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Friday, February 1st, 2013
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| 4:01a | Three Months with Microsoft's Office 365 Windows and Office. It’s a duo that has made up the core of Microsoft’s business since before I was born, and remains the cornerstone upon which the rest of the company is built. And so it has gone, for as long as I can remember: with each new version of Windows, a refreshed edition of Office to go along with it. This year, we’ve got Office 2013. We’ve obviously had some experience with it in Windows RT form, and I spent a fair amount of time using the Office 15 Consumer Preview last year (in fact, I wrote my Masters thesis in Word 2013 Preview). In the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty major change, with the biggest probably being the move towards a subscription-based model, though you can still buy Office in a traditional retail boxed edition with a standalone license. The interesting part is Office 365, which involves paying on a yearly basis for multi-device licensing and cloud storage. It’s worth clarifying the naming scheme here: Office 2013 refers to the latest version of the Office suite, while Office 365 refers to a subscription service that provides Office 2013 applications. It’s a pretty sleek system, with all of Microsoft’s cloud services leveraged to provide a seamless experience. Obviously, this isn’t the first time we’re seeing cloud-based document storage and backup, but the SkyDrive integration in Office 365 is much deeper than we’ve seen in the past. How does it work in day-to-day use? Read on for our impressions. 
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| 4:01a | Closing the Loop II: New Liquid Coolers from Corsair and Swiftech When we visited CES 2013, it became increasingly clear that not only were closed loop liquid coolers here to stay, but that they are in fact "the next big thing" in desktop system cooling. There are good reasons to go for them, too. While you may have to deal with some mild pump noise depending on which model you go with, closed loop coolers are capable of providing excellent performance without creating a racket or placing too much stress on the motherboard (the way a heavy air cooler might). That we have three new closed loop coolers available for review not long after the last roundup should tell you that the closed loop cooler market is, if you'll forgive the expression, heating up. On the heels of NZXT's Kraken X40 and X60, Corsair has their own H90 and H110 coolers based on the same Asetek 140mm and 280mm radiators. Our newer, potentially even more exciting competitor comes from Swiftech in the form of the 240mm H220. Unlike conventional closed loop coolers, Swiftech's entry uses high quality brass tubing and copper fins in the radiator along with their own specially designed pump and extra thick (yet still flexible hoses). Is it enough to shore up the difference between traditional 240mm radiators and monstrous 280mm ones? 
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| 5:16p | Fractal Design Launches Core 3000 USB 3.0
Last year, we looked at Fractal Design’s Core 1000, their entry level chassis that can be had for under $40. It performed “okay”, which is about all you can expect from a budget case. The newly redesigned Core 3000 looks to change more than a few elements of the Core 1000, and in fact other than the “Core” branding it bears little in common with the Core 1000. It’s bigger and heavier for one, measuring 200mm x 444mm x 480mm (7.87” x 17.48” x 18.90”), so this is no longer intended as a small PC box. It also comes with three fans standard: a 140mm fan in front, 120mm fan in back, and 120mm fan up top. Here’s the full list of specifications.
Other items not specifically listed in the above table include an upper HDD cage that can be rotated or removed, allowing the installation of even the largest GPUs (Fractal Design lists GPU clearance as 270mm with the cage or 420mm without—I’m not sure any GPU will ever need 420mm of clearance again, or at least I hope not). Dust covers are also included for the PSU and front fan positions, and the HDD/SSD trays are equipped with silicon vibration dampening grommets. The Core 3000 USB 3.0 is currently available in some markets, but the US does not appear to be among them. We expect that to change within the coming weeks, and given the popularity of Fractal Design that will likely be sooner rather than later. Of course, the other big change is the doubling of the MSRP, which was inevitable given the improved features, but it looks like the Core 3000 should be competitive with other similarly priced offerings. 
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| 5:37p | Intel Releases 180GB SSD 335
Intel released the SSD 335 in October last year but the initial launch included only the 240GB version. Today Intel is adding a 180GB model to the SSD 335 lineup. If you recall from our SSD 335 review, the SSD 335 is essentially just SSD 330 but with smaller lithography NAND (20nm vs 25nm). It's still based on SandForce's SF-2281 controller but with customized Intel firmware. The SSD 335 will also be sporting a new case design (see the picture above) later this quarter; drives available today will still have the old plain metal design.
Intel is reporting similar performance at both capacities, although I should note that Intel has always been fairly conservative when it comes to published performance specs (for example, most SandForce OEMs claim up to 90K random write). NewEgg is already listing the 180GB SSD 335 and it's currently priced at $180, which is actually $10 more than 180GB SSD 330 (although I would expect the price to drop once more resellers get the SSD 335 in stock). 
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| 6:15p | The Making of NVIDIA's Project SHIELD
NVIDIA put up a blog post recently that goes into some of the details of how Project SHIELD came together. There's plenty of marketing hyperbole in the blog post, but if you've ever wondered what it would be like to be one of the top engineers at a company like NVIDIA, this will give you some ideas. 14-hour work days for weeks or even months? Yup, it sounds like that's exactly what some of the people were doing, but that's what passion looks like I suppose. The jury is still out on whether or not Project SHIELD will be a success, but you have to give credit to NVIDIA for at least trying something different. Plus, the blog post is an entertaining read, and if you need one more reason to like the idea: Project SHIELD can play Crysis (by proxy). 
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