Displaying items by tag: Core i5

With Computex going on there has already been lots of news hitting the street about new PC gear. Everything from GPUs, Laptops, Cases, overclocking world records, you know the stuff. We have also heard that Intel has kicked a new series of CPUs out the door. These are their “X” series of CPUs and are pretty much a direct response to the performance that AMD’s Ryzen has shown off. 

Razer recently introduced refreshed offer of gaming laptops, which now consists of two models. The existing 17-inch Blade model now bears the name Blade Pro, while the "new" Razer Blade is a brand new notebook with 14-inch screen.

Intel has released less expensive Ivy Bridge processors while lowering the price on older Sandy Bridge CPU’s. When the first Ivy Bridge processors came out prices were in mid and high end segment. Now Intel has finally released their budget editions. These are represented by the Core i3 and Pentium CPUs based on the 22nm architecture. They will fill the gaps that currently exist in the low end market. The cheapest is the Pentium G2100T with an OEM price of just $75 (in 1,000 unit lots). It will run at 2.6GHz with only 35Watts of power consumption. The G2100T is followed by the G2120 model that offers two cores running at 3.1GHz and an OEM price of $75.

Well the cat is out of the bag now and the winner is a new tablet called Surface from Microsoft. The thin (.5 inches) tablet was shown off today at the big event that Microsoft had planned for a long time. From the pictures we have seen it looks like a nice device 10.6 inches long with a gorilla glass display, full sized USB port, MIMO antenna for WiFi a track pad, 64 or 128GB of storage, and a built in kickstand. There is just one problem; Microsoft’s partners. By entering into the market like this Microsoft runs the risk of alienating their major partners for Windows based tablets.

Overclockers Push Sandy Bridge to New Levels of Performance

Futuremark® Announces Winners of Palit Overclocking Contest

HELSINKI, FINLAND – AUGUST 8, 2011 – In June Futuremark® ran a worldwide overclocking competition to push the limits of performance for PCs using Sandy Bridge chipsets. Today, Futuremark congratulates the winners of the contest that saw thousands of entries from more than 60 countries.

SANDY BRIDGE Z68 INTEGRATED GRAPHICS OC CONTEST

This contest segment was restricted to PCs with Intel's new Sandy Bridge Z68 chipset with integrated Intel HD Graphics.

Alva "Lucky_n00b" Jonathan smashed through the P4000 limit to set a new world record of P4419 using 3DMark Vantage's performance preset. His set-up consisted of an Intel Core i7-2600K with MSI Z68A-GD80 motherboard. To better appreciate Alva's skills, with factory settings his set up would score around P2200.

SANDY BRIDGE PLUS PALIT DISCRETE GRAPHICS OC CONTEST

The second contest segment was open to any PC using a Sandy Bridge-based CPU together with a single card, single GPU Palit brand discrete graphics card.

Giorgioprimo took the honors, and collected the $1000 cash top prize, with a score of P10734 using 3DMark 11 performance preset. His set up included an Intel Core i7-2600K processor paired with a Palit GeForce GTX 580 graphics card. At factory settings, this set up would score P6600.

TOP SCORES, TOP PRIZES

Palit Overclocking with Sandy Bridge is one of a number of overclocking competitions Futuremark holds each year. For details of upcoming contests please visit http://www.3dmark.com/competitions/ or follow Futuremark on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Futuremark

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About Futuremark® Corporation

Futuremark® Corporation creates the world's most popular benchmarks and PC performance tests. Futuremark's free 3DMark®, PCMark® and Peacekeeper™ tests have helped millions of people measure and improve their PCs' performance for games, media, applications and web. Futuremark Games Studio creates original games with new and entertaining gameplay such as Hungribles™, a skill shot puzzle game for iPhone® and iPad® and Shattered Horizon, a zero gravity FPS for PC. The studio is currently developing Unstoppable Gorg for PC, Xbox LIVE® Arcade and iPad® and has one further unannounced title in development. Futuremark has offices in Saratoga, California and Helsinki, Finland. http://www.futuremark.com/

About Palit® Microsystems Ltd.

Established in 1988, Palit Microsystems Ltd is well-known for manufacturing stable, excellent, and innovative graphics accelerators. As one of the top PC components manufacturers, Palit continues to provide industry-leading graphics cards with reliable and excellent quality. With branch offices in America, Europe, and Asia, Palit has developed a worldwide sales network which cooperates closely with our customers.

© 2011 Futuremark® Corporation. Futuremark® and 3DMark® trademarks and logos, character names and distinctive likenesses, are the exclusive property of Futuremark Corporation. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

As motherboards get smaller and CPUs run cooler the demand for smaller cases grows. The idea of the small form factor case is nothing new but these days awe find the number of these is growing as well.  The idea is simple; stuff a motherboard (complete with CPU, GPU etc), optical drive and some type of storage into a small area while keeping things cool, pretty easy right? We take a look at one entry from ThermalTake; The Element Q. This is a small form factor case that has a few nice things to offer (like a 200 Watt Power Supply). So let’s take a look that the Element Q and see how it handles a system built around the Intel Core i5 661 CPU.

Gigabyte (as we have told you) is working on remaking their image. They want to be known as a company that builds components for the enthusiast. They are, and have been, working very hard to reach this goal. Their Ultra Durable series of boards have received numerous awards and accolades from review sites and from people who have bought these boards.  We have been fortunate enough to review a couple of these and have given you our thoughts on the GA-890FXA-UD7 and are working on a revised impression of the GA-P55A-UD7 as well. For now we are going to move from the big to the small. This is the H55N-UBS3 a Mini-ITX board that features the Intel H55 Express chipset, USB 3.0 and a few Gigabyte special features. Follow along as we dive into this $104.99 board and see if size does not matter.

Here we have our first official unboxing. This is one of those things that can have a dual purpose. On the one hand they let everyone know what we have, and what is going on our test bench in short order. These also allow us to take the time to talk in depth about the bundle, packaging, and features of the products we get in the lab. Our first official unboxing comes in the form of the GIGABYTE H55H-USB3.