News

Enermax is pleased to launch their latest five fan models along with their new patented technology, APS (Adjustable Peak Speed) Control. As the name implies, the peak speed of these fans can be adjusted as you prefer, and the speed will be regulated automatically by pulse-width modulation (PWM) or by an integrated thermal sensor after selecting the particular RPM range.

MSI Computer Corp, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, unveils the new and refreshed GX70 and GX60, the world's first AMD Richland A10-5750M powered gaming laptops.

Part of MSI's award-winning G Series gaming laptops, the all-new GX70 and GX60 are now upgraded with AMD's newest processor, which promises an increase in visual performance by up to 40 percent over previous generations. The new processor also increases battery life and CPU performance, resulting in longer gaming sessions with crisper, brighter and a more realistic visual experience.

HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company,) continues to push technology innovation by offering the highest storage density (MB/mm³) of any hard disk drive (HDD) today. The new Travelstar 5K1500 is the industry's first 9.5 mm, 1.5 TB mobile hard drive and features the industry's highest capacity in a standard 9.5 mm design. Built on HGST's proven platform for quality and reliability, the Travelstar 5K1500 delivers high shock protection, low power and solid performance to meet the growing demands for a variety of market segments, including notebooks, external hard drives, gaming consoles and all-in-one desktop PCs.

HGST Travelstar 5K1500

NVIDIA's partner EVGA released a short video teaser of ACX (Active Cooling Xtreme) video card cooling solution. It's most likely to be used on upcoming GeForce 700 series video cards.

Thermal Solutions specialist GELID Solutions reveals the Rev. 2 GX-7 CPU cooler of its GAMER product line. Engineers at GELID Solutions have upgraded the award-winning GX-7 to the Rev. 2 GX-7 by adding the Slim 12 PL Blue fan and the multi award-winning GC-Extreme thermal compound. Contrary to traditional heat pipe arrangement the Rev. 2 GX-7 offers a special array of heat pipes to take full advantage of all 7 heat pipes heat transfer capacity. Further V-shaped aluminum fins were used in the center of the heat sink to allow airflow to reach the heat sink more evenly. Openings inside of the heat sink and near the heat pipes let fresh-air flow in from the top and the bottom to the zones where normally poorly ventilated and eliminate the creation of hotspots. The unique heat sink shape supports dual fans.

You might not be surprised to learn that we have been working on a new version of PCMark. But what may surprise you are the new tests in the latest version of our popular PC benchmarking tool.

PCMark 8

TechPowerUp announced GPU-Z 0.7.1, the latest version of the popular graphics subsystem information, monitoring, and diagnostic tool. Version 0.7.1 adds support for new GPUs, and an experimental feature that lets you investigate power-capping on some of the newer generations of NVIDIA GPUs (needs GeForce 319.xx or later drivers). To begin with, GPU-Z 0.7.1 introduces support for NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 780 and GeForce GTX 770 graphics cards, along with support for AMD's new Radeon HD 8000M, HD 8000G, and HD 8000D series GPUs/IGPs, including the HD 8310G, HD 8410G, HD 8450G, HD 8510G, HD 8550G, HD 8610G, and HD 8650G; and a few exotic GPUs, such as GT 730M, GT 750M, GTX 780M, GRID K1, GRID K2, and HD 7730.

Take a good minute to reminisce all the joy and fun you had on the internet. Good times, I tell you. Then take another solid minute to recollect those dark depressing moments when the connection was either slow or unstable. Images turning into rectangles with red crosses, laggy videos that took forever to load, downloads that tragically failed at the last few seconds, and it all seemed like the world was coming to an end. Rest assured that ASRock is bringing better Internet connections to the upcoming Intel^® 8 Series motherboards with A-Style: 2T2R Dual Band 802.11ac WiFi + Bluetooth v4.0!

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, today announced the release of its SATA II 3Gb/s MSM610 mSATA mini solid state drive (SSD). With its diminutive yet robust form factor, impressive sequential read/write transfer speeds, and a host of reliability features, the MSM610 mSATA mini SSD delivers solid state performance and durability to today's advanced mobile devices such as tablet PCs, Ultrabooks, and other embedded storage applications.

Lenovo announced that customers can place orders for the IdeaPad Yoga 11S beginning today on www.lenovo.com or pre-order on www.bestbuy.com. The acclaimed 360° flip and fold Yoga 11S premiered in January at the International Consumer Electronics Show, following its popular predecessor, the IdeaPad Yoga 13.

Sized well for mobility in a thin, 11.6-inch design, the Yoga 11S Ultrabook convertible comes with choices of a powerful third generation Core i3, i5 or i7 Intel processor giving consumers the ability to create high-performance content and presentations and seamless graphics that make it a great entertainment device.

Xigmatek introduced a new low profile CPU cooler called Janus. Standing at just 45 mm tall, it's one of the thinnest coolers around. It has a nickel-plated copper base with six 6 mm diameter heatpipes coming in a aluminum fin array with rust-proof plating. Cooler comes with two different size fans. Larger 120 mm fan is installed casually on cooler body, while smaller 80 mm fan is positioned underneath. Both fans use Fluid Circulative Bearing (FCB) with 50000 hours MTBF and are rated at up to 22.4 dBA noise level.

ASUS today announced a new look for its range of motherboards based on the Intel® Z87 chipset. Replacing the previous blue-accented color scheme, a unique gold application on custom-designed heatsinks serves to emphasize the ASUS philosophy of always providing the most innovative motherboards in every generation.

ECS introduces the first Intel 8-Series Motherboards featuring the new 4th Generation Intel Core processor family for their new family of desktop motherboards Pro, Deluxe and Essentials.

AMD today launched the AMD Radeon HD 8970M, the world's fastest notebook graphics card. The AMD Radeon HD 8970M graphics processing unit (GPU) delivers the best mobile gaming experience imaginable to gamers, powered by AMD's award-winning Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.

If you've been following news of computing technologies, you've probably already noticed the presence of Thunderbolt technology. Now the maestros of motherboard manufacturing, ASRock is the world's first to add more of these wonderful Thunderbolt ports to the upcoming Intel 8 Series motherboards! What's more, the company's top-of-the-line Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard is the world's first Intel 8 Series motherboard to pass the Intel Thunderbolt certification.

HP today announced the HP SlateBook x2 and the HP Split x2, two detachable PCs that offer the full functionality of a notebook with a removable screen that also is a sleek tablet. Powered by the Android and Microsoft Windows 8 operating systems (OS), respectively, these versatile two-in-one devices combine power and portability, giving customers the flexibility to create, consume and share content in more places.

Japanese manufacturer Scythe, known for high performance CPU Coolers and innovative PC accessories, is hereby announcing the brand new Ashura CPU Cooler. Scythe Ashura is featuring a versatile mounting mechanism for latest CPU sockets and a very slim tower heatsink design to deliver high performance at low noise levels. Hence allows efficient cooling of latest six-core CPUs as well as almost inaudible operation especially with low consumption CPUs in silent systems. Furthermore it is equipped with a Scythe Glide Steam axial-fan, which was recently introduced with Scythe Kabuto II.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, announced today that it acquired privately held NVELO, Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based pioneer of storage software. By intelligently managing and optimizing the use of SSDs in the storage subsystem, SSD caching has become an attractive solution for both consumer and enterprise computing platforms. The timely integration of NVELO's flagship storage technology into Samsung's best-in-class SSD technologies will give Samsung customers access to an ever-evolving and more diversified portfolio of NAND storage solutions suitable for a broad range of computing platforms.

Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer today showcases a powerful, yet highly affordable CPU cooler, the Hyper 212X. With the Hyper 212X, high air cooling performance is available to builders with all budget levels.

Meet "Digital Ira". Ira represents a big leap forward in capturing and rendering human facial expression in real time, and gives us a glimpse of the realism we can look forward to in our favorite game characters.

As one leading brand in the computer chassis, thermal solution, and power supply unit, Thermaltake continues launching the most expecting member in Urban Series, Urban S71 mainstream full-tower, categorized in windowed and non window version. The Urban Series has a sophisticated and cutting-edge look; designed for users who looks for powerful performance and high expandability but a flamboyantly appearance or more simple and sophisticated look.

Micron Technology, Inc. today introduced the M500 solid state drive (SSD), featuring terabyte-class capacity, new ultra-slim package designs, and increased response times at a more affordable price point. Available to consumers, businesses, and system builders under the Crucial brand, and to OEM customers under the Micron brand, the new M500 SSD is built start-to-finish by Micron, providing the quality and reliability that only a NAND flash memory and SSD manufacturer can provide. Watch this behind-the-scenes video to see how Micron designs and builds SSDs.

French hardware website Hardware.fr posted PC hardware failure rates. Data is taken from one large French e-tailer. This time statistics include hardware sold between 2012 April 1st and 2012 October 1st and returned before April 2013.

Statistics by brand include only brands with at least 500 samples sold and exact models require at least 100 units to be sold. Highest sales reach tens of thousands sold products by brand and thousands by exact models.

Results of previous report (2012 H2) are included inside brackets.

Motherboards failure rates by brands:

Gigabyte - 1.19% (1.77%)
ASUS - 1.79% (2.34%)
ASRock - 2.09% (1.67%)
MSI - 3.05% (2.24%)

Motherboards by model:

ASUS Rampage IV Extreme - 5.88%
ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP - 5.59%
MSI Z77A -G45 - 4.94%
ASRock 960GM/U3S3 - 4.10%
ASUS P8Z68 -V Pro/Gen3 - 4.09%

Power supplies by brand:

Cooler Master - 0.98% (1.01%)
Fortron / FSP - 0.99% (0.42%)
be quiet! - 1.15% (N/A)
Antec - 1.23% (1.17%)
Thermaltake - 1.98% (2.36%)
Corsair - 2.18% (2.30%)
Seasonic - 2.36% (2.20%)

Power supplies by model:

Corsair Gaming Series GS600 - 3.64%
Corsair CX500 V2 - 3.59%
Corsair CX600 V2 - 3.59%
FSP (Fortron) HEXA 500 - 3.39%
Seasonic S12II-520 - 3.31%

Memory by brand:

Kingston -0.20% (0.27%)
Crucial - 0.39% (0.30%)
G.Skill - 0.95% (1.01%)
Corsair - 1.18% (1.06%)

Memory by models:

Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (4x4) DDR3 1600 CL9 - 4.92%
Corsair Vengeance LP Black 16 GB (4x4) DDR3 1600 CL9 - 4.46%
Corsair Vengeance LP Blue 16 GB (4x4) DDR3 1600 CL9 - 4.35%
Corsair XM3 8 GB (2x4) DDR3 1333 CL9 - 3.46%
Corsair XM3 16 GB (2x8) DDR3 1600 CL11 - 3.31%

Graphics cards by brand:

Gainward - 1.27% (2.05%)
PNY - 1.32% (1.56%)
Gigabyte - 1.54% (1.82%)
ASUS - 1.69% (1.53%)
MSI - 1.81% (1.69%)
Sapphire - 3.51% (1.32%)

Graphics cards by models:

Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC Edition 2 GB - 15.76%
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Edition 3 GB - 14.29%
Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1 GB - 11.88%
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2 GB - 11.82%
ASUS ENGT520 SL/DI/1GD3/V2(LP) - 7.07%
ASUS GTX680-DC2O-2GD5 2 GB - 6.98%
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3 GB - 5.80%
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti OC 1024 MB - 5.32%

Graphics cards by GPUs:

Radeon HD 7850 - 2.69%
Radeon HD 7870 - 12.45%
Radeon HD 7950 - 5.32%
Radeon HD 7970 - 7.24%
GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 1.43%
GeForce GTX 660 Ti - 3.06%
GeForce GTX 670 - 3.42%
GeForce GTX 680 - 2.66%

Hard Drives by brand:

Toshiba - 1.15%
Seagate - 1.44% (1.65%)
Western Digital - 1.55% (1.44%)
Samsung - 2.24% (1.30%)
Hitachi - 2.40% (3.45%)

Hard Drives by models:

WD Caviar Black 1.5 TB (WD1502FAEX) - 5.04%
Hitachi 7K1000.C 1 TB (HDS721010CLA332) - 4.94%
Hitachi 7K3000 2 TB (HDS723020BLA642) - 4.87%
Seagate Barracuda 320 Go (ST320DM001) - 3.57%
WD Caviar Red 2 TB (WD20EFRX) - 3.51%

2TB Hard Drives:

Hitachi 7K3000 (HDS723020BLA642) - 4.87%
WD Caviar Red (WD20EFRX) - 3.51%
Samsung SpinPoint F4 (HD201UI) - 3.01%
WD Caviar RE4 (WD2003FYYS) - 2.12%
WD Caviar Black (WD2002FAEX) - 1.97%
Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (ST2000DM001) - 1.95%
WD Caviar Green (WD20EARX) - 1.30%
WD AV-GP (WD20EURS) - 1.01%

3TB Hard Drives:

WD Caviar Green (WD30EZRX) - 2.85%
Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (ST3000DM001) - 2.71%
WD Caviar Red (WD30EFRX) - 1.89%

Solid State Drives by brand:

Samsung - 0.05% (0.48%)
Plextor - 0.16% (N/A)
Intel - 0.37% (0.45%)
Crucial - 1.12% (1.11%)
Corsair - 1.61% (1.05%)
OCZ - 6.64% (5.02%)

Solid State Drives by models:

OCZ Octane SATA 2 128 GB - 52.07%
OCZ Petrol 128 GB - 45.26%
OCZ Octane SATA 2 64 GB - 44.76%
OCZ Petrol 64 GB - 40.57%
OCZ Agility 4 256 GB - 10.23%
OCZ Octane SATA 3 256 GB - 8.70%
OCZ Agility 4 64 GB - 7.41%
OCZ Agility 4 128 GB - 6.85%
OCZ Agility 3 90 GB - 6.59%
OCZ Octane SATA 3 128 GB - 5.56%

Overall change from 2012 second half looks like this:

Motherboards - 1.99% (2.01%)
Power Supplies - 1.45% (1.58%)
RAM - 0.81% (0.78%)
Graphics Cards - 2.13% (1.77%)
Hard Drives - 1.54% (1.63%)
SSD - 3.27% (2.39%)

Taking a quick glimpse at the future, results of product sold between 2012 October and 2013 April and already returned so far look like this:

Motherboards:
MSI X79A-GD45 - 6.19%
ASRock 990FX Extreme 3 - 5.41%
ASRock 970 Extreme3 - 5.13%
ASRock 970 Pro3 - 4.85%
ASUS Sabertooth Z77 - 4.35%

Power Supplies:
Cougar ST 350 - 4.19%

RAM:
Corsair XMS 4 GB (2x2) DDR3 1333 CL9 - 4.07%

Grraphics cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2 GB - 9.31%
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC 2 GB V1 - 6.67%
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 2 GB V1 - 4.79%
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC 2 GB V2 - 4.76%
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 2 GB V2 - 4.56%
Gainward GeForce GTX 670 2 GB - 4.55%
ASUS HD7750-DCSL-1GD5 1GB - 4.35%

Hard drives:
Seagate Constellation ES 2 TB (ST2000NM0001) - 9.04%

SSD:
OCZ Vector 128GB - 4.20%
OCZ Vector 256GB - 4.07%

Corsair are preparing their first ever MicroATX case. Their flagship Obsidian series will be joined by 350D MicroATX chassis, measuring at 450 x 210 x 440 mm. Like other Obsidians, 350D has nice brushed aluminum looks. Case will come in two flavors: regular and with acrylic window.

PC system requirements for the upcoming sci-fi FPS Crysis 3 have been revealed. Game supports only DirectX 11 and requires quite a beefy rig to run.

Page 9 of 10

Latest News

Latest Reviews

Latest Guides

List of Graphics Card Brands and Manufacturers

Most Read Articles