General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

20 Software Easter Eggs

Posted: 03 Apr 2015 12:14 PM PDT

For the Geek in all of us

With Easter right around the corner, we thought it would be fun to update our old software easter eggs story to encompass 20 of our favorites. Do you have a personal favorite software Easter egg? Or perhaps you'd like to share one that we didn't mention? Let us know in the comments below!

Newegg Daily Deals: Two PNY 240GB SSDs, WD Black Series 750GB HDD, and More!

Posted: 03 Apr 2015 11:59 AM PDT

PNY 240GB

Newegg

Top Deal:

What's better than one solid state drive? Two, of course! It opens the door to RAID 0 (see our guide on how to set one up) for increased performance and all-around awesomeness, though it's not always cost effective. Ah, but that's why you should check out today's top deal for two (yes, TWO) PNY 2.5-inch 240GB SSDs for $160 with free shipping (normally $180). That's 480GB of storage for a pittance.

Other Deals:

WD Black Series 750GB 7200 RPM 2.5-inch Internal Notebook Hard Drive for $55 with free shipping (normally $65 - use coupon code: [ESCARAN29])

HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 2.5-inch Portable Hard Drive Black for $50 with free shipping (normally $55 - use coupon code: [EMCARAN36])

Seagate NAS HDD 2TB Internal Desktop Hard Drive for $90 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code: [ESCARAN28])

ViewSonic Black 23.6-inch LCD Monitor w/ Built-in Speakers for $140 with free shipping (normally $150 - use coupon code: [EMCARAN25])

Intel Announces Insanely Fast 750 Series Solid State Drive Line

Posted: 03 Apr 2015 08:36 AM PDT

Intel 750 SeriesHow does 2,400MB/s read performance suit your fancy?

Intel's new 750 Series solid state drives should come with a label that reads, 'Warning, may cause whiplash and will result in uncontrollable giddiness'. After all, Intel's 750 Series takes center stage as the company's highest performing client SSD to date, with performance that's more than four times better than that of most SATA-based SSDs. The trick lies in utilizing four lanes of PCIe 3.0 and the NVM Express (NVMe) standard.

The 750 Series is available both in add-in card form for systems with an accessible PCIe 3.0 x4 slot and in a 2.5-inch NVMe form factor, though the latter isn't like the majority of 2.5-inch SSDs currently on the market. Instead, it uses the new SFF-8639 connector that's more commonly found in the enterprise. However, you can still use the the drive with an M.2 slot -- Intel provides an SFF-8639 to SFF-8643 (mini SAS) cable and M.2/SATA power connector.

In half-height half-length (HHHL) add-in card form, here's the kind of performance you're looking at:

  • 400GB: 2,200MB/s read, 900MB/s write, 430,000 IOPS (read), 230,000 IOPS (write)
  • 1.2TB: 2,400MB/s read, 1,200MB/s write, 440,000 IOPS (read), 290,000 IOPS (write)

Note that the first set of read and write metrics are sequential 128KB, and the second set are random 4KB. The same performance metrics (as supplied by Intel) also apply to the 2.5-inch versions.

Pricing for the 750 Series is $389 for the 400GB models and $1,029 for the 1.2TB models (either form factor).

In addition to the 750 Series, Intel also announced the availability of its 535 Series, available in both M.2 and 2.5-inch form factors. The M.2 models come in 120GB, 180GB, 240GB, and 360GB capacities, while the 2.5-inch versions add a 480GB capacity. The 535 Series uses 16nm NAND flash MLC memory and offer up to 540MB/s read and 490MB/s write performance.

Street pricing for the 535 Series runs about $116 for 120GB, $138 for 180GB, $168 for 240GB, $236 for 360GB, and $301 for 480GB.

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Samsung Ports 850 Evo SSD Over to M.2 and mSATA Form Factors

Posted: 03 Apr 2015 07:45 AM PDT

Samsung EvoA power play for ultrathin PCs

Samsung's been on a roll with releasing solid state drives that offer high performance at comparatively reasonable price points. One of those drive series is the 850 Evo, which Samsung is now offering in M.2 and mSATA form factors. They're about one-tenth the weight of a traditional 2.5-inch SSD, and of course smaller, making them ideal candidates for high performing ultrathin systems.

The drives also feature Samsung's 3D V-NAND technology. By stacking 32 cell layers vertically on top of each other, Samsung is able to achieve a greater density and better performance with a smaller footprint compared to trying to continually decrease cell dimensions to fit onto a fixed horizontal space. This is the direction SSDs are going, as Micron and Intel recently announced the availability of 3D NAND flash as well.

Samsung is offering its 850 Evo mSATA drives in 1TB, 500GB, 250GB, and 120GB capacities with same read and write speeds as their 2.5-inch equivalents (up to 540MB/s read and up to 520MB/s write). The M.2 versions come in 500GB, 250GB, and 120GB capacities rated to read and write data at up to 540MB/s and 500MB/s, respectively.

Also on the topic of performance, the 500GB and 1TB 850 Evo drives use Samsung's TurboWrite technology to achieve random write speeds of up to 88,000 IOPS and random read speeds of up to 97,000 IOPS, which translates into high performance for large data transfers and complex multi-tasking operations.

Samsung didn't say how much the drives will cost.

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Posted by Shri Krishna

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