Razer is sort of lovingly mocked for their crazy product names from time to time, but most enthusiasts understand that Razer means business, despite their sometimes odd names (Lachesis?). Not known to be a company to release “2.0″ revisions of products, we were somewhat surprised to discover that Razer has updated their classic DeathAdder mouse and re-released it.

This speaks to the level of perfection that the original DeathAdder has achieved. The shape, heft, and look of the DeathAdder are basically just right. Instead of fixing what ain’t broke and rebranding it, Razer made the conservative but commendable choice to update it and keep the DeathAdder name.

In our original DeathAdder review, I effused praise for the “perfect balance” between the unwieldy Copperhead and the slightly anemic Krait. Nothing has changed here. The DeathAdder still remains my primary mouse to this day. Besides looking a bit worse for the wear, the DeathAdder that’s been on my desk for over two years has held up perfectly well, and I’ve never felt the need to look elsewhere. (more…)

Following our look at AMD’s 2010 platform plans, this second installment of a four-part series which digests AMD’s 2009 Financial Analyst Day takes a look the company’s new architectures on track for 2011.

For the last three years AMD has moved along with the basic K10 architecture to varying degrees of success. Where the architecture’s initial debut—the Phenom—can largely be considered a critical failure, the Phenom II has remained competitive in the face of two new Intel architectures, and two die shrinks. That’s not bad for a company with a fraction of the investment capital. But the time is quickly coming when AMD will need to step up its game and fire a new round in the ongoing architecture war. That process begins at the end of 2010 when the firm starts sampling three new chip designs known as Bulldozer, Bobcat and Llano.

Bulldozer

For enthusiasts and servers, AMD plans to lead the way with the “Bulldozer” architecture. According to the company’s roadmaps, the first desktop CPU scheduled to launch with the new architecture is codenamed Zambezi, and it will offer four, six, or eight cores built on the company’s new 32nm process. The Bulldozer family should also see the introduction of the six or eight core Valencia, and 12-16 core Interlagos server part.

AMD Bulldozer architecture

Chips based on Bulldozer will be scalable across a number of what AMD calls “modules,” better known as cores. The slide above offers a high-level illustration of what a single Bulldozer module looks like, and it’s a pretty fascinating piece of engineering. (more…)

Mind is back to business as usual this week, which means you can expect everything but the normal, as this episode contains music and singing, shotguns, rage, toast, and destruction.

On the tech side of things this week: I tried to bake a cake and I accidentally cooked my whole graphics card. Meanwhile, Icrontic visited ATI in the land that sells bagged milk, and they returned with AMD’s top sekrit plans for 2010.

For the gamers: Modern Warfare 2 was released to the sound of millions of happy console drones, but their PC counter-parts are less than impressed. Borderlands also boarded the “piss PC gamers off” train with terrible matchmaking and timeout issues at launch. It’s enough to instill some good old-fashioned rage within me.

Hit play and get to it!

Yesterday was AMD’s 2009 financial analyst day and the company has released a storm of information related to the company’s goals throughout the upcoming year.

AMD outlined several key objectives for 2010, but we’ve trimmed that list to the five which we think are most exciting for enthusiasts

• Deliver four new hardware platforms (across mobile and desktop);
• Transition notebook products to DirectX 11;
• Launch the 12-core Magny-Cours Opteron processor and accompanying platforms;
• Expand the reach of OpenCL and DirectCompute 11 tools and implementations;
• and sample next-gen 32nm Bulldozer, Bobcat and Fusion parts to partners.

In this first installment of our four-part series which digests the day, we’ll be taking a look at AMD’s upcoming hardware platforms, and the company’s move to DirectX 11 in the mobile space. Part two will explore the company’s new Bulldozer, Bobcat and Fusion architectures; part three will look at AMD’s efforts to grow stream computing; and part four will round out the show with a look at what’s shakin’ in Opteron land. (more…)

Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19, and it’s one of our favorite days here at Icrontic, but it seems Facebook is a fan as well. Even veteran users may not know that the site offers users the option to read Facebook entirely in pirate speak.

So what does it look like to read Facebook in High Seas English?

Arrr! Feast ye one good eye on this fine piece o' web design.

Interested pirates can activate scurvy speech by scrolling to the very bottom of their Facebook page and clicking English (US), or whatever ye mother tongue might be; select “English (Pirate)” from the list and be on ye merry, savvy?

(Ed: In b4 old).

“BRB, preheating oven.”

Thus were my words to Icrontic’s staff on Monday night. I had only been home from work for an hour and was planning on running some PhysX tests with my NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX. I currently main a Radeon HD 5770 because DirectX 11 is teh pwnage, but I keep my trusty 8800 GTX on standby as it still packs a punch, and it’s hip to the PhysX jive.

I swap GPUs as necessary, depending on what I want to do. Icrontic Gaming writer Chris White predicted that my card-swapping antics would eventually lead to failure. Unfortunately for me, Chris predicted the fate of my GPU, which happened only three hours later.

After installing my 8800 GTX on Monday night, I booted to a scrambled screen, then to a Windows 7 recovery screen. A similar thing had happened at our Oktoberfest event when I was swapping back from some Radeon HD 5870 testing, but a reboot fixed the issue and I paid it no mind. Like last time, a reboot seemed to fix the issue and I set about my business as usual.

Suddenly, after about 15 minutes of use, the screen scrambled into all-too-familiar colored blocks and lines. The GPU was fried. I performed a host of tests with no luck–my 8800 had seen its last polygon. Devastated and heartbroken (we geeks become attached to our hardware), I entered the staff chat to find comfort in friends. Upon explaining what had happened, Icrontic Tech writer Robert Hallock spoke first.

“Bake it in the oven,” he said to me. What in the world was he talking about?

“Bake the card in the oven,” he restated.

“…does that actually work?” I inquired.

“I wouldn’t be suggesting it if it didn’t,” he replied.

And with that, I was preheating the oven to 385°F.

(more…)

We’ve had a fair amount of time to play with the Radeon HD 5850 now, and let us begin by saying that this card packs a serious punch. Even at its factory defaults, the 5850 offers significant performance, but it’s capable of so much more. To that end, follow along as we show you how to squeeze up to 25% additional performance out of your HD 5850.

As with all jobs, we need to begin by gathering the correct tools. While we can make a certain amount of progress with the Overdrive feature of the Catalyst Control Center, the imposed limits are nowhere near what the card is actually capable of achieving. To get around this problem, we’re going to need some extra programs.
(more…)

IN THE BEGINNING, there was the NZXT Beta. Saint Peter reviewed the Beta and saw that it was good. And lo, it received an “Outstanding Product” endorsement. And all who purchased it said, “Behold, it is a good case.” But NZXT said, “Indeed, it is a good case, but we can do better.”

And so it came to pass that NZXT made revisions to the Beta. And they said unto the Lords of Icrontic, “Behold the Beta EVO. We shall send it to you, but to whom shall we send it?” And the Lords of Icrontic said unto me, “Will you review this case?” And I said unto the Lords of Icrontic, “Indeed it would be a pleasure…”

So, um… Anyway, the NZXT Beta EVO is a revised version of the original Beta, a case we loved. In fact, I am an owner of a Beta as a direct result of Peter’s review, and was thrilled at the opportunity to see what they had come up with for the Beta EVO.

What hasn’t changed?

The NZXT Beta EVO retains the same qualities that made the original Beta great: The same appearance, dimensions, light weight, great build quality, excellent clearance, and tool-free installation for the 3-½” and 5-¼” drive bays. There is still, however, only one fan included with the case, and it is still behind the faceplate.

The included accessories are the same as well: 3-½” hard drive rails, 5-¼” drive bay locks, motherboard standoffs, and plenty of screws. (more…)

Our review of the ATI FirePro V8750 workstation GPU showed that the card is blazing fast at DCC. We tested the V8750 against the venerable NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX, and the difference in performance was staggering. But the 8800 GTX is almost four years old, and the question kept pouring in: How would the V8750 fare against the fastest single GPU on earth?

It just so happens that Icrontic recently fitted its test bench with such a GPU, the ATI Radeon HD 5870. And with that, it’s time to finally put the question to rest: How does the best workstation card AMD offers compare to the Radeon HD 5870, a desktop card that’s 100% faster on paper? The results may shock you.

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 is the flagship DirectX 11 GPU. Released on September 23, it is the fastest of the four available GPUs compatible with DirectX 11. As with any new flagship GPU release, gamers and enthusiasts have flocked to NewEgg and other retailers to buy it. It’s fast, it’s efficient, and it answers “yes” to the legendary “Can it play Crysis?” question. But will it blend?

(more…)

Netflix integration in Windows Media Center 7

The HTPC, or Home Theater PC, has been an elusive beast. For years, people have bandied about the concept of building a PC that is a dedicated home entertainment hub rather than a general-purpose computer. Up until very recently, building an HTPC has been a difficult journey to find the sorcerous combination of parts and software that would enable exactly everything one wanted the PC to do.

Luckily, everything has recently started coming together. Retail availability of key technologies such as efficient power supplies, cool and quiet processors, HDMI-enabled and 1080p-capable GPUs, massive storage capacities, and–perhaps most importantly–an HTPC-optimal OS have all come together in a ballet of technology which can provide a seamless and graceful HTPC experience.

We have put together an amazingly high performance and relatively low cost HTPC just in time for the 2009 holiday season. While we did operate with a liberal cost philosophy when it came to component choices, we feel that this remains an affordable project for those in the market for a full-featured home entertainment hub.

(more…)

Intel and Numonyx are today announcing a key breakthrough in the development of Phase Change Memory (PCM) technology.

The breakthrough has enabled the partnership to develop a 64Mb test chip that demonstrates multiple layers of PCM arrays on a single die. These findings will enable future PCM-based devices to offer lower power consumption, higher capacity and greater storage density.

The company is calling the breakthrough chip a PCMS, or Phase Change Memory and Switch. The PCMS interleaves layers of thin-film PCM arrays with controlling thin-film selectors called Ovonic Transfer Switches (OTS). The sandwiched PCM and OTS layers are arranged in a crosspoint architecture and fitted to a CMOS substrate to create high-density, high-bandwidth PCM cells.
(more…)

A couple of years ago, we switched mail for our domains to Google instead of hosting it ourselves. Using Google Mail for Domains, we were able to easily manage email for over 25 users scattered all over the world, without having to deal with POP3 servers, and explaining to people how to configure their mail clients. Everyone is familiar with Gmail, and the web interface is second to none.

We switched several of our domains over. The configuration was a bit tricky, as Google provides several alternate servers, and offers different MX priorities for each server.

Back in 2007, when we migrated, the official Google server configuration looked like this:

icrontic.com. MX (10) aspmx.l.google.com.
icrontic.com. MX (20) alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
icrontic.com. MX (20) alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
icrontic.com. MX (30) aspmx2.googlemail.com.
icrontic.com. MX (30) aspmx3.googlemail.com.
icrontic.com. MX (30) aspmx4.googlemail.com.
icrontic.com. MX (30) aspmx5.googlemail.com.

And that was that. Then, a few months back, there was a problem…
(more…)