AMD FX-8320E

A budget octo-core CPU, but is it cheap enough?

WHEN AMD TELLS US it’s sending over a new FX-series CPU, we can’t help the sudden rush of excitement. It’s an automatic response, born of a time when a new AMD CPU had the potential to offer something genuinely competitive. But those days seem long gone. All we get now are half-hearted revisions of increasingly elderly chips.

The FX-8320E is the perfect example of that. AMD released this chip late last year, along with the FX-8370E as a pair of lower-powered octo-core CPUs for the more power-conscious consumer. These two chips use AMD’s Bulldozer processor tech and squeeze into a 95W TDP. They’re able to do this by utilising a lower base clock, retaining the same Turbo clock as their non-E brethren. To that end, this FX-8320E is running at 3.2GHz as standard, with the ability to hit 4GHz as needed. The standard FX-8320’s clockspeed sits some 300MHz higher at 3.5GHz.

Woojer

Haptic feedback for your moobs

A silent, wearable woofer. That’s the claim Woojer is making about its… er… Woojer. It truly is a bizarre little device, designed to translate sound into feeling with the idea of immersing you more deeply into the music you’re listening to, game you’re playing, or movie you’re watching.

And how is it to do this? By sitting in the middle of your chest, or just above your bottom, vibrating at different levels depending on the bass notes being pumped out of your system. Using a 3.5mm jack, you plug the Woojer into your PC and then your headset (or speakers) into a second 3.5mm output on the wee device. The Woojer then picks up the sound passing through it and vibrates. With its placement on either your breastplate or at the base of your spine, the Woojer is meant to translate the basspicked rumbling throughout your body to fool your brain into believing the effect was all-encompassing. And bless it, the Woojer certainly does try.

NZXT Doko

Stepping out of its chassis comfort zone, NZXT paddles into the stream

We’ve got to hand it to the Doko from NZXT. It really tries. And bless it, the little streaming box almost works. What we have here is a tiny client you plug into your 1080p television, then into your home PC’s network, to allow you to use your rig as though it was directly connected to the remote screen. But there are some serious limitations to this bargain box of tricks which hold it back from being the smart little device we were really hoping for.

XMG Prime Overclocked Nvidia Edition

An impressive tiny gamer that’s a bit too pricey

There’s little doubt that were you to purchase this wee box of gaming joy from XMG, you’d be as happy as a badger at a barbecue pulling the Prime from its box. It’s a quality gaming PC all the way from components to build to performance; but then it really ought to be considering you’re paying nigh-on £2,000 for the privilege.

But a privilege it would be to own such a machine. The Fractal Design Node 304 chassis is as sleek and minimally stylish a Mini-ITX case as you could want, and being finished with the Nvidia-green highlights gives it a little edge, too. It’s a visually pleasing system and also one that won’t take up too much space. You’re not sacrificing any functionality or performance opting for this smaller form factor.

Asus STRIX GTX 960 OC Edition

The ornithologically themed STRIX line gets the midrange Maxwell treatment

As there are no reference versions of the new GTX 960, it’s all up to the manufacturers just how far they go with their cards. Nvidia has put out its own guidelines for base and boost clocks, but that’s all they are. Because of that, the GTX 960 has spawned a glut of factoryoverclocked cards being first out of the gate. But is that really where the sweetspot lies for Nvidia’s mid-range Maxwell?

As is its wont, Asus has released an owly version of the GTX 960 under its STRIX branding, replete with the alwaysimpressive DirectCU II cooler. The stock 1,126MHz base and 1,178MHz boost clock laid out for the GTX 960 has been torn open once more, with the STRIX sitting at 1,291MHz and 1,317MHz respectively. Again though we didn’t see the card at those frequency points once during testing. Our sample was instead intent on rock-solid gaming at 1,354MHz.

Plextor M6e 512GB

M.2 done wrong

To early adopt or not. That is the question. At least, it’s the question you’d better have in mind when considering the new Plextor M6e. Because it most definitely ain’t the finished M.2 article.

All this M.2 and PCI Express stuff is still quite new and certainly a little confusing, so let’s recap. M.2 is the new PCI Expressbased storage interface that’s taking over planet Earth. Well, it’s taking over the little bit of planet Earth that is PC data storage. In the process it’s replacing the venerable SATA interconnect.

Samsung 850 Evo 500GB

3D memory goes mainstream

Without giving away too much, too soon, you may have noticed that both of our showcase SSDs this issue hail from the same outfit, namely Samsung. Without doubt, the Korean giant dominates the market for solid-state drives. That applies in terms of sheer number and presence, plus in terms of technical innovation. And it’s the latter that qualifies the 850 Evo for special attention, though that doesn’t mean it’s doing something absolutely new or that it’s necessarily a winner. Still, it’s all a bit galling when you consider Samsung is also dominant in the smartphone market. And HDTVs. And just about any other area of consumer electronics you care to mention. Resistance, it seems, is futile.

Samsung XP941 512GB

Welcome to the wonderful world of M.2

To paraphrase Dr Evil, is it too much to ask for an M.2 drive with frickin’ laser beams, sorry NVMe support, attached to its head? No idea what we’re talking about? Let’s start at the beginning.

Solid-state drives were the final piece of the PC performance puzzle. Before they arrived, everything else was achieved with solid-state circuits. Central processing, system memory, graphics, the whole nine yards. But not mass storage of data.

No, that was still done using arcane magnetic platters rotating about a spindle and interrogated by read heads floating precariously above the platter surfaces. That made for slow going during certain tasks, most obviously collecting random bits of data from distant sections of the platters. It also makes conventional hard drives prone to failure due to the delicate moving components.

The Future of Solid-State Storage

It's taken a decade, but SSDs are finally delivering. by Jeremy Laird

Solid-state storage was once the final frontier. It's arrival would banish the last remaining mechanised throwback and deliver us into a brave new age of lagless, lightning-quick computing. Back in 2008, when the first affordable SSD rocked up, initial impressions were revelatory, but it quickly became clear solid-state storage wasn't quite the instant fix – it turned out to be the most complex component of all.

Whether it's different data types delivering differing performance, drive survival or performance longevity, the more we learn, the more we recognise the limitations of earlier drives and realise how much potential there is. Fast forward to 2015 and today's SSDs are out-of-sight better than those laggy, stuttery early-adopter drives. If you haven't already jumped to SSDs, we guarantee you'll be delighted when you do. It's now more affordable, too. Decently capacious drives with great performance can be had for under £100.