General Gaming Article |
- Meet MagicStick, the Beefier Intel ComputeStick
- At Long Last, Batman: Arkham Knight Returns to PC
- Newegg Daily Deals: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti, Acer Core i5 Laptop, and More!
- Thecus's New Five-Bay NAS, the N5810
- Samsung's Massive 18.4-Inch Galaxy View Tablet Sports a Handle
- QNAP Announces Stylish Two-Bay HS-251+ NAS for Entertainment Duties
- Noctua NH-C14S Review
- Technolust: The Electric Home of the Future
| Meet MagicStick, the Beefier Intel ComputeStick Posted: 28 Oct 2015 01:08 PM PDT Over on Indiegogo, MagicStick creator Niraj Kumar and his team reveal that the first units will go out to backers sometime in December 2015. MagicStick is essentially an Intel ComputeStick PC-on-a-stick but more powerful, packing up to 8GB of RAM and an Intel quad-core "Cherry Trail" processor. Launched in September, the Indiegogo project actually has 12 days left although it's already scored $256,789 from 1,463 backers, blowing past the $50,000 goal. The MagicStick will come in two flavors: the $199 "One" unit and the meatier $399 "Wave" unit. The cheaper "One" model includes an Intel Atom Z8300 processor with 12 GPU cores, 2 GB of DDR3L RAM, and 32GB of internal storage. The device also provides a microSD card slot for up to 128GB of extra storage, Wireless N connectivity up to 300Mbps, a USB 3.0 Type-C port and two USB 2.0 ports. The device connects to an HDTV or monitor via a built-in HDMI 2.0 jack. The MagicStick "Wave" model is a bit more meaty in the hardware department, sporting an Intel Atom Z8700 processor clocked at 2.40GHz and 16 GPU cores. There's also 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 64GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot for adding up to 128GB of extra storage. Other features include Wireless AC connectivity, one USB Type-C port, two USB 3.0 ports and a built-in HDMI 2.0 jack. A list of common features show that both models include Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, support for Wireless Wi-Fi display, hardware accelerated identity protection, and 4K Ultra HD hardware encoding. They also sport a trial version of Windows 10 (3 months) as well as Android "Lollipop," providing users with two platforms to choose from. When turned off, both models have a USB pen drive storage mode. By comparison, Intel's ComputeStick isn't quite as sporty. The Windows 8.1 model (with Bing) includes the company's Atom Z3735F processor, 2GB of DDR3L memory and 32GB of internal storage. The device also consists of a microSD card slot, four GPU cores, Wireless N and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and one USB 2.0 port for adding a mouse or keyboard. For the general consumer, the MagicStick should be ideal for the living room, connected to an HDTV and serving up content that could be streamed from a NAS or the Internet. Both models would be great for lite gaming and for students who need a small form factor to use within the dorm. Since we have yet to test one of these PCs-on-a-stick, we can't comment on the performance. That said, paying $399 for a PC stick seems a bit much given that you can purchase a decent laptop for the same price. These two MagicStick models may be more suited in the business environment, reducing the bulk of a desktop and providing more desk/leg room for the office worker. They would also be ideal in schools and for frequent travelers who'd rather have a PC in their pocket than lug around a laptop. We expect to get our hands on one of these sticks in December to have a better opinion. Meanwhile, check out our review of the Intel ComputeStick here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| At Long Last, Batman: Arkham Knight Returns to PC Posted: 28 Oct 2015 12:16 PM PDT Batman returns Good news, Batman fans, the final installment in the Arkham series, Batman: Arkham Knight, is all polished up (presumably) and once again available on the PC. What's more, Batman returns with a bag full of goodies. More on that in a moment. To recap, Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment suspended sales of the PC version of Arkham Knight shortly after its release due to widespread reports of performance issues. Users reported dropped frames rates even on systems that should have no trouble rendering the superhero with all the eye candy turned up, along with other issues that ruined the experience. After yanking the game from Steam and store shelves, developers at Rocksteady Studios got busy stomping out bugs and cleaning up the game's code. That led to an interim patch around the third week of August that showed promise, followed by a recent vow to resume sales of Arkham Knight by the end of this month. Making good on its promise, WB announced today that Arkham Knight is back, and to reward PC gamers for their patience, it's giving away free digital copies from the Arkham library. "This means we will be giving away copies of Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY, Batman: Arkham City GOTY, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate," WB announced. "The Batman: Arkham library of games will be given to everyone who has already purchased or will purchase Batman: Arkham Knight for PC prior to 11:59 PM PDT, November 16, 2015." WB is actively working with Valve to have those games delivered to eligible players by December. In addition, Rocksteady is creating a new "Community Challenge Pack" that will be given to Arkham Knight owners in January of next year "As thanks to the Steam Community, PC players will have access to the maps for a week before they hit the consoles," WB added. Finally, WB says it's working with Valve and the Team Fortress 2 team for a special cross-game promotion. It takes the form of a contest in which the Steam community can submit Arkham-themed items for Team Fortress up through November 16, 2015. WB and Valve will then give the winning items to anyone who purchased Arkham Knight before the end of the contest. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Newegg Daily Deals: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti, Acer Core i5 Laptop, and More! Posted: 28 Oct 2015 11:24 AM PDT Top Deal: We get it, you're not on an unlimited budget, and as much as you'd like to fill your PC with multiple top-end graphics cards, nagging things like a mortgage and food get in the way. That's okay, you can still be a gamer and have nice things without obliterating your bank account. To wit, check out today's top deal for an Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti Graphics Card for $120 with free shipping (normally $125 - use coupon code: [EMCKANV33]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate). That's a C-note after rebate, and it sports a custom cooling solution that Asus says allows for twice the airflow and three times lower noise emissions than reference. Other Deals: Acer Laptop Aspire Intel Core i5 5200U (2.20 GHz) 8 GB Memory 1 TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce 940M 4 GB 15.6-inch Windows 10 Home for $500 with free shipping (normally $555) Samsung 850 Pro 2.5-inch 256GB SATA III 3-D Vertical (SSD) for $120 with free shipping (normally $140 - use coupon code: [ESCKANV22]) Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) Desktop Memory for $78 with free shipping (normally $100) Asus 24X DVD Burner OEM for $17 with free shipping (normally $20 - use coupon code: [ESCKANV25]) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thecus's New Five-Bay NAS, the N5810 Posted: 28 Oct 2015 11:22 AM PDT Looking for a network attached storage (NAS) unit that can seemingly do it all? Thecus introduced on Wednesday the latest addition to its line of five-bay NAS units, the N5810. The company says it's ideal for both home and business users, packed with a quad-core Intel Celeron J1900 processor clocked at 2GHz, 4GB of DDR3 RAM (expandable up to 8GB), and a max capacity of 40TB. In addition to the processor and memory, the specifications show that the NAS includes two gigabit Ethernet ports, three USB 3.0 ports (one on the front, two on the back), two USB 2.0 ports on the back, an HDMI output port and a line-out jack. There's also a built-in LCM display with four buttons for ENTER, ESC, UP, and DOWN. According to the company, the NAS is capable of read speeds of up to 213Mb/s and write speeds of up to 186Mb/s. This unit also provides network, system, and data redundancy thanks to "seven modes of link aggregation" and System Failover. However, customers will need two Thecus NAS units in order to take advantage of the System Failover feature. "Link aggregation can sustain multiple network connections and provide redundancy in case one of the links fails," the company says. "Thecus NAS supports 7 modes which provide Load Balance, Failover, 802.3ad, Balance-XOR, Balance-TLB, and Balance-ALB, Broadcast." Thecus says that the new NAS unit is based on the Thecus OS5 operating system and includes a virtual private network (VPN) server. There's also DISK CLONE and WIPE for data management, Thecus RAID Protection, and support for BTRFS for taking snapshots of data at various time points. The device is also bundled with Acronis Backup software, Thecus DATA Guard Backup, and real-time remote replication for instantly backing up files to the NAS, attached external drive, or remote NAS. The new NAS can be used as a multimedia hub thanks to support for KODI, PLEX Media Server, and HDMI output. With the latter server installed, devices like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 can stream video stored on the NAS. The company says that the NAS can also serve up content for iTunes, iPhoto, and Aperture. Apple TV and Chromecast can also take advantage of this new NAS unit. For a long list of specs and other details, head here. Thecus didn't provide pricing for the new N5810 NAS device, but said that it will begin shipping globally at the end of November 2015. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Samsung's Massive 18.4-Inch Galaxy View Tablet Sports a Handle Posted: 28 Oct 2015 10:15 AM PDT Supersizing Android Is there a market for an 18.4-inch Android tablet? Samsung's about to find out with its Galaxy View, a tablet so big that it comes with a built-in handle on the backside. Though it's big in physical size, the 18.4-inch touchscreen display features a somewhat pedestrian Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) resolution. That means there's a good chance your 5-inch smartphone is rocking more pixels. Other features include a 1.6GHz octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage flanked by a microSD card slot, a pair of 4W stereo speakers, 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera (we're guessing for video chat and not for selfies), 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, optional LTE connectivity, and a 5,700 mAh battery that's good for up to 8 hours of video. You'll notice there's no mention of a rear camera, a feature I doubt will be missed on a slate this size. Watching videos is really what this tablet is all about -- Samsung says it was designed with a "video-centric interface in mind." To help with that, it has a built-in two-way stand that can prop the tablet up in a tent-like orientation or angled closer to the surface. This obviously isn't a tablet that's meant to be toted around like an iPad mini, nor does it have the same productivity appeal as a Surface Pro 4. That's going to limit its appeal. It's not without competition, either. In the Android space, it's the biggest tablet out there, but there are similar sized all-in-one PCs like Dell's XPS 18, a Windows-based system I've recommended to people after spending some hands-on time with it. But hey, if a big-size Android tablet is what you're after, here it is, or at least it will be soon. Samsung didn't say when the Galaxy View will be available or how much it will cost. Priced appropriately, I could see this finding a home among media enthusiasts and maybe cord cutters, though I'm skeptical it's going to fly off store shelves. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| QNAP Announces Stylish Two-Bay HS-251+ NAS for Entertainment Duties Posted: 28 Oct 2015 09:36 AM PDT A NAS box for the living room When you think of a network attached storage (NAS) device, you probably picture a box-type setup that you tuck away in a closet or someplace else that's out of sight. QNAP's Silent NAS series is different. These are NAS boxes that look like set-top boxes, and they're intended to take residence in your living room. The newest of these is the HS-251+, a two-bay NAS with a quad-core Intel Celeron processor clocked at 2GHz (base) to 2.42GHz (burst), 2GB of DDR3L RAM, and two storage bays that support both 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch HDDs and SSDs. "We are proud of our Silent NAS series and are happy to announce the launch of the upgraded quad-core Silent NAS which provides more power to handle multimedia applications and brings greater entertainment potential with a free remote control," said Jason Hsu, product manager of QNAP, adding "This amazing NAS is coupled with an unrivalled set of apps and features that allow home users to enjoy a perfect home theater experience while providing a secure centralized storage for all of their files, and much more." Unlike traditional NAS boxes, the HS-251+ isn't built strictly or even primarily for data backups. It's a home NAS for entertainment with support for a wide range of media applications. You can connect it to an HDTV or A/V receiver and watch videos stored on your drives, browse photos, listen to music, stream YouTube, surf the web, and more. These features aren't unique to the HS-251+, though it's set-top box design encourages living room placement and makes this a multimedia-first device. That said, there's still room for backups. The HS-251+ supports up to two 8TB hard drives for up to 16TB of storage, and if that's not enough, you connect an expansion enclosure such as the 8-bay UX-800P or 5-bay UX-500P to bump capacity up to 80TB. Other features include two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two GbE LAN ports, HDMI output, real-time and offline transcoding, capabilities, and RAID 1 and 0 support. QNAP says the HS-251+ is available now, though we didn't spot any online retailers carrying it just yet. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Oct 2015 08:42 AM PDT at a glance(+) Serene (-) Nightmare This article was published in the October 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here. Impressive design, but lacks cooling capacityNoctua is best known for its beige and brown fans, and has dominated the market for silent-operation, performance-heavy cooling options for as long as we can remember. It's a company with ideals pitched at those who don't care for the aesthetics of the components, more the properties they exhibit. Notably noise cancellation and a high degree of static pressure. As a result, it delivers some of the best performance that money can buy. The Noctua NF-F12 is the prodigal fan you've probably heard about a lot. A 120mm static pressure-optimized, low-noise fan, managing an impressive 22.4dBA under load while pushing 82.5 cubic feet of air per minute with a static pressue of 20.4Pa. For those who don't know, static pressure is the force at which air is pushed back through the fan. The higher the pressure, the more beneficial it is for cooling dense radiators or CPU heatsinks. The lower the density of the fins on the radiator, or the heatsink, the less static pressure you need to push air through it, making CFM and airflow fans your new best friend. This is all background info, time to get to the point. The cooler we have here is Noctua's latest NH-C14S. A low-profile CPU heatsink, which otherwise dwarves the small form factor builds we've tested it in. Powered by a 140mm Noctua AF14, this little fridge magnet pumps out an impressive 95W-worth of TDP on our Intel Core i7-4790K. The single 140mm fan stays quiet at around 24dB at load, and 19dB with the included low noise adapter. Although the heatsink is an impressive 142mm tall, we still managed to install a set of Corsair Dominator Platinums below the underside of the heatsink. The overall footprint of the NH-C14S is quite large, which is great for increased cooling capacity, but does give us pause, certainly in regard to the Asus Maximus Gene series with the raised PCB. Unboxing HeavenWhat Noctua does do nicely is packaging. Unboxing this little beauty is a dream for anyone with any level of OCD. Opening the box, you're presented with three smaller packages, all different sizes. One for AMD, one for Intel and then an accessory box with Noctua's custom Allen key-esque screwdriver for mounting installation, nicely braided cables, and some premium thermal paste. Installing the NH-C14S is a painless affair, which is especially impressive for an air cooler. You get a very solid backplate, with four plastic protectors and four extra threaded bolts to attach on top. Then it's a simple matter of inserting the specialized screwdriver down the two holes at the top of the heatsink and tightening the preattached, spring-loaded screws into the backplate. Job done. No fiddling around. You can even probably do this with the mobo inside the chassis. Performance, meanwhile, was a little underwhelming. We tested with an Intel Core i7-4790K, which can run hot. But even at stock, we managed to hit the TJMax, running the standard blends test in Prime95, after just fi ve minutes. With the core immediately throttling itself to compensate for the excess heat, overclocking just wasn't an option. This cooler isn't as impressive as it should be. It's a little too big and lacks the cooling capacity of a full tower, or even a small AIO. Disappointing. What it does have is almost silent operation and impressive compatibility with memory modules. We're wondering if a more powerful fan would perform better to help improve the dissipation needed for the more powerful CPUs such as the i7-4790K. $98, www.noctua.at
Best scores are bolded. All tests were run using an Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.0GHz (Turbo to 4.4GHz), ASRock Extreme 4 motherboard, 8GB DDR3 Dominator Platinum 2,133MHz, and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 980. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technolust: The Electric Home of the Future Posted: 28 Oct 2015 12:00 AM PDT A home EV charger, rooftop PV solar, and programmable connected LED light bulbsI'd really like to upgrade my home from cozy to cutting-edge. These three items would put me well on my way. The ChargePoint Home 32A Level-2 Charger Taking EV ownership to Level-2. When I leased my 2015 Kia Soul EV, I was hooked. Driving an electric in the Bay Area car is awesome. It's quiet, ultra-low carbon, and it lets me use the HOV-3 lane when crossing the Bay Bridge (which means a toll of a mere $2.50, as opposed to the $6 the gas-guzzlers have to pay). With a full charge of over 100 miles of range, the Soul EV has half the MSRP of a basically equipped Tesla Model S, has more cargo room, and doesn't signal that I've got a cool $73,000 to spend on a car. Oh, and maintenance? None. Except tire rotations and windshield washer fluid fills. Having a home Level-2 charger would take ownership of an electric car to the next level. The ChargePoint Home 32A, 240V Level-2 charger would charge my car from empty (which is a rarity) to full in about six–seven hours. A typical charge from 50 percent would take about two or three. The charger is also smart, and can show me statistics on charging, miles added, and carbon reduced via the ChargePoint app on my Android and on the web. There are a lot of Level-2 chargers available for EV drivers, but ChargePoint caught my eye for a few reasons. First of all, ChargePoint's public Level-2 chargers are very common, and is the charging network I use most frequently. That means installing the charger at home will give me a clearer picture of what it's costing me to charge, and what my charging habits are really like. ChargePoint offers amperage, line connection, and cable length options for its Home charger. Since I'm renting the house I'm in, going with the 240V plug-in charger (as opposed to hard wired) is the best way to go, since when I move, I can just unplug and take the thing with me. Using the 32A model means more electrons get pushed at once, and thus faster charging. It also means that if (when) I get another EV at the end of my lease, it can provide a higher level of charging throughput. As for cord length, going long with the 25-foot cord means that I can put the charger almost anywhere in the garage and run the J1772 connector out to my car with ease. All configured, the unit would cost $750. However, that's not the prohibitive cost. Using a 32A charger requires a 40A breaker, and the breaker box on the house doesn't have room for a new 40A line. That means I'd have to hire an electrician to install a new breaker box. That's a permitted job and costs can quickly climb. What would the ChargePoint Home provide me that I don't have now?Right now, I'm using the 120V charger that came with my car to charge up. From "empty" it takes about about 23 hours to get back to full. From my typical one-third to one-half charge to full, it takes over twelve. That charge time means that I often don't get a full charge before heading into work, and results in me having to grab a quick charge every couple of days. Getting a home Level-2 charger would also allow me to be able to keep my charging to off-peak times, which would mean that my car wouldn't be drawing power from dirty peaker power plants. It also means that if my roommate wants to get an EV, we could both grab a charge in one night. Rooftop Solar Panels Cheap power, how I covet thee. If there's one thing California has during the summer, it's plenty of sunshine. We also have higher electric rates, since that sunshine means heat, and heat means HVAC systems start spinning up. Solar Panels can offer a bit of financial relief during the hot months when prices can spike during peak times of day. I took a quick look at PG&E's rate schedule, and things can get pretty nasty if you draw a lot of power from the grid using a time of use plan. I work from home a day or two per week, so using a time-of-use plan would kill me from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at 32.7 cents per kWh. That time of day represents part of the peak sunshine hours, so going solar may make sense. There are several financial models with which you can go solar. The first (and most obvious and expensive) route is to buy the system outright. While solar adds a lot to the value of a house, it has really high up-front costs. It's basically like buying a car. The next route is similar to the first: Get a loan for the panels. I took a look at Solar City's Solar Loans and they're basically small 30-year mortgages. Yeowch. At least it comes with a 30 percent federal tax credit. The third option is a solar lease, where you pay no up-front installation cost, but are stuck with a monthly lease payment. In many solar lease models, payments go up each year (about 2.9 percent to account for inflation) for the life of the 30-year lease. Solar City's example shows a first lease payment of $75.20. (For reference, my last PG&E bill was about $149.) The last way to get solar is to get a PPA (no, not an Ubuntu repo). A PPA is a lot like the solar lease, only instead of paying for the lease regardless of how much power is used, you pay a price per kilowatt hour pulled from the panel. A Solar City PPA example shows that the rate for solar power is about 15 cents per kWh. For reference, PG&E's four-tiered plan's lowest rate is 16.7 cents. Even with a time-of-use plan, the lowest tier (low-demand, winter rate) is 13.9 cents. Between the cheap 15-cent solar rate and the 14-cent grid (read: nighttime) rate, ratepayers stand to save a bunch of money. Especially with net energy metering. All this seems great, but alas, I'm a renter. As a tenant, you can't have solar installed on a roof you don't own. You can always have your landlord install the system, but you'll end up paying part of your power bill to the landlord. That makes for a more complicated rental situation, and poses a significant investment risk for the landlord as well. What would solar panels provide that I don't have now?If there's one thing solar would do, it's lower my energy bill. It would allow me to switch over to a time-of-use rate plan with PG&E, since peak load times generally coincide with times of day that the sun is out. For the days that I'm working from home, I can run my PCs (and A/C in the summer) without worry about running up the bill. Charging my EV at night would be a lot cheaper using off-peak rates and the benefits of net energy metering. And if I can cut down energy usage during the day (by sweating it out during the summer), it's possible to get a refund out of net metering at the end of the year. That's right, I could have PG&E pay me. Philips Hue Connected RGB LED Light Bulbs $200 for three bulbs. But they're awesome bulbs. Light is just light, right? Well, if we're comparing bulbs for home use, I recommend LED bulbs for most people. Sure, LED bulbs are more expensive than regular bulbs (I have a bunch of 2700K Cree 60W equivalent bulbs), but they'll last longer and use less energy than their incandescent and CFW counterparts. And LED bulbs don't have mercury in them like CFWs do. Philips took the LED bulb a bit further by making an RGB LED bulb that connects to a wireless bridge. The bridge connects to the 'net, and pow! You have a smart, connected light bulb. The Philips Hue system integrates with IFTTT, so I can have lights that slowly turn on to wake me up at night, bulbs that flash when I get an important email, or have them flash red if there's severe weather/a zombie apocalypse. The problem is that Philips' RGB Hue bulbs are way more expensive than the simple white Cree bulbs I have now. The Hue starter kit comes with three bulbs and a wireless bridge to control them. The kit costs a cool $200. For three bulbs. Each additional bulb costs $60. That's no cheap light bulb, but it is better. To replace all the lights in my house, I'd need the starter kit and 28 more bulbs. Just to replace all the common A19 bulbs in the house. That's $1,880. For light bulbs. Not counting some floodlights and fluorescents in the kitchen, garage, and outside. But they're awesome light bulbs. With colors. What would these lights provide that I don't have now?Having fully customizable and programmable light options for your home is cooler than you might think. Besides just being great for parties, being able to tune in light color according to time of day would be amazing. Need to feel awake? Add a little more blue light. Need to get to bed? More warm reds, yellows, and oranges will help you feel drowsy. And there's something to be said fort being able to tie my home lighting to the Internet. I'd be able to turn the lights on or off with a mere text message. Light switches are so 2000s. |
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