Monitors are possibly the most important part of any computer setup. No matter what components are inside of your computer, your monitor is what will be displaying their power. Many computer enthusiasts have realized this, and are spending thousands of dollars for multi-monitor setups, faster displays, and 3D technology. With this expanding market, display companies are scrambling to make new features to make consumers purchase their product. With all of these new features, some will be quite “gimmicky”, and useless, and others will be very useful and advance the technology. Recently, there’s been a push in 120Hz monitors. Is this another gimmick, or is this the killer feature to be looking for?

What are Hz? Why is more better?

Hz is an abbreviation for Hertz, which is the rate your monitor refreshes the image in refreshes divided by seconds. 60Hz, the usual refresh rate for monitors, is 60 refreshes per second, or 60 frames per second. This is the most commonly used refresh rate for many reasons, most largely because the human eye is thought to only see 60 distinct instances per second. If this is true, then why would having higher refresh rates matter? An eye doesn’t go at exactly 60 frames per second like your monitor will, and every eye is different, so a higher refresh rate could theoretically help balance out these differences.

Why 120Hz?

60Hz is the normal amount, so why would the display manufacturers jump up to double that amount? Why wouldn’t they release displays with amounts around 80-100Hz first? Display companies chose to double the refresh rates largely for 3D support. With 120hz, you have two 60Hz bands running at the same time. To get a 3D experience from this, you would simply have the separate images for each eye on different bands, and glasses to separate the two. When not being used for 3D, both bands work together to form a true 120fps experience, which refreshes much faster than the human eye.

How noticeable is the difference?

As the “framebuff” that I am (lame pun intended), I can’t play anything under 50 fps. I assumed that 120Hz and it’s ability to allow over 60fps would be nice, but I didn’t think it would be too big a difference. After truly experiencing gaming at 120Hz, I can confirm that the difference is amazing. Even just playing around on the desktop, the fluidity of the display is shockingly smoother. The first difference I noticed is the movement of the cursor, which appeared to be much less rigid (not that it was rigid before.) Moving a window around was much smoother as well, as was opening and closing animations. Once brought into the gaming realm, these differences carried over. When the frame rate went over 60 fps, the difference was much easier to notice. VSync was no longer necessary, as no tearing would occur, and the higher frame rates actually could be displayed. It’s a hard to describe experience, but it is drastically different.

What is the price difference? Is it worth it?

The difference in price is a bit drastic, to say the least. The cheapest 120Hz monitor I was able to find was $300, and included very few features compared to a $150 60Hz display. If you’re as obsessed with frame rates as I am, and commonly see your PC getting frames over 60fps, then  the price jump of $200-300 may be worth it for you. If you’re looking for a 3D setup, it’s definitely worth it. Otherwise, 60Hz is the way to go.

Final Thoughts

120Hz displays will likely become much more common as the tech world evolves. With computers more easily getting over the 60 fps bar, displays will have to follow. For now, definitely try a 120Hz monitor before making the jump.

The Launcher

The launcher is arguably the most important part of your phone, being the place you go for everything you do. Samsung has done an amazing job with the launcher, allowing customization resembling that of Go Launcher. You are able to pinch out to get a view of every screen you have on your launcher, move them around, add and delete, and change your main screen. Adding widgets works the same way that it does on stock Android 4.0, so don’t expect any surprises there.

The app drawer works slightly differently then that of stock ICS. Samsung has chosen to not list apps by name, but by downloaded order. I find this a bit messy, but to each their own. When you get to the end of the app drawer in ICS, you get bumped over to widgets. Such is not true in Samsung’s TouchWiz launcher, as you return to the beginning of the app drawer when you cycle through to the end.

It also runs extremely smooth, even on a processor half as powerful as the ones that the SIII will run. This is a very, very nice detail, as TouchWiz is famed for slowing down your device. It’s nice to see that Samsung has taken performance into such high consideration.

Samsung App – SVoice

Samsung’s biggest competition in the smartphone world is, of course, the iPhone. Apple’s Siri was hyped extremely far, then turned out to be a huge disappointment. Samsung, as well as many other manufacturers, are trying to use this to their advantage, releasing their own Siri clones for Android. Samsung’s clone, SVoice, isn’t as great as we hoped, but it certainly gets the job done. When asked for the weather, it will pull up a forecast that looks like a launcher widget. When asked for details to be found online, a Google search will be conducted. When asked to message somebody, you are able to recite a message and choose to have it sent. Beyond these basic functions, SVoice has little to offer.

Samsung App – Memo

Due to the success of the Galaxy Note, Samsung feels obliged to include note software with all of their devices. Having never used the Galaxy Note’s software myself, I had some high expectations for this note app. Sadly, it was little more then a prettier, less functional ColorNote clone. You create a note, title it, choose a color, and save it. The notes are listed by date, and you can go back and edit at any time. Overall, quite mediocre.

 
Final Thoughts

Samsung will certainly have a hit device here. Samsung has long been a leader in hardware manufacturing, and their software has caught up to the hardware. We would have liked to see some more thought put into the Samsung apps, but the speed and functionality of the launcher make this easy to ignore. This phone is definitely worth considering when it makes its way to the States. See the gallery below if you want to see more of the software!

• Single card: ~32fps
• Dual card: ~68fps

However, this GPU also has the special processor commands for the AMD FX series. Let’s see those framerates with my FX 6100 in.

• Single card: ~48fps
• Dual card: ~89fps

As you can see, this GPU is a monster. When this GPU is setup with CrossFireX and is in a system with an FX series processor, this GPU blows the competition away.

Not only could you use two cheaper cards together and get the power of a more expensive card, but you also have more control over the specs of your graphics system. Say you want a budget graphics system with a decent speed and 2GB of memory (not entirely, just 1GB for one set of shaders and 1GB for the other set). While you’re looking online, you can’t find a card for a low enough price with 2GB of memory. However, you find a cheap card that has an alright speed and 1GB of memory and is SLI/Crossfire ready. You could purchase two, connect them together and get the kind of system you wanted for a much lower price.

However, in order to use Crossfire/SLI your motherboard must support it.

Next time that you go to get a new graphics system keep this in mind.

A dual-chip graphics card works similarly to a dual-card configuration, except that the two cards are merged into one. The GTX 690 is essentially two GTX 680s, but due to the power and heat created by these cards, a few compromises had to be made. In the last generation, the GTX 580 was the powerful single-chip card used to make the GTX 590, but there was some drastic cuts made in the card’s power to prevent problems with power, heat, etc. The compromises were drastic, with the 590 only getting around 80-85% of the performance of SLI 580s. Such seems to not be the case in this generation.

From early benchmarks, it appears as if the GTX 690 is scoring as much as 95% of the scores of SLI 680s, which is amazing, being a single card. This makes the GTX 690 the most powerful single card available for purchase today, which is not an easy claim in this market.

Now, even for this unparalleled performance, the nearly $1000 price point is hard to justify, so how will this help the average consumer? Due to NVidia taking such a large step ahead of the competition, AMD will have to lower their prices to compete, as well as release the AMD Radeon HD 7990 as soon as they’re able. Otherwise, as lame as this may seem to many of you, it is extremely cool seeing that the bar has been raised this much, and this card is indeed the most powerful card out.

Hopefully we can get one to review and see if it really is as powerful as the first benchmarks suggest!

The 6100 is a six core processor with a factory clock speed of 3.3 GHz and at the low price of $139.99, this thing is a steal. Not only is the speed decent from the start, but it is also fully unlocked. Right now, my machine is clocked at around 4.6GHz. With AMD’s DRAM controller built in, data transfer is incredible compared to any other processor I have ever used.

Along with the speed of the memory controller, the overall bus speed was impressive. Through BIOS I was able to get around 34GB/s at any given bus. Normally, speeds vary among different buses depending on what component they go to. This kept it at a steady rate.

For all of you Virtual-Machine people out there, this processor has great virtualization. Memory speeds were almost exactly the same in a virtual machine running Arch Linux as on my installed OS. However, I could not get any data on bus speeds.

Another interesting feature that AMD integrated into this processor were a few new processor commands. These command are present in the 6000 series GPU by AMD. The commands are focused around 3D rendering and several Vector functions allowing this CPU to be all the more powerful with a 6000 series GPU.

Of course, I wouldn’t be writing a review without benchmarks. CPU was at factory speeds during these tests. The GPU in use was dual Radeon HD 6950s in Crossfire. All are single monitor at 1920×1080.

•  Crysis: Warhead, 55fps
• Portal 2, 65fps
• Amnesia: The Dark Decent, 97fps
• Cube 2: Sauerbraten, 200fps (cap)

At $299, The Level 10 GT Snow Edition is a pricey case with lots of interesting features. Most notable are the 5 hot-swap bays towards the front of this monster. On the top there is a featured fan control system along with a lighting switch. Even when fans are on full speed, my machine keeps its volume emission at a comfortable level.

This behemoth is based off the standard Level 10 GT. When Thermaltake released that model, it was clear that the tower was focused on cooling. This case is no different. Sporting 3 200mm fans, a 140mm fan, and a 120mm fan, your machine will stay at low temperatures in even the most intense conditions.

As this case does look nice, most of the notable features are internal. Supporting Micro, Standard, and Extended ATX motherboards, this tower is made for any type of build you are doing.

The most notable feature is the formation of cable management. While you have the swinging door on the front of the machine to access your hardware, two screws can be removed on the back to slide of the back panel. I found it very comfortable to run my cables through the back to keep them out of sight.

Now, this case isn’t small. Standing at 584mm tall, this case redefines the word tower. When purchasing components for this case, there is no need to worry  to see if they’ll fit. With dual Radeon HD 6950 cards and an H100 CPU cooler sticking out, I still have room for more components inside.

This case isn’t all good though. First off, the drive bays feel a little flimsy being made from thin sheets of ABS-like plastic. Also, to run all the fans requires a heap of power at low speed and an incredible amount of power at full speed.

This tower’s pros definitely out-way the cons. For the foreseeable future, this will be my case of choice. My rating for this case is a 9/10.

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