Asus continues the TUF series with the Sabertooth Z77

As far as going after niche markets, Asus TUF series is one of those peculiar products that isnt necessarily selling towards its intended target market, nor does the product range really fit in as it sits on its own as a side-line to many of Asus other board ranges. The latest addition is the Sabertooth Z77 which builds on previous TUF boards and then adds a few features of its own.

As you can see, the Sabertooth Z77 features Asus unique Thermal armor, a plastic shield that encases the entire board, although this time around Asus has made a few tweaks to the design. For one the company has added a pair of 50mm fans this time around, one just below the CPU socket and one as part of the rear I/O that draws in cool air from outside the chassis to help cool the MOSFETs. The other addition is dust protection covers for all of the PCI Express slots as well as for two memory slots and some of the pin headers. These are simple plastic covers that prevent buildup of dust in the slots over time.

The general board design is fairly conservative with two x16 PCI Express 3.0 slots in dual x8 mode, one x16 PCI Express 2.0 slot which is operating in x4 mode and three x1 PCI Express 2.0 slots. You also get the standard four SATA 3Gbps ports and two SATA 6Gbps from the Intel chipset as well as a pair of additional SATA 6Gbps ports. The board also has a USB 3.0 header for two ports and what should be headers for an additional six USB 3.0 ports.

Around the back were looking at four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out, a DisplayPort and HDMI connector and a CMOS reset button. The rear fan is recessed behind the CMOS reset button, but even so it prevents any additional rear ports to be fitted to the board. If you feel the extra cost for a five year warranty is worth it, then maybe this is the board youve been waiting for, but otherwise wed say other models from Asus offer more in terms of features for what has at least in the past been a lower cost.

An unlikely home for Windows 8 Return of the budget PC

During the holiday shopping weekend, low-end budget PCs running Windows 8 were all the rage at shopping chain Walmart. HP, Gateway, and Toshiba have all teetered recently due to the decline of the desktop and rise of mobile computing. All three companies started to return to form this weekend though, as their low cost Windows 8 running notebooks were a hit.

The notebooks in question ran from $248 - $328, which pitted them in direct competition with netbooks/Ultrabooks and were only a little more expensive than your average tablet computer. Of course, when using a tablet with a keyboard a dock is usually your best choice, so the notebook offerings worked out cheaper than a $200 tablet + $100-$150 dock. The notebooks had average 2GB memory, 300GB HDD, and 1.3GHz dual-core AMD processors. Some models like the Toshiba Satellite C855D were marked from their usual price for more than $300.

While the tablet boom certainly is booming, it still seems some sensible shoppers just want a regular device to do chores on and write the occasional word. Touch screen technology is a great marketing device, but in reality fails to be practical for anything more than a plaything. As computing takes up more of our lives, a media-consuming device like a tablet just doesn’t cut it in some areas.

Either way its good news for Microsoft, whose latest operating system Windows 8 runs on both notebooks and tablets, and is a cunning strategy by the Redmond developer to ensure they get a cut of whatever trend takes hold over the next few years.

It’s not all pie in the sky for Microsoft, as the Microsoft Surface saw far less popularity than the Apple iPad. Fortune columnist Philip Elmer-Dewitt commented that Microsoft’s Store saw 47% less foot traffic than Apple at one particular mall. Most of the items purchased at the Microsoft Store were also Xbox360 games, not Surface tablets.

While official numbers have yet to be released, eye-witness accounts don’t exactly convey a sense of popularity for Microsoft’s tablet that previous iPad launches have had. Perhaps the notebook isn’t dead after all.

Source: geekwire

ASUS, SiS Withdraw Rambus Support

Asustek late last year pledged to release a high-performance motherboard based on four-channel PC1200 Rambus DRAM based on a chip set from SiS. Now, SiS appears to have dropped support for Rambus, too because the better timing was the end of last year, but they missed that window. Now everybody is talking about PCI Express. In 2002, SiS released the R658, which was the first non-Intel chip set to support Rambus in the desktop PC segment, followed by the R659 late last year. Asustek pulled back from the project because the performance of the chip set wasn't as "exciting as we expected. Rambus which worked closely with SiS on the chip se has not recently provided any direct design support.

Aquagrafx Introduces Waterblocks for the GeForce GTX 295 amp; GTX 260

aquagrafx GTX295

Today we present you the aquafrax GTX295 watercooler just in time with the release of the GTX 295 graphics card. The cooler is built sandwich style to cool both of the cards. The intermediate level is made of Delrin, the cooling blocks of 99,9% electrolyte copper. As special feature one will be able to choose if water runs paralell or in series through the blocks. So you can choose between high flow and low restriction or better cooling with high flow velocity. In parallel mode you need an additional T-Connector.

GPU´s are cooled with high efficient microstructure. Focus was also on low restriction. The threads are G 1/4 and coooler will be available as of next week. Materials are copper and delrin.

aquagrafx GT200b

Also available in about a week will be the block for the newer GTX 260 cards with a 55nm GPU. Both, the old and the new block will be available from aqua-computer. The block is made of 99,9 % pure electrolyte copper, as all of our new graphic card coolers. Height of the cooler is 8 mm. The result is a low weight and the single slot possibility. Price will be 89,90 EUR.

Materials: copper, stainless steel, plexiglas
Threads: G1/4

AMD's next-gen GPUs to ship in 2011

At their last conference call for Q2 2011, AMD revealed that 28nm GPUs were on track for 2011. Moving forward to the Q3 2011 financial report, AMD still plans plans to ship for revenue the first next-gen GPUs by the end of the year.

Of course, while shipping for revenue does not necessarily translate to retail availability, it does mean AMD will be shipping next-gen chips to their AIB partners some time in Q4 2011. If all goes well, we will see AMDs first Radeon HD 7000 products in either late 2011 or more likely early 2012.

AMDs Graphics segment revenues increased by 10% over Q2 2011, and 4% over Q2 2010 to $403 million. AMDs overall results were better than the forecast revisions suggested.

Source: AMD Press Release

Apple registers 8 more patents with China's Hong Kong IP Dept

Apple has successfully registered 8 more patents with China’s Hong Kong IP Department to add to its huge international patents portfolio.

The Newsstand design patent is self-explanatory, but the patents regarding the keypad and messaging aspects of iOS are not as obvious. Check it out for yourself and tell us whether or not you think Apple deserves to have these patents registered.

Source: patentlyapple.com

Apple delays Retina display MacBook Pro, again

Those of you that checked the Apple website to put in an order for the new MacBook Pro with Retina display may have seen the notice for a 2-3 week delay. That delay may have just gotten longer as the website has now upped that delay to 3-4 weeks.

It seems as if Apple can’t keep up with customer demands, and Retina fanatics will have to wait awhile longer. People can arrange for an in store pick up, but that is limited to the store’s availability—and those that are lucky enough. Hopefully Apple will have a steady supply available by this holiday seasons.

Source: Apple.com