Hardware

  Company: Gigabyte Technology Product: GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Price: ~$170 CAD Availability: Global Warranty Period: Three Years Introduction The much riled and awaited Sandy Bridge platform and Cougar Point chipset were released at the beginning of January, signalling the start of a dominant new era for Intel. Indeed, with AMDs upcoming Bulldozer lineup still in the process of rolling out, Intel theoretically …

Today we are going to take a quick look at Kingstons HyperX DDR-3 1866Mhz CL11 204Pin SODIMM Memory Kit and give a quick thanks to David Leong of Kingston Technology for providing the sample for our notebook upgrade. We recently purchased a Samsung Series 9 laptop and wondered how feasible a memory upgrade would be as the standard of 4GB …

My obsession first appeared in the CES Press Lobby last January as I wrote a story on my PC laptop.  I’de glance over the screen to catch a glimpse of a Mac loyalist staring me down with this unmistakable  grin as it seemed I was the only press member not in possession of a Mac of some sort. That same …

The search for fast, cheap, reliable and large capacity Hard Disk Drives seems to be never ending. Enter Samsung with their new EcoGreen 54EG 2TB Series of hard drives and we get a fresh look at something newer, faster, quieter and requiring less power than other hard drives in todays fast moving world of storage. With contenders such as Seagate, …

This is the Test Bench and a quick click will display it close up.  As you may have guessed, it truly is no ordinary Test Bench and I have dedicated more hours creating this build than than I care to admit to get it where it is today. Our main focal point in this report will be an array of …

MBR LIMITATIONS In order to ensure that our review went smoothly, their needed to be consideration as to what partitions would serve our tests best as this was definitely not a standard-issue configuration.  This was first discovered when we examined the inherent limitation of the MBR disk partitioning system which is the standard used for the vast majority of drives …

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK V.2.46 ATTO Disk Benchmark is the quickest and simplest method to determine transfer speeds and utilizes the same test methodology as manufacturers in arriving at performance results.  It simply measures raw sequential transfer speeds for both read and write access at various transfer sizes, producing a very easily understood result. This benchmark is by far the industry …

CRYSTAL DISKMARK 3.0.1 Crystal Diskmark is a very flexible benchmark that shows the speed of the drives at various file sizes. All of the smaller file sizes are measured in random access, a key weak point of many types of Hard Disk Drives. With this benchmark we can see the great scaling from the single drive compared to the raid …

WIN7 EXPERIENCE INDEX The Win7 Experience Index (WEI) represents Microsofts method of rating computer systems and, more specific to our usage, provides a storage evaluation through a graduated rating system up to 7.9 on PC components and the system as a whole. This benchmark is built into Windows and anyone can use it by simply typing: Go to Win Orb/All …

Our review today is going to examine a 4GB kit of Patriot Viper Extreme Division 2 memory. This kit is rated at DDR3-1600 (or 800MHz) at timings of 8-9-8-24 with 1.65v. Based on the quick specifications, it is clear that this low-latency kit is designed for extreme performance. BACKGROUND Patriot Memory is a long standing company that was founded in …