COUGAR’s New Ultimate Gaming Mouse and Keyboard Win iF Design Awards   March 6th 2014, Taipei – COUGAR, leading PC case, power supply and computer peripherals brand has won design awards for two new gaming peripherals, an ultimate gaming mouse and an ultimate gaming keyboard. It took two years for COUGAR to develop the first aluminum framed gaming mouse, the 700M and keyboard, the 700K, and both have won the iF (International Design Award) of 2014. The iFDesign Awards are considered the design “Oscars” in the IT/PC industry.   Design Concept behind the COUGAR Gaming Mouse 700M is one of a “vertebrate” with metal support for “bones”. This allows for customized ergonomic adjustments and players can transform the feel of it in accordance with customary gestures giving the right height. There is also a unique design idea for the side angle sniper button. At 45 degrees, the lateral force can be slower, so this design provides for a more accurate aim. The “magazine” and “muzzle” shape of the cable connector and its strain relief add to a more game-like feel.   Design Concept behind the COUGAR Gaming Keyboard 700K was inspired by military “stealth warships” technology, the design is created from elements of geometric facets: mechanical key modules are mounted on an exposed, bent aluminum structure with premium anodized surface treatments, enabling more efficient typing bolstered by providing the players wrist support points. Intuitive ke...

Biostar has been in the motherboard business since the early 80's. While they were not always the preferred brand that enthusiasts turn to, they have definitely improved in this arena in the last few years. We saw a big improvement in their motherboard sector with the Z77 chipset launch. Now that Biostar has had this chance to improve today's newer chipset, we are going to be looking at a budget friendly chipset on the B85N-3D motherboard. This motherboard was developed on the mini-ITX platform, and, while this isn't Biostar's flagship motherboard, we are here today to put this Small Form Factor (SFF) motherboard to the test. The popularity of Small Form Factor motherboards has been on the rise, and Biostar's B85N-3D has been developed for customers looking for an HTPC or Media platform with a focus around 3D audio support. Will this motherboard be able to keep up with some of the high-end mainstream motherboards? Let's dive in and find out.

QNAP Silent NAS Series Wins iF Design Award 2014 Taipei, Taiwan, March 6, 2014 – QNAP® Systems, Inc. announced that the QNAP Silent NAS series has won the honorable iF Product Design Award 2014 for excellence in the computer category. “The recognition from the iF award means outstanding achievements in design, and we are proud that our innovation in the Silent NAS series makes this list alongside other celebrated tech products,” said Meiji Chang, general manager of QNAP. QNAP Silent NAS series is fanless, silent NAS for the living room, designed with a stylish and silent set-top design to sit alongside HDTVs, consoles and other elements of a digital lifestyle. With a revolutionary thermal design that intelligently dissipates heat, the Silent NAS series runs smoothly even under heavy load. It is also eco-friendly with power saving features such as hard disk standby and power management scheduling options. The user-friendly QTS operating system also makes system setup, maintenance and day-to-day usability extremely easy. All award-winning entries of iF Design Award 2014 can be found in the iF online exhibition at http://exhibition.ifdesign.de/awards_index_e. Availability The current QNAP Silent NAS series HS-210 is available worldwide. To learn more about QNAP Silent NAS series, please visit http://www.qnap.com. About QNAP Systems, Inc. QNAP Systems, Inc., as its brand promise “Quality Network Appliance Provider”, aims to deliver comprehensive offerings of...

  Leadtek launches GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 graphics cards, new in-house twin-fan card available soon   Taipei, Taiwan, March 05, 2014 Leadtek simultaneously launches GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750, two brand-new GeForce series graphics cards. They are equipped with the first generation NVIDIA® Maxwell™ GPU architecture, and their main appeal is low power consumption. Their capabilities have also been improved, compared to products of the same grade in the previous generation. GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 are equipped with 2GB GDDR5 and 1GB GDDR5, respectively. Their memory bandwidth is 128-bit. GTX 750 Ti is embedded with 640 CUDA cores and its base clock is 1020 MHz, allowing it to support Boost 2.0 technology to 1085 MHz. Leadtek will soon launch the single-fan overclocking and dual-fan Hurricane overclocking graphics cards made in-house, offering better performance and superb cooling effects, and giving more choices to professional gamers.   Maxwell GPU architecture can greatly improve the gaming experience, and its capability is twice that of graphic cards of the previous generation with only half the power used. Its price is also very user-friendly. Serious gamers can receive the strong display capability they need and cruise through the most popular games at the highest settings, backed-up by exquisite 1080p high resolution.   GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 support technology such as CUDA™ parallel computing, GeForce Experience™, PhysX® physics computing, FXAA, and TXAA. Th...

  SAPPHIRE STRENGTHENS R9 GRAPHICS SERIES NEW R9 280 Dual-X and R9 280X Vapor-X models Building on the success of its graphics solutions based on the latest GCN (graphics core next) architectures from AMD, SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced two new models in the successful R9-Series of graphics accelerators for the PC. The SAPPHIRE R9 280 is a new model from SAPPHIRE that features the company’s Dual-X cooler. Dual-X, with its two aerofoil fans, and graduated heatpipes, is an efficient and quiet cooler design which received industry acclaim in the previous generation of products. This new model has 3GB of the latest GDDR5 memory clocked at 1250MHz (5GB/s effective) and a GCN core with 1792 stream processors clocked at 850MHz (up to 940MHz with Boost). With support for DirectX 11.2 this card is built to play the very latest games even at higher resolutions. In fact its Ultra HD graphics processor can feed even the new 4K displays with the HDMI 1.4a interface or DisplayPort v1.2 outputs. The on-board Dual BIOS supports both UEFI and legacy systems. At the same time, SAPPHIRE is introducing a new version of the successful SAPPHIRE R9 280X Vapor-X model, combining SAPPHIRE’s exclusive Vapor-X cooling with its new Tri-X triple fan design. SAPPHIRE was the first company to use vapor-chamber cooling in its graphics cards to deliver highly efficient cooling. With an enhanced GCN core with 2048 stream processors, the R9 280X Vapor-X model is factory overclocked to 1GHz ...

ADATA Technology Releases SSD Firmware Update Company releases firmware 5.2.5 for SSDs with LSI SandForce controllers Taipei, Taiwan – March 3, 2014 – ADATA™ Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, has released a firmware update for the company’s solid state drives equipped with LSI SandForce 2200 series controllers. This update is applicable to SSD models SX910/SX900/SP900/SP800/S511/S510/S396. The new firmware optimizes TRIM completion behavior and SATA stability, and improves disk recovery in instances of unsafe or improper shutdown. Purchasers who wish to update their SSD firmware should go to: http://www.adata-group.com/index.php?action=ss_main&page=ss_content_driver&lan=en, select the corresponding SSD product, and then download the compressed Firmware 5.2.5 file and extract it. Then locate the executable file ADATA_SF_FieldUpdater and run it as administrator. About ADATA ADATA Technology, one of the world’s largest vendors of DRAM Modules and USB Flash Drives, provides complete memory solutions, including memory cards, solid state drives, and portable hard drives. ADATA products are internationally recognized by Germany’s iF Design Award, red dot Award, CES Best of Innovations Award, Japan’s Good Design Award, Best Choice of Computex Award, and Taiwan Excellence Gold Award. The company’s slogan of Love, Life, Dreams, embodies the ADATA brand and the role of innovative me...

Sometimes being located in Southern California can have its benefits, and we’re not talking about the weather here. California being one of the larger states in the US houses most of today’s PC hardware and software companies. One of these companies is Newegg, and if you haven’t heard of Newegg; we have to say… you need to stop hiding under that rock. Newegg is one of the largest electronics e-tailers in the nation today. If you have ever thought about building a PC or looking for some of today’s latest gadgets, the one place you have probably searched is Newegg.com. Newegg houses some of the largest range of products available today in stock in their inventory and its where most of us PC enthusiasts turn to for some of the geek shopping. Today, at spur of the moment I was notified by a good friend of mine from NZXT (thanks Eric!) that Newegg was hosting a launch party at their new hybrid center. Newegg’s “will call” is located in City of Industry and has housed a space for many local consumers to be able to pick up their online orders; this allowed some of us locals to pick up the items and save some shipping costs if the item isn’t shipped for free. However, the space here was previously pretty empty and houses some chairs and seating in the waiting area and a counter to pick up your packages. But that wasn’t good enough for Newegg and now they have opened the “Hybrid Center,” which has some of today’s latest ...

              Transcend Releases Small Form Factor M.2 and mSATA SSDs for Mobile Computing Devices           February 27, 2014 Transcend Information, Inc. a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, today announced the release of its SATA III 6Gb/s N8S750 M.2 and MSA340 mSATA solid state drives (SSD). Featuring ultra compact dimensions and the next generation SATA III 6Gb/s interface, Transcend’s N8S750 and MSA340 SSDs are best suited to address the strict size limitations and high performance needs of today’s advanced portable devices. N8S750 SATA III 6Gb/s M.2 SSD The N8S750 SSD’s space-saving 80mm M.2 form factor (80.0mm x 22.0mm x 3.5mm) is designed to meet future market demands of ultra-thin and light mobile devices that require an SSD, including Ultrabooks, notebooks, tablets, portable gaming systems, and smartphones. It features the latest SATA III 6Gb/s specification, DDR3 DRAM cache, and is comprised of high-quality MLC NAND Flash chips. With exceptional transfer speeds of up to 520MB/s read and 330MB/s write, the N8S750 easily handles everyday computing tasks as well as demanding multimedia applications. MSA340 SATA III 6Gb/s mSATA SSD Transcend’s MSA340 mSATA SSD is 78% smaller than a standard 2.5” SSD and measures a mere 50.8mm x 29.85mm x 4.0mm. As a result, manufacturers can benefit from greater design flexibility when developing space-restricted embedded applications such as tablets, smartphones, Ultrabooks, eBook readers, navi...

Small form factor PC builds are among one of the more popular topics on many PC forums. Building affordable small form-factor power-house PCs has taken a huge leap forward recently as many manufacturers are starting to saturate the market with more small form factor hardware. Mini-ITX motherboards and small, yet powerful graphics card availability is on the rise. With that increased demand becoming more apparent, we are also starting to see other SFF (small form factor) accessories appearing on store shelves. With that said, today we are going to take a look at a Cooler Master Elite 110 chassis. This one is designed to meet those looking to build either a budget friendly or a powerful gaming PC in a tiny foot print. Just how much versatility and style can Cooler Master pack into the Elite 110?? Read on to find out!

Antec just announced that it’s highest end PSU, the HCP 1300 Platinum, is being released to new markets. What makes this interesting is they released this unit in India first, but now it looks like it’s hitting the American and European markets and possibly others that were harder to find mentions of. While the question may still remain of why a California based company would release a unit in India first, what makes this PSU more interesting is some new features that might be telling of the future of motherboards. The first feature of interest is the OC Link Technology. This actually came out a bit ago and allows two PSUs to be connected simultaneously to reach the power demands of a super high end system. With 1300 watts of power, it seems hard to imagine needing more than one unit, however, dual GPU cards can easily max out power demands once 2 or 3 of them are set up in one system. This could mean that there is a future for more dual GPU GFX Cards in the development pipes for the system builder. The more realistic reason though, is that with bit coin miners buying up power intensive AMD cards and running them 24/7, they need PSUs to have more than enough headroom over the power requirements of their systems so there’s less chances of burn outs. The other interesting feature to note is the inclusion of a 28-pin motherboard connector. The idea behind this is to future proof the PSU, but with new tech being more power efficient, it’s hard to im...