|
| |
|
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
|
 “There’s little doubting that this new release of RHEL is a worthwhile investment, enabling customers to take full advantage of the latest multi-core hardware with the promise of even greater scalability in the future. New buyers and those deploying new servers should certainly have no hesitation in choosing RHEL 6 to host their Linux applications. Whether it’s worth rushing out and upgrading existing systems is less clear cut. Especially, for customers with large numbers of Xen virtual machines who may prefer to wait a while before going through the pain of migrating to the new KVM technology in this release.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thermaltake V9 BlacX
|
|
"The wire management accommodations in the V9 BlacX are seriously lacking and can use some improvement. There is very little room behind the motherboard tray to run wires, and nothing to really route them around. I really did my best on the wire management here, and I'm not terribly happy with the results. I did also find that the power supply mounting bracket does not allow for the power supply to be flipped over, allowing for a slight advantage with wire management since the cables can start closer to the motherboard tray."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Corsair HS1A Stereo Gaming Headset Review
|
|
Our first introduction to the HS1 Headset from Corsair was quite a pleasant one. We found it to be a sturdy, well built headset that offered great audio performance for what was a decent pricing point. However, Corsair has sensed the yearning for a non-USB version of the successful headset and has thus come out with a new one. Well, sort of...
You see, while the paint has indeed changed and the USB connection is now gone, below the surface this is in fact nearly the same product as the original HS1. And we do not have an issue with that, simply because as we have stated above, it was already a great sounding set of headphones. So in affect, what we have here is a slimmed down 'light weight' version of the original HS1 - Minus all the fancy software working in the background, which we must add worked extremely well on the original when we tested it."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 Channel PCI Sound Card Review
|
|
Futurelooks checks out one pretty sweet value in an upgrade audio card ... *ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 Channel PCI Sound Card Review* The inclusion of integrated audio solutions on every motherboard pushed discrete audio solutions into the luxury purchase market. So why do people still purchase them? Today, we are going to look at the Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Audio Card which is a very affordable entry level discrete audio solution. The Xonar DG is priced well below many competitive solutions that we are used to seeing from the likes of Creative Labs and even their own Xonar line. In this review we?ll see if this audio card is better than the built in audio solutions on motherboards today, and most importantly, whether spending the extra few dollars is worth it. * * *"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ASUS RoG Matrix GTX 580 Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven.com
|
|
ASUS RoG Matrix GTX 580 Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven.com Taking the foundations of their DirectCU II GTX 580 ASUS have further enhanced the design, aiming it at enthusiasts with the addition of voltage read points, on-board buttons for fan and power adjustments and making it part of the Republic of Gamers brand. So today we have the Matrix GTX 580 Platinum on our test bench and will be finding out in a selection of real world gaming tests, including Crysis 2 with DX11 and high res textures and GPU computing, whether this is now the ultimate GTX 580... or maybe even the best single GPU product ever released..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HIS Radeon HD 6970 Turbo FAN 2GB review
|
|
We have a look at a Radeon HD 6970 based on the reference design, yet the TURBO model from HIS as this R6970 comes factory clocked. Although we expected a little more in frequencies for a product tagged Turbo, this R6970 comes factory clocked at 900MHz and with a memory clock of 5,600MHz.
But ah well, we'll bring the card quite close to a nice manual overclock, and that my friends means added value on what seems to be a very interesting product. Check out the review right here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sapphire Fusion Mini E350 Motherboard
|
|
"On the whole, Sapphire Fusion Mini E350 is an interesting solution that offers more expandability than competing boards. Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 are not a peculiarity for this class of products, and the supplied Bluetooth is surely not a drawback, even despite the implementation."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Antec P193 case
|
|
"Antec recently announced a refresh to their performance one line of cases and they were kind enough to send a few for us to take a look at. Today we're reviewed the P193, the top of the performance pile. Let's see how it's features stack up."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Intel's Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Tested, Burned-in
|
|
Intel recently launched a speed bump of their flagship Extreme Edition Core i7 processor, known as the Core i7 990X. It's unlocked and clocked at 3.45GHz stock speed with a Turbo Boost top-end speed of 3.73GHz. Intel claims its the fastest desktop chip on the planet; like geek tiger blood for your PC. The new Core i7-990X is also based on the 32nm Gulftown core and the performance metrics show it's easily the fastest 6-core chip for the desktop currently but of course it'll cost you as well.
What do you do when you're the fastest thing around? You just keep on WINNING. It's as if there was tiger blood coursing through your veins. You're so good, you're bi-winning. Heck, with a six core processor at your disposal, you'd be hexa-winning. Ol' Charlie needs one of these things to go with his rock-star life style...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Review
|
|
"Sitting at the top of the WD TV line-up is the Live Hub and that's the one we're looking at today. Checking out the box, you can see the device and some of the main features. One of the bigger features is the 1TB hard drive that's embedded into the WD TV Live Hub. On the front of the box we can also see some of the other main features which include support with Blockbuster, Netflix, Pandora, Facebook and YouTube. Unfortunately not all these features are available outside of the US, but the ones that are like YouTube and Facebook work great. We'll get into all that a little later, though.
Looking at the actual device, it's very sleek and while it's a little thinner than other devices we've seen, it's a little wider. You shouldn't have any problem finding a nice spot for it, though, and that's the most important thing. The device is fairly simple looking and there's not a whole lot going on with the front having a lit up WD logo along with a power button and USB port. Both sides don't have anything while the back has all our connectivity, which is pretty strong."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The new x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 is here!
|
|
This is the improved version of the x264 HD Benchmark 3.0 benchmark
which had become a standard CPU benchmark for Tech ARP as well as many
other hardware enthusiasts.
The new x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 ups the ante by using the latest r1913
x264 encoder as well as other changes under the hood. This makes the
x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 the new best tool for testing the full
capabilities of modern multi-core, multi-threaded processors.
Do note that due to the changes, the results from x264 HD Benchmark
4.0 are NOT comparable with results from older versions of the
benchmark.
In addition to the release of the benchmark, we will be compiling
benchmark results for this new version. So please contribute your new
benchmark results to this project!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gigabyte launches world's first overclocking motherboard X58A-OC
|
|
Gigabyte Technology has announced the launch of the world's first motherboard designed from the ground up for extreme overclockers, the GA-X58A-OC. Its overclocking specific performance design defines a whole new category of enthusiast focused motherboards that introduces never-seen-before tweaking and insulating features.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MUKii TransImp X3 Hard Drive Enclosure Plus
|
|
Something else that MUKii is realizing is that people want more for their money. Functionality and quality is one thing, but good looks are also a must.. So, often is the case that we want both; we deserve it. Right? This brings us to our latest review product from MUKii, their TransImp X3 Hard Drive Enclosure Plus. One might remember the TransImp U3 model that we reviewed some months back and think this is just a redesigned shell; however, that is not the case at all. The TransImp X3 is indeed an external enclosure with USB3 support, but it also comes with a bunch of new features, enough to make it worth of the prefix 'Plus'. So grab a drink, perhaps a snack and sit back as we show you just what this enclosure has in store for you!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Beginner's Guide to HTPC Software
|
|
Each one of these has their pros and cons. If you are using Mac OSX, you don't have many choices beyond Front Row and Plex (below). If you're using Linux, honestly you're probably not reading this guide due to limited options as well--MythTV (below as well). So that leaves Windows users . This is at least 90% of you out there, and most likely what everyone reading this is interested in. Let's take a look at some HTPC software programs and cover some of their pros and cons. By no means is this full in-depth, but should be a good starting point.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Intel Sandy Bridge VA-API Video Acceleration Performance
|
|
"There have been a number of Intel Sandy Bridge articles on
Phoronix since the January launch of this next-generation Intel CPU
micro-architecture. It's ranged from the Linux support being challenging
to dealing with motherboard problems and then the graphics performance
being fast relative to previous generations of Intel graphics and for
being based upon the classic Mesa driver architecture, but much slower
than Windows. Last week then the Sandy Bridge Linux performance became
much more interesting after a simple patch led to a huge performance win
to the point that the open-source Linux driver performance is much
closer to their full-featured Microsoft Windows driver. What is the next
chapter in the Intel Sandy Bridge Linux story? A look at the VA-API
video acceleration playback performance."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Corsair HS1A
|
|
"The HS1A is certainly a high quality headset and certainly worthy of a little more money than something from Labtec or even Ozone, but, it's not worth as much money is it is, especially when the HS1 is available for very little more. Even without Dolby Headphone, if the HS1A was priced at $50, I would heartily recommend it, because it is much better than cheaper headsets. However, because it lacks Dolby Headphone and is only $15 cheaper than the HS1, the HS1A just isn't a good value. So, if you want to buy the HS1A, don't: buy the HS1."
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| The best Guides by the best writers on the internet; PCstats Beginners Guides explain computers, software, and all those other wonderful things that cause you frustration.
Learn how to use your computer better, master the internet while protecting yourself, and know what to do when your hard drive kicks the bucket.
|
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
"Get the 'Stats and Stay Informed!"
|
|
|
Beginners Guides
