SSDs prices gradually dropping to below the $1/GB mark

It seems that just in the last month or so we’re started to see SSD vendors drop their prices a little. Manufacturers like OCZ, Kingston, ADATA, Crucial and others that compete in the mainstream consumer space, have started to drop prices on many of their products to the point where the milestone $1/GB point is starting to become reality.

Here is a chart that caught my attention on Anandtech which shows the prices on NewEgg for a range of SSD products from various vendors at the three most common capacity points; 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB:

This chart doesn’t cover all SSD vendors, but it does illustrate the gradual drop in prices that we’re seeing at the moment. There are plenty of places on the chart that flirt quite closely with the $1/GB price point, and even some that are just under. Several other SSD manufacturers like Kingston, Corsair, Samsung, MemoRight, Plextor and Transcend also have drives float around these price points.

Check out this chart that shows the price per GB of several featured 128GB capacity drives - for me the ideal capacity for an Win 7 install:

This is great news for DIY PC builders. Sure the absolute fastest SSDs on the market will cost you more, but the important point for me is that there are many millions of systems out in the wild that are still running off traditional 7,200rpm drives. These PCs could all enjoy a fairly inexpensive, yet exponential performance leap by upgrading an SSD. Intel Smart Response is will remain an attractive option for folks on SSD capacities below 64GB, but with these new prices, the attraction to opt for a full OS install on SSD has never been stronger.

The charts in this blog can be found on an interesting SSD review article here on Anandtech.com

GIGABYTE Extreme OC Workshop (New Zealand) in pics!

PC World NZ came over to Playech.co.nz this weekend to check out GIGABYTE’s latest instalment of the popular Extreme OC Workshop being help in the Auckland PC store’s gaming room. Playtech hosted a wonderful night of overclocking for the 100+ crowd that gathered at the start.

TeamAU’s deanzo, dinos22 and youngpro were there to teach the crowd about LN2 overclocking and then capped off the night with a friendly overclocking competition between the two teams with a fixed frequency of 6GHz in 32M SuperPi cacluations. Efficiency and memory tuning came into play and we could not separate the contestants from their PCs after the sirens went off as it proved to be a very addictive way to be introduced into overclocking!

I’m still feeling a little angry at my team mate youngpro (coach for the Australian team we named “Wallabies” after our Rugby Union side) because he allowed the “All Blacks” team to win, strangely coincidental to be named after NZ world champion rugby team. Luckily we had our own [traitor hehe] team mate, deanzo, coach this team. Rivalry between Australians and New Zealanders was in full swing particularly when the announcement was made that All Blacks triumphed, followed by the loudest geek cheers you will ever hear, in the overclocking challenge as well!

Congratulations All Blacks, you have beaten us in overclocking now as well!

I’ll put a couple of shots but for the full (fun) article you’re one more mouse click away (at this website).

P.S. Playtech have also put up lots of photos from the night at their facebook page here.

Evening started innocently freezing flowers etc

All Blacks (New Zealand) team captain leading the way with precise temperature control. Teams decided to not push temps to max to prevent condensation from forming early into the challenge.

Wallabies (Australian) team captain showing everyone how it’s done. It was great having some girls genuinely interested in overclocking and participate through the day, very dedicated! It’s cool being a geek girl :)!

Then someone lost a finger (strangely the captain of the AllBlacks team found it humorous)! Dissing it’s own team mate, what is going on with these people heheheh?!?

Wait what?!? OK maybe he didn't lose a finger as we saw him benching with all ten fingers later on in the evening. Hmmmm, New Zealanders have a strange sense of humour heheheh! (wait i can’t see neither one of the 10 fingers EEK!)

Note from Cpt. Obvious: No fingers were hurts during the making of this show! hehe.

Bust-a-rhyme competition going off at OCAU!

Here are a couple of recent youtube videos bustin’ rhymes to win a GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H.

You fancy yourself as a bit of a bust-a-rhyme star, join in the fun at OCAU! Language warning!

Trans am from XtremeSystems rappin’ with the sounds of AC/DC, awesome!

UncleFester from OCAU bustin’ a rhyme.

Aristidis from Greece breaks a single card world record at HWBOX 1st OMG Event 2012

Greek overclockers and modders had their first big event this year called “HWBOX 1st OMG Event 2012”. One of the standout OC results was Aristidis breaking the single GPU world record in 3DMARK03. He used the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H!

Congrats guys!

GIGABYTE extreme workshop now, watch it live!

We just kicked off our GIGABYTE Extreme Overclocking Workshop in Auckland, New Zealand. We’re about to have a live stream at justin.tv so make sure you tune in and watch the action at this link. Live stream will rotate 4 different video feeds throughout the day, hope you like it!

 

Coin operated PCs at Internet café’s in the Philippines

A very enjoyable part of my job is to travel from city to city after a new product announcement evangelizing our new tech. So I’m in the Philippines now and we just saw some cases for sale that have a coin slot where the DVD ROM should be. They are for Internet cafes where 1 Philippine Peso (2-3 US cents or less than 1NT$) will get you 3-5 minutes of time on the PC.

 

The coin slot device has a little daughter board with a timer on it that cuts power to the keyboard, monitor and mouse when time runs out. So the PC keeps running, you just can’t see or change anything without putting in more money. My first thought was that it must be a waste of time because who could possibly make money at those ridiculously low rates, but then it started to make sense to me because if it was more expensive only vacationers would use the service. With a population of around 95 million people, 1 Peso for 3 minutes means that a vast majority of the population can afford to access the Internet. It’s brilliant!

These coin operated PCs can be found in Internet cafes as well as convenience stores where the shop owner benefits from profit sharing. So if you’re ever in the Philippines and see one of these strange looking systems, toss in a coin because you’d be driving small business that allows under privileged young people to access and experience the wonders of the Internet.

GIGABYTE ‘Hidden Gems’ competition kicks off: Show us your classic GIGABYTE rig and win prizes

 

In honor of our illustrious history as one of the world’s foremost motherboard manufacturers, today we’re kicking off the GIGABYTE Hidden Gems competition. The idea is simple; post a video or photo of your old GIGABYTE motherboard (preferably still running) and you could win yourself a new GIGABYTE 7 series motherboard.

And if you don’t have any photos or youtube videos to share, don’t worry, you can still take part by perusing the entrees and voting for the one that tingles your nostalgia glands the most. Feel free to stoke debate by adding your comments too.

To take part, simply head on over to the Hidden Gems competition page.

Bust-a-rhyme competition under way at OCAU, check out what hilarious Aussies are rhyming about!!!

OCAU (Overclockers Australia) is putting on a show with a serious(ly funny) bust-a-rhymes competition as TeamAU prepares to tour New Zealand and then Melbourne with their highly popular GIGABYTE Extreme OC Workshop.

The real fun started already with forum members bustin’ some serious rhymes to win a motherboard. This is going to be a corker so make sure you visit the thread every day for new posts! I hear some videos will also appear later tonight.

TeamAU is a group of killer overclockers from Austral-Asian region travelling the Australia and New Zealand and sharing their wealth of experience in LN2 benching. This time round they are making two stops with GIGABYTE. First stop is Auckland, New Zealand. Playtech is the host of this show. Monash University in Melbourne’s host. For more details follow this LINK.

Hardware of choice is GIGABYTE’s record breaking Z77 range and Intel 3770K Ivy Bridge CPUs.

This year we are looking at livestreams as well and some interesting competitions to spice things up a bit during the workshop. I will update the blog when the first event kicks off!. In the meantime keep an eye on one of the funniest threads you will read http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=1036929.

Don’t miss it!

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 5 wins Tom’s Hardware ‘Best of Computex 2012’ Award

Here at GIGABYTE, our motherboards are frequently singled out for awards, be it for best value, performance, features or pure overclocking prowess. However, it is with particular satisfaction and prestige that we accept this ‘Best of Computex 2012’ award from Tom’s Hardware for our recently announced Ultra Durable 5 technology.

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 5 and our forthcoming ‘UP’ series of motherboards will be pretty revolutionary in terms of motherboard design, pulling together new 60A rated Powerstage ICs from IR, pairing them with high current capable chokes and a 2x copper PCB. This all means that the motherboard can deliver blistering performance without creating as much unwanted heat, greatly aiding stability, longevity and overall performance capability. It’s also a technology that lends itself perfectly to overclocked water cooled systems that don’t always have great airflow in the PWM area. 

We’re really pleased too that arguably the most respected PC hardware site out there has recognized our efforts to innovate. Here a what Tom’s had to say:

“Gigabyte is promising that the PowIRstage IR3550, found on all motherboards with Ultra Durable 5 technology (UD5), increases efficiency and improves stability. Naturally, this is particularly important in overclocked systems, where UD5 could benefit systems employing liquid cooling, since they have a tendency to not receive as much airflow through voltage regulation circuitry.

Ultra Durable 5 is a marketing umbrella that covers several different components, such as the IR3550 PowIRstage, additional copper in the PCB, and 60 A high-capacity ferrite core chokes. We plan to test Gigabyte's claims in an upcoming article.”

You can find the ‘Best of Computex’ award page here on Tom’s Hardware.

CNET renames Z77X-UD3H to “Sergio” and calls it a perfect all-rounder motherboard!

Craig Simms from CNET Australia recently had a play with one of GIGABYTE’s more popular motherboards, Z77X-UD3H.

I met Craig many years as I made my debut on ABC (Australian national TV) in 2007 featuring overclocking in which Craig was one of the original Atomic magazine writers appearing as a guest commentator in the final episode. Check it out here (cut all the OC segments featured over a few shows)! He knows his stuff and didn’t take him long to get his teeth stuck into some new Z77 gear from GIGABYTE.

Craig had a lot to say about the board but what caught my interest was his take on the naming scheme and subsequent renaming of the board. He calls it “Sergio”. LOL

The UD3H is the perfect all-rounder. It ticks the boxes for gamers, the mainstream, overclockers and with its mSATA slot, maybe even the low-profile crowd or those who need caching drives.

Jump over to CNET Australia and read the full review. Craig is a great writer and looks at motherboards in a slightly different light.