Monday April 23, 2007

- MacPro and Third-Party Memory Modules: How to Cool them Down. - Lionel - 13:11:42

As many Mac Pro owners, Christophe purchased non Apple-certified FB-DIMM modules for his Mac Pro 2.66GHz. When checking temperature of his modules, he discovered that the temperature is in average 15°C higher than Apple-branded ones. So, he decided to improve the cooling system.





He added some copper-based heatsink from ThermalTake. With such components glued to the chips, the overall temperature goes down to the same level than Apple-branded ones, dropping from 75°C to 60°C.

As we reported it previously, FB-DIMM from Dane Elect are equivalent to Apple's ones, while featuring a smaller heatsink. Regarding the Mac Pro and its RAM modules, we would recommend to read the excellent article from Diglloyd
[translation by Linathael]

- China: the Real Pirate's Bay - Lionel - 09:55:10

Source : Generation NT (French)

If one would really need additional proves to demonstrate that software/applications are massively pirated in copied in China, one just needs to get them from Microsoft. After spending couple of millions to promote Vista in China, Microsoft reports to have sold 244 licenses during the first 2 weeks following Vista's launch. Of course, thousands of Chinese users are currently using Vista, but either an illegal copy or a pirated version.

Even if we do not like Vista as such, one can be seriously concerned about the current situation with the use of systematically illegal version of software or applications in China.

[translation by Linathael]

- Apple TV Drives Software Updates - Lionel - 09:50:18

This week, Elgato updated its key application Eye TV to version 2.4. In addition to the usual bug fixes, it brings the native support for Apple TV format encoding:
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=support_updates_eyetv2

Handbrake allows a direct encoding for Apple TV too in its last version 0.8.5b1:
http://handbrake.m0k.org/

It would be interesting to know the first numbers concerning Apple TV sales, but is Apple did not communicate about it is most probably because they are lower than expected, at least in Europe.

[translation by Linathael]

- Apple NAB Xserve Bay - Lionel - 09:48:42

The photo of the Apple Xserve bay installed during the NAB for managing all video demonstration have generated quite some interest from numerous readers.



So if you want to get a high definition image (2560x1600) you can download it here: Photo Xserve, or even get an edited and improved version (thanks to Bernard) there: Improved Photo Xserve

[translation by Linathael]

- AnandTech Tests Hitachi 1TB HD - Lionel - 09:47:35

First tests with the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 have proven that this HD is among the best desktop HD, getting really close to the WD1500ADFD Raptor. Due to its high performance level, Anandtech decided to test a RAID 0 based on 2 Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000, if results in synthetic benchmarks were outstanding, real test with application or games proved that such a DAID 0 is not providing any real benefit for the user, considering the extra cost and requirement for backup.

Nevertheless, having 1TB with a performance level close to the one of the 150GB Raptor is enough for Anandtech to conclude that the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 is "the best 7200rpm drive we have tested to date".

Direct link to the article: http://www.anandtech.com

[translation by Linathael]