Sharkoon Announces T28 Case for Long Graphics Cards

Sharkoon presents another series of cases: Available in three color editions, the Sharkoon T28 offers a lot of space especially for hard drive installation, thankfully due to the removable hard drive cage, and also perfect for extra-long graphic cards.
Externally the Sharkoon T28 offers a black body and a rectilinear mesh front design. Power and Reset buttons are elegantly chromed. In regards to the front connectors, Audio In/Out stands ready between three USB2.0 ports and a USB3.0 interface. An acrylic window on the left side panel gives an insight into the interior of the colored mainboard tray. Choose from three color editions: Red, green, and for the first time after numerous customer suggestions, blue. Also, the operating and hard drive LEDs illuminate in the edition color as well as the three pre-installed 120 mm fans. Two fans rotate in the front, the third in the back. All possess a 4-pin power supply and a 3-pin mainboard connector.
The Sharkoon T28 allows various options with the drive assembly: Two external 5.25 inch and eight internal 3.5 inch bays are available. In one of the two 5.25 slots an external 3.5 inch device alternately can be mounted, appropriate installation material is enclosed. 2.5 inch disks also find room: Configuration includes two mounting frames for hard drives and SSDs in both installation sizes. If necessary, the case converts in no time to support the installation of longer graphic cards: The eight hard drive bays are divided, with two firmly installed and a separate modular hard drive cage. By removing the middle three-cage, enough room is created for up to 40 cm long graphic cards.
In regards to the other functions Sharkoon focuses on proven comfort: The mainboard tray is provided with a CPU cooler mount opening and feedthroughs for orderly and concealed cable relocation, the drives assembly occurs with practical quick-locking mechanisms, the power supply is positioned on the floor of the case directly over a dust filter protected air intake, and in the rear two rubberized hoses are provided.

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Seagate Finalizes Samsung Storage Acquisition Deal

Seagate has completed a $1.4 billion cash and stock options deal to acquire Samsung’s hard drive division. The deal would see Samsung license flash memory technology to Seagate for use in solid state drives (SSD), and Samsung buying hard drives from Seagate for use in its consumer computer division.
This transaction was announced in April 2011 along with a series of other agreements between Seagate and Samsung.
“Together, Seagate and Samsung have aligned our current and future product development efforts and roadmaps in order to accelerate time-to-market efficiency for new products and position us to better address the increasing demands for storage,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO in a press release. “It is an exciting time in the industry with rapidly evolving opportunities in many markets including mobile computing, cloud computing, and solid state storage.”
“The strategic relationship will open new opportunities for the two companies by mutually complementing each other’s creative technology solutions for a broad diversity of IT applications,” said Oh-Hyun Kwon, vice chairman of Device Solutions of Samsung Electronics in a statement.
Though Seagate’s facilities were spared in the catastrophic floods in Thailand, the company has faced a myriad of financial troubles during the last fiscal year. In Q3 2010, Seagate reported a profit of $503 million. A year later that profit slumped to $103 million.
Despite this slump in profit margin, In an interview with Bloomberg in November, CEO Luczo claimed he could raise prices 40 percent because of flood related shortages; instead, he said, he would be offering increases of 20 percent to customers that commit to one- to three-year contracts.

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AMD Announces New A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs)

AMD today updated its A-Series line-up of desktop and notebook Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), further improving its top-performing family of dual- and quad-core APUs. Along with speed and performance improvements, AMD Steady Video update make this unique feature more compelling than ever. For desktop users, AMD extends its overclocking pedigree to the APU; for the first time users can tune both x86 and graphics settings in a single processor for boosted performance. The updated AMD A-Series APUs combine up to four x86 CPU cores with up to 400 Radeon cores, delivering powerful DirectX 11-capable, discrete-level graphics and dedicated HD video processing on a single chip. These new APUs increase performance and deliver a richer feature set than existing AMD A-series APUs. Plus, only AMD APUs offer AMD Dual Graphics for an up to 144 percent visual performance boost when a select APU is paired with a select AMD Radeon HD 6500 Series graphics card.
The AMD A-Series family of APUs also features AMD Steady Video, designed to stabilize videos during playback – making unsteady, jumpy content look steady and smooth as you watch. On select systems using AMD A-Series APUs, Internet Explorer 9 will include an AMD Steady Video plugin, unlocking one-click control to simplify access to the premium AMD Steady Video feature for video stabilization.
All AMD A-Series processors are powered by AMD VISION Engine Software, a suite of software that provides end-users with regular updates designed to improve system performance and stability, and can add new software enhancements.
New A-Series Desktop APUs launched today:

• A8-3870K: Four CPU cores, 3.0 GHz CPU base (unlocked), 100W TDP, 400 Radeon cores, 600 MHz GPU base (unlocked), 4 MB L2 cache
• A8-3820: Four CPU cores, 2.5 GHz CPU base (2.8 GHz Turbo Core), 65W TDP, 400 Radeon cores, 4 MB L2 cache
• A6-3670K: Four CPU cores, 2.7 GHz CPU base (unlocked), 100W TDP, 320 Radeon cores, 600 MHz GPU base (unlocked), 4 MB L2 cache
• A6-3620: Four CPU cores, 2.2 GHz CPU base (2.5 GHz Turbo Core), 65W TDP, 320 Radeon cores, 4 MB L2 cache
• A4-3420: Two CPU cores, 2.8 GHz CPU base, 65W TDP, 160 Radeon cores, 1 MB L2 cache

New Notebook APUs launched today:

• A8-3550MX: Four CPU cores, 2.0 GHz CPU base (2.7 GHz Turbo Core), 45W TDP, 400 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
• A8-3520M: Four CPU cores, 1.6 GHz CPU base (2.5 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 400 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
• A6-3430MX: Four CPU cores, 1.7 GHz CPU base (2.4 GHz Turbo Core), 45W TDP, 320 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
• A6-3420M: Four CPU cores, 1.5 GHz CPU base (2.4 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 320 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
• A4-3330MX: Two CPU cores, 2.2 GHz CPU base (2.6 GHz Turbo Core), 45W TDP, 240 Radeon Cores, 2 MB L2 cache
• A4-3320M:Two CPU cores, 2.0 GHz CPU base (2.6 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 240 Radeon Cores, 2 MB L2 cache
• A4-3305M:Two CPU cores, 1.9 GHz CPU base (2.5 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 160 Radeon Cores, 1 MB L2 cache
• E2-3000M: Two CPU cores, 1.8 GHz CPU base (2.4 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 160 Radeon Cores, 1 MB L2 Cache

The new AMD A-Series family of APUs improves the first generation of highly successful and revolutionary desktop and notebook processors, providing an outstanding experience for consumers seeking more responsive multitasking, long battery-life, vivid graphics, lifelike games, lag-free videos and the ultimate multimedia performance.
Desktop APUs in the component channel as well as systems based on the new AMD A-Series APUs will hit the retail market over the next several weeks.

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