Everybody’s doing it and so is ECS, releasing its top-end Sandy Bridge motherboard, the P67H2-A Black Extreme.

ECS may not be as well known as some of its rivals, but it does seem to come out with some interesting boards, especially its Black Extreme series for the enthusiasts.

And the latest addition to this line is no exception.

It combines Intel’s Sandy Bridge combination of the Socket 1155 CPU support and the P67 Express chipset with Lucid’s Hydra graphics technology to support mix-and-match combinations of graphics cards.

That is to say you can use Nvidia and AMD cards together in the same board. While the jury may be out on the performance benefits of the technology itself, it’s an interesting route for ECS to take.

There’s also not one but two USB 3.0 controllers on the board, meaning you get four ports on the rear panel as well as an aluminium two port USB 3.0 front expansion adaptor. That adapter is bundled with the board and sits in any spare 3.5-inch panel at the front of any PC case.

This early version of the BIOS, although reporting a 100MHz base clock, was according to CPU-Z running at just under that at 99.8MHz, meant the processor was running at 3.39GHz instead of the 3.4GHz.

The same happened when it was over clocked to 4.2GHz – it ended up running at 4.19, which all sounds insignificant but is the reason by the board falls slightly behind the Asus P8P67-M Pro when it comes to the rendering benchmarks.

CPU Rendering performance

Cinebench R11.5 – Index: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 6.71
Foxconn P67A-S: 6.69
ECS P67H2-A: 6.53

Cinebench R10 – Seconds: quicker is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro – 37
Foxconn P67A-S – 39
ECS P67H2-A – 39

x264v2 – FPS: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 35.15
Foxconn P67A-S: 32.71
ECS P67H2-A: 33.21

x264v3 – FPS: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 35.70
Foxconn P67A-S: 36.76
ECS P67H2-A: 32.71

1080p gaming performance

Just Cause 2 – FPS: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 46
Foxconn P67A-S: 46
ECS P67H2-A: 45

Built on an ATX PCB, the P76H2-A has an impressive 14-phase power management design that includes solid capacitors and Ferrite chokes. All of that should mean stability when the board is being overclocked.

The P67 chipset and the MOSFETs sit under some fairly hefty passive heatsinks connected together by heatpipes, while the Lucid HydraLogix 200 chip sits all alone under a low profile heatsink, which again is passive.

One of the first things that you notice when looking at the ECS P76H2-A – apart from the striking black, white and grey colour scheme – is the collection of three PCI-E graphics slots.

The top two slots are positioned with enough distance between them so graphics cards with large coolers can be used together with out too many problems, but the third slot is positioned very close to the bottom edge of the board so any heftily cooled card will overhang the board.

This wont be a problem in most chassis, but generally any of the cards capable of three-way multi-GPU will be the high-end cards, which will usually have chunkier cooling arrays.

The top slot always runs at full x16 speed, while the second runs at x16 if two graphics cards are used (CrossFire or SLI) but the speed drops to x8 if three cards are used. That third slot will always run at x8 regardless of whether the two other slots are filled.

As well as graphics cards, if you’ve also got a lot of external devices to plug into your board, the ECS P67H2-A Black Extreme will fit the bill nicely.

Apart from the previously mentioned USB 3.0 ports, the board supports up to 14 USB 2.0 ports (six on the rear I/O panel and eight more through four motherboard headers) and there are two eSATA 6Gbps on the back panel along with two Gigabit LAN connectors.

We liked

ECS has taken a bold step by adding the Lucid technology to the board, and it does give a lot of flexibility when it comes to setting up the graphics.

The inclusion of the USB 3.0 panel is a nice idea too, because it allows you too add front USB 3.0 ports to a case, which are only just beginning to surface on the latest PC case designs.

We disliked

The one real dislike about the board will only really concern you if you want to overclock it. We had an early version of the Aptio BIOS that had an unfinished look about it, which will hopefully improve with any upgrades coming down the line.

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When it comes to new PC components, odes to awesomeness are often overwrought. But take it from us, Intel’s new Sandy Bridge desktop processors proved worthy of our finest prose. The Intel Core i5-2500K and Intel Core i7-2600K chips are preposterously quick. Of course, to get the best out of them what you need is a damn fine motherboard. For example, the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG.

At least, that’s what Asus would have you think.

This latest board from the enthusiast-class Republic of Gamers line is based on the new Intel P67 chipset, one of two consumer-oriented platforms for the new Sandy Bridge chips. The P67 is the discrete graphics alternative to the integrated graphics H67 chipset.

On the downside, that means you can’t use the integrated graphics core that comes with all 14 of the new Sandy Bridge desktop CPUs. Normally, we wouldn’t class that as a major disappointment. After all, the history of integrated graphics has been one of awful performance. However, Intel’s latest effort is the best we’ve seen by miles.

On the upside, the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG is absolutely, positively rammed with high-performance features. Highlights include no fewer than eight USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel, remote control overclocking, a seriously snazzy graphical firmware interface and much, much more.

We’re only beginning to get to grips with the immense performance and overclocking headroom of Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors. It’s therefore difficult to draw really firm conclusions about the comparative performance of the first compatible motherboards.

However, what we can say for sure is that the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG is making the most of the 2.0 revision of Turbo Boost that comes with Sandy Bridge. During testing, the Maximus runs an Intel Core i7-2600K processor at a constant 3.8GHz under load, regardless of the number of active cores.

Professional rendering, Cinebench R10

Time – faster is better

Foxconn H67S: 38 seconds
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 35 seconds
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 46 seconds

Video encoding, x264 HD

Frames per second – higher is better

Foxconn H67S: 32fps
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 35fps
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 28fps

Gaming, World in Conflict

Frames per second – higher is better

Foxconn H67S: 90fps
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 96fps
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 78fps

Memory bandwidth, SiSoft Sandra

Gigabytes per second – higher is better

Foxconn H67S: 14.1GB/s
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 18.7GB/s
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 17.3GB/s

** P55 chipset and Intel Core i7-870

Extracting maximum power and performance from Intel’s new LGA1155 CPUs is the unambiguous task we’re setting for the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG. On paper, it’s certainly up to the job.

For starters, like all boards built for the new Sandy Bridge processors the Maximus is equipped with EFI firmware. EFI effectively replaces the long-standing BIOS PC firmware platform and brings a number of upgrades including faster boot times, support for boot disks larger than 2TB and graphical user interfaces.

Regarding the latter, Asus has really gone to town. The Maximus has a thoroughly snazzy mouse-driven EFI menu that runs at 1024 x 768. It even supports screen grabs to a USB key via the F12 key. If nothing else, it’s a feature that makes life easier for us on TechRadar.

What’s more, like all of Asus’ RoG boards, the Maximus’ menu is absolutely packed with overclocking and tweaking options.

There is, however, one thing missing – the ability to overclock using the global CPU multiplier setting rather than the Turbo ratios. Asus has provided an entry in the CPU configuration menu for the base multiplier ratio, but currently it doesn’t allow inputs beyond the standard ratio required to achieve the official non-Turbo clockspeed.

This is very much in line with how Intel describes overclocking with the new Sandy Bridge processors. Other board manufacturers, though, have streamlined this process so that it automatically switches to the Turbo multiplier when you go beyond the designed specifications of the new Intel chip’s multiplier.

Another key feature is remote overclocking via RoG Connect. The basic functionality via USB is a familiar feature, but the Maximus gets a few funky new capabilities.

A Bluetooth module allows you to hook up wirelessly and control the overclocking settings using an app on an iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Asus says it’s considering adding support for other platforms. Android and Windows Phone 7 users may yet experience some wireless ROG Connect joy.

GPU TweakIt is the other upgrade for ROG Connect and essentially adds discrete graphics card to the remote overclocking package.

In terms of hardware specifications beyond the standard Intel P67 chipset, Asus has soldered on a pair of NEC USB 3.0 controllers, which in turn feed two USB 3.0 hub chips. The result is a total of eight USB 3.0 ports. In other words, the back panel is pure USB 3.0, which is jolly nice.

Meanwhile, the Maximus also has some serious hardware tweaking chops in the form of voltage measuring points and DIP switches for configuring the PCI Express ports.

On that very subject, the Maximus supports both AMD CrossFire and Nvidia SLI multi-GPU platforms. Intriguingly, with regard to SLI support, Asus has wired up an Nvidia NF200 chip. Ostensibly, this provides extra PCIE lanes and allows support for triple-card SLI.

However, our understanding of the Sandy Bridge architecture suggests this is a futile measure due to the limited bandwidth of the external DMI interface, which shares 2.5GB/s across all peripherals. We’re awaiting word from Asus on how this all adds up.

In performance terms, it’s hard to be absolutely categorical about the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG. It’s the quickest Sandy Bridge board we’ve tested, but then we haven’t seen many yet. Still, it’s worth noting that we achieved our highest air-cooled overclock of Sandy Bridge, an impressive 4.6GHz, with this board. However, for all the talk of quick-booting EFI firmwares, it doesn’t half take a long time to wake up and smell the coffee.

If that’s a function of the snazzy graphical EFI menu, we’d prefer a return to plain old text.

Moreover, there are several unresolved issues that prevent us from giving this board the full thumbs up. We’re not convinced the NF200 chip’s triple-card SLI capability is quite what it seems.

Another doubt involves the Quick Sync Video transcode core that appears in all Sandy Bridge processors. According to our Intel engineering contact, it should be possible to access the transcoder when using discrete graphics.

However, the Maximus does not provide an option to enable the integrated graphics core in parallel with a discrete card and thus it doesn’t appear in device manager. We’d certainly be loathe to pass up on Quick Sync Video. Early tests suggest it’s much faster than conventional CPU software encoding.

We liked

If you can afford it, we’ve little doubt the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG represents your best chance of maximising the CPU performance of Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors. It’s also packed with seriously desirable features such as wireless overclocking and comprehensive USB 3.0 connectivity.

We disliked

We’re still getting to know Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processor architecture, so it’s not quite clear whether Asus is responsible for Maximus’s niggles, including question marks over SLI and the Quick Sync Video transcode engine. But all the same, they could do with sorting.

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Perhaps it’s because my kids are homeschooled. Or perhaps I’m just geeky that way. But when my family decides to head out on vacation I go into hyper-drive. I see it as an opportunity to get primed for our visit to , learn about the area, and delve into all sorts of activities related to our upcoming trip. We immerse ourselves in our planned vacation, seeking out historic information or maps of a city or details about must-see attractions. We live and breathe our vacation destination for a month before we’re set to leave.

Author Kate Reilly gets me! In her new book, Walt Disney World Resort: Extreme Vacation Guide for Kids, Kate presents more than 30 activities that will help kids prepare for and enjoy their visit to the Magic Kingdom. The only book about Disney travel that caters specifically to children, it begins with an introduction to Disney World and acknowledges that waiting for the trip will be the hardest part. The beginning of the book features ideas for counting down to the departure date and methods for earning money to spend during the vacation. (I love that she encourages kids to take responsibility for some of their spending money.)

[Read the rest of Kris Bordessa's article over at GeekMom!]

View full post on GeekDad

Another week brings with it another motherboard toting Lucid’s HydraLogix 200 (nee Hydra 200) mix-and-match graphics technology. This time, however, it comes not from MSI, but from archrivals Asus.

It’s taken Asus a while to launch a board based on the technology, but one’s now a reality in the form of the Asus Crosshair IV Extreme.

The Crosshair IV Extreme is the latest addition to the AMD branch of Asus’s RoG (Republic of Gamers) family and – just like the rest of the RoG motherboard lineup – has all the bells and whistles you expect from a top-end Asus motherboard. Like its brethren, it also comes in a box that’s pretty much crammed with hardware.

It’s worth noting that the Crosshair IV Extreme is the new flagship of the Crosshair range and hence is aimed at the higher end of the market, carrying a price tag to match.

The last high-end board to carry Lucid’s technology, MSI’s Big Bang Fuzion, was also the first mainstream board to use it. Ultimately, it suffered from a combination of a high price tag and early-to-market technology.

Asus, by allowing the technology to mature a little and putting it on a RoG board, are hoping they can entice high-end users back to give the technology another try.

Unlike MSI’s AMD AM3-based board offering HydraLogix support, the 890A Fuzion, Asus’s Crosshair IV Extreme uses the full-fat version of AMD’s 890 chipset: the 890FX. So even without Lucid’s chip, you get full x16 dual and triple CrossfireX support, while the SB850 Southbridge provides native SATA6 and USB 3.0 support.

The 890FX Northbridge, Lucid chip and the voltage regulators all sit under what at first glance looks like a large passive heatsink, but which actually has small cooling fans underneath. The Southbridge sits under a heatsink too, with a hefty heatpipe connecting both cooling plates.

There are five x16 PCIe slots. Take care to use the ones that suit whatever graphics setup you’re running. Slots one and three are the ones for straightforward dual-card Crossfire use – these are taken care of by the 890FX, which eliminates the latency within the HydraLogix controller.

The 890FX will also support four cards in a Quad CrossfireX setup, but not at full x16 speed. The HydraLogix chip takes care of slots two, four and five, and can be used in only in dual- or triple-card setups presently, although Quad GPU Hydra support will follow later in Q4 2010.

Nine SATA ports are provided; six SATA 6GB/s ports (coloured red) and two SATA 3GB/s (black) ports are edge mounted at 90 degrees, while the third SATA 3GB/s port is vertically mounted next to them. The SB850 provides RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 support for the SATA6 ports. There’s also integrated Gigabit Ethernet and eight-channel audio.

Since it’s a RoG board, Crosshair IV Extreme comes with a RoG Connect module, which enables you to tweak and overclock the board either from another PC (via the supplied cable) or from the comfort of your armchair via Bluetooth using a laptop.

Unlike previous motherboards we’ve looked at carrying Lucid’s chip, Asus’s Crosshair IV Extreme offers a wide range of options when it comes to setting up the graphics in dual, triple or quad modes.

A word of caution when setting up cards with large third-party coolers to use the Hydra chip, though: we fitted a card into the second PCIe slot and adding a card into the fourth slot proved a problem. There was little airflow around it, which forced us to use the fifth slot. Unfortunately, this runs at x8 speed unlike the other four, which run at full x16 speed.

Cinebench R11.5
Ranking 5.90

Cinebench R10
(seconds to complete multithreaded task) 51.01

X264v2
Pass 1 (avr) 84.945fps
Pass 2 (avr) 30.203fps

X264v3
Pass 1 (avr) 75.342fps
Pass 2 (avr) 32.495fps

Games Performance
FarCry2 
(1680 x 1024 small ranch benchmark 4xFSAA, Ultra in-game settings, in average fps)

HD5830 68.05
HD5830 Crossfire 88.86
GTX460 73.64
GTX460 SLI (Hydra) 60.27
GTX460+HD5830 59.56

(1920 x 1200 small ranch benchmark 4xFSAA, Ultra in-game settings, in average fps)

HD5830 59.88
HD5830 Crossfire 76.58
GTX460 63.15
GTX460 SLI (Hydra) 54.39
GTX460+HD5830 55.98

Just Cause 2
(1280 x 1024 4xFSAA, 8x AscF Dark Tower map, in average fps)

HD5830 47.87
HD5830 Crossfire 59.56
GTX460 55.47
GTX460 SLI (Hydra) 55.25
GTX460+HD5830 55.29

(1920 x 1200 4xFSAA, 8x AscF Dark Tower map, in average fps)

HD5830 40.21
HD5830 Crossfire 51.56
GTX460 41.33
GTX460 SLI (Hydra) 41.30
GTX460+HD5830 41.66

DiRT2
(1280 x 1024 4x FSAA, Ultra settings, in average fps)

HD5830 89.59
HD5830 Crossfire 89.30
GTX460 92.14
GTX460 SLI (Hydra) 94.67
GTX460+HD5830 95.21

(1920 x 1200 4x FSAA, Ultra settings, in average fps)

HD5830 84.08
HD5830 Crossfire 88.79
GTX460 90.36
GTX460 SLI (Hydra) 91.03
GTX460+HD5830 91.62

Power (system power measured at wall, peak running Everest burn-in test for five mins)
Idle 132W
Peak 209W

Compared to any of the other motherboards we’ve looked at carrying Lucid’s HydraLogix 200 chip lately, Asus’ Crosshair IV Extreme is packed to the gills with features both visible on the PCB and in the BIOS – as you would expect from a board carrying the RoG label.

Unlike MSI’s 870A Fuzion, which uses an AMD 870/SB810 chipset combination to keep the price down, Asus have firmly aimed the Crosshair IV Extreme at the high-end, fitting it with a flagship AMD 890FX/SB850 chipset combination.

When it comes to how the board performs, it’s pretty impressive. Not quite as fast as Asus’s ‘pure’ 890FX board, the Crosshair IV Formula, but it’s pretty close in terms of overall performance. And with all those graphics slots, the Crosshair IV Extreme is far more flexible when it comes to graphics setups too.

In a pure Crossfire setup using the 890FX chipset you won’t need to worry about frame rates, but when it comes to using the Hydra chipset in SLI there are still some issues. Hopefully, these will be ironed out with subsequent driver releases.

In mix-and-match mode, the performance shows a good deal of promise.

Since the Crosshair IV Extreme is a member of the RoG gang, you shouldn’t be surprised to find extra ‘goodies’ placed around the board and a very interesting group of these appear on the top-right-hand edge, next to the four DDR3 DIMM slots (which support memory speeds up to 2000MHz). Alongside the large start button (which lights up) and buttons for resetting, OC and Core Unlocker are seven Probelt points.

These points enable you to measure the true voltages being used by CPU, memory, chipset bridges and so on when overclocking by using a multimeter directly, or via the extension cables that are included in the box. Next to these sit five small on/off switches, which turn the PCIe slots on and off.

So if you’re feeling lazy and can’t be bothered to remove a card, you can simply switch the slot it’s sitting in off.

Any motherboard carrying a RoG label pretty much guarantees that not only will the board be crammed with features, but the box bundle will be pretty impressive too.

The Crosshair IV Extreme doesn’t disappoint and opening the box shows real skill in the art of packing of nothing if else.

The impressive list includes a RoG Connect Bluetooth module, a couple of thermal sensors, the really useful Asus Q Connector (extension plugs for the front panel case leads, so no more fiddling about), a USB RoG cable, an I/O plate with single eSATA and dual USB 2.0 ports, two 3GB/s SATA cables and three 6GB/s SATA cables.

We Liked
The Crosshair IV Extreme is a well put together board with plenty of features to keep the high-end enthusiast or hardcore overclocker happy, but this should come as no real surprise as it’s what Asus’s RoG range is all about.

The combination of AMD’s 890FX/SB850 chipset combination and Lucid’s Hydra technology together with the multitude of PCIe graphics slots make for an interesting addition to the Asus high-end motherboard collection.

We disliked
There’s not much to dislike about Asus’ Crosshair IV Extreme apart from the price tag. But since Asus hasn’t compromised with any of the hardware, the high price was almost a given.

Verdict
The Asus Crosshair IV Extreme is a mightily impressive board aimed at more of a niche market than the recent MSI Lucid boards we’ve looked at. It’ll be interesting to see how well the Lucid technology goes down with the enthusiasts and/or overclockers this time around.

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View full post on AndroidSPIN | Your No.1 source for Everything Android.

KenMood has released an update to E-Xtreme Froyo v1.9.2 with working wifi, camera, & 3dgallery. Now at version 1.9.2.

CHANGELOG:

—-1.9.3
*fixed browser
*fixed audio issues
*fixed market in gapps (redownload for fix)
*fixed maps in gapps (redownload for fix)
—-1.9.2 :
*wifi fixed
—-1.9.1 :
* camera fixed
* 3dgallery fixed
—-1.9 :
* upgraded to android 2.2
* black theme only
* many, many performance tweaks
* cpu running @ 576mhz

Head over to KenMood’s AndroidSPIN Developer Homepage for more information and downloads.

Once you get this ROM installed, don’t forget to give your feedback in the forums. He can’t fix things if he doesn’t know they exist.

View full post on AndroidSPIN | Your No.1 source for Everything Android.

WOW is the first word that came out of my mouth when I installed KenMood’s E-Xtreme Froyo v1.9.2 on my G1.  KenMood has taken the CM6 latest source and built what appears to be the first released Android 2.2 ROM for the T-Mobile G1 / T-Mobile MyTouch with everything working.  It’s fast, smooth and runs really nicely.  I’ve only had it running for about 20 minutes, but so far everything appears to be working. I’ll continue to play and let you know if I find any problems.

I’m not sure if it’s the excellent job Cyanogen and his team have done or any potential tweaks and mods Ken Mood has put into this release, but I can tell you that it’s really nice and my G1 just sprung a new lease on life.

Here’s a few screens shots to keep you going until you feel safe enough to install this yourself.

Click on the preview below to view the entire full size collection.

View full post on AndroidSPIN | Your No.1 source for Everything Android.

KenMood has released a new ROM for the T-Mobile G1 / T-Mobile MT3G called E-Xtreme.  E-Xtreme is an Android 2.1 ROM based on BenBuchacher’s SuperE ROM.

CHANGELOG

—- 1.3.1 (future, hopeful plans)
* Optimize images by compression for greater performance
* Change orange colors to black theme to blue (including battery)
* Include custom bootscreen for splash1 (not splash2, i.e. cyanogen nexus1 bootscreen)
* Include extra wallpaper by default
* Other goodies are already in store for 1.3.1 to make the next release even more blazing fast!
—- 1.3
* Added latest SuperE kernel
* Fixed renice script to help reduce call lag
* Increased CPU from 528mhz to 576mhz
* Added ADW Launcher 0.7.5 (do not upgrade in market or your google search widget will change from black to white in the black theme)
* ADW Launcher 0.7.5 modified for black/white versions
* Wifi issue fixed
* Added Cyanogen’s extra audio ringtones and notifications
—- 1.2.2
* Changed ADW Launcher from rc3 to rc2 for stability
* Readded live wallpaper upon user request
* Changed blue battery to orange to blend with existing theme for black theme (flash 1.2.1 for blue or 1.2 for green)
* Using SuperE’s kernel with BenBuchacher’s permission — thanks Ben
* Added color icons to Settings
* Custom Hosts file to block ads from browser/apps
* Had wifi issues
—- 1.2.1
* Updated ADW Launcher from rc1 to rc3
* Removed live wallpaper
* Changed black theme’s green battery to blue
* Added full white theme, including widgets and app highlight, for white theme
* Default wallpaper updated in Wallpaper Gallery
* Custom hosts file to block ads for apps and browser
* Added enhanced, modified Music.apk from cacheinjection
—- 1.2
* Based from stable 5.0.7 cm release
* ADW Launcher from AnderWeb
* Black and White modifications of AWD Launcher from Cloverdale
* Black Theme from Cloverdale
* Compcache increased from 24mb to 32mb
* Firerat’s fixes for LWP DC2X FIXP and FB 1.2.x sync on G1 included
* Youtube Ripper included from rolle3k
* CacheCleaner included from L. Sartory
* Linda File Manager included from nylinda.com
* 3D Gallery reenabled that was removed on 5.0.7
* Common: Resync with Google as of 05/20/2010
* Common: New ARM optimizations in Bionic from Jim Huang @ 0xlab
* Common: Superuser 2.1 from ChainsDD
* Common: DeskClock style tweaks from Nathan Zachary
* Common: Email signature support from Jarrett Vance
* Common: Pin-lock and alternate lockscreen framework from _avatar
* Common: Updated Japanese locales from Takuo Kitame
* Common: Added Compcache and rzscontrol to the build
* Common: APN list updated by Paul Weiss, blunden, and PsychoI3oy.
* Common: Downloader allows any file to download – thanks Eddie Ringle
* Common: Kernel updated to 2.6.33.4
* Common: Fix bug with where wrong organization is shown in-call (Boyd Bischke)
* Common: Several kernel patches from Christopher Lais (Zinx) to improve stability and support MT3G Fender/1.2
* Common: Low memory killer was pimped out by San Mehat @ Google. Big interactivity boost especially on D/S
* Common: Updated Phone patches from Cytown (v29)
* Common: Dim the deskclock screensaver colors
* Common: Fixed race conditions and notification bugs in MMS
* Common: Added quick uninstall “Delete Zone” to Launcher and Launcher2 (Ander Webbs)
* Common: Allow widgets in the Launcher default workspace (ported from Launcher2 by Lox)
* Common: Fix race conditions and bugs in MMS app
* Common: Compact drawer can be toggled for Launcher as well as Launcher2 now
* Common: Added squisher script for release builds
* Common: Another lowmemorykiller tweak from Zinx to take cache into account
* Common: Turned off battery percentage display by default
* Common: Added “omni-tether” from Wertarbyte for BT tether
* Common: System built using Zinx’s resource-sorter patch for aapt- may provide perf boost
* Common: Patch from Zinx to have background processes holding wakelocks set to a higher OOM kill adjustment (push notify, mms are good examples)
* Common: Number of recent apps is configurable – Bcrook, Pershoot & Wysie
* Common: Ability to disable icons and paths on the lockscreen – Wysie
* Common: Add pand and hidd to the build
* Common: Fix OpenVPN- manifest was using the wrong mtpd
* Common: DeskClock: Add alarm timeout setting (Michael Webster)
* Common: OpenVPN: Select between TAP and TUN interface (Takuo Kitame)
* Common: Various UI element colors are selectable via Spare Parts (Wysie)
* Common: NEON-optimized libjpeg (CodeAurora/Qualcomm)
* Droid: Fix for 50% signal loss reporting bug on Motorola Droid (Boyd Bischke)
* Droid: Disable V8. It was breaking Epocrates and other applications
* Droid: Tweak the haptic feedback to better match stock (Adrynalyne)
* Droid: Enable Dialpad for OTA Activation (nuclear305)
* D/S: Full support for Dream and Sapphire devices (eclair-ds branch)
* D/S: Updated wallpapers and Launcher for MDPI
* D/S: Build various OMX components from source (via CodeAurora)
* D/S: libcamera originally reverse engineered by NCommander
* D/S: Various driver issues causing battery drain were fixed by Zinx
* D/S: disable menu in lockscreen, fix incall mute, speed up the boot
* D/S: raise min cpufreq to 245MHz (Wes Garner)
* D/S: add Prash’s bootanimation
* D/S: Using HTC “Turbo Mode” clock settings
* D/S: Fix issues with notification LED on D/S
* D/S: Don’t use msmsdcc_sdioirq, this leaves IRQs on all the time which can cause battery drain
* D/S: Fix RIL settings to improve performance
* D/S: Kill logspam from OMX
* D/S: Fixed 3MP camera preview and memory leaks
* D/S: Fixed slidelock layout
* D/S: Fixed issue with picking contact for map directions
* D/S: Change oom-killer behavior to be more “swap friendly” if you want to go against everyones advice and use swap anyway
* D/S: CPU clock tweaks from Pershoot
* N1: CPU clock and memory tweaks from Pershoot (http://github.com/pershoot)
* N1: Trackball notification color blending option (from Ehud Shabtai http://github.com/eshabtai)

A FEW KNOWN ISSUES:
* Facebook from market breaks sync for Market users (see forum for Facebook Sync) – only on Dream, Sapphire is OK. Blame Facebook.
* End-Button-behavior in Spare Parts only works on ‘Sleep’ mode
* Camera apps may leak memory
* Default text color in black theme is black. Go to SpareParts and change text, date, clock to white and reboot for resolution.
* Getting a FC? Do a full wipe + reflash w/o gapps and load the phone, then reboot and flash gapps for resolution.

Head over to KenMood’s AndroidSPIN Developer Homepage for more info and downloads

View full post on AndroidSPIN

The Republic of Gamers motherboards from Asus have always been the performance kings of its product catalogue, and as such have always had a fairly hefty price premium slapped on top of them. They’re not just great performing items, they also come with all the bells and whistly things you could want in a board.

In short, the ROG mobos are the money’s-no-object parts you throw in your machine if you never have to ask how much they cost. At £330, the oversized X58- based Rampage III Extreme (R3E) definitely fits then, but it’s not a board that you can just throw into a PC to instantly make it faster.

It’s designed to be the overclockers’ motherboard of choice. We’re not just talking the sort of person who wants a couple of extra FPS in their favourite shooter, oh no. This board is designed for people with a penchant for liquid nitrogen and names like sno.lcn and Sf3d.

The R3E has a specific LN2 Mode jumper that helps sub-zero temperature overclocking when the cold-boot bug stops the CPU posting at such low temps. Generally you’d need to heat up the CPU before carrying on, but the LN2 Mode allows the serious liquid nitrogen overclockers to keep going.

There are also specific voltage points for measuring what’s happening in separate bits of the system, from the CPU to PCIe and beyond.

It’s got whole new features for remote overclocking, too, bringing back the ROG Connect system of linking up to a separate laptop and controlling and monitoring the rig’s specifics from there.

There’s also now a Bluetooth connection that allows you to boot, reset, monitor and overclock from a compatible mobile phone too. Granted, you need either a Windows Mobile 6.1/6.5 or Android 2.0 device, but it’s an interesting development away from the BIOS screen.

Fast and loose

But this is an incredibly niche market, as there are very few of us who really need these sorts of extreme overclocking capabilities. This isn’t a mass-market board (at over £300 it was never going to be), this is a board to put into high-end, prebuilt, pre-overclocked systems worth thousands. This is a board to win overclocking events, to post numbers higher than other manufacturers, to make people associate Asus with the fastest motherboards on the planet and hope the trickle-down effect keeps people loyal to it.

So is it going to do all that? Well, if our experience of this board is representative then it might just. It’s nothing special at stock speeds, but start playing around and the board leaps away from the competition.

We paired it with a suitably pricey chip, the Core i7 980X six-core monster, and we managed a 1GHz plus overclock without breaking a sweat. The Intel Extreme board we tested the chip with last issue could barely get to 3.9GHz without falling over where the R3E hit 4.4GHz in a trice.

If you want the X58 overclockers’ board, the Rampage III Extreme is where it’s at. But you may have to remortgage the house and sell the kids if you want the sort of setup to do it justice…

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Within the relatively small self-building segment, the market for high-end boards with full-on feature sets and pricing to match is itself a minority sport. What to make, therefore, of the imposing Asus Republic of Gamers Maximus III Extreme?

Pricing wise, it sails straight past expensive, pauses briefly at exotic and settles finally for punitive. The price tag of £265 is a huge amount for any motherboard, but in the context of a board with the mainstream LGA1156 socket, rather than the high-end LGA1366 item, it looks, well, unsustainable. At the very least it finds itself in a tiny niche. It had better be bloody good.

In terms of features, it’s more than good. It’s nothing short of stunning. The most spectacular capability is, undoubtedly, the ability to apply BIOS tweaks via Bluetooth using a compatible mobile phone. That’s right, you can overclock this motherboard wirelessly using any Windows Mobile, Symbian or Android handset. An iPhone app, meanwhile, is in development.

As it happens, you can also use your phone to do more mundane tasks such as control media playback.

Features, lots of them

Another funky feature, known as ROG Connect, allows you to hook up a secondary PC, be it a portable or desktop system, via USB and remotely edit BIOS settings even when the system is powered down.

Then there are fully five PCI-e x16 slots and support for either four-way CrossFire or three-way SLI courtesy of the extra PCI-e lanes provided by an Nvidia NF200 chip.

Next up is SATA 6Gbps support, a pair of USB 3.0 ports and 10-channel audio; not to mention dual BIOSes allowing you to slap on custom or beta versions with zero-risk of motherboard death.

Frankly, all of the above is no more than a whistle stop tour of the main highlights. We could write a small novel about this mobo’s bonkers feature set. It’s also a truly beautiful physical specimen replete with effective and elegant heat sinks and cooling pipes.

Anyway, if you’re beginning to think that £265 sticker isn’t quite so silly after all, you’re in good company. But does it deliver in terms of performance?

Somewhat disappointingly, it doesn’t top our overclocking table with the base clock running out of steam at 195MHz and therefore a maximum frequency of 3.9GHz for our Core i5 test chip. That said, we’ve little doubt that this motherboard will deliver the goods in the hands of a patient and dedicated enthusiast.

But it’s worth noting that it doesn’t provide an advantage in the quick and dirty overclocking stakes. All of which makes the Maximus III an incredibly desirable but ultimately hard-to-justify novelty.

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