Tag Archives: ReviewRoundup

Nikon D800 review roundup: significant upgrades to an already top-notch DSLR

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Three years is quite a long time for any one gadget to complete its product cycle -- even a high-end DSLR. The D700 remained on its flagship DSLR perch since its launch in the summer of 2008, all the way through Nikon's D800 announcement earlier this year. During that tenure, the full-frame camera became the primary workhorse for a bounty of photography pros, and it appears safe to confirm that its successor is up to the same task. The 36.3-megapixel D800 has completed its labs tour, leaving reviewers with positive impressions across the board.

As always, DPReview offers some of the most comprehensive analysis on the web, and highlights several advantages over the D800's competitor, the Canon 5D Mark III, including a higher megapixel count (36MP vs. 22MP) and a significantly lower price tag ($3,000 vs. $3,500). CNET struggles to identify cons, and praises the cam for its "stellar photos, excellent videos, speedy performance, and a relatively streamlined shooting design." Ken Rockwell brings a D800E into the reviews mix, concluding that the low-pass-filter-less flavor isn't the best fit for everyone. Finally, newcomer The Photo Brigade put the camera in the hands of Preston Mack, a professional on assignment who used the DSLR to capture a GigaPan photo for MLB.com and offered this takeaway: "I am very happy with the Nikon D800 camera. It is an amazing value." Overall, seems like quite a hit -- you'll find links to all of the above reviews just past the break.

Continue reading Nikon D800 review roundup: significant upgrades to an already top-notch DSLR

Nikon D800 review roundup: significant upgrades to an already top-notch DSLR originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 May 2012 19:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel Core i7-3770K CPU review roundup: crossing the Ivy Bridge

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Ivy Bridge

Today is officially Ivy Bridge day, in case you didn't already know. Intel took the wraps off the latest member of its processor family and the internet wasted no time putting the flagship Core i7-3770K through its paces. The 3.5GHz quad-core desktop chip comes packing not only some architectural tweaks, but a brand new integrated GPU in the form of the HD 4000. Oh, and it does all this using a brand new 22nm manufacturing process and 3D "Tri-Gate" transistors. What does that mean for you, the user? Lower power consumption, better performance and, surprisingly, unbelievably fast media transcoding. When AnandTech turned its eyes towards Quick Sync, the on-die media transcode engine introduced with Sandy Bridge, the 3770K practically buried the competition. Using Cyberlink Media Espresso the new chip turned a DRM-stripped Blu-ray of Harry Potter (130 minutes of 1080p video) into an iPad friendly format in just seven minutes without taxing the CPU.

At idle, power consumption hasn't changed much, but when TechSpot put the pedal to the metal things looked quite a bit different. The new i7-3770K sucked down just 147 watts, which was even four watts less than lower clocked i5-2500K. And, of course, it delivered much better performance. In fact, in Bit-Tech's tests, the only chip that was able to routinely best it was the hexa-core 3960X Extreme Edition -- and even that CPU barely eked out its victories. While AMD's offerings simply can't compete with Intel's on pure performance or power consumption, it does still outrun run Chipzilla's GPU. The HD 4000 is, undeniably, a huge step forward for the Core line, but it falls just short of matching the A8's integrated Radeon on Tech Report's tests. For more benchmarks than your heart can handle check out the pile of links below.

Read - AnandTech
Read - Bit-Tech
Read - TechSpot
Read - Tech Report
Read - Hot Hardware

Intel Core i7-3770K CPU review roundup: crossing the Ivy Bridge originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WD’s 1TB VelociRaptor HDD gets reviewed: substantial gains, moderate price

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Western Digital has expanded its line of desktop-grade VelociRaptors to include a 1TB model that's available now for $320, but those kidding themselves with that whole "250GB is enough" thing can get in for as little as $160. Top-level specs include a 10,000RPM spindle rate and a SATA 6Gb/s interface housed within a 3.5-inch heat sink -- useful for lessening the burden of the drive's thermal output on the rest of the machine. Storage Review's tests reveal that sequential read and write transfer speeds top out around 206MB/s, thermal dissipation is excellent with low power consumption, and that random access has improved compared with it's 600GB predecessor. They consider the new HDD to be a "very appealing value proposition" and "a blend of high performance, storage, capacity, and low cost."

Hot Hardware discovered virtually identical numbers with their tests, but wasn't quite as forgiving when it comes to the cost-per-GB versus 7200RPM hard drives. However, they call this VelociRaptor the "fastest HDD yet" at "nearly double the capacity of previous" model. You can find even more stats and impressions to chew on at the sources below.

Continue reading WD's 1TB VelociRaptor HDD gets reviewed: substantial gains, moderate price

WD's 1TB VelociRaptor HDD gets reviewed: substantial gains, moderate price originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceStorage Review, Hot Hardware, PC Perspective, Legit Reviews  | Email this | Comments

Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus mini PC launches with E-450 APU, gets reviewed

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Zotac and its XBOXes -- just when you think your next dorm room PC couldn't get any smaller... it does. The latest in the stable is the long-winded Nano XS AD11 Plus, a hysterically titled small form factor PC equipped with a dual-core 1.6GHz AMD E-450 APU, Radeon HD 6320 GPU, 2GB of DDR3 memory and an HDMI output. There's also a 64GB mSATA SSD, a pair of USB 3.0 sockets (as well as a couple of the USB 2.0 variety), a gigabit Ethernet jack and a bundled MCE-compatible remote. In a smattering of reviews that also cropped up alongside the box's launch, we've learned that the E-450 moderately bests the prior E-350 rigs and soars past similarly equipped Atom-based machines; the mSATA SSD is perhaps the biggest upgrade, however, easily helping the system as a whole feel far faster than those with mechanical hard drives. Hot Hardware was pleased with the overall showing, though they did note that the include USB WiFi adapter gave 'em headaches when trying to stream high-bitrate content from a NAS / home server. Worth the $359? Hit those More Coverage links to help you decide.

Gallery: Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus mini PC

Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus mini PC launches with E-450 APU, gets reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kingston HyperX 3K SSD review round-up: Cheaper than its predecessor and almost as good

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Kingston HyperX 3K SSD review round-up: Cheaper than its predecessor and almost as good

Kingston's new HyperX 3K SSD has appeared, powered by a second-generation SandForce SF-2281 processor. Sizes ranging from 90GB to 480GB and are appropriately priced between $140 to $700 -- depending on your storage tastes. With a SATA 6Gb/s interface wrapped in a black and aluminum casing, the HyperX 3K looks ready to spar with Intel's similarly SandForce-powered SSDs. Kingston's 2.5-inch drives have also finished the review party circuit, picking up some pretty positive responses. According to Anandtech's testing, the HyperX 3K performs almost as well as its 5K predecessor, landing just behind it for light workload tests (309.4 MB/s on average) and a heavy workload performance (225.8 MB/s) that netted it second place. Overall, they reckon the HyperX 3K is a "no-brainer," offering great performance for less of those hard-earned dollars.

The relatively rugged design was the first thing that caught Storage Review's eye, due to Kingston's (presumably necessary) thermal armor. The site was suitably impressed by read rates, which were comparable to the original HyperX SSD. Write performance didn't hold up quite as well during tests and due to the reduced quality of the NAND memory used, you will see a drop on total write cycles possible -- something that mainstream users probably won't lose much sleep over. Storage Review maintains that when it comes to both performance and pricing, Kingston's latest "delivers on both fronts." You can take a closer look at what both reviews have to say -- and a whole load of tests -- at the sources below.

Kingston HyperX 3K SSD review round-up: Cheaper than its predecessor and almost as good originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAnandTech, Storage Review, Kingston  | Email this | Comments

OCZ Vertex 4 SSD released, wins calm praise on the review circuit

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OCZ Vertex 4 SSD released, wins calm praise on the review circuit
The Vertex 4 is a big deal for OCZ, because it's the company's first top-end SSD to come with an in-house Indilinx controller. We first saw an earlier version of this proprietary silicon put to good effect in the Octane drive a few months ago, and by most accounts the Vertex 4's updated Everest 2 controller continues in the same vein. The new drive will ship in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB varieties, with MSRPs of $179, $349 and $699 respectively, which stacks up well against Intel's 520 series. Bearing in mind that only the larger two variants have been sent out for review so far, the general feedback is that the Vertex 4 is reliable and indeed excels in certain key benchmarks like random write performance, which Anandtech described as "incredible." On the other hand, read performance and some other real-world benchmarks were less earth-shattering, and most reviewers have been quite measured in their conclusions. Storage Review, for example, suggested that the new Vertex's attractiveness will grow over time, as pricing gets more aggressive and OCZ's decision to use its own controller pays dividends in terms of support and firmware tweaks. Check out the source links for all the usual benchmark graph goodness.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]

OCZ Vertex 4 SSD released, wins calm praise on the review circuit originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceStorage Review, AnandTech, TechReport, Hot Hardware, Hexus  | Email this | Comments