Computer Systems - Page 27

For those out there looking to partake in their first PC building project, where exactly should you begin? There's a myriad of technology forums, YouTube channels and Facebook pages alongside specific component Facebook groups to help you on your way.

If you're a fan of the video side of things you may have come across MSI's marketing video titled "How to build a MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING PC". This film features a a scantily-clad technology enthusiast partaking in an educational journey of computer building for the benefit of the audience.

It's sitting at a massive 1.8 million views at the time of writing this article, but the feedback isn't all positive. With 8,687 thumbs down compared to 8,311 thumbs up, the comments section is filled with criticisms of the advice at hand.

GDC 2015 - ZOTAC was one of the first companies to unveil its Steam Machine at the Game Developers Conference, with its weirdly named, but very powerful 'SN970' making an appearance.

ZOTAC's SN970 gets its named from the GPU powering it, the GeForce GTX 970M, the mobile Maxwell GPU from NVIDIA. We have four HDMI 2.0 ports (yes, four!), an unspecified sixth-generation Intel processor, dual GbE, two USB 2.0 ports (with another two on the front) and two USB 3.0 ports. There's also an HDMI in port, as well as Wi-Fi 802.11ac.

Inside, we have 8GB of DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM, a 64GB M.2-based SSD and a 3.5-inch 1TB mechanical HDD. There's an SD card reader on the front, as well as a microphone and headphone port for audio. We'll see SteamOS preloaded onto the SN970, while the HDMI 2.0 ports can handle a huge 4K at 60Hz for those with the display or TV chops to handle it.

GDC 2015 - The Steam Machine flood is here, with MAINGEAR joining the party at GDC 2015 with its new 4K-capable DRIFT. The MAINGEAR DRIFT can be configured with some seriously delicious specifications, including the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 or AMD's Radeon R9 290X.

MAINGEAR has crafted the DRIFT in a beautiful Formula 1-like chassis, with a beautiful unibody that is "whisper quiet" thanks to the inclusion of an Epic 120 Liquid Cooling system and "superbly design airflow". MAINGEAR's CEO and founder, Wallace Santos, explains: "The DRIFT packs the muscle and performance of larger gaming desktop systems into a beautiful compact design that fits on your desk or coffee table. Valve's STEAM OS will bring PC quality gaming to any location and the DRIFT is the perfect way to deliver that experience".

Inside of the DRIFT we have up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 2TB of SSDs, and a 6TB mechanical HDD, and fully customized for everything in between. This includes up to Intel's Core i7-4790K CPU, and the latest and greatest in GPUs. The MAINGEAR DRIFT will start at $849, come pre-loaded with SteamOS, with the DRIFT Super Stock Edition arriving in an amazing bodyshell travel case that you can see above.

GDC 2015 - Valve has unleashed the Steam Link, Steam Controller pricing and availability as well as the Source 2 engine at GDC 2015. But the company has also teased that Steam Machines will be made available in November.

Valve said in a press release: "Steam Machines will start at the same price point as game consoles, with higher performance". Valve will also be launching the new Steam Controller at the same time, as well as Steam Link which will extend Steam throughout your house over your current network.

The company is currently showing off over a dozen Steam Machines from partners like Alienware and Falcon Northwest, where they added: "Steam Machines will start at the same price point as game consoles, with higher performance. Customers interested in the best possible gaming experience can choose whichever components meet their needs".

With six 16x16 displays giving you the ability to run various applications, the Cuberox PC project sets out to be the perfect home solution.

When turned off this product looks like just a general cube, but this waterproof casing houses a fully-functional computer within. Running on a Linux operating system, this product allows users to run different applications on each side of the cube, alongside giving developers full reign of application support and development through APR written on JavaScript.

Achieving a full waterproof seal thanks to wireless charging, this Kickstarter project also features some cool things like built-in speakers and a multicolor smart backlight. If you're feeling extra special you can partake in multiplayer games or even apparently install office on your device.

Researchers have used custom built PCs to display a galaxy simulation dataset at 7680x4320, or 8K. This mammoth display set up was pushing out 128 million particles across the 16 displays.

As for the PCs, they were running an Intel Core i7-980X, ASUS P6T motherboard, 6GB of Corsair Dominator GT 2000MHz DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 video cards, and 1 and 10GbE network connectivity. The team used 55-inch digital signage (1080p displays) with 7mm combined bezel. When it comes to software, the researchers use cgIX that "synchronizes the user input and drawing loop across all of the machines. On top of that is a custom application I developed that does out-of-core particle and volume rendering". Multiple computers are driving the 16 displays, where at any given time there were 4, 8 or 16 computers driving the displays.

What was the insane 8K set up of displays used for? The researcher explained on Reddit: "To support high-resolution visualization of large-scale particle datasets. Specifically, enabling the human visualization system to continue be used as an interrogation tool as the size of simulation datasets grows. Without these types of high resolution displays, it would become impractical to actually look at datasets that grow beyond the giga-scale because you simply couldn't get anything rendered on a single display screen that captures both detail and scale".

Lenovo is withstanding a public relations nightmare after being caught installing the Superfish software on systems - much to the entertainment of rivals. It's just a great time to poke fun at the No. 1 PC and laptop manufacturer in the world, as the company has seen tremendous growth in the consumer and business markets in recent years.

Hewlett-Packard offered the following tweet:

HP also linked to a blog post in which it said it "does not pre-install software to enhance customer experience, but there is a key difference between most preinstalled software and Superfish."

Also known as the Commodore 64DX, Hackaday has spotted this piece of technological history for sale on eBay - eventually going for the cool price of $22,862.01 via the method of auction.

Including a whopping 128kB of RAM (expandable to 8MB) and a 1280x400 resolution displaying 4096 colors, this model was Commodore's last project in the early 1990's before the company was liquidated completely.

The C65's on hand were sold to members of the public after this closure and it's likely that the PC's which have been occasionally popping up on eBay are these exact ones. In regards to the high price, it's certainly not unusual - the last system spotted on eBay sold for $20,100 and even featured some missing parts.

Every tech site has been signing the praises of the brand new Raspberry Pi 2. Featuring double the RAM of its predecessor, a quad-core processor and more, you can basically build a fully-functional general-use machine running on the new Windows 10 platform for a tiny investment.

You've purchased a Pi 2 for yourself, set it up and pulled out your camera to take a few pictures and share them on your favorite forums - big mistake! According to recent findings, any camera containing a Xenon flash will cause the system (whilst in operation) to freeze or turn off.

No - we're not joking. There hasn't been an official statement yet from the manufacturers, but plenty of users have reported the same fault upon testing their own units. Apparently due to shielding issues, if you've got a Raspberry Pi 2 and a Xenon-flash equipped camera, we'd love you to share your results with us.

Unsure if the Raspberry Pi 2 is for you? Microsoft are putting their might behind this latest product offering - announcing that it's "delivering a version of Windows 10 that supports Raspberry Pi 2."

The 2nd generation of Raspberry Pi offers a more powerful processor and twice as much RAM. Often toted by retro-game emulators worldwide as an optimum product, you could always install versions of Windows on the device, however Microsoft is now working to directly offer up an Operating System tailored for this tiny computer system.

There will be more information released later as to how exactly Microsoft will be supporting the Raspberry Pi 2, with them stating this will come "in the coming months."

System manufacturer MAINGEAR is embracing the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 video card, rolling out the new GPU in its VYBE, SHIFT, and FORCE desktop models. All three models can be customized based on consumer needs, with MAINGEAR pointing out that the new GTX 960 "delivers up to 60 percent faster performance and improves energy efficiency."

The VYBE gaming desktop is powered by an Intel Core i5 CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 GPU, and 8GB of DDR3 RAM - with a current promotional price of $999.

"The integration of NVIDIA's GTX 960 GPU further cements MAINGEAR as the dominant leader in high performance gaming hardware," said Wallace Santos, founder and CEO of MAINGEAR, in a press statement. "NVIDIA's newest GPU delivers the performance of high-end video cards without the premium price. We are impressed by its features and the extra horsepower."

The PC market has taken a beating over the last decade, but the recent stabilization is fueled in part by lower price points. While PC shipments haven't entirely leveled off, they are much better than the 10% decline experienced in 2013. Intel has owned a near-monopoly on desktop processors for several years, and many suspect artificially high CPU prices helped contribute to the decline of the PC. Affordability is a huge consideration for potential buyers, especially when they typically have smartphones that can easily handle most simple online tasks.

Laptops are now available for roughly $200 that can provide enough performance for many more tasks than any tablet or smartphone. Intel actually predicted during their recent investor call that prices will decline slightly over the coming year. Intel reported an 11% increase in laptop CPU sales, but an 3% decline in profits from those sales. The number of desktop CPU's declined by 1%, but the average prices have stabilized. Perhaps some more competition in this space would result in lower PC CPU pricing, which would certainly help fuel a resurgence much like the one seen with laptops.

Intel's fourth-quarter earnings pointed towards a rise in PC shipments, with it being noted that fully capable, lightweight laptops are available on the market for less than $200 - Intel claim that this trend of pricing is set to stay and may even fall lower than expected.

Intel's CEO, Brian Krzanich, pointed out that PC shipments are expected by Intel to stabilize in 2015, further stating that the prices for consumer desktops and laptops may fall slightly. Adding to the market is the thin-and-light laptops as mentioned above, with numerous systems being available and running on Chrome OS or Windows for a tiny price of $199, we're seeing products available like never before.

Reporting a fourth-quarter revenue of $14.7 billion, up six percent from 2014, Intel's Krzanich stated that "the innovation and options in the PC market have never been stronger," with Intel obviously setup to reap the benefits. 2014 wasn't a great year for the PC, but thanks to the recently released earnings we can see that the PC Client group revenue has been raised three percent when compared to the fourth-quarter in 2014, alongside the number of chips sold in laptops increasing by an impressive 11 percent.

A few years ago, it was unlikely you could find a top of the range PC build in your local computer store, likely having to purchase and install your AGP video cards and Athlon processors yourself - either the store wouldn't support the option or you didn't trust them to complete the task.

Looking at brick-and-mortar and online retail shops as of late, you'll begin to notice a massive trend toward 'gamer' PC's and overclocked systems. There are large retailers now who fully specialize in these kinds of builds, seeing companies like CyberPowerPC and iBuyPower reach massive popularity in the wider gaming market.

But what about the 'general' PC store retailer, or those looking to do a little more than just build and ship gaming products. Australian retailer MWave claims to the be biggest in the business and after a quick search around their website, I stumbled across their beast system simply titled as the "Mwave Intel OverClocked 10.1 Gaming PC."

CES 2015 - Steiger Dynamics has just taken off the wraps of its impressive new LEET Studio and LEET Pro PCs, both of which are workstation versions of their award-winning LEET Living Room PC.

The two new PCs can be configured with the full range of Intel's Core processors, right up to the Xeon processor with up to 18 cores. There can be triple workstation-class AMD FirePro or NVIDIA Quadro GPUs installed, super-fast SSDs, and ECC memory. This brings Steiger Dynamics machines up to the quality, specifications and style of Apple's popular Mac Pro range.

Steiger Dynamics are pricing their LEET Studio and LEET Pro Pcs from $1999 and $2999 respectively, and are available starting January 6.

CES 2015 - Steiger Dynamics has announced its latest Era home theater PC lineup, with the latest addition joining its growing line of custom-made HTPCs. Inside of the new Era SFF PC we have some serious power, something that includes a Blu-ray player in its small footprint.

The new Era PC features Intel's latest processors, an SSD, DDR3 RAM, and more. We have up to 6TB of storage inside of the Era PC, 4K support, Blu-ray playback in Dolby TrueHD, and more. We also have support for the use of wired controls through the use of your smartphone, tablet, touchpad, mouse and keyboard, or even an Xbox controllers.

Steiger Dynamics' new Era PC starts from $899 and is available right now.

CES 2015 - We had a chance to take a sneak peak at Intel's widely anticipated computing stick here at CES 2015. The tiny dongle-like computer will feature a quad-core Atom-based CPU, and come in two versions; one supporting Windows and the other supporting Linux. The Windows-based stick will feature 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage while the Linux version will have only 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. Storage can be expanded through the microSD slot.

The stick features HDMI as its video output and features both micro USB and full-size USB connectors, however one will have to be used for powering the device as it will not be powered through HDMI like some other dongles. Intel said as more and more TVs start supporting the new power-over-HDMI standard, future versions of the NUC will feature this technology. While the stick is very small, it is a full-blown PC with its own mini fan. The stick will cost $149 and $89 for the Windows and Linux versions respectively.

Intel is also launching a new series of Broadwell-U based NUCs. These NUCs will feature M.2 for storage as well as a special USB connector able to provide 1.8A of current for fast charging. They will also have replaceable lids, which can be used for customization. You could have a lid featuring a picture of your significant other and give the NUC as a gift. The replaceable lid also hints at the possibility of customized versions featuring add-ons like a TV tuner, which I saw in its infant stages.

CES 2015 - Fully optioned with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805, a Quad-Core Krait 450 CPU, a fast Adreno 420 GPU and 2GB of RAM coupled with 16GB of storage, Razer's new Forge TV platform doesn't mess around.

This Android-powered gaming console is set for release at a bargain price of $100 and measures up at only 4x4 inches in size. Designed for PC gaming, Android gaming and Android-based entertainment services via Google Play, this product is set for release some time in Q1, 2015.

The Forge TV can be played by up to 4 simultaneous players and has various connection options including wireless and Bluetooth 4.1. It's going to connect to your television through a HDMI 1.4 output and features speedy gigabit Ethernet capabilities.

CES 2015 - CyberPowerPC's new brand-offshoot is named Syber and they've just announced their new range of Windows-Based PC gaming consoles, set function in Steam's Big Picture mode and through a Windows 8.1 OS.

Soon-to-be-released Steam machines will run SteamOS, based on the Ubuntu Linux platform produced by Valve themselves - enabling gamers to play games only with Linux support and downloaded directly through SteamOS. Syber have set out to jump the gun, releasing their Steambox system before their competition by adding Windows 8.1 into the mix and launching games in Steam's Big Picture Mode.

What is the point of these products? Eric Cheung, CyberPowerPC's CEO commented in their latest press release, "for gamers who want to break out of the bedroom and into the comfort of the living room, the Syber Vapor PC gaming console series offers the best performance at an affordable price," followed by a statement from their VP of Product, Eddie Vong, who commented "we created the Syber Vapor PC gaming console to give gamers more power and more customization than the standard video game consoles like Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox."

CES 2015 - Other World Computing (OWC) has just announced the release of their Aura SSD upgrade for any 2013 Mac Pro and a self-made OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock system.

As one of the very few companies offering upgrades, advanced technology and support for Apple products, OWC's Aura SSD upgrade has been custom-engineered to deliver consumers a much higher capacity and performance than seen with the production release models. Available in 1TB and 2TB packages, expect the 1TB to set you back $899 and its big brother will cost you a whopping $1479.

It's certainly not cheap, but that's what you get when you go down the Apple Mac route - so you should expect it by now. These kits come with all tools needed for a DIY upgrade, with a step-by-step installation video provided alongside U.S-based 24/7 technical support. If you are to compare this price to a general PC offering, you can expect a 1TB SSD to set you back around $470 when purchased through Amazon.