First seen at CES 2013 exhibition, Asus ROG RAIDR solid-state drives are on their final stage of development before an official release in May. Unlike the majority of contemporary SSD solutions in the market, the product from Asus features quite distinct form-factor, similar to expansion cards. The new drive is known to employ PCI Express 2.0 x2 interface with the support of x16/x8/x4 slots.



According to the preliminary data, ROG RAIDR solid-state drives will be available in two capacity variations – 120 GB and 240 GB. Both models will run under a couple of SandForce SF2281 controllers, comprised into RAID 0 array. MLC NAND flash-memory chips from Toshiba (designed under 19 nm technological process) will be the heart of revolutionary SSDs. Irrespective of the overall differentiation, ROG RAIDR will support a range of technologies traditional SSDs support, including S.M.A.R.T., TRIM and NCQ.


With the respect to the performance, both drives will be able to demonstrate …

All those people who look for a small-sized and classic chassis for HTPC system have got a wonderful opportunity to implement their longing into life. PC-Cooling GmbH has introduced its new PC case, codenamed Coolcube, under Cooltek brand. Such an engaging name totally corresponds to the case's framework: cubic case made of anodized aluminum and painted black. Featuring 210x200x240 mm dimensions, the product is estimated for the installation of mini-ITX motherboards. The case itself contains a large number of ventilation holes in the side and rear parts.



The number of PCI expansion slots equals to two, but there is no a dedicated bay for 5.25-inch drives. However, there is room for the installation of a single 3.5-inch drive and one 2.5-inch drive. The length of supported graphics cards should not exceed 185 mm, while the height of supported CPU coolers should not exceed 80 mm.


The most striking thing is that this chassis model is compatible with the majority power supply …

Nvidia's half hearted established the supply of dual-chipset videoadapter GeForce GTX 690. In turn, the competing Radeon HD 7990 is seriously delayed, although previously the release for late July was planned.



According to new information, AMD will officially unveil the video card, code-named New Zealand in the second half of August. Non-reference Radeon HD 7970 X2 from HIS, PowerColor and other AMD exclusive partners will debut, apparently, even later.


Most likely, Radeon HD 7990 will be announced at the annual exhibition Gamescom (Cologne) 16 to August 19. This is one of the few Premier Advanced Micro Devices, which will take place on the European continent: usually the company prefers to organize similar events in their home countries or in countries in South-east Asia.


Radeon HD 7990 GPU is equipped with two Tahiti XT (2x 2048 shader, 2x 128 TMU, 2x 32 ROP), two 384-bit memory buses and 2x 3 GB of RAM on-board of type GDDR5. Among other things, the card will …