Latest News - Page 4205

WD have just cut their warranty on Blue and Green drives, and Seagate didn't want to be left behind so they've followed suite. Segate had just sent a letter to authorized distributors where they've said:

Effective December 31, 2011, Seagate will be changing its warranty policy from a 5 year to a 3 year warranty period for Nearline drives, 5 years to 1 year for certain Desktop and Notebook Bare Drives, 5 years to 3 years on Barracuda XT and Momentus XT, and from as much as 5 years to 2 years on Consumer Electronics.

Intel, in it's plot to take over the CPU world, is set to release another unlocked Core i5 processor. It will arrive in the form of the Core i5-2550K and has a retail channel part number of BX80623I52550K and OEM part number CM806230121300, the Core i5-2550K was added to the MDDS database.

The Core i5-2550K will carry the S-spec code SR0QH. Clock speeds are unknown at this time, but CPU World expect it to be 3.40GHz. The chip will be on the LGA1155 package, feature four cores, 256KB L2 cache per core, 6MB shared L3 cache, integrated dual-channel DDR3 IMC, integrated PCI-Express 2.0 root complex and a TDP of 95W.

We all know Skyrim has enjoyed a very successful career in just six weeks, but just how successful? Well, firstly, it has shipped over 10 million copies since it's 11/11/11 launch, with "Large retail reorders across all platforms and record-breaking digital sales reflect the ongoing global demand by consumers excited to explore this extraordinary fantasy epic," the company said in a statement.

Robert Altman, Chairman and CEO of ZeniMax Media has said:

We are gratified that Skyrim continues to garner high review scores and accolades around the world. We are most grateful to our fans for their support and enthusiasm for the game, and their love of the hundreds of hours of gameplay it offers. We continue to strive to deliver the highest quality entertainment experience for everyone. 2012 will be another huge year for our fans, with the release of the Creation Kit, as well as exciting DLC which will add to the richness of this epic adventure.

Juniper is out, Cape Verde is in. The Radeon HD 5770, after two years on the force, is retiring. In it's place is the rookie AMD Radeon HD 7770. If you remember, AMD rebranded the HD 5770 as the HD 6770, so we saw nothing new. This is the first time in two years that AMD are giving its mainstream performance class products a performance upgrade.

As you can see from the above shot, the HD 7770 definitely looks like it's older, and much stronger brother, the Radeon HD 7970. It includes a large diameter fan pushing air down vertically and is a similar design introduced by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460. The length is also nearly the same, measuring in at 8.25-inches.

Password management and security is something that confuses a lot of people, and Microsoft are hoping to change that. A new feature that will be included in their next OS will allow users to put an unlimited number of individual passwords behind one master password, and then sync them across all other Windows 8-based machines they use.

The Live ID password is all you'll need, so for the multiple websites you use, you can set very complicated passwords for them, in the case you get hacked and your credentials are stolen, your entire digital life isn't ripped away from you. Windows 8 will automatically enter your login information when visiting a saved website.

Western Digital in a strange move, has cut the warranty of Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue drives from three to two years. Channel partners received a letter from SelectWD explaining the news, where it is said that Caviar Black and Scorpio Black drives will still receive five-year warranties.

The SelectWD letter says:

This new warranty policy will be effective for drives shipped from January 2nd, 2012. It is important that you take a moment to update your website(s) and collateral to reflect this change for effected drives shipped after January 1st, 2012.

All drives shipped to distributors prior to Jan. 2nd 2012 will retain the current warranty terms. Because of existing inventory in the distribution channel there will be a short period of time when some drives with a 3-year warranty will be sold at the same time as drives with a 2-year warranty.

If you have any doubt about the warranty of a drive you purchased, you can go to support.wdc.com, select Warranty and RMA Services and proceed to the Warranty Check page.

Sony have released their next-generation portable, PlayStation Vita, in Japan over the weekend. This is something Sony are really hoping scrapes back some of their lost market share, not to just Nintendo, but mainly to Apple and Google with their smartphones and tablets getting into the mobile gaming market.

PlayStation Vita will launch in the U.S. and Europe next February, but over the weekend saw thousands of PS Vita future-owners lining up to grab one at launch on Saturday. Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House said that pre-orders of Vita in Japan had sold out as customers lined up at retailers to make reservations.

This was mostly unexpected, but then again, AMD have been waving their big red flag all over the Internet in the last few days due to the leaked AMD Radeon HD 7970 performance and specs. Today, we have PCINLIFE leaking an NVIDIA slide, that shows the difference in performance between their current single-GPU hero, the GeForce GTX 580 versus the GeForce GTX 780.

Say what? GeForce GTX 780?? Not GTX 680? Yes!

The above slide shows the performance between the current GTX 580 and the next-gen Kepler-based GTX 780. The test bed is a Core i7-3960X, Windows 7 64-bit, 297-Series driver, 2560x1600 resolution with both AA and AF enabled. The GTX 780 is virtually twice as fast as the GTX 580 if the chart is correct.

A little while ago we visited the Antec Taipei office here in Taiwan and got an early and exclusive look at its range of upcoming EarthWatts Platinum power supplies which are set to hit the market next month and really shake things up as far as pricing goes. Antec reckon their competitors are nervous.

Antec will soon launch the EA-650 watt Platinum, EA-550 watt Platinum and EA-450 watt Platinum. Each is certified with an 80 Plus Platinum rating which means they achieve up to 93% power efficiency, which is the best rating that can be given to a PSU. Antec claims that the EA-650 model can save up to 25% on your electricity bill - we aren't quite sure how they worked that out, but we'll have to take their word for it until we test their claims.

Each comes with a three year warranty and includes a "whisper quiet" 120mm double ball bearing fan with what Antec call long lifetime expectancy. There are little fancy features with these PSU such as an LED on the fan or modular cable management, but they still include key quality components such as Japanese heavy-duty capacitors and Antec CircuitShield which includes over current protection, over voltage protection, under voltage protection, short circuit protections and so on.

The USB Implementers Forum announced this week that Intel's upcoming "Ivy Bridge" 7-Series Chipset, and other Intel chipsets, have achieved, finally, USB 3.0 certification. Intel's Ivy Bridge silicon, which is due to ship in Q2 2012, will have USB 3.0 as a standard feature, for the first time ever. At the moment, it has only been made available on select notebooks and desktops, and requires chips from AMD, or additional chips from NEC, and others.

General Manager of Intel's Chipset and SoC IP Group, Ahmad Zaidi, said in a statement:

SuperSpeed USB certification...helps ensure interoperability and backward compatibility within the broad USB ecosystem.

Analysts believe that once USB 3.0 has been baked into Intel's chipset, it will made the standard universal as it can be offered on virtually any PC. Brian O'Rourke, research director for In-Stat, has said:

Intel's integration of SuperSpeed USB into its upcoming core logic chipset is critical because it allows cost-conscious PC (makers) to offer the technology at a very competitive price point. Additionally, SuperSpeed USB adoption in PCs is leading to broad adoption in PC peripherals, consumer electronics, and mobile devices.