drives, and Plextor's newest release is the M6 Pro SATA SSD, the first consumer SSD from Plextor to pass its new ultra-strict enterprise-grade Zero Error standard of 400 units surviving 1,008 hours (up from 500 hours). That's not the only reason to like this drive. The M6 Pro SSD comes with PlexTurbo, an intelligent SSD caching software that uses a combination of system RAM, the SSD DRAM cache, and SSD storage to deliver additional speed for real-world applications. It also helps extend flash life and prevents data loss if power is interrupted, Plextor says. PlexTurbo is similar to Samsung's RAPID software, only faster. During a demo at Computex, Plextor showed Custom PC Review the M6 Pro hitting almost 7GB/s in 512K write performance, along with sequential read and write performance of 5127MB/s and 5905MB/s, respectively. Just like its predecessor, th M5 Pro, the newer model uses a Marvell 9187 controller with Toshiba 19nm 2nd generation Toggle mode MLC NAND flash memory. The drive is rated for up to 540MB/s read and up to 460MB/s write performance. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Western Digital Black 2TB Hard Drive, Samsung 21.5-inch Monitor, and More! Posted: 05 Jun 2014 06:29 AM PDT |
