So you bought a new Mac or Ultrabook in the last couple of years, but you’ve yet to plug anything into its Thunderbolt port. A company called Sonnet shows you what that little hole can do for you. Its Echo 15 Thunderbolt Dock is essentially half of a computer, adding a plethora of ports and hardware through just a single cable.
The Echo 15 has four USB 3.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, an Ethernet port, two sets of audio in and out ports, two eSata ports and two more Thunderbolt ports. Additionally, it comes with either a DVD drive or – wait for it Mac owners – a Blu-ray drive. Finally, it also has a drive bay that can fit a 2.5″ or 3.5″ HDD or SSD. You can supply your own or pay a premium to have Sonnet include a 2TB HDD with the Echo 15.
As you can see, it’s a good way of expanding your computer and with many Mac owners, even adding functionality in the form of the Blu-ray optical drive. Sonnet is already taking pre-orders for the Echo 15, with prices ranging from $400 to $550 (USD).
This week you’ll find yourself downloading a rather sizable patch from Blizzard Entertainment for Diablo III, patch 1.0.8 for multiplayer improvements galore. What you’ll be seeing is no less than 8 changes to the way you play – or will be able to play – in multiplayer. What Blizzard describes this update as coming at you as is “making two heads actually better than one!”
As it was back in Diablo II, this update should be bringing the experience you’re getting in Diablo III up to par – you’ll find yourself running wild in single-player missions (still online, of course), but with friends you’ll now have added benefits far beyond those you’ve seen before. Blizzard has made a number of changes to the game in this new patch, noting the following about the push:
“The point is that multiplayer can be lot of fun, but given the downsides it can often feel not worth the effort. By making it easier for players to find one another, improving social features, and providing direct buffs to co-op groups, we hope to change that perspective.” – Blizzard Entertainment
Matchmaking Tags
With patch 1.0.8 you’ll have the added option in “additional options” when making a new game right below your difficulty rating that allows you to “tag” the match. You’ll be able to choose “no tag” or questing, brawling (PvP), Full Act Clear, or Key Warden. This will make it so you’re rolling out with players aiming to blast forth with the same aims as you.
Multiplayer Bonuses
As you enter a multiplayer game, you’ll find that Blizzard has added a 10% more XP boost per player for a max bonus of 30% more XP in a 4-player game. According to Blizzard, this bonus will be multiplicative with MP bonuses already in place.
MP10 with XP bonus in Inferno of 510% (plus normal 100% is 610%) + 4 player game with 3 other players in-game 30% = 793% as much XP as normal
This also works with Magic Find and Gold Find, but with these you’ll be able to surpass your until-now max of 300% of both. You’ll get an additional “flat” 10% Magic and Gold find with each new player that joins the game.
Monster Health
Where before this week, each monster gained 70% extra health for each new player joining a game, you’ll now find them gaining just 50%. The difference should be just enough to allow your tiny ill-equipped buddy to join your game and not be slaughtered instantly.
Identify All
Not just for your multiplayer experiences, this one button should make the process of looking at items you’ve collected with the greatest of ease. No more click, click, click for you! This was also a Diablo II staple returning for the D3 fun.
Archon Kills
Before this week, most Wizards may have been skipping multiplayer simply because kills didn’t fuel Archon adequately – no kills, no magic! Here in 1.0.8, Archon duration is extended by assists. This means if you’ve even so much as thrown pin prick of a spell at a monster and are still around when it dies, your Archon duration will be extended.
Combat Alerts
Picking up on the trends seen in real-deal multiplayer games every day, Blizzard has decided to automatically alert all players in games when a player deals or takes damage from an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin for the first time. A new “combat” icon will appear on your mini-map, and combat icon will appear above your banner in town, too! Bad luck for those of you hoping to sneak into multiplayer games and fight by yourself!
Players Near You
You’ll be given the same alerts (basically the same, anyway) as StarCraft II users get now when you’ve got players logged into Diablo III in your own local network. If you’re playing at your College or hit up local internet hotspots where gaming is a norm, connections can be made real swift! Of course if you hate meeting people and want to play with users across the universe, you can still do so without a problem.
Private Chat
With patch 1.0.8 you’ll be able to start your own private conversation – up to 99 players can join if you invite them. This is essentially the same thing you did in Diablo II when you created a room to have a chat in about what items you wanted to trade, or re-grouped after a fabulous battle. Chats ho!
Wrap-up
This update will be pushed to you automatically starting this week – if you don’t see the update, you’ll likely see it in the next week or two. Those of you wishing to get in on the patch right this minute can head over to the Diablo III Public Test Realm FAQ and see how you can participate. Make with the clicks!
Asus has rolled out an interesting new video card that is specifically designed to offer gaming and multimedia performance in a small form factor computer. The video card is called the Asus GTX 670 DirectCU Mini. The card is designed specifically for computer system using mini ITX mainboards.
The video card is a dual-slot unit measuring 17 cm, which is considerably smaller than the GTX 670 reference card measuring 24.13 cm. The video card uses the Asus exclusive DirectCU cooling system with a heat-spreading vapor chamber and a CoolTech fan. Asus promises that while small, it’s cooling system provides 20% lower temperatures than reference GTX 670 video cards.
Asus also equips the video card with its Direct Power technology. This technology bridges power delivery components and the GPU for a clean and efficient power supply. That means the video card will be more stable and gamers will get more enjoyment without PC crashes due to fluctuating power.
Asus says that its system delivers 56% lower impedance and a 15% cooler PCB than other solutions. The video card also uses Super Alloy Power capacitors, chokes, and MOSFETs. These parts promise 2.5 times the lifespan of cheaper generic parts. Asus hasn’t offered retail pricing on the video card saying that the card is available globally and prices will vary by region.
Comic book geeks are perhaps the single greatest consumer of themed flash drives. If you’re a fan of Iron Man and are looking forward to the third movie in the franchise hitting theaters this summer, it may be time to you to start stocking up on some collectible flash drives. Three Iron Man 3 flash drives are coming out just in time for the blockbuster flick to arrive.
I happen to think the coolest of the three is Iron Man’s Repulsor hand. When the flash drive is plugged into the USB port, the light in the center of the hand that Iron Man uses as a weapon glows blue. Another cool drive in the trio looks like Tony Stark’s Arc Reactor, complete with a little animated light show when plugged in:
The third branded flash drive looks like the red, white and blue Iron Patriot head. All of the flash drives have retractable USB ports and are available with 8 GB or 16 GB of storage. While I haven’t found them in the U.S. yet, you can pre-order the Arc Reactor and the Repulsor Hand over at Australia’s Mighty Ape now.
The Falcon Northwest Tiki is a custom-built pre-constructed gaming PC that emphasizes both a radically small form factor and high performance processing power. We had the opportunity to take a peek at this system thanks to NVIDIA – inside this tiny tower is the newest most fantastic consumer-aimed graphics card on the market: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN, the consumer product riding the wave of the impact the TITAN supercomputer. We’ll be continuing to explore the ins and outs of the TITAN over the coming year as products such as Project SHIELD become available – for now, this review of the Tiki should serve as a primer for those of you considering a TITAN of your own – and/or a full Falcon Northwest build, of course.
Hardware
The Tiki case is one that those unfamiliar with the intricacies of custom-made computers will easily overlook. It’s certainly not the flashy rainbow LED light show that some gaming PCs opt for – it’s almost as if the Tiki dares those that look at it to ask what the big deal is. Up close and personal, you’ll find that the Tiki boasts a fabulously simple set of aesthetics, a subtly lit Falcon Northwest logo up front, and a granite base.
The granite base we’ve got here is what the company calls “Absolute Black”. While you’ve got more than one color choice if you’d like to explore several shades, we’d certainly recommend the black if you’re working with the straight-up black case – together they’re quite classy. The whole unit is light enough that you’ll be able to transport it to and from LAN parties with ease (if that’s your sort of thing) and is perfectly well balanced due in a large part to the granite – it does its job well.
Getting inside the Tiki is just about as simple as it gets without working with magnets – here you’ll be undoing two thumbscrews and pushing one side off – you’ll want to be careful doing so only because the 120MM Asetek liquid cooler (550LC) is attached to it, tubes running from the casing to the main hunk of the unit. This setup works awesome for getting down into the guts of the machine as quick as possible – the fewer screws we’ve got to deal with for customization, the better.
Inside this setup you’ll find an ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe mini ITX motherboard shining out in all its bluey glory amid the massive monsters that are the high-end components that this amalgamation is made of. We’re working with a 256GB SSD SATA3 (Crucial M4 with M500 available soon from Falcon Northwest – check on that when you’re picking up your own) as well as a 3TB WD “Caviar Green” SATA3 hard drive for all the data storage you could ask for.
Getting inside to remove / replace / give big kisses to your favorite components is only a few screw turns away. While there are wires here or there glued down for the trip between Falcon Northwest’s test shop and your home, they’re easily popped off and apart when you decide you want to move forward with any new components.
The two big monsters inside this build are the 3rd Generation Intel Core i7 processor (overclocked to 3.5GHz), and the 6GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN graphics card. When you’re picking up the TITAN, you’re not looking for a budget setup. You’ve got a beast right out of the box. Again, this isn’t the last time we’ll be working with NVIDIA’s TITAN GPU for video game reviews and cloud gaming action – stick around our NVIDIA tag portal as well as our NVIDIA Tegra hub for the full fireworks through the future.
Once you’re done rummaging around the insides, you’ll find more inputs and outputs than you’ll ever have a need for. The build we’ve got here works with a Sony Optiarc slot load DVD+-RW on top near a a headphone jack, microphone jack, and set of two USB 3.0 ports. You’ll also see a symmetrical set of vents that, when you peek through, you’ll be able to see the side of the TITAN: “GEFORCE GTX” in bright NVIDIA green lights just below the surface – only visible up close.
The back of this machine has its IO panel labels set in upside-down for easy reading whilst looking down over the top – as you’re prone to do with such a desktop. That massive set of connections includes two eSATA ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. You’ll also find GigE, ASUS Wifi connections (you’ll get two external antenna in your package from Falcon Northwest), and standard optical and analog audio jacks. Ethernet and processor-powered display outputs DVI, HDMI, and Display Port are also down there if you want to make use of them.
Nearer the top you’ve got two DL-DVI ports as well as HDMI and DisplayPort outputs bringing the heat via your GeForce TITAN GPU. Your power supply (Silverstone ST-45B 450W) sits nearest the bottom on the back. On either side of the case you’ll more airflow action allowing this Tiki setup to remain impressively cool no matter what we throw at it. With that you’ll still be hearing next no noise – you’ll certainly not be having to dismiss a “hum” while you’re enjoying the greatness of the highest powered games on the market – those being the games you’re essentially obligated to test out and work with when you’re rolling with Tiki.
Software and Performance
Under the hood out of the box we’re working with 64bit Windows 8 Professional, and though it’s still a little odd working with this operating system without a touchscreen interface, it’s certainly starting to feel more natural than it did when Microsoft first pushed the system to consumers. That said, the real power here comes from the software we’re using outside the standard Microsoft experience: games, games, and more games. And with a system this size, big-time possibilities!
Steam Big Picture Mode
The size of this system suggests some rather unique use-cases, even before we consider the fact that NVIDIA has some big plans for GeForce and cloud computing in the home this year. The Tiki case isn’t much larger than the average major-label gaming console today, and even compared to what’s coming out later this year (more than likely), you can be confident you’ll have a size-to-power ratio that blows any gaming console out of the water. And unless the Xbox 720 or PlayStation 4 pull some real magic out of their sleeves with regards to digital game distribution soon, Valve’s Steam will continue to be the premiere destination for the universe’s greatest downloadable games.
NVIDIA GeForce Experience
NVIDIA has made some rather interesting strides recently in making sure the average citizen is able to have a top-notch gaming experience. Just this year the GeForce Experience was released – an NVIDIA-powered app interface where a collection of the world’s most fabulous games can have their settings optimized for your unique gaming hardware setup instantly and automatically. NVIDIA has released a new GeForce driver software update for esentially every major game delivered in the first quarter of 2013, each of them able to be accessed via this GeForce Experience with a single button click, a unique game settings interface appearing for you then if you’ve got said game on your computer.
System – System manufacturer System Product Name
Manufacturer
Falcon Northwest
Product Type
Desktop
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8 Pro (64-bit)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P8Z77-I DELUXE
Processor
Intel Core i7-3770K
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Frequency
3.50 GHz
Processors
1
Threads
8
Cores
4
L1 Instruction Cache
32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache
32.0 KB
L2 Cache
256 KB
L3 Cache
8.00 MB
Memory
8.00 GB DDR3 SDRAM 934MHz
FSB
100.0 MHz
BIOS
American Megatrends Inc. 0607
With the automatic settings optimization feature, your games will become as excellent as they possibly can be – both aesthetically and performance-wise. With the Tiki rolling with a GeForce GTX TITAN under the hood and NVIDIA optimizing settings game-to-game, we’ve had nothing but the best gaming experiences we’ve ever seen on a gaming computer.
Benchmark Score – System manufacturer System Product Name
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 8 Pro (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
16175
18728
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
28310
Memory
Memory performance
10590
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
10411
Right this minute we’ve done just our standard fare as far as benchmarks go, Geekbench showing this build to be amongst the most powerful gaming PCs we’ve reviewed. Also be sure to check out similar results on much larger machines, too: AVADirect Quiet Gaming PC and NEEDLETAIL SX – and have a peek at a couple relatively small machines so you know what the Tiki is up against physical size-wise: MainGear Potenza and iBuyPower Revolt.
Whilst playing Batman: Arkham City, we’ve experienced a been a bit of a re-birth of interest with the much higher-definition display than we used when originally reviewing the game, not to mention a system that’s on a whole different level than the Alienware notebook (pre 3rd-gen Intel Core processors and so-forth). While it’s not that working with a beast like the MX-17 from a couple years ago is a bad thing (it’s actually still quite amazing), there’s just no comparing to the smoothness and detail we’re getting here.
In Hawken the only thing that stops one from having the miraculous non-stop smoothness we’re seeing in Arkham City is the fact that part of our experience is based online. If we’d be working with the connections our friends in Japan have with wires so thick you could drive a truck through them, we’d be golden – here we’ll have to settle for just “destroys all gaming experiences we’ve had before this year.” Have a peek at our first look at Hawken while you’re at it.
Even Star Wars: The Old Republic looks great. As it’s included in NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience list of games that can be optimized for greatness automatically, we certainly had to give it a go. As it turns out, the difference between what you get in this game on a basic level and what NVIDIA can give you is immense. While the gameplay remains the same – you’re still firing blasters at your opponents and rolling in the Force like mad – you can take part in the deepest visual details the developers intended you to see. Just look at that water ripple!
We’ll be continuing to benchmark the build we’ve got here through the future, so be sure to ask if you’ve got any tests you’d like us to run. We’ll be putting this setup through the punches in any and all ways you desire!
Wrap-Up
The Falcon Northwest Tiki is not a machine made for penny-pinchers. If you’re planning on working with any gaming PC packing an NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN GPU, you’re going to be paying quite a chunk of change – this isn’t the sort of situation where you’re paying just a little bit of cash for a just-good-enough helping of performance. Instead you’re going to want to save up for a couple months – the build we’ve gotten from Falcon Northwest here will cost you more than $3k.
You can make your Tiki cost quite a bit less if you don’t want to pack it full of the top-of-the-line components we’ve got here – and you’ll still have an amazing build – but that’s not what NVIDIA’s TITAN brand is about. With the Falcon Northwest Tiki packing NVIDIA’s TITAN, you’ve got a gaming masterpiece, plain and simple.
Do you really want a Jar Jar Binks USB flash drive? There are so many better characters you could choose from. Well, at least this storage device can’t possibly be as inept and useless as the CGI Gungan himself, right?
Developers hoping to jump aboard the Microsoft BUILD ship should get their clicking fingers out now because Early Bird registration has begun! Those of you developers out there that find themselves amongst the first 500 signing up for the conference today through http://www.buildwindows.com/ will be grabbing a $500 USD discount under the price that the rest of the crowd will be paying – make with the keyboards!
This conference is one made by Microsoft for developers to gain knowledge and make connections – more connections than they’ve ever made before! Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and everything in-between are about to be up for chats, keynotes, and discussion all week long in the San Francisco corner of this grand tour. Today’s registration is also for that particular stop, with the SoCal event taking place at The Moscone Center from June 26th through June 28th – you’ll want to be there the whole time, without a doubt!
If you are amongst the first 500 ticket buyers, you’ll be tossing down $1,595 USD, while the rest of the developer world will be paying $2,095 USD. Either way it’s an investment – and if you’ve been to this event before, you know it’s well worth the cash.
This year’s BUILD events will also be visiting Oregon and Washington in Portland and Redmond – if you’re not at one, sign up for the other! If you’re all about Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Azure, Internet Explorer, Office, Office 365, Xbox, or Visual Studio, you’ll find yourself well at home!
Have a peek at our timeline of BUILD-specific titles from the past few years and make sure you hit up our Microsoft tag portal for more – we’ll be bringing you the heat even if you’re not in attendance. Prepare yourself!
Computer geeks have been using various flavors of 3DMark to benchmark their computers for years. The cool thing about their benchmark suite is that it has visually impressive tests that challenge both the GPU and CPU inside your computer. The scores are then mashed together to give you a total score allowing you to directly compare the performance of your machine to other users regardless of the platform or hardware.
Benchmarking fans can now get their hands on 3DMark for Android. Like the PC version, the Android version of the benchmark suite tests the GPU and CPU. There are two tests for the GPU with the first graphics test focusing on triangle throughput. The second graphics test focuses on pixel processing. The physics test is designed to focus on CPU performance by making it crank through a ton of calculations.
3DMark for Android is available now and requires Android 3.1 or higher, and will be coming to iOS and Windows RT devices in the near future. It would be nice if they made a Mac version someday too.
ARM and TSMC have announced that they have completed the tape-out of the first ARM Cortex-A57 processor. The processor was taped-out on TSMC’s 16nm FinFET technology. ARM says that this new processor is its highest performing and is designed to extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing devices.
The processor will eventually find its way into high-end computer, tablet, and server products according to ARM. TSMC and ARM say that this is the first milestone in the cooperation between the two companies to optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 processor series using the FinFET process technology. From RTL to tape-out of the new processor was completed in six months according to the companies.
During the process, ARM and TSMC used ARM Artisan physical IP, TSMC memory macros, and RDA technologies that were enabled by the TSMC Open Innovation Platform design ecosystem. Through the collaboration between the two companies optimized, power efficient Cortex-A57 processors and libraries were created to support early customer implementations on 16nm FinFET for high-performance ARM-based SoCs.
Neither of the two companies have offered details on when we might expect to see Cortex-A57 processor equipped devices come to market. One interesting tidbit about TSMC is that the company produced 15.1 million 8-inch equivalent wafers in 2012. The company is the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry.
Asus has announced a new motherboard that gamers and computer enthusiast’s building up a high-end PC will certainly lust over. The new motherboard is called the Asus P9X79-E WS and has support for up to four-way Nvidia GeForce SLI or AMD CrossFireX using x16 links. The board also supports Asus Dr. Power to help prevent sudden shutdowns using power supply health monitoring and event notifications.
Asus says that the board is 91% power efficient and has enhanced heat removal and connectivity for high-speed storage and data transfer with dual server-grade Intel Ethernet ports. The big feature for computer gamers and enthusiasts looking for all of the graphics performance they can get is the support for up to four video cards from Nvidia or AMD. The mainboard also supports seven single slot graphics cards.
With seven available PCI Express slots this motherboard will also be appealing for users who want to build the machine for PCI Express-based video capturing or with numerous SSD storage devices that use PCI Express slots. The motherboard uses the Intel i210 controller for the dual Intel Ethernet ports. The controller allows for twice the bandwidth with lower latency and less packet loss.
The board is made using a durable 10-layer PCB with 100% ultra-long life solid-state capacitors. The board is also fitted with Asus DIGI+ VRM digital voltage controls for the processor and memory. The board uses a fan-less cooling design featuring copper heat pipes to extend hardware longevity and improved stability without adding any noise. The board also features four USB 3.0 ports, six SATA 6Gbit/s ports and a pair of front panel eSATA ports. The board will launch in late April or early May at an undisclosed price.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
ARM and TSMC have announced that they have completed the tape-out of the first ARM Cortex-A57 processor. The processor was taped-out on TSMC’s 16nm FinFET technology. ARM says that this new processor is its highest performing and is designed to extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing devices.
