Silverstone
Latest
Codemasters announces F1 Online: The Game
As if fantasy football wasn't enough of a workplace distraction, Codemasters has recently announced F1 Online: The Game, which is, as you may have guessed, a free-to-play, browser-based Formula 1 racing game/management simulator. Set to launch sometime in Q1 2012, F1 Online allows players to race as their favorite real-world teams, or as a fictional team of their own creation. Full-scale World Championships and Grand Prix events will be available, qualifying runs and all, and social networking integration means you'll be able to immediately notify your friends upon beating Cyber-Alonso's lap record by 0.000001 of a second. For the more managerially-minded among us, team-management functionality will let the player "manage the commercial, research, production and race crew functions required for success on track," meaning that those reports you needed to finish totally won't get finished. McLaren-Mercedes, Williams, Lotus-Renault, and Force India are all present and accounted for, and with the inclusion of world-famous circuits like Monaco and Silverstone, F1 Online: The Game looks to be the racing enthusiast's ideal time-waster.
Gigabyte H55 Mini-ITX motherboard and Silverstone SG07 used to build (almost) perfect gaming toaster
We know you've seen Mini-ITX motherboards before, but how many have managed to fit in a PCI Express x16 lane, two full-sized DIMM slots, and Intel's LGA1156 socket? Gigabyte has done just that with its H55 circuit slab, squeezing the basic requirements for a gaming rig into a 6.7- x 6.7-inch footprint, and the lads over at Tech Report have taken notice. Pairing that tiny rig with a Silverstone SG07 small form factor case, they set out to discover if the PC craze of the Naughties -- SFF computing, mostly sparked off by Shuttle's efforts -- can be resurrected with more modern gear. What they found was that the SG07's 600W PSU stood up to the power demands of a GeForce GTX 470, all parts were somehow maintained in an acceptably cool state without making the enclosure sound like a wind tunnel, and gaming performance was highly satisfactory. Of course, there were some compromises and flaws to both the motherboard and case, but overall it turned out to be "one heck of a midget gaming system." Hit the source link for all the build details.
British Grand Prix: A rare glimpse behind the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team (video)
Jealous much? Don't be. I had to sacrifice my ears to the roaring engines at Silverstone last Friday, just for you lovely people. While the Formula One teams were taking a break from the Grand Prix practice sessions, I was able to sneak into the pit area and get up close to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes' shiny stallions -- no touching allowed, naturally, but I did learn a thing or two about their pre-race preparation. And to top things off, legendary driver Jenson Button also popped by to share some thoughts on McLaren's F-duct system (a cunning and legal trickery that lets the driver's left leg redirect airflow over the rear wing in order to stall the flap, thus reducing drag when doing straights), as well as a few grumbles about the sharp corners on the recently renovated circuit. Video's after the break, and be sure to crank up your speakers for maximum sensation.%Gallery-97407%
SilverStone HDDBoost gets reviewed, okayed for purchase by most Earthlings
SilverStone's HDDBoost is an interesting, if not completely unique, offering. It's a relatively inexpensive (around $45) option for boosting performance in older machines, but it still requires the purchase of a decidedly not inexpensive SSD. For those with one already on hand (not to mention a traditional HDD), it allows you to have a RAID-type setup that provides peace of mind and a performance boost when it comes time to boot or load an application. Critics over at HardwareCanucks found that this little doohickey actually provided a noticeable increase in speed when coming from an older HDD-based setup, but those already using a WD Black Edition or Raptor probably "won't see much of a difference in terms of load times." They also point out that users should certainly use second-generation SSDs if picking one up, and if you've been searching for the next big breath of life to send to your aging desktop, you owe it to yourself to peek the full writeup.
SilverStone HDDBOOST lets you build your own hybrid SSD hard drive
We've already seen Lenovo and others pair an SDD up with a standard hard drive for maximum speed, but SilverStone now has a fairly novel solution to let you build your own hybrid storage device. Dubbed the HDDBOOST, the device itself is just a simple chassis that lets you plug in any SDD drive and any standard hard drive and connect the whole rig to your computer -- you can even apparently daisy chain multiple hard drives and have them all take advantage of the SSD boost. Of course, those drives will be recognized as one by your computer, and the initial setup appears to be minimal, with only a simple mirror backup required to copy all your priority data to the SDD -- which the company says could result in up to a 70% increase in speed. No word on an official release over here, but this one should be available in Europe later this month for €33 (or about $45). [Thanks, Alex]
SilverStone Raven's unique case design highlights cooling, not to mention "ugly"
Those crazy kids over at bit-tech got their hands on SilverStone's new Raven RV01 PC case and have been kind enough to give us their impressions. The big news here is that the motherboard's been rotated 90 degrees clockwise, so that your expansion cards are slotted in vertically (they face up, not out the back). This is intended to facilitate cooling -- cool air is taken in at the bottom and exhausted through the top of the machine -- but as the reviewer points out, although this "seems the most logical orientation for a high-end PC," the actual case design is poor enough to rate as fairly frustrating. "For every welcome piece of design," he writes, "there's another to annoy." Cable management is described as nigh on impossible, especially with drive trays and mobo in such close proximity that there isn't any wiggle room. Judging by all this -- and by an appearance that betrays not one wit of "innovation" -- you might want to hold off on this bad boy. Someone is sure to take another stab soon, hopefully with a package that is nowhere near as goofy looking. Available now in the UK for £171.35 MSRP and Stateside for $249.99.
Jeffrey Stephenson impresses with another wood grained, retro casemod
Last time we heard from Jeffrey Stephenson he had crafted an art deco-styled casemod that, spiritually at least, brought us back to the watery confines of Bioshock. He's back with another classic-looking device, dedicating this one to Ingraham Cabinet Co., creator of many a fine walnut-ensconced radio case in the WWII era. His Ingraham case mod is similarly walnut-clad (though veneered) with a hand-built basswood frame layered atop an otherwise mid-grade mini-ITX SilverStone case. The focal point is a finely polished chrome knob on the front that Harley riders might recognize from an Arlen Ness catalog, perched atop a final retro flourish: a Firewire 400 port. Inside (pictured below) things are rather more modern: a VIA VB8001 mobo, a (rarely seen in the wild) 1.6GHz Nano processor, 4GB of DDR2 memory, a 64GB SSD, and not a single vacuum tube.
How-To: Build a practical HTPC
We've seen a lot of home theater PCs lately and being in need of a new workstation, we decide to build one of our own. We started planning by looking around to see what others had done. It would be fun to own a HD capable 2TB box , but we're not going to drop $7,400. SnapStream's 11-tuner performance art piece looked fun too, but not practical. Even Ars Technica and ExtremeTech had decent looking guides, but both systems broke $2K. We wanted to build a machine that had: Good desktop performance Long life through upgradability Cost close to $1,000 So here's how we did it, click on to check it out!
