Gigabyte has released the first motherboard form factor microATX, equipped with two ports Thunderbolt — GA-Z77MX-D3H TH. Taking into account the availability of the precursor (Z77MX-D3H), it’s interesting to compare the design and price of these models. First, about the cost of the product. The novelty is estimated at € 150, and its «little sister» — at € 108,50. If to subtract 10 euros from each of two amounts, there will be the minimum for which the cards will be available soon.



Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H TH


What causes the difference in more than 40 euros? In general, the presence of two ports Intel Thunderbolt 10 Gb / s, which are implemented by the controller Intel DSL3510L. A high-speed connection can simultaneously serve several drives and a monitor. Minor changes were made to the design of the CPU power supply subsystem, which, nevertheless, remained a 6-channel. One of the long PCI Express slots was replaced by the second PCI-E 2.0 x1.


By and large, …

Toshiba is engaged in improving the existing hard drives in order to increase their capacity. Limited to several tens of terabytes, Japanese do not want to stop — they need at least 600 terabytes in a single 3.5-inch drive. To do this, Toshiba uses all the tools and opportunities, including temporary cooperation with companies, competitors, TDK, and Showa Denko KK.



The newly formed trio of producers focuses on the development of new technologies of recording information on magnetic media and improvement of existing methods. Alliance sees great prospective in the technology of the so-called «two-dimensional magnetic recording» (TDMR). It is experimental, but using, it is quite achievable to record density of 10 terabits per square inch, which thus gives the capacity of 600 terabytes in a single hard drive.


Of course, no one talks about the chances of such a capacious storage in the foreseeable future — Toshiba and its partners will have more than one year of research …

One of the popular chassis series Aerocool — XPredator – is relevant again, thanks to the emergence of two new design options the Evil Blue and Devil Red. Apart from a small «cosmetic repairs» newcomers got two ports USB 3.0.



Full-Tower hulls of XPredator Evil Blue and Devil Red (respectively, black and blue and black and red) are made from cold rolled galvanized steel with a thickness of 0.8 and 1.0 mm. Their weight is about 13.4 kg, dimensions — 600 (H) x 234 (W) x 555 (D).


Inside, can be placed the motherboard form factor XL-ATX, E-ATX, ATX, microATX and Mini-ITX, ten PCI Express expansion cards up to 330mm, CPU cooler up to 185mm, ATX-compatible power supply, six 3 5-inch hard drives and the same amount of devices size 5.25 ". Kit includes two 230-mm fans: Front with lighting and rear without lighting.


Ease of assembly is guaranteed by the availability for screwless installation of drives and video cards, holes with rubber «curtains» for cables and …