Items tagged with systems
Boutique system builder iBuyPower and mega electronics chain Best Buy have inked to a deal to become BFFs and give the former more mainstream exposure and the latter a bit of street cred. Or in other words, Best Buy is now carrying custom built high-performance gaming systems from iBuyPower, including the immediate availability of no less than 23 systems. "Partnering with Best Buy has been a longtime goal and marks a significant milestone in our company’s history," said Darren Su, Vice President of iBuyPower. “This partnership aligns iBuyPower with Best Buy, the premiere consumer electronics retailer in North America." You'll find iBuyPower systems ranging in price from $500 to $1,430....
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MAINGEAR’s updated Quantum SHIFT4K workstation is built for creative types who need as much firepower as possible under the hood and features 8-core Intel Xeon E5-2600 processors, NVIDIA Quadro graphics, up to twelve SSDs or nine HDDs, and four eSATA ports. For cooling, users can opt for the MAINGEAR EPIC 180 X2 closed-loop liquid cooling solution that promises 50,000 hours of performance and the ability to dissipate 900W of heat. The price tag starts at $8,499, but if you’re a current Mac Pro user, you can knock a few hundred bucks off the top; MAINGEAR is offering a 10% rebate to entice you to switch platforms. MAINGEAR’S ALL-NEW QUANTUM SHIFT 4K WORKSTATION OFFERS ROBUST...
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AVADirect announced three new Clevo notebooks--the 15.6-inch P150EM, P151EM, and 17.3-inch P170EM--all based on Intel’s HM77 chipset and running a 3rd-generation Intel processor. The notebooks will have options for NVIDIA GTX 670 and 675 in SLI (with Optimus for preserving battery life), as well as eSATA, DisplayPort, HDMI, digital optical output, and backlit keyboards. Other features include SuperMulti DVD+/-RW burners, integrated 2.0MP webcams, and fingerprint readers, as well as a dizzying array of options for hard drives, SSDs, and RAM. All three notebooks also have the option of an internal mSATA interface to support Intel’s Smart Cache technology. The P150EM, P151EM, and P170EM...
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It's been a long and anticipatory wait for Ivy Bridge, and while Intel's next generation processors are still a couple of weeks away from making their official debut, platforms that support the new chips are already starting to trickle into the market place. CyberPowerPC, for example, just announced that it's incorporating Intel's new Z77 chipset into its current line of desktop gaming rigs. "Starting today, CyberpowerPC customers can configure new desktop gaming systems based on the Z77 chipset motherboards from major manufacturers such as ASUS, Gigabyte, and ASRock," CyberPowerPC stated in a press release. "The Intel Z77 chipset, which offers advanced overclocking of the core; integrated USB...
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We’ve been impressed with what we’ve seen recently from Corsair, and we were glad that the company saw fit to send us a couple more mid-tower cases to pore over and test: the Corsair Carbide 300R compact gaming chassis and the Obsidian 550D quiet case. The two are dissimilar from one another in terms of design and purpose, but we’ve rolled them into a single review here for efficiency and your reading pleasure. The 300R is a compact case; squeezing in everything a gamer would want was no doubt quite a design challenge (e.g. our big CPU cooler that barely fit). And although this chassis isn’t perfect, the gang over at Corsair deserves a tip of the hat for pulling it off...
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We’ve been impressed with what we’ve seen recently from Corsair, and we were glad that the company saw fit to send us a couple more mid-tower cases to pore over and test: the Corsair Carbide 300R compact gaming chassis and the Obsidian 550D quiet case. The two are dissimilar from one another in terms of design and purpose, but we’ve rolled them into a single review here for efficiency and your reading pleasure. Now that we’ve had a chance to explore and test the Corsair Carbide 300R, we’ve become well acquainted with the whole Carbide family, and the little bro is just as impressive as the bigger siblings we reviewed not too long ago, the Carbide 400R and 500R. The...
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Stealth.com is pumped about its latest mini PC, calling it “the most powerful and advanced small form PC we have offered to date.” There’s a case to be made there, as the tiny LPC-680 LittlePC (6.5 x 6 x 2 inches) supports Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Sandy Bridge processors and sports 8GB of DDR3 memory, and a 2.5-inch 750GB HDD or SSD. The machine doesn’t lack in the I/O department with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, DVI-I, DisplayPort, Gigabit LAN, optional WiFi 802.11n, RS232, and audio in/out jacks. Somehow, Stealth.com also squeezed in a slim optical drive, which comes stock as a DVD/CD-RW drive but can be upgraded to a Blu-ray burner. For power, the LPC-680 LittlePC...
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We swear we are not making this up. We know, we know, this is April 1st, the worst day of the year to try and persuade you to believe us, but this is the real thing. A Canadian developer, Dr. Peter Jansen, has been working on making tricorders. Yes, tricorders, as in the fictional devices that Star Trek writers used as convenient foils for moving plots forward for years. Dr. Jansen has actually already built two tricorders, the Science Tricorder Mark 1 and Mark 2, and he has more coming. He abandoned the Mark 3, but the Mark 4 has been fabbed and is currently undergoing software development. Dr. Peter Jansen, maker of tricorders, nerd king Basically, Jansen’s idea is a simple one: use sensors...
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NVIDIA’s new GTX 675M mobile GPU is making its way into systems, and the latest is available from custom builder AVADirect. The company announced that the GTX 675M is available in its Clevo P270WM gaming notebook; it’s even available in dual-SLI configuration. The rest of the notebook’s specs are equally high-end include support for the Intel Core i7-3960X, 32GB of RAM, up to three drives (with up to 4TB of storage if you take out the ODD), and a 17.3-inch display. Such a machine carries a commensurate price tag; indeed, the Clevo P270WM with dual 675Ms on board starts at $2256.20. AVADirect Now Offers GTX 675M In Clevo P270WM Gaming Notebook Twinsburg, OH - March 29th, 2012...
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It’s something you bump into all the time: You’ll be testing out a nice case only to find that the front I/O panel has just USB 2.0 ports, with no USB 3.0 to be found. It seems like a smallish detail until you plug in a USB 3.0 device and find you’re limited to USB 2.0 performance. BitFenix gets it and is upgrading more of its cases to USB 3.0 (while leaving a couple of USB 2.0 ports for good measure). The BitFenix Shinobi, Shinobi Window, and Colossus Window cases will now all ship with two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports. Yes, it’s a slight upgrade, but it’s a welcome one indeed. ...
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With the Erebus GT, iBUYPOWER set out to make a slightly smaller and less expensive line of systems to complement its Erebus custom gaming series, which is now renamed the Erebus XL series. There are actually three Erebus GTs in the new line, with configurations based on the AMD FX platform starting as low as $899, but the one iBUYPOWER sent us to test is an overclocked Intel Sandy Bridge-based version, Radeon HD 7970 graphics that costs $2499 (as configured). Yes, that’s a lot of moola, but as you’ll see, you get a lot of bang for those bucks... iBUYPOWER Erebus GT Gaming System Review...
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So you’re in the market for a smoking fast system, and you have your heart set on a custom build. You can easily drop upwards of three (or four or five) grand on a completely tricked-out enthusiast-class rig that will leave your gamer friends standing in puddles of drool. If you’re on a stricter budget, you can also opt for something in the mainstream range that’s still pretty nice, yet costs closer to $1000-$1500; or, you can look for a sweet spot between the two, where shaking a little more out of the piggy bank gets you a system with all the performance you could ask for in a package that’s still guaranteed to elicit wolf whistles from your friends. iBUYPOWER has...
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We like to play with custom systems around here, and the latest from Digital Storm looks to be a real gem. The Aventum is the result of diligent research on the part of Digital Storm, as the company has gone back to the drawing board regarding every part of the system, from the chassis design to proprietary software to its new Cryo-TEC cooling system. The Aventum software monitors 5 thermal zones and controls 13 (13!) fans to expel heat, and the case’s “thermal exhaust chamber” helps out, as well; that, in addition to the liquid cooling system that boasts no fewer than three 420mm radiators. Digital Storm isn’t skimping on the specs, either; have a look at that chart below....
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There's no question Maingear knows how to put together a high-octane gaming system, and if you need proof, check out our recent review of the company's fully loaded SHIFT Super Stock X79. Technology moves fast though, and luckily so does Maingear, which has already begun incorporating NVIDIA's brand spanking new GeForce GTX 680 (aka, Kepler) graphics cards into its SHIFT, F131, and X-Cube systems, and will soon be offering it in the Vybe. Heck, Maingear will even shove three of them in there, provided you have the coin and a serious need for speed. "The Ultimate PC deserves the Ultimate GPU, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 built in our desktops offer the best gaming experience that is the quietest...
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GridIron Systems announced that it has hit a performance milestone with MLC flash technology: 1 million IOPS (inputs/outputs per second). The company is touting the breakthrough as a way for data centers to dramatically reduce hardware footprints and improve performance, as MLC flash is relatively inexpensive but increasingly has decent capacity and now, sizzling-fast performance. GridIron achieved 1 million IOPS with its Set-Ranking silicon, data analytics, and optimized handling of flash media. The company believes MLC flash to be the superior technology over the likes of SLC flash, and it’s planning on releasing a Big Data acceleration product based on the aforementioned technologies...
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Remember the Erebus GT that iBUYPOWER was teasing at CES? Well, it’s available now. The Erebus GT (aka, the God of Darkness) starts at $899, which gets you a Koolance water cooling setup that purports to deliver to circulate 4.5 gallons of coolant per minute via 13mm tubing and a trio of radiators. The Erebus GT is designed as a smaller and lower-cost alternative to the previous generation of Erebus, which is now the Erebus XL. The steel and aluminum frame houses 140mm radiators and features unidirectional airflow, which is built to dissipate up to 2500W of heat. A purchase of the Erebus GT also gets you iBUYPOWER’s PowerDrive Overclocking Service, which consists of professional overclocking...
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One of Merriam-Webster's definitions for the word obscene is "so excessive as to be offensive." By that definition, Maingear sent us an obscenely spec'd SHIFT Super Stock X79 system packed to the hilt with so much decadent hardware that even the one percenters would feel guilty owning it, right up until the moment they pushed the power button and remembered exactly why it's so fun to be filthy rich. As configured, this thing costs $7,570, and that's after deducting $100 as part of Maingear's 'Spring Savings' promotion and before tacking on another $100 or so for shipping. It's not a configuration most of us will ever own -- it's more than half the price of a 5-door Kia Rio, for crying out loud...
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One of Merriam-Webster's definitions for the word obscene is "so excessive as to be offensive." By that definition, Maingear sent us an obscenely spec'd SHIFT Super Stock X79 system packed to the hilt with so much decadent hardware that even the one percenters would feel guilty owning it, right up until the moment they pushed the power button and remembered exactly why it's so fun to be filthy rich. As configured, this thing costs $7,570, and that's after deducting $100 as part of Maingear's 'Spring Savings' promotion and before tacking on another $100 or so for shipping. It's not a configuration most of us will ever own -- it's more than half the price of a 5-door Kia Rio, for crying out loud...
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Maingear specializes in high-performance desktops from a boutique perspective, and as you'll see in an upcoming review of a SHIFT Super Stock X79 system we have on tap, these guys know how to build some wicked fast systems. They also know how to spot a popular market trend and roll with it, as the company is doing with its freshly unveiled Solo 21 All-in-One (AIO) system. "With more consumers looking for a full-size desktop computer without the hassle of wires and other connections, the Maingear Solo 21 All-in-One provides the freedom of space while still offering the latest technology," Maingear explains. "Following their trend of fully customizable products, the Maingear Solo 21 is the first...
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Well, it can’t be all gumdrops and rainbows; the folks behind the tiny $25 Raspberry Pi Linux-based computer, a trendy item in tech circles that saw demand immediately outpace supply when it went up for preorder, announced that due to a small manufacturing problem, the first wave of Raspberry Pis will be delayed. According to a company blog entry, the issue was due to “a hardware parts substitution that was made in the factory by accident: specifically, where we’d specified jacks with integrated magnetics in the BOM and schematics, the factory soldered in non-magnetic jacks.” One of these is not like the other, which was the problem Without the magnetic jacks, there could...
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Using a small-capacity SSD as a cache for frequently-accessed data to boost a PC’s overall performance (leaving less speed-critical tasks to a slower and larger-capacity storage drive) is a common practice these days, and Crucial announced a new foray into the market with its Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution. As we showed you back at CES 2012, Adrenaline is comprised of a 50GB Crucial m4 SSD and NVELO Dataplex caching software, which comes with a 3.5-inch adapter bracket and a SATA cable. The key to this particular solution is the ease of use of the software; some cache solutions are known to be a bit difficult to work with, but Dataplex is designed to make setting up the cache an...
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Designed for everything from industrial automation to in-vehicle infotainment to the financial industry, Habey USA’s EMB-4670 is a tiny (4.5 inches) embedded board that features the Intel EG20T chipset; support for Intel Atom E620, E640, and E660 processors; 1GB of onboard DDR2 memory; support for 3G and 4G; and dual gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB 2.0 ports, an SD card slot, and six serial ports, as well as a CAN bus for even more expandability. The solid state EMB-740 pulls just 9W of power and promises to be able to encode and decode HD video and includes Intel technology such as Virtualization and Speedstep. For storage, the board supports SATA SSD, Rugged SD cad, and mini-PCIe SSD....
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