17242042
submission
crazyeyes writes:
Microsoft sent out a mysterious KB976902 black hole update which no one (not even Microsoft MVPs) know what it does. Is it an anti-piracy scanner? Or some kind of spyware???
16811704
submission
crazyeyes writes:
NVIDIA will launch a new $99 graphics card in time for the Christmas season. It will have 96 stream processors, GDDR3 memory and come in between the GeForce GTS 450 and the GeForce GT 420. Full scoop @ Tech ARP .
16757440
submission
crazyeyes writes:
It's confirmed! Western Digital will ship the world's FIRST 3 TB hard disk drives (and related external drives) in 2 weeks! If Seagate doesn't get their act together, they are going to lose out this Christmas season! Here's the link to the scoop and full details .
16659244
submission
crazyeyes writes:
Why is anyone still using Blu-ray when the future is already here? Media players like WD Elements Play have everything you need — 1080p video playback plus a ton of storage. Why bother with old-fashioned discs?
If that's not enough, rumours have it that Western Digital is coming up with the ultimate version of the WD TV . Think of it as the new Elements Play on steroids. It will come with WiFi-N, USB 3.0, web browing capabilities, new GUI and 2 TB of storage. And it will come in time for Christmas!
16552610
submission
crazyeyes writes:
If you are thinking of short stroking your HDD for better performance, read this article first . Sure, there are a few short stroking guides out there, but they don't compare the performance effect of different short stroking methods! This is a quote from the article : When we wrote the article, Modding A Barracuda 7200.11 Into A VelociRaptor , a number of readers insisted that we were wrong and the LBA mod works. Perhaps they didn't read it properly — the article was not written to dismiss the concept of short stroking a hard disk drive to improve its performance. Far from it. We were merely pointing out that it was misleading to say that short stroking a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 will turn it into a Western Digital VelociRaptor.
Short stroking will not magically turn a 7200 RPM drive into a 10,000 RPM drive. As we pointed out in our article, that perception is somewhat illusory as the physical characteristics of the "modded" drive remains the same. However, short stroking will improve performance in certain situations... and believe it or not, most of us are actually short stroking our hard disk drives without knowing it. Surprised? We will clarify it all in this guide.
16184022
submission
crazyeyes writes:
Here's an hilarious take on NVIDIA's new nicknames for their cards :
To give the new GeForce GTS 450 a little more marketing "oomph", considering the competition it's facing from ATI's Radeon HD 5000 series of graphics cards, NVIDIA came up with a rather bizarre concept. The model names are confusing, so hey, let's give them pet names... and so, "The Tank", "The Hunter" and "The Sniper" were born.
Nicknaming the GeForce GTX 480, the "Tank" is understandable — it's big, heavy and powerful. But naming the GTX 460, the "Hunter" or the GTS 450, the "Sniper", makes far less sense. NVIDIA made sure they looked smaller than the "Tank", but what makes the "Hunter" better than the "Sniper"?
Of course, it's not easy to come up with these stuff, but honestly, this is a frivolous waste of time... It's not like we buy graphics cards based on what we want to emulate in 3D shoot-em-ups :
"Oh, you love playing a sniper? Well then, you had better upgrade to the GeForce GTS 450 — it will surely help you shoot straighter. You don't want the GeForce GTX 480 — it makes too much noise and your enemy will have an easier time spotting you!"
Seriously...
16183586
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crazyeyes writes:
NVIDIA just released new GeForce 260.52 drivers — faster performance in games, SLI + improvements in 3D Vision, NVIDIA Surround + Blu-ray 3D support. Go download it now!
14588336
submission
crazyeyes writes:
This is probably the biggest collection of hard disk drive myths and urban legends , and the truth behind them. They seem to update it over time, so it would be a good idea to bookmark it and check for updates. Here are a few of the more hilarious HDD myths :* Downloading too much *stuff* will reduce your hard disk drive's lifespan.
* You can "erase" bad sectors by formatting the hard disk drive.
* The hard disk drive can only be installed in the horizontal position.
* If your hard disk drive dies, freeze it to retrieve its data.
* Constantly rebooting the computer will damage the hard disk drive.
11012610
submission
crazyeyes writes:
Homeland Security and NSA has gone bonkers. They got Microsoft to add spyware and backdoor into Windows 7 for anti-terror purposes. Spyware for Windows Vista and Windows XP to come. Does Obama know???
10044892
submission
crazyeyes writes:
There is no doubt that the Next-Generation NVIDIA ION offers better graphics and video playback performance for netbooks. As this NVIDIA slide "discretely" puts it, there is nothing the new Intel Pine Trail platform can do that the Next-Generation NVIDIA ION cannot do better.
With that said, what's good for a notebook may not necessarily be desirable in a netbook. Although the distinction between netbooks and full notebooks have blurred significantly (despite Microsoft's meddling), netbooks are still defined by their small screens, small keyboards and relatively slow processors. These limitations make the netbook a rather poor mobile gaming system, even with the Next-Generation NVIDIA ION driving it.
Even the NVIDIA ION's high-definition video capability is hampered by the netbook's inherent simplicity — all netbooks lack DVD drives, and have hard disk drives or in some cases, solid state drives with limited capacity. In other words, the ION netbook may be capable of delivering high-definition video output but its lack of storage prevents it from becoming a practical home theatre PC.
Most importantly though, users expect netbooks to be much cheaper than regular notebooks. If a netbook costs as much as a notebook, then it loses much of its appeal as the notebook will always offer much better performance with fewer limitations. As such, NVIDIA's biggest challenge lies not in convincing the consumer that the ION is much faster than Intel's integrated graphics, but in making sure ION netbooks are able to offer that performance with the lowest possible price premium.
9783726
submission
crazyeyes writes:
Never heard of Anti-Dot Crawl? Me neither. But I found out what it was @ the BIOS option of the week :
Dot crawl is a visual artifact that plagues composite video signals (e.g. NTSC signals). The artifact appears as shimmering checkerboard or line patterns between contrasting colours. As the dots in the artifact crawl between those colours, that gave birth to the term "dot crawl".
9345956
submission
crazyeyes writes:
That’s a really catchy title, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to turn a "slow" 7,200 RPM hard disk drive into a super-fast 10,000 RPM Western Digital VelociRaptor? After all, the 300 GB model of the much-vaunted HDD speed king retails for US$ 199.99, while a 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 only costs US$ 109.99. Imagine getting the performance of the VelociRaptor with the capacity and price of the Seagate Barracuda!
The guys at TechwareLabs came up with an apparently nifty way to "transform" the 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 hard disk drive into a VelociRaptor-killer. But before you go rushing out to grab yourself a 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 hard disk drive, please note that their mod basically involves crippling the Barracuda...
7999634
submission
crazyeyes writes:
Everyone knows that the new D0 core of the Intel Core i7 CPUs are cooler and can overclock better than the older C0 core, but everyone seemed to have missed the fact that the D0 cores are also much faster!
With a 3-5% performance advantage over the C0 core, you would be getting a FREE speed bin upgrade with a D0 core processor! How's that for a holiday bonus?
To come to these conclusions, these guys actually tested a whole bunch of Intel Core i7 CPUs based on both C0 and D0 cores to show you what kind of performance improvements you can expect from the new core.
7220140
submission
crazyeyes writes:
The new x264 HD Benchmark 3.0 is here! This is the improved version of the x264 HD Benchmark 2.0 benchmark which has become a standard CPU benchmark for many hardware enthusiasts.
The new x264 HD Benchmark 3.0 ups the ante by using the latest r1342 x264 encoder as well as other changes under the hood. This makes the x264 HD Benchmark 3.0 the new best tool for testing the full capabilities of modern multi-core processors.
