Podcast #331 – Hardware Picks of the Year, Acer’s 1080p G-SYNC Display, a new Drobo and more!

19 Comments

1. 

   Rick on January 1, 2015 at 1:52 am

   Best trend of 2014 21×9
   Best trend of 2014 21×9 monitors? As an owner of a dell 29in 21×9 monitor, I hate it! It just doesn’t work. In games, movies, web browsing, it just isn’t ready for use. If anyone is on the fence on a 21×9 monitor, don’t get it!

   Reply
   • 

     PapaDragon on January 1, 2015 at 9:59 pm

     Happy New Year
     Happy New Year everyone!!

     @Rick, those 2560 x 1080p ultra wides aren’t that impressive , I agree, but when LG made the 3440x1440p UM95 available that was a game changer. Stepping up to that resolution made everyone change their minds. Also more and more movies are being distributed in that wide aspect, its a very enjoyable experience. Plus that extra peripheral view gives you an advantage in FPS games.

     I do have to say that I also disagree about it being the best trend as there weren’t that many choices in 21:9 monitors (3440x1440p) and in refresh rate.

     My choice is G-sync, We had 1080p and 1440p 144HZ, plus 4K Gsync at 60hz. Now, this year I hope that we get a 144hz 21:9 3440x1440p monitor, that would be epic.

     Graphics Card of 2014: GTX 980 hands down!

     CPU of 2014 : 5820k a Six core beast for $300 @Microcenter, too bad DDR4 is too damn expensive!

     Reply
2. 

   Mark Harry on January 1, 2015 at 7:03 am

   We ended the show with the
   We ended the show with the graphic stuck on “Price Drop of 2014”, thanks Ken. Just kidding, but adding Sebastian to the crew was a smart move, he fits right in.
   I used to watch TNT, not for the news, because I already read it. I watched it for Tom, Sarah, Iyaz and Jason. A great crew makes a podcast and you have one.

   Reply
   • 

     Anonymous on January 2, 2015 at 12:21 pm

     agreed, but Alyn, smart guy,
     agreed, but Alyn, smart guy, not pretty. He needs a back seat and they need to bring on a gamer-girl. Either way, Alyn is average on the screen.

     Reply
     • 

       Jeremy Hellstrom on January 2, 2015 at 7:22 pm

       If that is truly what is

       If that is truly what is important to you, print out some pretty girls and stick them over our faces when you watch.

       Reply
       • 

         collie on January 3, 2015 at 5:37 am

         That’s the greatest fickin
         That’s the greatest fickin idea I’ve ever heard! Some video editor out there get to work on that RIGHT NOW!!!!

         Reply
3. 

   Master Chen on January 1, 2015 at 8:46 am

   Top 5 best GPUs of 2014:
   1.
   Top 5 best GPUs of 2014:
   1. Colorful 980 iGame KUDAN (Hybrid).
   2. Zotac 980 AMP Extreme/Galaxy 980 HOF (Air).
   3. Asus Ares III (Water).
   4. Inno3D iChill HerculeZ x4 AirBoss Ultra (Air).
   5. Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X (Air).

   Reply
4. 

   Solsol on January 1, 2015 at 8:51 am

   Ryan I recently bought a
   Ryan I recently bought a PG278Q off of newegg at the $799 price and I’m a little disappointed with it. During the podcast one of you said that you bought and returned it, can I ask why? I’m thinking of returning mine also.

   Reply
5. 

   Anonymous on January 1, 2015 at 6:08 pm

   I think the GTX 750 Ti was
   I think the GTX 750 Ti was fine, but its performance / price was just adequate, the 265 was quick to beat it on that regard,

   for a sub $150 card I think perf/$ is king, and on that the 750 Ti didn’t add much in 2014, while the 970 did, it performed great, it wasn’t to inefficient and its price/price affected other cards clearly, it also very popular with gamers…

   but I guess at the end of the day Maxwell was the big winner this year… and the 290 prices…

   Reply
   • 

     Anonymous on January 2, 2015 at 12:24 pm

     The 750Ti bought a lot of
     The 750Ti bought a lot of gaming potential to the cheap and nasty computer. I cannot remember another GPU that provided 1080p gaming without a PSU upgrade. thats why its on the list.

     Reply
6. 

   Jesso2k on January 1, 2015 at 11:46 pm

   Hey guys, I asked about a cpu
   Hey guys, I asked about a cpu benchmark article in Ryan’s micro-atx build after he recommended an i7. After listening to the podcast maybe you should do that article not only for your readers but yourselves… It was mentioned that the i7 wouldn’t be any better for gaming and you everyone’s answer was, “hrrmmmm, probably not.” It sounded like you were speculating, set the record straight with your own findings.

   Reply
   • 

     Anonymous on January 2, 2015 at 12:23 pm

     i7 cpus haven’t been better
     i7 cpus haven’t been better for gaming ever, apart from one or two applications where HT comes into play. But generally and 99% of the time, i5 will meet the performance of an i7 in gaming.

     Reply
     • 

       collie on January 3, 2015 at 5:48 am

       It’s kinda a “that’s how it
       It’s kinda a “that’s how it is for now” thing. If you look at the long curve of performance/demand going basically all the way back to the first home computers there has always been a sorta balance, technology would advance first, then programmers would quickly adapt to the technology, and just around the time they would push to the limits the next gen would come out, especially as far as game programmers were concerned. Recently the advancement of the hardware got WAY WAY ahead of developers. For now we are at a kinda standstill as hardware developers work on a catchup game for the underdogs and a fine tune job for the market leaders, while the software developers push harder and harder and get better and better at developing for the curent tech. They are catching up, so for now the higher power of a top end cpu isn’t nessasary for gaming, BUTTTTTT it always was in the past and if games keep pushing new limits than it will also be true in the future.

       Reply
       • 

         collie on January 3, 2015 at 5:49 am

         ATLEAST as far as cpu’s go,
         ATLEAST as far as cpu’s go, for now it seems the more gpu they can make the more gpu they can take

         Reply
       • 

         Anonymous on January 5, 2015 at 9:52 am

         The bottleneck has not been
         The bottleneck has not been with the cpu for quite a while now. I saw some test somewhere (I don;t remember where), and you had to go back to Core2 duo before gaming performance took a serious hit, and that may have been partially due to architecture and memory speeds (earlier pci-e versions and DDR2 memory).

         If you have any Core i5 or i7, then you are probably fine. We just can’t push single threaded performance that much farther. Since the xbox one and ps4 are using 8 low-power, low-single thread performance cores, developers are going to be forced to actually multi-thread their code. This will shift the performance advantages. AMD cpus currently perform relatively good on well threaded code; they cant compete with intel in single threaded performance, but single threaded performance is going to become less relevant. The whole cpu has become less relevant due to any modern cpu being fast enough for most task. I still us an old macbook pro with a 2.16GHz core2 duo for most things.

         We will have to wait and see, but it seems that when DX12 comes out, the cpu will be even less important.

         Reply
7. 

   Anonymous on January 2, 2015 at 7:24 pm

   Hi Alan
   I found out some
   Hi Alan
   I found out some information 3 weeks ago that I could have leaked and hurt Nvidia and the retailers in the channel very badly. i chose not and wait till now – as most everything is likly to be released at CES in the next few days

   having lived through the destruction alan osbourne wrought on his company by pre-announcing data – I did not want the same thing to happen to Nvidia – its our money that funds the next round of graphics cards. I realise that it might have saved us a few quid today but it might have cost us the 16nm die shrink for pascal in 2016.

   i accidentaly discovered everything about what Nvidia will be releasing over the next 6 months, i have not signed an NDA with Nvidia so i am fre to talk about this.

   You said you were thinking of buying a gtx970 can I advise you to wait till Nvidia has released its new cards at the end of the month. The new 960’s are really close to the specs for the 970 but are going to be over $100 – £150 cheaper, meanwhile there is going to be a new 980TI with 8GB which will be about 2/3rds the power of 2×980 in SLI, this of course means that the 980 will likley be repositioned to where the 970 is now and the 970 will presumably drop by about $50-75 dollars

   of course you could assume i am lying and the new GTX980TI wont use 195Watts or you can go talk to Nvidia, and ask if I am telling the truth.

   I have lots of other information and i plan to leak like a sieve over the next few days as the point where it can hurt Nvidia or the channel should have passed. Unless Nvidia want to contact me and ask me not to – where upon I will comply since its their information not mine

   Reply
8. 

   Oubadah on January 4, 2015 at 5:47 am

   EDIT: My bad.
   EDIT: My bad.

   Reply
9. 

   Anonymous on January 5, 2015 at 9:59 am

   What could a low-end system
   What could a low-end system actually do? I need a new desktop system, but I don’t have much budget for it at the moment. I do have a 30″ 2560×1600 display I bought a while ago though. Would something like an Athlon X4 860K with a GTX 750 Ti be able to play 4k mp4 video and scale it to a 2560×1600 screen? I only have an old slow laptop to connect to a 30″ display right now. It can’t even scale a 480p youtube video full screen, unless I play it in vlc rather than the browser.

   Reply
10. 

    Areus on January 5, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    Great show guys. Glad you
    Great show guys. Glad you liked my Case!

    Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.