Biostar is about to release a new oblectation for audiophiles – the B85Z system board. Featuring micro-ATX form-factor (224x174 mm dimensions), the model combines a full-blown spectrum of facilities each full-format board has. It is developed on Intel B85 Express chipset with Socket LGA1150 for Intel Haswell processors of Core, Pentium and Celeron families. The nominal delivery kit will allegedly comprise DVD with drivers, a pair of SATA cables, a user’s manual, and a rear panel plug.



Biostar B85Z comes equipped with prime-quality capacitors, field-effect transistors, and 4-phase VRM. Memory subsystem is introduced by two slots for DDR3-1600 MHz modules (up to 16 GB overall capacity). The availability of a single PCIe x16 & a pair of PCIe x1 slots ensures sufficient expansion facilities. Moreover, the user is free to create a voluminous storage by means of four SATA III and two SATA II ports.


To continue, the major peculiarity pertained to the motherboard is an …

AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs shipments started in spring, however recently the network saw messages of people, reporting they’d got sudden surprise in the shape of their recently acquired AMD Ryzen 5 1600 and Ryzen 5 1600X processors, possessing eight (instead of six) active cores!



System builders detected this peculiarity at the first boot. Base clock, as it is expected, equals to 3.6 GHz, boost clock – to 4.0 GHz. In the meantime, there are eight cores and sixteen threads in action. One may say, lucky customers purchased 1800X models at a discount. Other buyers were also happy to obtain cheaper Ryzen 5 1600 samples.


All these unlocked processing units are produced during the 36th week of the year 2017 in Malaysia. The place and date of release can be easily defined after looking through the marking decryption instruction.


Performance tests demonstrated, that these purchases are real AMD Ryzen 5 1800X CPUs veiled under another marking. What is the reason for that? Some …

Lian Li has recently launched a new PC chassis, entitled PC-A79. The chassis is designed in full-tower format, featuring 230x618x596 mm dimensions. As a result, it supports a full range of motherboard standards, including micro-ATX, ATX, E-ATX, XL-ATX, and HPTX. According to Lian Li, the product is distinguished primarily by a well-considered cooling system and the availability of a removable motherboard tray. All potential customers are free to choose between a black variation (PC-A79B) and a silver variation (PC-A79A).



The case of PC-A79 chassis is made of brushed aluminum. Its spaciousness can’t but be distinct from similar products offered by competitors. Hence, it is able to accommodate nine drives of 3.5-inch standard and eight drives of 2.5-inch standard; all of them might be adjusted without any tools. The availability of eleven expansion slots provides for the installation of several lengthy graphics cards (up to 350 mm). The maximal height of supported CPU coolers …