Tom’s Hardware recommends GIGABYTE Z68XP-UD3 in Z68 head-to-head

Writing for original PC Hardware review pioneers, Tom’s Hardware, the aptly named Thomas Soderstrom has put all his powers of adjudication to the test with a comprehensive comparison of some of the more affordable Intel Z68 motherboards on the market. Testing products from MSI, ASRock, Biostar, Intel and Gigabyte, we’re honored to report that Thomas eventually gave the final nod of approval to our Z68XP-UD3 board. Here’s a sample of what Thomas had to say about it:

“The Z68XP-UD3 firmly targets performance fanatics with a layout that eschews the use of integrated graphics as a primary output, instead favoring SLI and CrossFire.”

“Up against the limits of our intended budget, the Z68XP-UD3 is one of only two motherboards in today’s roundup to include a front-panel USB 3.0 header. The entirety of features would have made this a $160 board even if it had used the P67 chipset, so we’re not entirely clear how Gigabyte managed to retain this price with a Z68 product that includes Lucidlogix's Virtu license.”

“…After careful deliberation, Gigabyte’s Z68XP-UD3 gets our Recommended Buy award”.

Take in the entire Z68 head-to-head article on Tom’s Hardware here.

You can read the Chinese (中文版) version of this blog here.

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Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 Motherboard has Hardware Heaven on cloud 9

Our high-end AMD 900 series motherboard offering has certainly impressed Stuart Davidson at HardwareHeaven.com. The 990FXA-UD7 was given a thorough and detailed examination last week, winning an impressive 49 out of 50 points plus the Hardware Heaven Gold award. Here’s a taste of what Stu had to say:

Performance wise the 990FXA-UD7 is again very impressive. It outperforms the fastest board we have seen so far from ASUS and features all of the latest technology such as USB 3.0 and SATA 6GB/s to utilise the potential of our components. Users may also find support for 3TB drives, enhanced USB charging and Bluetooth auto shutdown to be valuable features.

Of course these high specifications and features do come at a cost which makes this board more expensive than most 990FX alternatives. That said, at £189/$249 the 990FXA-UD7 is still considerably cheaper than alternative boards for the Intel X58 platform.

Summary
An excellent motherboard which has great performance and some excellent features. Added to that it is the fastest AMD 990FX board we have tested so far.

The 990FXA-UD7 is in fact the most highly specced AMD motherboard that GIGABYTE has ever done, in fact the first in our UD7 class. Let’s not forget too that excitement levels should notch up a level in a month or so’s time when AMD highly anticipated AMD FX Bulldozer CPUs come to market. We can barely contain our excitement.

Full HardwareHeaven review here.

Read this blog in Chinese here.

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Tom’s Hardware Takes a First Look at AMD Llano for the Desktop

Tom's Hardware recently took a look at the nuts and bolts of AMD’s new Llano platform and came upon some interesting analysis. First off, they gave a shout out to GIGABYTE, noting that our GA-A75M-UD2H features Dual-link DVI and is the only board they had that provided DisplayPort connectivity as well.

Also, GIGABYTE’s board was singled out for its overclock ability:

I spent a couple of late nights chatting back and forth with the fine folks at ASRock and Gigabyte, who helped in near real-time with BIOS builds. Eventually, I was able to get Gigabyte’s A75M-UD2H dialed in at nearly 3.4 GHz (it’d run in excess of that, but crashed under load) using a 23.5x multiplier and 145 MHz reference clock reflected as 143.5 MHz. The APU only needed a .05 V bump to achieve those numbers, too…

Other boards simply wouldn’t overclock well at all, failing long before we were forced to fight a bus speed idiosyncrasy.

They also noted that memory really matters with this platform:

Despite marginal gains in application performance, the bottom line here is simple: if you want to get the best horsepower out of a Llano-based APU, that graphics engine needs to breathe. Memory able to support a high data rate at low latencies is absolutely imperative for the best possible frame rates in games.

Don’t sweat DDR3-1866 if it means CAS 8 or 9 timings. Aggressively-tuned DDR3-1600 looks to be the sweet spot.

Stay tuned to our blog for the next couple of weeks, as we will be doing some testing to show how memory and even overclocking on this entry platform can lead to some great performance and more than just playable DX11 gaming.

To read the full Llano overview on Tom’s, please visit HERE.

Chinese Version of this blog here

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Passing Computer Hardware Servicing NC II Examination

Do I need to pass TESDA's Computer Hardware Servicing NC II Certification Exam?

Passing TESDA’s Computer Hardware Servicing NC II Assessment Examination is really not necessary. But if you are aspiring to work abroad, consider your computer hardware servicing certification as your main portfolio. Countries abroad are strict regarding the quality of workers they hire and the only way for them to be able to screen the employees effectively is to ask for a certification. Most foreign employers really prefer potential employees to be at least NC II passers.

And if you are planning to have your own computer servicing shop and be your own boss, you are still required to have TESDA’s Computer Hardware Servicing NC II certification before you can be issued with a business permit. So take TESDA’s Computer Hardware Servicing NC II Assessment examination as soon as possible and start building your future with fixing computers.

Is it true that TESDA’s examination is obsolete and mechanical?

Many passers years and months ago said the examination were just similar. This has risen some issues regarding the quality of the recent passers of the computer hardware servicing assessment examinations. But in my experience, I should say they are right but not accurately correct. It maybe because they have the same test package as what we had. But it doesn’t mean that the examinations are really identical, it also differs a lot because each batch of examiness and from the different assessment centers have different Assessors. But anyway, TESDA has announced to update their test package on the first quarter of 2011.

Here are the different areas of the test package that were given to us April 2009 by which is yet the same until December 2010.

Occupational Health and Safety Precautions
- Observe this throughout the examination

System Unit Assembly and Disassembly

NT Commands (not true DOS)
- For Win 98 Installation

WIN XP Installation
- Installation of XP in other partition aside from C:

Dual OS Installation (had Win 98 and XP SP 2)

Partition Sizes and Software Installation

Theoretical Questions both written and oral
- You will be asked about identification and functions of the system unit peripherals and components, troubleshooting techniques and approaches.

Mock Troubleshooting
- You will be given an intentionally defective system then you try to diagnose it

Networking
- You creating a LAN then share a printer.

Documentation
- As the name imply, you will be writing down all the things you did during the assessment.

Report
- Make a summary of the entire assessment.

What does it take to be a Certified Computer Hardware Servicing Technician?

During the examination, safety must be observed. There were also written examinations on computer theory and safety. It is also best if you will be bringing your own safety gears and equipment, tools, installers, and a notebook for documentation. Some troubleshooting in the past may also provide you better chances in passing the assessment.

My expression or thoughts here is not that of TESDA’s and the tips given above is to provide help for students, businessmen, or already established computer hardware servicing technicians wanting to have a TESDA Centification in Computer Hardware Servicing NC II.

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Buy Quality Computer Hardware Online

Computer hardware means the physical part of a computer. No software or program can do anything without proper hardware. Moreover the success or performance of a software program depends completely on the computer hardware being used. So it becomes absolutely important that we buy quality computer hardware.

Now that you have decided to buy computer parts, the next big step is where to buy them from. One tends to always buy from a friendly neighborhood computer hardware dealer. But, with the advent of Internet, one has the convenience of going through literally hundreds of product catalogs and arriving at a purchasing decision.

The Internet is a popular place to check out computer hardware sales, but you must be sure that when you buy hardware (or any purchase) over the Internet, the site offers some kind of security to prevent information about you from being stolen.

Buying a computer part online is often cheaper than buying it from a dealer, as the overhead costs are reduced. This means that you pay less and get more. This is one advantage that has led people in increasing numbers to shop for parts online, especially from a wholesaler. Since the entire sales channel is literally cut in half, you do not pay for the extra margin, which you would have had you purchased the same from a retailer. There is also the convenience factor of shopping online.

In fact, cheap and discount computer hardware is very easy to find online. Whether it is notebook parts, input devices, printer, printer supplies you can find them extensively advertised and sold online.

One should always take care to ensure that the parts that one is buying are genuine. What this means is that one should always buy these computer hardware from a reputed online dealer.

Author: Mike Nicholson
Computer hardware UK offers quality computer hardware online:

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Types of Computer Hardware

Computer hardware is a physical part of a computer that executes within the hardware. It is unlike computer software or data that can be frequently changed, modified or erased on a computer. Computer hardware is not frequently changed and so is stored in hardware devices such as read only memory (ROM) where it is not readily changed.

Most computer hardware is embedded and so is not visible to normal users. Below are the different types of hardware's found in a computer:

• Motherboard: It is the central or primary circuit board making up a complex electronic system such as a computer. A motherboard is also known as a main board, logic board or system board.
• Central processing Unit: A CPU is the main component of a digital computer that interprets instructions and process data in computer programs.
• Random Access Memory: A RAM allows the stored data to be accessed in any order. RAM is considered as the main memory of the computer where the working area is used for displaying and manipulating data.
• Basic Input Output System: BIOS prepares the software programs to load, execute and control the computer.
• Power Supply: Power Supply supplies electrical energy to an output load or group of loads.
• Video Display Controller: It converts the logical representation of visual information into a signal that can be used as input for a display medium.
• Computer Bus: It is used to transfer data or power between computer components inside a computer or between computers.
• CD-ROM drive: It contains data accessible by a computer
• Floppy disk: It is a data storage device
• Zip Drive: It is a medium capacity removable disk storage system.
• Hard Disk: It is a non-volatile data storage system that stores data on a magnetic surface layered unto hard disk platters.

Author: Isabella Rodrigues

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Toshiba-Made MacBook Air SSD Hardware Now Available to All

If you were wanting to get your hands on some of the Toshiba-made SSD hardware that found its way into the latest MacBook Airs, you’re in luck. Toshiba has announced that their Blade X-gale SSDs are now available for the masses. Offering up speeds of 220MB/s read and 180MB/s write, the X-gale hardware will certainly add some pep to your computer’s step. Though not the fastest SSD on the market, they are certainly faster than your standard platter-based drives.

The X-gale SSD drives will come in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities. Pricing is not yet available.

Source: http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/11/08/toshiba-made-macbook-air-ssd-hardware-now-available-to-all/

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