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Following our news on power supply returns rates, a reader let us know (thanks Abyss) that the company was no longer fulfilling any after sales support. Worse still, Hipergroup.com has been mute for a few days. In fact, we were informed that the company went bust this summer.
 Seeing as Hiper has occupied last spot on our power supply reliability stats right from the start, this announcement isn’t very surprising. Nevertheless, its customers would seem to be in an impasse in respect of their product guarantees. A good part of the range was guaranteed for 3 years and it will now be impossible to call the manufacturer to count. The more honorable resellers ought to take the supplies back over the first year in the framework of a sales guarantee that above and beyond any obligations fixed in the manufacturer’s guarantee. |
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A new 2.1 audio system has recently come onto the market from Altec Lansing, the FX3021. With a nice looking design the kit has a total power of 33 W RMS. The subwoofer houses a 135 mm speaker and the satellites 5 cm each. The FX3021 is available at around 100 euros.
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Following Freecom with its Hard Drive XS 3.0, it’s now over to Buffalo Technologies for its external USB 3.0 hard drive. The DriveStation HD-HXU3 will be available in 1, 1.5 and 2 TB models and has maximum transfer speeds of 125 MB/s. You’ll find backwards compatability with USB 2.0 and the drives will be available as of the fourth quarter of 2009. Prices haven’t yet been given.
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According to DailyTech, Samsung’s 32nm NAND Flash currently gives write speeds that are so slow that SSD manufacturers are unable to use them in their SSDs. According to the same source, Toshiba also had problems with write speeds on its 32 nm chips initially, but these problems have mostly been resolved.
 These chips are nevertheless being sold in the embedded market, for Netbooks and with a max of 70 MB/s for writes. In July Intel launched its X25-M “Postville” based on 34nm NAND produced in partnership with Micron. Here again, the sequential speeds are far from exceptional with writes at 70 MB/s, but this is compensated by very good random writes. Samsung is the major producer of Flash memory worldwide and the current situation could prove problematic if it continues. Moving over to 32nm chips is a prerequisite for new SSD price cuts. |
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 After the motherboards on Tuesday, here are the returns rates for power supplies. We use the same methodology used 6 months ago, the figures coming from a large French online store. These figures take into account cards sold between September 2008 and February 2009, namely after between 6 months and a year of use. The statistics by make are based on a minimum sample of 500 sales, those by model on a minimum sample of 100 sales.
- Antec 0.84% (against 1.6%)
- Seasonic 1.31% (against 1.9%)
- CoolerMaster 1.52% (against 2.0%)
- Corsair 1.67% (against 1.8%)
- Fortron 1.7% (against 1.4%)
- Enermax 3.1% (against 1.5%)
- Thermaltake 3.45% (against 2.8%)
- Hiper 4.47% (against 4.6%)
In comparison with the last set of stats, Antec, Seasonic, Coolermaster and to a lesser extent Corsair now have lower returns rates. On the other hand Fortron, Enermax and Thermaltake.
If you look at the figures more closely, only 6 power supplies sold at over 100 in number have a returns rate of equal to or over 3%. The least reliable is the Hiper HPU-4S425-PU with no fewer than 7.6% breakdowns. Next come the Enermax Modu82+ 625W at 4.7%, the Hiper HP-4M530 at 4.5% and the Corsair 1000HW at 4.2%. Then we have the Seasonic M12-700 at 3.7% and the CoolerMaster RealPower 850W at 3.4%.
For 500 to 550W supplies, we get the following list:
- CoolerMaster RealPower 520W 0.5%
- Seasonic M12II-500 0.7%
- Antec TruePower Trio 550W 0.8%
- Corsair HX520W 1.1%
- Seasonic S12II-500 1.1%
- Corsair VX550W 1.4%
- Antec Earthwatts EA500 1.5%
- CoolerMaster Silent Pro M500 1.6%
- Fortron Blue Storm 500W 1.6%
- Antec NeoPower 500 1.9%
- Antec NeoPower 550 1.9%
- Thermaltake Toughpower Qfan 500W 1.9%
- Enermax Modu82+ EMD525AWT 2.1%
- Fortron Blue Storm 2 500W 2.7%
- CoolerMaster Extreme Power 500W 2.9%
- Hiper HPU-4M530 4.5% |
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ASUSTeK is launching a 10th LGA1156 motherboard based on the P55 Express chipset, the P7P55 LX. To be sold at at least €100, this card is a lighter version of the P7P55D LE:
 - Phases go from 8+2 to 4+1, which is likely to limit overclocking capacity - The JMicron JMB361 (1 PATA + 1 eSATA) is replaced by a VIA VT6415 (1 PATA) - The VIA Vynil VT1828 codec makes way for the VT1708 (8 channels against 10, DAC at 100 dB of SNR against 110) We have updated our comparison table, which now has 45 models :  |
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 The new AMD roadmaps are reported to be showing a new arrival in the Athlon II X4 range: the 635. Nothing revolutionary here, still a Propus core but clocked at 2.9 GHz. The 620 clocks at 2.8 GHz. The other aspects of the spec correspond to what you already get with the 620 and 630: 4X512 KB of L2 cache and a TDP of 95 watts. An Athlon II X4 640 is also reported to be on its way, coming sometime Q2 2010 and weighing in at over 3 GHz, with the same TDP, all this thanks to a new revision. |
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