Category Archive: Hardware

Apr 09

The Next Gen Dual GPU Cards: Specs & Rumors

Rumors have been circulating that AMD would be launching the Radeon HD 7990 soon after NVIDIA launched their Kepler debut card, the GTX 680.
It has yet to happen, but let’s take a look at the rumored specs for the AMD HD 7990 “New Zealand”:
  • Two “Tahiti” GPU chips clocked at a lower than HD 7970 speed of 850 MHz, connected via an onboard CrossFire bridge chip.
  • 6 GBs of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1250 MHz (5 GHz effective), divided in two for 3 GB per GPU, on 2 x 384-bit buses.
  • 62 compute units with a total of 4096 (2 x 2048) Stream Processors and 256 (2 x 128) texture units.
  • TDP of  ~330 watts (max power use in watts).
  • DirectX 11.1 and OpenGL 4.2 hardware support.
  • PCI-Express 3.0 compliant.
NVIDIA plans to tackle the HD 7990 with the GeForce GTX 690, a similar dual GPU solution. Continue reading “The Next Gen Dual GPU Cards: Specs & Rumors” »

Mar 22

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Released!

Nov 21

ASUS Sabertooth X79 Qualified Vendors List

In case you’re looking for some compatible memory modules that are confirmed to work on the ASUS Sabertooth X79 motherboard, the Qualified Vendors List (QVL) can be found below, as well as a quick overview of possible memory configurations.

Download the PDF version:
ASUS Sabertooth X79 Qualified Vendors List

 

Nov 21

So, what’s this new Intel X79 you speak of?

Last week was the official launch of the Intel X79 platform from Intel, featuring the new LGA-2011 CPU socket. This is the new “enthusiast” platform taking over for LGA-1366.

If you want to learn more about the new Intel X79 platform, Sandy Bridge-E and LGA-2011 socket from Intel, and maybe learn a bit about overclocking with this new hardware, check out this webinar posted by Corsair (of course biased towards Corsair’s own products, but I’m not at all ashamed to say I’m a fan of their products):

Nov 18

Intel X79 Motherboards will support Ivy Bridge-E CPUs

ASUS Sabertooth X79A leaked slide from an Intel presentation suggests that longevity will be good if you purchase an Intel X79 motherboard today.

Intel’s upcoming Ivy Bridge-E* CPUs are based on their advanced 22nm process node. The leaked slide suggests that these CPUs will be supporting the existing LGA-2011 platform.

As Ivy Bridge-E based CPUs are rumored for a Q4 2012 release, this means that a mere BIOS update could be all that’s needed to upgrade your rig in late 2012 to the latest and greatest technology.

Intel X79-based motherboards with the LGA-2011 socket from Intel was just released worldwide to the consumer market this week, and features built-in support for two 6Gbps SATA ports, four 3Gbps SATA ports and 40 PCI Express 3.0 lanes.

Next generation graphics cards utilizing the new PCI Express 3.0-bandwidth are expected (rumored) to be released from early January 2012.

* The “E” stands for Enthusiast, which are the most powerful consumer CPU series from Intel. These are not to be confused with their non-E counterparts, which cater more to people with a smaller budget or lower power demands.

Intel X79 compatible with Ivy Bridge-E CPUs (slide)

Click to enlarge

 

Jul 26

Lifetime PC User Buys a Mac

For all my life I’ve been loyal to PC. It’s been a pretty good relationship, certainly with its ups and downs like in any relationship. It started back in 1992 with my dad’s i486-based computer, and after that there was no stopping us. Fast forward to today, and I’ve been through more than a dozen machines and numerous rebuilds. I’ve even built a couple of water cooled rigs just for the hell of it.

I’ve been a steadfast supporter of the PC platform and what it stands for. I’ve regularly argued against Apple whenever they’ve done bad things, such as locking down pretty much everything they make to suit their business models, or enforcing unfair censorship of publishers’ content – all the while pointing fingers at other. So, I hope my point is made clear: understand that it would take a lot to make me buy an Apple product.

Just a few days ago in July of 2011, however, I decided to do just that. Continue reading “Lifetime PC User Buys a Mac” »

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