Backblaze reports their HD failure rates

Backblaze, a cloud backup provider with 67,642 drives in operation (as of Q3 2016) has reported their HD failure rates. The data they present could be useful for consumers looking to purchase a new hard disk drive.

TeamAU breaks world frequency record for Intel Core i7 6950X live at PAX Australia 2016

TeamAU was able to break a world frequency record while on stage at PAX Australia 2016! They were using a GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion, built especially for extreme overclocking and setting world records. With the Intel Core i7 6950X they were able to achieve a staggering 5.74Ghz validation.

TEAM AU Breaks 3DMARK2001 SE World Record Using GIGABYTE Z170X-SOC Force LN2

Team AU today broke the world 3DMARK 2001 SE just ahead of PAX AU with a GIGABYTE Z179X-SOC Force LN2 and an Intel Core i7 6700K OCed to a staggering 6.7GHz! For details click here.

GIGABYTE Enables Support for Intel® Next-Gen CPUs

GIGABYTE Enables Support for Intel^® Next-Gen CPUs

GIGABYTE’s 100 Series Motherboards Compatible with a BIOS Update

Taipei, Taiwan, October 28^th, 2016 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is proud to announce support for Intel’s next-generation LGA 1151 socket processors. Compatibility for the entire line-up of Z170, H170, B150 and H110 series motherboards are available with a simple BIOS update.

Another alternative for users, if using a flagship motherboard such as the Z170X-Gaming G1 would be to flash their BIOS with Q-Flash Plus, allowing users to do so without the need to have the CPU or memory installed. These BIOS updates can be downloaded from the GIGABYTE website for users to flash on to their 100 series motherboards.

With multiple ways to update a GIGABYTE Motherboard users can rest at ease knowing that this update can be completed with little to no effort. One popular method for users to flash the BIOS would be to leverage the world renowned Q-Flash, this feature directly in the BIOS allows users to flash the firmware from a USB drive after they’ve downloaded the most updated BIOS into the flash drive.

GIGABYTE engineers have tested and validated all GIGABYTE 100 series motherboards to ensure users will have optimal performance and compatibility for the latest Intel^® Core™ Processors.

For BIOS update information please visit the GIGABYTE Website or see the table below.

GA-Z170X-Gaming 7	GA-Z170XP-SLI	GA-Z170X-Ultra Gaming	GA-Z170X-Gaming 3
GA-Z170X-Gaming 5	GA-Z170-HD3P	GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5	GA-Z170N-WiFi
GA-Z170M-D3H	GA-H170-D3H	GA-Z170X-Gaming 6	GA-Z170X-UD3 Ultra
GA-Z170X-UD3	GA-Z170-D3H	GA-Z170-HD3	GA-Z170N-Gaming 5
GA-Z170-Gaming K3	GA-Z170X-UD5	GA-H170-Gaming 3	GA-H170-D3H
GA-H170N-WiFi	GA-B150-HD3	GA-B150M-D3V	GA-B150M-HD3
GA-B150M-D3H	GA-B150-HD3P	GA-B150N Phoenix-WiFi	GA-B150M-DS3P
GA-H110M-A	GA-H110M-S2V	GA-H110M-S2PT	GA-H110M-DS2
GA-H110M-S2	GA-H110M-D3H	GA-H110M-S2H	GA-H110M-S2PV
GA-H110M-H	GA-H110M-S2PH	GA-H110M-WW	GA-H110M-HD2
GA-H110M-S2HP	GA-H110N	GA-H110M-Gaming 3	GA-H110TN-M
GA-H110M-DS2V	GA-H110-D3	GA-P110-D3

To learn more about GIGABYTE:
http://www.gigabyte.com/

Barrier to entry for PC VR lowering thanks to new rendering tech

The near high-end requirements for PC VR solutions might be coming to an end with new rendering technologies.

Oculus uses “Asynchronous Timewarp” (ATW) and the recently announced “Asynchronous Spacewarp” (ASW)  in order to improve VR rendering performance. So confident in its rendering techniques that Oculus released the following minimum PC spec guidelines:

Video Card: NVIDIA: GTX 1050 Ti / GTX 960 or greater | AMD: RX 470 / R9 390 / R9 290 or greater
CPU: Intel i3-6100 / AMD FX 4350 or greater
Memory: 8GB RAM
Video Output: free HDMI 1.3 output
USB Ports: 1x USB 3.0 port plus 2x USB 2.0 ports
OS: Windows 10 64 bit
Premade PCs that meet the above guidelines can be bought for a mere $500 USD.


Valve has released a similar solution for the Vive. With continual improvements to VR hardware and VR rendering techniques, such as foveated rendering which is currently under development, it's likely we'll see mainstream adoption of VR sooner rather than later.

PSVR to Introduce VR Experience to Millions

With PSVR recently launched, one ponders whether its popularity will be a boom to VR on the PC, or will limit its development much like how many PC games today are optimized for consoles with limitations such as 30 fps caps, low-resolution textures, clunky GUIs, lack of dedicated servers, etc.

PSVR will likely be a step in the right direction. Sure, it lacks room-scale tracking but with the support of AAA developers and the allure of the (potentially) large PSVR market it's almost assured that the image of VR will catapult from 3D TV-levels of gimmicky to a must-have experience. In the near future as developers sharpen their VR game making skills we will be bombarded with amazing gameplay from PSVR, Oculus Rift with Touch, and HTC Vive and the allure will be all too strong to resist.

What SMART Stats Tell Us About Hard Drives

Backblaze has crunched the numbers to see what percentage of hard drives report SMART errors before they fail. The conclusion was:

Operational drives with one or more of our five SMART stats greater than zero – 4.2%

Failed drives with one or more of our five SMART stats greater than zero – 76.7%

So the moral of the story is that if your hard drive is reporting any SMART errors at all, it would be wise to replace it.

Samsung plans to slash SSD prices to (current) HDD levels by 2020

Samsung plans to slash SSD prices to (current) HDD levels by 2020. At the moment, 1 TB HDD drives are about 4 cents per GB, If Samsung is correct, by 2020 consumers will be able to purchase a 512GB SSD for about $40 USD. At that price point it's likely that SSD adoption will greatly speed up, even on low end builds.

To take advantage of the coming inexpensive SSD revolution make sure that your motherboard has PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 connectors. Flash drives that take advantage of the PCIe interface along with NVMe data protocols offer significant performance advantages over traditional SATA SSDs.

Many GIGABYTE motherboards offer support for the M.2 interface and NVMe. To be exact 141 GIGABYTE motherboards have one or more M.2 slots and all motherboards released after including the Z97 series (released in 2014) support NVMe.

What is game optimization really? Durante talks to game developers to explain the details.

In this PC Gamer article, Durante and Croteam's Dean Sekulic shine some light on what optimization really is, and why some games that you may have thought were poorly optimized were simply attempting to push the envelope in terms of graphics fidelity.

Durante concludes:

In a similar vein, consider the idea that additional high-end graphics settings, even if they are not fully usable at the time of a release, are never a bad thing compared to not having those settings available in the first place. Their presence doesn't make a game unoptimized. I’ve always believed that coming back to a high-end game many years later and seeing it in even more splendor is one of the many major perks of the PC platform, and it would be sad to see this diminished due to shortsighted judgments about optimization.

Rivet Networks releases new Killer E2500

Select GIGABYTE motherboards will soon have the Killer E2500. The unedited press release is below:

Austin, TX - (September 15, 2016) - Rivet Networks, makers of the award winning line of high-performance Killer™ networking products for desktop and notebook PCs, is excited to announce the availability of their new Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller, which can be found on gaming motherboards from industry leaders MSI and GIGABYTE.

The Killer E2500 delivers powerful networking technology to gamers and performance users, including significant new enhancements to its Advanced Stream Detect 2.0 Technology and the all new Killer Control Center. In addition to detecting and optimally prioritizing your games, video, and voice applications with Advanced Stream Detect 2.0 Technology, the Killer E2500 also detects and manages 500+ of the top global websites. Combined with the all-new Killer Control Center, the E2500 gives users full control of all aspects of their system’s networking performance. Killer Control Center has been built from the ground up to smartly display networking information and allow users to control:

• The priority of each application and popular website
• The bandwidth used by each application and popular website
• The Killer interface that each application is going over 
• The total bandwidth being used by system. 

The Killer Control Center is automatically set up to give the user an incredible out of box experience, but users can easily adjust each setting to create the perfect customized experience.

The E2500 delivers the fastest real-time experience for gamers and performance users. The Killer E2500’s Lag and Latency Reduction Technology accelerates your most important network traffic, such as your game data, and makes sure that your most critical packets never wait behind less important traffic. The E2500 improves latency, reduces jitter, and virtually eliminates video freezes by prioritizing your critical network traffic so that you will enjoy your gaming, web surfing, and streaming video experiences more than ever before.

In combination with a Killer Wireless-AC adapter, the E2500 provides unprecedented network speed and intelligence via Killer DoubleShot™ Pro, which allows both Killer network controllers to work together simultaneously. This ensures the highest priority traffic will always be put on the fastest and most reliable link while standard traffic is sent over the other.

“GIGABYTE is excited to partner with Rivet Networks on the implementation of the Killer E2500. With this new high-performance Ethernet controller, gamers will have even more control of their network bandwidth when using a GIGABYTE Motherboard,” said Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. “This feature gives gamers who use GIGABYTE Motherboards considerable advantages in online gaming that other gamers do not have.”

“Thanks to our long partnership and great dedication to delivering the best online gaming experience, we are proud to join forces with Rivet Networks to be the first to implement their latest game networking solution on MSI GAMING products. The Z170A GAMING M6 motherboard and Aegis Ti truly benefit from the new Killer E2500 game networking controller and are able to give gamers the competitive edge they are looking for. Combining MSI’s technical ingenuity to deliver the best gaming features with Killer’s unique solution, allows us to present gamers around the world the best experience when it comes to speed, sound and stability,” said Ted Hung – MSI Motherboard, Desktops Sales & Marketing Director.

“The Killer E2500 is packed with new cutting edge technology to give users the fastest and most enjoyable online experience,” said Michael Cubbage, CEO at Rivet Networks. “MSI and GIGABYTE demand the very best in network performance and the E2500 delivers.”  

The E2500 chipset will be first found on select Motherboards MSI and GIGABYTE. The E2500 will be widely available by the end of 2016. For more information about the E2500, please visitwww.killernetworking.com .

If you would like to arrange an interview, or an online demo, or have questions for the Rivet Networks leadership team, email us at pr@rivetnetworks.com .

About Rivet Networks

Rivet Networks is a technology and products company that has focused on creating the best possible networking experience. Rivet offers a mix of hardware, software, and cloud-based technologies to deliver solutions that are both powerful and intuitive. Through their Killer™ line of networking products, Rivet Networks offers unprecedented speed, intelligence, and control for gamers and performance users alike. For more information about their Killer brand of technologies, please visithttp://www.killernetworking.com .