[Rant] Z87 boards are going to support Intel Devil's Canyon? Oh yeah!

Despite what Intel made us believe, Z87 chipset seems to support Devil's Canyon. At least on some boards. Couple of days ago, I checked the support page of my motherboard - the Asus ROG Maximus VI Hero - to see if there were any new driver updates available. I went into BIOS page, but didn't really expect to see any new versions out. But to my amazement, there was a new version - 1504 - which had a very interesting description under it.

But there was a little bit of confusion caused by the wording. It said "Devil's Canyon CPU" and not "CPUs". But we know there are at least two CPUs - the Core i5 4690K and the Core i7 4790K. So what is it? Does this bios only support the unlocked Pentium model? But as far as I know, it does not carry the code name "Devil's Canyon". This had been debated on OCN forums, until someone posted the actual CPU support list for the motherboard.

It clearly states that the Core i7 4790K is supported. But I didn't check whether the Core i5 model is supported as well, because I simply have no interest in it.

[Rant] Prices of R9 290 are dropping but it is a good time to buy one?

 
The prices of the Radeon R9 290 with custom coolers have dropped below the $500 mark in Japan. Still I believe that is a steep price to pay. So I might stick with the new plans after all. That is, to wait till the GeForce GTX 880 comes out. But I am afraid that I won't be able to afford one. I might have to go down a notch - that is the GTX 870.

If the R9 290 cards with custom coolers were available for less than $500 at launch, I probably would have gone for it. But those cards have been available for more than 6 months and it won't be long before we see the next big thing from either company, right?

On the other hand, people seem to be selling their Radeon cards for dirt cheap on eBay. Maybe I should grab one of them? Not sure if I want to take that risk though. Those cards could be hammered to death - figuratively speaking. Even if that is not the case, I won't get a warranty. Nah! Buying local is better.

Come on NVidia. Release the darn cards!

[Rant] Oops! It wasn't the mouse pads. It was the wireless adaptor

I recently wrote two posts (this one and this one) mentioning that the Logitech G602 mouse had some issues with the mouse pads I owned. One from Razor called Sphex and the other from Steelseries called QCK. I tried switching to the bare wooden surface of the desk a couple of days ago but yesterday I found out that it also showed the same behavior with the mouse. The mouse pointer would skip and jump every now and then making it impossible to play Crysis 3 MP.

Then a thought struck me. Could it be a problem with the quality of signal reception? The mouse came with an extension cable for the USB receiver but I didn't use it because the mouse seemed to work just fine without it. Not to mention how much I disliked adding more cable clutter to the back of the desk.

But I had to give it a go as last resort.

And it seems that I nailed the culprit. It indeed was a reception problem.

So stupid of me for coming into false conclusions. I guess I should dig back one of the mouse pad then eh? I prefer the Sphex because it doesn't cause any resistance. Let's see if it definitely was a reception problem.