Tech Things You Dont Know But Are Too Afraid To Ask.

[Tsuki]

why do companies give out mail in rebates, why not just tell the distributors to take off the amount that they would rebate. From personal experience rebates take quite a bit of time and are more trouble than it is worth sometimes, say a $5 rebate.

 

if they force the vendor to lower their prices, the vendor makes less money off of it, and the salemen make less commision.   rebates are better for all parties involved that arent the customer.  and with the known 6-12 months it takes to recieve it, most people arent going to do it, which means the company hands back drastically less money

[Stefan Becker]

How do I root my phone?

[FlamingDefibs]

Is the Haswell refresh and Haswell-E the same thing?

 

I ask because I'm seeing new CPUs like the 5960X being leaked/announced being labeled as Haswell-E, even though the 5 initial suggests to me that it's a Broadwell CPU.

[Robi_g]

Is there a difference between SATA cables (ie between II and III) and the same question for network cables (CAT5 / CAT6 etc...)

[WoodenMarker]

Is the Haswell refresh and Haswell-E the same thing?

I ask because I'm seeing new CPUs like the 5960X being leaked/announced being labeled as Haswell-E, even though the 5 initial suggests to me that it's a Broadwell CPU.

No. Haswell refresh is lga 1150 and Haswell-E will be lga 2011-3. 

The (x)960X indicates an extreme series i7. Previous generations have done the same thing where the 4960x is IvyB-E and 3960x is SandyB-E.

Is there a difference between SATA cables (ie between II and III) and the same question for network cables (CAT5 / CAT6 etc...)

Sata cables are generally just sata 6gb/s cables relabeled for marketing purposes. Differences may be in the physical details like the clip that keeps the cable attached. CAT6  on the other hand is actually physically improved over the CAT5. 

[MG2R]

Is there a difference between SATA cables (ie between II and III) and the same question for network cables (CAT5 / CAT6 etc...)

All SATA cables are identical. The only real difference to be found is the type of connectors (right angle/straight, lockable/non-lockable)

 

There is a distinct difference between ethernet cables. The differences make for a different rated speed at different cable lengths. Reason is the different bandwidth of the cable types: 100MHz for CAT5, 250 MHz for CAT6

[peters.11]

Is the asus maximus iv hero z87 motherboard compatable to intels new broadwell series CPU's?

[the ginger gamer]

I don't know like anything about the voltage and numbers of rails in a psu

[Fgtfv567]

What's a partition? Is it really bad to use an AF fan against a rad instead of a SP one?

[Fgtfv567]

Hyper Threading allows for a single processor core to "virtually" become two cores. Watch this:

WHAT?! Linus said in the video specifically that hyper threading DOES NOT change the amount of cores in your system!

[79wjd]

WHAT?! Linus said in the video specifically that hyper threading DOES NOT change the amount of cores in your system!

it doesn't change the number of physical cores. 

 

What's a partition?

 

Is it really bad to use an AF fan against a rad instead of a SP one?

partition: piece of something (in most cases, a piece of a hard drive). 

AF fans are less efficient in tight situations when compared with SP fans. So, SP would be better, but as long as your temps aren't bad then AF is just fine. 

[0s4x]

WHAT?! Linus said in the video specifically that hyper threading DOES NOT change the amount of cores in your system!

HT basically just allows a core to multi-task.

[FpsStang]

Should I remove the thermal compound that came on my corsair h100i block and use a high quality one or is the compound on it good quality?

[WoodenMarker]

Should I remove the thermal compound that came on my corsair h100i block and use a high quality one or is the compound on it good quality?

The compound is fine but there isn't much of a difference between average and the best thermal paste. How much paste and how it spreads probably makes a bigger difference and how it's pre-applied to the h100i is probably better than you can do yourself. 

[ZmanFTW]

Intended purpose of M.2...cache, boot, or either?

[The Crazed Child]

i wanna learn to hack but how do you do it where do i begin

"Hack" has a vague meaning. There are many definitions for it.

[Yummychickenblue]

What the heck is PLX bridge?

[GrmanRodriguez]

How do you connect the GPU to the mobo?

[ManWithBeard1990]

What the heck is PLX bridge?

The PLX bridge is a chip to get more PCI express slots. Since you're not using all of them at the same time it switches lanes from slot to slot as it deems necessary.

 

How do you connect the GPU to the mobo?

Just put it in a pci express slot and connect the power supply cables if necessary.

[Roy]

Dear Corsair  Item #N82E16823816022  Corsair K70 Cherry MX RGB Red Switch Mechanical Keyboard.   RELEASE IT ALREADY! ><

Release date July 2014....  Are we waiting for August 2014, what is the holdup?

 

[Trik'Stari]

Why in the hell is there no company that installs a PLX chip on a dual SLI motherboard, allowing for x16x16?

 

Also, if the very best graphics card out there can't "saturate" a full 16x lanes of pcie3.0, why the hell do we have 16x of pcie3.0?

[Glenwing]

Why in the hell is there no company that installs a PLX chip on a dual SLI motherboard, allowing for x16x16?

 

Also, if the very best graphics card out there can't "saturate" a full 16x lanes of pcie3.0, why the hell do we have 16x of pcie3.0?

 

PCIe switches can't increase the total bandwidth available, so if you are saturating your PCIe bandwidth then it won't help.  You may have dual x16 slots wired to the PLX chip, but the PLX chip itself will still only have 16 lanes connecting it back to the CPU, so you're still limited to 16 lanes worth of bandwidth total.

 

The most powerful GPU does not even come close to saturating PCIe 3.0 x4.  But if one board has dual x16 people will buy it over a board with dual x8.  In the majority of cases, if a product is designed a certain way it's not necessarily because that's the way that makes the most sense, but because it will sell better.  Even if there is no real reason for it.

[mr moose]

Look at that fancy title.

Edit:

Oh right a question. Why are 16x (or just any high speed lane) lanes generally the prefered top slot on motherboards?

I want to put a sound card in my system without restricting airflow to my video card, shouldnt it just be standard to have a 4x lane first, followed by a 16x??

 

It may have already been answered, but I'm guessing it is to avoid data loss with wide bandwidth and the physical layout of the motherboard.  I.E clocks operating in Ghz and 64bit bus lanes.

[seiny]

Wow this is an awesome thread - I don't even know how I got here, I was just scrolling down :mellow:

[Probenja]

Minecraft and video editing are more CPU and RAM intensive and the GPU doesn't matter that much, right??