General Gaming Article |
- Second Google Wallet Vulnerability Found, Affects All Users
- Google Testing Wireless Music Streaming System
- Step-By-Step Guide: How To Build a Gaming PC With AMD's Bulldozer CPU
- Google Drive Cloud Storage: Is Google Preparing To Muscle In On Dropbox?
- Hitachi Launches First 25nm SLC Enterprise-Class SSDs with Intel Inside
- Gorilla Glass-Covered HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook Available For Preorder
- VIA Unveils Dual-Core EPIA-M910 Mini-ITX Board
- Asus Rolls Out New Firmware to Fix Reboot Issue in Transformer Prime
- Researchers Get Integrated GPU/CPU Working Together, Boost Processor Performance 20 Percent
- Google Tries to Bribe Web Users with Gift Certificates to Track Surfing Behavior
| Second Google Wallet Vulnerability Found, Affects All Users Posted: 09 Feb 2012 02:52 PM PST
If a third party gains access to your device, it is a simple matter to access Google Wallet. After clearing the app data for Wallet, the malicious individual just has to go to the Wallet app, and add the default Google account again and set up a PIN. Since Google's pre-paid card is tied to hardware, and not to the PIN, any funds you've added to that card are accessible to the thief. Yikes. For the time being, all users of Wallet are advised to set a pattern or PIN lock on their devices to prevent unauthorized access. No payment system is entirely secure; your credit cards certainly don't require a PIN. Still, users are never going to trust mobile payments if they are vulnerable to these hacks. |
| Google Testing Wireless Music Streaming System Posted: 09 Feb 2012 02:37 PM PST
The system does not have a name anyone is willing to mention yet, but there are hints that Google will be using Android as the base of the system. Past devices like the Google TV and Nexus phones have been built with partners, but this new streaming device will be all Google. Sources say that the system will be controlled via smartphones and tablets, and that leads many to suspect an Android@Home tie in. Android@Home was a home automaton service demoed at Google I/O 2011. With the search giant's pending acquisition of Motorola Mobility, this move makes perfect sense. Motorola Mobility is responsible for most of the cable boxes in the U.S.. Sonos already occupies this market space, but its system is expensive. If Google can undercut the current market leaders, it might have an angle into the living room. |
| Step-By-Step Guide: How To Build a Gaming PC With AMD's Bulldozer CPU Posted: 09 Feb 2012 12:57 PM PST The MissionAMD's Bulldozer architecture finally hit retail in October 2011, and Gordon put the highest-performing chip, the FX-8150, through the wringer. His conclusion: It's a decent competitor to Intel's i5-2500K, but no match for the (much more expensive) Sandy Bridge-E or 2600K parts. And that's OK; there are plenty of reasons to want a solid midrange performer. Maybe you really, really want to be able to say you have an eight-core processor. Maybe you're opposed to Intel for religious reasons. Or maybe you just want real PCIe x16 lanes without having to put out for the pricey X79 platform. Whatever your reason, an FX-8150 can be a respectable foundation for a solid gaming rig since modern gaming is still more about the GPU than the CPU. In this article, we'll give you a step-by-step walkthrough of our build--if you're wondering how to build a killer gaming PC of your own, read on!
Building from the CPU OutCentral to my build, of course, is AMD's top-tier Bulldozer part, the 3.6GHz FX-8150. It'll rest in Asus's Sabertooth 990FX motherboard, which has USB 3.0, six SATA 6Gb/s ports, and plenty of PCIe x16 lanes. The 990FX isn't markedly different from 890FX except for one glaring change: Board vendors are now offering SLI "support" (read unlock codes) in the BIOS. I was originally going to use Cooler Master's Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler, but in the course of overclocking I decided to swap it out for AMD's Asetek-built Bulldozer FX liquid cooler, which bears a very strong resemblance to Antec's Kuhler 920. To keep things in the AMD house and at the $1,500 price point, my graphics card of choice is the Radeon HD 6970. It's got enough juice to power any game on the market at reasonable settings, and at $330 it fits well with my budget without being a budget card. NZXT's just-launched Phantom 410 is a smaller version of the original Phantom, with a few more fans and USB 3.0 support. Corsair's TX750 v2 PSU is more than enough power for my overclocks and any extra graphics cards I want to add later. The one wild card in my build is the hard drive. Thanks to the still-ongoing Thailand floods, the price of a 750GB 2.5-inch hybrid drive is (at press time) only a little more than a 1TB 3.5-inch drive. The 8GB of NAND cache on the Momentus XT gives a performance boost to my most frequently accessed sectors of the disk, so boot and oft-used programs will be faster. Assembling the HardwareStep 1: Prep the BoardTo install the CPU, lift the socket arm and gently lower the CPU into place, making sure the triangle on the CPU's corner is aligned with the correct corner in the socket. Lower the lever back into place. Install the RAM into the second and fourth slots (the tan ones). Step 2: Prep the Case and Install MotherboardBefore we start building into the case, it's time to move some fans. Remove the side, top, and front panels from the case, then remove the rear 12cm exhaust fan and top 14cm exhaust fan. This will involve unplugging them from their fan controller connectors behind the motherboard tray. Use the long screws provided to install the 12cm fan in the front of the case, directly above the existing intake fan. Reconnect it to one of the fan control connectors behind the motherboard tray. Set aside the 14cm fan and its screws for now. Install the motherboard standoffs in standard ATX configuration, put the motherboard I/O shield in place, then install the motherboard in the case. Step 3: Install the CPU CoolerIf you're getting flashbacks to last month, I don't blame you. AMD's Bulldozer-branded liquid-cooling system is built by Asetek, the same OEM who makes Intel's RST2011LC liquid cooler, and is, in fact, nearly identical to the Asetek-made Antec Kuhler 920. The instructions say to install the cooling fans as intakes, but we're going to use ours as exhaust. Attach one fan to the inside of the cooler, then attach the other through the exhaust fan mounts to the radiator (image D). Run the radiator fans' power cables behind the motherboard tray. Next, assemble the cooler mounting bracket as shown in AMD's instructions and clip it to the CPU heatsink. Unscrew the four screws attaching AMD's cooling mount to the backplate and remove the plastic mounts. Mount the CPU cooler/pump unit to the AMD backplate, tightening the mounting screws in an X-shaped pattern. Attach the 3-pin pump power cable to the CPU_FAN header and run the radiator fan Y-connector behind the motherboard tray to the radiator fan cables. Run the USB 2.0 cable behind the motherboard tray to the bottom of the motherboard and connect it to a USB 2.0 header). Install the GPU in to the topmost x16 PCIe slot. Step 4: Install the DrivesRemove the top optical drive bezel and replace the case's front panel. Slide the optical drive into that bay and secure it with the toolless mechanism. Add thumbscrews if you like. Take a hard drive tray from the cage and remove the mounting posts from the sides. Install the Momentus XT using the 2.5-inch mounting holes on the bottom of the tray. Replace in bay. Step 5: Install the PSUInstall the power supply into the case with the fan facing down. Bring the dual-4-pin ATX auxiliary power cable, 24-pin ATX power cable, and two 6-pin PCIe power cables through the cutout nearest the PSU to the back of the motherboard tray. Bring the auxiliary ATX power cable through the opening at the top of the motherboard tray and connect it (image I). Bring the 24-pin motherboard power cable through the top side cutout and connect it, then connect the 6-pin PCIe connectors to the GPU—one will require the use of the 2-pin connector, as well. Step 6: Finish the WiringReplace the top 14cm fan, but flip it around so that it's used as an intake fan rather than exhaust. This will keep the motherboard voltage regulators under the radiator from overheating. Connect the fan power lead to one of the fan controller connectors behind the motherboard tray. Connect the front-panel connector power and LED switches to the board, as well as the HD Audio, USB 2.0, and USB 3.0 connectors. Connect SATA power and data cables to the optical and hard drives, then connect 6Gb/s SATA cables from the drives to the lowest set of SATA ports on the motherboard. Use zip ties to tie excess fan controller connectors and case wiring to the rear of the motherboard tray. Bundle the unused power connectors here as well, if you can fit them.
Step 6: Into the BIOSAt this point you should connect your monitor, mouse, and keyboard and turn on the rig. Enter the BIOS's Advanced Mode, go to Boot, and deselect "Wait for F1 on Error." This will prevent the system from hanging up due to a perceived fan-speed error from the pump. Exit out of the BIOS, and install Windows and your drivers as normal, making sure to install the ChillControl software for the CPU cooler. Once Windows is set up and working, it's time to tweak the CPU a little bit. Bulldozer parts seem to vary in their overclocking stability: After many overly ambitious overclocks, I got to 4.2GHz, mostly by upping the CPU multiplier, but I've seen overclocks of over 4.8GHz with the same CPU and motherboard, so your mileage may vary. Middle-Class Dreams AcquiredGiven that Gordon had already benchmarked the FX-8150, I wasn't expecting miracles, and I didn't get them. The Bulldozer rig pulled down respectable scores for a $1,500 rig, but I didn't really see any benefit from eight cores at 4.2GHz that wasn't exceeded by a quad-core i7-920 at 3.5GHz. I was really surprised by both the difficulty of maintaining a stable overclock and the lack of oomph I got when I did manage to overclock. After spending hours trying to stabilize my Bulldozer system at 4.8GHz and 4.6GHz, both of which I'd seen run on the same motherboard with the same processor, I had to lower my sights a little. I finally settled on a stable 4.2GHz—17 percent faster than stock. On CPU-bound benchmarks, though, like Vegas Pro and MainConcept Reference, I saw less than a 10 percent improvement over the FX-8150 at stock, and the other benchmarks showed even less improvement. FX-8150 chips seem to be variable in their tolerance for overclocks, so you might have better luck. Of course, the lower scores on encoding tests could also have to do with my boot drive. I normally prefer to run with an SSD boot drive, but I went with a hybrid drive this time. The disk access speed and slower-than-solid-state write speeds doubtless affected the encoding tests, which all involve reading and writing large files to the disk. That said, Bulldozer does offer better thermal performance. My FX-8150 never got above 55 C, even running Prime95 at 4.2GHz, which is far lower than we'd see from the overclocked i7-920 in our zero-point test bed. If your budget allows for it, you may want to go for a multi-GPU setup. Unlike Sandy Bridge motherboards, which can run two x16 PCIe videocards but only at x8, the Sabretooth 990FX can run them at their full x16 speed. Does it really make a big difference? In the vast majority of cases no, but hell, you can at least rub it in the noses of your friends running at x8 speeds. For a $1,500 machine, the Bulldozer rig does offer a lot of performance, although unless you're running heavily multithreaded applications you probably won't notice the difference between its eight cores and a decent quad-core—especially if the quad has Hyper-Threading. At this point, diehard AMD fans will probably just be happy to hear that a Bulldozer-powered rig holds its own at its price point. A Bulldozer rig isn't the fastest money can buy, but for the price, you get a lot of cores, decent performance, and full PCIe lanes to grown into.
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| Google Drive Cloud Storage: Is Google Preparing To Muscle In On Dropbox? Posted: 09 Feb 2012 11:03 AM PST
The Wall Street Journal just released a report claiming that the mythical Google Drive project is actually on the verge of launching sometime in "the coming weeks or months." (Way to be vague!) Allegedly, the storage service will -- duh -- allow users to upload files and access them anywhere there's an Internet connection. Sharing should be supported, in the form of SkyDrive- or Megaupload-esque links to the stored file. Additionally, the WSJ reports that Google Drive will include a synching function across numerous devices, similar to the way portions of Google's own Calendar/Gmail and Apple's iCloud currently work. Plus, since Google already owns its own cloud servers and doesn't have to rent space from others, the company reportedly hopes to be able to undercut Dropbox's current pricing scheme. Sounds awesome, eh? Rumorware always does, and GDrive's been on the tips of waggling tongues for a while now. Still, if Google Drive (as described above) hit the virtual streets today, I'd be all over it, new privacy policy and all. We'll let you know if Google confirms, well, anything. Image credit: bizcloudnetwork.com |
| Hitachi Launches First 25nm SLC Enterprise-Class SSDs with Intel Inside Posted: 09 Feb 2012 10:56 AM PST
The new Ultrastar SSD400S.B family is the first in the business to use 25nm SLC NAND flash chips, a more expensive solution to multi-level cell (MLC) chips, but also more reliable, which is why they're preferred in mission critical environments. Hitachi's new SSDs are shipping in 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB flavors and feature 2.5-inch 6Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interfaces. They've been rated to race along at up to 536MB/s for sequential reads and up to 502MB/s for sequential writes, along with up to 57,000 read and up to 25,500 sustained write IOPS. Pricing has not been announced, but considering these are enterprise drives with SLC memory, they won't be cheap. Image Credit: Hitachi |
| Gorilla Glass-Covered HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook Available For Preorder Posted: 09 Feb 2012 10:38 AM PST
It isn't cheap, though; the Ultrabook targets the 1 percent of laptop users with its $1,400 price tag. For the cash, you'll get an Intel Core i5-2467M processor running at 1.6GHz, 4GB of RAM, a backlit keyboard and a 128GB SSD. The aforementioned HD+ Radiance Infinity display clocks in at 1600x900 resolution. (Most Ultrabooks and other laptops sport 1366x768, with the Asus Zenbook UX31E and the MacBook Air being two notable exceptions.) The screen is coated with a layer of tough as nails Gorilla Glass -- as is the top of the lid, the palmrest and the touchpad. Upgrading to a 256 GB SSD and a Core i7 processor will jack the price up to $1,900. You can pre-order the Spectre now and expect it to ship on the 17th. |
| VIA Unveils Dual-Core EPIA-M910 Mini-ITX Board Posted: 09 Feb 2012 10:31 AM PST
Customers have a choice of picking up the EPIA-M901 configured with an active or passive cooling solution with a 1.6GHz VIA Nano X2 dual-core processor or a fanless 1GHz VIA Eden X2 dual-core chip, both of which are paired with a VIA VX900 media system processor. "The VIA EPIA-M910 Mini-ITX board delivers a highly optimized platform that boasts comprehensive HD video performance, HD audio and HDMI support in a compact, power-efficient package" said Epan Wu, Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "The rich I/O provides the connectivity and flexibility demanded by today's ever diversifying embedded applications." Those I/O options Wu brags about include HDMI, VGA, pin headers for two 24-bit LVDS (one single-channel and one dual-channel), eight USB 2.0 ports, dual GbE LAN ports, eight COM ports (expandable to 12 with the VIA LPC-01/02 add-on card), a PS/2 port, audio jacks, PCI-E x4 slot, and a pair of SATA ports. It also boasts support for up to 8GB of DDR3 memory. No word on price or availability. VIA EPIA-M901 Mini-ITX Product Page Image Credit: VIA |
| Asus Rolls Out New Firmware to Fix Reboot Issue in Transformer Prime Posted: 09 Feb 2012 10:13 AM PST
"New FOTA update is rolling out for the #TF201 Prime. Fixes the random reboot problem. Have you got yours yet?," @AsusUK posted to Twitter today. U.K. vendor Clove said it was pulling its stock of Transformer Prime tablets after supposedly discovering an undisclosed mystery issue via internal testing. Asus was quick to release a statement saying it isn't away of any quality issues with the Transformer Prime, and then later told The Inquirer that Clove only received a single unit, suggesting its claims of "thorough testing" were hogwash. Clove, meanwhile, told The Inquirer it received a "reasonable stock allocation" and said the main factors that drew red flags during testing were related to Wi-Fi and GPS. There was no mention of random reboots. Image Credit: Asus |
| Researchers Get Integrated GPU/CPU Working Together, Boost Processor Performance 20 Percent Posted: 09 Feb 2012 09:59 AM PST
The trick lies in playing to the individual strengths of each type of processing unit. GPUs can pound out multiple computations very efficiently, while CPUs are better at "thinking out" complex tasks. "Our approach is to allow the GPU cores to execute computational functions, and have CPU cores pre-fetch the data the GPUs will need from off-chip main memory," says Dr. Huiyang Zhou, a NCSU professor. The researchers have dubbed the technique CPU-Assisted GPGPU, and report a whopping 21.4 percent average performance gain using the process on benchmark processors constructed similarly to Sandy Bridge and AMD APUs. The full research paper won't be released until the end of the month, but if you want more details about CPU-Assisted GPGPU -- like how the CPU dumps prefetched data into the shared L3 cache for the GPU to access -- be sure to check out the explanation at the bottom of the "CPU-Assisted GPGPU on Fused CPU-GPU Architectures" abstract page. It's worth noting that AMD helped fund the project, along with the National Science Foundation, and one of its employees is a co-author of the report. Image credit: notebookcheck.net |
| Google Tries to Bribe Web Users with Gift Certificates to Track Surfing Behavior Posted: 09 Feb 2012 09:50 AM PST
It's part of a new project called Screenwise, and if you agree to become a panelist, you'll be asked to install a nosy browser extension that snoops what sites you visit and how you use them, and then shares that information with Google. "What we learn from you, and others like you, will us improve Google products and services and make a better online experiences for everyone," Google explains. After signing up and downloading the extension, Google's panel management partner, Knowledge Networks, will send you a $5 Amazon gift card code. You'll then receive another $5 code every three months as long as you continue to participate, up to $25. If you do that math, that works out to a little over $2 per month in Amazon currency for a full year of snooping. There may be an opportunity to earn even more. According to Arstechnica, Google has a second option in mind. It's offering to send out a limited number of specially modified Cisco-brand routers (Screenwise Data Collectors) to spy on your entire household in exchange for a $100 up front and an additional $20 per month for up to a year of participation. If that's a big enough bribe, or if you simply want to help Google with its mission, you can sign up here. |
There was a brief scare earlier today when it was reported that Google Wallet, Google's mobile NFC payment solution was vulnerable to a PIN harvesting attack. That only affected rooted devices, but now a 
A new report from the Wall Street Journal is shedding some light on recent rumors that Googlers have been testing a mysterious 
Google's sticking its proverbial fingers into a whole lot of proverbial pies right now: search, social media, advertising, smartphones, restaurant reviews, self-driving cars and a ton more. A rumor swirling around the 'Net says the company's about to offer all those, +1 more: a cloud storage service similar to Dropbox. Yes, the long whispered-about GDrive service has reared its elusive head again -- but now it's just called Drive.
Mum's the word on what controller Hitachi has attached to its 
HP jumped into the Ultrabook game with its business-focused Folio 13, but the company's first foray into the consumer field is the product that caught all the buzz at CES. Like every Ultrabook, the super-sleek Envy 14 Spectre sports a Sandy Bridge processor and an SSD, but it also packs a higher display resolution than most of its competitors and Gorilla Glass on, well, pretty much everything. Why are we talking about it a month after CES? Because the Spectre just became available for preorder.
Taiwanese motherboard and chipset manufacturer, VIA Technologies, today announced the 'EPIA-M901 Mini-ITX' board, it's latest dual-core mini-ITX platform with tons of I/O options to accommodate a plethora of embedded applications, everything from ATMs and kiosks, to digital signage, healthcare, and digital media applications, the company said.
After denying a U.K. retailer's claims that there are problems with the Transformer Prime tablet, Asus today confirmed the existence of a "random reboot problem" and has begun rolling out an over the air (OTA) firmware fix. The new firmware isn't showing up online, but if you head over to Settings > About Tablet > System Firmware Update, you can grab the latest build, which is version 9.4.2.13.
They say two heads are better than one, but in processors with integrated graphics -- think Intel's Sandy Bridge or AMD's APUs -- the GPU and CPU actually do very little communicating. For the most part, the GPU does its thing while the CPU knocks about on something else. There has to be something better! And as it turns out, there is: a group of researchers from North Carolina State University recently coaxed CPUs and GPUs on integrated processors into helping each other out, and they report a performance boost of over 20 percent as a result.
Google wants to know what sites you visit, when you visit them, and what you do when you're there. It wants to spy on your Web surfing behavior, to know details that perhaps even your significant other doesn't know, and it's willing to pay you if you'll agree to let it relentlessly follow you around the Web. If you do, you'll receive up to $25 in cold, hard... gift certificates.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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