Corsair Blog - Archive November, 2011

Historically, I have always been a confirmed user of cheap keyboards. I had never really thought that premium keyboards were all that great. But then again, what makes a keyboard... well... good? Until now, it wasn't the looks — the looks only justified our need to spend excessive cash on a simple input device. Even for more than $100.00 USD, most all keyboards are still plastic with rubber dome keys and shiny, fingerprint-prone gloss. So what actually makes a good keyboard? The feel of the keys, the weight of the keyboard, the functionality and responsiveness — these are features that you can't see — you have to experience them.

Intel® has made several changes when it comes to memory for the new 2nd generation Intel Core™ i7 processors (Sandy Bridge-E). Corsair has launched new Quad Channel DDR3 memory kits specifically designed for Intel’s new X79 motherboards. Intel has added the ability to run quad channel with up to eight DIMMs for a total of 64GB of memory. All the Corsair memory upgrade kits designed for X79 feature four modules and support XMP Profile 1.3.

I recently spent a week out in sunny Monterey, California for Corsair corporate training. It was great fun and it’s always refreshing to see all the people in from around the globe that make Corsair great.

In the midst of all the grueling training sessions and team building activities, I actually stumbled across a great example of the practical advantages of one of our products. Benchmarks are great but an example of every day usage is even better in many cases. Here is how a USB 3.0 flash drive literally changed my life.

USB 3.0 is slowly but surely becoming the standard for new devices and is being implemented on a growing number of motherboards. Of course that means that we are increasing our offerings of USB 3.0 flash drives. Meet our fastest UFD, the Flash Voyager® GT USB 3.0 flash drive.

We've created screen cast covering the basics of overclocking. This is part two which goes more in-depth on overclocking including XMP, bios settings, overclocking software, benchmarks and overclocking forums.

We've created screen cast covering the basics of overclocking. This is part one which covers why people overclock, what can be overclocked, and cooling.

As much as it pains me to admit it, not every person wants or needs a fire breathing dragon type PC. Quite a few people in the world will never use or want discrete PCI-e graphics processing, a personalized modded case with bells and whistles, multiple drives, and all of those other goodies that constitute a high end PC. A lot of people are going "green" with their PCs and making choices that consume less power.

Since I started working at Corsair in late 2009, one of my personal goals has been to break the memory frequency world record. I started to seriously pursue this goal in August 2010 with the launch of the CMGTX6 Dominator GT DDR3 memory. I was able to overclock one of those DIMMs to 2976MHz but was unable to go higher due to a CPU limitation. You can read about my previous world record Domintaor GT memory run in a previous post on the Corsair blog. Over the past year I have tried over 20 different processors in hopes of being able to run higher and go after the world record for memory frequency.

FOR THE HORDE!

Some people go on a cruise for their vacation, or perhaps take a trip to Hawaii or some other tropical paradise. But not me! For me, paradise was in Anaheim, California, in late October, at Blizzcon 2011!

This year’s BlizzCon was a blast and will be my first pick for this year’s best game convention. If you are a fan of any Blizzard’s games then you should’ve been at this year’s event! BlizzCon is Blizzard Entertainments annual celebration of their major franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. Fans can play the latest version as well as participate in community contests and tournaments. Blizzard also revealed a lot of interesting things about their upcoming games, including the long-awaited and highly-anticipated game, Diablo III. The event was full of surprises and the crowd was just awesome.

The AMD Bulldozer CPUs have been sold out at most places for the past couple weeks. I was lucky enough to find a FX-8150 at the local Microcenter and picked it up along with an ASUS Crosshair V Formula. Within the first 20 minutes of having the CPU under liquid nitrogen I was able to boot into windows with a memory frequency of 3156MHz!  I was shocked by the frequencies that I could achieve with this processor. Once I was in Windows I raised the FSB frequency and reached a memory frequency of 3238MHz using a single Dominator® GT CMGTX6 memory module. This is the 3rd highest memory frequency on the HWbot.org OC database. It also beat my previous personal best by over 250MHz, which is something I have been trying to beat for the past year.

I will be doing an in depth blog on overclocking the FX-8150 on liquid nitrogen and going for the maximum CPU frequency as well as going for even higher on the memory frequency as well.  So be sure to check back!

The new Intel® Socket 2011, used on the new X79 motherboards and the new 2nd generation Intel Core Sandy Bridge-E CPUs, has changed significantly from Socket 1366. As you can see below there are no longer the traditional holes through the PCB. There is now a metal bracket that has been tapped to accept M4 screws. Because of this the Corsair Hydro Series™ H70 Core, H80 and H100 CPU coolers all come with separate screws to mount on Socket 2011 boards.