General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article


Review Roundup: A Crazy USB Collection

Posted: 13 May 2015 03:41 PM PDT

Three unique USB utensils land in the lab.

A dinky and slow USB 2.0 key is last year's news. Today's USB drives are faster than ever, have capacity that was a fantasy just a year ago, and are surprisingly affordable. This month, we're testing three sweet drives that redefine the concept of USB storage, including a blazing-fast USB key from SanDisk, a gigantic 4TB handheld drive from Seagate, and an SSD wrapped in a USB enclosure from LaCie. One of them should definitely be in your PC blowout kit.

SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.0

The Sandisk Extreme Pro has a lot of hyperbole in its name, but one glance at its specs and you can see it's a fitting title. First, at 128GB it's the largest-capacity USB key we've ever tested. Second, the drive's specs claim it performs more than twice as fast as USB 3.0 keys we've tested in the past, which typically top out at around 110MB/s for read and write speeds. This bad mother is rated at 260MB/s read speeds, and 240MB/s write speeds, which is ludicrous for a USB key. Third, to show how serious SanDisk is with this model, it's only available in the 128GB capacity, because how extreme can a 64GB key really be—know what we're saying?

On the software front, the drive comes with a data-encryption tool named Secure-Access, which is an executable that creates a 128-bit AES encrypted volume. You keep the executable on the key (or anywhere, really), type in your password, and the volume opens. When you close the window, the data is safe; if you forget your password, you'll have to wipe the drive, as there's no recovery.

In addition to these righteous features, this key has the perfect body style in our opinion: it has no cap, a tough aluminum shell, a sturdy loop for your keychain, and a rocker switch to deploy the key. We love it, and wouldn't mind if all future USB keys were built like this.

In testing, the Sandisk came close to hitting its peak speeds in our real-world file copy tests, and definitely hit them in synthetic benchmarks. The key choked a bit on some of the larger video files we had in our test folder, but averaged around 175MB/s or so during the 14GB transfer. That's blazing fast, and the fastest USB key we've ever tested.

In the end, this key's killer speed, huge capacity, perfect chassis, and handy encryption software make it the total package. We honestly can't think of a single thing to criticize.

Verdict: 10 - Kick Ass!

Price: $160, www.sandisk.com

Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB

Seagate's Backup Plus Fast drive is portable storage for power users, plain and simple. It's the highest capacity portable hard drive in captivity, and Seagate achieves this feat by striping together two 9.5mm Samsung M9T 2TB hard drives into a RAID 0 array. As soon as you plug it in, the OS sees the drive as a 3.63TB formatted volume, so you don't have to do any setup. Unfortunately, you can't modify it to be a RAID 1 array. The drive is a bus-powered USB 3.0 model, so it doesn't need auxiliary power of any kind, and it even includes two USB cables; one for modern systems that can provide enough power though a single port, and a Y-shaped cable for those with older PCs that require two connections to pump enough juice into the drive.

Since it's designed to be used as a backup drive, it includes a tool called Seagate Dashboard. This software acts as a hub for several backup tasks including backing up data on a PC, the data on your smartphone (iOS and Android only), and saving your social media data on Facebook, Flickr, and Youtube. You can also restore your backups to their original location, as well.

PC backups can be simple (videos, music, etc.) or you can select individual files and folders. You can then have it back up continuously or on a schedule. It's slick, easy-to-use, and works like a charm. You can even create system "snapshots" instead of individual files and folders, which we appreciated.

In testing, the RAID 0 configuration showed why it used to be the go-to setup for power users, as this is one fast drive. It was able to sustain around 200MB/s in our file copy test, which is faster than the speediest desktop hard-disk drives available. It also didn't choke on any of the fi les we offered it, unlike its solid-state brethren in this roundup.

Overall, this is one sweet drive. We don't like how thick it is, but that comes with the two-drive territory. It's fast though, holds a ton of data, and includes slick backup software, too. If you need more storage than an SSD drive allows, this is the one to buy.

Verdict: 9 - Kick Ass!

Price: $270, www.seagate.com

Lacie Porsche Design Slim Drive USB 3.0

Lacie has never been afraid to make a slick-looking drive that packs a punch, and that's what it's trying to do with its Slim drive with "Porsche Design." If you bought a laptop for maximum portability, this drive furthers that goal by its very slim  0.4-inch thickness, and weighing in at slightly less than a half-pound.

LaCie offers the drive in both a 500GB rotating-platter version and the 120GB SSD version you see here, which costs $65 more than the platter drive. Both come with a two-year warranty, which is kind of low but common for "cost sensitive" storage devices. However, LaCie has never been a company to skimp on anything, so we're surprised the warranty isn't at least three years.

Inside the matte aluminum shell is an SSD of unknown origin, and there's no easy way to open the shell without destroying the enclosure. There are rubber bumpers on both sides but it's otherwise a solid, brick-like case. On the side is a USB 3.0 connector with an extra-long cable; it's a shame LaCie couldn't find a way to integrate it with the shell since it's hard to store it with the cable poking out from the side.

The drive comes with two primary utilities—Genie Timeline for backup duties and a LaCie-branded version of TrueCrypt that lets you dedicate a portion of the drive's 117GB formatted capacity to be an encrypted volume. We love TrueCrypt, and are always glad to see it included as a utility on removable storage, so kudos to LaCie. The Genie Timeline software is also excellent and easy to use.

In our benchmarks, the LaCie Slim racked up mildly impressive read and write scores, but it averaged around 200MB/s in our real-world fi le copy test, which put it dead-even with the platter-based RAID 0 setup of the Seagate. This means that in the real world, this bad boy is faster than a platter-based drive, but not a RAID 0 config.

All in all, the LaCie is a decent drive but there's nothing about it that really stands out or makes our hearts go pitter-patter. It's fast and has a good software package, but it's expensive and has smallish capacity. If you absolutely need a super-slim portable drive, it's a safe bet. Otherwise, go the DIY route and save yourself some cash.

Verdict: 8

Price: $150, www.lacie.com

Newegg Daily Deals: Intel Core i7 5960X Haswell-E, Asus 23-Inch Monitor, and More!

Posted: 13 May 2015 01:23 PM PDT

 

Intel Core i7 5960XNewegg

Top Deal:

Still trying to run Crysis? Haven't upgraded your PC since the turn of the century? Are you looking to build a dream machine? Then perhaps you'll be interested in today's top deal for an Intel Core i7 5960X Haswell-E Processor for $1,000 with free whipping (normally $1,050 - use coupon code: [EMCASKN32]). Pair this 8-core beast with a high-end GPU and speedy SSD foundation and you'll have the baddest system on the block!

Other Deals:

Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X 3GB Video Card for $230 with free shipping (normally $250; additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Corsair Carbide Series 400R Graphite grey & black ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case for $80 with free shipping (normally $90 - use coupon code: [EMCASKN27]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Asus VX238H-W White 23-inch 1ms LCD Monitor w/ Built-in Speakers for $140 with free shipping (normally $160 - use coupon code: [EMCASKN45]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Samsung D3 Station 6TB USB 3.0 3.5-inch Desktop External Hard DriveSTSHX-D601TDB Black for $210 with free shipping (normally $230 - use coupon code: [EMCASKN52])

Nvidia Starts Streaming Grid Games at Full HD 60 FPS

Posted: 13 May 2015 08:50 AM PDT

Nvidia ShieldA new experience

Nvidia this week improved its Grid cloud-gaming service by adding support for streams at Full HD 1080 at 60 frames per second (1080p60). While movie services are already streaming content at 1080p (and beyond), Grid becomes the first Internet-based streaming game service to offer 1080p60, which comes by way of yesterday's Shield Hub beta release. The 720p60 option streaming is still available as well.

To take advantage of 1080p60 streams, you'll need a fast Internet connection -- at least 30Mbps, and Nvidia recommends 50Mbps if there are multiple devices competing for bandwidth on your home network. By comparison, 720p streaming requires around 5-10Mbps of bandwidth.

The reason Nvidia recommends so much more bandwidth at 1080p60 is because it's processing over twice as many pixels in real-time as 720p. And unlike movie services that might buffer on occasion, the combination of real-time encoding and maintaining a low latency requires some heavy lifting, both at the front end and presumably the backend -- Nvidia brought on board two new data centers bringing the total to six, and it wouldn't surprise us if Nvidia upgraded or added faster graphics cards to Grid.

In any event, more than 35 games in the Grid game library support 1080p60, including Batman: Arkham Origins, Devil May Cry 4, and Dirt 3 Complete Edition.

You can join the new Shield hub beta here.

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Newegg Rolls Out New Line of Business Class PCs Starting at $649

Posted: 13 May 2015 08:01 AM PDT

NeweggBusiness ABS NThese PCs mean business

Newegg carries all kinds of pre-built systems from third-party vendors, but in case you didn't know, the popular online vendor also builds PCs through NeweggBusiness, a wholly-owned subsidiary. As such, NeweggBusiness today announced its new ABS N Series of desktop PCs. Starting at $649, the ABS N Series is aimed at small and medium business (SMB) and education customers.

There are five configurations to choose from, each one packing an Intel Core i5 4590 Haswell processor inside. These aren't systems that will knock your socks off with raw power, nor will they sufficiently run Crysis (before anyone asks). However, they're all priced at under $750.

"These machines are filled with options all too rare these days: Samsung SSD, three types of monitor connections, USB 3.0 ports, a quiet power supply and Windows 7 Pro (upgradeable to Windows 10). The included Logitech keyboard and ambidextrous mouse round out the bundle, making the N Series the perfect machine to serve the computing needs of any busy office environment," NeweggBusiness says.

The $649 configuration includes the aforementioned processor along with 4GB of DDR3-1600, 120GB SSD, DVD burner, and Windows 7 Professional. On the front panel are two USB 2.0 ports flanked by microphone and headphone jacks. Around back are four more USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, GbE LAN, HDMI, DVI, and D-Sub connectors.

As for the other four configurations, they offer varying amounts of RAM and storage while retaining the rest of the specs laid out above:

  • $680: 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD
  • $700: 4GB RAM, 250GB SSD
  • $730: 8GB RAM, 250GB SSD
  • $740: 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD + 1TB SSD

You can find these new systems here.

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