SATA-IO to Develop New mSATA Connector

Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) today announced it’s developing a specification for a mini-SATA (mSATA) interface connector which will enable more effective SATA integration in small form factor applications.

mSATA leverages the speed and reliablity of the popular SATA interface to provide a high-performance, cost-effective storage solution for smaller devices like notebooks and netbooks.

Supporting 1.5Gb/s and 3.0Gb/s transfer rates, the development of mSATA is being driven by members of the SATA-IO Cable and Connector Working Group, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, SanDisk, STEC and Toshiba. Toshiba is actually introducing SSD modules based on the new low-profile mSATA interface standard in 30 and 62GB densities.

Various mSATA devices will be on display in the SATA-IO booth at the upcoming Intel Developer Forum (IDF), September 22-24 in San Francisco, Calif.

Affiliate reviews today [22-09-2009]

Cases
Antec Two Hundred Mid-Tower Computer Case @ Benchmark Reviews | Nox Coolbay HX @ Technic3D

Accessories
MusicSkins for PSP @ iGadged Life | Wi-Fire Wi-Fi Adapter @ Test Freaks | Pong Case for iPhone 3G/3GS @ Test Freaks | Evil Controllers’ Modded Xbox 360 Gamepads Reviewed @ Futurelooks | iFrogz EarPollution Timbre with Mic @ Test Freaks

PSUs
Tuniq Potency 650W PSU @ Hi-Tech Reviews | Topower Tiger 1200 Watt @ RBMods | Cooler Master Silent Pro M 850 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets

Periphery
Mionix Saiph 3200 Gaming Mouse Reviewed @ Dragon Steel Mods | Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 @ PCFoster | Razer Megalodon - 7.1 Surround Headset @ TweakPC | OCZ Eclipse Gaming Mouse Review @ Hardware Secrets

Cooling
SilverStone NT06-E CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets | Prolimatech Megahalems Heatpipe CPU Cooler @ Big Bruin

Articles
Pepcom 2009 Holiday Spectacular Recap @ Test Freaks

Motherboards
P55 Roundup: Gigabyte P55-UD6 / P55-UD3 and MSI P55-GD80 @ Mad Shrimps | MSI P55-GD65 Xtreme Speed Motherboard Review @ Futurelooks

Storage
Super Talent Pico C 32 GB Flash Drive @ RBMods | Seagate Interview: SSD and Enterprise Storage @ Benchmark Reviews | Seagate Barracuda XT 6Gbps SATA-III HDD Preview @ Benchmark Reviews | Seagate Barracuda XT 6 Gbps SATA Drive Preview @ Big Bruin |

Video Cards
Calibre X260 Nvidia GeForce GTX260 896MB Video Card @ Dragon Steel Mods | Video Card Comparison Charts @ Mad Shrimps

Games
Batman: Arkham Asylum @ Technic3D | Futurelooks’ Exclusive Pre-Launch Hands On Preview of Halo 3: ODST for the Xbox 360 @ Future Looks

Competitions
Teufel Competition @ XSReviews

Affiliate reviews today [18-09-2009]

CPUs
All Pentium Dual Core Models @ Hardware Secrets | AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ Technic3D

Cases
NZXT M59 - Gunstiges Gaming Case @ TweakPC | Nox Coolbay HX @ Technic3D

Accessories
Rosewill RCM-8163 Webcam @ MEGATech | Cocoon Innovations Travel Case Netbook Case @ Test Freaks | Scythe KroCraft Plus @ Technic3D | Myine Ira Wi-Fi Internet Radio Review @ Futurelooks | LG GSA-E50L 8x Slim Super Multi DVD±RW DL USB 2.0 External Drive @ Test Freaks

PSUs
XFX 850 W Black Edition Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets | Topower Tiger 1200 Watt @ RBMods | Cooler Master Silent Pro M 850 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets

Mobile
MSI Wind Top AE2010 AIO Desktop System @ Benchmark Reviews

Periphery
Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance @ Technic3D | Roccat Apuri @ XSReviews | CM Storm Sentinel Advance Laser Gaming Mouse @ Benchmark Reviews | Cooler Master CM Storm Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse @ Big Bruin | Jetart MP2000 @ XSReviews

Cooling
Arctic Cooling ARCTIC MX-3 Thermal Compound @ Dragon Steel Mods | Thermaltake ISGC-300 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets | GELID Solutions GC-2 and GC-Extreme Thermal Compound Reviewed @ Futurelooks | Thermolab BADA @ Hardware Bistro | Rzut okiem: wentylatory Coolink SWiF2 @ PCFoster

Articles
Windows Xp vs Vista vs 7 @ Test Freaks | How Stuff Works: Ram @ Test Freaks

Motherboards
Biostar TA785GE 128 M Motherboard Review @ Hardware Secrets | Intel DP55KG Extreme Series P55 Motherboard @ Benchmark Reviews

Storage
Patriot Memory Corza 2-Drive NAS Enclosure @ Big Bruin

Arctic Cooling Announces Arctic F- High Performance Case Fans

The Swiss low noise cooling solution provider ARCTIC COOLING today announced the launch of the ARCTIC F series case fan series in 80mm, 92mm and 120mm. As the advanced version of the previous AF fan series, these new fans are ideal for users who are looking for a quiet and efficient case ventilation solution.

The ARCTIC F series integrates some delicate features to improve the overall airflow and noise control management. Most 80mm and 92mm standard fans are equipped with 7 blades only, but all ARCTIC F fans, including the 80mm and 92mm ones, come with 9 blades in order to create higher airflow efficiently.

SteelSeries Introduces New Siberia v2 Headset

SteelSeries, the leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, today introduced the new SteelSeries Siberia v2 Full-size Headset. As the successor to SteelSeries' signature Siberia Headset which launched in 2004, the new Siberia v2 offers gamers and music enthusiast's superior speaker and microphone technology that delivers impeccable sound quality, integrated control capabilities, and enhanced design for greater comfort and improved passive noise reduction.

The original SteelSeries Siberia Full-size Headset became a huge success in the professional gaming community and also extended its reach into the music world being used by professional musicians in several high-profile international music videos.

Toshiba Introduces High-Performance Half-Terabyte 2.5-inch HDD

Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. and the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced a new family of high-performance 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch HDDs, including a top-end half-terabyte capacity.

The four-model line-up delivers more than a 13 percent performance improvement in disk operations compared to Toshiba's previous 7,200 RPM family, while decreasing environmental impact by eliminating or reducing the use of certain toxic and hazardous chemicals. The series also carries the SATA-certified 3Gb/s logo, which indicates successful completion of stringent interface compliance testing defined by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the industry body responsible for setting the standards for Serial ATA interface technologies.

CoolIT WS 240 Liquid Cooling System Makes its Debut

CoolIT has just announced the availability of its WS 240 liquid cooling system for Nehalem-based processors.

The WS 240 measures 117×277x125mm, weighs 1.03kg, utilizes a 240mm radiator and two water blocks. Uses can switch between three operation modes by simply pushing a button to satisfy the need for quiet or the desire for overclocking performance, with the fan speed ranging between 1100-2900RPM.

The WS 240 can be easily installed into most E-ATX supporting chassis, and includes mounting hardware for the Intel 775/1366/1156 socket.

Backed by two year warranty, the new liquid cooling system provides a 2-year warranty and retail immediately for $269.99.

Intel Sets A Shipment Goal of One Million Lynnfield CPUs in 2009

Intel has reportedly set a shipment goal of one million Lynnfield (Core i5 and i7) CPUs for desktops by the end of 2009.

Asus and Gigabyte are expected to each ship 400,000 P55-based motherboards by year-end 2009, and the other motherboard makers including MSI, ECS and AsRock may total around 200,000 units.

Joe Hsieh, vice president of Asus motherboard business unit product marketing department, points out that the company expects to ship 5.5-6 million motherboards in the third quarter, six million units in the fourth, and 22 million units in total in 2009.

Currently, around 30% of motherboards shipped by Asus are Intel G31-based, and Hsieh admitted that Asus is suffering from a shortage of the chipset. However, he said that the company will speed up the transition of new platforms to lower the impact.

NVIDIA: DirectX 11 Will Not Stimulate Sales of Graphics Cards

NVIDIA said during a conference for financial analysts that the emergence of next-generation DirectX 11 application programming interface will not drive sales of graphics cards. Instead, the general purpose computing on graphics processing units as well as its proprietary tools and emergence of software taking advantage of these technologies will be a better driver for sales of graphics boards.

“DirectX 11 by itself is not going be the defining reason to buy a new GPU. It will be one of the reasons. This is why Microsoft is in work with the industry to allow more freedom and more creativity in how you build content, which is always good, and the new features in DirectX 11 are going to allow people to do that. But that no longer is the only reason, we believe, consumers would want to invest in a GPU,” said Mike Hard, vice president of investor relations at Nvidia, at Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference on Wednesday.

Ironically, While ATI is about to launch its Radeon HD 5800-series graphics cards that fully support DirectX 11 in the upcoming weeks, Nvidia yet has not disclosed any plans regarding its DX11 GPUs.

Thermaltake ISGC-V320 Cooler Hits Retail

Thermaltake ISGC-V320 which was introduced in early July has recently been found on sale in China.

The cooler measures 241×125x63mm, weighs 738g, and features five heatpipes pattern connect with extra large copper base for maximum heat transfer, and dual 120mm silent fans to enhance cooling performance. The special-designed fan works between 800 and 1300RPM with Max. airflow of 58.3CFM and a sound output of 16dBA.

ISGC-V320 supports NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series, GeForce 8/9 series, GT200 series and ATI Radeon X1900 as well as Radeon 3800/4600/4800 series.

Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity Edition Spotted

Among the three main high-end graphics SKUs AMD has in store for this 23rd known so far (namely Radeon HD 5850, HD 5870 1GB, and HD 5870 2GB), is a fourth distinct SKU called the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity Edition. This is a variant of the Radeon HD 5870 with specially-designed connectivity that makes setting up to six displays possible/convenient for making use of the Eyefinity multi-display technology that lets you span a display-head across several physical displays like a mosaic.

On its panel, the card has a large air-vent occupying one slot, and six mini-DisplayPort connectors occupying the other. Necessary cabling will be provided to connect to the displays. While each accelerator supports six displays in all, multiple accelerators can be installed on the same PC without any multi-GPU setup, to scale the size of the resulting display by up to 24 displays and up to 268 megapixels of effective resolution. It remains to be seen if there are similar Eyefinity Edition SKUs based on other AMD GPUs in the series, especially considering the fact that the company is also eying the business/productivity market segment.

First Radeon HD 5870 Benchmarks Hit the Web

There are no official reviews coming out before the NDA is lifted on AMD Radeon HD 5870 by the end of September, so you would be excited to see the first performance figures right now.

According to the test of Czechgamer, Radeon HD 5870 is 25% lower or 95% faster than GeForce GTX 295 in different titles, which makes them about equal in gaming performance. Noticeably, when you set at 2560×1600 resolution and AA/AF, HD 5870 is much faster than the GeForce GTX 295.

As you see, the 3DMark Vantage performance of HD 5870 and HD 4870 X2 are of the same level, and HD 5850 is slightly faster than GTX 285.

Considering the driver is unofficial (Catalyst 8.66 Beta 2), the real performance of HD5800 series has yet to be confirmed.

Intel Microprocessor Domination Reaches Four-year High in Q2

Thanks to the mild recovery in PC demand in the second quarter, Intel Corp. managed to expand its lead in the global microprocessor market to levels not seen in nearly four years, according to iSuppli Corp.

Intel’s Q2 microprocessor revenue accounted for 80.6% of global microprocessor revenue, up 1.4% from 79.2% during the same period in 2008, and a 1.5% rise from the first quarter of 2009.

“Intel benefitted as the global PC market took a first small step toward recovery in the second quarter, with global shipments rising by 1 percent from the first quarter,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for iSuppli. “However, with PC shipments still down compared to a year ealier, Intel actually suffered a decline in microprocessor revenue compared to a year earlier, as did chief rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD).”

At the same time, AMD lost 0.4% of market share compared to a year earlier, and declined by 1.4% from the first quarter of 2009.

“AMD didn’t benefit from the small sequential rise in PC sales because its average microprocessor pricing was lower than that from the first quarter of 2009,” Wilkins said.

Intel Kicks off 32nm “Westmere” CPU Production

Intel has begun producing Westmere chips based on the 32nm second-generation high-k metal gate technology, reports PCMAG.

The first products will include dual-core processors compatible with the socket LGA1156 platforms, and will be branded as Core i5 600 series, Core i3 500 series, and Pentium dual-core series.

The desktop version of Westmere is codenamed Clarkdale, while the laptop version is known as Arrandale. They will be introduced in Q1 2010 and Q4 2009 respectively.

As we said, Westmere will be a focus of the upcoming Intel Developer Forum event, so Intel is expected to reveal more details on the transition to the Westmere architecture.

Affiliate reviews today [14-09-2009]

CPUs
Intel Core i5 750 Review @ Mad Shrimps | AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ Tweakpc

Cases
GMC X-22 PC case @ Hardware Bistro | AZZA Solano Full-Tower Case Review @ Hi-Tech Reviews

Accessories
TrickleStar PC TrickleSaver @ Dragon Steel Mods | Tv & PC Tricklesavers @ RBMods Microsoft LifeCam VX-5500 Webcam E4C-00001 @ Benchmark Reviews

Software
Wondershare DVD Ripper Platinum Reviewed @ iGadged Life

PSUs
FSP Everest 80Plus 600W PSU @ Technic3d | Xclio Great Power 1000W PSU @ Hi-Tech Reviews

Mobile
Nokia e75 @ PS Foster

Periphery
Mionix Alioth 320 Mousepad @ TestFreaks | Roccat Valo @ XSReviews

Games
Challenge Me: Maths Workout – Nintendo DS @ Testfreaks | Hurry Up Hedgehog – Nintendo DS @ Testfreaks | CID The Dummy – Nintendo Wii @ Testfreaks

Cooling
Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Pro CPU Cooler @ Dragon Steel Mods | Corsair Ice T30 Dominator Memory Cooler Review @ Ninja Lane

Tests
Windows 7 on a Netbook 1 gig vs 2gig @ iGadged Life

Motherboards
Intel DP55KG Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets | ASUS P7P55D PRO Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets

Contests
Win a Proporta Soft Feel Silicone Case Now! @ Hardware Bistro Win an ioSafe Solo 500GB Rugged USB External Hard Drive @ Big Bruin

Asus Home Server TS Mini on the Way?

Asus is reportedly working on a new home server model, Asus Home Server TS mini, according to wegotserved. Seen above, the TS mini is slightly higher than two Coke Zero. It measures 245×96x204mm, weighs 2.6kg without the hard disk drive.

Equipped with Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz), 2GB DDR2-800 memory, two 3.5″ SATA I/II hard drive bays, six USB 2.0 ports and two eSATA connectors, the server will compete directly with Acer Aspire H340.

Asus TS mini is expected to pop up in the USA, UK, Australia, Taiwan, Japan and Germany later this year.

Power Consumption Comparison of Radeon HD 5870, HD 5850

As we said a couple of days ago, Radeon HD 5870 consumes power of 188W and 27W when loaded and idle respectively, and the fellows at Hardware-infos has revealed that HD 5850 has a better control ability on the power consumption part.

Radeon HD 5850 also eats 27 watts when idle, but shows lower power consumption when loaded - 170W, compared to 188W on HD 5870. The maximum chip power of both cards is 110W.

Few People Will Pay for Intel Pentium E6500K, and Why?

Intel’s Pentium E6500K made a great flutter when it initially popped up in China, but it seems that the new processor has been pretty quiet in the last a few weeks. Why are the people uninterested in buying this CPU with unlocked multiplier?

Firstly, the unpopularity of E6500K is due to its pricing - people are quite sensitive to the cost performance when they purchase an entry-level product. The E6500K is currently sold at an average price of RMB660 (US$97)here, and no fan is included, which means the whole cost would achieve RMB700 (US$102). I guess the budget users would prefer to pay for the E5200 or E5300 which costs under RMB500 ($73).

Another problem is the overclocking section - E6500K can achieve up to 4.6GHz under air-cooling condition, but you need to set the voltage above 1.7V, which is unpleasant to use for overclockers.

Anyway, Intel will probably launch more processors with unlocked multiplier in the coming future, and I believe this is something that many overclockers really want to see.

ATI Catalyst 9.9 Display Driver Available for Download

AMD has just released ATI Catalyst 9.9 Display Driver to resolve some existing issues, but the release note doesn’t mention if the new driver has brought gaming performance improvement.

Resolved issues for all Windows operating systems: * Catalyst Control Center - Basic now responds properly after exiting Quick Adjust Video Settings * Edge enhancement and de-noise sliders in Catalyst Control Center no longer lags or appears out of sync with mouse movement * Launching Hotkeys Manager in Catalyst Control Center no longer causes an unhandled exception error * The “Desktop Rotation” page in Catalyst Control Center no longer shows additional information for the second display when the secondary adapter is connected * HDMI is now detected properly as DTV (HDMI) instead of DTV (DVI) when the HDMI display is hotplugged for the first time * Catalyst Control Center no longer displays error message when specific HDMI displays are hot unplugged and hotplugged back

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 operating system: * Intermittent failures no longer occur with MediaShow Espresso once a transcoding process has been completed

Download ATI Catalyst 9.9 Display Driver for Windows

Thermaltake Launches SpinQ VT CPU Cooler with Special LED Lighting

Thermaltake, leading DIY thermal solutions brand, launches the next generation of the award-winning SpinQ processor cooler, the Thermaltake SpinQ VT. With its multi-socket support the SpinQ VT offers excellent compatibility for upcoming Intel LGA 1156, LGA 1366 and older LGA 775 processors, while AMD AM3, AM2+ and AM2 CPUs are supported.

The SpinQ VT combines cooling strength with an enticingly aesthetic appearance. Three u-shaped 6 mm heatpipes connect the mirror coated copper base with the cylindrical heat sink which is created of 50 spiral aluminum fins. Inside the heat sink spiral a specially designed 80 mm blow fan rotates with 1000 to 1600 RPM to exhaust the heat over 360 degrees. Manual control over the fan speed is provided for by the convenient VR Fan knob allowing for stepless speed adjustment. All of this results in excellent cooling characteristics taking up to 180W/mm2 of heat dissipation.