This week we’re running a three part series by Steven Isaac, a programmer with an amazing resume including stints at Sun, Microsoft, and even a hardware start-up that brought the first (non-portable) tablets. For years he’s dreamed of an easy-to-use device with a full keyboard that slides out when needed and, together with a designer, he built the Touchfire, a fully funded Kickstarter project that… → Read More
Here’s another entry to add to the alphabet soup of processors, chips, and components being bandied about by device makers. ARM, whose A8 core forms the center of a great number of mobile devices, has announced a little brother to their line of higher clockspeed processors. The A7 will form a sort of low-power sidekick to the more powerful A15 and its ilk.
The A7 (no direct relation to Apple’s… → Read More
The Intel-AMD war has been going on a long time, and I hope it will be going on longer. The last few years have been hard on the underdog, however, with huge growth by Intel in both the low-power and high-performance sectors. The Core 2 Duos excelled, as did the Core i* series, and its most recent consumer series, the Sandy Bridge update to the i*s, is a monster. AMD has consistently lagged… → Read More
I’m sure many of our readers have come across a situation where they’d have liked USB to carry a bit more power to their devices. Your phone or iPod, charging ever-so-slowly, or perhaps an external drive that only works on “powered” USB ports — or must be plugged into a wall socket. A wall socket, in this day and age! I ask you!
Fortunately, the SuperSpeed USB group (or whatever shadowy… → Read More
Since battery technology isn’t really enabling us to pack more than a few watt-hours into our portable devices, companies like Intel, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments are working hard at making their chips and processors more efficient. Apple is acknowledged to be the leader here — their vertically-integrated device creation process (and the mysterious A5) gives them the control they need to… → Read More
Enterprise hardware company Smart Modular Technologies has announced a line of SSDs that appear to wipe the floor with pretty much everything out there. It comes in capacities from 200GB all the way to a current record capacity of 1.6TB. And not only is it the biggest single SSD available, it also is the fastest, using a Serial Attached SCSI interface to achieve (they claim) 1000MB/s read speeds… → Read More
We covered BackBlaze’s cloud-based backup system way back in 2008, when $5 for unlimited storage must have sounded like a Christmas present. Since then the business has matured somewhat, but one thing they nailed that perhaps has become more important is scaling the hardware. With cloud backup and media services firing on all cylinders, data storage space is more valuable than ever, and providing… → Read More
This is a nice little twist on the traditional heatsink design you find on CPUs around the world. While normally you’d have a thermally conductive surface, some heat pipes, and a fan driving air over stationary heatsink plates, this design from Sandia switches things up. No fan at all — or if you like, the heatsink is the fan. → Read More
I spent quite a while deciding on the fan for my new system, and although I’m happy with the one I got, It would have been nice to have this new Havik 140 from NZXT in the running as well. Mainly because I know it’ll be solid quality and it’s “universally compatible with Intel and AMD processors” — meaning I don’t have to drill down to comments and see… → Read More
Intel has made an interesting advance in microprocessor technology after years of research, and it seems that 2011′s processors will be the first to feature 3D transistors and tri-gate technology. By optimizing the shape of the transistor at a nanometer level, Intel has made it possible to both reduce the size of individual transistors and improve their efficiency.
Now, it’s important to… → Read More
If you’ve put together your own PC before, chances are you’ve had to dip into the BIOS to change a few things around, switch the boot priority, things like that. But as essential as the BIOS tools are, the UI has always been a bit daunting. Keyboard navigation of an 80s-style ASCII interface isn’t something you expect in this modern age.
So Gigabyte has gone ahead and given their BIOS a shiny new… → Read More
The latest interface on the block, Thunderbolt, is barely on the market and there’s already talk of its replacement. It’s a good four years down the road, of course (companies like Intel have to think ahead), but there are already prototypes and Intel is already talking it up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a cool code name yet, but they’ll fix that soon. → Read More
We first saw the Hydra, then called the Sixense (after the company that originally developed it) back at CES 2010 almost a year and a half ago. I was impressed with it then, as it felt more natural and responsive than a Wiimote (what doesn’t now?), and used a genuinely different and powerful technology. It’s based on magnetic detection of the controller, instead of optical, and it felt great then… → Read More
When the A4 came out, I was surprised at the fanfare surrounding it. Why such a big deal? Apple was now designing their own chips, isn’t that great?— came the echoing chorus. But they weren’t — the A4 was almost entirely a Samsung design implementing existing ARM processor tech. But Apple touched it, so it turned to gold. I kind of expected Apple to ride that wave for a while and just… → Read More
A few slides showing some of Intel’s plans for 2011 have leaked, but it’s nothing crazy. Intel doesn’t really do anything crazy, just tick-tocks its yearly advances, and 2011 is no different. Sandy Bridge will get a tweaked successor in the E series, which will allow more CPU cores and more graphics bandwidth. Then the next gen “Ivy Bridge” hits in 2012. Should you… → Read More
I’m in the middle of building a new desktop computer, and for the last couple weeks have been frustrated by the recall of Intel’s new P67 (Sandy Bridge-supporting) motherboards, since those are exactly what value-conscious buyers like myself would be going for. Well, the wait is over — the replacements have arrived. It’s safe to build! → Read More
Supercomputers are expensive to make no matter how you look at it. But if you use a whole bunch of PS3s, you can save over 10x the cost compared to this guy. The Condor project is a supercomputer made up of 1,716 PS3s for the Air Force’s image processing tasks and is considered one of the top forty fastest computers in the world. Its big task involves monitoring 15 square miles 24/7, but not in… → Read More
I’m in the middle of putting together a PC right now, and I just can’t believe the amount of stress people seem to put on flashy, brightly-lit components. Seems to me that every dollar you spend on colored LEDs is one less dollar you’re spending on performance. I prefer understated components that don’t make much noise, surrounded by a case that keeps them cool and quiet. NZXT’s H2 looks like a… → Read More
I’m looking into putting together a new system right now, and although I don’t really care about how it looks on the inside (though a matte black P67 PCB would be nice), it would make me feel pretty cool to know that my RAM has guns on it. G.Skill, you’re my hero. → Read More
Tom’s Hardware got up close and personal with a sweet-looking AMD Eyefinity spread at AMD’s Ontario office. It’s running off one of the new Radeon 6990s, and the 5×1 mode lets you use portrait orientation to minimize horizontal seams. But when are we going to get some of these bezel-less monitors I keep hearing about? I know LG’s working on it, but hurry up, dudes. → Read More
The silicon fiends out there will want to take a look at Chipworks’ teardown of the A5 processor inside the iPad 2. There’s not much there for laypeople, though at over 120mm2 it’s more than twice the size of the A4 (53mm2), which, as you may imagine, allows them to fit more cores, more transistors, and a bigger GPU. → Read More
If you spend a lot of time at LAN parties, or maybe have a dorm room with its door constantly open, you might be a little nervous about someone making off with your sweet new hundred dollar mouse or headphones. This accessory for your case lets you lock them into your case, preventing them from being unplugged and nicked by unscrupulous LANgoers or undergrads. → Read More
The “tock” portion of Intel’s latest tick-tock cycle has officially hit, and the shrink of last year’s Core processors brings a number of improvements to the line. Intel’s finally taking some steps towards reducing systems’ reliance on discrete GPUs, and they’ve also seriously improved hardware transcoding. Essentially, though, this isn’t a feature or performance release, it’s bringing the top-end… → Read More
This is a great idea — I’m trying to think if anyone’s done something similar. Probably not, since it drives up the cost of the case somewhat. Still, it’s a really handy thing to have if you’re the kind of person who has lots of loose drives around. What, they exist! Not all of us can afford nice enclosures for our storage, Mr. Q. Moneybags Reader the Third! → Read More
I’m not sure how to interpret this device, being marketed by Xi3 as a revolution in computing. From the press release: “We reject the concept that computers should have a useful life of only two to four years,” said Jason A. Sullivan, President and CEO of Xi3 Corporation. “Instead we believe that computers should be upgradeable and updateable over and over and over again, and that’s how… → Read More
Putting together a system can be an expensive process, and one is tempted to cut corners in areas where performance doesn’t seem to be a an issue. A cut rate GPU? Not likely… but, say, the PSU? They’re all pretty much the same, right? If they’re rated at such and such, that’s all that matters? Ehh, not so much. → Read More
BDXL is now entering the computer market, too. Pioneer Japan today announced [JP] the BDR-206MBK, the world’s first Blu-ray burner for PCs supporting the new format. The internal device is compatible to BD-R XL discs with three (100GB) or four layers (128GB) and BD-RE XL discs with 3 layers (100GB). → Read More
I’ve been thinking of putting together a new system recently, and for the video card, I was almost certainly going to go for a GeForce GTX 460 — around $200 is the sweet spot for a good mid-budget GPU, and the 460 has been holding up to its competition for some time. But with the release of the new AMD Radeon 6850 and 6870, I might have to switch back to Radeon once more. → Read More
Remember a few weeks back when it came out that Microsoft had submitted a patent for a keyboard that looked suspiciously like the Optimus? Well, they’ve had a few made and, like the pressure-sensitive keyboard I saw at Microsoft Labs a long time back, they shipped a few to promising young students around the globe in an effort to save money on R&D give them a chance to work on non-traditional… → Read More
I may have really laid into Bigfoot’s (in my opinion still ridiculous) claims for its Killer 2100 performance network cards, but I’ll be the first to admit that whatever the benefits, they’re probably among the best cards you can get. I’m not sure I could justify spending the cash they’re asking, but that’s not really a problem when they’re giving them away. → Read More
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