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As a desktop user I never really jumped on the external storage craze. I kept a couple of terabyte drives in RAID-0 inside my chassis and there's always the multi-TB array in the lab in case I needed more storage. External drives were always neat to look at, but I never really needed any. My notebook's internal storage was always enough.
With the arrival of Sandy Bridge in notebooks however I've given the notebook as a desktop replacement thing a try. I've got enough random hardware if I need a fast gaming machine in a pinch, but for everything else I'm strictly notebook these days. As a result I've come to realize just how precious portable storage is. Most reasonably portable notebooks have one usable 2.5" bay at most (two if you don't mind sacrificing an optical drive). Network storage is great but what if you need something portable on the go with you?
I'm obviously a staunch advocate of spending your internal real estate on an SSD, but if you need the space you've gotta go mechanical for your external storage. If portability is what matters, an external 2.5" hard drive can be quite attractive as they're lightweight and can be powered over USB.
In the 2.5" world there are three predominant thicknesses available: 7mm, 9.5mm and 12.5mm. Most notebook drives are 9.5mm. You'll notice that Intel even ships many of its SSDs with a removable spacer to make them 9.5mm tall in order to maintain physical compatibility with as many notebooks as possible.
Thicker drives are needed to accommodate more platters inside, but as platter densities increase so do the capacities of thinner drives. A couple of years ago Seagate announced the world's first 7mm thick 2.5" hard drive and earlier today, it announced the thinnest external 2.5" drive: the GoFlex Slim.
Today we are going to talk about two more CPU coolers that will compete for the super-cooler title.
Our today’s article is dedicated to a passive computer system designed for those who cares most about the acoustics and tries to minimize the noise at all costs. Looks like due to the new Nofen system, this is no longer such a big problem.Our today’s article is dedicated to a passive computer system designed for those who cares most about the acoustics and tries to minimize the noise at all costs. Looks like due to the new Nofen system, this is no longer such a big problem.
Our latest candidate for PSU torture testing is the Seasonic X-560. Seasonic first garnered praise with the X-Series by offering a range of 80 Plus Gold PSUs from low wattage up through high wattage units, along with two passively cooled versions. Other reasons for their popularity are the 5-year warranty and outstanding internal design. Even most of the S12II and M12II models (which they don't generally offer as review samples) are getting awards all over the world for providing high quality in a mainstream market segment. At a price of $120 USD the X-560 is definetly not the cheapest ~550W power supply, but we're here to find out if buyers get more for their money.
As you can see in the picture Seasonic delivers a bag for modular connectors—the X-560 has fully removable cables. Also included in the packed are a power cord, four screws, a user's guide, and many cable ties. In short, Seasonic provides plenty of extras to keep the customers satisfied.
A note on the PSU informs users that this PSU works passively below 20% load. Features include "tight voltage regulation", "gold plated terminals", and a mainboard with many SMDs (surface mounted devices). High-class solid caps are part of the ouput filtering. And for the gamers among us, this PSU supports multi-GPU technologies, all with a reasonable rating of 560W.
<p><span style="font-size: small;">AMD's Fusion technology is finally here. At present AMD Fusion platforms only power low-end personal computers, in the coming months AMD will introduce Fusion chips for mainstream PCs. But what about the future of Fusion program? Will it power high-end desktops? Maybe next-generation game consoles? What advantages can Fusion bring to end users? Neal Robison, the head of software developer relations department will answer these questions here and now.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amdfusion-2011-neal.html">Read more...</a><br />
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Today we are going to talk about two new coolers that differ dramatically from one another in price, design and functionality. But how greatly will they differ in cooling efficiency and acoustics? Let’s find out from our new article.
A new cooler from the Japanese Scythe Company is their second attempt to design a universal and at the same time pretty efficient graphics card cooling system. Let’s see if they succeeded.
We recently received a new power supply from HuntKey dubbed the R90, or Jumper 300G for the western markets. It uses the HK400-52PP layout, which means the PSU is capable of delivering 400W at lower temperatures; however, the 300W rating is for 45C operation. The 300G is also one of the smaller PSUs with an 80 Plus Gold rating, making it an interesting option for HTPCs and average computers. But what about the price?
We don't have an exact figure for the US market yet, but materials and parts should cost less than half of what the Seasonic X-400FL requires, which means final pricing could be around $80-$90. One advantage the Jumper 300G has over the X-400FL is that it uses a native 400W design, where Season is building off an 850W design. Since the 300G comes with a fan, it will obviously generate more noise than the fanless X-400FL, the temperatures should also be lower. This could very well be the actively cooled alternative to Seasonic's X-400FL.
Unlike Seasonic, this is a fixed cable PSU. The HK400 is similar to what many OEMs might use, only with a retail box around it. HuntKey is quite proud of their design and promises very good performance. While we may not have a firm price yet, we can certainly check the voltage quality and other performance characteristics.
Internally, the unit uses a resonant circuit with ZVS (Zero Voltage Switching), active recrifying, and of course active PFC. While HuntKey sells many cheap power supplies in China, this is an example of the sort of quality they can acheive when they're not chasing the lowest price; we'll see more eveidence of this with the capacitors on page four. HuntKey is also one of the first manufacturers to offer an 80 Plus Platinum certified PSU, but that's a topic for another day. The Jumper 300G (or R90) has plenty of reserve capacity, and HuntKey makes use of this by including two PCIe connectors: one 6-pin and one 6/8-pin on a single cable. That's almost certainly a first for the 300W PSU market, and with such features HuntKey hopes to expand their presence in the Asian market.
<p><span style="font-size: small;"> It's been a busy and short two weeks since Anand and I thoroughly covered smartphones, tablets, and SoCs at MWC. I got back to an ever-growing pile of monitors that need reviewing, he got back to the Xoom and new SSDs.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"> In the monitor space, it's been an interesting couple of months because everyone has been updating their 30-inch display. We reviewed the HP ZR30w back when that happened and came away impressed but wanting more in a couple of areas - more input options, an OSD, and a better scaler. Then came Dell U3011, which brought equally decent performance, a wealth of input options, and that OSD we wanted. <br />
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<p><span style="font-size: small;">Today we're looking at NEC's latest and greatest, the MultiSync PA301w. I've been playing with a pre-production unit which is identical to what will be shipping, and have put it through the usual paces of our monitor testing suite. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/4196/nec-pa301w-review-the-baddest-30-inch-display">Read more...</a><br />
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Today we are going to talk about the hard disk drives with today’s largest capacity of 3 terabytes. We will discuss products from Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital in the same roundup.