Blog - July, 2009 | bit-tech.net

More shots of the Asus P55, LGA1156, Lynnfield motherboard

Posted on 30th Jul 2009 at 11:36 by Clive Webster with 11 comments

Egads, just how many buzz-words can an IT journo fit into a blog post title these days? I blame Google, to whom all us online folk are beholden. Maybe I should just add a few hot search terms...

Or not. The purpose of this blog post is I thought I'd share some new shots Asus has sent through of its first P55 board to supplement James' preview of the Asus P7P55-Evo that went up a week or so ago.

Supposedly these are of the final retail board. The main update is the Southbridge cooler, which seems massive, and that weird Turbo-V thing. Pics and more discussion below the break.

What was your first mod?

Posted on 29th Jul 2009 at 10:36 by Antony Leather with 21 comments

Bit-tech is full of modding. In fact our forums are brimming with countless different types of mods using an even greater number of different materials. Some are simple, with modifications to improve cooling or allow installation of hardware that otherwise might not fit, while others completely transform the look of an entire case or are even built from the ground up.

I bet there are many different reasons people take to modding. Personally, my modding experience began ten years ago with a high end system in a Chieftec Dragon. It's a poor case in terms of airflow compared to modern cases like the Antec Twelve Hundred, and I was finding the temperature inside the case was nearly hot enough for hydrogen atoms to start fusing together. I decided to cut a hole in the roof and mount an 80mm fan which actually worked really well.

WIN: Asus Xtreme Global Summit Competition Week 1

Posted on 28th Jul 2009 at 11:14 by Alex Watson with 54 comments

By now you’ve hopefully read all about the Asus Xtreme GlobalSummit competition we’re running, and marvelled at the excellent selection of hardware prizes on offer. Unlike most of the competitions we’ve run in the past, this one adds interesting experience to the mix – firstly, there’s an afternoon in London talking with Asus’ R&D team, playing games and tinkering with the latest hardware.

It’s also about communication. Asus has a great reputation for the design and innovation that goes into its motherboards, and the firm is keen to get the opinions of real enthusiasts (hence the blogging/forum posting part of the competition), and to give you a peek behind the scenes of the design and development process. Read on to find out more, and for your chance to win one of the first five tickets for the event!

Why the iPhone was never going to flop

Posted on 27th Jul 2009 at 11:13 by Mark Mackay with 26 comments

For the love of all that’s shiny in this world, just look at it. The first time I laid my eyes on the iPhone was in a very small column in the free newspaper Metro while on my way to work. It was love at first sight. I would have ditched my girlfriend in an instant to get my hands on one there and then, and at the time she was a Swedish blonde.

Tags apple, flop, iphone, shiny factor

Series 3, Episode 3 - P55, Chrome OS, Monkey Island

Posted on 24th Jul 2009 at 18:52 by Podcast with 10 comments

The mixer is back and so now Episode 3 of Series 3 of the combined Custom PC and bit-tech podcast is here. CPC’s Alex and Mark are joined by Richard and Joe from bit-tech. On the hardware side of things, the panel discusses the upcoming P55 chipset and Lynnfield CPUs from Intel. Software wise, Chrome OS from Google is cause for much discussion, and there is a lot of games news, including Battlefield 1943, Left 4 Dead 2 and of course, the return of Monkey Island.

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Winxs: Why my Vista install bloated to 28GB

Posted on 24th Jul 2009 at 12:46 by Clive Webster with 30 comments

For some reason the C: partition of my media PC is pretty much full, despite me giving the OS 30GB and only having a few apps installed. The culprit is the mysterious winsxs folder, which has piled on the pounds in the year or so the PC has been working, and now weighs in at 15GB. Things is, I had no idea what the folder was when trying to trim some space last night.

Tags bloat, dll, problem, vista, windows, winsxs

Monkey Island released for iPhone and iPod

Posted on 23rd Jul 2009 at 10:30 by Alex Watson with 9 comments

Before I leave the house each morning, I use my iPhone to check email - it's quicker to use my WiFi to download the message list than to try with spotty 3G on the train - and there was a message from Joe. He's just left for a well deserved long weekend on holiday. The message was titled: IMPORTANT.

He'd sent it at 7am this morning. Immediately, I wondered what was wrong.

The Beatles Rock Band track list suggestions

Posted on 22nd Jul 2009 at 10:19 by Alex Watson with 8 comments

Now that the new Monkey Islands are both upon us, there’s really only one game this year I’m looking forward to: The Beatles Rock Band, especially after the last round of previews hit the web.

Activision’s commitment to making endless new Guitar Hero titles with filler-packed track lists has meant I’ve skipped the last couple, and the botched UK launch of the original Rock Band (overpriced, too close to the sequel) means I don’t have that either, so September will be the perfect time for me to get back into music games.

Then there’s fact that it’s based on The Beatles, and they are, without doubt, my favourite band. This is not a hugely original statement– there would be no game if there weren’t a bazillion people who loved The Beatles – but they’re a band I can come back to over and over, finding comfort and surprise in the sound.

A game that lets me – with the musical prowess of the average breaded Halibut – pretend to be Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Ringo is brilliant, especially when the music is inspiring a game that looks gorgeous and has had some thought go into it (as evinced by the amazing opening intro).

Noise versus performance

Posted on 20th Jul 2009 at 08:59 by Antony Leather with 34 comments

With the hot but undoubtedly brief summer finally making an appearance here in the UK, I imagine that plenty of bit-tech and Custom PC readers have had to ramp up their PC's fan speeds to keep the machine cool. Maybe you've even had to buy new cooling hardware to keep that shiny new overclocked Intel Core i7 system under control?

In any case, most of us have had to alter our PC's cooling at one time or another but what's always surprised me is how varied noise tolerance is from person to person and how different their goals are when tweaking their PC to enhance its cooling capability.

Is LGA1366 the most future-proof choice?

Posted on 16th Jul 2009 at 10:29 by Clive Webster with 46 comments

I was chatting to Rich yesterday about P55 and socket LGA1156, and how its imminent arrival makes it pretty tricky to pick a CPU type with decent upgrade potential. LGA775 isn't going to see anything new, so a Q9650 is pretty much the pinnacle of Core 2; meanwhile on the AMD side, it really doesn't seem that Socket AM3 has much further to go. However, we know Intel plans future LGA1366 releases, so this seems like the best option if you desperately need an upgrade now.

bit-tech.net

More shots of the Asus P55, LGA1156, Lynnfield motherboard

What was your first mod?

WIN: Asus Xtreme Global Summit Competition Week 1

Why the iPhone was never going to flop

Series 3, Episode 3 - P55, Chrome OS, Monkey Island

Winxs: Why my Vista install bloated to 28GB

Monkey Island released for iPhone and iPod

The Beatles Rock Band track list suggestions

Noise versus performance

Is LGA1366 the most future-proof choice?

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