IBM has announced its plans to invest $3 billion on Semiconductor research and development over the next five years. The purpose of this investment is to develop smaller chips by designing smaller transistors.
Two programs will be funded that will focus on creating smaller, more powerful chips and develop semiconductor parts out of materials besides silicon. Explaining the company's reason for the investment, IBM Research vice president of science and technology T.C. Chen told CNET, "In the next 10 years, we believe there will be fundamentally new systems that are much more efficient at solving problems or solving problems that are unsolvable today."
To that end, IBM is looking to develop 7-nanometer technology, a goal that is three manufacturing generations away at the industry's current pace. As to when this might happen, Chen went on to say, "We anticipate that in order to scale to 7nm and perhaps below for the industry, we will need to have the semiconductor architectures and new manufacturing tools and techniques in place by the end of the decade. That's why it is critical for us to make the significant investment now into the research and early-stage development to demonstrate what 7nm innovations will be useful, before it can even be commercialized."
Samsung has been working on its own VR headset that is being developed in collaboration with Oculus VR. According to SamMobile, Samsung's VR device is called the Gear VR and it will be announced at IFA 2014.
Samsung has developed the Gear VR with a modular design that will allow users to connect a Galaxy device via USB 3.0. Instead of being a standalone device, like the Oculus Rift, Gear VR is devoid of sensors and will rely on a smartphone's accelerometer, gyroscope, and processing power for tracking head motion.
The Gear VR, according to SamMobile's picture, will have a see-through button that will allow consumers to use the smartphone's rear-facing camera sensor in order to receive a video feed of the outside world that is located on the right side which would negate the need to remove the VR headset in order to look around. A touchpad, located beneath the see-through button, will be used to navigate through the smartphone's user interface.
While the hardware is being developed by Samsung, Oculus VR is helping the company develop its software. SamMobile also claims Samsung is planning to dedicate an entire section of Samsung Apps for Gear VR and will make the Gear VR's SDK available to developers shortly after its announcement at IFA 2014.
No, it's not likely that you're going to pick up HGST's new 1.8TB hard drive for your build, not unless you're erecting a data center. While we've moved on to solid state drives at home, enterprise customers still have a high level of interest in certain mechanical hard drives due, in part, to the price-to-performance ratio. It's those customers that HGST is targeting with its Ultrastar C10K1800 HDD.
The Ultrastar C10K1800 is a 2.5-inch enterprise-class drive intended for mission-critical storage applications that require 24/7 availability. In addition to a 10K RPM spindle speed, the new drive sports a next generation 12Gbps SAS interface, HGST's media cache architecture (provides up to a 2.5X boost in random write performance and 23 percent improvement in sequential performance over previous generation drives), advanced format options, improved power savings, and a host of security and encryption options.
"Our customers continue to contend with explosive data growth, balancing disparate application loads, while needing to improve data center space and power efficiencies," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, HGST. "By fusing unmatched capacity with ultimate performance in the same drive, the Ultrastar C10K1800 offers the optimal balance of capacity, performance and cost. We expect our customers to use the Ultrastar C10K1800 with a complement of SSDs and 15K performance HDDs in tiered pools of storage."
HGST has already begun shipping the Ultrastar C10K10800, which is being qualified by select OEMs. FIPS certified models will available in January 2015.
What time is it? It's time to Build a PC with our Blueprints! This month, we've built three rigs at three approximate price points: Baseline, Performance, and Ultra. Baseline gets you a powerful system for gaming and content creation at 1080p, Performance beefs everything up across the board, and Ultra lets the dogs out.
Prices listed here reflect print time and may not match the ones you find elsewhere online. In addition, Newegg has jumped on board to offer packaged deals for each of the builds below in an attempt to offer a better overall value. To see these bundle prices, click the "Buy-or-get-more-info-at-Newegg" button at the bottom of each build. Feedback is welcome. Tell us what you think!
Note: Some of the prices/links listed below may not show up properly if this page is ad-blocked.
As this issue went to press, we did not have a "Devil's Canyon" CPU from Intel, which is a refresh of its Haswell generation. But we did have several motherboards that use Intel's new Z97 chipset. We chose the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H because of its balance of features, price and performance. AMD card prices have stabilized, so we can now recommend an MSI Radeon R9 280, which consistently outperforms the GeForce GTX 760 at the $250 price point. Rosewill's Hive-750 PSU from last time was out of stock, but the SeaSonic SSR-750RM is modular, gold-rated and competitively priced. The 550w model used in our February Build It (pg. 58) performed quite well.
The next version of Intel's workstation CPU is still on the horizon, so we're staying with the Core i7-4820K. Unlike the build above, this LGA 2011 chip has enough PCI Express lanes to handle 3-4 video cards, if you want to go that route. Speaking of which, we've swapped the GeForce GTX 780 with a Radeon R9 290X, now that the price for the latter has returned to orbit. This Gigabyte model runs cool and quiet, and it outperforms the 780 in most tests, and the price premium for that is pretty small. We've also switched our power supply to the XFX P1-1050-BEFX, since it costs just a little more than the Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 while offering much higher efficiency. There are cheaper SSDs than the Samsung 840 Evo, but we prefer its software.
Compared to the Intel Core i7-4820K on the previous page, this Core i7-4930K has an additional two cores, with Hyperthreading giving us twelve processor threads, as opposed to eight. This is a nice boost for video encoding and live streaming, and some games are starting to use as many threads as we can give them. We've seen more than a few reports that users of the Cooler Master Glacer 240L CPU cooler have experienced some build quality issues, so we've switched to the company's Nepton 280L. As its name implies, it has a 280mm radiator, giving it more surface area to dissipate heat, and it performed quite well when we reviewed it in the April issue.
Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780 and 780 Ti video cards have been a mainstay in the Ultra build for some time now, but we've been impressed with AMD's Radeon R9 295X2. It combines two R9 290X GPUs onto one card that uses an integrated liquid cooler. It runs very cool and quiet even when overclocked, though it is held back a little by a non-adjustable voltage.
The latest free game as part of a five week, five million Steam key giveaway
Hey, we're all sitting on a mountain of unplayed Steam games purchased through various sales, yet we can't help but add to our libraries when the deals are too good to pass up. That usually means a significant discount as part of some super summer holiday sale bonanza, but even better is what our sister sister PC Gamer is doing. In collaboration with Bundle Stars, PC Gamer is giving away five million Steam keys through a five week period. We're now in week 3, which means there are a million Steam keys for Really Big Sky up for grabs.
Last week PC Gamer gave away a million keys for Dino D-Day, and prior to that, the five week promotion kicked off with SpaceChem. Now it's Really Big Sky, "a super fast, twin analogue shooter for the modern age" that's yours for the taking, at no cost!
You'll face off against of waves of enemies, bosses, giant laser planets, blackholes, wormholes and a lot more though a dozen different game modes. And if you have an Xbox 360 controller, plug it and get blasting.
If you're not already familiar with Mnpctech, take a moment out of your day to familiarize yourself with the company. Founded 12 years ago by Bill Owen, a name you probably recognize if you've been reading Maximum PC for some time (check out our interview with him from earlier this year) or are into the modding scene, Mnpctech kicks out some of the most badass case mods you'll ever see. Interestingly enough, in a recent conversation with Owen, he told us he's been receiving requests for the past several years to make a video series covering the basics of water cooling with a DIY loop, so he finally went and put one together. Here's part 1.
"As you know, there's a wide array of opinions and myths about which brand or size of components to use. I've recruited two of the most knowledgeable guys to talk about everything they learned," Owen told Maximum PC.
Embedded below is the first part of the series featuring Jesse (or Captain Curry Sauce, if you prefer) and Chris (or Mosquito) from TheModZoo.com. If you've already dabbled with self-contained all-in-one kits and always wanted to dive into the deep end of liquid cooling, you'll find a wealth of information here to make sure you don't sink, such as the correct way to route thinner versus thicker tubing, and much more. Check it out:
Microsoft updates end of support deadlines for various software
Now that we're well into July, Microsoft felt it was a good time to update its list of products reaching end of support in the next 6 months. One entry that's gaining a lot of media attention is Windows 7. According to the list, Mainstream Support for several versions of Windows 7 will end on January 13, 2015, though that doesn't mean you need to rush out and grab a copy of Windows 8. Here's why.
After "Mainstream Support" comes another cycle known as "Extended Support," which lasts 5 years (January 14, 2020) and includes "security updates at no cost, and paid hotfix support." In other words, as the January 13, 2015 deadline comes and goes, it will be of little consequence to most home users.
As for hotfixes, you'll receive those as well, as long as they're security related. It's only the non-security hotfixes that require an extended hotfix agreement, purchased within 90 days of mainstream support ending. It's something for IT admins and businesses to consider, but again, nothing of relevance to home users.
You can check out Microsoft's Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ for more on the differences between Mainstream Support and Extended Support.
If you can read this, thank a teacher, But if the text and pictures show up all garbled and washed out, perhaps it's time to toss that ancient monitor aside and grab a new one. In that case, you can thank us for pointing you to today's top deal for an Asus VX238H Black 23-inch LCD Monitor for $120 with free shipping (normally $160 - use coupon code: [EMCPCPB44]; additional $20 mail-in-rebate). This LED-backlit panel sports a 1920x1080 resolution with a 1ms response time, 80,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 250 cd/m2 brightness, and built-in speakers.
Let me tell you about this Jedi Guardian named Nayelii. She lives on Star Wars: The Old Republic's Ebon Hawk server. She could actually be a he, but the avatar (and the name) seemed female, so that's the pronoun I'm going with at the moment.
I say "seemed" because Nayelii was wearing hooded robes, it's fairly dark through most of the Kuat Drive Yards flashpoint, and I tend to play dungeons with my camera at max range. Anyway, that's all beside the point because last weekend Nayelii put on what is unequivocally the best tanking performance I've seen in all my years playing MMORPGs.
Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman is preaching the gospel of free-to-play far and wide these days, saying that it makes sense to have games as accessible as possible to players.
"If there's one thing we're learned through all of our own prior development, it's that the barrier of having to purchase a thing before getting into a game is proving to be a bigger and bigger barrier as time goes on," Hartsman told MCV.
But will F2P backfire by giving away the store for nothing to penny-pinching players? Hartsman doesn't think so: "What we're discovering is that if you take great content and great gameplay and reduce the barriers and take that leap of faith, customers will be there for you and will be there to support you."
All of Trion Worlds' game library is free-to-play at this point.
Star Citizen has opened another window on the world of game development, this time courtesy of a Chris Roberts post that details the investigative process behind Arena Commander's lag and rubber-banding issues. In a nutshell, the problems surfaced with patch 12.4 as Cloud Imperium expanded the pool of AC participants past the initial 60,000-player threshold.
"Like doctors trying to identify a mysterious illness, we looked for common environmental factors," Roberts writes. "Was there a significant geographic distance between players? Surprisingly, no: in many cases, players with almost no latency between them were still having issues. The team moved on to examining our own code." He goes on to explain how CIG translates potential problems into JIRA tasks and assigns them to engineers who are responsible for repairs prior to the next patch.
The latest update on TUG is both good news and bad news. The good news is that the game is getting ready to roll out a major update that will include a lot of fun stuff for players. Like what, you ask? Like hunting, and farming and all the goats you can ask for. Even if you ask for a lot of goats, you can have never have enough goats.
So what's the bad news? Well, it turns out that the team kind of broke Proving Grounds on the way to adding in new features. Rather than delaying the update, the current stopgap solution is to block off Proving Grounds and simply add it back in during a later update. You can read the full update if you need some specifics; the hope is that players won't ultimately be surprised when the update goes live for everyone.
In the interest of allocating resources -- money, time, and manpower -- to impact the game the most, should developers stop making raid content for MMOs? I'm not saying to give up on small-group content, as that's far more popular, but the giant raids that seem to appeal only to the most hardcore guilds. Would those resources be better spent developing content that the majority of the playerbase will experience?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
If you're already a fan of Vindictus, you're not really the target audience for the game's TV spot. Not that you should avoid watching it all the same, though. Who doesn't enjoy the prospect of seeing a game on the small screen? And you can watch it right now!
As mentioned, there's not a whole lot to be said if you are a fan of the game, although you can certainly determine how well you think the ad represents the game as a whole. If you're not a player or a fan, though, you can still check out the trailer just past the break to find out what the game's all about. (Hint: hacking at people with swords.)
Kid-friendly Super Hero Squad Onlineis today touting its recent Recharged patch, the game's biggest ever release. Recharged brings new starter heroes, new gear, new achievements, and new missions to the game. Players and parents will want to know that the cash shop has been revamped and prices on buyables like heroes have been reduced. Currency acquisition has also been redesigned and simplified; the game's currencies have been merged into one currency called fractals, which are now obtainable in larger quantities and through more activities.
Gazillion boasts that its active playerbase has more than doubled in size since the update. Enjoy the game's fresh trailer below.
"Are you Archlording it up today?" "Oh you know it, brah!"
Well, while those might not be words that you'll hear in your average game store, it doesn't stop the fact that Archlord 2 is picking up steam as it chugs toward release. Today the title has entered open beta, which means that you and all of your brahs can check it out to see if this is the MMO for you.
The open beta test comes with a new patch that increases the level cap to 41, adds the Aquila Arena skirmish, and toggles on battlegrounds on every day of the week except Sunday. Because battlegrounds are forbidden on the sabbath? We're not sure. Former closed beta testers will also get a unique cape for their efforts.
As an MMO enthusiast blog, Massively has always had a special appreciation of the dedicated (and unpaid!) writing that gamers put out on their own blogs every day. Every week there are dozens if not hundreds of terrific posts on MMOs out there, and since I'm the resident loon here who reads pretty much all of them, I decided to start up a biweekly column to point you in the direction of some of the best discussions going on in the blogosphere. We'll see posts on specific games and general topics, geeky gushings and zany rantings.
For our inagural edition of Global Chat (yes, I'm recycling the name from a long-dormant feature on this site), we'll take a look at how outfits tie into identity, surviving MMOs as a chicken, a requiem for a gold farmer, and so much more!
Industry news clashes with game news this week, so whether you're interested in the meta or simply the beta, we've got a bit from both columns! In this episode, Bree and Justin discuss gooey monsters, why raiding is the most awesomest thing ever, and decorating houses on Tatooine.
Get all of our opinions and analysis on the most important stories of the past week right here on Massively Speaking, the industry's leading MMO podcast. And if you have a comment, question, or topic for the podcasters, send an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air!
Get the podcast: [RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. [iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. [Stitcher] Follow the podcast on Stitcher Radio. Listen here on the page:
ZeniMax has just posted a new Elder Scrolls Online dev blog, titled The Road Ahead, which outlines the studio's plans for the game in the relatively near future. Of note to MMO players are details for update 3, which is due to hit the test server "soon." The patch will enhance guild creation and management (with ranks, bank permissions, and heraldry) as well as address class balance changes, itemization issues, and combat feel.
The team also means to revamp grindy veteran rank content with short-term balance tweaks in endgame zones, some of which are live on servers already; ultimately, the veteran points system will be deleted entirely from the game and replaced with a new system "based on new character customization and growth mechanics" that will be discussed at this year's QuakeCon and beyond.
SOE Live posted its list of player panels today for its convention, with topics ranging from supporting military gamers to fansite management. The full list is as follows:
Friday, August 15
11:00 am - 12:00 pm -- EQ2U & Dragon's Armory
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm -- Live Together, Die Alone: Surviving H1Z1 as a Group
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm -- Inter-Outfit Operations in PS2
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm -- Become Your Character: Tricks and Tips for Cosplay
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm -- Military Gamers: Taking Care of Each Other
Saturday, August 16
10:00 am - 11:00 am -- Social Media/Steaming & Fansites
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm -- Effective Guild and League Management
Challenging the notion that all MOBAs must be played from an omniscient isometric viewpoint, Gearbox revealed its own MOBA, Battleborn, that takes place from a first-person perspective.
Battleborn promises a wide array of character variety as heroes battle on an alien planet, including Elvish archers, steampunk riflemen, and minigun-toting heavies. The lore hook is pretty solid, too, with the good guys fighting to protect the very last star in the universe against a faction called the Varelsi.
The MOBA will feature both a co-op campaign and multiplayer PvP mode, and will be coming to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC next year. You can check out the reveal trailer after the break.
Would you say there's a distinct lack of wuxia MMORPGs in your life at the moment? Then you might be interested in learning more about Moonlight Blade, a wuxia game published by Tencent and currently in the midst of its third beta test in China. Steparu recently discussed the beta test, covering everything from missions and quests to character customization, with the caveat that the author doesn't speak a word of Chinese and has muddled through much of the game with the help of friends.
Moonlight Blade features three different combat modes based on player preference, ranging from traditional point-and-click gameplay to fully active combat. While the game looks gorgeous, according to the beta review it's still very buggy and the combat lacks some satisfying impact. Check out the full piece if it seems like something you'd be interested in; there's no word on a Western release, but showing interest can't hurt.
While the first taste of Hearthstone:Curse of Naxxramas will be free for all players, the rest will cost a good chunk of money. Blizzard announced its pricing for the solo adventure pack today, stating that players will have several options to purchase Naxxramas including a $24.99 package that includes the full deal.
The first of five wings of Naxxramas will be offered for free, with the remaining four wings available to purchase separately at $6.99 apiece or together in bundles of various size. The only option to buy the wings using in-game gold (and the only potentially free path) is to buy the wings at 700 gold each.
Once Hearthstone opens the doors to Naxxramas, the devs will unlock a new wing at the rate of one per week. Blizzard also announced that it will offer heroic versions of these wings -- and new card backs -- once they're beaten in normal mode.
A few months passed between season one of Guild Wars 2's living world story and the start of season two, and the first content release of the new arc was going to have to make a big splash, no matter what it turned out to contain. Fans grumbled warily about the chances of being asked to repair road signs for weeks while waiting for the meat of the story, and ArenaNet played its cards close to the vest. Teasers, speculation, and season one recaps were all we had to quench our thirst for GW2's second season. We were parched, moving endlessly through a vast wasteland of -- wait, there's a metaphor here. Hold on, it's coming to me.
Anyway, we've been delivered to an oasis: The Gates of Maguuma are open, and we've taken our first steps into a new region of Tyria. Along with several other media representatives, I was invited to take a developer-led tour of the new Dry Top zone and story content. Does it live up to the anticipation? The answer necessarily contains spoilers, so read on at your peril, mortal.
Frontier has doubled the number of players fighting, trading, and exploring their way through the sprawling cosmos of Elite: Dangerous. The firm released Elite's single-player combat build to all beta backers earlier today in preparation for the multiplayer beta launch on July 29th.
If you've pre-ordered or backed Elite, you can download the launcher by logging into the game's website and pointing your browser at the "My Downloadable Products" link. Frontier also wants you to know that you can still pre-order the multiplayer beta and receive immediate access to today's single-player release.
Company looking to design smaller chips
VR headset to be used with Galaxy Smartphone
High capacity and high performance
The latest free game as part of a five week, five million Steam key giveaway
Choosing the right components
Microsoft updates end of support deadlines for various software
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's 
