Price R7,000
At first glance the Samsung Galaxy Tab appears to be a half-hearted attempt at competing with the iPad. The 7” screen does not look nearly as impressive as the iPad’s 10” whopper but the smaller screen has the benefit of reducing battery drain. The Galaxy Tab uses a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU which is DX9 capable. This hardware makes the Galaxy Tab capable of playing 1080P HD content without any problems at all. The Android 2.2 “Froyo” OS feels smooth and responsive but Samsung would be wise to upgrade to the tablet-focused Android 3.0 “Honeycomb”.
The size and weight of the Tab makes using it as an e-Reader an appealing, albeit expensive, notion. The Galaxy Tab comes with both 3G and WiFi as standard but also supports voice and video calls using either the bundled headset or a Bluetooth headset. It is because of its specs that the Tab manages to fulfil three roles: tablet, e-Reader and smart phone.
However, this jack-of-all-trades is master of none. The Tab is too big to use as a phone unless you enjoy strange looks in public places. It’s also more than 5x the price of the Amazon Kindle e-Reader and with the iPad 16GB 3G WiFi costing R5,600 it makes little sense to choose the Galaxy Tab over the de facto winner of the tablet wars. Until the price drops, the Galaxy Tab remains a little alien.
Michael Reed
60%
Monday, 30 May 2011
Monday, 23 May 2011
Acer Iconia review
Price R15,000
Dual screen notebooks are nothing new. Toshiba’s ill-fated Libretto W100 7” netbook attempted to replace the ubiquitous keyboard with a touch screen and failed. Acer has evidently decided it can succeed where others have not and has introduced the Acer Iconia. The Iconia is a dual capacitive touch screen 14” ‘touchbook’ equipped with an Intel Core i5 and 4GB of memory. The lack of an optical drive and limited number of ports and slots make this device more akin to a netbook than a full-feature notebook.
The traditional keyboard and touch pad are replaced with virtual representations which work to a degree. Enthusiastically touch-typing on the virtual keyboard results in sentences riddled with spelling errors and lingering questions about what you were trying to type. While the virtual keyboard is atrocious, the virtual mouse touch pad is a dream to use and blows everything else out the water. At full tilt with the screens at maximum brightness and both touch surfaces in use, the battery will be gone in just under three hours.
Even the proprietary software which places user interface for browsing multimedia and social networks on the bottom screen does little to improve the overall appeal of this notebook. Had Acer built a notebook with just one of these amazing touch screens and opted for a decent physical keyboard and touch pad then that would be a notebook worthy of interest. The Iconia, while a great proof-of-concept, is ill-suited for the needs of general daily use.
Michael Reed
50%
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
GSkill Phoenix Pro 60GB Review
Price R1 500
Kingston was the first company to offer well-priced SSDs but thankfully they are not the only or the last to do so. The GSkill Phoenix Pro 60GB SSD costs R1 500, which in the world of SSDs is downright reasonable. For that tidy little sum of money you get a 64GB SSD and a 3.5” compatibility kit, allowing the drive to be installed in a normal desktop chassis that lacks a 2.5” bay.
The GSkill Phoenix Pro 60GB uses the new SandForce SF-1222 controller that also appears in the OCZ Agility 2 60GB. This controller is being hailed as the best consumer controller available although at the current pace of SSD development it is likely to be dethroned before the porcelain is even warm.
The SandForce SF-1222 controller contains a feature called DuraClass technology, which SandForce claims can extend the life of the drive by providing improved endurance and performance. Another feature of the SandForce controller is its RAISE technology, which supposedly provides RAID-like reliability and protection in a single SSD setup. We assume they mean RAID 1 not RAID 0.
The Phoenix Pro 60GB is an odd drive in that it is simultaneously exceptional and mediocre. The burst speed benchmark result puts the GSkill in the lead when compared to both its controller-kin, the OCZ Agility 2, and the lightning fast Intel X25-V SSD. The lead drops away when looking at the average read/write performance. In fact, the Agility is slightly faster in the average write result albeit by only 2MB/s. The Phoenix Pro then rises from the ashes and takes the lead in the 4k 64-bit thread write test with an impressive 81.68MB/s.
ATTO benchmarks also gave an interesting result when the Phoenix Pro was tested. The maximum write speed was actually higher than the maximum read speed (259.72MB/s versus 250.58MB/s). And yes, the tests were run repeatedly to ensure that the results weren’t an anomaly.
The GSkill Phoenix Pro not only boats an asking price on the same level as the budget-friendly Kingston 64GB offerings, but it still manages to perform better than most drives in its class. The only drive that makes even the GSkill shrivel is the Crucial C300 RealSSD 64GB, which is faster in both burst speed and average read performance. But – and it’s a big but - in the 4k 64-bit thread tests (the one that gives you an indication of real world performance) the GSkill takes the lead and is still R700 cheaper.
Michael Reed
90%
Full product specifications, benchmarks and other data can be viewed in the December (165) issue of PCFormat Magazine
Friday, 07 January 2011
Noctua NH-D14 Review
Price R900
The Noctua NH-D14 is a monster cooler that dwarfs the Thermalright Venomous X and Cogage Arrow. It uses a twin tower design comprised of six copper heat-pipes and 42 aluminium cooling fins, all of which are nickel plated.
Noctua has bundled two different fans with the NH-D14; the NF-P14 and the NF-P12. These two fans (one intake and one exhaust) are almost impossible to hear even in a reasonably quiet environment. The louder of the two, the NF-P12, has an acoustic noise level of 19.8dB, which is only slightly louder than the sound of a pin dropping from a height of 1cm from 1 meter away (15dB).
Noctua has included Ultra-Low-Noise Adapters (UNLA), which drop the fans’ standard 12v power supply to 7v, further reducing the speed of both fans to 900 RPM, which in turn decreases the amount of noise that they make. Using these adapters will see the NF-P14 become the louder of the two fans, with an acoustic noise level of 13.2dB (only 0.2dB louder than the hum of a light bulb). The beige and brown colouring of the fans is an avant-garde approach and will come down to personal taste but even the most conservative consumer would be hard-pressed to ignore the performance weighting.
Noctua’s SecuFirm 2 mounting kits are solid and provide a reasonable degree of assurance that this massive cooler will not tear your motherboard a new one. A tube of Noctua’s NT-H1 thermal compound is included and is an excellent non-conductive compound that works instantly without the need for curing (heating and cooling the compound several times before it reaches its maximum transfer potential).
The NH-D14 is not only the quietest cooler, but it is arguably the best air cooler money can buy. The Thermalright Venomous X was able to keep the Core i7 975 idling at 36°C while the mercury hit 65°C under full load for an hour. The Noctua was able to match the idle temperature, and at full load the maximum temperature never rose above 60°C, making it the best tested ever at the PCF Ranch. However, a large part of that praise needs to be reserved for the NT-H1 thermal compound. Under the same testing conditions using the NT-H1 compound, the Venomous X was able to improve on its load temperatures by 3°C, resulting in a maximum temperature of 62°C.
Additionally, the size of the NH-D14 is a problem for motherboards that have limited space; it will simply not fit on some motherboards. Beyond the inevitable, the NH-D14 is an excellent, albeit expensive, cooler which is capable of handling the modern silicon toaster while remaining eerily quiet to boot (get it?).
Michael Reed
90%
Full product specifications, benchmarks and other data can be viewed in the December (165) issue of PCFormat Magazine
Monday, 22 November 2010
Evetech Six Core Overclocked GTX 480 review
Price From R15 000
The AMD Phenom II X6 range of processors provides the near-perfect balance of performance and price. The 1090T comes in at little over R3 000, while its baby brother, the 1055T, has a price tag just above R2 000. Evetech has a range of AMD six core processor-based gaming PCs which come with either the GTX400 series or HD5000 series GPUs.
The Evetech Six Core Overclocked GTX 480 rig is far from being a modest gaming PC. The machine that arrived at the PCF Ranch was not the standard version of this gaming rig (which comes with a Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H motherboard). Rather, the PC we tested boasted the impressive Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard. The rest of the system was somewhat to the same specifications as listed on the website - an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T overclocked from 2.8GHz to 4GHz, 4GB GSkill DDR3-1600 memory and an EVGA GTX480 Superclocked Edition graphics card. The latter is supposed to be a stock Asus GTX480.
The choice of the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T makes sense, because when pushed to 4GHz, it is easily able to trounce any 1090T running at stock speeds. When compared to PCF’s shortly-due-for-an-upgrade AMD test rig (which has a Phenom II X6 1090T running at 3.2GHz, 4GB GSkill DDR3-2000 and an HD5970), the Evetch machine did a fine job of beating it into the ground. It is hardly surprising that in the Heaven 2.0 tessellation benchmark the EVGA GTX480 took the lead; Nvidia cards are more optimised for tessellation than ATI cards are. The Phenom II X6 1055T at 4GHz was able to stroll past the test rig’s 1090T with ease, proving that a bit of overclocking can outdo an extra R1 000.
Surprisingly, the Evetech Six Core Overclocked GTX 480 is cheaper than the sum of its parts. Adding up the cost of purchasing all the components individually works out to be R30 more expensive than purchasing the Evetech. Factor in the cost of shipping multiple components from different retailers and you’re looking at another R400. Evetech has also thrown in a 1 year warranty on the parts and a 2 year warranty on the labour.
Discuss this here
Michael Reed
85%
Full product specifications, benchmarks and other data can be viewed in the October (163) issue of PCFormat Magazine
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Mafia II PC review
Price: R 400
Grand Theft Auto is the best sandbox franchise ever. It’s fast-paced, set in a proper open world and written by prodigal geniuses/actual criminals. There are no limits and no restrictions and that’s why Mafia 2 should under no circumstances be compared or referred to as ‘GTA back in the day’.
Both are based on climbing the organised crime ladder, taking over a city and occasionally driving over grannies in a hot car but - and this is a big but - while GTA is based on modern society, STD jokes and no sense of morals, Mafia is set in a world where a dirty jacket has moral implications.
It takes just seconds in 2K Czech’s masterpiece to get into a 40’s state of mind with the music, the cars and the serious undertones of an archetypal US metropolis at a time when WWII dominated existence. More than anything, it’s the game engine that delivers Mafia’s experience and makes the historically alien world so plausible. The engine was apparently developed independently for the various platforms but all that matters is that it looks, plays and is in every way better on the PC. While textures, models and lighting are world class, it is perhaps the physics that are most impressive. Whether it’s done on your NVidia card or on your CPU (overhead is negligible) the physics are a major factor in the gameplay. Collisions, weapon effects and everything down to your coattails look - and act - as they should.
The ambitious deployment of physics combined with a city-sized bag of variables has however placed ridiculous constraints on AI behaviour, something quite visible in many interactions. For the most part the replicated NPCs walk, talk and dodge your car as if it they were real but under special circumstances such as missions they occasionally stumble, turn bizarrely on staircases and get stuck in doorways. It is something you could live with but hopefully won’t have to as we strongly suspect these hiccups are ghosts in the supplied ‘full review code’ that’s bizarrely stamped ‘incomplete’ upon loading up (don’t ask).
Minor irritations aside, Mafia 2 has you in third person control of Vito Scaletta, a mischievous youth sent to the frontlines for petty crimes and a potentially misspent youth. You will actually play the WWII segment and witness Vito’s first encounter with a ‘man of honour’ who does to Mussolini’s troops what his platoon can’t. Without spoiling, there’s also a stint in the slammer which is played out rather than a disconnected fade in, fade out. Nice.
Storytelling and involvement are the bread and butter of Mafia 2 in the long run. Rather than opting for ambiguity or moral decisions, your aspirations are crystal clear – do whatever it takes to become made. There is very little room for fantasy and if you aren’t satisfied with the play on morality, this is not the game for you. The sound of sirens as a safe cracks open, your acquiescence to your first hit and the thrill of fighting off sodomites in a jail shower are the thrills of Mafia 2. Also, the cars.
Again, without spoiling, the subtleties and historical accuracy of the era only become more impressive when your return from incarceration and Modernism has converted your snow covered, ashen megacity-noire into a swinging hotspot. The lighting, weather and mise-en-scene are all dynamic and driving an old trunter on an iced-up mountain pass is no joke. On that note neither are the police. Speeding, manslaughter or any other criminal activity will get you wanted and not changing your plates or clothes will keep you wanted. Thankfully there is an element of realism and if you murder the cops and any witnesses within view, you can usually make a clean getaway in a new car. Keep poking the man, however, and they will pull up next to you with a Tommy Gun-wielding sergeant hanging out the window and proceed to waste you. There are different wanted levels but throughout the game the cops are relentless and extremely aggressive.
The three subsystems within gameplay are also finely tuned and whether driving, fighting or shooting it’s hard not to be impressed. Cars handle like the behemoths they once were, fist fighting is just plain fun while gunfights reign supreme thanks to a streamlined cover system and raucous environmental physics.
Technically, Mafia 2 walks a fine line between brilliance and over-ambition. As a game it’s a piece of art, a classic narrative and a title that will have fans of the original gushing. It’s as classy as its characters, as smooth as single malt and about as real as guns, cars and crime can get. The attention to detail lifts the bar way up on sandboxes, but only if you have the discipline to ignore the missions. Which you won’t.
Nicholas Boerma
SCORE 92%
Full product specifications and other data can be viewed in the October (163) issue of PCFormat Magazine
Grand Theft Auto is the best sandbox franchise ever. It’s fast-paced, set in a proper open world and written by prodigal geniuses/actual criminals. There are no limits and no restrictions and that’s why Mafia 2 should under no circumstances be compared or referred to as ‘GTA back in the day’.
Both are based on climbing the organised crime ladder, taking over a city and occasionally driving over grannies in a hot car but - and this is a big but - while GTA is based on modern society, STD jokes and no sense of morals, Mafia is set in a world where a dirty jacket has moral implications.
It takes just seconds in 2K Czech’s masterpiece to get into a 40’s state of mind with the music, the cars and the serious undertones of an archetypal US metropolis at a time when WWII dominated existence. More than anything, it’s the game engine that delivers Mafia’s experience and makes the historically alien world so plausible. The engine was apparently developed independently for the various platforms but all that matters is that it looks, plays and is in every way better on the PC. While textures, models and lighting are world class, it is perhaps the physics that are most impressive. Whether it’s done on your NVidia card or on your CPU (overhead is negligible) the physics are a major factor in the gameplay. Collisions, weapon effects and everything down to your coattails look - and act - as they should.
The ambitious deployment of physics combined with a city-sized bag of variables has however placed ridiculous constraints on AI behaviour, something quite visible in many interactions. For the most part the replicated NPCs walk, talk and dodge your car as if it they were real but under special circumstances such as missions they occasionally stumble, turn bizarrely on staircases and get stuck in doorways. It is something you could live with but hopefully won’t have to as we strongly suspect these hiccups are ghosts in the supplied ‘full review code’ that’s bizarrely stamped ‘incomplete’ upon loading up (don’t ask).
Minor irritations aside, Mafia 2 has you in third person control of Vito Scaletta, a mischievous youth sent to the frontlines for petty crimes and a potentially misspent youth. You will actually play the WWII segment and witness Vito’s first encounter with a ‘man of honour’ who does to Mussolini’s troops what his platoon can’t. Without spoiling, there’s also a stint in the slammer which is played out rather than a disconnected fade in, fade out. Nice.
Storytelling and involvement are the bread and butter of Mafia 2 in the long run. Rather than opting for ambiguity or moral decisions, your aspirations are crystal clear – do whatever it takes to become made. There is very little room for fantasy and if you aren’t satisfied with the play on morality, this is not the game for you. The sound of sirens as a safe cracks open, your acquiescence to your first hit and the thrill of fighting off sodomites in a jail shower are the thrills of Mafia 2. Also, the cars.
Again, without spoiling, the subtleties and historical accuracy of the era only become more impressive when your return from incarceration and Modernism has converted your snow covered, ashen megacity-noire into a swinging hotspot. The lighting, weather and mise-en-scene are all dynamic and driving an old trunter on an iced-up mountain pass is no joke. On that note neither are the police. Speeding, manslaughter or any other criminal activity will get you wanted and not changing your plates or clothes will keep you wanted. Thankfully there is an element of realism and if you murder the cops and any witnesses within view, you can usually make a clean getaway in a new car. Keep poking the man, however, and they will pull up next to you with a Tommy Gun-wielding sergeant hanging out the window and proceed to waste you. There are different wanted levels but throughout the game the cops are relentless and extremely aggressive.
The three subsystems within gameplay are also finely tuned and whether driving, fighting or shooting it’s hard not to be impressed. Cars handle like the behemoths they once were, fist fighting is just plain fun while gunfights reign supreme thanks to a streamlined cover system and raucous environmental physics.
Technically, Mafia 2 walks a fine line between brilliance and over-ambition. As a game it’s a piece of art, a classic narrative and a title that will have fans of the original gushing. It’s as classy as its characters, as smooth as single malt and about as real as guns, cars and crime can get. The attention to detail lifts the bar way up on sandboxes, but only if you have the discipline to ignore the missions. Which you won’t.
Nicholas Boerma
SCORE 92%
Full product specifications and other data can be viewed in the October (163) issue of PCFormat Magazine
Monday, 01 November 2010
MSI 890FXA-GD70 review
Price R1 900
The Asus Crosshair 4 Formula is an amazing motherboard, but one that comes with a price that beggars belief. It may not be as expensive as a Core i7 motherboard, but in AMD country R2 700 is a king’s ransom. Enter the MSI 890FXA-GD70, a motherboard that aims to deliver all the bells and whistles for under R2 000.
The MSI 890FXA-GD70 is based on the AMD 890FX/SB850 chipset, which means that it has 42 PCI-E lanes, four of which are dedicated to A-Link Express III (which is the interface that the Northbridge and Southbridge use to communicate). The 890FX chipset is the only 8-series chipset to possess an IOMMU, a memory management unit (MMU) that is dedicated to addressing memory for everything except the CPU( since the CPU has its own MMU). This protects the system from errant devices that try to access memory that they should not.
The rest of the board is packed full of delicious goodies. SATA 6Gbps, USB 3, dual gigabit LAN and five PCI-E x16 slots are just some of the treats on this board. Of the five PCI-E x16 slots, only one is limited to x4 lanes. The other four slots are intended to be used for multi-GPU setups, with each of the slots receiving a maximum of x8 lanes when they are all populated. That said, through some technological jiggery-pokery a dual card CrossFire setup will make full x16 lanes available. The arrangement of these slots means that they can be filled with dual slot GPUs without any space concerns. As a subtle indication of the overclocking prowess of this motherboard, MSI has included a clear CMOS switch on the back panel and an OC dial on the PCB itself. This little knob allows direct manipulation of the FSB speed without using software - a simple and elegant solution that works well.
The 890FXA-GD70 was able to overclock the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T with minimal effort. The automatic overclocking system was able to push the processor to a cool 3.8GHz and, with a slight multiplier bump, the system hit the 4GHz mark with ease. The MSI 890FXA-GD70 is able to unlock hidden cores on AMD processors (should you have or find one) via BIOS option. This makes it ideal for those who want to stick with their dual or triple core processors for a while.
The real deal clincher is the asking price. R1 900 is a bargain for a high-end performance board and this makes the MSI 890FXA-GD70 the best bang-for-buck motherboard available today.
Michael Reed
90%
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)