IN Order To Get The Latest Prices Press The Refresh Button Each Time you Log On To This Page.

Don't Miss A Thing Visit Our News Archives

 

Latest Tech News

League Of Legends Performance, Benchmarked Tuesday May 21 @ 08:55:12 GMT +02:00  ee2 Following up our Dota 2 performance analysis, we benchmark the most-played PC game in the world, League Of Legends, and find out just how much graphics and CPU performance it requires for high-resolution, high-detail play, even across three screens. League Of Legends Performance, Benchmarked   BIOS Option Of The Week - ISA Shared Memory Tuesday May 21 @ 08:49:43 GMT +02:00  ee2 Since 1999, we have been developing the BIOS Optimization Guide, affectionately known as the BOG. From a meager beginning of a single page, it now covers over 440 BIOS options. As old BOG readers will know, we started offering two editions of the BOG since Revision 8.0 - a simplified edition and the complete edition. In the simplified edition, the description of each BIOS option in this guide is condensed and written in a simplified format. This simplified edition is not a sampler or demo version of the complete BIOS Optimization Guide. It is merely a simplified version with all the essential points and minus the frills. The complete edition, on the other hand, features both simplified descriptions as well as full details of each BIOS option. This allows you to quickly get the gist of what each BIOS option mean and delve deeper into the details if you wish to learn more about it. BIOS Option Of The Week - ISA Shared Memory   Gigabyte offers early peek at Z87 motherboards Tuesday May 21 @ 08:40:15 GMT +02:00  ee2 With Haswell approaching, motherboard makers are eager to show off their Z87 boards. We have the goods on what Gigabyte has in store for the platform. Gigabyte offers early peek at Z87 motherboards Gigabyte Z77-HD4 Review @ Anandtech   Thermaltake Armor Revo Gene Mid Tower Computer Case Review Tuesday May 21 @ 08:33:11 GMT +02:00  ee2 For some reason the testing and medical techniques that are being developed from genetics still seems very science fiction. Who is to say that this better understanding of genetics is not going to encourage scientists to work on altering genes to correct defects or possibly even splice other species genes into the human genome and create a new human. In a sense you can look at genetic engineering becoming as big as engineering mechanical items. Regardless computing power is going to continue to be in demand and for many users this has to start with a vessel to hold the electronic components. The Thermaltake Armor Revo Gene is a mid-tower case in targeted at mainstream users. Thermaltake designed the Armor Revo Gene with aggressive styling, including aluminum wings on the front bezel, large feet to raise it off the ground, and LED logo in the top front with a breathing effect. The Revo Gene supports up to four 5.25” external devices, one external 3.5” drive, and five internal 3.5” or 2.5” devices. The top of the case also has a 3.5” or 2.5” hard drive dock for quickly accessing a bare hard drive. The cooling system is robust and includes a front 200mm fan, rear 120mm fan, and top 200mm. There are also optional fan mounting locations on the side for a 200mm fan and bottom for a 120mm fan. The headset holder on the side of the case is one more feature making the Revo Gene ready for battle. Thermaltake Armor Revo Gene Mid Tower Computer Case Review   What To Expect From The Next iPhone Tuesday May 21 @ 08:24:51 GMT +02:00  ee2 Below is a direct quote from Think Computers on where they think the iPhone is headed. "If Apple follows their typical release schedule, the new iPhone will be available sometime this summer, and the rumors are already flying about what that’s going to contain. With rival phones from Android stepping up their game, will Apple feel the pressure to do something completely new and spectacular? Maybe it’ll be like the 4S, which made small improvements to the iPhone 4 but didn't break out of the mold too much. Nobody really knows, as Apple hasn't provided us with any official information yet, but there are some of the speculated changes." What To Expect From The Next iPhone   Windows Firewall Control 4.0.0.0 Tuesday May 21 @ 08:08:14 GMT +02:00  ee2 Windows Firewall Control is a nifty little application which extends the functionality of the Windows Firewall and provides quick access to the most frequent options of Windows Firewall. It runs in the system tray and allows user to control the native firewall easily without having to waste time by navigating to the specific part of the firewall. This is the best tool to manage the native firewall from Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Windows Firewall Control offers four filtering modes which can be switched with just a mouse click: High Filtering - All outgoing connections are blocked. This setting blocks all attempts to connect to and from your computer. Medium Filtering - Outgoing connections that do not match a rule are blocked. Only programs you allow can initiate outgoing connections. Low Filtering - Outgoing connections that do not match a rule are allowed. You can block the programs you do not want to initiate outgoing connections. No Filtering - Windows Firewall is turned off. Avoid using this setting unless you have another firewall running on your computer. Features: Just one small executable file. All features are packed in the same file. Full support for executing tasks from standard user accounts. Intuitive and easy accessible interface in the system tray. Allow or block a program to connect to the internet with just one mouse click. Shell integration into the right click context menu of the executable files. Quick access to edit Windows Firewall rules directly from the program interface. Choose if you want the program to start at user logon. Import and export the policy of the program. Protection to unauthorized uninstallation. Possibility to restore previous settings at uninstallation. Check for a new version from the program interface. And many more... Just give it a try. Download

Kingston SSDNow V300 (120GB & 240GB) Review Tuesday May 14 @ 08:49:43 GMT +02:00  ee2 Kingston's SSD lineup is as follows: they have HyperX-branded SSDs for enthusiasts and the mainstream market is catered by SSDNow brand. The HyperX SSDs have been fairly popular from what I've seen but the SSDNow brand has been rather inconsistent. Kingston has used controllers from multiple manufacturers in the SSDNow lineup and the naming system has been confusing to say the least. Kingston has been using a plus sign (e.g. V+200) to separate their higher-end offerings from the slower non-plus version (e.g. V200). However, the plus sign has never had any definite meaning and at least I've always found it to be very confusing. With the V300, there's hope that the SSDNow lineup will be simplified and consumers will no longer have to look for (or avoid) the "better" plus sign version. The V300 is based on (surprise!) SandForce's SF-2281 controller and uses Kingston packaged (but Toshiba/SanDisk manufactured) 19nm MLC NAND. Kingston has used SF-2281 in some of their HyperX drives and it's a generally known quantity, but let's see how Kingston's newest mainstream SSD performs. Kingston SSDNow V300 (120GB & 240GB) Review   AMD Details hUMA: HSA in Action! Tuesday May 14 @ 08:40:15 GMT +02:00  ee2 Several years back we first heard AMD’s plans on creating a uniform memory architecture which will allow the CPU to share address spaces with the GPU. The promise here is to create a very efficient architecture that will provide excellent performance in a mixed environment of serial and parallel programming loads. When GPU computing came on the scene it was full of great promise. The idea of a heavily parallel processing unit that will accelerate both integer and floating point workloads could be a potential gold mine in wide variety of applications. Alas, the promise of the technology did not meet expectations when we have viewed the results so far. There are many problems with combining serial and parallel workloads between CPUs and GPUs, and a lot of this has to do with very basic programming and the communication of data between two separate memory pools. AMD Details hUMA: HSA in Action!   Frame Rating: High End GPUs Benchmarked at 4K Resolutions Tuesday May 14 @ 08:33:11 GMT +02:00  ee2 You may have recently seen a story and video on PC Perspective about a new TV that made its way into the office. Of particular interest is the fact that the SEIKI SE50UY04 50-in TV is a 4K television; it has a native resolution of 3840x2160. For those that are unfamiliar with the new upcoming TV and display standards, 3840x2160 is exactly four times the resolution of current 1080p TVs and displays. Oh, and this TV only cost us $1300. In that short preview we validated that both NVIDIA and AMD current generation graphics cards support output to this TV at 3840x2160 using an HDMI cable. You might be surprised to find that HDMI 1.4 can support 4K resolutions, but it can do so only at 30 Hz (60 Hz 4K TVs won't be available until 2014 most likely), half the refresh rate of most TVs and monitors at 60 Hz. That doesn't mean we are limited to 30 FPS of performance though, far from it. As you'll see in our testing on the coming pages we were able to push out much higher frame rates using some very high end graphics solutions. Frame Rating: High End GPUs Benchmarked at 4K Resolutions   iPhone 5 bests Samsung's Galaxy S4 in smartphone torture test Tuesday May 14 @ 08:24:51 GMT +02:00  ee2 Phone insurance firm SquareTrade found that the new Galaxy S4 fall short of Apple's iPhone 5 in terms of durability. From Apple Insider: SquareTrade put the Galaxy S4, the Galaxy S3, and Apple's iPhone 5 through a torture test of sorts, reproducing the perils that smartphones face in the hands of everyday consumers. The handsets were dropped to test case strength, skidded across tables to see how far they would slide, and dunked underwater to see how well they fared with submersion. All three phones scored a "Medium Risk" in SquareTrade's evaluation, but the Galaxy S4 got a worse numerical score than the iPhone 5 and even its predecessor Galaxy S3. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, Apple's iPhone scored a 5, while the Galaxy S3 and S4 scored 6.5 and 7, respectively. iPhone 5 bests Samsung's Galaxy S4 in smartphone torture test   Tweak-SSD 1.0.10 Tuesday May 14 @ 08:08:14 GMT +02:00  ee2 The original Tweak-SSD: Everything you need to optimize your SSD drive on Windows 7 or 8. Optimize and tweak your Windows 7 or Windows 8 for a better performance of your SSD drive Includes several tweaks that will optimize your SSD drive, making it even faster and reducing read and write access Intuitive tweaking wizard guiding you from one tweak to the other, suggesting the best settings Designed especially for Windows 7 and Windows 8 - unlike competitive products! TRIM performance optimizer included (licensed edition only) Completely free!Compared to competitive products, Tweak-SSD does not require any user knowledge when it comes to activating SSD related system tweaks. The included wizard guides the user from one tweak to the other and suggests the best setting by intuitive red-green switch buttons, and an additional system status gauge visualizing the system's optimization status.Tweak-SSD works on Windows 7 and Windows 8, both on 32bit and 64bit editions. It includes an English user interface. Download

Top 5 Google Chrome Productivity Extensions Tuesday May 08 @ 08:55:51 GMT +02:00  ee2 Productivity hasn’t been regarded as one of the positive aspects of the web browser. Instead it has been viewed as a sieve of never ending distractions. I don’t agree with this viewpoint, however. Although there are several websites on the internet that distract the mind, it is also true that the web is full of productivity enhancing tools. Many of these are available only on the internet. To-do lists and task managers are considered the best among these tools. Checking things off a list as the jobs are performed is a great productivity enhancer. Google Chrome, the net browser is full of things like extensions and task management apps that are great at getting things done. Let us take a look at some of the best extensions out there. Top 5 Google Chrome Productivity Extensions   Mobile CPU Comparison Guide Rev. 9.6 Tuesday May 08 @ 08:49:43 GMT +02:00  ee2 There are so many mobile CPU models that it has become quite impossible to keep up with the different models or even remember their specifications! Therefore, we decided to compile this guide to provide an easy reference for those who are interested in comparing the specifications of the various mobile CPUs in the market, as well as those already obsolescent or obsolete. Currently covering 819 mobile CPUs, this comprehensive comparison will allow you to easily compare 19 different specifications for each and every CPU. We hope it will prove to be a useful reference. We will keep this guide updated regularly so do check back for the latest updates! Mobile CPU Comparison Guide Rev. 9.6   XFX Radeon HD 7790 Black Edition 1GB Video Card Review Tuesday May 08 @ 08:40:15 GMT +02:00  ee2 The latest AMD Radeon HD 7790 GPUs feature a revised AMD PowerTune Technology implementation, with 8 states, more shader units compared to the versions and higher frequencies. The XFX Black Edition implementation comes with raised speeds from the factory and an enhanced Double Dissipation cooling system for a good efficiency, while maintaining low noise levels. XFX Radeon HD 7790 Black Edition 1GB Video Card Review   Buying Guide: Mac RAID drives: 6 reviewed and rated Tuesday May 08 @ 08:33:11 GMT +02:00  ee2 Backing up your data every now and again is not enough. Using an online back-up service such as Crash Plan or Mozy isn't enough (although off-site back-up should be part of your overall strategy). If your internet connection goes down at the same time as your hard drive fails or you inadvertently wipe that important file, no online back-up will save you.A scheduled local back-up routine is critical. And for that, you'll need a backup destination you can trust to look after your data. You could use any old hard drive, but in the unlikely event the drive fails just when you need to restore from it, you'll have a problem. A mirrored RAID drive massively reduces that problem. These drives, which house multiple disks, copy your data in its entirety to more than one disk. In the case of the drives we have tested here, each has two disks and each disk has identical data. Thus, if one disk fails, your data is safely stored on the other. Wh Buying Guide: Mac RAID drives: 6 reviewed and rated   9 Alternatives To Skype For VoIP And Video Chat Tuesday May 08 @ 08:24:51 GMT +02:00  ee2 There’s no single provider that can match Skype's service feature for feature. Still, it’s possible to find companies that excel at offering great VoIP or video calling as individual services. For both benefits plus tons of extras stick with Skype, but if you’re ready to bail because you’re worried about the implications of Microsoft buying Skype you can check out the alternatives listed below. 9 Alternatives To Skype For VoIP And Video Chat   Adobe Abandons Its Creative Suite to Focus on Creative Cloud Tuesday May 08 @ 08:08:14 GMT +02:00  ee2 Adobe first launched Creative Suite 1 back in 2003, and now, ten years and six versions later, the company is taking a left turn: Adobe is abandoning its Creative Suite entirely to focus efforts on Creative Cloud. From The Next Web: Adobe targets the same Pro and Pro-sumer community that Apple had the misfortune of knowing when it redesigned Final Cut Pro. Adobe’s decision to solely embrace a subscription offering could lead to mass protest if not handled correctly. But before grabbing your torch, let us explain what, exactly, is happening — then we’ll get into why. Adobe Abandons Its Creative Suite to Focus on Creative Cloud

License Crawler 1.28 build 323 Tuesday April 30 @ 08:49:43 GMT +02:00  ee2 If you want to setup your computer system again you need to have the licenses and serial numbers at hand for all the software programs that you have purchased and registered. This does include the Windows product key but also other serial numbers for applications like Nero, Office, VMWare and pretty much every other application. Instead of searching for the keys in your e-mails, manuals and recipes you could use another approach. License Crawler is a sweet little application that scans the Windows Registry for Windows product keys and other serial numbers and licenses. The License Crawler can discover application product keys and other serial numbers or licenses very quickly and supports all versions of Windows operating system from Windows 95 over Windows 7 to Windows Server 2008 R2 (64Bit). It is a portable application that can be run from any location and would be a perfect fit for a USB stick. Asking clients to find serial and license keys is often very frustrating. Instead, tech support can simply run License Crawler without having to interact with the client at all. Download   AMD's Radeon HD 7990 graphics card reviewed Tuesday April 30 @ 08:40:15 GMT +02:00  ee2 By all rights, the Radeon HD 7990 ought to be the fastest single graphics card in the world. How well does it deliver on that promise? The answer is complicated by tricky things like multi-GPU microstuttering. We've gone inside the second, with a range of newfangled tools, to discover the truth. AMD's Radeon HD 7990 graphics card reviewed   Rig of the Month - April 2013 Tuesday April 30 @ 08:33:11 GMT +02:00  ee2 We just adore hardware. And sometimes some you guys really make a PC that really stands out. We ask you to answer a few simple questions and send in photo's of your rig. Each month we'll have a look at the entries and perhaps pick you and post your PC with photo's and everything here at Guru3D.com Here you can find out what you need to do and win a great prize brought to you with the courtesy of OCZ Technology. Rig of the Month - April 2013   D-Link DIR-505 Review Tuesday April 30 @ 08:24:51 GMT +02:00  ee2 Having your own wireless network when you're travelling can be essential, especially if you need to transform a hotel's complimentary wired connection into a wireless one for your tablet or smartphone, and the D-Link DIR-505 SharePort Mobile Companion is a device that can do just that. Like the TP-Link TL-WR702N Wireless N Nano Router, the D-Link DIR-505 is a small, portable device that you can plug into an Ethernet network connection and turn into a wireless router to share your internet connection. It can also work as a wireless repeater, extending the range of your Wi-Fi network, and can act as a wireless hotspot. D-Link DIR-505 Review   Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver 12.5.0.1066 Tuesday April 30 @ 08:08:14 GMT +02:00  ee2 The Intel® Rapid Storage Technology software package provides high-performance Serial ATA (SATA) and SATA RAID capabilities for supported operating systems. Drivers Rapid Storage Technology (RST) for RAID Intel H55, HM55, P55, PM55, A57, H57, HM57, P57, PM57, Q57, QM57, QS57, X58, H61, B65, HM65, Q65, H67, HM67, P67, Q67, QM67, QS67, UM67, Z68, HM70, B75, HM75, Q75, Z75, HM76, H77, HM77, Q77, QM77, QS77, UM77, Z77, X79, B85, HM86, H87, HM87, Q85, Q87, QM87, Z87, C202, C204, C206 or C216. Download

GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost & SLI Performance Review Tuesday April 23 @ 08:49:43 GMT +02:00  ee2 Last September saw the release of the first GeForce GTX 650 graphics card. Aiming at the gamer on a budget, the card sold for just $110, however with memory bandwidth of just 80GB/s -- less than the 3-year old GTX 460 -- it came up short of becoming a noteworthy launch. A month later, we saw the release of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti ($150). Thanks to the use of the GK106 architecture, it offered considerably better performance as the larger die allowed for a more aggressive core configuration, improving texture fill rates by 75%. The GTX 650 Ti became our favorite $100 - $150 graphics card last year, as it thrashed the Radeon HD 7770. Read more: GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost & SLI Performance Review   NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 3-Way SLI Review Tuesday April 23 @ 08:40:15 GMT +02:00  ee2 We follow-up with a full evaluation of GeForce GTX TITAN 3-way SLI in today's latest games. We will compare GTX TITAN 3-way SLI to GTX 680 3-way SLI and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3-way CrossFire in a triple-display setup at 5760x1200. Find out what it takes to run Crysis 3 maxed out across three displays. Read more: NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 3-Way SLI Review   Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 2GB OC Review Tuesday April 23 @ 08:33:11 GMT +02:00  ee2 After all the testing is done, the Sapphire HD 7790 2GB OC will offer up additional FPS performance when the settings are increased to take advantage of the larger frame buffer. Instances where running with a quartet of 4K monitors or when attempting to game at Eyefinity resolutions can provide some benefit over the 1GB-equipped cards. The most graphic example I saw in my testing of where the 2GB on this HD 7790 paid dividends was in the 3DMark Fire Extreme testing where this card proved without a doubt when the game settings are indeed high enough you do see a point of difference. Read more: Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 2GB OC Review   Is A SATA 3Gb/s Platform Still Worth Upgrading With An SSD? Tuesday April 23 @ 08:24:51 GMT +02:00  ee2 Today's fastest SSDs already bounce off the SATA 6Gb/s interface's throughput ceiling. Does a 3 Gb/s link kill the performance of those drives? We run a number of synthetic and real-world tests to assess the damage when you upgrade an older platform. Read more: Is A SATA 3Gb/s Platform Still Worth Upgrading With An SSD?   Google Earth 7.1.1 Tuesday April 23 @ 08:08:14 GMT +02:00  ee2 Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others. With Google Earth you can explore the earth from above! Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in -- Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips. Google Earth puts a planet's worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. View exotic locales like Maui and Paris as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, schools, and more. Download

Microsoft to allow users to jump straight to desktop in Windows 8.1? Tuesday April 09 @ 08:49:43 GMT +02:00  ee2 WinBeta posted a story that Microsoft may be working on an option to jump straight to the desktop for users in Windows 8.1 For those upgrading to Windows Blue, you might now have the option to remove the Start Screen. According to the report, after examining the code in twinui.dll, there is a line that is "responsible for disabling the Start Screen" and after disabling or modifying the code it makes the system "go to the desktop automatically." Those using Windows 8 or the leaked Windows 8.1 build, you will obviously know by now that this option isn't yet available. Read More @: Microsoft to allow users to jump straight to desktop in Windows 8.1?   Buying Guide: Best CPU: 10 top processors reviewed and rated Tuesday April 09 @ 08:40:15 GMT +02:00  ee2 Buying Guide: Best CPU: 10 top processors reviewed and rated @ Techradar This is it, boys and girls. We're nearing the end of days for the PC processor as we know it. There are storms of change on the horizon and it's anyone's guess what the PC will be like in hardware terms when it blows over. Right now, things are much as they've always been. You pays your money, you takes your choice. In other words, you get to choose any CPU you like and match it with a motherboard and a graphics card. You've got both AMD and Intel options. And in many cases, you've still got full control over the chip you buy. You can overclock it, underclock it, swap it out and generally mess about with it. Trust us on this - much of that could begin to disappear within the next 18 months, so enjoy it while it lasts. If you're wondering why, there are a number of trends at work. Read more: Buying Guide: Best CPU: 10 top processors reviewed and rated @ Techradar   Microsoft debunks rumors of hackers causing Xbox Live outage Tuesday April 09 @ 08:33:11 GMT +02:00  ee2 Microsoft said Saturday's lengthy outage of the Xbox 360's Xbox Live service was due to a "networking misconfiguration" and denied that a hacker group was in fact to blame On Saturday, owners of the Xbox 360 console were unable to log into their Xbox Live accounts for several hours. Microsoft has now fixed this problem but some online rumors apparently claimed the outage was due to a hacker attack. Today, GeekWire.com reports that they received a statement from Microsoft which states the real reason for the downtime. It also debunks the hacking reports, stating, "The Xbox LIVE service outage on 13 April resulted from networking misconfiguration during routine maintenance and was in no way related to false claims of hacking the service." Read More @: Microsoft debunks rumors of hackers causing Xbox Live outage   Windows 8.1 build 9385 reportedly now on partner networks Tuesday April 09 @ 08:24:51 GMT +02:00  ee2 It looks like the latest development build of Windows 8.1 may have been posted to Microsoft's partner network Winforum.eu's message board posted the image earlier today (whch we are not showing here here) which shows that the build number has gone up to version 9385, with the date of April 12th. The forum claims that the build was made available via Microsoft's partners on Sunday, April 14th and is the 64-bit ISO. At the moment, there's no evidence that this newest build of Windows 8.1 has actually been leaked. However, if this information is correct, it shows that Microsoft continues to make steady progress on this major Windows 8 update. Microsoft is expected to launch a public preview of Windows 8.1 at its BUILD 2013 conference in late June, followed by its official launch sometime later this summer. Read More @: Windows 8.1 build 9385 reportedly now on partner networks   LG Google Nexus 4 reviewed Tuesday April 09 @ 08:08:14 GMT +02:00  ee2 Fudzilla publihsed a review on the LG Google Nexus 4   The Nexus line of devices has always been considered a premium product line and as it was watched closely by Google, you could always expect premium service in terms of getting the latest OS updates first. The Google/LG Nexus 4 is the fourth generation Nexus smarpthone and while the One, S and Galaxy Nexus were premium smartphones, the Nexus 4 has another ace up its sleeve. In terms of pricing it fits somewhere in the mid-range segment, yet it has enough muscle to take on high end gear. In order to make a smartphone with a US $299/$349 price tag on Google Play Store, LG and Google had to cut some corners and we honestly think they did an impressive job. Although it was announced in October 2012 and started to ship just a month later, the Nexus 4 had rather ride, as it was plagued with availability issues for more a few months after launch. The blame was shifted back and forth between Google and LG and at one point in time it was obvious that they either simply could not make enough phones, or did not expect a lot of demand for it. Read More @: LG Google Nexus 4 reviewed