Tech News
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Throwback Time: DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra B
Last week I posted a Socket A motherboard from Gigabyte and figured I would follow it up with might have been the BEST Socket A motherboard of the era.
The DFI LanParty NF2 Ultra B.
During the reign of DFI they would often re-issue motherboards based on customer feedback. The NF2 Ultra B was one of the first boards that Oskar Wu redesigned and turned out to be extremely popular with overclockers. Some of the design revisions included moving the socket to the upper left of the motherboard and pushing the VRM closer to the chipset. The idea here was to balance power delivery and put the CPU higher in the chassis for better cooling. It even came with heatsink mounting holes so you could use larger heatsinks.
The board featured a very large North Bridge heatsink along with the normal flair of DFI LanParty features including onboard power and reset buttons, RAID controller and new CMOS Reloaded.
CMOS Reloaded has since become a stable in the industry allowing people to store overclocking profiles and quickly reload your settings in the event that you needed to reset the CMOS. NForce motherboards also had a nasty "bug" which caused the CMOS to "brick" when overclocking and required that you either "hot flash" the BIOS or replace the BIOS chip. Despite all the good DFI never did include a secondary BIOS on any of their motherboards however, any serious overclocker had a bag of them just for this reason.
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Team Group T-Force Night Hawk 3000 MHz DDR4 @ techPowerUp
If there ever was a memory module design specifically for ASUS ROG motherboards I think the T-Force from Team Group fits that mold to a T. (see what I did there?)
Team Group sent us their newly released T-Force Night Hawk 3000 MHz DDR4, which comes with a new look, and other features not common to today's DDR4. T-Force is Team Group's latest focus on bringing something a little bit different for any memory-related gear, including memory and SSDs.
The top of the module comes with RGB LED lighting effects and has a style that jsut screams Silverstone Raven, ASUS "whatever" and maybe MSI if you somehow morph a dragon into a flying bird shape.
Either way they look amazing and at 3000Mhz they should also deliver some amazing gaming performance.
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Guru3D Rig of the Month - December 2016 - El Jefe
Casemodding isn't what it use to be and is a topic that Darren and I discussed in episode 70 of The Hardware Asylum Podcast. The whole modding thing has gotten easier and maybe it is in response to kids not having shop class in school anymore or families without tools but, I feel computer modding should be a status symbol and something everyone should do to personalize their PC.
One of my goals for 2017 is to bring back a casemodding and system build gallery and have my readers pick the monthly winners. I think it would be good fun and a great way to help promote the hobby.
The December edition of the Guru3D Rig of the Month 2016 is here. For this months build you get to meet 'El Jefe' from Allen Gonzalez. A really nice and specialized build.
I might even go so far as to have overclocking builds featured. Maybe put some rules around what qualifies as an overclock but it might be a great way to also promote the fun stuff you can do with overclocking.
Until then check out the build over at Guru3D.
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Avexir Raiden Green Tesla 16GB 2666MHz DDR4 Memory Review @ Hardwareslave
Avexir makes some pretty impressive memory modules and appears to be a strong supporter of the overclocking world. One of their unicorn products are the modules with the plasma show across the top. Very pretty to look at however, knowing that you are sticking a static generator on top of a memory module you have to wonder if it is really all that good.
Today we review the Avexir Raiden Series Green Tesla 2666MHz DDR4 Memory 16GB Kit. There are a lot of DDR4 kits on the market and they vary greatly in speeds, capacity, and design. If you want something a little visually different, Avexir have their Raiden Series using world exclusive patented technology of plasma tubes to mimic lightening effect.
If I was to speculate the year of the plasma memory module light show has concluded. LEDs seem to be the future and I give that a year before its all Meh under the bridge.
Still, the effect is extremely memorizing to watch, maybe someone will figure out how to put that in a watercooling reservoir for added drama. In the meantime check out the HWS review of the mouthful memory modules from Avexir
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ZEN Benchmark from french hardware Magazine
Leave it to the French to break NDA and think it is a good thing. Well, in this case I’m going to “assume” it was something the editor didn't catch but, still it is stuff like this that will bring back paper launches and market delays. It is also making it more difficult for consumers to trust hardware media and will eventually cause it to collapse.
Of course, with that being said and assuming the charts are "correct" the new AMD Ryzen CPU is looking like a winner in the performance arena.
The reddit translation is claiming 8 Zen cores and matching performance with a Intel Core i7 6900K (Broadwell-E) and at a lower than advertised clock frequency. This is great news since AMD really needs something in the performance arena before it even thinks about the consumer space.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and more importantly what kinds of motherboards might get released. You know they will be full on Crossfire boards with 4-way support (cause:NVidia). Plus if history holds true then we will also get this level of performance for less than the cost of a Core i7 6900K which can be north of $1,000 USD.
It might be time to get excited about AMD again.
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Ryzen CPU expected to help raise AMD desktop market share
Most enthusiasts would agree that CPU popularity is often centered around performance meaning that the fastest chip usually wins. Speed can either be raw out of the box performance or based on overclockability. For instance the old Socket A Athlon CPUs were extremely popular due to how they overclocked and how much fun it was to do. Some of that translated to the A64 line but that quickly died off when LGA 1366 was released.
Assuming Ryzen can match performance with Skylake and Kaby Lake then I think they might have a chance.
AMD's next-generation 14nm Ryzen series processors will be unveiled in the first quarter of 2017 and the new platform will be officially released at the end of February and enter global mass shipments in March, according to sources from motherboard players. Optimistic about its high price/performance ratio, motherboard players have been rather aggressive about placing orders for related motherboards recently and some even believe demand for the new platform will increase AMD's share in the worldwide desktop processor market in the second quarter of 2017.
Now all they need is something to compete with LGA 2011 and they might be on to something.
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Winter Overclocking and Frosty Phase Change
One nice thing about overclocking in the winter is taking advantage of the lower ambient temperatures. Not only does it help get a few more MHz from my air cooled graphics cards but also helps to lower the temp of my phase machine. Normally it runs between -35c and -45c but in the winter I can get around -50c with a little more capacity.
Another benefit, if you can call it that, is frost. Yes, we all know frost is a normal occurrence in the winter and a problem during extreme overclocking but, in the High Deserts of Idaho the summertime humidity is around 10% to 20% making frost build-up somewhat rare.
Things change in the winter months where the humidity jumps up to around 80% on most days and allows me to get some nice frost shots. Keep in mind this photo is of the POM section of the phase head so while it is cold enough to frost up it is actually quite insulated.
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Happy Holidays from Hardware Asylum
It is that time of year again where all tech heads, geeks and normal people group together to celebrate a very Merry Christmas, and other holidays as well. So from all of us at Hardware Asylum we wish you a fun and safe holiday.
If you happen to be stuck at home either by choice or by mother nature be sure to check out the latest episode of the Hardware Asylum Podcast where we talk about anticipated games we want to play this holiday season along with an amazing main show episode about casemodding and fan testing.
#merrychristmas #happynewyear #2017
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AeroCool Project7 P7-C1 Tempered Glass Edition Review
Here is another tempered glass computer case, this time from AeroCool.
AeroCool used to be the leader in ultra cool fan controllers. Sadly with the decline of the external drive bay I fear that accessories like that are no longer in style. Heck, even their own case is missing the external drive bay which tells you something.
Today we are reviewing the new AeroCool Project7 P7-C1 Tempered Glass Edition case on OCinside.de, convincing not only with LED effects, but also with many little gimmicks. Following this review is with a little luck this AeroCool Project7 P7-C1 or an AeroCool DS-230 chassis free of charge for a reader review !
OMG, that quote. I'm no expert but, that really doesn't make any sense. On a positive the AeroCool Project P7-C1 Tempered does come with an LED light strip and fan hub to help give it some "umph" on the store shelves.
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Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED Review @ KitGuru
OMG, Don't look now but it is the Hyper 212 with an LED fan!
What is this world coming to when you can refresh a product by simply changing the fan and get review sites excited about it.
Very rarely in the world of PC tech does a product come along and win universal acclaim. The original Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO is one such product, having built up a legendary status over the past few years. It has won our KitGuru Reader Award for best CPU air cooler for the last two years running, and is generally considered the ‘go-to’ product for an air cooler on a budget. Now Cooler Master have tried to improve perfection with the new Hyper 212 LED.
KitGuru is all like, "ya it is the best air cooler ever and now has an LED fan". Little do they know (or maybe they do) that EU coolers have always come with crappy silent fans. I guess noise is a huge issue in Europe so, while the Hyper 212 is a great cooler it could be even better, provided you purchase it in the US, or anywhere else for that matter.
I often think about the future of enthusiast computer hardware and while things have started to "die down" in the States there are other parts of the world where "building your own PC" is actually something people do. Of course the real question is. What market do they model their builds after?
- The US style, loud and proud pack in everything and a bag of nuts
- The EU style, silent but deadly either blow your whole wad or skimp on everything and then remove half of it.
- reddit style, where you have to second guess all of your parts and then whine like a little girl with a skinned knee when your intel Core i3 won't fit the 990FX motherboard that someone suggested.
- PC PartPicker style, cheap of the cheap (actual cheap hardware, not inexpensive, there is a difference people) and only buy stuff that is on sale despite ordering from 12 different stores and getting robbed on shipping.I guess the only way to find out is to have an Enthusiast PC world tour.
