Tuesday, 26 January 2016

Asus 970 Pro Gaming/Aura, nuova motherboard per CPU AMD

asus


Asus ha annunciato la scheda madre 970 Pro Gaming/Aura dedicata ai processori AMD compatibili con l'interfaccia AM3+ e dotati di un TDP fino 125 watt. Il nome offre la prima indicazione su una delle caratteristiche di questo prodotto, equipaggiato con illuminazione a LED (in diverse modalità) per dare un tocco di colore ai PC anche durante le sessioni di gaming in piena oscurità.


asus 970 pro gaming aura 01
L'aspetto visivo ha certamente una sua importanza, ma come ben sanno gli appassionati sono le caratteristiche a fare la differenza. Sulla motherboard abbiamo l'accoppiata formata dal chipset 970 e dal Southbridge SB950. Ci sono quattro slot di memoria DDR3 fino a 2133 MHz (OC) e con una capacità massima di 32 GB.

asus 970 pro gaming aura 02
Dal punto di vista grafico abbiamo due slot PCI Express 2.0 x16, usabili singolarmente in modalità x16 o insieme in modalità x8. Questo permette alla 970 Pro Gaming/Aura di vantare compatibilità Nvidia Quad-SLI e AMD Quad-CrossFireX. Ci sono anche due slot PCIe 2.0 x1 e due PCI. Per quanto concerne l'archiviazione sei porte SATA 6 gbps e uno slot M.2 Socket M.3 con supporto a dispositivi collegati da un massimo di quattro linee PCIe 2.0 x4.
La scheda madre è dotata anche di un controller USB 3.1 di ASMedia che permette di accedere a due porte Type A sul pannello posteriore. Non mancano ovviamente diverse porte USB 2.0 nella parte posteriore, mentre sulla scheda ci sono due connettori USB 3.0.


asus 970 pro gaming aura 03
La scheda madre è dotata di un chip di rete Intel I211-AT, accompagnato dalle tecnologie LANGuard e GameFirst. La parte audio è gestita da una soluzione SupremeFX a otto canali. Le specifiche, visibili interamente a questo indirizzo, riportano che la 970 Pro Gaming/Aura ha anche una porta PS/2 per mouse e tastiera, un'uscita ottica S/PDIF e sei jack audio.
Sulla motherboard non mancano altri connettori, come una soluzione a quattro pin dedicata alle pompe di un sistema di raffreddamento a liquido. Al momento non è noto il prezzo di questa soluzione, che riteniamo debba collocarsi in una fascia di prezzo tra 100 e 130 euro. 



Intel fills need for laptop speed with new Skylake, Xeon chips

Intel's Core i7

Intel has just started shipping some of its fastest laptop chips to date, meaning new powerful laptops should soon be on the market.
The new chips include Core i7 Skylake processors, as well as mobile Xeon chips that are headed for portable workstations used by engineers.
Intel shipped the first laptop Skylake chips last year, but they were for mainstream and entry-level laptops. These new chips, just added to Intel’s price list, are aimed at the high end.
The fastest of the bunch, at 2.8GHz, is the quad-core Core i7-6970HQ, which has 8MB of cache and a list price of $623. Other new Skylake parts include the Core i7-6870HQ and i7-6770HQ.
The chips should be Intel’s fastest for laptops until it releases its next Extreme Edition gaming chip, which will also be based on Skylake. Skylake processors are manufactured using Intel’s latest 14-nanometer process.
Last year, Intel launched two Xeon chips for mobile workstations, used for CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and manufacturing) applications. It’s now adding three more. At $1,207, the quad-core E3-1575M v5, for example, runs at 3GHz and has 8MB of cache. That’s Intel’s second-most expensive mobile chip after the current Extreme Edition gaming parts.


How to Convert GPT to MBR or Convert MBR to GPT Disk?

About MBR and GPT Disk
MBR - Master Boot Record: it is a guide sector in the very front of drive. It was named in 1983 when partition the hard disk or flash disk of IBM compatible personal computer. At that time, PC DOS 2.0 was able to support hard disk. MBR describes the information of logical, including file system and organization type. Besides, MBR also contains the executable code produced when computer loads operating system in the second stage of start or the boot record connecting every partition (VBR). Such MBR is usually called boot routine.
Note: MBR cannot exist in a media which cannot be partitioned, such as soft disk.
GPT - GUID (Globally Unique Identifie) Partition Table: it is a new standard of disk partition table originates from EFI (Extensive Firmware Interface). Compared with MBR, it provides a more flexible disk partition principle.
What are the limitations of MBR disk?
MBR disks only support up to 2TB partition size and support only four primary partitions. If partition size surpasses 2TB, the start cannot be read and displayed. If more partitions are needed, you have to build a secondary structure known as extended partition, and then you can create logical partitions. MBR partitioning rules are complex and poorly specified. Therefore, MBR partition style is gradually replaced by GPT in such a large-disk generation.
What are the advantages of GPT disk?
It can make use of a very large size to break the 2TB limit of MBR disks.
GPT disks allow an almost unlimited number of partitions. Though Windows implementation restricts the number to 128, it is completely sufficient for using.
Each GPT partition has a unique identification GUID and a partition content type. And you can have more primary partitions.
There nearly isn’t any limitation to the size of partition. The sector is numbered by a 64-bit integer. A partition with such number of sectors, can it be small?
Partition on GPT disk has self-contained backup which is stored on the end of the disk while the original one is saved on the start. When one of the two is destroyed, you can restore it with the other.
Every partition on GPT disk can has a name which is different from partition label.
Why Do You Need to Convert MBR/GPT Disk?
As mentioned above, MBR disks only support up to 2TB partition size, so if you have a disk which is MBR formatted and larger than 2TB, you could only use 2TB disk size among it, but the rest of it could not be used. Converting MBR disk to GPT disk is considerable necessary to make full use of the disk space.
On the other hand, since Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows 2003 32-bit, or Windows XP 32-bit version does not support GPT partitions. A GPT disk will display as GPT protective partition in these systems, thus you could not access the data until you convert it back to MBR disk. In such situation, you have nothing to do but to convert your GPT disk to MBR one. But note if you want to convert any larger than 2TB GPT disk back to MBR disk, you'd better ensure that the data does not account for space more than 2TB. Otherwise, the overloaded data will get lost. However, if you really want to convert your GPT drive, on which there are more than 2TB data, into MBR disk, you can transfer the extra data to other place before you start to convert.
Before you do
The following tutorial applies to converting data and system disk between MBR and GPT styles. However, if you want to convert system disk between MBR and GPT styles, please change boot mode between UEFI (United Extensive Firmware Interface) and Legacy after conversion is completed for GPT disk can only be booted by UEFI.
How to do the conversion between GPT and MBR disks?
Download AOMEI Partition Assistant first, you can use the software: AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional Edition or Server Edition to realize this conversion.

Step1: Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Select the data disk you want to convert and right click it. And then select "Convert to GPT Disk" (or Convert to MBR Disk) in the drop-down menu.
Apply
Step2: Click "OK" after confirming the operation.
Click OK
Step3: You can preview the conversion. To save the change, please click "Apply" on the toolbar.
Apply
Note:
For system boot disk conversion between MBR and GPT styles, to guarantee system bootable, you need to enter BIOS and change the boot mode after the conversion is completed.
For conversion between MBR and GPT disks on Laptop, please make sure the power supply is sufficient.
To ensure the data is consistent, do not abnormally terminate the program during the conversion process.

What's The Difference Between GPT Disk & MBR Disk


When you are initializing a new hard drive in Windows built-in Disk Manager, a window pops up and asks you to choose between MBR (master boot record) and GPT (GUID partition table) disk. What's the difference between them and is there any benefit to choose one over the other?
As known to us, a brand new hard disk must be initialized before you can partition it for data storage. So when you install a new hard drive to the computer, it will first initialize the disk and ask you to choose between MBR and GPT partition style. Typically, most people would straightly click next step without knowing any of the advantages or disadvantages among MBR and GPT. However, the default setting of Windows would initialize the disk to MBR partition style or even you choose GPT, someday, you may find it not meet your needs.
The MBR, short for Master Boot Record, is an old and commonly-used disk layout. The GPT, short for Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table, is a new disk layout associated with UEFI. Firstly, you may know something about MBR like how to fix MBR, which leads you to think MBR just refer to a specific important data. Actually, MBR and GPT also determine the style of the disk between MBR and GPT. After initializing it, we can call a disk as MBR disk or GPT disk. The two different styles of disk own different schemes to manage the partitions on a disk. The differences between them are caused by the rapid development of the information age. The older scheme shows more and more disadvantages, so there introduced a new scheme to fit the changes. Once a hard disk is initialized, the structured information will be recorded and stored to a particular segment of the disk. On the other hand, the information will change with the changes of partition information so that it is called partitioning scheme.
Basic MBR Disk Layout
In details, the organization of the partition table in the MBR limits the maximum addressable storage space of a disk to 2 TB (232 × 512 bytes). And it only supports up to 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition combination. However, with the progress of the times, larger storage devices need to be applied to the computer field. Therefore, the MBR-based partitioning scheme is in the process of being superseded by the GUID Partition Table (GPT) scheme in new computers because of GPT partition table disk supports a volume up to 2^64 blocks in length e.g. for disks with 512-byte sectors, that would be 9.44 ZB – zettabytes, 1 ZB is 1 billion terabytes, and the ability to have up to 128 primary partitions. A GPT can coexist with an MBR in order to provide some limited form of backward compatibility for older systems.

Basic GPT Disk Layout
Be careful when creating a 5th partition on a MBR disk. If you want to create more partitions, you have to create a structure of no more than 3 primary partitions plus an extended partition and then create more logical partitions resides on the extended partition. Otherwise, the disk will be converted to dynamic disk. It is not recommended to average users as some users may encounter dynamic disk invalid problems and unable to install OS on a dynamic disk.
To sum up, you may see that GUID partition scheme has more advantages, is that mean you can adopt this kind of partitioning scheme to every disk? No, not all Windows systems support this partitioning scheme.
  • Windows XP 32-bit, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4, or Windows 95/98 cannot read, write, and boot from GPT disks, they will see only the Protective MBR.
  • Windows XP x64 Edition can use GPT disks for data only.
  • All versions of Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows 2003 Server, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2012 can use GPT disk partition for data. Booting is only supported for 64-bit editions on UEFI-based systems.
When you are facing those conditions, you can mix GPT and MBR disks on systems that support GPT. However, systems that support UEFI require that boot partition must reside on a GPT disk. Other hard disks can be either MBR or GPT. Besides, both MBR and GPT disks can be basic or dynamic disk.
The major differences between MBR and GPT disk are mentioned above. So you can choose GPT or MBR depending on what you have and what you need to do.
Tips: If you have initialized your new hard disk to either MBR or GPT, and stored data or installed system on either of them, however, you want to apply the other disk layout because of 2TB disk space limit or incompatible OS problem, AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro allows you to realize the conversion between MBR and GPT without data loss.

Benchmark (computing)

In computing, a benchmark is the act of running a computer program, a set of programs, or other operations, in order to assess the relative performance of an object, normally by running a number of standard tests and trials against it. The term 'benchmark' is also mostly utilized for the purposes of elaborately designed benchmarking programs themselves.
Benchmarking is usually associated with assessing performance characteristics of computer hardware, for example, the floating point operation performance of a CPU, but there are circumstances when the technique is also applicable to software. Software benchmarks are, for example, run against compilers or database management systems.
Benchmarks provide a method of comparing the performance of various subsystems across different chip/system 
Download Link:
 https://www.passmark.com/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-free-benchmark-programs/
Thanks
Sharif Ahsan
A+. MCP. MCTS. MCSA. Win Server Hyper V- System Center Specialist
Technical Trainer & Program Coordinator (NHDCF)
Microsoft World Wide Gold learning Partner
www.newhorizons.com.dhaka


Join With Microsoft & Become a Global Vendor Certified "Microsoft Specialist"
                                                    www.microsoft.com
Bangladesh Training Location : www.newhorizons.com.dhaka
Sharif Ahsan
Technical Trainer & Program Coordinator (NHDCF)
A+. MCP.MCSA.MCTS.Hyper V- Win Server Specialist 
Newhorizons Bangladesh