Off-Topic Thread

Squeaky the Squirrel

Aero for W8

cherryghost

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

Aero for W8

Waste of hardware resources IMO. Sure it looked pretty but there's far better programs that do it at a fraction of the grunt.

Squeaky the Squirrel

Headshot

Lads do you think its an okay idea to leave an external hard drive on 24/7?

Iv it hooked up the the router at the moment and its not going to be used 24/7 but it will be on 24/7. Am i asking to much for it?

I reckon its a no go tbh

marco_polo

Headshot wrote: »

Lads do you think its an okay idea to leave an external hard drive on 24/7?

Iv it hooked up the the router at the moment and its not going to be used 24/7 but it will be on 24/7. Am i asking to much for it?

I reckon its a no go tbh

It will spin itself down normally after a a few minutes of inactivity (this is part of the firmware of a HDD), so in terms of strain on the drive there's no problem with leaving it on 24/7.

Headshot

marco_polo wrote: »

It will spin itself down normally after a a few minutes of inactivity (this is part of the firmware of a HDD), so there wouldn't be any problem with leaving it on 24/7.

Perfect thanks Marco

Mister Man

Headshot wrote: »

Lads do you think its an okay idea to leave an external hard drive on 24/7?

Iv it hooked up the the router at the moment and its not going to be used 24/7 but it will be on 24/7. Am i asking to much for it?

I reckon its a no go tbh

As already stated, it'll spin down after a while. I've had my external plugged in and on 24/7 for 5+ years without a single problem.

Monotype

The only thing is that the power adapter mightn't be as efficient as your PSU.

tuxy

Isn't that the point of the usb connection on a router, to have a basic file server 24/7?

Serephucus

Yes. It doesn't mean the drive will be inaccessible, it just means that after an hour of use (or whatever the time is) you'll have to wait 4-5 seconds when you click on it for the contents to appear. Same as if you set drives in Windows to spin down after X amount of time.

VenomIreland

Lads, I need a NAS/Media Server. I was thinking of getting a reduced HP Proliant before, but I think that offer expired a while back, so I'm here to ask what would be my best option?

Serephucus

Budget and requirements?

Squeaky the Squirrel

New Xbox spec



Let’s check what’s inside the box:

CPU:

- x64 Architecture

- 8 CPU cores running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz)

- each CPU thread has its own 32 KB L1 instruction cache and 32 KB L1 data cache

- each module of four CPU cores has a 2 MB L2 cache resulting in a total of 4 MB of L2 cache

- each core has one fully independent hardware thread with no shared execution resources

- each hardware thread can issue two instructions per clock

GPU:

- custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor

- 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads

- each thread can perform one scalar multiplication and addition operation (MADD) per clock cycle

- at peak performance, the GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second

High-fidelity Natural User Interface (NUI) sensor is always present

Storage and Memory:

- 8 gigabyte (GB) of RAM DDR3 (68 GB/s)

- 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102 GB/s)

- from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec.

- Hard drive is always present

- 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive

Networking:

- Gigabit Ethernet

- Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct

Hardware Accelerators:

- Move engines

- Image, video, and audio codecs

- Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware

- Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing

NTMK

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

GPU:

- custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor

- 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads

- each thread can perform one scalar multiplication and addition operation (MADD) per clock cycle

- at peak performance, the GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second

sounds like a neutered 7970m exactly the same as orbis ofc its probably all BS:pac:

tuxy

So xbox is not going with powerpc this time. Who makes this x86 cpu, AMD?

Or do IBM make some x86 CPUs?

marco_polo

tuxy wrote: »

So xbox is not going with powerpc this time. Who makes this x86 cpu, AMD?

Or do IBM make some x86 CPUs?

AMD appear to have won all three CPU contracts this time around if rumours are to believed, both the PS4 and Xbox CPUs supposedly based on their low power Jaguar architecture.

NTMK

tuxy wrote: »

So xbox is not going with powerpc this time. Who makes this x86 cpu, AMD?

Or do IBM make some x86 CPUs?

Powerpc are definitely out

AMD is the best bet they got exclusivity with all 3 consoles on graphics no one knows about the cpu situation apart from its going to be a quadcore minimum due to dev demands.

Monotype

I wonder why they went with SATA II. I guess they plan to stick with HDDs. If it's AMD that's making the chipsets and CPUs, I would have expected SATA 6Gbps as that's what they've been doing for a long time time. One reason could be if they wanted to clear out old stock, but at the quantities the xbox sells at, that would be unlikely.

... or perhaps the SATA II referring to the hard drive itself and not the chipset.

VenomIreland

Serephucus wrote: »

Budget and requirements?

Sorry for taking ages to respond, I did some research after posting and I realised that the offer is still on and so it'd be cheaper to get the HP (will consume less power too).

Squeaky the Squirrel

smileyj1987

marco_polo wrote: »

AMD appear to have won all three CPU contracts this time around if rumours are to believed, both the PS4 and Xbox CPUs supposedly based on their low power Jaguar architecture.

I hope they did because it should give them a good boost in cash which will be good for us pc gamers because it could mean AMD giving intel a run for their money .

NTMK

smileyj1987 wrote: »

I hope they did because it should give them a good boost in cash which will be good for us pc gamers because it could mean AMD giving intel a run for their money .

its been confirmed for gpus as the guy the brokered the deals was caught leaking documents to nvidia and trying to tap up top engineers from AMD

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

it would go perfectly with this:pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SLHU9CCe_Y

Squeaky the Squirrel

Playstation 4 spec (taken from a Jan '13 development kit)

System Memory: 8GB

Video Memory: 2.2 GB

CPU: 4x Dual-Core AMD64 "Bulldozer" (so, 8x cores)

GPU: AMD R10xx

Ports: 4x USB 3.0, 2x Ethernet

Drive: Blu-Ray

HDD: 160GB

Audio Output: HDMI & Optical, 2.0, 5.1 & 7.1 channels

If you think the HDD is small, remember, these are the specs for a machine that developers are using to make games on, not the console you'll own and be storing media on. And don't worry about having two ethernet ports; as this is a dev kit, one is there for local sharing/testing purposes.

Interestingly, while some of these specs (such as the 8x core CPU) match with those reported by Digital Foundry only a few days ago, others like the RAM (DF reported 4GB of GDDR5, while we've heard 8GB) differ.

We've learned there's a headphone jack on the front of the console, but it's unclear whether that's just for dev kits or is an intended feature of the final retail console.

Serephucus

A tid-bit of information that I've come across regarding the Prodigy for those interested:

A 200mm Phobya rad will not fit properly into the case. It can be mounted, but the I/O on the side panel hits the rad when you try to install it. You can either move the I/O panel, or the rad, but both require some dremel modding.

In other news, I'll be putting my 600T and Extreme4 on Adverts ASAP. Assuming someone will take the case, I'll be picking up a Prodigy and ITX board soon after. I've decided that I can live with a USB sound card if need be (Creative does a nice one), and if I can get my Forte to fit, all the better.

I'll be using my 120 and 240 rads from my current build, and selling on the 200, as there should be plenty of cooling potential there. It's actually kind of nice, because it means I can have a GT-only rig, and won't have to use the Spectre Pros.

Gbear

Will that sort of spec mean using more resources in the CPU to do the sort of work that a GPU would do in a proper gaming PC?

2.2GB seems small.

As does 8GB of RAM.

These things are going to stay the same for 5-7 years. Imagine trying to run Crysis 3 on a 7 year old PC.

Given that they're going to cost a ****load regardless I'm surprised that they don't tend to go for top of the range, 7970/GTX680 sort of territory with the graphics and 16GB of RAM.
I would've thought the business model would revolve around the games rather than making much off the consoles themselves.

NTMK

Gbear wrote: »

Will that sort of spec mean using more resources in the CPU to do the sort of work that a GPU would do in a proper gaming PC?

2.2GB seems small.

As does 8GB of RAM.

These things are going to stay the same for 5-7 years. Imagine trying to run Crysis 3 on a 7 year old PC.

Given that they're going to cost a ****load regardless I'm surprised that they don't tend to go for top of the range, 7970/GTX680 sort of territory with the graphics and 16GB of RAM.
I would've thought the business model would revolve around the games rather than making much off the consoles themselves.

2gb is more than enough for 1080p esp given the optimization advantage consoles have

8gb's is what the developers wanted for the next gen bear in mind they only have 512mb-1gb atm

sony dont want a console that costs them 700 than what the console retails at like the ps3.

the biggest problem with putting a huge GPU in isnt cost its the thermal envelope. thats why the 7970M/8970M is the gpu chip of choice for the consoles

beno619

The one thing I cant understand about the next gen console rumors is the 7970m ? I dont see how sony are going to be able to put this thing in a console and sell it at €400.

BloodBath

Specs sound about right. 8gb ram and 2gb vram is plenty for 1080p gaming.

It will be the same as last gen at release. €500-600 at release with sony losing €200+ per console.

Microsoft and sony were losing €200-250 per console at release last gen. They are basically selling 1 grand pc specs for half the money.

Gbear

Are current gen consoles able to run at 1080p?

7 years is a long time in tech and 1080p will be looking pretty ****ty by comparison by the time 2020 rolls around.

marco_polo

Gbear wrote: »

Are current gen consoles able to run at 1080p?

7 years is a long time in tech and 1080p will be looking pretty ****ty by comparison by the time 2020 rolls around.

No they often render games at even less than 720p and upscale.

I woundn't really expect this generation to last as long, because the last XBox 360 essentially launched with hardware from the very top of the range, whereas this is a little more middle of the road.

Judging by the quite low power consuming components selected, I'd say the new consoles could fit into a very tidy case indeed.