General Gaming Article |
- Synology Releases New Two-Bay DiskStation NAS
- Amazon Wants to Take on Spotify, Apple Music
- Newegg Daily Deals: HP LaserJet Pro M402n Duplex Printer, EVGA 850W PSU, and More!
- T-Mobile Customers Stream Twice the Video with Binge On, Amazon Joins the Party
- Cheap VR: Google Boasts 5 Million Cardboard Shipments
- Oracle's Pulling the Plug on Java Browser Plugin
- 12 Awesome New Vive Demos We Played
- Build It: Caged Power
| Synology Releases New Two-Bay DiskStation NAS Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:31 PM PST Synology has released a new NAS server aimed at the small office and home user, the DiskStation DS216+. This backup solution offers on-the-fly H.264 4K to 1080p video transcoding for video streaming, two drive bays for up to 16TB of storage, and the intuitive DiskStation Manager (DSM) interface that should make data management a breeze for any user. The specifications show that this new NAS sports a dual-core Intel Celeron N3050 processor (1.6GHz, 2.16GHz), 1GB DDR3 memory, two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, an eSATA port, and a gigabit Ethernet port. A 92x92mm fan mounted on the back keeps the innards cool with two modes: cool and quiet. The DS216+ comes equipped with an AES-NI hardware encryption engine, keeping your files safe and secure while transmitting over the network. Synology says that the NAS is capable of over 113MB/s read speeds and 109MB/s write speeds during encrypted data transmissions. Otherwise, the NAS is normally capable of exceeding 111MB/s read and write speeds. Synology's new NAS uses the Btrfs file system, allowing the device to offer services like quote control for shared folders, metadata mirroring, point-in-time snapshot, and more. It boasts easy integrates into your network, showing up in File Explorer and allowing users to drag-and-drop files directly to the NAS from Windows. Users can also set up an FTP server to share files securely with others. For offices, the NAS can serve as a multi-function server, allowing users to share a printer across the network, create up to thirty local websites, send and receive emails using the built-in Mail Station app, create a VPN server to access files remotely, and more. There's also a proxy server for monitoring website access and content regulation. The big selling point is the DiskStation Manager operating system, which offers an awesomely cool user interface to make data management easy. The platform comes with its own app store, allowing users to download and install useful tools that will make the DS216+ even better. Users can also access the NAS by using mobile apps offered by Synology, such as DS Photo+ for managing photos, DS Audio for accessing stored music, and DS Video. There's a lot packed into this new two-bay NAS, which provides a tool-less drive tray design to make drive swapping painless. Unfortunately, Synology doesn't provide a price, but confirms that the DS216+ is now shipping worldwide. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon Wants to Take on Spotify, Apple Music Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:22 PM PST Unnamed sources have informed the New York Post that Amazon has set out to create a full-blown streaming music subscription service to take on Apple Music and Spotify. Rumor has it that the plan is in an early stage, but that the company has been conversing with music publishers over the last several weeks to license songs for the service. According to the report, the service will be offered in addition to the current music streaming Amazon offers to its Prime (Music) subscribers. This new offering will also offer a more "robust" library of music than what's offered on Prime. Sources say that Steve Boom, Amazon's vice president of digital music, is in charge of the music service plans. So, how much will Amazon's new standalone music service cost? Sources state that the company is considering a $10-per-month fee. However, Amazon may offer a discount of $3 to $4 per month if the streaming service is bundled with Echo, the company's $180 voice-controlled speaker that boasts 360-degree omni-directional audio. Amazon launched Prime Music back in June 2014, an ad-free service that's part of Amazon Prime. The service is free to members, and includes more than one million songs and hundreds of Prime Playlists designed for various types of moods and occasions. Members can even download the music for offline playback on mobile devices. Some of the featured artists include Aerosmith, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Daft Punk, Fun, and many more. By comparison, both Spotify and Apple Music offer more than 30 million songs, so Amazon would need to beef up its music arsenal substantially to compete in the music-streaming subscription arena. Even more, Spotify is rolling out a video component to both its free and subscription services starting this week, with content provided by the likes of ABC, Adult Swim, BBC, Comedy Central, NBCUniversal, TBS, and numerous others. Will Amazon be able to compete in the music subscription arena? Will music artists take to the new plan? Steve Boom seems to think so, as he told Billboard back in October that Amazon is "the only place that touches all of the different formats." He added that Amazon is the biggest retailer of physical music and the second largest retailer of digital music. According to the report, the company's plan is to roll out the standalone music streaming service this fall. Amazon has remained quiet regarding the report, but there's a good possibility that the service will help make up revenue being lost due to an industry-wide decline in digital track download sales. Having a standalone music subscription service to pick up the slack makes sense. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Newegg Daily Deals: HP LaserJet Pro M402n Duplex Printer, EVGA 850W PSU, and More! Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:40 AM PST Top Deal: The advent of the Internet could have killed off the printer, but as it turns out, dead tree copies of receipts, school papers, and everything else are still in demand, and so is the printer. That will probably be the case for a long time to come, and if you're need of a workhorse that can print fast, then check out today's top deal for an HP LaserJet Pro M402n Duplex 4800 dpi x 600 dpi USB mono Laser Printer for $160 with $3 shipping (normally $270 - use coupon code: [EMCEFGK35]). This thing holds up to 900 sheets of paper, prints up to 40 pages per minute, and offers mobile printing options. Other Deals: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC Support Video Card for $320 with free shipping (normally $350 - use coupon code: [EMCEFGK33]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate; Free game: Rise of the Tomb Raider w/ purchase, limited offer) EVGA 80 Plus Bronze 850W Semi-Modular Nvidia SLI Ready and Crossfire Support Continuous Power Supply for $80 with free shipping (normally $85 - use coupon code: [EMCEFGK78]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate) Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model for $65 with free shipping (normally $70 - use coupon code: [EMCEFGK29]) Seagate Hybrid Drive 1TB MLC/8GB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s NCQ 3.5-inch Desktop SSHD for $65 with free shipping (normally $70 - use coupon code: [ESCEFGK27]) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| T-Mobile Customers Stream Twice the Video with Binge On, Amazon Joins the Party Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:28 AM PST Binge On lives up to its name T-Mobile ruffled a few feathers when it introduced Binge On, a controversial streaming service that allows customers to watch an unlimited amount of video from participating providers without it counting against their data caps. It's controversial because critics claim it's a net neutrality violation, while T-Mobile CEO John Legere has adamantly denied such claims. For now, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is on T-Mobile's side, though it's examining so-called zero-rated video services, of which Binge On isn't the only one. Controversy aside, Binge On is proving popular among T-Mobile's subscribers. The company today said that those on qualifying plans are already watching more than twice the video than before from the free services with Being On. "Binge On is our most disruptive Un-carrier move yet. It has literally changed the way millions of people are watching video – they're watching more, more than twice as much as before, and most importantly, they're watching without worrying about bigger bills or surprise overages!," Legere said in a statement. "Binge On is the Un-carrier solution to satisfy Americans' growing appetite for mobile video – and the facts are telling us that customers love it!" This is just the beginning. T-Mobile continues to add more streaming video partners to the Binge On fold, including Amazon Video, Fox News, Univision Now, and WWE Network. The new additions bring the total number of partners to over 40, among them big names like HBO Now, Hulu, Showtime, and Sling TV. Binge On works by "optimizing" video to mobile devices it's streaming to. While the video is downgraded, it's always at least 480p (DVD) quality. According to T-Mobile, customers have streamed 34 petabytes of free video since launching Binge On. The wireless carrier also claims that one of its partners is seeing a 79 percent jump in daily viewers since joining Binge On. Binge On is activated on qualifying accounts by default, though users can disable it if they want to. T-Mobile's also rolled out some changes to make it easier to do so—just dial #BNG# (#264#) on your phone and hit send to check your settings, #BOF# (#263#) to turn it off, and #BON# (#266#) to turn it on. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cheap VR: Google Boasts 5 Million Cardboard Shipments Posted: 28 Jan 2016 09:46 AM PST Money talks Google on Wednesday revealed that it's shipped over 5 million of its Cardboard VR headsets since launching a year and a half ago, and there might be a lesson there. The fact that over 5 million people are willing to slap a cardboard contraption on their mug is telling. A virtual reality optimist will read it as a sign that the demand for VR is there and the hype is real. But the real lesson might be one of cost. Let's back up a moment. Remember when Android tablets were new and shiny? In the beginning, the early models carried premium price tags in the neighborhood of $500 because they were trying to compete with Apple's iPad. Android device makers quickly figured out that though consumers loved the open source platform and were interested in tablets, they wanted to cheaper devices (compared to Apple's pricing). Device makers responded and suddenly Android tablets were everywhere. It's too early to say whether or not VR products will shake out the same way—it's an apples and oranges thing—but there are signs that suggest it might. One of them is the $599 pre-order price of Oculus Rift. The price caught consumers off guard, in part because earlier comments suggested the headset might retail for $350ish. Facebook and Oculus haven't said how many of Rift headsets have been sold so it's hard to evaluate things (for more reasons than one). What we do know is that a basic Cardboard headset runs $20 (sometimes less), or you can build your own, and though it seems goofy (and rudimentary) by comparison, there are millions of them in the wild. It's an interesting topic, one we'll have to explore down the line when the Rift and HTC Vive start shipping. In the meantime, here are some more braggadocios stats and facts from Google.
Neat stuff, though the bigger point here is that Cardboard owners are actively using VR. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Oracle's Pulling the Plug on Java Browser Plugin Posted: 28 Jan 2016 09:14 AM PST A more secure web Try to hold back your tears, but the Java browser plugin that's plagued the web with security holes is not long for this world; Oracle plans to snuff it out with the release of JDK 9, the company announced. Consider the move the equivalent of Oracle throwing in the towel, and doing so much to the crowd's delight. "With modern browser vendors working to restrict and reduce plugin support in their products, developers of applications that rely on the Java browser plugin need to consider alternative options such as migrating from Java Applets (which rely on a browser plugin) to the plugin-free Java Web Start technology," Oracle stated in a blog post. "Oracle plans to deprecate the Java browser plugin in JDK 9. This technology will be removed from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release," Oracle continued. The writing was already on the wall for the plugin's fate. Mozilla in October of last year said it would remove support for plugins like Silverlight and Java in Firefox by the end of this year, while Chrome already stopped supporting plugins (like Java) that use the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) standard, choosing instead to run with a plugin technology called Pepper Plugin API (PPAPI). Microsoft's Edge browser doesn't support plugins, period. Businesses that rely on the Java plugin might be upset about the move, but the web at large is cheering it—Java's been a pretty constant target of hackers, causing more than a few headaches for IT admins who have to deal with the aftermath. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12 Awesome New Vive Demos We Played Posted: 28 Jan 2016 07:48 AM PST | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Jan 2016 12:00 AM PST This article was published in the Holiday 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here. Assembling the cage Most of the time, our builds end up in PC cases that encloses the guts on all six sides. Even if there is a side panel window, five out of six sides remain mostly or totally opaque. That means that the case is on display, not the parts. Since the case is only a fraction of the cost of the PC, it's a shame to hide all those parts away behind sheets of black steel or aluminum. We wanted to try out this open-air case because it gives us a chance to look at those parts that are too often hidden away. But with beauty comes pain. An open-air case like this one presented some unique challenges for our build. Even with those challenges, we were happy with the final result. Rounding up the partsWhen we set out to do this build, we wanted to include some shiny-new, recently released parts. This, of, course meant we had to go with Skylake; we've been overdue for a build that used Intel's latest architecture. For graphics though, we had a choice to make: we could go lower-end with the recently released GTX 950, or go bigger with the AMD's R9 Nano. Guess which way we went? More power is sexier, so we went with the Nano, which fit really well in this mini-ITX build. It's been a minute since we went with an AMD GPU in one of our monthly builds, and the Nano felt like the obvious choice for this form factor. The CPU and GPU found their home on the Gigabyte GA-Z170N motherboard, which supports DDR4 and offers up a wireless connection with an included mini-PCIe Wi-Fi card. We had an EVGA Z170 board on hand, but for this build, we felt that the included Wi-Fi capability was a good reason to choose one board over the other. We do wish that the mobo came with on-board power and reset buttons like the EVGA model does. Since this is a Z170 board, we had to go with DDR4 memory. We got a couple of 8GB sticks of 2666MHz Corsair Dominator for the job. All of our parts found a comfy, airy home in the In Win D-Frame Mini. We really liked this model with its orange-and-blue frame, but the D-Frame also comes in black-and-red and red-and-black. The cool thing about the case is that there's no clear top or bottom; the only thing you need to worry about is access to ports and buttons. The 750W power supply is plenty for the assortment of parts we chose, and since mini-ITX is limited to one GPU, there's no need to worry about extra headroom for SLI or Crossfire. However, the extra wattage does allow for single-GPU upgrades, or the addition of some spinning drives.
All prices reflect market pricing at time of writing. Step 1 – Hot Stuff
The Radeon R9 Nano a quite the powerful GPU, given its tiny form factor. However, we noticed that this card got pretty toasty when we ran our graphics benchmarks. While normal closed cases could solve this by channeling a lot of air through the case, we were low on options because there was no way to effectively push extra air over the card. The air coming from our CPU radiator was nice and cool, but the slight offset of the motherboard meant that the Nano wouldn't get any of those cool breezes. Placing the "front" glass panel on the case helped a little bit, but at the end of the day, the Nano breathes best with a little extra air flow from a case fan. If we were to redesign the case, we'd like to see an extra removable bracket for a case fan, just below the GPU mount. This would allow extra-toasty GPUs that would usually have more forced air to stay a bit cooler under load. Step 2 – Side MountedThe PSU is the heaviest component in nearly any build, so mounting it on the side of the case might seem counter-intuitive. Not so, with the D-Frame. The PSU happily occupies a bracket on the side of the cage, but doesn't make the cage feel off-balance. Since mini-ITX builds will rarely see high-wattage PSUs, extra support for a potential 1600W monster wasn't warranted here. In this photo, we show the cage positioned with the PSU on the bottom. To make things a little neater, we went with individually sheathed cables, which are easier to manipulate. These cables can also be used with cable combs for an ultra-clean look, though we just went with trusty zip ties. Routing the cables was a bit tricky with a smooth aluminum plate instead of a motherboard tray rife with cable-management tie loops. Luckily, the cage came with a few accessories that helped out with wrangling the cables. Like we'd recommend for most mini-ITX builds, we used a modular power supply, so there's no need to stash unused cables. That's a big deal in a case where there are no hiding places for your cabling. The glass on this cage is tinted, so black cables don't exactly advertise their presence on the back side. If you prefer white or other bright-colored cables, be prepared to get creative to keep them neat. The tinting only hides so much. Step 3 – USB 3.0 WoesIf there was one beef we had with this motherboard, it was the positioning of the USB 3.0 front panel connection. At first glance, it didn't look so bad, but after you figure in the presence of a GPU, it became clear that there was no sexy, clean way to attach the cable. To the left, you have the R9 Nano, and routing under the GPU between the PCIe slot and the "back" panel was too tight of a squeeze. If we came from below, we'd have to let the cable cross over both the memory and CPU. That just wouldn't do. We decided to run the cable over the "top," which routes it over a pair of USB ports and the Wi-Fi antenna connectors. The result was the best of a bunch of less-than-ideal options. There really wasn't an attractive way to do this. If there's an upside to this, it's that the USB cable is braided, which makes it at least look good, even if it is in the way. Then again, some may like the appearance of a cable or two jutting out of the mobo, giving it a bit of a cybernetic look. We won't judge. Step 4 – Silent StorageWith the recent release of the 2TB Samsung 850 EVO, we thought that it would be the perfect storage solution for a mini-ITX build. Having two whole terabytes available on an SSD is pricey (at $800, this SSD is a luxury item), but it has its advantages: It eliminates the need for having a small HDD for Steam games or media files, and it means that there's one less moving part to fail from frequent moves to and from LAN parties or events. It also means that the machine will be a little quieter. In a cage-type case, it's easy to forget that an enclosed case muffles sounds of fans, and hard drives searching for, reading, and writing data. The high-speed clicks of the hard drive disappear when using an SSD, leaving only the CPU cooler and GPU as noise sources. Another thing we noticed was the black finish on the 850 EVO is very similar to the finish of the aluminum mount of the D-Frame. This makes the slim little SSD seem to disappear, until you look from the top and see the Samsung label on its face. The one downside to this mount was that the drive is just a little too far from the edge of the plate (about two or three millimeters), which made it a little hairy when we tried using an L-shaped SATA cable. Step 5 – Dominating the CageWhen we went looking for memory to put in the build, we wanted to go big on the capacity. As we looked, we noticed that most of our DDR4 kits come are 16GB, but in 4x4GB kits. Bummer. As we searched and searched, we remembered: We had a machine sitting in our lab that could donate a few sticks for our purposes. We grabbed two 8GB stick of Corsair Dominator RAM from our 2015 Dream Machine, and pressed them into service in this build. The 2,666MHz sticks are plenty fast, and didn't give us any problems at boot. However, just as with most X99 systems, our Z170 board from Gigabyte defaulted to setting the RAM clocks at 2,133MHz. The problem was quickly solved by upping the multiplier for the RAM clock, granting us our desired 2,666MHz. Leaving the RAM at 2,133MHz wouldn't have hurt performance much since RAM clocks are rarely a bottleneck these days. In other mini-ITX builds, going with 2,133MHz DDR4 RAM modules would be just fine in most cases, and you'll save a little coin by forgoing higher RAM clocks. Step 6 – One Cool CageOne of the neat things about this build was the way the cage accommodated our cooling solution. The cage comes with a bracket for a 240mm closed-loop cooler, which sits out of the way at the "bottom" of the cage. We were able to get our Deepcool Maelstrom 240 snugly situated in the bracket, with nary a screw to secure it in place. Other coolers might not simply stay put with friction alone, so the eight screw holes can be used to secure fans to the bracket for a more secure fit. The Deepcool cooler was our backup choice in this build, though. We tried using another, bigger cooler, but for some reason it wouldn't have good enough contact with our CPU, which resulted in some problems booting. The larger cooler did fit on—not in—the bracket when we flipped it upside down, though. The one main gripe we had about using a 240mm cooler with this mobo was the lack of PWN pinouts. The motherboard offers two pinouts: CPU and a case fan. Both pinouts are four-pin, but the lack of a CPU_OPT or second case fan pinout meant that we had to do something to get three PWM connectors (two fans and one pump) fit on two pinouts.
Breaking OutThrowing all of these parts together in a cage was a lot of fun and was quite a different building experience. Such a build requires you to think more about the aesthetics of the build's entirety, since there's no hiding of cables or extraneous accessories here. Like we said earlier, though, an open-air case build is not without its challenges. One of those major challenges was the cooling system. We started off with a larger cooler that ended up not maintaining good contact with our CPU for some reason, so we had to go with the Deepcool we had on standby. Once we had the radiator and pump in place, we had three PWM connectors to plug in, but only two pinouts to work with. Problems. We solved this in a roundabout way. First, we plugged the two fans for the radiator into the CPU and case fan pinouts. We then connected the pump to a two-pin Molex-to-PWM adapter. This had two consequences, which we weren't exactly fond of. First, the two fans ran at different speeds, since each PWM pinout runs as a function of a different temperature sensor. The CPU fan is a function of CPU temps, as you'd expect, but the case fan takes temps from the motherboard itself. While we stayed at acceptably cool temperatures due to the large radiator, we wouldn't do this when overclocking, as the fan plugged into the case fan connector wouldn't rev up as temps increase. Not good. The other bad side effect was that the water pump runs at full speed while connected to the two-pin adapter. Normally, you'd connect the pump to a four-pin pinout for much of the same reason you'd attach the radiator fans to them. However, we just needed the pump to work, so we put up with this while we ran our benchmarks. We wouldn't recommend attaching fans and pumps this way, and ideally, we'd use a PWM two- or three-way splitter and attach the single side to the CPU PWM connector. But sometimes, you just gotta make things work. Speaking of benchmarks, our caged rig did pretty well in some aspects, while relatively poorly—compared to our three-way SLI zero-point—in others. In the single-threaded CPU benchmarks, the i7-6700K Skylake performed well, outpacing the i7-5960X in our zero-point. With a 240mm cooling setup, we believe this CPU could score even higher with a little bit of overclocking. When we reviewed the CPU, we found that the 6700K can get a 17 percent performance boost from overclocking. Not bad at all. When it came to the 3D application benchmarks, the little R9 Nano put up a good fight. Considering our beefy zero-point machine has three GTX 980s in SLI, a single GPU can hardly expect to beat it in raw frames per second. Despite having less than half the 3DMark score in Fire Strike Ultra, the Nano delivered playable framerates in Tomb Raider and Shadow of Mordor at 4K. Remember that these benchmarks are stress tests, so turning off or reducing antialiasing will render much better framerates at 4K, without a big difference in video quality. In Batman: Arkham City at 1440p, the 92fps means that there's plenty of power there to keep a FreeSync 1440p monitor synced and happy at 60Hz. In the multithreaded test, x.264, the octa-core 5960X still reigns supreme, with double the cores that Skylake has to offer. While that seems damning on its surface, the majority of applications people interact with on a daily basis don't take full advantage of multithreading anyway. For most gamers and enthusiasts who don't encode video all day, this build would perform nicely. And with its small, portable, and unique form factor, this PC can be quite the conversation starter at a LAN party.
Our desktop zero point PC uses a 5960X CPU, three GTX 980s, and 16GB of RAM. Arkham City tested at 2560x1440 max settings with PhysX off. Tomb Raider at Ultimate settings. Shadow of Mordor at Max settings. |
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