| IBM to Invest $3 Billion on Semiconductor Research and Development Posted: 09 Jul 2014 08:12 PM PDT  Company looking to design smaller chips
IBM has announced its plans to invest $3 billion on Semiconductor research and development over the next five years. The purpose of this investment is to develop smaller chips by designing smaller transistors. Two programs will be funded that will focus on creating smaller, more powerful chips and develop semiconductor parts out of materials besides silicon. Explaining the company's reason for the investment, IBM Research vice president of science and technology T.C. Chen told CNET, "In the next 10 years, we believe there will be fundamentally new systems that are much more efficient at solving problems or solving problems that are unsolvable today." To that end, IBM is looking to develop 7-nanometer technology, a goal that is three manufacturing generations away at the industry's current pace. As to when this might happen, Chen went on to say, "We anticipate that in order to scale to 7nm and perhaps below for the industry, we will need to have the semiconductor architectures and new manufacturing tools and techniques in place by the end of the decade. That's why it is critical for us to make the significant investment now into the research and early-stage development to demonstrate what 7nm innovations will be useful, before it can even be commercialized." Follow Sean on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Samsung Virtual Reality Headset to be launched at IFA 2014 Posted: 09 Jul 2014 06:01 PM PDT  VR headset to be used with Galaxy Smartphone
Samsung has been working on its own VR headset that is being developed in collaboration with Oculus VR. According to SamMobile, Samsung's VR device is called the Gear VR and it will be announced at IFA 2014. Samsung has developed the Gear VR with a modular design that will allow users to connect a Galaxy device via USB 3.0. Instead of being a standalone device, like the Oculus Rift, Gear VR is devoid of sensors and will rely on a smartphone's accelerometer, gyroscope, and processing power for tracking head motion.
The Gear VR, according to SamMobile's picture, will have a see-through button that will allow consumers to use the smartphone's rear-facing camera sensor in order to receive a video feed of the outside world that is located on the right side which would negate the need to remove the VR headset in order to look around. A touchpad, located beneath the see-through button, will be used to navigate through the smartphone's user interface. While the hardware is being developed by Samsung, Oculus VR is helping the company develop its software. SamMobile also claims Samsung is planning to dedicate an entire section of Samsung Apps for Gear VR and will make the Gear VR's SDK available to developers shortly after its announcement at IFA 2014. Follow Sean on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| HGST Unveils World's First 1.8TB 10K RPM Drive Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:58 AM PDT  High capacity and high performance
No, it's not likely that you're going to pick up HGST's new 1.8TB hard drive for your build, not unless you're erecting a data center. While we've moved on to solid state drives at home, enterprise customers still have a high level of interest in certain mechanical hard drives due, in part, to the price-to-performance ratio. It's those customers that HGST is targeting with its Ultrastar C10K1800 HDD. The Ultrastar C10K1800 is a 2.5-inch enterprise-class drive intended for mission-critical storage applications that require 24/7 availability. In addition to a 10K RPM spindle speed, the new drive sports a next generation 12Gbps SAS interface, HGST's media cache architecture (provides up to a 2.5X boost in random write performance and 23 percent improvement in sequential performance over previous generation drives), advanced format options, improved power savings, and a host of security and encryption options. "Our customers continue to contend with explosive data growth, balancing disparate application loads, while needing to improve data center space and power efficiencies," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, HGST. "By fusing unmatched capacity with ultimate performance in the same drive, the Ultrastar C10K1800 offers the optimal balance of capacity, performance and cost. We expect our customers to use the Ultrastar C10K1800 with a complement of SSDs and 15K performance HDDs in tiered pools of storage." HGST has already begun shipping the Ultrastar C10K10800, which is being qualified by select OEMs. FIPS certified models will available in January 2015. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Build a PC: Recommended Builds (July 2014) Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:44 AM PDT Budget, baseline, and performance 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: Baseline, Performance, and Ultra. Baseline gets you a powerful system for gaming and content creation at 1080p, Performance beefs everything up across the board, and Ultra lets the dogs out. 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 | Corsair Vengeance C70 | $108 | | PSU | SeaSonic G-750 SSR-750RM 750W | $85 | | Mobo | Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H | $180 | | CPU | Intel Core i5-4670K | $240 | | Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | $35 | | GPU | MSI R9 280 Gaming 3G | $250 | | 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 = $1212
| Click here to see the live bundle price:  | As this issue went to press, we did not have a "Devil's Canyon" CPU from Intel, which is a refresh of its Haswell generation. But we did have several motherboards that use Intel's new Z97 chipset. We chose the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H because of its balance of features, price and performance. AMD card prices have stabilized, so we can now recommend an MSI Radeon R9 280, which consistently outperforms the GeForce GTX 760 at the $250 price point. Rosewill's Hive-750 PSU from last time was out of stock, but the SeaSonic SSR-750RM is modular, gold-rated and competitively priced. The 550w model used in our February Build It (pg. 58) performed quite well. 
| Ingredients | | Part | Component | Price | | Case | NZXT Phantom 530 | $130 | | PSU | XFX ProSeries P1-1050-BEFX 1050W | $160 | | Mobo | Asus Sabertooth X79 | $320 | | CPU | Intel Core i7-4820K | $305 | | Cooler | Corsair Hydro Series H100i | $95 | | GPU | Gigabyte Radeon R9 290X 4GB GV-R929XOC-4GD | $550 | | 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 | $260 | | HDD | Seagate Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001 | $110 | TOTAL = $2150
| Click here to see the live bundle price: | The next version of Intel's workstation CPU is still on the horizon, so we're staying with the Core i7-4820K. Unlike the build above, this LGA 2011 chip has enough PCI Express lanes to handle 3-4 video cards, if you want to go that route. Speaking of which, we've swapped the GeForce GTX 780 with a Radeon R9 290X, now that the price for the latter has returned to orbit. This Gigabyte model runs cool and quiet, and it outperforms the 780 in most tests, and the price premium for that is pretty small. We've also switched our power supply to the XFX P1-1050-BEFX, since it costs just a little more than the Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 while offering much higher efficiency. There are cheaper SSDs than the Samsung 840 Evo, but we prefer its software. 
| Ingredients | | Part | Component | Price | | Case | Corsair Obsidian 900D | $320 | | PSU | Silverstone Strider Gold Evolution 1200w | $230 | | Mobo | Asus X79 Deluxe | $340 | | CPU | Intel Core i7-4930K | $580 | | Cooler | Cooler Master Nepton 280L | $140 | | GPU | Sapphire Radeon R9 295x2 100360SR | $1500
| | RAM | 4x 4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL | $150 | | Optical Drive | LG WH14NS40 Blu-ray Burner | $68 | | SSD | Samsung 840 Evo 1TB MZ-7TE1T0BW | $460 | | HDD | Seagate Desktop HDD.15 4TB ST4000DM000 | $160 | TOTAL = $3948
| Click here to see the live bundle price: | Compared to the Intel Core i7-4820K on the previous page, this Core i7-4930K has an additional two cores, with Hyperthreading giving us twelve processor threads, as opposed to eight. This is a nice boost for video encoding and live streaming, and some games are starting to use as many threads as we can give them. We've seen more than a few reports that users of the Cooler Master Glacer 240L CPU cooler have experienced some build quality issues, so we've switched to the company's Nepton 280L. As its name implies, it has a 280mm radiator, giving it more surface area to dissipate heat, and it performed quite well when we reviewed it in the April issue. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780 and 780 Ti video cards have been a mainstay in the Ultra build for some time now, but we've been impressed with AMD's Radeon R9 295X2. It combines two R9 290X GPUs onto one card that uses an integrated liquid cooler. It runs very cool and quiet even when overclocked, though it is held back a little by a non-adjustable voltage. |
| PC Gamer's Giving Away One Million 'Really Big Sky' Steam Keys Posted: 09 Jul 2014 10:23 AM PDT  The latest free game as part of a five week, five million Steam key giveaway
Hey, we're all sitting on a mountain of unplayed Steam games purchased through various sales, yet we can't help but add to our libraries when the deals are too good to pass up. That usually means a significant discount as part of some super summer holiday sale bonanza, but even better is what our sister sister PC Gamer is doing. In collaboration with Bundle Stars, PC Gamer is giving away five million Steam keys through a five week period. We're now in week 3, which means there are a million Steam keys for Really Big Sky up for grabs. Last week PC Gamer gave away a million keys for Dino D-Day, and prior to that, the five week promotion kicked off with SpaceChem. Now it's Really Big Sky, "a super fast, twin analogue shooter for the modern age" that's yours for the taking, at no cost! You'll face off against of waves of enemies, bosses, giant laser planets, blackholes, wormholes and a lot more though a dozen different game modes. And if you have an Xbox 360 controller, plug it and get blasting. Interested? Head over to PC Gamer for details on how to claim your key! Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Part 1 of Mod Zoo's Guide to PC Liquid Cooling [Video] Posted: 09 Jul 2014 09:12 AM PDT  Choosing the right components
If you're not already familiar with Mnpctech, take a moment out of your day to familiarize yourself with the company. Founded 12 years ago by Bill Owen, a name you probably recognize if you've been reading Maximum PC for some time (check out our interview with him from earlier this year) or are into the modding scene, Mnpctech kicks out some of the most badass case mods you'll ever see. Interestingly enough, in a recent conversation with Owen, he told us he's been receiving requests for the past several years to make a video series covering the basics of water cooling with a DIY loop, so he finally went and put one together. Here's part 1. "As you know, there's a wide array of opinions and myths about which brand or size of components to use. I've recruited two of the most knowledgeable guys to talk about everything they learned," Owen told Maximum PC. Embedded below is the first part of the series featuring Jesse (or Captain Curry Sauce, if you prefer) and Chris (or Mosquito) from TheModZoo.com. If you've already dabbled with self-contained all-in-one kits and always wanted to dive into the deep end of liquid cooling, you'll find a wealth of information here to make sure you don't sink, such as the correct way to route thinner versus thicker tubing, and much more. Check it out: Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Don't Fret Over Microsoft Ending Mainstream Support for Windows 7 in January 2015 Posted: 09 Jul 2014 08:41 AM PDT  Microsoft updates end of support deadlines for various software
Now that we're well into July, Microsoft felt it was a good time to update its list of products reaching end of support in the next 6 months. One entry that's gaining a lot of media attention is Windows 7. According to the list, Mainstream Support for several versions of Windows 7 will end on January 13, 2015, though that doesn't mean you need to rush out and grab a copy of Windows 8. Here's why. After "Mainstream Support" comes another cycle known as "Extended Support," which lasts 5 years (January 14, 2020) and includes "security updates at no cost, and paid hotfix support." In other words, as the January 13, 2015 deadline comes and goes, it will be of little consequence to most home users. As for hotfixes, you'll receive those as well, as long as they're security related. It's only the non-security hotfixes that require an extended hotfix agreement, purchased within 90 days of mainstream support ending. It's something for IT admins and businesses to consider, but again, nothing of relevance to home users. You can check out Microsoft's Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ for more on the differences between Mainstream Support and Extended Support. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Asus 23-inch LED Monitor, Intel Core i5 4430 Processor, and More! Posted: 09 Jul 2014 06:18 AM PDT |
