| Asus ROG's New Flagship Z170 Motherboard is the Maximus VIII Extreme Posted: 21 Sep 2015 11:18 AM PDT Big and bad (in a good way)  There's been a lot of talk and movement in the pint sized PC category as of late, including the release of mini ITX and micro ATX motherboards and graphics cards like the Radeon R9 Nano. If there's an antithesis to that small form factor way of thinking, it's the new Maximus VIII Extreme from Asus ROG. The Maximus VIII Extreme is a giant sized Extended ATX (E-ATX) motherboard measuring 12 inches by 10.7 inches. This isn't a board you can slap into an ordinary ATX chassis, let alone a SFF case. Instead, this is a motherboard for the "go big or go home" crowd, which tend to be overclockers and gamers, both which Asus is catering to with the Maximus VIII Extreme based on Intel's Z170 Express chipset. According to Asus, its newest flagship is built to handle "extreme overclocking." To help with that, it includes the company's OC Panel II with a 2.6-inch display for system monitoring and tweaking. The OC Panel II occupies a 5.25-inch drive bay and provides real-time monitoring of various vitals, such as CPU temperature, ratios, clockspeeds, and fan speeds. There's also an OC button. You can also use the OC Panel II as an external console for more extreme overclocking goals. When doing so, you'll have access to features like Subzeor Sense, VGA Hotwire, Slow Mode, and a Pause switch. There are a ton of amenities and features on this board. A look at the spec sheet reveals four DIMM slots with support for up 64GB of DDR4-3866 RAM, four PCI-E 3.0/2.0 x16 slots, two PCI-E 3.0 x1 slots, HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 connectivity, two SATA Express ports, eight SATA 6Gbps ports, M.2 and U.2 (one each), GbE LAN, four USB 3.1 ports (three of the Type-A variety and a single Type-C port), eight USB 3.0 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, Thunderbolt 3 (Type-C), 8-channel audio, and various other odds and ends. Asus didn't say when the Maximus VIII Extreme will be available or for how much. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Leaked Microsoft Band 2 Image Shows a Curved Display Posted: 21 Sep 2015 10:43 AM PDT A better looking fitness band  Microsoft is getting ready to launch new hardware devices during a press event scheduled for October 6 (two Tuesdays from now). One of the things it's likely to reveal is a second generation fitness band (Microsoft Band 2), and based on some leaked images making the rounds, it appears Microsoft made an effort to make its Band a bit more stylish. If the leaked images originating from Spanish-language website MicrosofInsider.es turn out to be accurate -- and they certainly look like official press renders, but you never know with these things -- then the Microsoft Band 2 (codenamed Envoy) will sport a curved display with metallic accents on the front panel and physical buttons on the side. This is in contrast to the current Microsoft Band, which features a flat display on top with no metal accents. The design is a common criticism of what's otherwise a well received wearable. Microsoft's second generation fitness band will also come with more sensors than the original, according to MicrosoftInsider.es. One of them is said to be an altimeter for detecting altitude (can be used to track going up and down stairs). While nothing is yet confirmed, Microsoft is also expected to debut a Surface Pro 4 tablet and at least two high end Lumia smartphones during its event next month in New York City. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Pesky Skype Bug Disrupts Service in Multiple Ways Posted: 21 Sep 2015 08:45 AM PDT Skype service coughs up a hairball  Don't bother troubleshooting your Skype installation if you're experiencing trouble today, chances are it has nothing to do with you. The voice and app messaging service acknowledged that there's "an issue that is affecting Skype in a number of ways," including an inability to sign into the service. For those who were already signed in when the bug hit, their contacts would show as offline, making it so they couldn't place calls. In addition, Microsoft noted that a "small number of messages to group chats are not being delivered," though otherwise messaging was still working. "We are working to fix an issue which is preventing some users from logging in and using Skype. We apologize for any inconvenience," Skype stated in a Twitter post. So what's going on? Skype didn't say, though in a followup post this morning, the service announced that it has "identified the network issue" preventing users from logging in. It's also "focused on restoring full service." Skype isn't the only service having issues today. As reported by The Next Web, Amazon Web Services is experiencing a server issue in Virginia that's disrupting products and services including Netflix, Product Hunt, Medium, SocialFlow, Buffer, GroupMe, Pocket, Viber Amazon Echo, and others. I haven't tested any services linked to AWS, though I did experience the Skype glitches first hand this morning. Having already been signed in, it showed I was offline along with all of my contacts. After signing out, I was unable to sign back in. That's still true as of this writing. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Review: MSI GT80 Titan Posted: 21 Sep 2015 12:00 AM PDT We've been asked a more than a few times why there aren't any gaming laptops with mechanical keyboards, and up until now our response has always been, "Because that would be stupid." MSI has thrown traditional laptop conventions out of the window by introducing its GT80 Titan, the world's first gaming laptop with an integrated mechanical keyboard, and slap us on our butts and call us Sally if it doesn't work in its own little, or shall we say, big, way. Specifically, the GT80 Titan uses a tenkeyless keyboard designed by SteelSeries, outfitted with Cherry MX Brown switches. The keyboard also supports red LED backlighting. Overall, it looks and feels surprisingly great. The Brown switches offer a nice sense of tactility without being too noisy. While it is a tenkeyless keyboard, MSI has also interestingly integrated its trackpad on the right side, sort of like what Razer did with its Razer Blade 17-inch laptop. The placement of the trackpad is a little awkward, but you'll get used to it eventually. And by holding pressing the num lock key, the track pad doubles as a numpad, which is kind of neat. The keyboard and trackpad aren't the only unique features of the laptop. The GT80 Titan also features two GeForce GTX 980Ms. These two mobile GPUs easily beat a desktop 980, and interestingly enough, a single 980M has 8GB of VRAM vs. the desktop equivalent's 4GB. The 980Ms here feature core clocks of 1,030MHz, memory clocks of 1,253MHz, and boost clocks of 1,127MHz. The laptop also features a Haswell i7-4720HQ CPU that's clocked at 2.6GHz (with a boost clock of 3.6GHz). To go along with the quad-core/eight-thread CPU is 16GB of DDR3 RAM. Storage side, the laptop rocks 256GBs of SSD storage in RAID 0, and it has a 1TB HDD, too. All of this is housed in the large bay above the keyboard. While laptops generally aren't too modular, the GT80 Titan allows you to access this bay to swap out its storage drives, RAM, and even its MXM GPUs. In regard to the chassis itself, the GT80 Titan features a plethora of features and ports. There's basically everything you need here to act as your desktop replacement. While its panel isn't likely to be as big as your favorite standalone monitor, its 18.4 inch screen is big for a laptop. It has great colors and fantastic viewing angles. There is no touchscreen, however, which definitely would have been nice to have. Our biggest gripe with the monitor, however, is that it still uses a 1080p panel. With all that firepower, you'd think MSI would include either a 3K or 4K display. Hell, a 2560x1440 panel would have made much more sense. The problem of course is that no other manufacturers are shipping higher resolution 18.4 inch displays, leaving us in a chicken vs. egg situation. For acoustics, the GT80 sounds really good. The speakers are by Dynaudio and the laptop even has a subwoofer on the bottom; you'll get plenty of volume. The laptop also has two unique buttons: one that allows you to switch between integrated and discrete graphics, and one to enable "cooler boost," which basically pushes the fans to a really loud 100 percent RPM. Luckily, the graphics cards perform like champs without enabling tornado mode to keep things cool. Seriously, the GT80 Titan obliterated our Alienware's 765M GPU by a performance delta of 260–360 percent. With its 1080p panel, you can max out every single game out now with silky smooth frame rates. It's actually way overkill for 1080p. CPU performance wasn't nearly as killer—its processor performed about as well as any modern gaming laptop's i7 would. We saw a 4 percent improvement boost in our x264 benchmark compared to our ZP, where the GT80 Titan's extra 200MHz headroom allowed it to eke out a win. Somehow, MSI was able to judo the laptop's weaknesses into its greatest strengths. Sure, the mechanical keyboard bloats up the chassis, but you're getting some larger-than-life power out of this bad boy as a result. Overall, the design is kind of brilliant as a desktop replacement. For $3,300, it is expensive as hell, but it also packs one hell of a punch. Benchmarks
| Zero-point | MSI GT80 Titan | Percent difference | | Stitch.Efx 2.0 (sec) | 962 | 970 | -0.8% | | Proshow Producer 5 (sec) | 1,629 | 1,623 | 0.4% | | x264 HD 5.0 | 13.5 | 14.1 | 4.4% | | Bioshock Infinite (fps) | 36.1 | 166.8 | 362% | | Metro Last Light (fps) | 30.4 | 109 | 258.6% | | 3DMark 11 Perf | 4,170 | 15,672 | 275.8% | | Battery Life (min) | 234 | 126 | -46.1% | Specifications | CPU | Intel 2.6GHz Core i7-4720HQ | | RAM | 16GB DDR3/1600MHz | | Chipset | Intel HM87 | | GPU | 2x Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M | | Display | 18.4-inch, 1920x1080 (matte) | | Storage | 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD | | Connectivity | 5x USB 3.0, optical port, headset and mic port, SD card reader, optical drive, two Mini DisplayPorts, HDMI port, Ethernet port | | Lap/Carry | 10 lbs, 11.6 oz /13 lbs, 12.8 oz | $3,300, www.msi.com |
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