ComputerDumb.com

Posts Tagged ‘Intel’

Last night Microsoft Hardware hosted a launch reception at the Greene Space in New York City to unveil the Studio Series: Artist Edition, a brand new collection of Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500’s designed in partnership with artists Kirra Jamison, Matt Moore, Linn Olofsdotter, Mike Perry and Jonny Wan. The new mice are really beautiful by themselves but they look even better when paired with a chic new PC. 

Check out our pairings and other photos from the event:

Linn Olofsdotter’s design with the Sony VAIO P Signature Edition

Matt Moore’s retro-cubist design with the Toshiba NB505 netbook

Jonny Wan’s tribal … [Read More...]

About a year ago I reviewed the Toshiba Satellite E205, one of Best Buy’s second generation “Blue Label” PCs.” It was a really good computer for the time and sported never-before-seen technology like Intel Wireless Display (aka “WiDi), and you could get it for about $1,000. Flash forward to today, and you’ve got the brand new Toshiba Satellite E305, the follow up to last year’s Satellite E205. Like its predecessor it’s reasonably priced ($899), loaded with top-end specs (14” HD display, second generation Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 7200 RPM 500GB hard drive, USB 3.0, LED backlit keyboard, built in … [Read More...]

We set out to build a Sandy Bridge box that takes up little space in our entertainment center and fulfills all our streaming needs

Back in the August 2010 issue of Maximum PC I built a 3D HTPC that I was pretty damned happy with, but the times have changed. The CableCard quad tuner that was featured prominently in that machine is no longer needed, as I have joined the ranks of the Cable Cutter Movement™. So without the need for a CableCard, I wondered if I could build a rig with all the same capabilities but make it much, … [Read More...]

In a season of outages, when internet-based services seem to be having a tough time staying online, the last thing anyone wants to talk about is an upcoming cloud-based operating system. But that is exactly what we are about to do. MPC readers, let us ignore the bone-chilling horrors of the past week that are otherwise likely to linger with many of you for a long time, so that we can concentrate on reports of an upcoming Chrome OS netbook from Samsung called “Alex.” The existence of this netbook came to light through a Chromium bug report.

It is clear … [Read More...]

At long last, a Sandy Bridge notebook!

By now, Intel’s Sandy Bridge CPUs need no introduction. Since their debut late last year, the procs have been on the hot list of every red-blooded power user. But getting at them hasn’t been easy. Particularly the mobile parts, which hadn’t even hit the market in new notebooks before the now-infamous SATA 3Gb/s port issue brought product flow to a grinding halt.
 
Thanks to AVADirect, however, our days of waiting and wanting are over. The company’s 15-inch Clevo P150HM features a shiny new 2.2GHz Core i7-2720QM. It’s not the fastest proc in … [Read More...]

Breaking the 250MB/s barrier with no moving parts

If the automotive world progressed as fast as the computer industry, the old joke goes, we‘d all have $1,000 cars that get 400 miles to the gallon, never need maintenance, and crash catastrophic-ally every eight weeks for no reason. Ancient punch lines aside, comparing this year’s storage options to those of even half a decade ago would be like entering a Bugatti Type 35 in the Preakness Stakes.

Half a decade ago, we were all still chasing the fastest mechanical hard drive. Today, solid-state drives are where the action is. And the … [Read More...]

Can we build an AMD machine—any AMD machine—that can compete with an Intel-powered rig?

In the forever war between CPU vendors, AMD and Intel have traded places many times—one leads, then the other. Since the advent of Intel’s Core i7, though, AMD hasn’t been able to touch the performance of Intel’s high end, and Sandy Bridge further increases the gap. But, well, you couldn’t buy Sandy Bridge motherboards when I wrote this build-it story in February for the May print issue—something about a bad chipset—and I’d been meaning to build an AMD-powered machine for a while now—with CrossFire, even. Why? … [Read More...]

Last night I had the chance to attend Samsung’s UK launch of the 900x, the same groundbreaking, breathtaking, game-changing ultrathin that I covered in both the unboxing video that I shot in my office, and in the video tour of the Miami PC showcase. 

The 900x is a seriously impressive PC – it’s loaded with a 128GB SSD, 7 hours of battery life and a new Intel “Sandybridge” i5, and wrapped in an aircraft-grade Duralumin chassis that weighs less than 3lbs.  It’s one of the finest PCs I’ve ever had the chance to use, and Samsung did it’s beauty and … [Read More...]

Which AV product is up to the task of keeping your PC squeaky clean and immune to malware?

In some ways, visiting cyberspace is kind of like entering a crowded subway car during the peak of flu season. You’re surrounded by all sorts of germs—in the form of trojans, spyware, viruses, rootkits, etc.—just looking for a vulnerable host to invade and feed on. Once you’re infected, these pests can wreak havoc on your system, swiping your personal information and passwords, annihilating your credit rating, and stealing your identity. To avoid a potentially virulent attack, you need to take precautions.

Wouldn’t … [Read More...]

System builds up, instead of out

Just how much power can you stuff into a small form factor rig? Ask that question of Digital Storm and the company will likely lay its fabulous Black Ops Enix on you.

Using Silverstone’s wickedly cool Fortress FT03 case, the Enix is like your typical small form factor lunch-box design, turned on its head. This gives it a couple of big advantages. The most obvious one is as clear as a skyscraper: a footprint that’s little larger than a piece of binder paper. The second advantage is thermals. Heat likes to rise, and with … [Read More...]

Can an off-the-shelf cooling loop out-cool a custom-built system?

I’m taking a standard midrange computer with a Core-i7 930 CPU (stock speed: 2.8GHz) and clocking it up to 4GHz. That’ll up my CPU’s heat output, and I’ll need better cooling. Water-cooling can be quieter and more effective than air, but isn’t necessarily cheap or easy to install.

How much time and money do you need to spend to get good cooling? To answer this question, I’m testing three build options: a basic off-the-shelf liquid-cooling loop (Corsair’s H70), an all-inclusive Swiftech DIY kit, and finally, a custom-built water-cooling setup of my … [Read More...]