Computex Taipei 2013 - This morning we got the chance to head over to the EVGA Suite at the popular Grand Hyatt to check out some of the latest offerings that the company was going to be offering us in the coming months. Entering and saying hello we then got taken over to the upcoming power supplies that EVGA plan to launch soon which will expand the lineup they already have on the market.
Expanding the already known SuperNOVA series EVGA sees the new 1300G2 and 1000P2 added to the lineup which already increases a strong lineup of units. The new 1300G2 is a 80 Plus Gold Rated unit that sits between the current 1000G2 and NEX1500 units. The 1000P2 on the other hand is a 80 Plus Platinum rated 1000 Watt unit. A new lower budgeted 500B model is also coming that carries the 80 Plus Bronze rating and of course comes in at 500 Watt.
Continue reading 'EVGA expand their line up with mITX barebone and new PSUs' (full post)
Sony has just introduced the latest handset in its continuously growing Xperia line of Android devices. The new Xperia M is a mid- to lower-end smartphone that offers users a decently equipped device for a great deal.
The Xperia M features a 4-inch 854x480 display and is powered by QUALCOMM's Snapdragon S4 1GHz dual-core processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. A 1750mAh battery is incorporated, while a five-megapixel Exmor sensor handles your photographic needs.
The phone does feature ClearAudio+ as well as the company's Stamina-Mode which significantly extends battery life. Sony says the Xperia M runs Android 4.1 out of the box and includes NFC and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. Unfortunately, there will be no LTE version, but the phone is HSPA+ 3G compatible. Sony says the Xperia M will be rolled out in July with a dual-SIM version following shortly thereafter.
Computex Taipei 2013 - While hanging out with Corsair a fair bit yesterday afternoon at the OC Main Event hosted by Intel and Themselves, we decided to head over to the Grand Hyatt Suite to see if they had anything else they could show us. Walking into see a cloud of LN2 greet us we headed over to Jake to see what exactly was going on.
Using an ASUS ROG Haswell motherboard we got a chance to check out the upcoming 3200MHz DDR C11 kit coming from Corsair under the Vengeance Pro label. On display at 3201.8MHz DDR the CL 11-14-14-36-2T kit from Corsair will indeed be for users who are looking for the most extreme out of the box performance.
Continue reading 'Corsair strap us in for some high-speed memory clocks' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - I'm really loving ASUS' innovations at this year's Computex, and something that caught my eye was their new Power Pack, which we have a video on, below.
The Power Pad plugs into the front of your ASUS PC, and when the power is removed from the PC (during a blackout, or someone kicks your cord out) the Power Pack kicks in and runs your PC. Better yet, it doubles as a smartphone and tablet charger with its two built-in USB ports. ASUS, this is the kind of stuff I love you for, truly. What are your thoughts on this? A battery within a PC, who would've thunk it?
Continue reading 'ASUS' PowerPad will power your PC from a simple, tiny battery that doubles as a smarphone charger' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - ASUS have shown off their upcoming Zenbook Infinity, their sure fire hit of a product. There's not much known on the Zenbook Infinity, apart from the amazingly seductive way ASUS showed it off in the Le Meridien, Taipei.
It was housed in a square glass case, where what felt like half of Taipei were standing around with cameras snapping videos away. It looks incredible, it's thin and beautiful, and I'm sure it would even feel like that, too. We can't go on too much about it, as there's nothing to go on, but you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as we sniff up the trail, we'll be on it like crazy.
If I had to guess some specs, I'm expecting no less than Intel's fourth-generation Core processor, aka Haswell, 16GB of RAM, a high-resolution display (ASUS wouldn't confirm if it were over 1080p or not, something I hope), and a 256GB (or so) SSD. The keyboard looks great, from what I could see through the glass, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Continue reading 'ASUS' ZenBook Infinity looks like heaven, in an Ultrabook' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - SilverStone had an interesting NAS-like case at Computex Taipei 2013, the SilverStone DS380. The DS380 is a mini-ITX chassis that can pack in a huge 8 x HDD's for some serious, serious storage.
Because it's a mini-ITX chassis, you can install your own motherboard instead of buying a ready-made NAS. There's three 120mm fans to cool all of those HDD's and a nifty key to unlock the front door to the case, where your hard drives reside.
Continue reading 'SilverStone's DS380 is a mini-ITX storage case, features 8 HDD bays' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - We've seen a fair amount of InWin's cases in the last 12 or so hours, but it looks like the company are now shifting gears and making mobile accessories as well as mouse mats.
There's some very styled mobile stands, that hold your tablet or mobile phone up, and are made in great colors. There's also some uniquely shaped mouse mats that come in a variety of colors, something you could even surprise your girlfriend or wife with!
Continue reading 'InWin moves into mobile accessories, mouse pads and more' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - I've got to admit, I'm really impressed with what InWin are doing lately. The trend continues once more, with the H-Frame mini, another open-air chassis from InWin.
This time around, it's a mini-ITX-capable chassis, with support for an optical disc drive and two 2.5-inch HDD's. We have two USB 3.0 ports, and an internal (and included) 180W power supply. The entire case is a fanless design, and just looks great. What do you think? Are you enjoying InWin's open-air chassis'?
Continue reading 'InWin's H-Frame mini is a tiny piece of open-air chassis art' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - We're sitting here at the Brass Monkey getting ready for the TweakTown Computex Party and VIA Technologies walks in with one of the neatest parts I've seen all day.
Let's have a look at the specifications.
It's not Hasewell overclocked to meltdown levels, but for most users that level of performance isn't necessary.
Personally I'm sold on the APC Paper. It has to be the first paper PC, at least this far south of China. The low-cost, low power unit will be available Q3 and cost less than $100.
Computex Taipei 2013 - We stopped off at the InWin booth at Computex Taipei 2013 today, first off checking out their incredibly beautiful Tou case, but their KingSize H-Frame also caught my eye. InWin are truly making some unique cases, and I really love the direction of the KingSize H-Frame they had on display.
InWin's KingSize H-Frame case is an open-air chassis, which features an awesome design, with some great style and color. There's six USB 3.0 ports on offer, an iPhone/iPad charger and 6 x 3.5-inch HDD bays and a single 5.25-inch bay on offer. It supports gigantic graphics cards of up to 420mm in length, too. As for cooling, we have support for two 140/120mm fans at the front, two 140/120mm fans at the bottom, and for the rear, a single 120/140mm fan is supported.
Continue reading 'InWin's KingSize H-Frame open-air chassis is a hot mess of a chassis indeed' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - Big case lovers have reason to rejoice today. Here at the show, Phanteks is showing their first computer case and it's just as large as their initial CPU cooler.
The case looks very good on the outside, but the internal features are very nice as well.
Big cases usually draw brig price points but the Phanteks Enthoo Primo isn't the $400 case you expect it to be, it's better and it costs less than $250.
Continue reading 'Phanteks Enthoo Primo chassis is the Real Deal, video hands-on at Computex' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - In a move that surprised no one, Seagate today announced a new ultrathin 5mm HDD for use in slim laptops, ultrabooks and tablet devices.
The 5mm standard will start off strong this year with large OEMs and ODMs taking advantage of the 25% reduces height compared to 7mm HDDs that were all the rage just one year ago. Shown above, at the top of the pile is the new 5mm, single platter wonder. The drive sits atop 7mm and 9.5mm products.
With design wins in hand from ASUS and GIGABYTE (shown here), Seagate has this model in production already. The new product supports Seagate Secure Self-Encrypting Drive Features with on-the-fly data encryption that meets TCG Opal protocol.
Continue reading 'Seagate unveil Laptop Ultrathin HDD's - just 5mm thick and weigh 3.3 oz' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - ASUS' ROG press conference was filled with gamers' wet dreams, and it didn't stop with their new Tytan G50 machine. The Tytan G50 falls under their ROG branding, and features "Turbo Gear" which is one-touch overclocking, and very simple.
It features Intel's new fourth-generation "Haswell" Core i7 4770K processor, which can be overclocked to 4.5GHz, NVIDIA's latest GeForce GTX 780 GPU, 16GB of dual-channel DDR3 clocking in at 1600MHz, and for storage we have two 128GB SSD's in RAID 0 and a 2TB HDD for storage. Filling out the specs we have Windows 8 as the OS, ASUS' SonicMaster audio technology and a tray-in Blu-ray combo drive. The ROG Tytan G50 is a great-looking machine too, something we should hopefully have in our labs in the near future.
Computex Taipei 2013 - If you're after a new gaming notebook, you might want to wait ASUS' new bad boy, the ROG G750. ASUS' new ROG G750 is a 17-inch notebook that crams Intel's latest fourth-generation "Haswell" processor inside, as well as NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 780M mobile GPU (configurations will change, depending on how you spec your G750).
There's the usual backlit keyboard, multi-touch track pad and hardware mouse buttons. There's some serious venting going on, as you can imagine, and output wise we have four USB 3.0 ports, DVD multi-drive, VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs, and two 3.5mm audio jacks. Better yet, ASUS have thrown in a built-in headphone amplifier, for the true gaming audio experience.
Continue reading 'ASUS announce the ROG G750 17-inch gaming notebook' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - I spent all day at the Grand Hyatt in Taipei seeing all the companies who are in attendance at the show in that building. Our first stop was at NZXT where they showed a range of new power supplies and also the new Phantom 530 chassis - a replacement of the original Phantom that was also released at Computex some years ago.
What really impressed me was its new prototype water cooling gear for video cards. These new coolers are compatible with any Asetek-based water coolers such as the NZXT Karken X40. The system was setup cooling two NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN video cards with coolers that feature steel brackets and two 90mm cooling fans on each video card.
They had Crysis 3 running at ultra settings and the GPU temperature was around 40- 50c, which is a big drop in the stock cooling by up to 30 - 40 degrees Celsius. We're looking forward to doing full reviews of the 530 and new cooling gear when it comes to market.
Computex Taipei 2013 - Just when you thought you knew a company, they bust through your imagination and go that little bit further. ASUS have done that quite a lot to the public over the last 24 or so hours, and their new Republic of Gamers (ROG) Nomad Back Pack is no different.
As you can see from the images above, and below, it looks like a normal back pack, but in the traditional ASUS ROG black and red color scheme. It looks great, is highly detailed, and looks like it would be the perfect accessory for lanners, or fans of ASUS' ROG line in general. The ROG Nomad can fit a 17-inch notebook inside, with its 17-inch notebook suspension system and padded pockets. There's ventilated back padding that keeps you comfortable on the move, and durable ballistic nylon that keeps your gear safe, and dry.
Computex Taipei 2013 - Some of you may know how much of a multi-monitor and high-resolution fanboy I am, well, I had to stop at AMD's booth at Computex to check out their 5-screen Eyefinity rig, which just looked amazing.
The five monitors were in portrait mode, another favorite of mine, and had Tomb Raider ready to play. I didn't play it myself, but I did take some video of another show-goer playing it and it looked incredible. The rig running it was powered by an AMD FX 8350 processor, 8GB of AMD Radeon DDR3 RAM, a Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card, and the five monitors, pumping out a resolution of 5400x1920. Now that is my kind of setup!
Continue reading 'AMD show off 5-screen Eyefinity running from a single Radeon HD 7990 at Computex Taipei 2013' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - I remember last year's Computex, and the InWin booth, where I got some eyes- and hands-on time with their awesome X-Frame open-air chassis and this year I was privileged to see something truly unique, the Tòu.
The Tòu is a features a full aluminum frame that is covered in, wait for it, 3mm-thick safety glass and then skinned in a Specular film that provides a gorgeous mirror finish. The LED's turn on inside, and the mirror finish fades a little, to really give it a magical look. The video above will give you a real chance to see it in action!
Continue reading 'InWin's Tou is an absolutely gorgeous work of art, oh and it's a PC chassis, too' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - BitFenix have just entered the audio headset market with their new Flo headsets, which come in five different colors. BitFenix state that they are made from precision-tuned acoustic chambers, feature 40mm Neodymium drivers for excellent sound, and more.
There's a self-adjusting headband, detachable microphone, in-line volume and mute controls, and BitFenix's famous SofTouch Surface Treatment. We donned the headset for some Lady Gaga tunes, and I must say, I was impressed. They didn't sound washed out with too much bass like most 'gaming' branded headsets, nor did they feel too cheap for a company who is completely new to audio products.
Continue reading 'BitFenix enter the audio game with their new Flo headsets' (full post)
Computex Taipei 2013 - If you've caught the theme, there are a lot of new products debuting at Computex. Corsair isn't being left out and has introduced a new line of Vengeance Pro DDR3 RAM for extreme overclockers and pro users around the world.
The new RAM ranges in speed and capacity from 1600MHz to 2933MHz and from 8GB (2x4GB) to 64GB (8x8GB). The Vengeance Pro RAM supports Intel's XMP 1.3 and comes in a range of colors, seen above and below.
According to Corsair, the RAM ICs are "specifically selected for speed and overclocking headroom." They come with a limited lifetime warranty. Pricing and availability have not been divulged as of yet.
Continue reading 'Corsair launches new Vengeance Pro Series of DDR3 RAM at Computex Taipei 2013' (full post)