Many of you will know me from my work on the sites Bright Side of News and TweakTown (some of you may also remember me from PlanetAMD64 and Planetx64). I user to write and review for Bright Side of News and still do for TweakTown. However, I began to notice gaps in the format and audience of both sites. This is not to say they are doing anything wrong or out of the ordinary. No it was more about the focus of the site. At TweakTown it is all about the enthusiast; they want it faster and overclocked. There is nothing wrong with that format or audience, nor is there anything wrong with BSN’s format. At BSN* they concentrate on the industry insider and higher level content; again a great space to work in.
Still, even with both of those open to me I did not have the arena I was looking for. To me there is very little linked-analysis. The performance numbers are presented and in the rush to get content out there is not much time to get a feel for the products as a whole. What DecryptedTech is for is to fill in those gaps. It will give me (and you) time to get more detailed information about the other side of the review process. These are things like the build, the installation, the accessory bundle and support of the product. Of course, I will also have some performance numbers and information as well I could never leave that out).
In short, with DecryptedTech I hope to take some of the mystery out of the numbers you get presented every day and also to add some of my own thoughts on the industry, the products they present to you and the PR Machines that drive them.
I hope you enjoy reading these articles as much I enjoy writing them
Sean Kalinich
Owner/ Editor-in-Chief
Not that long ago DFI sent me an interesting little board. This was their Mini-ITX P55 LanParty board. Unfortunately, it died during testing (a choke blew up, literally blew up) but it was only the first of many that would begin to parade into the market. Now sitting next to me is another Mini-ITX board, this one from GIGABYTE (and hopefully better made). It is their H55 version so it is really meant to run the Clarkdale series CPUs although it can certainly run any of the 1156 CPUs from Intel.
Only a couple of days ago we wrote about how Apple is trying to control the content on your phones, media players and even your home computers. Well today is a day for those that have found this behavior truly offensive. It seems that someone found a judge in the federal court system that does not feel obliged to overlook Apple’s rude and anti-competitive habits.
So nVidia has dropped the GTX 460 on the world. Starting at midnight the reviews, press releases and all the usual brouhaha surrounding a new product launch began. For us, as a new site we are not going to expect to see one of the new GF 104s for some time. Thankfully we have plenty to keep us busy as we get the site up to speed. No the thing that we wanted to go over is the interesting e-mails that we have seen from AMD.
Asus Rampage III Extreme Drops by the lab for some testing time
Written by Sean Kalinich
When you talk about gaming, overclocking and performance there are always a couple of names that pop up. One name that is sure to pop up in the conversation is the name of Asus. Asus has been making great products (along with the not so great) for many years. However, with the launch of Intel’s Nehalem and AMD’s Phenom II Asus has really took off. Their flagship Republic of Gamers (ROG) line has simply been stellar. It is one of these that we are taking a look at today. In the lab we have the Asus ROG Rampage III Extreme (RIIIE). This $380 board packs a ton of features and performance into an attractive red and black ATX package. Let’s see just what $380 gets you for performance.
We have called Apple's mighty PR machine the Greatest Show on Earth before. We have even gone into detail about how they manage a launch like a major motion picture production and even very briefly talked about how they are able to market last years tech and features to a generation that is increaingly tech savvy. What we have not done is go into detail on how these items combine to make up Apple's giant presence in the market.
GIGABYTE Announces Winners of Pentium G6950 OC Challenge on HWBOT
Written by Sean Kalinich-- GIGABYTE Announces Winners of Pentium G6950 OC Challenge on HWBOT --
-- over@locker886 Takes Top Score for all 4 Benchmarks --
TAIPEI, Taiwan – July 09, 2010 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and other computing hardware solutions today proudly announced that over@locker886 from Hungary was the winner of the Pentium G6950 OC Challenge hosted by HWBOT, scoring a total of 40 points by reaching the top spot in 4 different benchmark categories using a GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD7 motherboard.
Ah it is always nice when the FedEX, UPS or DHL truck stops in front of the house. They bring the gear that keeps me busy in one of the best jobs for a geek. Today’s Delivery listing will also include the toys that were dropped off yesterday by another FedEx truck and a UPS truck in the afternoon. So let’s kick it off with the first delivery.
Summer is upon us and many things become scarce during this season. Among them are rain, clothes, and school days. Fortunately new products are not in short supply at Cooler Master. We are always hard at work bringing you thrilling new ways to show off to friends. So in the spirit of summer fun we have brought you a quick and easy way to score some amazing swag. Products such as our tank inspired HAF X, the exceptionally efficient Silent Pro Gold power supply, the powerful V6 GT CPU cooler, and even mystery prizes sponsored by Patriot Memory.
Welcome to DecryptedTech.com,
This site represents almost 10 years of work in the technical press arena. I have worked on more than my share of sites and have worked with some of the best in the industry. However, I began to notice that everything continues to be a rush. Content is king; if you can’t get the post or review up first, no one is interested.
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Not too long ago I jokingly commented that Steve Jobs was drinking his own Kool-Aid. I did this in a “Tony Montana” voice just like in the movie Scarface. There is always a danger for companies, actors, even journalists when they begin to think they are what their hype has built them up to be. This is exactly what has happened with Steve. For some reason he has begun to actually believe that he and his products are really the best things out there.
Last year just before the launch of the Tega SoC inside the Zune HD player from MS, we all were treated to something unusual. The Green PR Machine from nVidia decided to show us a roadmap for future products. This roadmap laid out the path for Tegra and its future incarnations. According to the map we should have seen the tiny new system at CES 2010 and we did see some systems that were centered on Tegra 2. These were very early samples of the products (in most cases even the software was very shaky), but they were still there.