| 13 Most Anticipated PC Games of E3 2013 Posted: 07 Jun 2013 03:12 PM PDT Battlefield 4, The Witcher 3, and more! The excitement of E3 2013 is heating up and this year is poised to have shocking reveals, next-generation surprises, and amazing PC games. Maximum PC will be at the Los Angeles expo covering the event next week, but we couldn't wait to talk about some of the top-notch games that will surely be there. While we can't preview every PC game at the show, because we're still not 100% sure what's going to be there, we thought we'd select 13 of our most anticipated PC games from the 2013 event. Is there a PC game that you thought we should have included in our gallery below? Let us know in the comments! |
| No BS Podcast #204: Intel's Haswell CPUs, Nvidia's GTX 770, and 4K Displays Posted: 07 Jun 2013 01:57 PM PDT |
| Corsair Announces 2933MHZ DDR3 Memory Posted: 07 Jun 2013 01:11 PM PDT New Vengeance Pro Series RAM to take advantage of Haswell Corsair announced its new Vengeance Pro Series RAM at Computex 2013. According to the company, the new memory is ready for Intel's new Haswell processors and ranges in clocks speeds from 1600MHz up to 2933MHz. 
Corsair's new Vengeance RAM sports a newly designed heat sink. Vengeance Pro Series also supports Intel's XMP 1.3 (Extreme Memory Profile) and comes in black with silver, blue, red, or gold accents. All of the new Vengeance Pro Series DDR3 memory is backed by Corsair's lifetime warranty. Corsair also has an optional Vengeance Pro Airflow fan for its new super-speed memory. The airflow fan is equipped with a 60mm ball-bearing fan and is rated for a life of 80,000 hours at 25 degrees Celsius. |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Video Cards Drop in Price as Supply Issues Ease Posted: 07 Jun 2013 11:51 AM PDT  Watch for falling prices.
Over the past several weeks, AMD has been making a conscious effort to help its hardware partners work through any supply issues they may have been dealing with in regards to the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card. A company spokesman reached out to Maximum PC today to let us know those efforts have begun to "bear fruit," and indeed a quick peek at Newegg reveals one of the lowest prices we've seen for a 7970 GHz card. The Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7970 GHz Edition is selling for $420 (plus $8 shipping), and you can knock another $20 off if you want to play the mail-in-rebate game. This is a fast card with a custom cooler attached, which Sapphire claims both cools better and runs quieter than AMD's reference design. The card is also eligible for AMD's Never Settle Reloaded and Level Up programs. Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics cards from other hardware partners range in price from $450 to $530, depending on the specific model and features. When they first debuted last summer, these graphics cards sold for $500 and up. AMD tells us it's still working with its partners to improve supply, which it said is an "ongoing process." In the meantime, don't be surprised if prices continue to trend downward. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| I Won the Devil 13 HD 7990 Dual-GPU Video Card Posted: 07 Jun 2013 11:36 AM PDT 
Five questions with the winner of our $1K PowerColor Devil 13 HD 7990 giveaway A few months ago we gave away a PowerColor Devil 13 HD 7990, a $1,000+ dual-GPU video card that features two 7970's in CrossFire. The lucky winner of the dual card was Preston Murrell from Marion, Indiana. We wanted to check in with Preston and see what he has done with the Devil 13, so we asked him five questions including what his rig was at the time of winning the video card and if he had ever heard of the Devil 13 video card before entering the constest. Here is the Q&A with our winner. 1. Where do you live and how long have you read Maximum PC? I live in Marion, Indiana where I also go to college. I got in to the computer scene in my freshman year of college and started reading the magazine about two years ago. 2. Before the contest, had you ever heard of the Devil 13? I can't say that I've heard of it before the contest, I mostly used Nvidia cards like the custom EVGA Hydrocopper Editions. I did keep up with mainstream cards from AMD, however. 3. What were the system specs of your machine when you entered the contest? CPU: Intel 2500K - Overclocked to 4.8ghz Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3 Video Card: EVGA 560 ti 1GB (short pcb) Overclocked to 925mhz Memory: 12GB 1333MHz CL 9 G.Skill Value RAM Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB SATA III hard drive Power Supply: Corsair AX 750 Case: Rosewill Challenger Fan controller: Scythe 4 channel fan controller Cooling: Custom CPU water loop XSPC Raystorm XSPC XO2 750 res/pump XSPC RS 360 Radiator Black Primochill 1/2" tubing 4. When you found out you won, what upgrades did you think you would need to make? Case and power supply were my biggest concerns! I had hoped that my Corsair AX 750 power supply would be enough to power my sytem, but it just wasn't stable enough to power my upgraded rig. 5. What upgrades have you made with the Devil 13 since, and how does it run? Since receiving the Devil 13 I have gotten a Corsair 800D and a Corsair Neutron GTX SSD and swaped out to a Corsair TX 850 and the RAM for some Crucial Ballistix 1866 CL 9 RAM for 8GB's worth. I am still planning to go with an even bigger power supply, either a Corsair HX 1050 or a Corsair AX 1200, and I want to add 8GB more of RAM. In terms of the the GPU itself, I haven't done anything as of yet. I want to get the EKWB 7990 waterblock for it, but they are in limited supply and cost about $220 for just the block after shipping so I haven't been able to get one. Hopefully I will get HD 7990 water block and add another 360 mm radiator and a switch MCP35x pump and pumptop so that everything will be quiet. 
Preston's rig after he received the PowerColor Devil 13 HD 7990 If you want to be notified about future contests, giveaways, and other generally cool stuff be sure to be a Fan of our Facebook page. The next giveaway is coming up soon, and without spoiling the surprise, well, we'll just say that for the lucky winner it'll be like a Dream come true. |
| Intel's Thunderbolt Thumb Drive is Twice as Fast as USB 3.0 Posted: 07 Jun 2013 11:08 AM PDT  World's fastest thumb drive uses Thunderbolt, not USB 3.0.
At the Computex trade show in Taipei, Intel was showing off a prototype thumb drive that it claims is the fastest in the world. Intel can make that claim because unlike most other thumb-size flash drives, it plugs into a PC's Thunderbolt port rather than a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port. In true thumb drive fashion, it plugs in without the aid of a cable, giving users fast access to 128GB of flash storage. PCWorld snapped a pic of the prototype drive, which is in the shape of a key. It looks like it's been dropped a few times, as the black paint is worn off a bit on the edges, though it's still a neat looking drive with Intel's logo displayed prominently on the device's head. Looks aside, the drive can transfer data at 10Gbps, or double the theoretical maximum of USB 3.0, which is 5Gbps. The High Speed USB 2.0 spec tops out at 480Mbps. The data on Intel's drive is stored on a SanDisk SSD nestled inside the chassis. What's also neat about the drive is that the speed will go up over time as advances are made to Thunderbolt technology, such as the recent announcement of Thunderbolt 2. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Study Crowns Internet Explorer 10 as the Most Energy Efficient Browser Posted: 07 Jun 2013 09:48 AM PDT  A new twist in the browser wars.
Up to this point, the browser wars have been defined by market share, standards support, privacy protocols, speed, add-ons, and various other features that make surfing the web a more pleasurable experience. Microsoft would be tickled pink if you'd also consider energy efficiency when deciding which browser to use, because if that's your primary criteria, look no further than Internet Explorer 10. According to a new study conducted by Fraunhofer USA, IE10 is the most energy efficient browser on Windows 8, though there a couple of caveats, starting with that fact that this is a Microsoft commissioned study; if you're into conspiracy theories, there you go. It's also worth noting that we're only talking a couple watts difference, at best, depending on the situation. Browsing YouTube on a notebook with Chrome, for example, consumed about 18.5 watts, versus around 17.8 on Firefox and 16.5 on Internet Explorer 10. If you're surfing Craigslist, all three browsers consume a little over 15 watts, on average. If you average out the power consumption when surfing the web's top 10 sites, Chrome consumes 16.6 watts, Firefox consumes 16.3 watts, and IE10 consumes 15.6 watts. We suppose that could add up if you're a power surfer, though it's not enough to get overly excited about. See more results in the full report (PDF). Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| NSA's Cell Phone and Email Spying PRISM Program Costs Taxpayers $20 Million Annually Posted: 07 Jun 2013 09:20 AM PDT  U.S. government is watching you through a PRISM.
Privacy advocates are up in arms over reports that the U.S. government is harvesting cell phone and email data from major Internet companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Through a supposed top secret program codenamed PRISM, the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI have what appears to be unfettered access to emails, chat logs, voice calls, videos, photographs, documents, and more. In addition to the three companies named above, leaked PowerPoint slides reveal that Yahoo, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, and AOL also participate in the court-approved program, according to a report in The Washington Post. PRISM is focused on foreign traffic and communication, much of which flows through the U.S., with one slide noting that "a target's phone call, email, or chat will take the cheapest path, not the physically most direct path." There are a total of 41 slides, one of which says the program operates with the "assistance of communications providers in the U.S.," though several top executives deny having knowledge of PRISM, The Guardian reports. Furthermore, some senior executives indicated that no direct access to servers has ever been offered to any government agency. "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis," Microsoft said in a statement. "In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it." Other companies named above offered similar statements, though the leaked document containing the slides were pretty clear that the identities of those participating needed to be kept secret, lest they withdraw from the program if exposed. "98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft; we need to make sure we don't harm these sources," wrote the author of a separate but related classified report optained by The Washington Post. One of the slides shows when each company joined the program, the first of which is Microsoft back in 2007. The most recent addition is Apple, which the slide shows joined the program in October 2012. It also reveals that the program costs $20 million to operate. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Asus 27-inch LED Monitor, Western Digital 2TB HDD, and More! Posted: 07 Jun 2013 06:25 AM PDT |
