Most of us have used an adapter at one time or another. Usually these are a square-peg-into-a-round-hole gizmo or a port multiplier that adds more USB or SATA ports. Generally speaking they are straightforward, unexciting and fairly cheap but they do a job and get you out of trouble, which …
Read More »AMD: Vulkan absorbed ‘best and brightest’ parts of Mantle
Early this week Advanced Micro Devices advised game developers to use Khronos Group’s Vulkan and Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 application programming interfaces instead of its own Mantle API. Later on, the chip developer made further clarification: Vulkan has absorbed the key features of Mantle, but it is not proprietary. While this …
Read More »Asrock to use O.C. socket on its Intel X99 mainboards
Just several months ago Asustek Computer started to use a special LGA2011-3 socket on its mainboards based on the Intel X99 core-logic in a bid to enhance overclocking potential of Intel Core i7 “Haswell-E” processors. Earlier this year Gigabyte Technology also started to equip its X99 “Champion” mainboards with custom sockets. …
Read More »Nvidia to detail GeForce GTX Titan X in mid-March
Nvidia Corp. made quite a surprise this week, when it unveiled its forthcoming top-of-the-range GeForce GTX Titan X graphics card at Game Developers Conference. Unfortunately, the company decided not to reveal a lot of details about its new flagship graphics card and while we do know that its performance is …
Read More »Samsung plans to use MediaTek’s SoC inside smartphones – report
Samsung Electronics reportedly plans to start using application processors from MediaTek in its smartphones. The move will clearly lower Samsung’s dependence on system-on-chips from Qualcomm, but will hardly have any positive effect on the company’s handsets. A rumour from Taiwan has it that Samsung and MediaTek are negotiating about a potential …
Read More »Sony: VR hardware has to be done right, no matter what the price is
Sony Computer Entertainment said this week that it would release its virtual reality headset called project Morpheus in the first half of 2016, but said nothing about the price. According to Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, developing an affordable device was not the goal that Sony’s engineers had. …
Read More »Nvidia preps VR SLI multi-GPU tech, positions Titan X as ultimate VR graphics card
While it is still unclear whether virtual reality technology will be adopted by the mass market, it will certainly be adopted by core gamers and video game developers. As a result, Game Developers Conference this year is flooded with various VR demos and hardware. Nvidia Corp. is naturally following the …
Read More »AMD to release FreeSync compatible drivers in mid-March
After over a year of development, preparations, testing and other work, AMD’s FreeSync technology will officially be enabled in AMD’s drivers later this month. At present graphics cards, APUs and displays supporting FreeSync technology are already available in select regions, which means that it is about time for AMD to …
Read More »AMD demonstrates unannounced flagship Radeon R9 at GDC
Advanced Micro Devices uses yet unannounced Radeon R9 graphics card for a virtual reality demonstration at the Game Developers Conference, the company confirmed on Thursday. The GPU developer reveals no details about its new flagship graphics card, but those, who have seen it in action, notice impressive performance. Although AMD …
Read More »AMD to introduce its Radeon R9 300-series lineup at Computex
Sources with knowledge of Advanced Micro Devices’ roadmap have revealed that the company plans to introduce its new family of Radeon R9 300-series graphics cards closer to Computex than CeBIT, as originally planned. AMD had hoped to push out one or two new cards in March and then re-brand many …
Read More »Intel: ‘Skylake’ processors will be fantastic for tablets, PCs, servers
While Intel Corp. is going to release its code-named “Skylake” processors a little later than expected, the company keeps the plan to introduce its new micro-architecture for virtually all segments of the market continuum this year. Intel will roll-out “Skylake” central processing units for tablets, 2-in-1s, personal computers and servers …
Read More »GeForce GTX Titan X poses for cam: 4-way SLI capable, ready to ship
Nvidia Corp. demonstrated its upcoming GeForce GTX Titan X graphics cards in its booth at the Game Developers Conference and allowed the press to take pictures of the board. Just like its single-chip predecessors from the ultra-high-end league, the novelty uses an ultra-quiet cooler, is multi-GPU-capable and is not very …
Read More »AMD: We will actively promote ‘Zen’ processors for server market
Advanced Micro Devices now commands only about 2 or 3 per cent of the server market because of various reasons and the company is not going to regain its positions with the current Opteron offerings. Nonetheless, the chip designer seems to pin a lot of hopes on its “Zen” micro-architecture …
Read More »Nvidia GeForce Titan X 12GB: What you need to know and expect
Nvidia Corp. unexpectedly unveiled its highest-performing single-chip gaming graphics card at the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday. The new GeForce GTX Titan X will emerge on the store shelves in the coming weeks and will be the pinnacle of the “Maxwell” architecture. Let’s recap what we already know about the …
Read More »Nvidia Titan X announced at GDC
Nvidia has announced the Titan X graphics card at the Game Developers Conference today. Nvidia CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang made a surprise appearance at one of the presentations, showing off the company's most advanced single graphics card yet, with 12GB of VRAM and eight billion transistors on board. The company just …
Read More »Khronos unveils Vulkan: API for wearables, computers, cars and drones
Khronos Group on Tuesday introduced what was originally known as the next-generation OpenGL initiative, a brand-new application programming interface called Vulkan. The new API is designed to replace OpenGL in the long-term future and will address loads of markets and platform. The Vulkan is a new low-overhead/high-throughput API that provides …
Read More »Nvdia’s partners roll-out 4GB versions of GeForce GTX 960 graphics cards
Partners of Nvidia Corp. on Tuesday began to introduce their first GeForce GTX 960 graphics cards with 4GB memory onboard. The new adapters will likely demonstrate higher performance compared to 2GB add-in-cards in new games as well as in high resolutions. So far only EVGA and InnoVision Multimedia (Inno3D) have …
Read More »MSI GTX960 Gaming 2G OC Edition Review
Today we take a look at the MSI GTX960 Gaming 2G OC Edition – another custom Nvidia partner card featuring the popular and somewhat attractive red MSI cooling solution. This card receives a core clock boost and substantial heatsink design to help drop temperatures. How does it compare with the …
Read More »Win OCZ ARC 100 240GB SSD: guess the final drive death!
If you've been a regular KitGuru reader for the past few months, then chances are you'll have spotted at least one of Leo's videos discussing the ongoing challenge from OCZ – to kill 5 ARC 100 SSD's by continually writing data to them, until they cave in. While the warranty …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: 4th ARC 100 drive dies at 424TB
We hope by now that many of you have been following the ‘Kill x5 SSD Challenge' issued to us by OCZ – this started way back on December 10th last year. Today, the fourth drive has kicked the bucket with only one still ticking away. The warranty data transfer figure …
Read More »Micron begins to build new $4 billion NAND flash fab in Singapore
Micron Technology on Monday began the expansion of its Singapore NAND flash memory fabrication facility. The company started to build a new fab that will cost $4 billion and will start production in fiscal 2017. The new fab is expected to produce innovative 3D NAND flash (co-developed with Intel) as …
Read More »AMD advices developers to focus on DirectX 12 and glNext, not Mantle 1.0
AMD’s Mantle application programming interface was the first low-overhead/high-throughput graphics API to reach the market. The emergence of Mantle has made Microsoft and many other companies in the industry to redesign their APIs, including DirectX and OpenGL. While Mantle will continue to be AMD’s graphics innovation platform, the company now advices …
Read More »Intel ‘Skylake’ processors for PCs will not support AVX-512 instructions
Intel Corp.’s forthcoming central processing units code-named “Skylake” for personal computers will not support any AVX-512 instructions, according to a media report. Only Xeon processors for servers and, possibly, workstations will support 512-bit instructions. Support of 512-bit SIMD instructions – known as AVX3 – was expected to be a key …
Read More »InWin 703 Chassis Review
The In-Win 703 is as far removed from the In-Win D Frame Mini as one PC case can be from another, which just goes to show that it is a mug's game to have preconceptions about any new product before you open the box. In essence the InWin 703 is …
Read More »MSI: We will not block overclocking capabilities of our notebooks
MicroStar International does not plan to block overclocking of Nvidia GeForce GTX 900M-series graphics processing units inside its laptops for gamers. The company, which produces one of the finest high-end notebooks, however, warns overclockers about possible overheating and warranty issues because of overclocking. “MSI is not planning any changes to …
Read More »Nvidia now limits overclocking of GeForce GTX 900M with vBIOS
Although Nvidia Corp. recently said that its future drivers for GeForce GTX 900M-series graphics adapters for mobile computers will re-enable overclocking support for the notebook GPUs, there are reports that the company continues to block overclocking, but this time using a vBIOS setting. A BIOS mod enthusiast from TechInferno.com forum …
Read More »Samsung unveils ‘SSD’ for smartphones with up to 600MB/s bandwidth
Samsung Electronics this week said that it had started to mass produce a family of NAND flash memory devices for mobile applications that are compliant with the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard. The new chips will be used for smartphones and tablets and will enable SSD-class performance on mobile …
Read More »27% of SSD owners experienced malfunction of SSDs – study
Kroll Ontrack, a leading provider of data recovery services, revealed this week that while there are a lot of people who already take advantage of solid-state drives, many of them also have experienced failures of such drives and data loss. Apparently, the amount of people, who suffered an SSD malfunction …
Read More »Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK Black Edition Motherboard Review
Longevity and reliability are particularly important purchasing decisions for a component such as a motherboard. Quite simply, your system's motherboard failing can be considered not too far off a personal disaster. Gigabyte aims to put those reliability concerns at ease with the 168 hour, server-level validation process used on its …
Read More »Thermaltake Core V51 Chassis Review
The key feature of the Thermaltake Core V51 is its substantial size. It stands 540mm high and 560mm deep, which means it can support an EATX motherboard with eight expansion slots. You'll get a better idea about the size of Core V51 when you hear it accommodates a graphics card …
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