Gigabyte Plug Fest 2011 (ASEAN)
bluetooth 23 Nov 2011
Last Thursday, 17 Nov 2011, our Singapore overclockers were invited to the first Plug Fest event held in ASEAN. Despite the bad weather, representatives from ASEAN media and overclockers reached Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 17th on time.
The Plug Fest event in ASEAN is first of it’s kind. In the past, Gigabyte has held that in Taipei. Gigabyte invited two separate large groups of media and overclockers from around the world. They test out the boards and give feedback on issues faced during testing and overclocking using extreme methods such as LN2 cooling.
Upon arrival at the hotel, we took a rest before we proceed to a nearby local restaurant for our dinner together with representatives from Gigabyte, media and overclockers from Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand.
Registration starts in the morning of 18th November. We were brought to a small ballroom where benches of equipment are laid out for our test. As there are 4 of us, 2 get to share a bench. I am delighted to be in the same “team” as SpyBoy.
Before testing and benchmarking takes place, we were given a presentation of the new X79 series of boards.
Intel Core i7-3960X LGA2011 and intel X79 Express chipset
bluetooth 14 Nov 2011
Today, Intel introduces it’s new Intel X79 chipset and Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge-E processors. This new generation of processors and chipsets takes over the previous generation of Core i5/i7 as the highest end Intel 32nm architecture platform.
One of the most formiddable change on this new architecture is the introduction of quad channel memory support, supporting up to 256bits.
The Intel Core i7-3960X features 6 Cores, 12 therads. It is spotted in a Intel LGA2011 socket which is larger than existing Intel processors. It supports Intel Turbo Boost technology 2.0, Hyper threading, 15MB intel Smart Cache. It also has an integrated memory controller supporting 4 channels of DDR3-1600 (mostly overclockable to DDR3-2400/2500). Intel AVX, AES, SSE 4.1 and SSE 4.2 instructions are supported as well.
The Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme edition has an unlocked multiplier and has a base clock of 3.3GHz with Turbo Cache to 3.9GHz. It has 6 cores 12 threads, with 15MB Cache. TDP is 130W and it is priced at USD 990.
The Intel X79 Express chipset supports 14 hi-speed USB 2.0 ports, dual EHCI, GbE MAC, HDA, 8 PCIe 2.0 express lanes, 6 SATA ports (esata), Intel Rapid storage technology enterprise is optional.
As for the 2nd generation core i7 LGA2011 processor, it supports 40 lanes of PCIe 2.0. It supports different combinations including 2 x 16 + 1 x 8 or 1 x 16 + 3 x 8 or 1 x16 + 2 x 8 + 2 x 4. Although it is still indicated as PCIe 2.0, it actually will support PCIe 3.0 in future.
The X79 chipset does not have native USB 3.0 support. As for overclocking, previous generation calls it BCLK. On the Sandy Bridge-E it is renamed as DMICLK.
Promise SmartStor NS2600, NS4600, NS4700, NS6700 and Pegasus DAS with Thunderbolt connectivity
bluetooth 7 Nov 2011
NAS might not be the solution for an individual but it is not the case for a SOHO or enterprise. This is exceptionally important when you are dealing with large amounts of data and you need a simple elegant way of managing it and keep backups of the important data on the HDD.
The Promise SmartStor series can help you to achieve that. With it’s web based visualized management console, you can have access to the device and volume information. You can also check the temperature too.
Unlike other brands, Promise provides a comprehensive backup solution and they include windows bcakup centre, RSYNC over the internet, volume snapshot and backup to the cloud using amazon web services.
The SmartStor comes with Acronis Backup & Recovery version 10 which can be used to do schedule backups. Moreover the license is unlimited and supports Windows Server and Workstation. QNAP, Synology do not provide such a bundle solution. Thecus only provides a solution with limited license for Windows Workstation only.
The 2nd most important feature is backup to cloud. You can now share your documents from the cloud in amazon web services or Dropbox. Using dropbox, you can also view your documents on Apple iPhone, iPad, Android devices.
You can also backup a copy to another server through the internet.
In terms of speed, the benchmark iSCSI write shows that throughput is around 110MB/s average of all the various RAID modes.
It is also easy to configure the NAS. Just insert the HDD, power on, Once the LED initialisation turned on , it is ready for operation.
Another feature is Promise OPAS. When there is no internet access, you can plug in a USB stick to it. The software “USB Retrieval” will export the system log in HTML to the pen drive automatically.
NS2600, NS4600 are suitable for Home/SOHO while the NS4700 and NS6700 are for SMB.
The NAS is also DNLA certified. You can now stream your audio and videos to your DLNA certified TVs. There is also an app for iPhone and Android, allownig you to control the steraming media on the NAS.
ASRock releases pictures of 4 models of Intel X79 boards – X79 Extreme4 M, X79 Extreme4, X79 Extreme7 and X79 Extreme9; X79 Extreme4 M – the first mATX X79 board
ASRock X79 Extreme4 M
So far we have seen a number of ATX boards. This is probably the first mATX board that we come across.
The ASRock X79 Extreme4-M looks very elegant in that Gold/Black colour scheme. With 3 full length PCIe 3.0 slots and 1 PCI slot on board, the PCIe slots are capable of supporting either CrossFire X or SLI.
In terms of expansion, there are only 4 memory slots, 2 on each side of the socket LGA2011. DDR3-2400+ (OC) is supported as indicated on the mainboard.
On the board, we can also see the power on/off, reset, debug led. There are 6 SATA connectors on the front. The board also supports 1394a, USB 3.0.
On the back of the mainboard, we can see the PS/2 keyboard & mouse connectors, S/PDIF optical and digital out, USB 3.0, eSATA, GbE and audio ports.
The chipset is attached with a heatsink / fan powered by X-FAN.
If you are not a gamer or overclocker, the ASUS P9X79 series motherboards should be a better bet in terms of cost/performance ratio.
The P9X79 series comes in 3 variations but most of the features are the same. The picture below shows motherboard has 8 DDR3 slots capable of DDR3-2400 (OC). There are 3 PCIe slots allowing 3 way CrossFire/SLI. It has a new DIGI+ Power control, SSD caching, BT GO 3.0! just to name a few of the new feature set on this board.
From the set up below, you can see that the heatsink almost occupy 1/4 of the mainboard. At the rear of the mainboard, we can see USB 3.0 ports, eSATA 6Gbps ports and audio ports.
First look at ASUS Rampage IV Extreme bluetooth 26 Oct 2011
ASUS Singapore held an event last week, showing off it’s latest Intel X79 boards to the members of the media. We were invited to witness the new product line up for Intel X79 Socket LGA 2011 motherboards.
3 series of boards were announced and they are the Rampage IV Extreme, TUF series – SABERTOOTH X79 and the standard P9X79 series.
We will first take a look a the Rampage IV Extreme. Ramage IV Extreme, being in the top of the ROG series targets the Extreme overclockers, power users and probably the rich kids who is willing to spend more than to do soldering work themselves.
From the board layout, we can see the familiar black red colour scheme.
The Rampage IV Extreme is based on INTEL X79 Express chipset that sports the LGA2011 socket type. From the screen shot, we can see that it supports up to 8 x DDR3 DIMMs of up to DDR3-2400 (OC).
There are also 5 PCIe full length slots that allows you to pair up to 4 cards in either Quad CrossFireX or QUad SLI.
On the right rear of the board is the OC Zone where the Overclocking features can be found. They include ProbeIT, Onboard buttons, PCIe x16 switch, LN2 mode, Slow mode, voltminder 2 LED, Go button.
For the front connectors, there are 4 SATA 3Gbps and 4 SATA 6 Gbps ports. There are 4 USb 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0 external connectors on board. (Detail pictures are on next page).
At the rear of the motherboard is the PS/2, Clear CMOS, 2 USB 2.0 (1 for ROG connect), 1 Bluetooth v2.1+EDR, 4 USB 3.0, 2 eSATA 6Gbps, 1 Intel GbE Lan, 7.1 ch audio and 1 SPDIF out.
Preview of ECS X79R-AX Intel X79 Mainboard bluetooth 25 Oct 2011
Intel is scheduled to launch it’s new generation of processors November 2011. With the new chipset and new processor, it means a new motherboard for the larger processor with a new socket type LGA2011.
In the following pages, we will preview the upcoming board from ECS. This is the first SKU from ECS which features the Intel X79 Express Chipset. Below are pictures of the mainboard.
The Black Extreme X79R-AX is ECS’s gaming board.It supports Quad channel DDR3 memory with support of up to DDR3-2500 (OC). This board supports 4 way SLI or CrossFireX with 4 slots operating in PCIe x16 Gen3 bandwidth. (2 slots at x8 bandwidth)
X79R-AX also adds in USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps to complement the Intel X79 Express chipset. The SATA 6Gbps is suported by ASM 1061. There is also Dual GbE by Realtek RTL8111E and 8 ch audio by Realtek ALC892.
Other features of this board include 15u Gold contact, Bluetooth v2.1+ for faster dat transfer, QoolTech IV with three heat pipes that combines Thermolchromic technology with heatsinks. M.I.B X which allows users to save OC profiles in BIOS.
On board you will find Power on/off swtich, Debug LED, (4 x SATA3Gbps + 8 SATA 6Gbps)12 SATA ports on the front. On the PCB, there are also voltage measuring points.
The rear panel I/O consists of 4 USB 3.0, 6 USB 2.0, 2 eSATA 6Gbps, 1 PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse, 2 GbE, 1 WIFI dongle, 1 Bluetooth DOngle, 1 Clear CMOS button.
LG Optimus 3D P920 3D Android Phone Review
Bluetooth 23 Oct 2011
Phones have evolved so much these few years, from keyboard to touch screen, to voice control etc. Although most people will agree that most Android phones are just iPhone look alike with similar features, LG Optimus 3D is otherwise.
LG Optimus 3D, is quite different from it’s competitors. Based on Android 2.2 which LG promised an upgrade, the LG Optimus 3D spots a glasses-free 4.3″ wide display, displaying 3D contents that are recorded by the phone or from Youtube. The dual 5 mega pixel camera is capable of doing real time video recording and still images both in 3D. 3D videos can be uploaded to youtube immediately. It can also record 2D videos at 1080P HD resolution and 720p in 3D.
There is also a 3D hot key on the rear of the phone. It can convert 2D to 3D vice versa by the press of the button. 3D game converter is added in the latest firmware (v10d). You can also share and view 3D videos on the large screen effortlessly, with HDMI 1.4 connection to 3D equipped TV.
All this is accomplish with LG’s advanced “tri-dual” configuration: a dual-core, dual channel and dual memory architecture based on the ground breaking TI OMAP4 chipset. This configuration enables users to enjoy significantly improved performance and run-time compared to any other smartphone. Unlike other dual-core smartphones, with single channel and single memory, the LG Optimus 3D enables the simultaneous- and thus faster transfer of data between its dual-core, dual channel and dual memory.
The phone is capable of running on 2G GSM 850/1800/1900, 3G HSDPA (900/1900/2100) and hSDPA (1700/2100/850), HSDPA-HSPA+ (14.4Mbps/5.7Mbps) networks. It has a dimension of 128.8x68x11.9 and weighs 168g.
The screen is a 3D LCD Capacitive Touch screen with 16M colours at (480×800). It has a battery pack of 1500mAH. The processor is a Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, PowerVR,SGX540 GPU, TI OMAP4430 chipset.
In the following pages, we will take a look at the interface, pictures and videos recorded using the phone.
If you have been waiting for the Android 4.0, Google and Samsung just finished it’s press event in Hong Kong minutes ago.
At the event, Samsung was first to speak about it’s new Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first phone powered by the new Android 4.0 operating system.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
The new phone is based is a HSPA+ 21Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps phone supporting 850/900/1900/1700/2100. EDGE/GPRS 850900/1800/1900. It has a 1.2GHz dual core processor with a large 4.65″ 1280×720 HD Super AMOLED Screen powered by by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be offered in HSPA+ in NOV 2011 and LTE versions in different regions later. It has a Super AMOLED HD 1280×720 display with contrast ratio of 100,000:1. The screen is 4.65inch. it has a Contour display, sleek and curve 8.94mm and a bezel of 4.29mm.
It has a 5 megapixel full HD recording camera with 0 shutter lag for low light shooting. It will come with Barometer, NFC – payment options, contacts sharing, POGO pin – docking for sharing videos.
The camera is a 5 mega pixel camera with LED. Front camera is a 1.3 mega pixel for video conferencing.
The camera is also capable of doing vido recording in MPEG4/H.263/H.264 ni 1080p@30fps HD. Music playback is in Mp3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+
The phone has BT ver 3.0, USB 2.0, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) and NFC. It also has Accelerometer, Compass, Gyro, Promimity and Barometer.
The memory capacity is 1GB (RAM) + 16GB/32GB (ROM). It has a dimension of 135.5×67.94×8.44mm and weighs 135g and comes with a 1750mAh battery.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
Android 4.0 will have a new font type – Roboto which gives the phone a magazine layout font type that is easy to the eyes. There is a new lock screen for it and Android has also update the animations and Live wall papers.
Buttons are gone, replaced with touch screen virtual buttons which are part of the OS. With the new OS you can now group apps into folder just like Apple’s iOS. You can also place your favourite apps or contacts on the taskbar.
Other improvements over the previous versions include a new pull down notification screen, more accurate and responsive keyboard, in line spell checker, improved cut and paste.
Something different is that Android 4.0 now offer voice recognition in real time, it does not need to ‘think’ for a few seconds, it just show you word for word when you speak into the phone.
ANother new idea they have is the face unlock feature. By capturing your face, the phone will be able to recognise the owner of the phone and unlock it. It did not mention what will happen if it recognises the person wrongly for more than 3 times, does it destory all the data intact ? Unfortunately, we are unable to witness it as the demo failed probably due to beta ware.
Other improvements include web browser. It now allows you to do inprivate browsing, offline reading, gmail offline search for 30 days, a revamped calendar.
For those on limited HSPA traffic, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich now offers you a way to check your data usage. It can also detect which are the applications that are choking up data for the month. Of course you can set alert when your data usage is reaching say 5 GB.
You can now take pictures without entering the phone by dragging the lock bar to the left to access the camera feature. with the immediate access, you can now send pictures almost instantly to social networks. enhance it with filters to change angle of shot etc. There is also panorama shooting which stiches photos for a wider viewing angle. Video recording is 1080P HD. It can zoom and focus continuously. it can also do time lapse video recording.
ANdroid 4.0 also introduce PEOPLE APP, a central application that keeps you updated with your contacts social network profiles and contact information.
Lastly, Android 4.0 comes with NFC. A new program Android Beam is introduced that is capable ot sharing any content between android devices by placing two phones back to back
Users can now share photos, contacts, even share the game (on marketplace) by just bumpping the two phones back to back.
At the closing of the media conference, Google reiterate that the developer tools are ready and the first Android 4.0 phone will go on sale in November.
Apple 4S has gone on sale in various countries yesterday. Our friends at ePrice in Hong Kong managed to get hold of a set through their own means from Australia. They put the shiny brand new iPhone 4S powered by iOS 5.0 against the older iPhone 4 to a test on web browsing speed, application loading time and lastly the speech recognition assistant SIRI using Hong Kong style English. Check out the videos below :
First look at AMD 8 core Bulldozer processor FX-8150 with benchmarks
bluetooth 12 Oct 2011
AMD officially unveils it’s 8 Core processors the Zambezi based on Bulldozer architecture. Targetting the performance and PC enthusiasts, it is the fastest AMD processor to date to spot a new design with 8 cores.
The most anticipated model is the FX-8150, an unlocked, 8-Core processor. The FX-8150 has a 3.6GHz (base), 3.9GHz (CPU Turbo), 4.2GHz (Max Turbo) speed. It has 256K L1 instruction (64KB per module) / 128K L1 data cache (16K per module), 2MB of L2 data cache per module (8MB total L2 per processor) and 8MB (shared) L3. The total L2+L3 cache is 16MB. It has an integrated 72 bits x 2 memory controller and can support up to DDR3-1866.
The processor is based on HyperTransport 3.0 Specification with one 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 4.4GHz full duplex (2.2GHz x2).
The packaging is the Socket AM3+ 938-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA). Max TDP is 125W.
In the next page, we will take a look at some benchmark numbers in our ongoing tests.
BIOSTAR TA75A+ AMD socket FM1 Mainboard Review Bluetooth 2 Oct 2011
These days, board makers are all trying to entice you with feature set which you don’t use. BIOSTAR, being a practical mainboard manufacturer believes otherwise. Today, we will take a look at their TA75A+ Socket FM1 board. This is a Socket FM1 board for the APUs. There is no software to speed up USB 3.0 nor Network bandwidth. It is a serious no gimmicks board targetting the mid range DIY user.
The mainboard supports the AMD A8, A6, A4, E2 processors of up to TDP of 100W. It has 4 memory slots that support up to DDR3-2000 (OC) of up to 32GB in total. As for graphics expansion, it has 2 PCIe 2.0 x16 which works in (x16+x4) for CrossFire. There are 2 PCIe 2.0 x1.
For connectivity, there is 6 x SATA3 6Gb/s Connector supporting SATA RAID: 0,1,10. Thers is also native support of 2 x USB 3.0 Port, 1 x USB 3.0 Header, 4 x USB 2.0 Port and 3 x USB 2.0 Header on board. For network, it uses a Realtek RTL8111E GbE controller.
With the APU, the graphics capability is a Radeon HD 6550 and it capable to have a maximum resolution of VGA:1920×1600, DVI-D:1920×1200, HDMI:1920×1200. The audio is powered by Realtek ALC892 8-Channel HD Audio .
Other features on board includes THX truStudio PRO, 100% solid cpas, G.P.U (Green Power Utility), BIO-Remote2 allowing remote control of the mainboard using Android or Iphone. There is also charger booster to speed up charging of iPads, iPhones. The BIOS is a UEFI bios which you can control using your mouse. There is also BIO-Flasher and BIO-Relife and eHotline.
On board are Rapid switch which are the power and reset switches for DIY users. The DEBUG led also helps.
In addition, the BIOS also comes with Preset overclocking modes which you can select V6, V8, V12 or you can manually adjust it. There is a wide range of voltage adjustments and frequency adjustments available in the BIOS.
Yesterday, we attended the press launch of the highly anticipated SONY TABLET S at Arts Science Musuem, Marina Bay in Singapore.
The event started off at 2pm with an introduction to the design and unique features. The SONY Tablet S is based on the Android 3.2 powered by NVIDIA tegra2 mobile processor. It has a 9.4 inches LED backlit IPS screen. There are two models, one with 16GB and 32GB of memory respectively. Both are WIFI models only.
For external ports, there is one USB 2.0 microAB connector, headphone jack x1. There is bluetooth, irDA. On the rear there is a SD memory slot. The TABLET S has 2 cameras, one in the front and one at the back. The front camera is a 0.3 mil mega pixel while the rear is a effective pixel 5.11 million powered by Exmor for mobile. There are 3 axis accelerometer, Gyrosensor, Digital compass and Ambient sensor built into the device.
The unit measures 241.2mm x 10,.11mm x 174.33mm and weighs 598g. It has up to 8 hrs of battery life of standard usage, 430 hours standby, 31 hours playing music, 6 hours of video playback and approx 6.2 hrs of web browsing via WIFI.
The magazine form factor catches eyeballs as no other tablet in the market has a design that resembles a magazine. This asymettric design gives it a balanced feel when holding on to it for long hours. The LCD Screen is of a resolution of 1280×800 which gives you optimal viewing. There is also an optional keyboard that is sold seperately.
Windows Phone 7.5 Mango brings new life to Windows Phone
Bluetooth 28 Sep 2011
It has been months since we received the NoDo update which didn’t impress us. Just 1 hour ago, I received a notification to update it to the Wp 7.5 (Mango). I hook up my HTC trophy 7 and update it through Zune downloading the massive update via internet.
Once the update is done, you will be greeted with a RED colour Windows Logo. In split seconds you will be greeted with the usual tiles screen somewhat with a updated font.
A flip to the right shows us the applications tha are previously installed. I notice the slight change in layout. It now includes a search app option and the apps are now arranged just the way the phone book is, categorising them under alphabetical order.
Asian users have always been concerned about the Asian language support. Wp7.5 didn’t forget about this part of the world. Although display language and menus are still restricted to 5 European languages, input methods include Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The Chinese language includes handwriting too.
The popular mobile messaging application WhatsApp is now available in the Marketplace for downloading. This cross platform tool allows free “sms” to other platform users on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. It it definitely a great tool to have on the Windows Platform. Unfortunately, SKYPE is still not available on this platform.
A check on the HTC Apps in Marketplace, I discovered 2 new apps, one is Locations and the other is Connected Media.
Locations is for you to save your favourite location with photos, voice and notes. You can also share it with friends. The second is Connected Media. It is software that allows you to view photos and play music or video stored on media servers. you can also send media from your device to networked media players such as TV or Set top boxes.
In settings, you will also find a new item “background tasks” which list the apps that can continue to run in the background.
The new IE is refreshing too. The default screen appears in full screen with the URL bar relocated to the bottom of the screen.
So far, after 30 minutes of running on this new update, I wouldn’t find 500 updates but have found most of the improvements I wanted. One of the disappointment is the menu screen which is still not configurable to other Asian languages. The other feature that is missing is Tethering. According to our PR contact, the Tethering feature will be added on in another update (with no dates specified). Well, I can live with it so long there is WhatsApp.
WP7.5 is a leap ahead for Microsoft that is long overdued. The next apps that will make Windows Phone 7.5 more complete would be SKYPE, banking applications.
So have you installed yours ? Post your comments at the end of the post.
Windows 8 Developer Preview Bluetooth 14 Sept 2011
This morning, Microsoft just released the Developer preview of Windows 8 (x86/x64). We have heard a lot about this upcoming OS. Being a tablet oriented OS, it has similarities with the Windows Phone 7 interface.
We took a while to download the 32 bits version of the developer preview from MSDN site. The file is an ISO file which you would need to burn it into a DVD ROM. It took us a while to get it installed into a Dual Core Atom Net Top.
As we did not boot up from DVD ROM but installed it as an upgrade from Windows 7, the screens were not the usual screen shots we see when installing Windows 7. In a seperate install on another EeePC 900, the procedure and screen shots looks identical to a Windows 7 installation.
Installation
The system detected that the nettop has a WiFi built in and asked user to setup which AP to connect to.
In settings, we chose express settings to speed up installation. It will take the default settings in configuring the system.
For Logon, we have to supply a Windows Live email address.
MUZEE Multimedia player ICD-7 USB Stick
Bluetooth 5 Sep 2011
Are you a frequent traveller or residing in another country ? If you missed your country’s radio or tv station, the MUZEE multimedia player ICD-7 might be able to help you.
MUZEE is a multimedia solution provider. If you have read our review of the ASUS O Play multimedia device, you would have noticed that it also uses their solution to provide on line streaming of radio and tv stations.
The ICD-7 can be considered as an enhanced edition of the software. The MUZEE ICD-7 is an application software embedded in a USB flash drive that provides users with convenient and quick access to a database which filled with links up to 350,000 Internet videos, 200,000 e-books, 20,000 radio stations, 10,000 magazines, 5000 TV channels,10,000 games and 10,000 news sources. With a click, you can watch TV in US, listen to radio in France, read a newspaper in Japan and play a video game all in a matter of seconds.
As all contents are found on the internet, there is no need for subscription. Furthermore the list gets bigger when more media provides an alternative means of reaching to it’s audience and listeners worldwide. Simply plug the staple look alike device into the USB stick, launch the application and you have access to the world, with radio and tv in all languages, genres etc.
Enjoy non-stop online entertainment and users could prerecord or record their favorite real-time programs and read all kinds of worldwide e-books/magazines/news with the translation function. All the contents are filtered in advance and updated 24/7 with new sources.
The yearly event is back. As usual, we scout the floor and bring you the brochures of various IT Products ranging from notebooks, desktops, tv, media players, cameras etc.
Check out our price list at this section. If you are unable to access it, you can also access it from our mirror here.
The ECS Black Deluxe Series P67H2-A2 motherboard is the brand new high-end LGA 1155 socket product fully supports the 2nd Generation Intel Core i3, i5, i7 and unlocked edition K-sku desktop processors to deliver amazing overclocking capabilities.
Features NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX technology and 2 PCI-E x16 Gen.2 expansion slots, that allow hardcore gamers to get an unbelievable gaming performance. In order to improve system stability and safety, ECS P67H2-A2 equips all-solid capacitors, Lower RDS(on) MOSFET and ECS exclusive 15 μ technology, this enhances system durability while running at full-loading mode for a long time. ECS application kit including eOC, eGS, eSF, eBLU, eDLU and eJIFFY also offers a convenient way to extract performance, save energy consumption and keep drivers and BIOS up-to-date.
In terms of expansion, the board comes with 4 x 240 pin DDR3, the board supports up to 32GB of DDR3 up to DDR3-2133 (OC). The board 2 x PCI Express Gen 2.0 x16 slots, 1 x PCI Express x1 slot and 2 x PCI slots supporting CrossFireX and SLI.
With Marvell SATA 6Gbps controller on board, it supports SATA 6Gbps for speedier transfers to/from HDD. There is also eSATA support 6Gbps. For faster transfers, the board is also equipped with USB 3.0 support. Data transfer will be much faster than before. For audio, there is Realtek ALC892 8-Ch High Definition audio CODEC. There are also 2 GbE ports based on RealTek RTL8111E Gigabit Fast Ethernet Controllers with Teaming.
Other features include 15u Gold contact, Qooltech III, All solid capacitors, ADD indicator (as Debug code and temperature), eJIffy, eBLU, eDLU, eSF, eOC, eGS, EZ Charger etc.
ASUS WL-330N3G 6-in-1 Wireless-N Mobile Router, world’s smallest multi-role device
Ultra-portability with Footprint Smaller Than a Credit Card
Industry-leading 6-in-1 Multi-role Functionality: Router, Access Point, Universal Repeater, Ethernet Adapter, Hotspot, 3G Sharing
Plug-n-Surf Installation with Graphic Management
Delivering spectacular utility and value, the WL-330N3G works as six different devices rolled into one. What’s worth highlighting first is its Hotspot Mode and 3G sharing Mode. As a hotspot, it can serve as a mobile Wi-Fi connection for several devices at no extra cost. While in 3G sharing mode, it provides internet connectivity for several devices through the 3G network. This mode works in conjunction with a 3G USB adapter. The other four modes allow your devices to get connected in different scenarios!
The 6 modes are : Router, Access Porint, Universal Repeater, Ethernet Adapter, Hotspot, 3G Sharing
ASRock A75 Extreme6 Motherboard Review with AMD LIano APU A8-3850
Bluetooth 25 Jul 2011
Not everyone makes the same boards. The features, overclocking, design differs from manufacturer to manufacturer. In fact, to us, innovation is more than anything else.
Say Hello to ASRock A75 Extreme6 where you meet the amazing feature set.
The ASRock A75 Extreme6 is a board based on the AMD A75 Hudson D3 chipset and support for Socket FM1 100W processors. It supporst native 6 x SATA3, 4 x USB 3.0 Ports. For memory, it can achieve up to dual Channel DDR3 2400+(OC).
Although the processor has an integrated video, users who wants to use external graphics cards can do AMD Quad CrossFireX™ , 3-Way CrossFireX™ , CrossFireX™ and Dual Graphics. There is also multi VGA Output : D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI.
For users who doesn’t want to spend a fortune on graphics cards, the graphics within the APU supports AMD Steady Video™ : New video post processing capability for automatic jutter reduction on home/online video. The board also also has 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec), Supports THX TruStudio™.
Important features only available on ASRock board are XFast USB Technology, Graphical UEFI BIOS, Supports On/Off Play Technology, Instant Boot, Instant Flash, APP Charger, SmartView.
The APU we are going to use is the A8-3850. This APU is 32nm DX11 3D graphics capable. It also supports OpenGL 4.1 and OpenCL 1.1 standards. It has 4 Core 4 threads and the embedded video is a Radeon HD6550D class video capable of doing 4000 marks in 3DMark Vantage Performance test.
On page 2, we will take a look at the motherboard layout.
