Thread: Anandtech News

Apple released an EFI update for the 2011 MacBook Pros yesterday that reportedly resolves performance and compatibility issues with SATA 3.0 SSDs, some of which Anand noted in our original review. Other World Computing singles out its own Mercury EXTREME Pri 6G drive in its testing, and records much-improved consistency and performance compared to the previous EFI version.

{gallery 1385} Courtesy Other World Computing

The update can be downloaded via Software Update or Apple's support page. It requires OS X Lion to be installed, and in addition to the SATA fixes it improves compatibility with Apple's Thunderbolt Display, improves Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode performance, and enables Lion Internet Recovery, an install disc-less OS restore feature introduced in Lion which was previously available only on the Sandy Bridge Mac Minis and MacBook Airs.
Source: OWC



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Every new version of Windows has done something to help alleviate the platform's chronic malware problem, and Windows 8 will be no different: Microsoft's Jason Garms takes to the Building Windows 8 blog today to explain some of the mechanisms Windows 8 will employ to keep your PC malware-free.
The full list of fixes and enhancements is typically long and detailed, but I'll provide some of the highlights: for one, the Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) feature, which moves code and data around in memory to prevent attacks using the location of that data or code, has been improved, and elements of it have been extended to protect the Windows heap and to Internet Explorer.
Windows Defender has also been improved, and appears to be picking up many of the enhancements previously offered by the Microsoft Security Essentials add-on, including the ability to remove all types of malware (past Defender versions could remove only a subset). In addition to this, Windows Defender can now verify that firmware and firmware updates are malware-free on UEFI-based machines.
The last major improvement mentioned by Garms involves Internet Explorer's SmartScreen filter, which identifies URLs known and suspected to be malicious - the SmartScreen filter can now work OS-wide, and will warn you before running any potentially unreputable executables.
Windows 8 looks to be a firm step forward for malware protection in Windows, but no malware prevention system offers complete protection - yoru best bet is still to practice safe browsing, keep your software up-to-date, and whenever possible, run as a standard user instead of an administrator.
Source: Building Windows 8 Blog


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In a private media event this week Corsair unveiled its latest contribution to the PC industry: gaming keyboards, mice and headsets. All of these new peripherals fall under the Vengeance brand. The motivation behind this move is simple: starting with memory and eventually expanding into power supplies, SSDs and cases, Corsair wants to be your one-stop shop for nearly everything you need for your PC. The CPU, motherboard and video card markets are either impossible to get into or undesirable for a manufacturer that doesn't already play in those spaces, leaving peripherals as one of the only options for expansion.
Traditionally companies avoided getting into the peripheral space because you have to compete with very wealthy and experienced competitors: Logitech and Microsoft. With Logitech trying to expand into other areas beyond peripherals it appears that Corsair is hoping that its competitor will lose a bit of its focus. Whether or not this works out for Corsair remains to be seen, but let's look at the products.
Vengeance Headsets

Corsair has dabbled in headsets already but with the Vengeance brand it expands the line considerably. Starting this October the company will offer three different Vengeance headsets priced from $39 up to $99.

The Vengeance 1500 is the top end SKU with two 50mm drivers, simulated 7.1 surround sound and USB support (integrated audio codec). The 1300 is the same as the 1500 but substitutes in a 1/8" stereo plug instead of USB.

The 1100 is a lighter design that uses 40mm drivers but with USB support.
{gallery 1386}

Corsair Vengeance Headsets
	Vengeance 1500	Vengeance 1300	Vengeance 1100
Price	$99	$79	$39

Vengeance Keyboards & Mice

The entire Vengeance peripheral lineup is targeted at gamers. Start focused and expand beyond there seems to be the strategy. Corsair's initial keyboard & mice offerings are targeted at two genres of games: MMO/RTS and FPS. All of the Vengeance keyboards & mice feature an aluminum construction.

The MMO/RTS targeted products are called the Vengeance K90 and M90. The K-series are for keyboards while the M-series refer to mice. The K90 is backlit with over 90 individual LEDs (almost one behind every key). It uses Cherry MX mechanical red switches for each key which have a 2mm actuation travel (4mm total travel). There's no accompanying click sound with these keys, they have a nice linear but springy travel to them. The Cherry MX red switches apparently require the least amount of force to actuate out of their entire lineup of switches. Corsair claims the keyboard will recognize up to 20 simultaneous keystrokes.
The MMO/RTS focus comes in with the K90's 18 customizable macro keys. You can switch between three different sets of macros, for a total of 54 total macros. The macros are defined using Corsair's Vengeance gaming software.
{gallery 1387}
The corresponding mouse is the M90:

The M90 uses an Avago ADNS-9500 5700 DPI laser sensor. The mouse has 9 customizable side buttons.
On the FPS side there are the K60 and M60. Let's start with the K60:

The aluminum chassis and Cherry MX red mechanical switches are both present, but the individual key lights are gone as are the macro keys. The K60 instead ships with a removable wrist wrest (which is actually quite comfortable) and easily removable, textured WASD and 1-6 number keys. When not in use, the textured keys can be stored in the wrist wrest. The feel of each keypress remains the same as the K90, but the macro keys are gone and the styling of the K60 is a bit different.
{gallery 1388}

The M60 mouse includes a sniper button that allows you to quickly switch between high and low DPI modes (customizable in software).

Corsair Vengeance Headsets
	Vengeance K90	Vengeance K60	Vengeance M90	Vengeance M60
Price	$129	$109	$79	$69

Final Words

I had some brief hands on time with all of the newly announced Vengeance peripherals, they all felt good but it'll take much longer than a short play session to really evaluate these things. I'm mostly curious to see how well these things do in the hands of hardcore gamers. Does Corsair have what it takes to pull customers away from the likes of Logitech, Microsoft and Razer?
Corsair's new Vengeance lineup will be available starting next month.


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Ready to experience "the fastest tablets in the world?" Well you'll have to wait just a little longer. Archos announced that their new 80 G9 tablet would go on presale through Archos.com on September 20th. Sadly, this SKU, which will be available at most online e-tailers on September 30th, will be the 8GB model whose dual-core OMAP 4430 is clocked at 1 GHz. The fire breathing, speed demon SKUs, whose OMAP 4460 SoCs are clocked at 1.5 GHz, won't be available until October.
The French manufacturer is looking to make big waves with these devices, solidifying a spot in the cut-throat tablet market. If you'll recall, Archos will be offering magnetic storage along with the typical flash variety, which paired with Archos history of excellent codec support could make this the tablet of choice for media savvy users. Based on the press release, Android 3.2 will be on hand, with Android Market access at the ready, and no skinning mentioned. Pricing remains competitive, the top of the line Archos G9 101 1.5 GHz, 250 GB model tops out at just $469, a price that ducks the lesser specced Galaxy Tab 10.1 by $30. We'll know just how well these beasts compete when they launch in October.
Source: Archos
Price List:
ARCHOS 80 G9 8GB – 1 GHZ at $299
ARCHOS 80 G9 16GB - 1.5 GHz at $329
ARCHOS 80 G9 250GB – 1.5 GHz at $369
ARCHOS 101 G9 16GB – 1.5 GHz at $399
ARCHOS 101 G9 250GB – 1.5 GHz at $469


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OWC has released SSD upgrades suitable for Apple's MacBook Air (our 2011 review). The SSDs are branded as Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G and come in capacities of 120GB and 240GB. OWC claims speeds of up to 507MB/s read and 454MB/s write, which is about twice as fast as what the Samsung SSD used in some MBAs provides. The SSD controller is the same as found in OWC's Mercury 6G SSDs: SF-2281. Prices are $350 and $600 respectively and they ship in 24 hours.
In January, OWC released Mercury Aura Pro Express 3G series for 2010 MacBook Airs so this announcement is a logical follow-up of that. The SATA interface in 2011 MBAs is 6Gb/s, but Apple is using 3Gb/s SSDs. Hence OWC's Aura 6G SSD should guarantee a healthy performance boost in disk intensive tasks, although the difference will most likely be negligible in everyday operations. For most people, there is no reason to upgrade the SSD but in case you have for example the base 11" with 64GB SSD and more space is needed, OWC's offerings might come handy. There are no other SSDs suitable for 2010-2011 MBAs, unless you find an original part on eBay.
Source: OWC


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Thanks LegitReviews for the image

One of the major new features of Sandy Bridge was the support for UEFI. We took a look of Sandy Bridge and UEFI in our massive Sandy Bridge review, so head there for a more thorough analysis of UEFI. In a nutshell, UEFI provides a simpler and more graphical user interface than BIOS, and you also get mouse support. Some of the motherboard manufacturers jumped on the UEFI boat right in the beginning, such as ASUS, but there are still many OEMs who have sticked with BIOS.
Gigabyte has been one of those and all of their LGA 1155 based motherboards are still shipping with BIOS. However, Gigabyte demonstrated an X79 based motherboard with UEFI in IDF, which suggests that Gigabyte may finally be in the process of making the switch for UEFI. Gigabyte wasn't allowed to show much of the user interface due to Intel NDA, but you can still get the idea of what Gigabyte is coming up with. When compared with ASUS' UEFI in the Sandy Bridge review, Gigabyte's implementation is much more BIOS-like with fewer icons and other graphical content.
Whether the UI will be the same in final products or not, is unknown, so changes are certainly possible. Unfortunately there is no word on when Gigabyte will be releasing LGA 1155 boards with UEFI.
Source: LegitReviews


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Starting today, Belkin has begun offering a sale of 50% off of all products on Belkin.com. Yes, that means you will be getting everything for half the normal price with coupon code "FB50". There is no minimum purchase required either, so this literally applies to all products. Due to this sale, Belkin's site is experiencing some slow downs at the moment but luckily this coupon is good until September 30th, so you have two weeks to shop and get 50% off.
Belkin offers various accessories for iOS devices and other phones and tablets, as well as networking devices. Great time to grab for example a new router at a great price.
Source: DealMac


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A little over a month ago we quietly introduced a new section to AnandTech called Pipeline. You'll find it in the right hand column of the site where we display the most recent 7 stories. The goal behind Pipeline is simple: to bring timely reporting on news that may not be deserving of the full AnandTech review treatment. These short stories won't replace our review content, they will simply augment it. The Pipeline team today is five-strong: Andrew Cunningham, Craig Getting, Jason Inofuentes, Kristian Vättö and Saumitra Bhagwat. Although if any of us from the reviews team find ourselves in a situation to post over there we will, as you may have already seen. Similarly, you may see (and have seen already) reviews from our Pipeline team.
Stories posted in Pipeline follow our same basic editorial guidelines. We have strict policies against sensationalism, link baiting and rumor mongering - we have no desire to contribute to the "we heard Apple is working on a new shoe!" noise on the web today, Pipeline is simply our way to get out little nuggets of information that we feel are interesting while we're working on the bigger reviews. You may even see bits and pieces of our really big reviews highlighted in Pipeline (e.g. our Mali-400 Pipeline story). If you follow us via RSS, Pipeline stories already appear in the main feed. If you'd like a Pipeline specific feed click here, or our normal long form only feed has now moved here. Pipeline posts also appear on our Twitter account and Facebook page.

Since we posted a ton of IDF coverage in Pipeline over this past week I thought I'd round it all up here in a post in case anyone missed it. Read on for a roundup of everything we posted from IDF (and yes, that Ivy Bridge tech piece is still coming - I've had a busier than expected couple of days of meetings - sorry for the delay :))


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Google Chrome 14 has just made the switch from the beta channel to the stable channel, meaning that the new update is quietly replacing Chrome 13 on many of your computers even as you read this.
As is the norm in this era of frequent-but-minor browser updates, you may not immediately notice the difference: two of Chrome 14's most notable features are mostly under-the-hood. The first is support for the Web Audio API, a draft HTML5 feature that allows developers to use what Google calls "fancy audio effects" in their pages. The second, Native Client (or NaCl), allows native C and C++ code to run in a sandbox within the browser - the intent here is to enable apps to move more easily from the desktop to the browser window, and run roughly as quickly as they do when run locally. This development is particularly promising for app developers with legacy codebases, and will only become more useful as Google adds to NaCl's list of supported programming languages.
The last major change, and one that's more user-facing, adds support for full screen mode in OS X 10.7. Chrome 14 also uses Lion's disappearing scrollbar rather than the fixed "legacy" scrollbar (though, as in other apps, the traditional scrollbar will continue to appear when using a non-multitouch pointing device with Lion).
Current users of Chrome 13 should get the new update automatically, though you can also download it at will from Google's web site. Meanwhile, users on the Chrome Beta channel should expect to see Chrome 15 moved from the Dev channel soon, while the Dev channel should soon get its first taste of Chrome 16.
Source: Google Chrome Blog


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