Reviews 51945 Published by

Here a roundup of today's articles, including various AMD Radeon HD 7790 reviews, Installing Nginx With PHP5 (And PHP-FPM) And MySQL Support On CentOS 6.4, Samsung 840 Series 120GB Solid State Drive Review, Windows 8 Outperforming Ubuntu Linux With Intel OpenGL Graphics, and MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt Motherboard Review



GIGABYTE HD7790 Review @ Vortez
The AMD Radeon HD 7790, codenamed 'Bonaire', is the latest entry level graphics card to exit the AMD laboratories. We tested the HD7750 and 7770 some time ago now but with NVIDIA's GTX650Ti stealing the limelight recently, AMD have upped the ante by releasing this GPU with an entirely new 28nm Graphics Core Next ASIC and in doing so hope to reclaim the entry level crown. We get a first glance of the card today before committing ourselves to our usual full in-depth review.

Entry level gaming now demands a card capable of performing at today's most popular resolution of 1920x1080p (according to Steam). The HD7750 and HD7770 just about managed this but was found wanting in some areas, typically struggling to reach a minimum playable frame rate at this high resolution, especially when filtering was required. The HD7790 hopes to rectify this with an increase in computational power and memory clockspeeds without sacrificing the appeal of a low power draw.

Read more: GIGABYTE HD7790 Review @ Vortez

Installing Nginx With PHP5 (And PHP-FPM) And MySQL Support On CentOS 6.4
Nginx (pronounced "engine x") is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server. Nginx is known for its stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption. This tutorial shows how you can install Nginx on a CentOS 6.4 server with PHP5 support (through PHP-FPM) and MySQL support.

Read more: Installing Nginx With PHP5 (And PHP-FPM) And MySQL Support On CentOS 6.4

Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Gaming Mouse @ techPowerUp
The Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M gaming mouse has a lot of new novel features, like an adjustable palm plate and an aluminum base. We take it for a spin and see how it fares against simpler mice!

Read more: Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Gaming Mouse @ techPowerUp

Samsung 840 Series 120GB Solid State Drive Review @ ThinkComputers.org
Samsung is a very large player in the solid state drive market, but you may not have known. This is because they sell their drives in bulk to companies like Apple to use in their products. That is why they are not an known in the consumer or enthusiast market. In fact Samsung is the largest producer of flash memory in the world. One thing that is great about Samsung solid state drives is that everything inside is made by Samsung, the NAND, controller and DRAM cache. This makes it very easy for Samsung to correct issues or fix problems because everything is done in-house. We saw this on Samsungs 830 Series solid state drive and the big difference between the 830 and 840 is that the 840 Series uses TLC NAND chips instead of MLC. We will get to the difference in just a bit. The controller on the 840 Series has also been updated. The 120GB version we are testing today has read and write speeds of 530MB/s and 130MB/s respectively so it sort of fits into the entry-level segment. Lets take a look

Read more: Samsung 840 Series 120GB Solid State Drive Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120MM Cooling Fan Review @ TestFreaks
A few years ago a friend of mine brought his computer over to my house, needed some work and parts and when he turned it on it sounded like a small airplane taking off. You could hear this thing on the second floor of my house, that’s how loud it was. That was ridiculous in my opinion, you don’t need noisy and loud fans to have a cool system. Personally I must have a quiet system, but I don’t sacrifice performance for low noise levels. Noctua is one of the top companies when it comes to keeping your computer cool, they’re always innovating and improving on their designs and they’ve sent me over their latest 120mm cooling fan for review, the NF-S12A PWM. This fan is 120mm in size and has a maximum speed of 1200rpm, but you can use the included adapter to lower the speed to only 900rpm. I’ve put the NF-S12A up against another Noctua fan that runs much faster at 1500rpm, and I was surprised by the results and I think you might be too. Read on to learn more…

Read more: Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120MM Cooling Fan Review @ TestFreaks

Gigabyte's Aivia Osmium mechanical keyboard reviewed @ The Tech Report
Most high-end keyboards combine mechanical switches with LED backlighting and programmable macro keys. Gigabyte's Aivia Osmium adds a new twist: USB 3.0 connectivity. We take a closer look at this unique keyboard to see what's what.

Read more: Gigabyte's Aivia Osmium mechanical keyboard reviewed @ The Tech Report

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx Windows 8 Pro Tablet Review @ HotHardware
Microsoft's Surface Pro has been out just over a month now, but with its $899 base price, it's at the high-end of what a lot of consumers are willing to fork over for a Windows 8-equipped tablet, and that's not even factoring in the $120+ keyboard option. Thankfully, the market is getting a few more entrants in the field, and Lenovo's IdeaTab Lynx is one of the more interesting ones. It's priced well below the Surface Pro, is compatible with an optional keyboard dock, and runs a full, unabashed version of Windows 8 Pro.

If you've been holding out for the perfect Win8 tablet, you may be interested in finding out how this tab stacks up in our usual gauntlet of tests.

Read more: Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx Windows 8 Pro Tablet Review @ HotHardware

NETGEAR Powerline 500 WiFi Access Point (XWNB5201) Review @ HardwareHeaven.com
We have looked at a number of NETGEAR devices recently, from state of the art routers featuring Wireless-AC technology to Music Extenders and WiFi range enhancers. Today we are looking at a wireless access point that utilises Powerline technology to access the router and share the connection via WiFi - the Powerline 500 WiFi Access Point.

Read more: NETGEAR Powerline 500 WiFi Access Point (XWNB5201) Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

Windows 8 Outperforming Ubuntu Linux With Intel OpenGL Graphics @ Phoronix
In our benchmarks of Microsoft Windows 8, we have found that Intel's Windows OpenGL driver is generally superior to that of their open-source Linux graphics driver. Some progress has been made, but in today's testing of an ASUS Ultrabook bearing an Ivy Bridge processor, Linux has a ways to go for some games in matching the Windows binary performance and features.

Over the years there have been many Windows 7 vs. Linux benchmarks on Phoronix. Having recently picked up an ASUS Ultrabook for benchmarking, some Windows 8 vs. Ubuntu 13.04 development benchmarks were carried out to see the positioning today. An ASUS S56CA-WH31 was the candidate for this testing, which is a $500 Intel Ultrabook sporting an Intel Core i3 3217U CPU, 4GB of DDR3 system memory, 500GB 5400RPM HDD + 24GB Solid-State Drive, and a 15.6-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution. The ASUS Ultrabook comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows 8.

Read more: Windows 8 Outperforming Ubuntu Linux With Intel OpenGL Graphics @ Phoronix

AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review @ Techspot
AMD spent the better part of 2012 releasing an entire line of 28nm GPUs, starting with the Radeon HD 7970 in January and followed by over half a dozen more cards throughout the next 8 months.

Late in the year we wrapped things up with our feature “The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD Current-Gen Comparison” which saw Nvidia take out the $100 - $150 price bracket with the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, while AMD claimed the $150 - $200 range with the Radeon HD 7850.

As well-thought-out as the Radeon HD 7000 series was, we kind of hoped 2012 would mark the beginning and the end for the series, much as 2011 did for the previous generation. Expecting something entirely new was not to be, as we are now three months into 2013 and we find ourselves reviewing a brand new AMD graphics card that isn’t based on a new architecture.

Read more: AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review @ Techspot

Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 Dual-X OC Review @ OCC
A high performance FPS beast the Sapphire HD 7790 is not, nor is it meant to be. That being the case the FPS performance it delivered while using upper end settings is pretty impressive, all things considered. In every test run it was faster than the target competitor's card, the GTX 650Ti, at the target price point of $149/159. While running the gaming tests I found the HD 7790 delivered smooth game play with the settings used for my tests. A tangible result when you compare apples to apples.

Read more: Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 Dual-X OC Review @ OCC

Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC Video Card Review @ Hi Tech Legion
For me there is magic in the air on July 4th in the USA. While I understand a lot of the chemistry behind fireworks it is still amazing to watch it work and feel the report of the mortars explode. Just like with pyrotechnics technology improves and more spectacular effects are possible. In the world of computer systems this is driven by Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). The battle for GPU supremacy continues to rage on and the latest swipe of the blade come from AMD with their introduction of the Radeon HD 7790.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 OC edition is one of the latest GPUs based on AMD’s 28nm Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture and uses the Bonaire GPU. The Sapphire 7790 features their custom dual-x cooling solution. The custom cooler is designed with two fans and multiple heat pipes to keep the card cool during intensive use. The GPU clock speed is factory overclocked to 1075 MHz from the standard 1GHz reference speeds. The 7790 also features AMD's newest version of their PowerTune technology, which is designed to be more power efficient and allow for higher clocks. The memory on the card is one GB of GDDR5 and features a 128-bit bus, with a memory clock speed of 6000 MHz.

Read more: Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC Video Card Review @ Hi Tech Legion

AMD's Radeon HD 7790 graphics card reviewed @ The Tech Report
This latest addition to the Radeon HD 7000 series features a brand-new GPU, a $149 price tag, and a free copy of BioShock Infinite in the box.

Read more: AMD's Radeon HD 7790 graphics card reviewed @ The Tech Report

Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 OC Edition Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers.org
Today we are taking a look at a brand new video card from Sapphire. We have been hearing about the Radeon 7790 over the past few weeks and earlier this year AMD said we would see an HD 8000 series towards the end of the year and they would be refreshing their HD 7000 lineup with new chips. The HD 7790 is the first card that is part of this refresh, based on the brand new Bonaire 28nm graphics processor. The Bonaire graphics processor is based off of AMDs graphics core next (GCN) architecture and features 896 stream processors. We are looking at Sapphires version, which is the HD 7790 OC with Dual-X. The Dual-X is for Sapphires own unique cooling system on the card. This card features a 1075MHz core clock, 1GB of GDDR5 memory and has dual DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort connections. This card is setup to compete directly with Nvidias GTX 650 Ti. Read on as we take a look...

Read more: Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 OC Edition Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers.org

AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review: Affordable DX11 Gaming @ HotHardware.com
A few weeks back, the enthusiast community was abuzz after news broke that AMD's Radeon HD 7000 series would remain "stable throughout 2013" and would be the company's focus "for quite some time". The wording of the initial news made it sound like AMD wouldn't be releasing any new GPUs for the rest of the year and that it would further differentiate its offerings with only new game and software bundles.

AMD convened a conference call to try and quell the rumors and better explain the company's position at the time, but short of saying there were some new products in the pipeline, not much was said to clarify the situation. Well, here we are, about a month out from the initial breaking of that news, and AMD is ready with a new mainstream graphics card, which features a brand new GPU. Today AMD is taking the wraps off of the new Radeon HD 7790, a mainstream GPU designed to fill the gap between the Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7850.

Read more: AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review: Affordable DX11 Gaming @ HotHardware.com

Sapphire HD7790 OC Review @ KitGuru
Today we are looking at the new Sapphire HD7790 graphics card which is based around AMDs new 28nm Graphics Core Next ASIC (Bonaire). The new HD7790 slots in between the budget HD7770 and low-mid range HD7850 at around the £125-£130 inc vat mark. Is there really any room for this card in an already crowded marketplace?

Read more: Sapphire HD7790 OC Review @ KitGuru

AMD Radeon HD 7790 CrossFire @ techPowerUp
AMD's newly released HD 7790 provides great price/performance in the sub-$200 segment and supports CrossFire. So we wondere: Can build a powerful and cost-efficient gaming rig with two HD 7790 cards in CrossFire configuration?

Read more: AMD Radeon HD 7790 CrossFire @ techPowerUp

Radeon HD 7790 Review @ Guru3D
If you draw up a pie chart then you'd be surprised that the biggest chunk of the market for graphics cards is entry level. Obviously that makes a lot of sense as OEMs love to include the cheapest card available in a PC. But considering the price level, many people that do not have or want to spend heaps of cash to play a game, pick up one of these cards. I mean think back a year or three, I really liked the Radeon HD 5770 at the time. You know what? Here is a little history lesson on AMD's lineup over the years.

So it was October 2009 when ATI released the Juniper GPU, you know the product as the Radeon HD 5770. It has been one of the best selling graphics cards for ATI-AMD evah, for the very simple reason that for not a lot of money you received a product with 800 shader processors. So for a price just above entry level that made a thing or two possible, gaming at 1600x1200 became a viable reality and next to that a grand feature set was introduced (Eyefinity etc). Later on the 5770 got refreshed as the 6770, which mostly was the same product. Last year, in February 2012 AMD released a product developed under the GPU codename 'Cape Verde', the graphics cards derived from that GPU were the Radeon HD 7750 and 7770 One GHz edition. That was not a refresh, it was a completely new GPU based on their GCN architecture.

Interesting was that with less shader processors AMD was able to make these products faster. They benefitted from the GCN architecture but also had a trump card at hand, as this was the first ever reference card that was clocked at 1 GHz - hence AMD gave all these cards a 'GHz Edition' extension. The 28nm node allows them to place a good 1.5 billion transistors onto the GPU's 123 mm2 die, and that made the card a good 25% faster.

Read more: Radeon HD 7790 Review @ Guru3D

AMD Radeon HD 7790 Video Card Review w/ Gigabyte & Sapphire @ Legit Reviews
AMD just introduced the Radeon HD 7790 desktop graphics card that is powered by the new Bonaire GPU. This card uses the latest GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD along with 896 Stream processor units to bring better performance to gamers at the $149 price point. Read on to see how cards from Gigabyte and Sapphire do when put to the test!

Read more: AMD Radeon HD 7790 Video Card Review w/ Gigabyte & Sapphire @ Legit Reviews

Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X Overclocked Edition Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven.com
Designed to replace the 7850 1GB in the AMD 7000 series, so between 7770 and 7850 2GB, this new product is AMDs attempt to offer a mainstream GPU with exceptional price to performance ratio.

Read more: Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X Overclocked Edition Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X 1 GB @ techPowerUp
Sapphire's new Radeon HD 7790 Dual-X improves on the reference design with a dual fan cooler and large overclock out of the box. The highlight of our review is certainly the large overclocking potential of the card.

Read more: Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X 1 GB @ techPowerUp

ASUS HD 7790 Direct CU II OC 1 GB @ techPowerUp
Today AMD released their new Radeon HD 7790 to provide a competitively priced option to gamers. The ASUS HD 7790 DC II comes overclocked out of the box for an even smoother experience. In our testing we see amazing noise levels, too.

Read more: ASUS HD 7790 Direct CU II OC 1 GB @ techPowerUp

AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review @ Hardware Canucks
In a year which promises to be a slow one for new graphics cards, the HD 7790 is a breath of fresh air, even though it doesn’t target the enthusiast demographic. At $149 this is very much a product which aims to close a perceived gap in AMD’s lineup in more affordable price points. More importantly, it is supposed to introduce optimal performance levels at 1080P, today’s most-used resolution.

With their HD 7850 2GB retailing for about $199 and the lowly HD 7770 GHz Edition going for $119, AMD desperately needed a bridge solution between these two popular, yet miles apart cards. That’s where the HD 7790 comes in. It is primarily being introduced as a way to finally challenge GTX 650 Ti’s command of the $150 to $175 price point. However, considering NVIDIA’s card has been around for the better part of 6 months now, it will take one hell of an effort in order to weed out such a heavily entrenched competitor.

Read more: AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review @ Hardware Canucks

AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review - Sea Islands and Bonaire Make an Appearance @ PC Perspective
When we talked with AMD recently about its leaked roadmap that insinuated that we would not see any new GPUs in 2013, they were adamant that other options would be made available to gamers but were coy about about saying when and to what degree. As it turns out, today marks the release of the Radeon HD 7790, a completely new piece of silicon under the Sea Islands designation, that uses the same GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture as the HD 7000-series / Southern Islands GPUs with a handful of tweaks and advantages from improved clock boosting with PowerTune to faster default memory clocks.

Read more: AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review - Sea Islands and Bonaire Make an Appearance @ PC Perspective

Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Cooling Fan Review @ DragonSteelMods
The cooling fan is an integral part of any computer system, and not all are created equal. I personally prefer a quiet yet cool system and finding that balance is hard to do, thankfully Noctua makes it a bit easier with their award winning fan designs. The latest fan I have for review from Noctua is the NF-A14 ULN where ULN stand for Ultra Low Noise. This fan, at stock, runs at only 800 RPM but yet still manages to move quite a bit of air around your case but remaining virtually silent. If 800 RPM isn’t quiet enough for you, then you can use the supplied Low Noise Adapter and slow the fan down even further to only 650 RPM and yet still move almost the same amount of air. So read on to learn more about the fan and see some test results…

Read more: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Cooling Fan Review @ DragonSteelMods

MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt Motherboard Review @ PC Perspective
With the Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt, MSI took an award winning design and tweaked it to bring an affordable Thunderbolt-based solution to the masses without sacrificing on quality or performance. We put this board through our grueling battery of tests to validate the board's performance promises. The MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt can be found at your favorite retailer for the reasonable price of $169.99.

Read more: MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt Motherboard Review @ PC Perspective

AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review: Graphics Core Next At $150 @ Tom's Hardware
After a long and lonely reign, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti is finally being challenged at the $150 price point. Does AMD's Bonaire-based Radeon HD 7790 offer enough performance to put up a fight, or is its familiar GCN architecture too little, too late?

Read more: AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review: Graphics Core Next At $150 @ Tom's Hardware

Sapphire HD 7790 1GB Graphics Card ? Filling the Gap in Mainstream Performance @ Bjorn3D
Sapphire is pretty much teh lead partner when it comes to AMD graphics cards. With that it was to no surprise that for this launch the first HD7790 I recieved was from Sapphire. This card is meant to fit into the gap between the 7700 series and the 7800 series much like the new model 7870 based off of the Tahiti LE GPU filled in the space between the 7800 and 7900 series.

Read more: Sapphire HD 7790 1GB Graphics Card ? Filling the Gap in Mainstream Performance @ Bjorn3D