Hardware Asylum CES 2025 Coverage
I would like to thank Yeyian Gaming for helping sponsor Hardware Asylum during CES 2025. The Consumer Electronics Show starts Jan 9th and runs through Jan 12th.
Yeyian Gaming offers an wide range of solutions for the PC gamer including pre-built PCs to fully customized gaming computers with an online configurator. Their builds feature the latest in computer hardware including Intel Ultra, AMD Ryzen 9 and the latest in Nvidia RTX.
Be sure to check them out at https://us.yeyiangaming.com and the Venetian Tower if you'll be attending CES 2025.
Tech News
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ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II OC 2 GB Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
Today we're looking at another budget enthusiast card with a lot of (potential) horsepower under the hood. The CU II posts some good gaming figures, and is cheaper than many 270X variants. Since it's built on the same hardware, with a few clock tweaks, it can also can run nearly as fast as them too.
The ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II VGA card shares the hardware with the more expensive 270X variant, but has lower stock clocks; from our experiences regarding overclocking with this card, we could say that it can easy surpass the R9 270X clocks or ever surpass it. Those who search the best bang for the buck VGA cards and won’t game on higher resolutions than Full-HD should put this card on their short list.
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NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet: The Fastest Tablet Available @ HotHardware.com
Back in late July, NVidia showcased their new Shield tablet, aimed squarely at mobile gaming and multimedia. Now that they've started shipping, we're starting to get some more information now on it's performance, both as a mobile gaming platform, and as a tablet device.
A few days after the initial announcement was made, we got our hands on a SHIELD tablet, wireless controller, and cover. We’re still working (and playing) with the SHIELD tablet, and will be posting up some more information about its gaming prowess in the days ahead, but in the meantime, we thought you’d all like to take to see just how the device performs.
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Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 Teardown @ iFixIt
When Facebook's acquisition of Oculus went public there was a rather fierce uproar over the whole thing. That has all since simmered down as the collective internet has since found something new to decry and rally against a week later.
Now, to assuage any lingering fears that Facebook was using any of its other intellectual properties for nefarious emotional conditioning experiments, the kind folks over at iFixIt have torn apart the latest Oculus Rift development kit to make sure. Long answer short, it's perfectly safe - but you may be surprised at what they did find inside.
Oculus VR took the world by surprise last year with the Oculus Rift. This year, they seek to push their own self-created envelope with the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2. We may not have flying cars, hoverboards or (commercial) teleporters, but we do have the latest virtual reality tech. Join us as we ogle the wizardry in the Oculus Rift DK2, teardown style.
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AMD Kaveri AMD's A10-7800 Processor Review @ Tech Report
Looks like AMD is introducing a few extra players to it's Kaveri lineup of APU's. The new A10-7800 and A8-7600 are looking to compliment the A10-7850K and 7700K as slightly less powerful but optimized variants of the original chipsets. A new 6-core A6-7400K was also announced for budget minded enthusiasts looking to make a leap up for under $100.
We first reviewed an AMD Kaveri processor back at the start of the year, but since then, AMD's new APU has been in kind of a weird place. The A8-7600 chip we reviewed has been scarce in retail channels, evidently because AMD succeeded in selling them elsewhere—likely to big PC manufacturers. Some of the chips were surely set aside for use in laptops, too. As a result, PC hobbyists just haven't had very good access to AMD's latest APU.
Happily, that situation is finally changing, and Kaveri-based chips are starting to make their way into the market. AMD is putting an exclamation point on that fact today by filling out its APU lineup and making some tweaks to its pricing. The headliner of the bunch is a brand-new model, the A10-7800, that may just be the most desirable Kaveri-based desktop processor yet. -
The Backpedaling Patent Troll Tried to Drop a Lawsuit
Never thought I would concern myself with a "patent troll" but this story over at Ars has me concerned. The article talks about how a company, Personal Audio, is trying to get money from a patent they hold describing "episodic content". This patent and applies to Podcasts and certain online videos where they are released on a regular basis.
As you know Podcasts work on the episode principle much like a written article. The Hardware Asylum Podcast and Ninjalane Podcast before that never indicated an episode number in the recording but, if you look carefully you can see what number we are on.
The article goes on in a typical "he said, she said" banter claiming that (Patent Troll) Personal Audio filed a lawsuit against Adam Carolla claiming he owed them money. Adam fought back and even asked his listeners to send in money to help pay his legal expenses. Personal Audio then dropped the lawsuit after realizing that Podcasters don't make much money. As it would turn out Adam didn't accept that and is still planning to go to court.
"Adam Carolla’s assertions that we would destroy podcasting were ludicrous on their face," said Personal Audio CEO Brad Liddle. "But it generated sympathy from fans and ratings for his show. Getting his fan base to continue to donate to his legal fund is a cynical exploitation of the publicity power he enjoys as an entertainer." He continued to say that Personal Audio was "quite surprised" Carolla turned down their offer:
Perhaps this is because he feels he can simply get his fans to fund his future and, now unnecessary, legal expenses. Or perhaps it relates to how he uses the case as material for his show. The fact of the matter is that Adam Carolla is asking people to donate money to him for a lawsuit that he no longer needs to defend. We would like his listeners to understand this situation when deciding whether or not to donate additional money to his cause.
According to Personal Audio, they've lost interest in suing podcasters because the podcasters—even one of Adam Carolla's size—just don't make enough money for it to care.There is a principle involved here and I applaud Carolla in fighting to make sure Podcasts remain free (to a certain extent). Personal Audio is now attempting to tarnish his reptutation by claiming he is using listener money to fight a lawsuit he no longer needs to defend.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I suspect that if Carolla wins then Personal Audio will lose their ability to troll on their 1996 patent. However, if Personal Audio wins then Carolla will end up paying the license fee and they will have free reign to request money from other famous, and not so famous, podcasters.
A tightrope on both sides.
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Silent Power 'Copper Foam' Cooled PC Prototype Looks All Kinds Of Awesome @ Hot Hardware
In the news today that can only be described as "Stories from the outer fringes of development." An interesting new cooling prototype was unveiled earlier this week that is both completely fanless... and extremely good at cleaning stainless steel pans. The new Silent Power cooling design appears to place all the hottest components directly under a copper plate topped with a copper mesh heatsink. At least if the crowdfunding on this project tanks, the company would still have a future as a leading supplier of copper sink scouring pads in Europe.
At the moment, this design is just a prototype. According to the wording on the website (which I had to rely on Google Translate for), it doesn't seem that the build above has actual components inside of it, and as such, no benchmarks / temperature data is able to be provided to us.
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Sharks Cove: A Raspberry Pi-style mini-PC for Windows 8.1
Back in the early days IBM figured that the money to be made in the computer world was with the hardware. History tells us that software was the big money maker and offered reoccurring income. Of course software was largely dependent on hardware so it was a nice symbiosis. It would seem that Microsoft has rediscovered disposable hardware and for that to work they need developers to write the software bits.
Hoping to show that Windows can run on just about anything, Microsoft has teamed with Intel and product manufacturer CircuitCo to announce a Windows-compatible development board, which is now available for pre-order, as ArsTechnica first reported.
Dubbed the Sharks Cove, this tiny PC features a "Bay Trail" 1.33GHz Intel Atom processor with integrated graphics, 1GB of RAM, 16GB onboard storage, a microSD slot, HDMI, a MIPI connector, a single USB 2.0 port, and a micro-USB port for power. There's no Ethernet or Wi-Fi card onboard, so you'll need to use USB adapters to connect the board to the Internet or any other network.
I'm all for these little mini machines and this one looks cool. However, I'm with the author in saying it is best to wait for some of the low cost laptops and such if you want a small form factor machine.
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Logitech Illuminated Living Room Keyboard K830 Review @ Techgage
We highlight a lot of the newest gaming gear hitting the streets on these pages, but today we'll be spotlighting something a little different. As micro-builds continue to get more exposure and become increasingly affordable, PC's are starting to muscle in on what was typically the console's domain, and vie for space in the living room. Now we're starting to see more interface periphreals changing as well to adapt to new UI's in this environment. This new Logitech keyboard is a nice example of "bringing the desk to you" by giving you full mouse and keyboard control, along with full illumination to work in a "theatre" environment.
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Finding a “great” keyboard for an HTPC is tough. It seems that most models do a lot of things right, but then miss the boat on the others. With its Illuminated Living Room K830, Logitech is hoping to deliver an option that hits all of the marks, and on paper, the chances look good. Let’s see if it manages to pull it off.
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What's Next for Advanced Micro Devices?
I know the Haswell refresh, and the upcoming Broadwell release has been the talk of the town lately as Intel continues to drive their 9 Series chipsets, but in all this talk - what's AMD been up to? Currently they've been sustained selling chips to Sony for the PS4s, but once sales start to slow down as saturation takes hold, what then?
AMD's stock has fallen nearly 20% in a two-day span following an earnings report that missed expectations to compliment weak guidance. Clearly, the company's weak performance in the PC and server space was in-focus, as this was an area where many investors thought AMD would be strong, especially following Intel's quarter just days before.
Howeve
r, when it comes to PCs and servers, AMD and Intel are obviously on different ends of the spectrum. Thus, AMD investors are left hoping that strong sales from graphics and visual chips are sustainable. Yet, according to its CEO, Rory Read, those wishes may not be a reality.
The full article is in the link section at the bottom of the report. -
Google’s $1B purchase of Twitch confirmed
It would appear that the rumors are true, Twitch.tv is now part of the Google Empire and they paid 1 billion dollars for the opportunity.
Google has signed a deal to buy game-livestreaming firm Twitch for $1 billion, confirmed sources familiar with the matter.
We don’t know everything about this deal, such as when it will be announced and the exact purchase price.
We do know that Twitch investors who participated in past rounds are pleased that they will be getting significant returns that are multiple times the amount they originally invested. The deal underscores the value of live Internet streaming and the rise of competitive gaming as a spectator sport — something that draws millions of viewers, can offer prize pools that surpass pro golf’s marquee events, and provides a multibillion dollar opportunity for advertisers.I've been doing some twitch research lately learning about what it takes to stream and finding out what streamers do to get attention. The real benefit for them is the chance to make playing games a real business. Of course the same could be said for "cam girls" but that is a different story.
Of course, now that Google is running the show you can be assured that almost every aspect of twitch will be better from the advertising money to streamers to the connection for viewers.
With any luck and a DSL upgrade you may even see some Hardware Asylum stuff on twitch so cross your fingers.
