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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 and 670 round-up: which overclocked card is the one for you?
Happy first-quarter birthday, Kepler. Your reference design is old enough for companies like EVGA, MSI, ASUS, Zotac to push your various clock speeds to the limit, while using custom coolers to avoid meltdown. Arguably the time to upgrade is now and that's why Hot Hardware has done a full-on round-up review, comparing some of the best GTX 680 and GTX 670 packages against each other and against the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. If you prefer your morning news fresh and unspoilered, jump straight to the source link below. Or, if you just want the gist of it, click Read More.
Corsair's Sandy Bridge E-compatible liquid coolers get plumbed in and tested
You'd be crazy to embark on a Sandy Bridge E upgrade without anticipating all the costs involved. Some might argue you'd be crazy, period, but that's only because they're haters. The fact is, if you can drop a grand on an i7-3960X (or $600 for a more sensible i7-3930K), then you can probably find some spare brass for a decent liquid cooler. So, which to get? The crew at HotHardware just reviewed Corsair's LGA2011-compatible H80 and H100 water systems, spiced up with a look at Intel's own RTS2011LC cooler for comparison. They concluded that both Corsairs were a cinch to install and easily surpassed Intel's offering by allowing higher stable overclocks without excessive decibels. However, they also cautioned that the hefty $90-$120 investment in a Corsair or any other high-end liquid cooler won't necessarily yield quieter performance than an air system, because you end up with fans and a water pump chugging away in your rig. See the source link for the full results and then click 'More Coverage' for Bit.tech's review of the H80.
Rock-steady Gigabyte G1.Sniper2 Z68 motherboard gets a nod of approval
Not enticed by all that Sandy Bridge E havoc that hit the PC market today? Good for you, because there's still plenty of life left in the first-gen LGA1155 Sandy Bridge processors and Gigabyte has put out another high-end Z68-based motherboard to prove it. The G1.Sniper2 just won itself a HotHardware recommendation, and if you look past the violent branding and color scheme you'll see why: the $360 premium card has the full gamut of ports and connections and delivers rock solid stability even when overclocked right up the limits of an i7-2600K CPU. Rack up that Wiz Khalifa tune and then click the source link for more.
Growing up Geek: Dave Altavilla
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have the Editor in Chief of HotHardware, Dave Altavilla. Growing up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts has its pluses and minuses. Certainly, in the summer time, being so close to the seaside made for fantastic boyhood memories at the beach, but in the off season you need to find ways to keep yourself busy. My fascination with technology and computers began with an Atari 2600. Then it was called a "Video Computer System," but now we all know better. That joystick marked it much more akin to a console, but don't hold that against me. Regardless, many hours were logged in on the Atari in scenic South Yarmouth, at least when it wasn't a beach day or if Dad wasn't heading down to the harbor.
Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi square off in 3TB hard drive roundup
We've seen 3TB hard drives trickling onto the market for the better part of a year, but it's only now that we're seeing more UEFI-equipped motherboards that can actually handle all that storage capacity. So, the benchmarking wizards over at HotHardware decided now would be a fine time to pit a few of 'em against each other, rounding up models from the likes of Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi and subjecting them to a grueling battery of 28 tests. We'll leave it to you to peruse the scores, but suffice to say the Seagate Barracuda XT swept about half the benchmarks, and notched a close second the rest of the time. But is it worth spending an extra $30 over Western Digital's consistently trailing Caviar Green? We'll leave that to you and your wallet.
HTC Jetstream hits AT&T store, gets benchmarked
Thinking about picking up an (inconceivably expensive) HTC Jetstream? After all, it just slipped into AT&T's online store this weekend. We'll just leave this link to HotHardware in the source below, in case you want to check out some comparative benchmarks before trading $700 for a two-year contract. Not that it performed poorly mind you, it raced neck-and-neck with Lenovo's IdeaPad K1 -- we just like think charts and tables are cool. Videos too -- hit the break to see the folks at HotHardware give the 10-inch slate a quick hands-on.
ASUS G74SX-A1 gaming laptop gets rated, loves a bit of Battleship
The 1982 Lockheed Sea Shadow may be rusting away in Suisun Bay, but its Commie-spooking contours haven't been forgotten. They apparently inspired the design of the Asus G74SX-A1, which just won a HotHardware recommendation for its cheese-eschewing looks as well as its performance, efficient cooling and realistic $1749 price tag. For once, the Core i7-2360QM CPU coupled with a GeForce GTX 560M and generous 12GB dollop of DDR-1333 RAM actually conspired to surpass the manufacturer's 3DMark benchmark claims. It wasn't flawless though: overall computing performance was middling compared to rivals; the speakers were shoddy when it came to producing music rather than explosions; and the 17.3-inch Full HD display was slightly wasted on some games that only ran smoothly with high quality settings at 1280x720. Still, all this naval talk makes us fancy some Silent Hunter 4 -- and that should play just fine. Check out source link lurking below for the full review.
