Fusion-io's PCI-E SSD to Put Current SSD's to Shame

It's no secret that SSDs are the new black. They're incredibly fast, lightweight, have fantastic power consumption and have no moving parts. The only problem is that they are expensive, but prices are dropping like bricks from the sky, and it should only be another year before they become mainstream. But what if you are looking for even faster performance than what current products offer? Do you RAID a couple SSD's together? That's one option, but a company that goes by Fusion-io has another solution - a PCI-Express-based SSD.

You read that right. It's an SSD that plugs straight into an available PCI-E slot and promises to take full advantage of the insane bandwidth there. What kind of numbers are we dealing with? While the fastest SSD's on the market promise bandwidth of around 200MB/s Read, Fusion-io's solution can deliver upwards of 500MB/s and top out at 700MB/s. Latency is also improved and results in about 50,000 IO's per second.

The company was showing their goods at the E For All conference that happened over the weekend, and to prove to gamers just how useful their device is in gaming, they loaded up thirteen instances of World of Warcraft... in 36 seconds. They also promise streaming of 1,000 DVD's at one time to be possible which means it can handle tons of requests without issue. The 80GB model is set to retail for under $1,000 at launch, so it's definitely not going to be for everyone. It's still great to see that such speeds are possible, though. All I know is... I want one, now.

Credit: TG Daily

The rep then copied the file to the Fusion-io drive. He also moved both the Photoshop and Windows swap files from the hard drive to the SSD. To make sure there wasn’t any funny business, the machine was rebooted to flush out any latent memory in system cache. This time the file took 28 seconds [750 megabyte file] to load, a full seven-fold improvement from before. With this drive, you could conceivably open, edit and save this document in the same time that it takes to for a hard drive-equipped computer to just open the file.

Source: TG Daily

Five of the Best Free Media Encoders

Need to encode video, but don't know where to look? I've been in this situation a hundred times, and for whatever reason, I've never settled on a particular app, nor know what's "best" - the fact that I primarily use Linux doesn't help either. The biggest problem is that there seem to be hundreds of these similar apps around, and there are many "trick" sites out there that trick users into downloading their lackluster malware-infested application.

Well, Lifehacker has again taken the hassle out of finding the best media encoder out there by giving us a choice of five, and all of them look great. Super, a Windows-based encoder, looks to be the most visually-pleasing and robust, although it all depends on what you are looking for. MediaCoder is one in particular that promises to run on Windows, OS X and Linux, although the latter two will require Wine. I gave it a quick go, and I have to say, I'm extremely impressed.

Since I'm a PSP owner, I like to encode videos to it from time to time, and I've never been able to find a Linux-based application that could encode the file reliably. Even though the file looked good and was presented in the PSP format, it would always error once on the actual device. I tested MediaCoder with a DVD .VOB file, a .WMA and also a FRAPS RAW .AVI file and it successfully encoded them all. It's fast too, taking just one minute for the RAW AVI test, which used a 1.1GB 720p source file. I'm impressed.

MediaCoder is a batch media transcoder that converts video and audio from and to most popular formats through a powerful graphical interface. Like Super, MediaCoder is a front-end for a number of command line media tools, allowing you to get as simple or complex as you want with your conversions. MediaCoder is available on all platforms, but its best supported on Windows.

Source: Lifehacker

Real Networks Forced to Halt RealDVD Sales

Last month, we posted about Real Network's latest product release, "RealDVD". As you can judge by the name, it's an application that handles your DVDs, both in ripping and playback. The difference between RealDVD and the countless DVD rippers found en masse online was that Real's product is designed to be 'legal'. It tried to accomplish this by leaving the CSS encryption in tact when ripping to the PC, but that alone doesn't seem to be enough for the good ole MPAA.

Apparently, some shareholders (who know nothing about the product) complained and now the MPAA took the issue to the courts. As a result, Real Networks was forced to temporarily suspend distribution of the application, at least until the judge reviews all of the information. If this doesn't show what kind of people are hanging out at the MPAA, nothing will. While there are countless "illegal" DVD rippers available online, they go after the only one that tries to be legal.

It's of course obvious that suing Real will do nothing to thwart DVD ripping, as it takes little to no effort to find a replacement. RealDVD sought after legal consumers and made it obvious to anyone who read up on the product. The DVD could only be played through RealDVD, while other DVD rippers allow you to decode the CSS encryption and use it anywhere - yet the MPAA doesn't seem too interested in those.

A temporary restraining order has been issued against Real while the judge takes time to review all of the available documents. A decision will apparently be made on Tuesday as to whether the suspension will remain in place and for how long, a Real representative told NewTeeVee. Given the tenacity of the movie studios when it comes to copyright infringement, however, the MPAA isn't likely to let the restraining order be lifted without a fight.

Source: Ars Technica

VoodooPC Confirms Integration into HP

Towards the middle of last month, we posted about a rumor that VoodooPC as we knew it was shutting down, but found out later that not all of our facts were spot on. Though, it was quickly evident that changes were being made that would drastically effect how the company operates.

Our friends are Gizmodo sat down with Voodoo's co-founder Rahul Sood to find out what's really happening, and unearthed everything we needed to know. Rahul reaffirms the fact that Voodoo is not disappearing, but changes are being made for the sake of becoming more effective. In gist, Voodoo will become better intertwined with Voodoo so that each company can sponge off of each other with ease. Voodoo is also shifting over a lot of the manufacturing to Asia, which will cut down on their workforce in Calgary, Alberta, but improve output.

Rahul brings up some interesting points in the chat, such as the fact that only 25% of their customer-base are gamers. That's not surprising when you think of it - there's clearly a much larger market for those seeking out a "luxury" PC, something that the Dell's of the world cannot offer. After all, most boutiques are just for that, cool chassis', great design and looks that make your friends drool. Regardless, it's good to see that Voodoo is alive and well, and hopefully the merge into HP will result in a slew of cool products in the near-future.

Rahul also addressed the concerns that some gamers had that Voodoo had abandoned its core audience. He surprised us with an interesting statistic: 25% of the Voodoo customer base are gamers, he says. The other 75% are "fortunate people who love the style and the fact that our products are so different." On the matter of the sleek new Envy not being a gaming PC at all, he mentions that it's not the first time, and that the hot-selling 12-inch Envy had integrated graphics too.

Source: Gizmodo

Tech Roundup - October 6, 2008

Motherboards & Processors
• J&W X48D2-EXTREME - TweakTown

Displays & Video Cards
• AMD Radeon HD 4670 512MB - PC Perspective
• Gigabyte 9800GT 512MB - Motherboards.org
• NVIDIA 9800GT SLI - t-break
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic 512MB - Think Computers

Memory & Storage
• A-DATA Vitesta Gaming DDR2-800 4GB - Phoronix
• HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4 PCI-E SAS Controller - TweakTown
• Imation Apollo 500GB 2.5" Portable Hard Drive - Test Freaks
• Thermaltake Vi-ON 3.5-inch External Hard Drive Enclosure - Think Computers

Peripherals & Gadgets
• ASUS My Cinema U3100Mini USB 2.0 Digital TV Receiver - Legit Reviews
• Iqua Sun Bluetooth Headset - Tech-Reviews
• SageTV HD Media Extender - i4u

Cooling
• Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler - Bjorn3D
• Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler - Overclockers Club
• GELID Solutions Fan Roundup - Hardware Logic
• Zalman CNPS 9300AT CPU Cooler - Overclockers Online

Chassis & Power Supplies
• 5-way High-End 1KW+ PSU Round-Up - Overclock3D
• Cooler Master HAF 932 - 3DXtreme
• Cooler Master HAF 932 - Overclockers Club
• Cooler Master UCP 1100 Watt Power Supply - 3DXtreme
• Lian Li Maxima Force 750W - Technic3D

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• HP MediaSmart Server - Missing Remote
• Jazz Elite HDV-188 5MP HD Video Camera - Big Bruin