Items tagged with LC
A few months back, we examined the performance of four liquid coolers for the Sandy Bridge-E socket LGA 2011 platform: Corsair's H80 and H100, Maingear's Epic 180, and Intel's own reference cooler. Liquid coolers are popular with high-end OEMs and some enthusiasts, but they aren't cheap -- and there's a certain group of enthusiasts who aren't comfortable with flowing liquid in their systems. Recently, we spoke with the team at Noctua, who offered to send us one of its high-end air coolers for comparison. We've been curious about the company since it came across our radar with its upgrade offer for anyone upgrading to Socket 2011 last year. The Noctua DH-14 is a mammoth air cooler that competes...
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A few months back, we examined the performance of four liquid coolers for the Sandy Bridge-E socket LGA 2011 platform: Corsair's H80 and H100, Maingear's Epic 180, and Intel's own reference cooler. Liquid coolers are popular with high-end OEMs and some enthusiasts, but they aren't cheap -- and there's a certain group of enthusiasts who aren't comfortable with flowing liquid in their systems. Recently, we spoke with the team at Noctua, who offered to send us one of its high-end air coolers for comparison. We've been curious about the company since it came across our radar with its upgrade offer for anyone upgrading to Socket 2011 last year. Before we get started, we can't resist sharing the following:...
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If space truly is the final frontier, then one company just took another small step toward the eventual giant leap toward reaching space. SpaceX, (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation), a privately-held space-transportation company, just conducted a successful test of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle's first-stage rocket booster. This comes less than two months after SpaceX successfully launched its two-stage, Falcon 1 rocket to become "the first privately-developed liquid fuel rocket to achieve Earth orbit." Where Falcon 1 is designed to launch small payloads into low-earth orbit, the Falcon 9 is designed to carry heavier payloads and travel further above the Earth, such as into geostationary...
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If you are a technophile, what's the first thing your wife / friend / relative does when they can't figure out something, or when there's a problem, no matter how small, technology-wise. Yep, they come to you. Now, yes, most of us here are technophiles, but besides that a new Pew Internet & American Life Project study (.PDF) which focuses on "When Technology Fails," seems to show that youth and gender play a role in how confident a user will be in fixing a tech failure by themselves. And yes, besides the obvious stats they gathered about how many failures may have occurred, Pew Research was focusing on how confident a consumer felt about fixing a problem when a failure occurred, as...
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Intel's Aaron Brezenski recently made an entry to the Intel Software Network Software Blogs entitled "Welcome to G45! Better (but still imperfect...)" in which he talks about the introduction of the new G45 chipset and the early issues facing the chipset. In the post, Aaron talks about some of the good, bad, and ugly issues Intel is dealing with in regard to the G45's IGP and its capabilities in a home theater setup. In the blog post, Aaron says, "The first couple weeks of motherboard availability on Intel's latest and greatest integrated graphics chipset have been tumultuous.First, our competition threw together a demo booth which stated baldly that HP laptops with G(M)45 did not accelerate...
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The price of LCD screens has steadily declined and in the last few years, larger monitors are starting to become relatively affordable. This is especially evident in the 19", 20" and 22" categories, where we see a significant number of products in the sub-$300 range. However 24" and larger screens still remained premium products until very recently. In the last year or so we have seen the first 24" screens to dip below the $400 mark appear on the market. The products in this new category of value oriented 24" screens almost universally combine a large and cheap TN panel with a basic monitor housing and stand to produce a cost effective product. While these value oriented 24" monitors offer large...
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Back in May Acer teased us with the announcement of its suped-up, hardcore gaming rig, the Aspire Predator. There's still no word on when we'll see this bad boy in the wild; but in the meantime, Acer is teasing us yet again with the announcement of its new 50,000:1 contrast ratio, LCD monitor, the 24-inch Acer G24. That's fifty thousand, like with four zeros. And just like its Predator announcement, there is no word on when the G24 will be available or how much it will cost. Perhaps Acer is taking a high-toned stance on these enthusiast-grade products: If you have to ask how much they cost, then you probably can't afford them. Or perhaps Acer is waiting for the economy to turn around before unleashing...
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Ridata 2.5" IDE Ultra-S Solid -State Drive Series Features Single Layer Cell Reliability for the Industrial Market SLC SSD is Ideal for Many Demanding Industrial Applications Including Testing/Monitoring Systems, Medical/Military Equipment, Automotive and Avionics Systems. Diamond Bar, Calif. –7/1/2008 – Advanced Media, Inc., is a manufacturer and marketer of the popular Ridata brand of recordable DVD media, electronic storage products, and digital media accessories. The company is pleased to announce the Ridata Single Layer Cell (SLC) 2.5” IDE Ultra-S to its award-winning Ridata Solid State Drive (SSD) product line up. IDE is an established interface that is pin-to-pin compatible and eliminates...
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LCD monitors were supposed to free up our precious desk real estate as they relegated bulky CRTs to the local landfill. But with the quantity and quality of high-definition content increasing and LCD prices continuing to drop, widescreen LCDs are becoming increasingly prevalent. Now our desks are filling up again--only this time in width, instead of depth. Still, for many, this is a small price to pay for the relatively large screen area and wide aspect ratio that these widescreen monitors offer.One such widescreen LCD monitor is Asus's MK241H 24-inch display, which sells for a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $499. It measures just under 22-inches wide, which is a typical width...
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LCD monitors were supposed to free up our precious desk real estate as they relegated bulky CRTs to the local landfill. But with the quantity and quality of high-definition content increasing and LCD prices continuing to drop, widescreen LCDs are becoming increasingly prevalent. Now our desks are filling up again--only this time in width, instead of depth. Still, for many, this is a small price to pay for the relatively large screen area and wide aspect ratio that these widescreen monitors offer.One such widescreen LCD monitor is Asus's MK241H 24-inch display, which sells for a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $499. It measures just under 22-inches wide, which is a typical width...
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There should be no doubt as to whether the engineers at HP dream in black-and-white or in color. The question should be: How many colors do they dream in? The answer: over one billion. That's how many colors HP's new DreamColor LP2480ZX LCD is capable of displaying: "The HP DreamColor Display features a new liquid crystal display (LCD) that provides a range of more than 1 billion colors in a 30-bit, LED-backlit display. The display is now shipping worldwide for a U.S. list price of $3,499."Three and a half grand might seem pretty steep for a display, but for a number of professional-level, color-accurate-critical applications, the level of accuracy that the price buys is truly mission critical:...
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Dell’s lineup of flat panel displays have proven themselves to be reliable, stylish, and typically right on par price-wise with some of the most inexpensive LCD monitors on the market. They’ve delivered exceptional bang for the buck, and throughout the years, they’ve managed to improve the quality of the screens and the overall feature sets while overall prices have gone down. While this is also true for the rest of the monitor industry, Dell has retained their reputation for reliability, which still sticks with them today. Sure, Dell displays don’t have the raw sexiness of Apple’s Cinema series displays, but they’re typically quite a bit cheaper while offering more functionality.Perhaps the...
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We’re willing to bet that many of you have wildly varied opinions of Dell. Some no doubt consider them a huge, monolithic corporation who pushes out generic computers without a soul; while others consider them to be pioneers of the low-cost PC movement, who (almost) single-handedly made computers available to nearly every price point. No matter what your opinion of Dell as a company is, it is difficult to find many people in IT circles who dislike their monitor division. Dell’s lineup of flat panel displays have proven themselves to be reliable, stylish, and typically right on par price-wise with some of the most inexpensive LCD monitors on the market. They’ve delivered exceptional bang...
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Stealth Computer Ships Industry's First 24" Widescreen Rugged LCD Monitor with Touchscreen InterfaceToronto, Canada ~ May, 2008 - Stealth Computer a division of Stealth.Com Inc., a market leader in the industrial computer and peripherals market has released a new Model: SV-2400Industrial Grade, Panel Mount LCD monitor. The 24" all steel enclosed touch screen LCD Monitor is built to withstand the demanding effects of harsh environments typically encountered in industrial plant floor and Human Machine Interface applications. The NEMA 4/IP56 LCD front-panel withstands water, dust and dirt intrusion and performs well beyond ordinary commercially available monitors. The high precision 24" widescreen...
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Super Talent Launches MLC SATA-II SSDs for NotebooksHigh-Speed MasterDrive SSDs Offer Unprecedented Performance & ReliabilitySan Jose, California – May 6, 2008 – Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today launched a new line of MasterDrive solid state drives (SSDs) that are 100% interchangeable with hard disk drives (HDDs), but are faster, lighter, use less power and are far more rugged and reliable.MasterDrive SSDs use NAND Flash rather than magnetic platters as the storage medium, giving them many advantages over HDDs. These drives have no moving parts, and therefore are completely silent, lighter weight and more reliable than...
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Earlier this year we stumbled upon a widely circulated You Tube video (at least in tech circles), in which a man is seen ruthlessly abusing a poor LCD monitor. The protagonist starts by letting a child draw on the screen with a black permanent marker. Taking matters into his own hands, the man then proceeds to take a pen-knife to the surface of the screen, followed by multiple strikes with a hammer. The abuse of a perfectly good LCD monitor isn't what struck us about this particular video, however. The unique element that caught our eye and set it apart from similar videos is that the LCD monitor survived the episode completely unscathed. The monitor was ASUS' LS201. After seeing...
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Earlier this year we stumbled upon a widely circulated You Tube video (at least in tech circles), in which a man is seen ruthlessly abusing a poor LCD monitor. The protagonist starts by letting a child draw on the screen with a black permanent marker. Taking matters into his own hands, the man proceeds to take a pen-knife to the surface of the screen, followed by multiple strikes with a hammer. Deciding that he isn't quite done, he gets out the big "guns" and holds up a crossbow. To show us he means business, he puts two test shots into a piece of wood. The metal crossbow bolts easily penetrate the surface and lodge in the wooden block with an audible thud. Finally, he turns the crossbow on the...
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You may or may not know web mogul and conversational media entrepreneur Jason Calacanis but it's safe to say that he "got it" when weblogs were just starting to become hip. Along the way, the properties he built (Engadget, Joystiq etc) were picked by companies like AOL for just a little bit of coin. Though not breaking news, it's safe to say his latest start-up is gaining traction and proving relevance. Calacanis' latest vision is called Mahalo and he's taking on traditional search engines giants like Google and Yahoo but with Wikipedia-like capabilities and couple of strategic twists. Sounds interesting, but what does that...
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Just in case you missed the new link at the top of the home page, we're here to let you know that we have just posted a new article in which we evaluate the features and performance of the Asetek LCLC, Low Cost Liquid Cooling system. The LCLC may resemble other water cooling setups but it provides many features that set it apart from the pack. Asetek has attempted to address nearly all of the traditional disadvantages of water cooling compared to air cooling. First off, the LCLC is a completely sealed system, which means it comes completely pre-assembled. This eliminates issues of assembly error and makes installation simpler. A non-toxic, non-flammable liquid and...
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Water cooling has traditionally been considered an extreme solution, pursued by enthusiasts looking for the best cooling performance to squeeze every last drop of performance from their systems. For a long time this wasn't far from the truth and you were unlikely to find a water cooling setup that wasn't hooked up to an overclocked rig. However, in recent years watercooling has become ever more mainstream as evidenced by the number of manufacturers producing entry-level kits. These kits often provide ease of installation and operation at the expense of performance and cost. They also eliminate much of the knowledge barrier to entry to water cooling. Since the early DIY days, water cooling has...
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For each type of product and in each market, there is usually a specific price segment that will provide the best value proposition for consumers, often known as the 'sweet spot'. For quite some time, the 19" widescreen was the sweet spot of the consumer LCD monitor market. Hovering between the cheaper but aging 17" screens and the expensive but only slightly larger 20" screens, the 19" widescreen LCD provided the best value for a long time. However, in the last 8-10 months, LCD monitor production has increased and the price of LCD panels has fallen dramatically. The 20" screens which once seemed like such a poor value proposition, costing up to $100 more than 19" screens despite only...
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Today at HotHardware we look at one of the latest additions to the 22" LCD monitor market segment, the Samsung SyncMaster 2243BW Wide Screen LCD. While the Samsung 2243BW may be aimed at business use, its specifications suggest that it should be capable of quite a bit more than just spreadsheets and word documents. With good viewing angles, a decent 5ms response time, good brightness and an excellent 1000:1 static contrast ratio, the 2243BW should be well equipped to handle any multimedia thrown its way. The 2243BW is actually has slightly better specifications than the wildly popular Samsung 226BW, which is one of the most widely and highly recommended 22" monitors. Click the link...
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