May 7th, 2012 
Here are some of the first pictures of Acer Aspire E1-421, which caught the eye of a shopper in Asia. Its most distinctive feature is AMD E1-1200APU “Brazos 2.0″, driving the machine. The dual-core APU is clocked at 1.40 GHz, and packs Radeon HD 7310 graphics. Other vital components include 2 GB of DDR3 memory, and 320 GB HDD storage. A DVD SuperMulti drive handles removable storage. The notebook’s 14-inch screen packs 1366×768 pixels resolution, the GPU utilizes 256 MB from the system memory. 802.11 b/g/n WLAN, and a 6-cell battery make for the rest of it.
Archive for May, 2012
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 WindForce OC Pictures
Here are the some of first pictures of GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 670 WindForce OC graphics card. As the name suggests, the card is GIGABYTE custom-design implementation of NVIDIA’s upcoming performance-segment SKU, which utilizes its signature WindForce 3X cooling solution, and is overclocked out of the box. GIGABYTE’s card appears to make use of a custom-design PCB, which is longer than NVIDIA reference design. According to a GPU-Z screenshot, the card comes with out of the box clock speeds of 980 MHz (core base), 1059 MHz (core boost), and 1502 MHz (~6.00 GHz effective, memory). Its specifications as reported by GPU-Z match early reports, with a CUDA core count of 1344, and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit memory interface.
Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 PCB Close Up
NVIDIA’s newest SKU based on the 28 nm GK104 silicon, the GeForce GTX 670, will feature a compact PCB. In comparison to the GTX 680, the GTX 670 PCB is quite short. The eight GDDR5 memory chips are distributed between both the sides, these chips are wired to the GPU over a 256-bit wide memory interface. The VRM area is pushed towards the front-end of the PCB. It consists of a 4+2 phase design. The card draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include two dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort. There are two SLI bridge connectors, giving it 4-way SLI capability.
Sharkoon Unveils Rebel9 Alu U3 and Nightfall U3
Sharkoon reissues two of their upgraded PC towers: The Sharkoon Nightfall and the Sharkoon Rebel9 Aluminium are now available with a front USB 3.0. Sharkoon has replaced the existing eSATA port on both Midi ATX towers with a SuperSpeed USB interface. For the internal USB 3.0 port, a 19-pin connector cable is available for mainboards with a USB 3.0 header.
Both towers present themselves with an elegant, black-finished aluminium front, including a high-quality “diamond cut” edging and detachable drive covers. The SECC case on both models, with its exterior and interior black finish, are identical; differences consist in the front design and with the drive installation options.
The Sharkoon Rebel9 Aluminium accommodates up to nine optical drives behind its integrated front. The Sharkoon Nightfall offers room for five optical drives and five 3.5 inch hard drives. The removable hard drive cage of the Sharkoon Nightfall is cooled by a blue illuminating 120 mm LED fan, which sits behind a mesh air intake in the front panel. In addition to the pre-installed front fan in both models, two 120 mm fans can be mounted on the side panel plus an 80 or 120 mm fan in the backside and a 120 or 140 mm fan in the tower?s lid. The functional range also includes the cable management and CPU cooler mount opening on the mainboard bracket, quick-locking mechanisms to mount the hard drives, base positioning for the power supply and feedthroughs for water cooler tubes. The easily accessible Top I/O with the new USB 3.0 interface is complete with two USB2.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks as well as a Power and Reset button.
End customers will find the Sharkoon Nightfall U3 and the Sharkoon Rebel9 Alu U3 available for the suggested retail price of 44.90 (Rebel U3) as well as 54.90 euros (Nightfall U3) from authorized retailers.
Intel Desktop Board DX79SR,Updated DX79SI
Expected Price $300
Intel initially revealed the X79 chipset it was said to feature additional SAS ports which over time were meant to be additional SATA ports, but in the end the chipset arrived with no extra storage interfaces at all. Even though Intel was expected to remedy this with a later chipset revision, this doesn’t appear to be the case anymore, but Intel has decided to issue a revised version of its DX79SI motherboard with additional connectivity in a couple of areas.
Early pictures of the DX79SI from last year showed the board with a total of 10 SATA ports, but in the end the board only arrived with six, to many potential buys disappointment. The DX79SR has at least in part remedied this by sporting an extra Marvell SE9128 SATA controller which adds two more SATA 6Gbps ports.
The rear I/O has also been changed slightly with the addition of two more USB 3.0 ports courtesy of a four port host controller, although we’re not sure who the manufacturer is. Again, this was a feature missing on the DX79SI which it had space for. Intel has also done some minor changes to the PCB layout, there are no longer any lane switches between the first and second PCI Express x16 slots and many of the capacitors appear to have been changed.
The DX79SR will ship with an internal Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 2.1 module that attaches to one of the USB 2.0 headers. Sadly it’s limited to 150Mbps Wi-Fi and if you have a chassis with no plastic parts or large enough holes to the outside world so to speak, it’ll be hard to get any kind of signal with this module. Intel also includes a mouse pad and a thermal probe with the board. The DX79SR is set to replace the DX79SI entirely and it should end up costing around US$300 (S$375) at launch which should be later this month.
