The ASUS MARS II is a monster graphics card consisting of two GeForce GTX 580 GPUs on a single PCB using triple slot cooling. Unlike the NVIDIA GTX 590, the MARS II comes with full GTX 580 clock speeds which give the card an almost 20% performance advantage over the GTX 590, making the card the fastest graphics card in the world, but also the most expensive at $1500.
The Silicon Power Stream S10 does not only look sleek, but also ships in two metallic color choices. On top of that the 750GB external hard drive offers very good performance and a great set of accessories. We take the drive for a spin and rip it apart to see what makes it tick.
The Kingwin Stryker 500 W is an amazing little PSU. It is one of the few models that offers 80PLUS Platinum efficiency, which means well over 90%, even at low load. In addition to that the power supply is completely fanless, emitting no noise at all - great for a quiet office PC or media PC system.
Head-Direct's newest entry level model is put to the test. Dubbed RE-242 these in-ears are the first earphones from Head-Direct directly aimed at the entry level market. Priced at $25 they are budget friendly and feature a smart new durable design.
With AMD's new and affordable Fusion APU processors now on the market, Gigabyte steps up to the starting blocks, ready to win the race. Sporting a ton of features, the GA-A75-UD4H is not only ready for endurance racing, but superfast sprints down the drag strip too. We strap our AMD A8-3850 APU in Gigabyte's GA-A75-UD4H, and take it around the test track.
New USB 3.0 based external hard drives are popping up everywhere and ADATA has joined the fray with their Classic CH11 Series. It aims to offer the new interface with capacities of up to 1 TB at an affordable price point.
FSP decided to enrich the successful Aurum series with three new models that feature more wattages and a semi modular cabling system. The latter will be of great interest to many, since nowadays more and more users seek a modular PSU in order to avoid the extra effort needed for cable management with non modular units.
Thermaltake recently decided to join the elite PSU category with high power units that feature equally high efficiency levels. One of the most recent additions in Thermaltake's arsenal is the ToughPower Grand 1200W, which currently is the company's most powerful PSU that meets the 80Plus Gold requirements.
The Patriot Box Office Core or PBO offers maximum compatibility with various audio and video formats, the ability to play back full HD content and a very open firmware, allowing for custom and alternative operating systems to be used. We whip out a bag of popcorn to see if Patriot manages to bring to box office to our home theater.
The Enermax MaxRevo EMR1350EWT promises Gold efficiency, 1350W full power and up to 1620W peak power! We will test this PSU to its max to verify if the peak power claim holds and whether the new model can compete with Antec's and Corsair's high-end offerings.
ADATA's HM-650 PSU is built upon a proven platform by the OEM Channel Well Technology. It impressed us with good voltage regulation and great price/performance ratio. One unique aspect is the LED lit fan which changes color depending on the PSU load.
With the CORE family of cases, Fractal Design is aiming for the budget market, trying to offer as many of their unique features as possible for a leaner price tag. We take the chassis for a spin to see if the Fractal Design gene is still present or the splicing has gone too far.
In today's review we will take a look at Antec's HCG-520 power supply, which addresses tight budget users with not so high power demands. The PSU is able to provide up to 40 A on its single 12 V rail which is plenty for up to two graphics cards.
In Win is known for their 'out of this world' designs and the BUC is no exception. While the looks may not be for everyone, the case scores big with a long list of useful features, a good set of fans and a very competitive price point.
Head-Direct is pumping out headphone designs at an extraordinary rate. Today we will be taking a look at its newest construction dubbed the HE-300s. These headphones feature a brand new dynamic driver and are design wise very similar to the much more expensive HE-500s.
ADATA's S511 SSD is built upon the winning combination of the new Sandforce SF-2281 and Intel 25 nm NAND flash. In our testing the 120 GB drive delivers excellent performance scores that benefit from support for the latest SATA 6 Gbps interface.
Antec's High Current Pro HCP-1200 is famed as being one of the best high-end power supplies on the market. With 1200 W capacity it's a great choice for systems with three or four graphics cards. We took Antec's flagship for a spin with our upgraded, fully programmable, load tester. The $250 HCP-1200 powerhouse performed admirably, and we love it.
AMD's new A-Series processors promise high performance integrated graphics that works well for productivity and gaming. In our article we take a closer look at 3D performance of the A8-3850 processor, test it in Dual Graphics mode and investigate the effect of memory clock, memory timings, UMA memory size and overclocking.
Cooler Master is one of the most recognizable gaming case manufacturers out there. Growing their mid tower lineup, the Storm series has a new entry, the Enforcer. We'll see if this cost conscious gaming case can hold up to the pressure or falls short of its objective.
Patriot's Torqx 2 128 GB SSD is based on the less-well-known Phison PS3105 flash controller which is a cost effective alternative to more expensive controllers from Indilinx or SandForce.
ZOTAC recently announced their mini-ITX Z68 motherboard. Supporting standard desktop parts for expansion, the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi offers all the features of the Intel Z68 chipset, including some decent overclocking. We put the Z68-ITX WiFi through the paces, and take this little roadster for a wild ZOTAC ride.
Corsair presents the love child of the Obsidian 800D and the Graphite 600T series. The result is certainly stunning, as the Obsidian 650D offers the best of both worlds, with excellent interior design and great exterior looks & functionality
PowerColor's exclusive HD 6870 X2 unifies two HD 6870 graphics processors on a single card. This approach offers performance that can compete with other high-end cards like GTX 580. In our testing we saw nice results that make this card a worthy alternative in today's high-end graphics card market.
The AC Ryan PlayOn!HD2 is a networked multimedia player with HDMI and SPDIF output. It supports all common file formats, including 1080p HD up to 80 Mbps bitrate. Since the device based on a Realtek system-on-a-chip its power consumption is amazingly low, only around 10 W - lower than any HTPC you can build.
Lamptron Touch is the first touch screen fan controller in a series of notable releases from Lamptron. The Touch places excellent customization at your finger tips while an external brushed aluminum front will certainly go well with any case. We'll place this high end controller under our thumb and see how it stacks up against the competition.
OCZ's Agility 3 is the company's latest mid-range solid state drive based on the Sandforce SF-2281 which supports the SATA 6 Gbps interface. As flash chips Micron 25 nm chips are used which promise to provide excellent performance for this 240 GB SSD.
The dust has settled after the huge splash of the NZXT Phantom, the silence was taken by the H2 - what now? The Source series of cases aims to take on the budget market, but still offer the distinct NZXT looks we have come to expect. How does it turn out?
Most of you will probably know Scythe from its cooling products, but the company also has several power supplies in its arsenal. Today we will test the second strongest PSU from the Chouriki 2 Plug-In line, which has 850 W capacity and is 80 Plus Silver rated. All Chouriki 2 Plug-In PSUs use a semi-modular cabling design and are backed up by a five-year warranty.
After 25 years in the market, Biostar recently released their latest product, the T-series TZ68A+, based on the new Intel Z68 Express chipset. Featuring Lucid's Virtu technology, the entry-level TZ68A+ seeks to meet the needs of mainstream enthusiasts with affordable pricing, with everything the Z68 offers ready and waiting.
Intel's latest 510 Series SSD is designed to deliver maximum performance at today's workloads. It supports the SATA 6 Gbps interface for maximum transfer speed and comes with a custom firmware that is optimized in performance. Being priced at $600 for the 250 GB version the drive is not cheap, but worth it?
Sapphire's HD 6450 comes with a low-profile design, passive heatsink and native full-size HDMI. Together with AMD's UVD 3 video encode acceleration that provides excellent video decode capabilities this could well be your next HTPC card.
The SpineRex is the latest, full tower chassis from Enermax. Taking its name from the top spine cover, we dig deeper to see if the cool, multi-mode and multi-LED fans are trying to draw your focus away from something, or if they are the triumphant sights of a cool chassis.
At Computex 2011 Corsair revealed a new model for the Professional HX series, the HX1050 which will replace the successful HX1000. The OEM remained the same, Channel Well Technology, the capacity increased by 50 W and efficiency remained at 80 Plus Silver. It seems like this PSU has what it takes to be a cost-effective alternative to the Corsair AX1200.
Recently, Cooler Master released their new GX Gold Series. The two most significant improvements of the new models are the change of the OEM from Seventeam to Enhance and the upgraded efficiency from 80 Plus to 80 Plus Bronze. The test subject of today’s review will be the CM GX650W Bronze, which offers similar specs as the previous model but sports the popular 80Plus Bronze certification.
Headphone producer Head-Direct seems unstoppable when it comes to releasing new orthodynamic based headphones. The newest arrival is named HE-500 and slots in between the HE-5LEs and the HE-6s. New for the HE-500s is a special driver setup that allows for much higher efficiency.
Be Quiet's Straight Power E8 400W is a non-modular power supply coming at a very aggressive price point. According to the manufacturer it boasts an impressive 89% efficiency, also the unit is very quiet - no surprise, given the company name.
PowerColor's Radeon HD 6850 SCS3 is the first completely passive cooled Radeon HD 6850. This makes it the fastest zero-noise graphics card available today. Instead of the fairly compact heatsink of the reference design, PowerColor is using a massive triple slot cooler which provides the cooling required for the HD 6850 SCS3.
The brand-new ASUS M5A99X EVO, sports AMD's 990X and SB950 chipset. It is one of the first boards to offer full support for NVIDIA SLI and is also optimized for CrossFire configurations with its three PCI-E x16 slots.
Club 3D has recently entered the PSU market. Their new CSP-X1200CS is a high-end 1200 W model which addresses users with up to three graphics cards. Compared to the CSP-X1000CS the CSP-X1200CS, offers more power and better efficiency with its 80PLUS Silver certification.
The Kingwin Lazer Platinum LZP-550 is based on Super Flower's platinum platform (Golden King 550W) and according to the manufacturer achieves over 92% efficiency. The power supply's fan will only spin beyond a certain temperature, so the PSU will emit no noise at low loads. In our review we find that this power supply is the best model available in its power range at this time.
First seen at Computex this year, the ASUS GTX 580 Matrix Platinum is an overclocker's dream. It offers multiple voltage control via both software and hardware, a quiet running, powerful triple slot, dual fan thermal solution and easy to reach voltage measurement points. This card is also the first to be supported by ASUS' new GPU Tweak software.
Released on May 31st by ASUS, the M5A97 EVO is a new AM3+ motherboard, boasting support for AMD's upcoming AM3+ CPUs, as well, as current AM3 Phenom II CPUs. Sporting the now familiar black and blue color scheme from ASUS, the M5A97 EVO seeks, like its brethern, to turn the competition black and blue too.
Computex Taiwan is one of the leading computer tradeshows in the year. Thanks to its asian location the booths are full of hot show girls in short skirts. TechPowerUp brings you the complete collection with over 175 girls - including high-res images.
We are always thrilled to see new companies enter the PSU market because this leads to more choice for the end users and competition gets tougher, reducing prices. Today we will take a look at RASURBO's Real&Power 550 W, which is 80 PLUS certified, utilizes a semi modular cabling scheme and comes with attractive pricing.
The Viako Mini-Letter ML-55 chassis is extremely compact, costs less than 90 US Dollar including a power supply, is constructed of thick metal and can fit a standard Mini-ITX board. That all sounds really good, but can it deliver in the sight of stiff competition?
Patriot has also jumped on the USB 3.0 bandwagon with their Supersonic series of drives. While the Supersonic Magnum is the flagship drive, the normal Supersonic packs quite the punch and breaks the advertised performance barrier - giving you more than you bargained for.
MSI has upgraded their GTX 580 Lightning and calls it "Xtreme Edition" now. The biggest change is certainly the inclusion of 3 GB of GDDR5 memory. Other new features are a dust removal system and a fan that indicates overheating by color change.
Foxconn has made some waves with their compact but very capable ION based NT-330I Netbox back in 2010. Now, almost a year later the market has evolved and Foxconn is sending their newest version into the race. The NT-A3500 is based on the AMD Fusion platform, aiming to be faster, cooler and quieter.
PowerColor's HD 6670 uses a full-height dual-slot thermal solution to deliver outstanding idle and load temperatures. The reference clocked card with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory offers decent performance for the budget oriented gamer at resolutions up to 1680x1050.
Antec's High Current Pro 750 W is the smallest member of the High Current Pro Series which is Antec's flagship line of PSUs. The mighty HCP-1200 is well known for being one of the best power supplies on the market, so we wonder if the 750 W version can impress too.
Peripheral manufacturer QPAD has gone all out with their recently launched MK-80 mechanical keyboard. The keyboard featurea customizable back lighting, USB 2.0 hub and headset pass through. The keyboard uses the well performing Cherry MX Blue key mechanism and comes with a decent wrist wrest.
OCZ recently introduced the new ZX PSU series, which consists of three Gold efficiency members with 850 W, 1000 W and 1250 W capacities. Today we have the 850 watt model on our testbench to check if it shows the same usability, quality and price/performance we saw on the 1250 W model that we reviewed a while ago.
The ECS P67H2-A2, an ECS Black Series product, seeks to slay the Sandy Bridge dragons, offering an enthusiast package at mainstream pricing. Will the ECS P67H2-A2 prove victorious? Or will it be Sandy Bridge that slays the ECS P67H2-A2?
Corsair has a wide range of products that address enthusiasts. However the company does not forget Average Joe who just wants to power his low end system. For these users Corsair offers the Builder Series which promises great price/performance ratio. The new Corsair Builder CX430 V2 will be the test subject of today's review.
HIS has taken the AMD HD 6790 reference design, increased its clock speeds and slapped their new IceQ X thermal solution on it. The result is a solid HD 6790 card that is about 5% faster than the AMD version, which delivers awesome temperatures and good overclocking potential.
Verbatim has taken their affordable Store'n'Go hard drive line-up and now offers it with the newest USB 3.0 interface. Even so the drive still aims to be affordable while offering the level of performance one would expect from the new connection method.
NZXT made a big step into the PSU market with the HALE90 series of PSUs. With capacities ranging from 550W to 1000W these Gold efficiency units address the needs of every gamer that seeks for a strong, efficient and reliable PSU to feed his system. In today’s review we will test a HALE90 750W and see how it performs in our ultra tough tests.
After the Define and Array cases, the gloves come off and Fractal Design is jumping into the fray with a classic chassis aimed at the higher end mid-range market. We take the Arc for a spin to see if it keeps us and our hardware afloat in the battle or if the existing players in this price segment have the bigger guns.
Bridging the gap from mainstream to enthusiast product lines, the ASUS P8P67 PRO is a natural fighter, built to meet the needs of almost any user. Featuring ASUS' new DIGI+ VRM, and several other uncommon features, and seeking to beat up the competition, the ASUS P8P67 PRO arrives on our testbench, ready for battle.
ASUS GeForce GTX 560 TOP Direct CU II is a close to perfect implementation of NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 560 non-Ti. The card comes with increased clock speeds out of the box which results in the same performance as the GTX 560 Ti. ASUS' thermal solution manages to impress too. It is whisper quiet, has tons of OC potential and temperatures under load are around 70°C.
Palit's implementation of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 non-Ti is the only card that features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory instead of 1 GB on the reference design. Will the additional memory be enough to make a difference?
Today NVIDIA releases their new GeForce GTX 560 non-Ti. The GPU comes with a reduced shader count of 336 and is targeted at the $199 segment. MSI's GeForce GTX 560 Twin Frozr II is an overclocked version of the GTX 560 reference design which also features MSI's prominent Twin Frozr II thermal solution.
AMD launched yet another Deneb SKU, named Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition, and clocked to yet another all time fastest from AMD - 3.70 GHz. After recent price cuts, Phenom II X4 980 will cost around $185, which puts it back to back with Intel's locked SB models Core i5 2400 and 2500. This may be the last time for our friend to shine and battle out with the competition.
ADATA aims to combine performance, quality and price with the Nobility N005. Priced to please the mainstream user, it offers a sturdy aluminum enclosure and advertises solid performance numbers. We take the drive for a spin to see if they have managed to combine the best of the three attributes or if it is too good to be true.
Seasonic's X-460FL is one of the few fanless power supplies on the market. This zero-noise approach makes the unit a prime candidate for a quiet media PC, office or light gaming system. With 460 W of high-quality power it can easily handle a typical single graphics card system - without any added noise from the power supply.
Crucial's m4 128 GB SSD uses Micron's latest and greatest 25 nm flash chips and supports the modern SATA 6 Gbps interface. As controller a Marvell 9174 is used, in the new BKK2 revision. It also seems that Crucial has optimized their firmware's performance profile slightly differently than on the previous generation C300.
Head-Direct's newest flagship headphones are put to the test. The headphones are dubbed the HE-6s and feature a gold plated driver, and a very special cable. They are priced at $1199, are they worth it ?
Supporting Intel Core Generation 2 processors, the Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3 not only sports a new color scheme, it also attempts to match the sleek new look with serious performance. Built for some serious overclocking, the P67A-UD4-B3 comes ready to reach the finish line first; will it win the race?
After the FX high-speed USB 3.0 flash drive, Mach Xtreme aims to take the mainstream crowd with the GX USB 3.0 unit. The drive is slimmer, not quite as fast, but brings the price down to the competitive market segment. We take the Mach Xtreme GX 16 GB flash drive for a spin to see if it can hold its own against the established brands in the market.
Corsair's AX850 is an 80Plus Gold certified 850 watt power supply that aims to be the highest-quality model in its segment. It is fully modular and shows excellent performance characteristics in our demanding test suite. With a price of $180 it is not cheap but quality has its price.
Cubitek joins the ranks of Lian Li and Xigmatek with their HPTX-Tank chassis, which is one of three cases on the market capable of holding huge motherboards like the EVGA SR-2. With an unbelievable price tag for an Aluminum chassis, we take a close look to see if it manages to redefine the price / performance segment for such enclosures.
The Strider Plus ST50F-P is a compact size, single rail and highly versatile PSU thanks to the fully modular design that it utilizes. On top of that is equipped with a quiet 120 mm fan and is 80PLUS Bronze certified. Without any doubt it will be an interesting product for users that want a PSU to power a single graphics card in a not so demanding system.
PowerColor's new HD 6950 Vortex II comes with a seriously improved thermal solution compared to the AMD reference design. It also offers two adjustable fans that can be configured to make maximum use of available space. Clock speeds have been increased too, and the card was able to be modded to a HD 6970 in our testing.
Antec has taken the Fusion Remote Max, shrunk it down to the Fusion Remote and has made things even more compact with the MicroFusion Remote. This case can still take a mATX board and allows for low profile expansion cards to be installed, while still featuring the timeless Aluminum front. We take the case for a spin to see if it still offers everything we are looking for in a HTPC chassis, or if Antec slimmed away all the good stuff.
Chieftec recently made a new addition to their product series with the inclusion of the Nitro 88+ line. The new PSUs are 80PLUS Silver certified and promise efficiency that surpasses 88%. They also utilize a semi-modular design and their OEM is Channel Well (CWT), a respectable manufacturer.
SilverStone forges ahead with their latest small form factor design, the Fortress FT03. This unique example of form versus function challenges classical case design. Taking the Fortress series upwards with a stacked layout we'll see if the FT03 rises above the SFF competition.
It's a common truth that high wattage PSUs and low noise levels do not get along very well, so many users are forced to buy lower wattage PSUs that cannot support a powerful system with two or three hi-end VGAs. To address this, Zalman's ZM1000-HP Plus 1000 W uses heatpipes to lower the fan's RPMs and minimize noise.
The ISK-100 is the most compact Mini-ITX chassis from Antec, but still allows for two 2.5" drives to be installed along with your choice of Mini-ITX board. We fill the case with hardware to check if things are too close for comfort or if the small dimensions of the ISK-100 leave a good impression.
Zalman, a company that is well known for its low-noise products, recently freshened up their PSU range with two new models, the ZM1000-HP Plus and the ZM850-HP Plus. Today we are testing the ZM850-HP Plus, which utilizes a dual heatpipe system to improve cooling of the internal components for reduced heat and noise levels.
Westone's top of the line custom in-ears are put to the test. The ES5s feature five drivers per side and are available in a set of radical color schemes for the fashion conscious audiophiles out there. The starting price is a hefty $950 which makes them the second most expensive earphones we have every reviewed.
ZALMAN recently entered the solid-state storage market with SSDs based on Sandforce controllers. Their first model we test is the N128 GB model which is based on SF-1222 with 128 GB of capacity.
PC Power & Cooling is a legendary company in the PSU market with many years of experience and plenty of innovations. Their products traditionally focus on industrial and professional power users and the Silencer 760 W that we test today is no exception. Silencer 760W is a non-modular PSU that can deliver 760 W continuously at 50°C and power two hi-end VGAs with up to 90% less noise per Watt.
Corsair's Gaming Series consists of three single rail PSUs that are made for gamers. Even more average users with a mid-range system will appreciate the reliable and cheap PSU from a company with a very good reputation. We test the 800 W model, which is the most powerful of the series and are impressed by its voltage regulation and efficiency.
Xigmatek is growing up and so are their cases. The company has made a name for themselves with their extensive entry- and mid-range enclosures, but the Elysium is not only their first full tower chassis, but it is their first HPTX capable case as well. Let's see if the Elysium is victorious in offering an appropriate resting place of the biggest and fastest hardware out there.
Currently tower-type coolers are known offer the best cooling performance, so it surprised us a bit to see a new top-flow CPU cooler from Noctua. We were even more surprised by the performance delivered which is better than any other cooler we tested before, including tower-type models.
OCZ recently released a new line of hi-end PSUs in order to keep up the pace with the competition, since the Z series counts many years in production. The new ZX series consists of three 80Plus Gold and fully modular PSUs that feature a single +12V rail and boast that they are designed with maximum performance in mind. The ZX 1250 will be the test subject of today’s review.
Corsair recently updated their modular enthusiast TX PSU series and presented the TX V2. With a quick look at the specifications the most noticeable difference between the old and the updated models is the efficiency upgrade, from plain 80Plus to 80Plus Bronze. Under the hood, we spotted an OEM change from CWT to Seasonic.
Club 3D is one more graphics card manufacturer that decided to follow the latest trend and present a PSU series. In this review we will evaluate their strongest model, which with its 1000 W is able to support up to three VGAs. Our only concern is that it's only 80Plus Bronze certified.
Today AMD releases their HD 6670 which is priced at $100. The card is based on a brand-new graphics processor called "Turks" with 480 shaders and GDDR5 memory. Like all recent cards from AMD the card supports EyeFinity, DirectX 11 and full HD video acceleration.
AMD's new Radeon HD 6450 sets out to compete in the lowest end performance segment. It offers twice the shading power as the aging HD 5450 which results in a solid performance increase in gaming. With a price of $55 it doesn't break the bank, but does it have enough performance for the latest games?
Last week NVIDIA quietly released their GeForce GT 520 which offers DirectX 11 support and comes with a low-profile that can fit into compact media PC systems. Will this $60 card be good enough for gaming, or is the gamer's money better spent on more powerful cards?
The High Current Gamer series, according to Antec, manages to combine high power and increased efficiency with low pricing. As the naming scheme reveals, HCG PSUs are intended for users that want to feed their precious PC with lots of power, but are on a tight budget.
MSI's Radeon HD 6970 Lightning is the company's new flagship single-GPU card for AMD. It offers plenty of overclocking features like triple voltage software control, voltage measurement points, a powerful cooling solution and increased clock speeds out of the box. What is even better is that those features are available at a small price premium of only $10 over the AMD reference design.
The Crucial Ballistix Finned memory does not only look cool, but they also pack an on-board sensor so that you can actually make sure they stay cool during use and extreme overclocking. We take the 1866 MHz kit for a spin to check if it manages to make an impression or barely ding our armor.
The Verbatim Store'n'Go Netbook USB drive is so small that you can plug it into your netbook and just leave it in there. So this is a dead easy way to expand the onboard storage - especially for those first or second generation netbooks with very limited and usually very slow internal flash/SSD storage.
Verbatim packs the Executive Metal flash drive in a fancy dark grey metal shell, promises great read and write performance and offers up to 64 GB of capacity. We take a close look at this weighty flash drive to see if the brains equals the brawns of the storage device.
PowerColor's new HD 6870 PCS++ comes with massively increased clocks out of the box which makes it roughly as fast as GTX 560 Ti or HD 6950. With a reasonable price increase of only $10 over the reference design, the card does not break the bank either, it is actually a worthy opponent to NVIDIA's GTX 560 Ti considering price/performance.
The Verbatim Store'n'Go Clip-it series won the Red Dot Design Award in 2010, as it caters to a very specific scenario and is surprisingly useful. Due to the shape, it is intended to replace the classic paper clip, bringing it into the 21st century.
The V2120 may be the largest chassis from Lian Li. It can not only hold a boatload of drives, but also the biggest enthusiast mainboard on the market: the EVGA SR2. With a hefty price tag we take a look at every aspect of the chassis with eagle eyes, to see if it is the ultimate computer case.
Today AMD is releasing their new Radeon HD 6790 which is targeted at the $150 segment that recently saw some love from NVIDIA in form of their GTX 550 Ti. AMD's new card uses the same GPU as the more powerful HD 6850 and HD 6870, so it will be interesting to see where it stands and whether it can defeat NVIDIA's latest offering.
MSI has engineered their own version of the GeForce GTX 580 called "Lightning", which is geared toward enthusiasts and overclockers. The card brings several exciting features like advanced voltage control and on-board DIP switches for tuning. A dual-BIOS feature with a special liquid nitrogen BIOS is also available.
More compact, quieter but still more powerful - that is what the Sapphire Edge-HD aims to deliver. The Mini-PC boasts the new ION2 chipset along with an Atom N510 dual-core processor. We open the power efficient system up to see what else makes it tick. Does the Edge-HD have what it takes to stand out in the crowded Nettop market?
The latest addition to the long line of chassis from Raidmax, the Aeolus flies in as a top gaming case under $100. While Aeolus is a tribute to "the ruler of the winds" we'll find out if it blows us away or if the wind is knocked out of our sails in our review.
In order to complete their lineup in the $250 segment, AMD has released a 1 GB version of the HD 6950. This makes the card $40 cheaper, yet does not impact performance in any way as our testing shows. We also saw great overclocking potential on our card which makes this card a tweaker's dream combined with the HD 6950 to HD 6970 modding potential.
Evercool sent us a cute little heatsink to toy around with. But as we unpacked it, the low-profile HPK-1002EA heatsink looked bigger than we imagined. We strapped it on to our LGA1366 test-bed right away. Do small-sized "LGA1366 compatible" heatsinks cut it?
In the last PSU review we tested the middle member of the BITWIN series. Now it’s high time for the smallest to confront our vicious load tester. Besides the BW-B430JL we will also present to you detailed information regarding the Multi Link feature, as we are going to link two BITWINs together and gather interesting data (e.g. efficiency at normal and low loads).
MSI's new HD 6950 Twin Frozr III introduces the third version of MSI's exclusive cooling solution. Thanks to two fans and five heatpipes the card runs at excellent temperatures. Tweakers will also love this card as they can adjust three voltages using MSI Afterburner. Another plus is that this card is able to be modded to a HD 6970 by BIOS flash.
Today NVIDIA releases their new GeForce GTX 590 flagship which is based on two GTX 580 GPUs working on a single card. AMD released their dual-GPU HD 6990 design just two weeks ago, with power and heat being the decisive limit on performance it will be a tough fight between those cards.
Jou Jye's new BITWIN Series is 80 PLUS certified and the models are specially designed for gaming and overclocking since they can work continuously at full load with ambient temperatures up to 40°C. A new and interesting feature is the multi-link connector which lets you install more than one PSU into the system and combine their power output.
NZXT's H2 is a very well featured mid tower case in the $100 range that offers a clean and stylish look in both black or white. Even though it comes at a competitive price it includes three fans that can be adjusted using an integrated fan controller.
Amacrox's Free Earth 88PLUS AX600-88FE PSU boasts 80 Plus Silver efficiency and its name promises that it will save Earth. With a rated capacity of 600 W it will handle all single GPU systems just fine. Thanks to its reasonable pricing, the AX600-88FE is also interesting for budget users.
Tt eSPORT's newest gaming product is the ultra-compact mechanical keyboard dubbed the Meka. The Meka is very small yet retains the num-pad and sports the well performing Cherry MX Black keys.
Today ASUS released their new GeForce GTX 550 Ti. The card is based around NVIDIA's new GeForce GF116 GPU which promises more performance and less power draw compared to the GPU of the GTS 450. In our testing we see superior power consumption when compared to other GTX 550 Ti models.
Today NVIDIA announced their new GeForce GTX 550 Ti Series. ZOTAC's AMP! Edition comes with increased clocks out of the box. It is also the only card that features a full size HDMI output and a full size DisplayPort output in addition to two dual-link DVI ports which make the AMP! Edition the connectivity champ.
MSI's new factory overclocked GeForce GTX 550 Ti Cyclone II uses an improved version of MSI's Cyclone cooler which increases air flow without increasing noise. As a result the card's temperatures never exceed 60°C - no matter what you throw at it.
Palit's GeForce GTX 550 Ti comes with leading clocks of 1000 MHz out of the box which helps gain some performance to the GTX 460. In our testing the card emits super low noise levels which makes it a good choice for a silent media PC.
Zowie is the name of an interesting new peripherals brand. Today we will be taking a look at their new gaming keyboard dubbed the Celeritas. The Zowie Celeritas keyboard features mechanical keys which should improve your performance both in games and while doing simple typing tasks.
Today AMD unleashed their new monster: Radeon HD 6990. This dual-GPU card, which is based on two HD 6970 GPUs took the gaming performance crown without beating a sweat. So, this card has tons of performance, but what about power consumption, heat and noise? And last but not least, is it worth the $699 price tag?
AMD's new Radeon HD 6990 is the fastest graphics card in the world. We take TWO of those cards for a spin and check if this combination is worth $1,400 of your hard earned Dollars or if it only serves as a hot air blowing e-penis extension.
ASUS brings the P55 chipset an update in the form of the P7P55D-E PRO, with USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps. The P7P55D-E looks to rival other boards on the market, and even potentially some of the up and coming P67-based products. In the face of Intel's latest release, is it still a viable option?
MSI's GeForce GTX 560 Twin Frozr II comes with MSI's own cooling solution, which does a great job at keeping the card cool. Even with heavy voltage increases, the temperatures never rose above 80°C. For maximum performance MSI has overclocked the card out of the box - at no price increase compared to the reference design.
Zowie's newest mouse mat is dubbed the G-TF and features triple stitched edges for better durability. The surface smoothness has been improved and provides a better and more consistent glide than many other high end cloth mat offerings.
PowerColor's new HD 6970 PCS+ comes overclocked to the highest clock speeds of any Radeon HD 6970 card that is available at the market right now. It also uses a dual-fan heatsink which will help give you that edge during overclocking and overvolting. With a price increase of just $10, pricing is right, too.
The Darkfleet series from Antec features a very industrial design and comes jam packed with fans and features. There are models for every budget and the DF-85 is the largest of the bunch. we take a look at the many unique extras within the chassis and walk away impressed by both the price and performance.
iTwin aims to enable secure access to your data in the office or at home with plug and play ease. The 99 US Dollar device does not require setup, nor does it have any capacity restrictions for the amount of data you may access. While other implementations are based on software or online storage scenarios, the iTwin is completely independent and may be used on any Windows based system.
Today Microsoft released Windows 7 Service Pack 1 to the public. We wanted to check if there are some gaming performance gains included the upgrade, so we ran NVIDIA's and ATI's flagship graphics cards through our VGA benchmarking suite.
The Dragon Rider is not only an extremely cool case to look at, but also has a very long and interesting feature set that should grab your attention. We take the Dragon Rider for a spin and look behind that shield of a front to see if it manages to fend itself off or if the armor is cracked upon closer inspection.
HIS has designed a new cooler called IceQ X. It comes with a light blue transparent plastic shell that conveys an "ice block" feeling. In our testing we saw low idle and load temperatures, evidence that the cooler does a good job. The card also comes with increased clock speeds out of the box to gain some extra advantage over the reference design.
ASUS is expanding their triple-slot cooler graphics card lineup. Their GeForce GTX 570 Direct CU II offers amazingly low noise levels as well as low operating temperatures in both idle and 3D. ASUS has also increased to clock speeds out of the box, even though the increase is only minimal. But with a price increase of just $10 there is not much to complain about.
The G.Skill Ripjaws come in various flavors and capacities, but focus more on the mainstream overclocker. With many different versions and color variants of the kit out there, one could wonder if G.Skill is not simply trying to create models to cover every memory chip they get their hands on. But, we take a look at the 1600 MHz kit and are surprised to find headroom, lots and lots of headroom.
Zaward drew inspiration from the golf ball to enhance air-flow using a "heatsink breathing design", as well as heat dissipation with its Vapor 120 CPU cooler. In the process, it came up with a rather slim-looking 120 mm tower-type heatsink. Will Zaward's golf ball-inspired CPU cooler click?
We had a chance to take a look at the BitFenix Shinobi chassis pre-production sample, which is the first budget chassis from the upstart BitFenix. While the Colossus and Survivor managed to turn heads with unique looks, the Shinobi packs an understated design and a mean price/performance punch.
ZOTAC's GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP! Edition is the highest-clocked GTX 560 money can buy at the moment. Its blazing clocks of 950 MHz core and 1100 MHz memory give it a 12% real-life performance advantage over the reference design, which is quite impressive for the $279 it's coming at. With additional overclocking we could reach 998 MHz, and almost broke the 1 GHz barrier!
MSI's HD 6870 HAWK is the company's premium overclocking HD 6870 model. The card comes with support for software control of three voltages, voltage measurement points and OCP disable support. MSI has also included a nice overclock out of the box and adopted the dual BIOS feature that we have seen on the AMD HD 6900 Series.
PowerColor is bringing an exciting new HD 6950 to the market. Their HD 6950 PCS++ includes a feature to unlock additional shaders, resulting in the same shader count as the HD 6970 - a nice performance increase, for free. Since the feature is enabled by the flick of a button even novices will be able to use it.
ASUS' new GeForce GTX 580 DC2 uses a massive triple slot Direct CU II heatsink that increases cooling performance significantly. As a result the card is extremely quiet in both idle and load - quieter than many midrange cards. ASUS has also increased the operating clocks of their design, all this for a small price increase of $5.
MP4Nation's newest budget in-ears are called the M1s. These in-ears sell for $39.50 online. Compared to other in-ears these feature a rugged cable that even performs well microphonics wise. Surprisingly enough the M1 features a full bundle with seven pairs of tips and a carrying case.
Lian Li has taken the small form factor of the PC-A05N and has changed the interior in favor of mATX compatibility and added space to store up to 7 hard drives within the chassis. With a price tag of just under 100 Euros we take a really close look if it is as innovative as the A05N back in the day or if it is nothing but good looks.
Raidmax is well known for their spacey looking cases and the Blackstorm is no execption. Available in black/blue or white/blue, we enter the storm front to see if what is at the eye of the hurricane.
NVIDIA's new GeForce GT 440 sets out to deliver acceptable performance in the low-end segment around $100. ASUS GT 440 comes with a custom designed, black PCB and a stylish heatsink. The card also comes with higher clocks out of the box to gain an extra performance advantage.
Corsair has introduced their new line of memory called Vengeance. Available in high capacity kits up to 16 GB we got a hold of the triple-channel one with 4x 3 GB modules. That said we push the trio to the max and see if it comes back with a vengeance or fizzles into thin air quietly.
Fractal Design has enlarged the Define R3 to a full tower with additional features, calling it the Define XL. We tear it apart, fill it with hardware and see if we still have room to breath or if it is all nothing but wasted space
Palit's GeForce GTX 560 Ti Sonic Edition comes with increased clock speeds of 900 MHz core and 1050 MHz memory out of the box, which translates into a 7% real-life performance improvement. Its $20 price premium also gives you improved display connectivity: full-size HDMI and analog VGA.
ZOTAC's GeForce GTX 560 uses reference clock speeds, but comes with a custom cooling solution by ZOTAC. The card is also one of the few that uses full-size HDMI and DisplayPort outputs and comes with a bundle of Assassin's Creed Hermand.
NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 560 Ti is priced at the sweet spot of $249. It comes with a redesigned graphics processor that enables higher clock speeds and lower power consumption. NVIDIA's reference design board excels with nice overclocking potential and low fan noise.
Today NVIDIA announced their new GeForce GTX 560 Ti Series. ASUS designed a custom PCB and cooling solution around the new graphics processor. The factory overclocking ASUS GTX 560 Ti Direct CU II sets out to deliver maximum cooling power for improved overclocking and reduced temperatures.
NVIDIA's new GTX 560 Ti delivers excellent price/performance in the $250 market segment. We take two of these cards for a spin to investigate whether it makes sense to buy two of them for use in SLI.
Westone 4 is the name of the newest true-fit earphone from Westone. As the name suggests these in-ears sports a quad driver design. The four balanced armatures are hooked up to a newly designed three way cross over. Priced at $449 these in-ears are sure to stir things up on the premium in-ear scene.
MSI's HD 6950 Twin Frozr II is the first custom design HD 6950 to reach our labs. It comes with a small overclock out of the box and MSI's well established Twin Frozr II heatsink to keep the card cool.
MSI's HD 6850 Cyclone Power Edition comes at 860 MHz, which is the largest overclock out of the box of any HD 6850 available. The card also features a little switch to enable a silent BIOS which reduces fan noise considerably and makes the card a virtually noiseless experience to use, in both idle and 3D.
ECS is jumping on the Sandybridge bandwagon, offering a P67 based mainboard aimed at the gamer with a cool look and the Black series branding. We check out the board to show you what you can expect to get out of the box.
The ASUS Maximus III Gene is a reasonably priced microATX motherboard that has loads of features for both normal users and overclockers. It was designed with overclockers in mind which is visible in the board design, the included software, BIOS options and performance that can be reached by some tweaking.
ZOTAC's GeForce GTX 580 AMP! Edition comes at a massive core clock of 815 MHz. During our testing we also noticed that the card could overclock consistently higher than other reference designs, which seems to be thanks to a special binning process in the ZOTAC factory.
Cubitek is entering the case market with their Tattoo series of enclosures. Ranging from a basic model to one with LED fans and red interior along with a nice set of unique features we take a look at the Tattoo Fire chassis inside and out to see if it manages to light our fire or burns down in the process
There are plenty of docking stations out there. You can find them for one drive or for two, with card readers or USB ports. The Zalman MH200 U3 goes another direction: RAID. We push the unit to its limit to see if such a feature in a dual hard drive dock makes sense or makes us wonder why.
AMD starts the new year with yet another fastest clocked processor introduced to the retail market. Clocked at 3.60 GHz, and with fair pricing, Phenom II X4 975 BE is reinforcing AMD's line of defense against oncoming Sandy Bridge models and needs to maintain AMD's strong presence in th emainstream market, at least until the Bulldozer architecture is ready.
The return of Phenom II X4 800 marks AMD's yet another push to secure its dominance in the budget market, and its first representative, the Phenom II X4 840 has all of the features to continue the legacy of legendary Athlon II X4 620 - the first $100 quad processor. Clocked at high 3.20 GHz, and priced at $102, Phenom II X4 840 is going to compete nicely in this segment.
Intel's new Core processors based on the Sandy Bridge Architecture have been released. They bring a new integrated graphics core that effectively doubles rendering power compared to the last generation. It also includes numerous new features geared to both the gamer and consumer.
Mach Xtreme is a fairly new player to the memory and storage market. Their new MX-DS 120 GB SSD is based on the popular SF-1222 chip from SandForce which means it delivers leading performance without breaking the bank. In our review we test how it fares against other SSDs using SandForce and other controllers.
Zowie a relatively unknown gamer brand recently released two new mice. The mice all feature the same 2000 DPI infrared sensor and are available in two different surface textures. Featuring a design that resembles that of the late great IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0, this 2000 DPI gamer mouse could be the next big thing amongst old school gamers. We put it to the test and see how it stacks up against the best gaming mice out there.
Foxconn details one of their upcoming P67 motherboards for the Sandy Bridge Platform that will be released in January next year. The P67A-S is a mainstream part for the enthusiast who does not want to spend hundreds of dollars but still aims to get as much functionality as possible.
A-DATA's S599 128 GB SSD uses the well-established SandForce SF-1222 controller. This results in a high-performance solution - actually it is the fastest SandForce drive we tested so far. Excellent performance and an outstanding price of $225 make this one of the best SSDs available on the market at this time.
Akasa made an attempt to spice up product design by giving one of its latest CPU coolers a mean toxic-yellow color scheme, backed by a well-equipped heatsink design. Can the Akasa Venom strike a sweet-spot between looks and performance?
USB 3.0 enclosures seem to become more affordable by the minute and the noir S combines a stylish brushed Aluminum shell with the new, speedy interface. We take the unit apart and give it a run for its money to see how the no-frills USB 3.0 enclosure performs.
In this article we will investigate how much the HD 4870, HD 5870, GTX 285 and GTX 480 have gained over the lifetime of their driver releases. We also put this in contrast to what the latest AMD Catalyst 10.12 driver update can deliver.
MP4Nations Brainwavz M2 is the slightly odd name for a set of mid-end in-ears. Despite the name, the in-ears boast a wealth of small innovations that makes them very competitive at their respective price point.
Zalman and its unique fin-ring type heatsinks ruled the roost once upon a time, but things changed with the advent of tower-type coolers. Zalman continued to innovate with a redesigned CNPS9900 MAX, even after going tower-design with the CNPS 10 series. Exactly what made Zalman go back to its traditional design?
Mach Xtreme has managed to bring a USB 3.0 flash drive to market with some very interesting performance numbers coupled with a very affordable price. We push the stick through our benchmarks to see if it manages to stay Xtreme or just fizzles into oblivion.
Exclusive, in-depth preview of a brand new player in the Aluminum Case market: Cubitek. The Tank Series of cases aim to bring some turmoil into the strong grip exerted by Lian Li and we have the chance to take a quick look at one of their cases, set to be released in Q1 2011.
Razer has just released a revamped version of their old Lachesis mouse. The revision features a much newer Philip Twin-eye laser sensor which is capable of producing coherent tracking at up to 200 IPS, at a maximum resolution of 5600 DPI. We put it to the test and see if this specification-monster is good in real life application.
In this review we will look at the performance of two Radeon HD 6950 cards running in CrossFire. This delivers a massively powerful graphics solution that is over 25% faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580 and also beats AMD HD 5970. At $600, this setup also manages to deliver maximum price/performance when looked at from a high-end graphics angle.
AMD's new Radeon HD 6970 comes with an improved shader architecture that promises more performance with less transistors, consuming less power. Another interesting aspect is the inclusion of a power limitation system that ensures maximum performance when needed and avoids damage to the graphics cards.
HIS Radeon HD 6950 is a new option in the $300 upper midrange graphics card segment. It has enough power to play the latest titles in Full HD resolution. Thanks to improved geometry and tesselation engines it also promises to deliver increased performance in latest titles compared to the Radeon HD 5870.
There are literally thousands of choices out there when buying a pre-configured external hard drive. With many factors to account for, like warranty duration, price, looks, size or performance, the choice is hard. We take a look at the Verbatim Store'n'Go 320GB which is available in loads of different colors, to see if it delivers on all of these aspects.
The Akasa Baymaster combines a 2.5 inch hot-swap bay with an array of slots for different memory cards - all in a very compact 3.5 inch drive bay. You even get two different colored front, so that the affordable device looks good in every case.
Xigmatek makes sure each new product has a little something new to look out for, often these turn out to be as revolutionary as the "Heatpipe Direct Touch" (HDT) itself. With the Aegir SD128264, Xigmatek claims to have taken HDT to the next level (quite literally), and added a second level of heatpipes that draw heat from the CPU. Will this innovation bear fruit?
Fractal has updated the Define chassis once more. The R3 revision comes with an interesting list of upgrades and features. We take it for a spin to see if it can keep up with the modern times and if it manages to impress in the light of stiff competition in the same price segment.
Today NVIDIA launches their new GeForce GTX 570 graphics card which is based on the new more power efficient Fermi technology that we saw on the GTX 580, too. ASUS' GTX 570 is a full reference design implementation, the only difference is a small clock speed increase of 10 MHz.
NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 570 complements the GTX 580 at more affordable price levels. It offers the same reduced power consumption as its big brother without compromising performance. Palit's GTX 570 is a custom design with a unique thermal solution and substantially increased clock speeds out of the box.
PowerColor's HD 6870 PCS+ comes with some of the highest out of the box clock speeds of all HD 6870 cards available today. It also comes with a unique thermal solution that offers extremely low noise levels in both idle and load. Another improvement is that power consumption is slightly lower than AMD's reference design - despite the higher clock speed.
Sunrise known for their well performing earbuds also produce a set of quite interesting in-ears. Dubbed the SW-Xcape these in-ears are priced at a somewhat reasonable $80.
Corsair has put a lot of engineering into their Obsidian case line-up and everyone had eagerly been awaiting their first mid-tower case offering. Enter stage left: Corsair Graphite 600T, which takes a lot of the features of the Obsidian and packs it into a uniqe looking case at a much lower price point. We tear it apart and put it back together, to see if it can impress as much as the Obsidian series.
Last week NVIDIA launched their GeForce GTX 460 SE which is designed to give a good price/performance level without compromising on memory amount. But is this enough to compete with the full GTX 460 variants that have 768 MB or 1 GB of memory?
Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 480 Super Overclock sets out to deliver affordable high-end overclocking for NVIDIA users. The card features dual voltage software control, voltage measurement points, a powerful but quiet triple fan cooler and Gigabyte's OC Guru overclocking software. Best of all, it comes at a reasonable $469 which is not much more than the reference design. But is that enough to hold off the GeForce GTX 580 ?
There are very few manufacturers of completely passive systems out there. Impactics is jumping into the fray, aiming to offer fan-less systems, but without the large price premium associated to such computers. We take a look at the black, H55 and i3-530 equipped system to see if it can keep going under the pressure, or if it crumbles under the heat.
Last week NVIDIA released their new flagship graphics card, the GeForce GTX 580. Today we have on our testbench the ASUS ENGTX580 which is an almost full implementation of the reference design. The only exception is that the clock speed has been slightly increased - at no price premium.
Xigmatek has managed to impress with their past cases, offering a nearly unbeaten price/performance ratio. The new Pantheon aims to redefine this once more, offering modern features at a very competitive price point. Will it manage to hold its own or crumble on our test bench?
Today NVIDIA releases their new GeForce GTX 580 which is based on their Fermi architecture. The card is 20% faster than the GTX 480, yet requires less power. NVIDIA has also optimized fan noise making this the quietest highest-end card on the market today.
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580 has claimed the single GPU performance throne today. We take two of these cards for a spin to see what performance users can expect from this $1000 GPU combination. The review will also give insight into potential performance numbers for 3D Vision Surround.
PowerColor's HD 6850 PCS+ is an overclocked variant of the HD 6850. But the changes do not stop here. PowerColor also includes their own cooling solution and has done extensive changes to the voltage regulation circuitry on the card. But is this enough to compete with the excellent AMD reference design?
There are a lot of Atom+ION Nettops, but the Foxconn Netbox is not only extremely compact, but it also offers some customizability along with a very affordable price tag and the choice of black or white colors. We fill it with the required parts and wrangle it through our test bench to see how it holds up.
AZZA has a very interesting line-up of cases so far and the Hurrican 2000 is their most sophisticated one yet. It features a menacing look, is filled to the rim with 8 fans (yes 8!) and hot-swap bays for each of the removable hard drive trays. We fill the case with everything - even water cooling and let loose the hurricane.
The HIS Radeon HD 6870 Turbo is a factory overclocked variant of the HD 6870 that builds heavily on the AMD reference design. This means that PCB, components and cooler are unchanged from the original AMD card - which is a good thing. The increased clock speeds give the card a 4% performance advantage.
Beyerdynamic known for their high end headphones have now released a gaming headset. This headset is priced at a record €299/$299 so the stakes are high.
The NZXT Phantom is the first truly brand-new case from the company in a very long time. It looks great, comes in multiple colors and packs a long list of useful and well balanced features. We take a look at the white version along with the white Hale90, the first 80Plus Gold certified PSU from NZXT and end up quite impressed by both products.
Today AMD released their new Radeon HD 6870. The card brings new features like HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 which allow up to six displays to be connected to a single card. Performance has also been substantially increased and power draw reduced. But is this enough to defeat NVIDIA's latest offerings ?
The new ASUS Radeon HD 6850 Direct CU aims to be the king of the sub-$200 segment. It offers plenty of performance for the latest DirectX 11 titles, overclocks very well and comes with improvements to the display output configuration. Instead of an AMD reference heatsink the card uses an ASUS Direct Touch heatpipe solution.
AMD's new Radeon HD 6850 comes at an extremely affordable $179 price point. This poses the question whether it can become the new weapon of choice for budget oriented gamers. In our testing we see excellent performance which enables full HD resolution gaming in DirectX 11.
In this review we will put the dual card CrossFire configuration of the AMD Radeon HD 6870 in the spotlight. It promises higher performance than a Radeon HD 5970 at only a fraction of the price. But is this enough to make CF a recommendation?
AMD's new Radeon HD 6850 is priced at an extremely affordable $179. This poses the question whether two cards in CrossFire can manage to claim the price/performance sweet spot in the $360 segment or if other alternatives are better.
MSI's GeForce GTX 480 Lightning promises to be an overclocker's dream. It is build around a completely redesigned PCB and thermal solution with overclockers in mind. The card offers unique features like control for up to three voltages, dual BIOS with liquid nitrogen support and easy to reach voltage measurement points.
The Armor A60 is a smaller version of the popular Armor A90. It retains the cool and edgy look of the larger brother, but also offers a few new and interesting features and updates. We throw everything we have at the case to see if the Armor A60 remains standing once the dust has settled.
Crucial's ReadSSD C300 is the first solid state drive to support the new SATA 6 Gb/s standard. Unlike many of the competition, the drive is not based on a Sandforce controller, but uses one from Marvell instead. We tested both on SATA-II and SATA 6 Gb/s to check if the new interface can really make a difference.
Sunrise audio, a relative newcomer on the headphone scene just released some neat earbuds. Today we take a look at their high end offering namely the AS-Charm earbuds. They retail at around $80 which promises excellent price/ performance ratio.
Colorful's iGame GTX 460 uses a massive triple slot cooler with two fans to keep the card cool. It also offers overclocker-friendly features like a Turbo button or voltage measurement points. Out of the box the card runs at clocks of 820 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory making it one of the faster GTX 460 variants out there.
Today NVIDIA launches their new low-end GeForce GT 430 Series. The cards which are supposed to replace the GT 220 bring full DirectX 11 support to the table. Power consumption is also low which enables its use in media PC systems.
Corsair's Force F40 is the smallest Sandforce based drive the company offers with just 40 GB capacity. It is also the most affordable at $120. Thanks to a 7-channel design and the SF-1222 controller the drive delivers great performance for users who want to get on the SSD bandwagon without breaking the bank.
Sunrise Audio, unknown to most, just released a full line-up of earbuds. Today we take a closer look at the AS-Feeling earbuds which is their mid-end offering. Available for only $40 online these are sure to be welcomed by many people looking for great sound on a budget.
The much anticipated GIGABYTE GO OC 2010 Overclocking World Championship Finals proved to be a spectacular show in the middle of Taipei. With 15 overclockers from around the world gathered, the competition was fierce.
The G.Skill 8 GB 2000 MHz kit manages to offer high capacity, nicely packaged within tall and solid heatspreaders. The active cooling bracket lights up blue and we push the memory & test bench to the limit to see what this kit is capable of.
The PC-Q11 manages to swallow a full size ATX power supply, standard optical drive and four hard drives while still looking as slim as today's runway models. The mini-ITX chassis is the successor of the Lian-Li Q07, growing slightly taller but managing to impress with a good list of new features. We peel it apart and stuff it full of hardware to see if it bursts apart or manages to keep its posture.
Falling next in line in the footsteps of its predecessors such as the V8 and V10 coolers, the V6GT aims high to be the cooler everyone wants. With unique features such as "tilted asymmetrical fin design", "DynaLoop bearing technology" and unique "Double-V" heat-pipe setup will the V6GT live up to its expectations?
What started out as the first quad core processor under $ 100, has evolved into a powerful and very affordable all round performer. AMD's newest addition to the Athlon II Series, the quad core Athlon II X4 645 is stepping over the 3 GHz mark, clocking at impressive 3.10 GHz.
Although frequency wars between AMD and Intel are long gone, this could be the day for the history books at AMD, as they let loose their fastest clocked retail processor. Based on the well known Deneb quad core, Phenom II X4 970 BE is clocked at 3.50 GHz and its goal is to refresh the upper end of AMD's offerings, replacing older X4 965 BE model but keeping the same price point and adding more pressure to Intel's Core i5 Series.
High end in-ear manufacturer JH AUDIO recently launched a new top-of-the-line in-ear dubbed the JH|16Pro. Featuring a grand total of eight drivers per in-ear these set the benchmark when it comes to cramming a lot of balanced armatures into one set of in-ears, retailing at $1,200. This brings forth the old question of whether more really is better, read on to find out.
Today NVIDIA released their new GeForce GTS 450. We take two of these cards for a spin and check whether SLI is an option worth pursuing. In addition to testing at the reference design clocks we also test at 875/1000 which represents two factory overclocked cards in SLI.
The ASUS ENGTS450 TOP DirectCU is a factory overclocked version of the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450. It comes with a custom cooling solution called DirectCU which uses heatpipes that make direct contact with the GPU core. In our testing we saw excellent overclocking up to 973 MHz.
The MSI N450GTS Cyclone OC uses MSI's popular Cyclone cooler. The card is factory overclocked which provides a nice performance boost over the NVIDIA reference design. During testing we were impressed by how quiet MSI's cooler can work while also keeping temperatures low.
Palit's GeForce GTS 450 Sonic Platinum comes with 1 GB of fast GDDR5 memory and offers the highest clock rates of the GTS 450 cards we tested today. Running at 932 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory it is able to deliver performance higher than the AMD Radeon HD 5770.
AXLE's GeForce GTS 450 OC is a rock-solid implementation of the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450. It uses both a custom PCB and cooling solution to deliver the maximum for your hard earned cash. The cooler is running quiet and offers low temperatures which make an excellent foundation for additional overclocking.
ZOTAC has a long history of releasing overclocked cards that provide extra performance at low cost. Coming at clocks of 873 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory, the card manages to offer 10% extra performance over the NVIDIA reference design, without being noisy or running hot.
The cards for Point of View's GTX 460 TGT Beast are pre-selected based on their overclocking potential. This allows them to run the high clock speed of 855 MHz core and 1005 MHz memory. We take a closer look at this card that is just as fast as the much more expensive GeForce GTX 470.
As the names suggests, the ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU comes with an ASUS DirectCu thermal solution. It also features increased clock speeds of 775 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory which result in about 10% real life improvement. What makes this card really attractive is the low price of $229 which is the same as you would pay for the plain NVIDIA reference design.
PowerColor's HD 5750 Low Profile is the first HD 5700 Series low-profile card on the market. This seems to be a godsend for compact media PC systems that can also handle the latest games at decent resolution and settings. We take this card for a spin to see if it can hold its promise.
Mushkin's Callisto 60 GB comes at a very affordable $145 which makes it the cheapest 60 GB Sandforce-driven SSD on the market today. With a capacity of 60 GB it is a great choice for a Windows 7 boot drive. TRIM is also supported, so you get the maximum out of your SSD even after it's aged a bit.
MSI's GTX 460 HAWK is the flagship GeForce GTX 460 from MSI. It comes with a quiet Twin Frozr II cooler, 1 GB of memory and 781 MHz core clock out of the box. MSI has also expanded on the voltmodding capability of the card which supports software control for three voltages.
BitFenix may be a new brand but their first product has landed. The Colossus case is so large that you simply cannot miss it. It is packed to the rim with new and unique features, which make you wonder what we did without them before. We take an in-depth look at the retail version of this massive EATX case that goes for a very affordable 159 Euros.
AXLE's GeForce GTX 460 ACE is the first GTX 460 to come with a triple slot cooling solution, by Arctic Cooling in this case. The card also comes pre-overclocked out of the box which results in a healthy performance boost over the reference design.
Mach Xtreme is a new player, but their complete line-up of memory, SSDs and their USB 3.0 flash drive made some real waves. We are taking a look at the Armor 1600 MHz CL8 dual channel kit, which comes equipped with Xigmatek heat spreaders. Will its shell withstand our barrage of benchmarks or are we able to chip its armor?
Arctic Cooling's recent push to enter the peripheral market is now paying off for those looking for an affordable slim line keyboard. With the launch of the K381 keyboard you could get a quite feature packed keyboard that does not take up much deskspace for only $24.95.
ZOTAC's new GTX 460 Amp! Edition is the highest clocked GTX 460 version available right now. Its clock speeds of 810 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory ensure it delivers substantially improved performance over the GTX 460 reference design. ZOTAC is also using a custom cooling solution and includes a full version of Prince of Persia with their card.
Running at 800 MHz GPU and 1000 MHz memory, Palit's GTX 460 Sonic Platinum is one of the highest clocked GTX 460 cards out there. It also comes with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory which can provide a performance boost over the 768 MB variants too. Being priced at reasonable $249 this card looks like a good alternative to a reference design purchase.
Head-Direct's first ever balanced set of in-ears gets put to the test. Dubbed the RE-ZEROs they are essentially a limited run of a highly modified RE0 design. Dressed in a new color with a TRRS mini-jack and a slightly altered bundle these new in-ears should work well for the audio enthusiast.
G.SKILL's Phoenix Pro 240 GB offers a huge amount of extremely fast solid-state storage that goes well beyond 'boot drive'. It also features the latest Sandforce SF-1222 controller in a tweaked version that allows up to 50,000 IOPS which is a solid step up from the 20k of the normal consumer version.
Inadequate cooling is never to be taken lightly in a world that is getting hotter and hotter. Fortunately for all us desk bound gadget lovers Arctic Cooling have realized this and given us the Breeze Mobile.
Razer is mostly known for their expensive gaming mice, however, this new mouse changes all. Dubbed the Abyssus Razer is offering a gaming grade mouse at only $49 MSRP. We test the mouse and see if it stands a chance against some fierce competition.
Patriot's 100 GB Inferno SSD drive uses the Sandforce SF-1222 controller which is the company's latest and has found its way into many SSDs from major manufacturers on the market. Patriot is offering a unique five year warranty with their drive that uses a massive 28 GB overprovisioning to keep performance high at all times.
Its been over a year since Thermaltake came out with their last CPU cooler offering. The Frio is their first dual fan cooler targeted at cooling high performance multi-core processors with high heat output. The Frio incorporates some very promising new features, will they offer any significant benefit?
OCZ's Agility 2 SSD is built around the Sandforce SF-1200 controller which is one of the latest and greatest SSD controller chips on the market. It offers outstanding read and write performance of well above 250 MB/s. We test several synthetic and real-life scenarios to see if the $329 Agility 2 120 GB should be on your shopping list.
Vantec has updated their sleek looking NexStar Hard Drive dock with the newest generation Universal Serial Bus interface - USB 3.0. Even though the exterior did not change, the interior manages to impress no matter if you are using USB 3.0 or 2.0.
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460 has been released today with big success. The cards improve on power and noise, offering great performance considering the price. This brings up the obvious question: how do these cards handle SLI? At $460 total the 2-way SLI config is cheaper than NVIDIA's flagship GTX 480, but is it worth it?
MSI's GeForce GTX Cyclone OC uses NVIDIA's latest graphics processor, the GF104. But MSI has not stopped there, they use their own "Cyclone" cooling solution and have increased the cards operating clock to 728 MHz. As a result this 768 MB card is faster than the 1 GB version of the reference design.
Today NVIDIA launches their new GTX 460 Series. Axle is following the reference design implementation to the letter which means the card shows all the new improvements like low power, less fan noise and massive overclocking potential. Thanks to the memory choice of 768 MB it is also more cost effective than the 1 GB variant.
Zotac's GeForce GTX 460 is equipped with 1 GB of video memory and also brings in small improvements like an additional DisplayPort connector and better bundle at $229 which is no price increase from the price of other cards.
MSI's 1 GB version of the GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone uses 1024 MB of fast GDDR5 memory and clock speeds of 728 MHz to make it the fastest GTX 460 variant out there today. With a price of $239, it is only $10 more expensive than the reference design.
The Turbo Station or TS-859 Pro from QNAP is the largest such unit in their NAS line-up, able to take in eight hard drives. Its comes with an Intel Atom CPU and 1 GB memory within the compact chassis, offering much more than just acting as a network accessible storage device.
The Fractal Design Array manages to swallow a whole six 3.5 inch drives and a single 2.5 inch one without the usual dimensions of a mid or full tower case. This makes the ITX chassis a great DIY NAS or server chassis. We dive into the Array to see how they manage to stuff so much hardware into a chassis of this size.
ARES is ASUS' latest graphics card monster creation. The card is based on two HD 5870 GPUs running in an internal CrossFire configuration. ASUS has also be generous with the video memory, a total of 4 GB is available on the card. Thanks to a custom heatsink design the card manages to handle the heat well, but can you handle the price of $1000 a piece?
In this review we test two ASUS ARES cards in a 4-GPU CrossFire combination. With a total price of $2000 for those cards this is certainly not for everybody. For additional reference we also combined the ARES with a HD 5970 and a HD 5870.
Vantec has taken their NexStar 2.5" enclosure and upgraded the interface to USB 3.0 while keeping the looks identical. We take it for a speed to see if it makes sense for the small form factor.
The HIS Radeon HD 5550 is based on the HD 5550 design but comes equipped with fast GDDR5 memory and a passive cooling solution. This allows for high-quality HD movie playback and playing most games at Xbox-360 like 720p resolution.
Rosewill is jumping on the USB 3.0 bandwagon with full force, offing not only enclosures but also host cards. We take their RX358 3.5 inch enclosure for a ride using their RC-505 USB 3.0 controller - a combination that manages to impress.
After AMD'S Phenom II X6 1090T flagship processor, we take a look at the first mainstream six core processor Phenom II X6 1055T. Clocked at 2.80 GHz and with Turbo Core technology it can reach up to 3.30 GHz, and at prices of just under $200 AMD aims to create some serious alternative to Intel's Core i5 750.
The Thermaltake Armor A90 features some menacing looks, all black interior and plenty of *omph* for the next LAN party. We peak under its armor scales to see if the interior is worth protecting with such a cool look.
Axle's Radeon HD 5670 comes with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, which is twice that of the reference design. The thermal solution has also been changed to one that runs cool and quiet, thanks to a fan design by Arctic Cooling.
The NZXT Vulcan is a mATX gaming case capable of holding large multi-GPU configurations with a convenient carrying handle. We tear it apart and fill it with hardware, to see if it lives up to its promise or turns up to be nothing but smoke and hot ashes.
MSI is the first board partner to release a custom designed GeForce GTX 465 card. The original GTX 465 design's fan noise made it very clear that a Fermi GPU is running under the hood. Not with the GTX 465 Twin Frozr II, the card is whisper quiet in both idle and load, and manages considerably better temperatures than the reference design.
Head-Direct's all new HE-5LEs show a lot of promise. Based around a recently designed ortohodynamic driver, designed and manufactured by the company these show a lot of promise. Can this $699 headphone take on the much more expensive Sennheiser HD 800 ?
High-Definition content is available everywhere nowadays. We take a close look at what the drivers from AMD and NVIDIA offer in order to improve the quality of video playback. HQV Benchmark 2.0 uses 39 different tests that put the available image enhancement features in the spot light.
Noctua has taken their NH-U9B cooler, which already offers great performance, added a second 92 mm fan and upgraded its mounting kit. Noise levels are still at a minimum and push the envelope in silent high performance cooling for modern processors. Today we see if these improvements have made the NH-U9B SE2 even more worthy of your hard earned cash.
Computex is one of the best tradeshows in the year. Not only because it has all the latest and greatest tech products, but also because of the pretty show girls. We brought you almost 100 pics of what you missed at this year's Computex.
The Xtreem Dark series of modules are aimed at the enthusiast and casual overclocker. With compact black heat spreaders and maximum specs of 1600 MHz, they should be an attractive choice for most i3 or i5 users out there. We slap the Xtreem Dark into our testing rig and turn up the heat to see what kind of power hides below the dark hard shell of these modules.
Today NVIDIA releases their new GeForce GTX 465. The cards are based on the same GF100 Fermi GPU as the GTX 470 and GTX 480. In order to create this $279 product, NVIDIA has disabled a large number of units inside the GF100. Did they do it right? What about power consumption and heat?
The GMC H-80 manages to impress with its cool and elaborate looks along with the gun metal gray choice of color. Inside are four fans, two of them with menacing red LEDs - including the big 250 mm one in the side. We tear the beast apart to see if it manages to impress or turn out to be a timid creature.
ZOTAC's GeForce GTX 480 AMP! Edition comes with a mighty Zalman VF3000 cooler strapped to it which reduces the card's temperatures by 20°C. Thanks to the new cooling solution, the card has no problems running at higher clock speeds out of the box. But is that enough to declare this triple slot card a winner?
The ICY DOCK EZ-DOCK combines the functionality of a traditional hard drive dock with the flexibility of transporting it anywhere with ease. We take it for a test drive to see if it manages to add speed into the mix or leave us eying one of those boring black docks instead.
Palit's GeForce GTX 470 is one of the GTX 470 versions that comes with a custom PCB design and non-reference thermal solution. Since the card is $20 cheaper than the reference design we take a close look to find out whether Palit cheaped out on their card or if it's worthy for consideration.
After a long period of scaling down its processors both in price and performance, AMD finally got some fresh reinforcements to continue the fight with Intel. The new Phenom II X6 1090T and its 3.20 GHz clocked six cores, aim to take AMD to new heights, where Intel's Core i7 processors were untouchable until now.
Noctua has taken the high performance NH-C12P, which already offers excellent performance, and added a 140 mm fan. Noise level are still at a minimum and push the envelope in silent high performance cooling for modern processors. They all say size matters - let's see if that holds true with the NH-C12P SE14 as well.
The ASUS HD 5870 Matrix Platinum is clearly engineered for maximum overclocking. It has 2 GB of fast GDDR5 memory and features software voltage control for three voltages. One unique feature is that the ASUS iTracker 2 sofware can put your changed settings into the BIOS so you won't have to worry about OC software anymore.
The ZM-M215W is the part of the newest line-up of 3D monitors by Zalman. Instead of plucking down hundreds of dollars on NVIDIA shutter glasses and being bound to NVIDIA GPUs, you can pluck down hundreds over a normal 2D monitor of the similar size, but be free from the shackles, allowed to use any GPU of your choice. Is that still worth it? We put on the glasses and take a really close look.
The Team Group Diamond is compact, available in multiple colors, packs up to 16 GB and comes with a very affordable price tag - even though the name may suggest otherwise. We take a look to see if the tiny flash drive shines and sparkles or if any imperfections overshadow the joy of using the drive.
The LM200 is the middle child of Thermaltake's Luxa2 series of high-end HTPC enclosures. While the LM100 Mini offers a compact size along with a PSU and hefty price tag and the LM300 goes all out with space for a full size ATX board, the LM200 can hold a mATX unit and seems to hit the sweet spot on price / performance as well.
Arctic Cooling's wooden in-ears are put to the test. Dubbed E352 these in-ears are closely related to the E361s which we recently had the pleasure of testing. For a budget of only about $50 you get solid sound quality coupled with a nice finish.
PowerColor's HD 5770 PCS++ could be described as an evolutionary step from the HD 5770 PCS+, targeted at overclockers. It is the first HD 5770 that comes with a Volterra voltage regulator which allows software voltage control. This enables tweakers to get higher overclocks out of their card without complicated modding.
The Define R2 from Fractal Design manages to still turn some heads in the crowded sub 100 Euro case market. It may not look like much at first sight, but Fractal Design manages to stuff it full of useful features, which are simply not present in cases from the competitors.
Microcool, typically known for their heatsinks, recently dove head first into computer chassis with their Banchetto 101 bench station design. With the option to mount your choice of water cooling hardware, this bench station stands out from the rest. Today we take a closer look to see how functional the Banchetto's design is.
The DH-202 succeeds the DH-102, with new looks and a couple of new features. It also costs around 90 Euros more than the aging predecessor. We take this 7" LCD display HTPC case for a speed to see if it gives us a bit of a deja vu or manages to impress with the new look and feel.
The Lamptron FC5 is the company's high-end model to control fans, display their information as well as monitor the temperature within your chassis. The front of each FC5 is milled out of a single block of aluminum and the unit can power up to 4 fans with 30W draw each - all attributes of an excellent quality.
The HIS HD 5850 iCooler V Turbo is a fully customized HD 5870 that uses a non-reference PCB and heatsink. Instead of the standard clocks it comes at frequencies of 765 MHz core and 1125 MHz memory. Another highlight is the included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game which is clearly one of the top games of the last months.
PowerColor's HD 5570 is a small compact card that consumes very little power, yet should offer decent performance for most gaming up to 1280x1024. Another possible use is in a media PC, which is supported by the native HDMI output.
The V3 Black is one of the most affordable cases from Thermaltake. It aims straight for the likes of Xigmatek Asgard, which sells for a similar price, trying to walk the thin line between usability and ultimate affordability. We take the V3 Black apart, to see if it manages to go the distance or falls short in the required categories.
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 470 was announced a few weeks back - now we got the first production sample of the card from ASUS. Compared to the GTX 480 we saw much more reasonable power consumption numbers as well as fan noise and heat.
Today we have on our testbench two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 accelerators. Just the graphics cards alone will cost you $1000. Is this something that can be justified? Performance aside, what's going on with power and heat when running two of these cards?
HIS sends their HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo into the race for the best custom designed HD 5870. In addition to the new iCooler V heatsink you get improved clock speeds over the AMD reference design and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as game bundle.
MSI's HD 5830 Twin Frozr II uses a shiny metal heatsink that comes with two fans to keep the card cool. In our testing we see nice overclocking potential of around 20% which can easily bring the card to new performance levels.
HIS recently released its entry-level Radeon HD 5450 silent, low-profile graphics card targeted at those looking for a simple step-up from integrated graphics, packing all the essentials of this generation's GPUs. The model we're looking at has double the onboard memory at 1GB, native HDMI with 7.1 audio, and examining what it brings to the table with its added costs.
The term Utgard stems from the Norse mythology and means "land of the giants", ruled by Utgard-Loki. The Xigmatek Utgard offers you a unique and useful set of features, wrapped into a sturdy, tall and good looking chassis. We dive into the story to find out if the case will be forgotten or live on just as the legend has.
The In Win alpha 360 may have gone under in the masses of cases available on the market, but the Allure manages to rise and be noticed due to the fancy floral pattern and added bling of Swarovski crystals. While it shines on the outside, it manages to screw a few smiles with the inner attributes as well, as we open the Allure up and take a peek inside.
Noctua is well known for their line of excellent CPU coolers and silent fans. With the ever growing heat levels of modern processors, the company created the new "twin towers" design. Today we see if the NH-D14 can handle the heat while still living up to Noctua's promise of quiet CPU cooling.
Arctic Cooling known for their innovative cooling solutions recently launched a new line of in-ears. In this review we will be taking a closer look at their top-of-the-line in-ear dubbed E361-BM. Fitted with a microphone and remote these earphones also double as a headset, both for PC and phone.
Today marks the release of NVIDIA's new GeForce Fermi architecture. After excruciating months of delays, NVIDIA has finally given the green light for their new products. The GeForce GTX 480 offers all the latest features like DirectX 11, Tesselation, gaming on multiple monitors and GPU computation. Did NVIDIA's new card manage to claim the throne?
NVIDIA's latest beast offers unprecedented performance to the enthusiast gamer. But it also requires massive amounts of data being fed to it to perform. That's why it is commonly expected that high-end graphics cards are crippled if the PCI-Express interface does not offer the maximum speed of x16 2.0. We test four different PCI-E configurations and their performance to shine light on this question.
Corsair's latest Padlock revision brings about more changes than just a new look. Data is now secured with a 256-bit AES encryption, unlike the original Padlock 1, which just cut off power to the flash drive unless the correct PIN was entered. We drill the Padlock 2 to see if it holds up or snitches under pressure.
USB 3.0 has slowly been gaining market share over the last months. Vantec is one of the first companies to offer a USB 3.0 compatible external 3.5" enclosure. We take the NexStar 3 for a spin to see if the USB 3 promise holds up to the test.
Thermaltake has been around for many years, creating heatsinks for nearly every market imaginable. Thermaltake's first claim to fame was the Golden Orb, a unique cooler that set the computing world on its ear. Thermaltake has not stopped there, and they are still inventing challenging new designs. Today we take a look at highly awarded SpinQ and see what it has to offer.
Sennheiser's latest and greatest headphones are put to the test. The HD800s created quite a fuzz when released, not only were they one of the most expensive headphones launched last year, they were also the most anticipated ones. In this review we put them to the test and see if there can be a reason to spend $1800 on headphones.
PowerColor has engineered a unique HD 5750. Their Go! Green Edition is completely fanless using a big passive heatsink, it also works without additional PCI-Express power connector, a configuration which limits the card to 75W maximum power draw. Considering that the AMD reference design requires 92W, PowerColor had quite a way to go. Did they succeed?
MSI's new R5870 Lightning is designed with the hardcore overclocker in mind. It comes with more PWM phases, noise free coils, voltage measurement points, an overclock out of the box and software voltage change support via Afterburner. But is that enough to satisfy the demanding enthusiast crowd?
The Hades is part of the Crafted Series and features four fans, a temperature LCD display along with a very edgy, industrial design. The interior is all black and NZXT has chosen a unique approach by having nine 5.25 inch bays and multiple rails for 3.5 inch drives.
Here's Lian Li being Lian Li. The PC-T1 is an open mini-ITX chassis, which is one of the most wacky cases on the planet: it looks like a spider when assembled. Being the case that it is, we wanted to look into the belly of the beast and see if the menacing looks are coupled with the kind of engineering required to pull such a design off.
ASUS has released what seems to be one of the best custom designed HD 5850s. The card which supports DirectX 11 and Eyefinity is extremely quiet, offers better price/performance than the AMD reference design, comes with an overclock out of the box and supports voltage control via SmartDoctor.
Dimastech is continously updating their Benchtable and listening to the feedback of both users and reviewers. The V2.5 simplifies many aspects of assembly, while adding new and useful features to the Benchtable. We take a close look at what it has to offer and at the improvements, to see if it is a worthy successor.
G.Skill is offering a full range of P55 compatible memory kits, with the ECO being one of them. As the name implies, the memory aims to deliver the most performance while only requiring a mere 1.35V to run at 1600 MHz CL7-8-7.
The N2200 is an entry level dual bay NAS. It has a fairly long list of features without making it overly complex to configure, plus it comes at a low price. Since Thecus seems confident about the N2200 we took a closer look at it to see if this is justified.
Soundgraph is well known for their LCD and VFD products in the majority of HTPC enclosures from virtually all major brand names out there. The new FingerVU series takes the control of the PC to the next level with a 4" or 7" inch, high-res, USB powered LCD touch screen at your finger tips.
Today we have with us the ASUS EAH 5830 DirectCu 1024 MB, a premium non-reference implementation of the Radeon HD 5830. The way its cooler is designed, and going by ASUS' choice of components, the EAH 5830 DirectCu is catered to the value performance enthusiast who can squeeze the last ounce of performance out of it by overclocking.
The Addonics Pocket DigiDrive combines both the flexibility of a card reader and the speed of the eSATA interface into one functional package. We take the unit for a spin with a blazing fast Compact Flash card to see how it will keep up.
With wireless N or 802.11n based networks becoming more and more popular these days, we take a look at what Airlive has to offer in this regard. In our review we take a close look at WN-300ARM-VPN ADSL modem & router, the WN-5000PCI - a 300 Mbit/s & MIMO equipped PCI card and the WN-200USB - an entry level 802.11n USB 2.0 device.
Moneual Lab is taking a step into the entry-level case segment with the Y601B slim form factor micro-ATX HTPC case. It looks like the kind of product for anyone looking to save some space on their desktop, or an upright media center. This case from Moneual comes at an amazing value with a price tag of only 65 USD.
The 633x Compact Flash from A-DATA is their fastest CF offering available today. With advertised read and write speeds of above 90 MB/s it should be an interesting performer. We take a close look and push it to the real world limits - for your reading pleasure.
Sapphire's new HD 5450 seems to be the dream come true for all media PC users. It is passively cooled, which means no noise, can be turned into a single slot low-profile card and includes native HDMI and all the HD audio improvements of the Radeon HD 5000 Series. But is that enough to win over the enthusiasts?
The CNPS9900 NT is the most recent update to the 9900 series of CPU coolers from Zalman. It features a shiny dark grey look with a sweet green LED fan and a silent adapter. Even with the low noise level the cooler manages to impress at many levels.
The Helios 910 is a simple but sturdy chassis with nine external drive bays up front. It features an all black interior with a menacing looking 230 mm side fan, which comes equipped with blue or red LEDs. Azza is aiming to offer you a useful set of features at a price that won't break your bank.
After the imbalanced and overpriced Core i5 600 series Intel is making yet another step to deliver their Westmere architecture to the average user via Core i3 processors. Packed with Hyper Threading with lower frequencies and no Turbo Boost compared to i5 600 models, Core i3 530 and 540 got a tough task replacing Core 2 E7x00/E8x00 and put some pressure on AMD's cheap quad and triple core processors.
Sapphire's new HD 5570 is set out to deliver decent gaming performance for casual gaming and also best-in-class media playback capabilities. Thanks to its compact design and the included low-profile bracket it seems to be able to achieve that.
Mionix Naos 5000 is the name of a brand new Swedish designed gaming mouse. Combining the brilliant Avago 9500 sensor with an ergonomic right hand design this mouse means business.
PowerColor's brand new HD 5870 PCS+ comes with an overclock out of the box and an amazing cooling solution that makes the card quieter than any other card in this performance segment. For a price increase of only $10-$20 over the reference design this seems like a great deal.
The NMP-1000 is not only a simple media player to hook up to your TV. The small unit includes a BitTorrent client, NAS, uPnP & DNLA functionality along with playback of ShoutCast, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and Apple Trailers. In fact the list of functionality is so diverse, it does justify the 399 US Dollar price tag and still manages to put a smile on our faces.
MSI's new HD 5770 Hawk is designed to deliver extra features to overclockers. Its TwinFrozr dual fan offers plenty of cooling power to keep the card cool during overclocking, yet runs extremely quiet. As added bonus for tweakers, MSI has included easy to use V-Check voltage measurement points on their PCB and an overclock out of the box.
Sapphire's HD 5770 Vapor-X features their exclusive cooling solution which promises to reduce temperature, fan noise and increase overclocking potential. In our testing we confirmed that the card does indeed run quiet, cool and offers the highest overclocks we saw on a HD 5770 so far.
The XPort 251 is very compact and goes for the functional, understated design. Cooler Master also goes the extra mile to add a pouch to it, to add further protection for your precious data. The question remains, if the Xport 251 manages to turn heads or go down in the crowd of other, similar enclosures on the market
Vantec brings us the NexStar TX 2.5" SATA USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure. With a wide variety of different kinds of storage mediums on the market at different prices and craftsmanship a decision on a somewhat simple device is not always easy. Let's see why the NexStar TX enclosure may be right for you and what sets it apart from the rest.
The Mountain Mods "Ascension Create Your Own" Series cases promise to be the ultimate customizable case for the PC enthusiast. The new Crystal Ship version offers acrylic panels to show off your PC's inner workings. The optional new XL-ATX motherboard tray can easily house the new ten slot enthusiast motherboards. Just how customizable is it and what new options is MountainMods offering?
A-DATA continues their Disney licensed series with the T907 Jack Skellington flash drive. Inspired by the movie 'Tim Burton’s The Night before Christmas', we take a close look at Jack to see if he brings joy or quiver to our hearts.
MSI's new R5670-PMD1G is one of the few HD 5670 cards that come with 1 GB of video memory, as opposed to 512 MB on most other designs. This review will answer whether there is any point in 1 GB of memory on a card like the HD 5670 or if 512 MB is enough.
The Cooler Master ATCS 840 revives the line of cases which essentially made the brand so popular in 2001. It will be interesting to see if the chassis is worthy to carry such an illustrious name and if it can light that same spark of awe and respect for the now established brand.
PowerColor has sent us their new Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ which is an overclocked version of the HD 5770, featuring a custom PCB design and thermal solution by PowerColor. Thanks to PowerColor's changes, the card can manage a reduced power consumption, which is even lower than the AMD reference design, resulting in a leading performance per Watt score.
Intel's new Core i5 661 processor combines graphics controller, memory controller, PCI-Express interface and a Dual Core all inside one compact processor package. Utilizing Intel's latest 32 nm process there is quite some added potential for power saving and overclocking, but is the integrated chipset up to the task too?
SteelSeries' all new optical gaming mouse is put to the test. The Kinzu mouse features the latest generation optical sensor, but can it even begin to compete with the new generation of laser sensor powered mice? We put the mouse to the test and see how well it fair against more modern offerings.
After months-long DirectX 11 extravaganza by AMD, it seems to be time when NVIDIA declares itself to have a competing GPU, based on its spanking-new Fermi GPU architecture. The GeForce Fermi 100 (GF100) is promising to take over the legacy built by its ancestors, the G80 and GT200, to become yet another monster high-performance silicon which will reignite competition in the upper-quadrant of the market. We look at what NVIDIA is putting on offer, before we get to test NVIDIA's assertions.
Lacie's latest line-up of flash drives mashes design and ultimate convenience into one great product. Shaped just like a traditional key and with a capacity of up to 32 GB, this may well be the last flash drive you will ever place on your key chain.
Today AMD announced the availability of their Radeon HD 5670 Series. HIS has chosen to design a custom PCB and uses an Arctic Cooling thermal solution to keep their card cool. Even though it uses an active fan, the card is easily one of the quietest cards on the market, underlining its potential media PC use.
The Element V is the largest case in Thermaltake's series intended for the professional user. The case features large fans with selectable lighting colors and adjustable rotation speed, all packed into a black and red eATX full tower case.
With the launch of the Xai laser mouse SteelSeries aims to take on the competitors with an ambidextrous design coupled with a mere second generation laser sensor. The mouse features a simple yet elegant design and has a driver suite that is well equipped, but is the laser sensor up to the task?
Powercolor is the first add-in-board manufacturer to release a completely custom designed Radeon HD 5850. The HD 5850 PCS+ features a revamped cooling solution that offers extremely low temperatures and comfortable noise levels. It also comes with higher clocks out of the box that should give the card an extra performance boost.
Intel's latest Clarkdale processors are the first to integrate a GPU and CPU inside a single processor package. This can lead to large cost savings and simplifications for motherboard vendors and system integrators. But does the Core i5 661 have enough GPU steam to play current games?
Cooler Master's latest gaming mouse is dubbed the Sentinel Advance. Advanced it is with its 5600 DPI double laser sensor and complex lighting system. Besides high performance, this mouse feature eight buttons and a driver suite that has just about any tweakable aspect known to man.
The vCase3 is a low profile HTPC case aimed at the DIYers out there who want an elegant yet simplistic design to house even the wildest of HTPC systems while not breaking the bank. Today we take a closer look at what the case has to offer.
Head-Direct's HiFiMAN RE252 in-ears boast a new type of shell made from soft silicone. These in-ears aim to provide you with audiophile quality sound without ruining your ears. We put the $200 earphones to the test to see if the design can hold its own.
The ASRock ION 330HT-BD packs a BluRay drive along with a few other unique features usually absent from an ION platform. We pull the unit apart to see what makes it tick and even kick it into overdrive - yes we even overclocked this puppy.
The Xtreem Series from Team Group marks the company's high-end line-up of memory for the newest plattforms available. We rip apart, bench and push the memory to the limit, to see how it ticks below the surface of the thick, high quality heatspreaders.
The WingRS 301 is aimed at the budget user, carrying an affordable price tag of around 40 €. It features a black exterior and plastic carrying handle. Considering the large choice of enclosures at this price range, it will be interesting to see see what the WingRS brings to the table.
NVIDIA recently launched their first GDDR5 graphics cards. The new GeForce GT 240 is based on NVIDIA's brand-new 40 nm G215 graphics processor and features 96 shaders. Axle has chosen to use an Arctic Cooling heatsink on their GT 240 design.
While Axle is not the most well-known graphics card manufacturer, their GeForce GT 220 can score. It comes with a silent Arctic Cooling heatsink making it the quietest GT 220 we tested so far - great for HTPCs. It also offers low temperature levels which means overclocking is easy to do. We saw an 31% overclock on the GPU core clock and 18% on the memory.
The Lian Li PC-B26FB stuffs the high quality interior we have come to expect into an edgy and fairly elaborate exterior. Along the clean lines and top cover with two additional fans, you get a large, blue ring of light in the front. The CaseKing KingMod Edition adds sound insulation material to the chassis to drown out some of the noise the PC makes.
The Megtron is a dual color LCD display which is simply powered by the USB bus and utilizes a slim and small software application to output all kinds of important information. With a market being flooded by plenty of secondary displays, the SDC Megtron does offer some very useful features and functionality.
The Spire Slide Pro is an enclosure which offers simple installation in form of a hard drive tray. It also comes in all different flavors for both IDE or SATA drives and features a backup functionality. It is priced about 2 Euros cheaper than any other enclosure on the market. Did Spire remove crucial features?
NZXT has taken the Tempest chassis and updated it with numerous small and large improvements. Now called the Tempest EVO it does not only feature design updates but new additions in fuctionality as well. All this, while keeping the same introductory MSRP as the original.
HIS designed a Radeon HD 5750 that uses a nearly silent cooler by Arctic Cooling which makes this card a premium choice for HTPC or quiet gaming PC. Even though the cooler is quiet, the temperatures are low, which means you can get some nice overclocking out of your card. In our case around 20% free extra performance.
Powercolor's new HD 5750 PCS relies on a copper cooling solution by Zerotherm to keep the card cool. It does so without much fan noise and while being twice as energy efficient as the HD 4850 which is comparable in performance.
In this revision of the popular Vidabox Premium HTPC Keyboard, Vidabox has optimized for longer battery life and greater wireless range to ensure better long term usability, which makes it an outstanding HTPC keyboard. We take a closer look at this fine keyboard and show you how well it performs.
Today NVIDIA launches their first GDDR5 graphics card. The new GeForce GT 240 is based on NVIDIA's brand-new 40 nm G215 graphics processor and features 96 shaders. Palit has built an overclocked "Sonic" Edition card that comes with high clock speeds out of the box and features a sensible temperature based fan control mechanism.
Elixir is known for their standard JEDEC modules, usually found in budget and mid-range systems. Their 1600 MHz tri-channel kit tries to give you that same value with a hint of overclockability thrown in the mix, for those who want that magical 1600 MHz speed, while spending as little as possible.
Today marks the day that AMD takes back the graphics card performance crown from NVIDIA. The new AMD Radeon HD 5970 comes with two fast Cypress GPUs on a single PCB. Using their latest power saving features, AMD achieved a very modest power consumption for this card which right now is the fastest money can buy.
With the release of AMD's latest Radeon HD 5970, the question comes up "What can be gained by going CrossFire?" We investigate the quad GPU performance of the HIS Radeon HD 5970. Even though the setup rip a $1200 hole in your wallet, performance will make you smile.
Today NVIDIA launches their first GDDR5 graphics card. The new GeForce GT 240 is based on NVIDIA's brand-new 40 nm G215 graphics processor and features 96 shaders. It also includes several new features like support for DirectX 10.1, HDMI audio enhancements and extremely low power draw. But is that enough to justify a price of $100 ?
Intel continues to upgrade their processor lineup with the Pentium E6300. It offers a high stock frequency at 2.80 GHz and improved memory bandwidth due to increased FSB to 1066 MHz, this makes this processor a formidable opponent but the question remains. Can it do any damage to AMD's triple core Athlon II X3 Series?
SteelSeries' latest mat is quite a tiger leap forward in terms of technology. Called 9HD this mat has the potential to fill the gap left behind from the elderly SteelSeries S&S mat which elevated SteelSeries to the elite of mouse mat manufacturers.
Inno3D's GeForce GT 220 uses NVIDIA's latest 40 nm graphics processor. It offers extremely low power consumption, especially in idle and has support for DirectX 10.1. It also features NVIDIA's new HDMI audio improvements, so you no longer need to route an SPDIF cable to the graphics card.
The In Win AMMO continues on the army based theme we have come to love with the Commander PSUs. The enclosure combines a sturdy shell with a soft interior and the added security of AES 128 bit encryption. We take a real close look an run it trough our barrage of tests to see if it comes out on top after the battle.
Corsair takes their game to a new high with the Obsidian 800D, offering a full tower chassis with the company's unique device. The case does not only look massive, but also houses four hot-swappable hard drive bays along with an excellent cable management system and a window to show off the guts of the system.
Sapphire's HD 5750 is priced competitively below $150 and offers all the new features like DirectX 11, AMD Eyefinity, native HDMI & DP and more. Even though the cooler does not look like it, it works extremely well and keeps the card cool and very quiet. We were also able to overclock our sample by more than 20% which essentialy brings the HD 5750's performance to levels of the HD 5770.
The Dragonlord PC-K58 may not have the same bite as the K62 when it comes to looks, but has the exact same amazing internal functionality and the same feature set. So the Dragon may not look as dangerous but still manages to scorch things up on our review - at a significant discount.
AMD's Athlon II X3 425 offers all the features of the of the more expensive Quad Cores, and you can potentially unlock the fourth core. Being priced at only $79 it creates tough competition for Intel in this segment, but also for AMD who has a number of other processors in this market. Even though it lacks the L3 cache it still offers decent performance, especially considering its price.
MP4Nation's latest addition to their in-ear lineup is dubbed the Beta Brainwavz. Made by MP4Nation under their Nationite brand these in-ears are geared towards everyday listeners looking for a decent set of affordable in-ears. Competitively priced these definitely seem like an affordable way into the in-ear realm.
AMD's Sempron 140 is here to seal the deal in the entry level market for $39. It offers all the features of the K10.5 architecture, but comes with only a single core at 2.70 GHz. Despite its single core it offers decent performance for every day office use, media PCs and casual gaming. If you get lucky you might even be able to unlock a second core.
The Lian Li PC-V351 is one ultra compact enclosure, without many of the expected shortcomings. It can swallow a big CPU cooler and long graphics card while managing to keep things cool and quiet. You even have the choice of up to 6 colors - a first for an all aluminum enclosure.
The A.C.Ryan PlayON! DVR TV combines the benefits of a media player with the ability to record and playback analog and DVB-T signals and act as a wired or wireless NAS. It is capable of streaming and playback of up to 720p video as well as audio and pictures. To top things off, the PlayON! DVR TV also acts as an Internet radio for your living room.
The Zalman CNPS10X Quiet takes the CNPS10X Extreme and pairs it with a silent fan for all those users who want the cooling performance of a tower cooler in combination with silence. We crank up the heat to see if the CNPS10X Quiet can stay cool when it counts.
AMD's Athlon II X2 240 is set out to deliver a best-in-class experience for less than $60. Even though it has only two cores it can deliver in many benchmarks including gaming. Its attractive price point and undervolting capabilities also make it an interesting choice for a budget oriented media PC setup.
NVIDIA's new GeForce 210 is set out to conquer the low-end graphics card market. It comes with native HDMI output, improvements to HDMI audio and a low profile form factor. While it also supports DirectX 10.1 and PhysX, it is definitely not made for gaming. However, it does score big in overclocking and power consumption.
The Cooler Master Lab is their first test bench unit and scores with some extremely compact dimensions along with the possibility to install a full size ATX board. We take a close look to see how it stacks up to the competition from the specialists like DangerDen or DimasTech.
The Lexa S is an updated version of the classic Lexa and Lexa Blackline Series, which goes into a totally different direction. With a much lower price point it is stuffed with a radically different set of features along with four, white bladed fans, a fan controller and the possibility to use a dual radiator within the case. These are just some of the numerous new features of the Lexa S, while the review goes into all the details.
AMD's next step in their Radeon HD 5000 release strategy is the Radeon HD 5770 which is based on the new 40 nm Juniper core. It features 800 shaders and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus. Essentially this makes the card perform like a HD 4870 but adds new features like DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity and reduced power consumption.
Zotac's new GeForce GT 220 is based on NVIDIA's new GT 216 GPU which features 48 shader processors. While this is certainly not enough to play games at high resolutions it is sure fine for casual gaming. Windows desktop use and HD video playback is what this card is really targeted at and here it shines with extremely low power consumption and good feature set.
NVIDIA's new GeForce GT 220 is built around the new GT216 graphics processor, which is NVIDIA's first chip to be made in a 40 nm process. Another novelty is support for DirectX 10.1. Palit's Sonic Edition comes with higher clocks out of the box and an extremely well optimized low-noise fan.
Zotac is well known for their graphic cards, but the company goes one step further and applies their engineering skills we have come to love in form of their mini-ITX boards and poured them into their first NVIDIA ION Nettop. The Zotac MAG packs a dual core Atom 330 with an ION platform, 2 GB of memory and 160 GB of hard drive space along with a few other surprises. All for an extremely competitive price tag.
Not having a performance leading product doesn't mean the end of a company. AMD is the hardcore proof of that. Turning its attention to the much larger mainstream market resulted in some great products that offer amazing performance at low price points. This time, AMD has outdone itself, and the recently introduced Athlon II X4 620 could very well be a dream come true for mainstream users, the first ever quad core processor for just under $100.
The HIS Radeon HD 5850 is based on AMD's reference design and delivers amazing rendering performance at a much more affordable price than the HD 5870. It comes with an impressing low power consumption and the lack of fan noise is also very enjoyable. Overall it seems like this will be the best high end card available this year.
Origen AE has taken their legendary construction quality down to a mini ITX platform with their newest HTPC chassis - the M10. It is made of two thick pieces of aluminum and features an external, passive 150W power brick - two aspects you won't get anywhere else. But is this enough to justify the 400 Euro price tag?
We pair two AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB accelerators for some CrossFire action, and see how viable it proves as a high-end graphics setup.
Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 5800 Series of graphics cards. They are powered by a brand new graphics processor called "Cypress". Our review goes into all the detail about the new HD 5870 flagship, but we also have HD 5850 scores so you can get an idea what to expect.
AMD's latest generation of graphics cards offers unprecedented single GPU performance levels. Such performance requires an optimum environment, especially important is PCI-Express bandwidth. We investigate if these cards can still deliver on a PCI-E x8, x4 or even x1 link.
The Lancool PC-K62 is the high-end model of the Dragonlord Series. It comes stuffed with four fans, screw-less systems everywhere you look within that black interior and a cool looking window to top things off. We go in for the kill to see if we can tame the Dragon.
A compilation of all plausible information about the Radeon HD 5000 series graphics processors found on the web, stitched into a collage.
If any graphics card has been hyped in the past months it's the ASUS MARS Dual GTX 285. It is the first and only graphics card featuring two GTX 285 GPUs with 4 GB VRAM. The card is set out to dominate every other card on the market delivering amazing performance - at a breathtaking price of USD 1200 per card.
Razer's two most recent products are put to the test as we examine the performance of the Orochi dual mode gaming mouse and the Kabuto gaming mat. Both of these products are part of Razer's new product line intended for gamers on the move.
In a time when all of our information is going digital there is more of a need for a way to store our information securely. The Vantec NexStar Vault aims to make this data secure by providing the security of a keypad, along with data encryption.
Mushkin's GeForce GTX 295 comes in a very stylish wooden box that radiates "premium product" as soon as you have it in your hands. Other than that the card follows NVIDIA's single PCB GTX 295 reference specifications to the letter, but also comes at an attractive price point of $499.
SoundMagic is one of the few brands out there dedicated to making quality in-ears that are affordable as well. Today we take a look at their PL30 in-ears which boast a mighty bundle and good sound quality to boot. Being priced at $25 they provide amazing value in the IEM segment.
MSI's HD 4890 Cyclone SOC is the fastest model of the Cyclone Series. It comes with clocks of 1000 MHz / 1000 MHz out of the box and uses a huge heatpipe cooler to keep the card cool. As an extra feature a native HDMI connector has been added in case you want to connect the card to your big TV screen.
The recently launched HiFiMAN EF2 amplifier takes center stage as we test to see if it is worthy of such a name. Manufactured and sold by Head-Direct this product is both competitively priced and well equipped.
With more and more people becoming entrenched within the digital age there is an increasing need for storage. Hard drive docks are definitely a part of the solution with easy to use USB and eSATA connections all in a package that sits on your desk. Today we will be looking at what the Vantec NexStar Dual Bay Hard Drive Dock has to offer.
Powercolor's new HD 4770 PCS comes with a cooling solution designed by Artic Cooling and a custom PCB design by Powercolor. This should result in improved thermal performance, less noise and better overclocking. Thanks to decisive product design, Powercolor manages to offer the card at no extra price over other HD 4770 cards.
MSI's latest addition to their Lightning Series is the N275GTX Lightning with 1792 MB memory and a new Twin Frozr II dual 80 mm fan cooler. Being targeted at overclockers it is overclocked out of the box of course. All this sounds like a noisy card? Nope, on the contrary, the card is actually the quietest card in its performance class, by far.
The Luxa2 LM100 Mini is the smallest HTPC enclosure of that brand in the line-up. It can fit a mini-ITX board, but does it manage to deliver a compact and concentrated dose of all the features we look for in an HTPC chassis?
In a market saturated with mid-tower computer cases there are countless designs and different features to choose from. The one choice most people can agree on is getting a good value for their money. AZZA is trying to make this choice easier by offering the Spartan, a case with bold looks for gaming at a low price.
If you need to move a lot of data around then the Patriot Xporter Magnum 64 GB is a great choice. It offers enough storage for all your needs on the road and pairs that with maximum transfer speeds of up to 33 MB/s. Patriot has also made their $150 flash drive stand out by designing it in a menacing red.
The new GC-2 thermal compound by GELID Solutions is unique from its competition. It comes in a large 7 gram container and is priced the same as competitors' 3.5 gram products. Its thermal conductivity is excellent and an included applicator tops this product off.
OCZ expands the Reaper series with the HPC tri-channel kit. This one runs at 1866 MHz and offers CL8 right out of the box. The heatspreader design with heatpipe cooling looks menacing, but will it manage to keep cool under pressure when we push the memory to the limit and reap some praise?
The newest addition to the Razer headset lineup is the USB powered Megalodon headsets. Featuring an all new USB sound card developed by Razer called the Maelstrom sound engine. Depending on user preference you can run in either 2.0 or 7.1 mode.
The new GC-Extreme thermal compound by GELID Solutions is definitely one to consider when you are in the market for some thermal grease. It has amazing thermal conductivity and does better than the competition.
The S805 from A-DATA is the perfect storage companion for the outdoor user or as a key chain. The nice metal clip along with a solid frame make this stick perfect in that regard, even if it is not a speed demon, but the S805 still manages to be Vista Readyboost ready.
The Element T is the most affordable case in the Element family from Thermaltake. It aims to please both the the professional user and the mainstream gamer. This is certainly no easy task, but he case has space for up to six hard drives, an excellent construction and clean looks along with a large red LED fan up top.
With more people having more than one computer the need to share and transfer files between them has grown. Vantec has come up with a product geared towards this market with the Vantec ezSHARE Adapter. It boasts an easy setup with no additional software to install and a setup time of only seconds. Let's see what the ezSHARE Adapter has in store.
The Xigmatek Midgard aims to redefine the mainstream case segment by packing it full with all kinds of features. From plenty of fan mounts to screw-less systems everywhere, along with an all black interior and a low, low price tag of $60. That is bound to get our attention, so we take a real close look, but will it manage to do away with the doubts?
The Vertex is a very unique HTPC chassis. Shaped like a pyramid and constructed of solid metal sheets along with a choice of three colors, the case is certainly an eye catcher. The chassis is currently available in very limited quantities, but you can count on us to get one of them to fill up with hardware for your viewing pleasure.
Relatively unknown Maximo recently released their iM-590 earphones. Based on a 9 mm driver and boosting a metal exterior these earphones will undoubtedly turn some heads. The price of just $59 certainly will.
Sapphire's new HD 4730 is based on the RV770 GPU which is used on the HD 48xx Series. Such a choice had to be made because the availability of the HD4770 GPU is extremely limited at this time - while customer demand is up. Sapphire offers their card with 640 shaders and 512 MB GDDR5 memory at an extremely competitive price point of only $79. But is that enough to take over that market segment?
NVIDIA has silently introduced a new revision of their GeForce GTX 295. The new version crams everything onto a single PCB. While the performance characteristics have not changed, thermals, fan noise and power consumption did change indeed. Is the new single PCB GTX 295 a success or just an unimportant product revision?
Spire's TherMax II is a new DHT CPU cooler for AMD and Intel CPUs. Its four heatpipes make direct contact with the processor for optimum cooling. Also included in the package is a fan controller which allows you to control the UV reactive fan in any way you want.
The Trident Series from G.Skill is a very affordable kit, but manages up to 2000 MHz right out of the box. The kit also has very nice high quality heatspreaders. We push the kit to 1.65 V and way beyond that to see check for additional OC potential or if it manages to impress us with a great price / performance ratio.
The Panzerbox intends to mow down the competition like a tank, as it is aimed at the uncompromising LAN party gamer. The compact case has all the space for large components to pack quite the punch. We take the case for a spin to see if it delivers more than just a menacing look.
The Gladiator 600 is another entry into the fray what some may call the "mainstream case market". We tear the case down from all angles to let you know if it can keep up with today's expectations and deserves the Gladiator name and if it is a worthy evolution from the Centurion.
The NZXT Beta is an extremely affordable enclosure with a sub 50 US Dollar price tag. We take a close look at the case to see if any corners were cut to keep the price down or if NZXT managed to combine usabilty, a solid feature set with that low, low price tag. In other words: will it come across as cheap or affordable?
The Audio-Technica ATH-AD700s headphones surprise with their unusual appearance and performance. Outperforming most of the competitors in its price range these headphones are quite a treat to anyone looking for a set of $100 headphones.
Sapphire's HD 4890 Toxic uses their exclusive Vapor-X cooling technology. This results in a card that delivers considerably more performance than the HD 4890 reference, yet does so without any excess noise. Actually the Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic is the quietest HD 4890 we ever had in our hands.
Even though this year's Computex happened during economic crisis, a lot of companies had hot asian girls at their booths to draw the visitors' attention. We got 176 pics showing what you missed at the show.
The Chieftec CH-07B is the newest line-up to the Dragon Series and is aimed at the gamers out there. It can be had in black or red and comes stuffed to the rim with LED equipped fans to keep your hardware cool within the extremly sturdy steel enclosure during those hot fire fights.
The Cresyn CS-HP500 headphones are aimed at budget conscious people looking for a highly portable set of headphones. Priced at only $39.99 these headphones will not break the bank.
The Coolmax PS-224 Power Supply Tester is a great little gadget to have handy to take a quick look at any power supply when troubleshooting a PC. It takes the guesswork out of the equation and hits you with the hard cold facts, to show you if your PSU is still up for the job or not.
The Luxa² LM300 Touch Pro is a new HTPC enclosure for the discriminating home entertainment enthusiast. While Luxa² is a relatively new brand, they are a division of Thermaltake who are no strangers to HTPC cases and accessories. With features such as all aluminum construction, a touchscreen LCD and fully integrated media software, the LM300 Touch Pro seems to be the total package in terms of a complete multimedia enclosure.
Albatron is one of the first companies to come out with a HD 4830 design that does not require an external power connector. Another difference to the HD 4830 is the number of shaders. Instead of 640 like on the reference, Albatron has packed 800 shaders on their card for some extra performance.
Cresyn C750E is the name of an interesting set of in-ears, from a relatively unknown manufacturer. The C750Es feature a sweet bundle and a well thought out design. With a price point of $100 they are positioned nicely for the average user who wants to get decent sound quality on the move without breaking the bank.
The Cooler Master HAF 922 is not just a smaller version of the very cool looking 932. It manages to improve things in many areas, to look even cooler, be even more affordable and possibly strike more fear and awe into your opponent at that next LAN party.
There is no question that harddrive docks are becoming increasingly more popular in the digital age. They offer faster installation time as well as competitive performance to the more common standard enclosure. Today will we see just how well Vantec's offering stacks up to the competition with a simple style, reliable performance, and ease of use.
Thermaltake says the new Element S case is designed for Pros: is that true? With a stylish black finish, no annoying lighting, anti-vibration side panels and room for up to seven hard drives and two SSDs that may just be the case.
The Redline Tri-Channel Kit from Mushkin manages 1600 MHz at CL6-7-6-18 right out of the box, making it one of the fastest kits at this speed on the market. We push the kit way past the red line for you in this review, reaching well over 2000 MHz with more relaxed timings.
The AZZA Fantom 900 takes some cues from similar styled cases and gives its interpretation on how a budget minded mid-sized gaming case should be. With many cases that are out there for new builders and gamers wanting to save on money, we'll take a look at what sets the Fantom 900 apart from its competitors and why it's a solid choice for all.
IE8 is the name of a brand new earphone solution from Sennheiser. The Sennheiser IE8 boast a dynamic driver and an innovative bass adjustment feature that allows the user to tweak the bass response on the move. With a price of $400 they don't come cheap, but for an audiophile who is looking for the best sound quality possible, these might still be a very viable choice.
The Lian Li PC-B71 takes the same concept as the A7010 - which is already an excellent choice - and improves on it in many areas. You will get a whopping seven hot swappable SATA bays, with access to them from the front of the chassis, along with an incredible, sophisticated, metal locking mechanism for the mainboard expansion slots. This case may just be the one to inch closer to that perfect 10, even if it comes at a price.
The AirLive! WMU-6000FS is not just an access point/wireless router. It can also hold a 2.5" hard drive and has USB ports to function as print server or network storage device. An interesting device for people wanting to share their documents on a home network without creating a cable mess or having countless separate devices.
ASUS has sent us one of the first samples of their new EAH4890 TOP which uses a SuperML capacitor that is supposed to offer cleaner voltage resulting in better overlocking. Also this is the first card to feature a 6+8 pin PCI-Express power connector for improved voltage delivery. Last but not least, ASUS is now using a dual fan cooler with six thick heatpipes.
The CM Storm Scout is the newest additon to the gaming line-up of Cooler Master. It comes packed with a lot of gamer oriented features and mean looks. To top things off, the Scout features a built-in handle so you can carry your rig to that next big LAN party without breaking a sweat.
PowerColor is one of the first board partners to release an overclocked, custom designed HD 4890. Instead of the AMD reference cooler a solution from Zerotherm is used. The clock speeds have also been bumped to 950 MHz core and 1100 MHz memory. Due to their improved PCB, PowerColor has managed to position their HD 4890 PCS at the price that normal reference cards go for: $249.
Sennheiser's long awaited performance IEMs are finally here. The IE7 earphones aim to take on some of the very best in-ears around with their bold design and conventional driver. For a price of $300 you get some of the best in-ears on the market today that impress with a detailed bass and full sound stage.
Today AMD released the world's first GPU that is produced in a 40 nm process. The HD 4770 is aggressively priced around ~$100 and offers great performance for your hard earned dollars. In our testing realized out that the card performs almost on par with the HD 4850. With the amazing 30%+ memory overclock we got on our sample, the HD 4850 will be surpassed easily.
The Lian Li PC-A05N is an extremely compact chassis, which can still hold a full size ATX board, thanks to a unique interior layout. This should make the case a great choice for LAN party gamers or those looking to stuff as much in as little space as possible. Pair the case with one of those Lian Li Maxima Force power supplies and you have a great base for an ultra compact power house.
The X-Fighter takes its inspiration from the Star Wars universe. In Win has gone to great length and created their own design around that aspect. The result is a very interesting chassis with a lot of unique features and one of a kind, animated LEDs, which are certain to draw a lot attention at the next LAN Party.
Razer recently launched a new mouse mat concept dubbed Goliathus. The Goliathus mats are available with two different surfaces and in three different sizes. Add the fact that they can be had for as low as $14.99 makes them extremely interesting.
The DimasTech BenchTable Easy is a metal overclocking/testing station with the possibility to hold large water cooling kits. Unlike some other tables out there, you can stuff this puppy with three optical drives, four hard drives and add double or triple radiators to the rig. On top of that, you can freely choose from a whole array of colors to customize the look of your own Bench Table.
Sennheiser recently launched the IE6 earphones. Marketed at budget conscious sound enthusiasts, Sennheiser aims to conquer a market already booming with new and innovative products. For a price of $200 you get a very smooth listening experience with a nice balance between the lows and highs.
Inno3D's latest graphics card release is the GeForce GTX 275 Overclocked. It is based on NVIDIA's P897 design but comes with considerably increased clocks. This results in a nice performance boost over the reference cards and allows the card to beat the much more expensive GeForce GTX 285.
The Gigabyte Setto 1000 looks great on the outside, with its stylish aluminum front and choice of three different colors. The case goes all out on looks, but keeps to the bare minimum on interior features and the price tag as well. This is for all of you who want to pimp their entry level PC or simply want to steer clear of beige OEM enclosures on their first build.
OCZ’s newest offerings on the mouse market are the Behemoth and Eclipse gaming mice. Equipped with the latest sensor technology available and an abundance of buttons they face the competitors. Competitively priced at 26.99 € for the Behemoth and only 24.99 € for the Eclipse they are sure to create quite a stir in the midrange market.
G.Skill offers a full range of tri-channel memory kits at speeds of up to 2000 MHz. We are taking a look at their red kit rated at 1600 MHz and CL9. Even though this memory is on the lower end of the line-up, it manages to surprise with good overclockablity and the possibility of tighter timings.
AMD has just announced the availability of their latest HD 4890 graphics card series which is based on the new RV790 GPU. The highlights of RV790 are considerably higher clocks speeds and 1 GB of fast GDDR5 memory on all boards.
Sapphire's new HD 4890 comes with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory and yet unseen clock speeds offering much better performance at a competitive price. Will that be enough to beat NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 275 ?
Our HD 4890 CrossFire review investigates whether running two of these brand-new cards is a viable choice if you need that extra bit of performance or want to run with even more eye candy than what is possible with a single HD 4890 board.
Today NVIDIA released their GeForce GTX 275 Series. While there are no architectural improvements, the new cards offer substantially improved performance at competitive prices. Zotac's Amp! Edition offers higher clocks out of the box - is that enough to combat ATI's new offerings?
The Ascent series from Mushkin represents their high-end line-up with thick eVCI heatspreaders, very tight timings and fast speeds. On top of that, the memory scales extremely well with voltage and has plenty of potential for overclockers
The In Win NA is a very stylish and unigue HDD enclosure. In Win has gone all out and included a porcelain plate as cover and hid the USB 2.0 and eSATA interface within the confines of the smooth white bowl.
The Lancool Metal Boned K6 packs a lot of the exclusive new features found in the modern Lian Li cases in a sleek and clean designed case. The Lancool Metal Boned K6 is intended for LAN party gamers, wanting great construction quality and sturdiness in combination with the looks and engineering backbone one has come to expect from Lian Li.
The HIS HD 4650 iSilence with its passive Zalman cooling solution offers a noise free experience, which is especially important when building a quiet media PC system. On top of that you will also receive a full version of the STALKER Clear Sky game.
The Ultrasone PRO900s have finally arrived! This newest addition to the Ultrasone lineup promises an enhanced listening experience through the use of some radical new sonic principles. Lets see how they fair against the present top models from rivaling brands.
In addition to the long and complicated name, the HIS HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo features twice the memory compared to the AMD HD 4870 reference design. The clock speeds have also received a boost, now running at 770 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory out of the box. Last but not least, HIS replaced the AMD cooler with their own IceQ cooling system.
The CoolIT Domino A.L.C. CPU cooler is a water cooling unit at the price of an air cooler. It has three fan speed modes and features a blue backlit LCD screen. Installation is simple for a water cooling unit and its performance is exceptional considering its low price of $79.99.
When it comes to portable headphone amplifiers one brand that has everybody talking is FiiO. Their inexpensive portable headphone amplifiers shook the market and has gained immense popularity. Read on as we take the E3 and E5 out for a spin.
While NVIDIA's GTS 250 isn't really new technology, Galaxy has chosen to put an Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo cooler on their card. Even though it uses two fans, the card is extremely quiet making it an excellent choice for a media PC. The best is that it won't cost you anything extra. Galaxy is offering their cards at NVIDIA's reference design MSRP of $149.
The Thecus N4100 Pro is a relatively low cost four bay NAS. It features basically all features the other models do and promises high performance. Where is the catch? We tested the N4100 to find out.
In times of economic crisis companies are saving where it hurts most: the amount of booth babes at this year's CeBIT has been at an all-time low. We looked extra hard to bring you proof that there are still companies out there who can afford to please your eyes.
Today NVIDIA released their GeForce GTS 250 Series which is based on the G92 graphics processor that has already been used on a number of GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 designs. While NVIDIA's reference design comes with 1 GB of memory, Palit has chosen to create a card that comes with 2 GB of VRAM.
If you are looking for a quiet high performance card, then the factory-overclocked iChill GTX 260 is certainly a great choice for you. Using Arctic Cooling's Accelero XXX cooler it emits less fan noise than most low-end cards, yet offers performance close to the GeForce GTX 280.
The Silverstone Fortress aims to shrink the same awe inspiring and award winning uni-body construction of the legendary TJ07 to a mid-tower case, while still offering modern functionality and all the bells and whistles one should expect from an enthusiast enclosure.
Palit's new GTX 260 Sonic 216 SP is based on NVIDIA's latest GT200b 55 nm graphics processor. Palit has chosen to go with a dual fan design for improved airflow and increased overclocking. Not only the thermal design has been changed but also the PCB design, which features several cost optimizations and comes in an appealing ATI-red.
The long awaited Westone 3s are finally here and they make quite an entry. Leaving the competition behind, these earphones set the pace. Using the first true three way cross over ever to be fitted in a universal style in-ear solution these set the standard when it comes to sound quality.
Zotac's GeForce GTX 295 comes with two NVIDIA GT200b GPUs sandwiched together in one graphics card. The card can successfully defeat ATI's HD 4870 X2 in our benchmarks and offers plenty of overclocking headroom beyond that. Thanks to the 55 nm GPU design and clever power saving methods the card even delivers in the performance per Watt segment.
The CM Storm Sniper is Cooler Master's first offering of the new "CM Storm" branding. The gear is intended for the enthusiast, semi-pro or even professional gamer. That said, the Sniper is jam packed with unique features, all wrapped up on a beautiful design and incredible paint job.
Qinpu's V-1.8 mini speakers represent great value. Available for only £249 a set these speakers are ready to take on the competitors with their dual driver design and good looks.
Yes, the Coolbay HX looks similar to the Antec 900, but this chassis from NOX manages to score with additional features, a nice interior paint job and better cooling, making it a choice to be taken very seriously, especially considering the price point.
There are plenty of fingerprint readers out there and odds are that you may have used one here and there. Upek is one of the companies behind such units and also offers two very interesting retail products, which managed to surprise with both Windows and OS X functionality.
The Ra X10 SIM case is the company's flagship model, featuring the unique software controllable fans and thermal monitoring system for the 13 included cooling fans. On top of that you will be able to stuff the Ra X10 with 10 hard drives, an eATX motherboard, multiple GPUs and a full compliment of external drives - with room to breath.
Swedish headphone manufacturer Jays recently released the much anticipated c-Jays supra-aural headphones. Their slim design together with a customizable sound signature has made quite a stir amongst the headphone crowd.
The Tagan SuperRock 680W is a great power supply for budget aware users who are looking for a cost effective way to power their system. With 680W it should be good for almost everything you can throw at it. During our testing we found out that the PSU is running very quiet which makes it a good candidate for a silent media PC system, too.
Sleek-Audio's much anticipated wireless kit has finally arrived, dubbed the W1 it brings Kleer wireless technology to all Sleek-Audio earphones currently in production. With the promise of uncompromised sound quality and wireless operation this product is sure to meet the demands of many customers worldwide.
NVIDIA's latest addition to their graphics card lineup is based around the 55 nanometer GT200b. The new card offers more performance, consumes less power and is quieter than the previous model. Yet these improvements cost you a premium of about $70 over the GTX 280. Is that price justified?
While many are satisfied with having a single screen, imagine gaming across 3 displays with 180° vision. The Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital overcomes the shortcoming of a single or dual display setup and gives you the possiblity to connect up to three DVI based LCD screens with a total resolution of up to 5040 x 1050 for real surround gaming.
Zalman's CNPS9900 LED is their newest all copper model in the CNPS series. A silent 120 mm blue LED fan has been placed between two arrays of pure copper fins. With exceptional performance and amazing looks, the CNPS9900 LED is a great CPU cooler if you can justify spending $79 for a CPU cooler.
The NZXT Whisper aims to give you the basis for silent computing with sound dampening all around the interior of the chassis. A large compartment design with the possibility of an eATX motherboard and a heavy duty front door, make for an interesting case.
The Guardian 921 is an interesting looking chassis, featuring a "shield" as a door and a "head" raised above the rest of the case with a temperature LCD screen. Included with the case are three temperature sensors that can be placed at important locations that need to be monitored.
The WL-2000CAM is a brand new IP camera solution from AirLive. The camera is tailored for home surveillance and even has its own lights so you can use it in a dim room. Much like the other cameras from AirLive this one has wireless capabilities and can even stream video to a 3G cellphone.
The In Win GD case is a unique gaming case. The case has been designed with a futuristic/robotic theme and the chassis follows this on both the front and side. The innovative VGA Turbo Cooling Solution is a great way for gamers to keep their graphics cards cool when spending hours in-game.
Sapphire's new HD 4870 X2 Atomic Watercooled is a special edition of the popular dual-RV770 design that comes with a prefilled watercooling kit that also includes a waterbock for your processor. Being delivered in a nice aluminum case there are a load of extra accessories ranging from software to cabling - but the price tag is also outstanding: over $600.
The Sentry LX is a high-end, well constructed thermal monitoring unit, which gives you constant access to five thermal sensors and five case fans at once. It also includes a date & time display, so you can enjoy those longer gaming sessions without losing track of time.
Tagan is a company well known for their power supplies and in recent years have ventured into the case market. In a case market of limitless varieties see how the Tagan A+ Diablo Advance separates itself from the pack with high styling and an elaborate air cooling system that features good looks right out of the box.
IKONIK's latest power supply comes with a whopping 1200W of output power. It offers six 6+2 PCI-Express connectors, which means it is able to handle any video card configuration you can throw at it. The efficiency of over 83% also makes it a viable choice for green computing.
The In Win Matrix is a unique and extremely compact mATX enclosure. It looks good all around, thanks to a clever design and features a unique and well thought out interior. Despite its small size you can still fit in a regular graphics card and several harddisks.
The Hiper Type R Mk-II 680W is a unique power supply because it comes with an integrated 8-port USB hub. A ninth USB connector is dedicated to charging any USB based devices like your Iphone or Ipod, even while the PC is turned off. The PSU itself delivers excellent performance values in stability and fan noise. Efficiency is also high with 82%.
RE0 is the name of the brand new high-end in-ear solution from Head-Direct. Despite the naming scheme, these new in-ear have very little in common with its predecessors in the RE-line of products.
QNAP's latest NAS device is built around a full featured PC. As processor a Socket775 1.6 GHz Celeron is used. Upgrading the SO-DIMM memory should be easy too since QNAP was so kind to leave a memory slot unpopulated. The new hardware greatly improves the processing power resulting in much better transfer rates over the dual Gigabit interfaces.
The Hiper Type M 780W is a great all-round power supply. It offers an exceptionally stable 12V line and is sufficiently quiet to not annoy you during every day PC use. Also it supports SLI or CrossFire with a high efficiency of over 83%. With a price of around $125 it is also cheaper than similar products from bigger brand names.
Zotac's Nitro is a clever little USB gadget that puts the overclocking power of your graphics card right at your finger tips. You can also monitor temperatures and adjust the fan speeds. The best is that all this can be done on the fly, without switching out of your game or benchmark.
The Vizo mini Ninja II notebook cooler is the evolution of the first mini Ninja. While keeping the same design as the previous model, it also features the same great construction quality and cooling performance, but also adds an USB hub to the mix.
Future Sonics is a brand that produces some very unique in-ears. In this review we will be taking a look at their universal fit in-ears dubbed Atrio. Future Sonics emphasizes their strong bass performance - of course we put this to the test amongst other things in the review.
Sleek-Audio's much anticipated Custom earphones are put to the test, pitted against the usual suspects in the in-ear arena. These new Custom in-ears can be customized in any thinkable way, right from the frequency response, to the color and artwork on the shell.
iStarUSA has a new dock to add to their large stable of HDD docks, rackmount chassis, and other enclosures. The xAGE-902 Dual HDD Docking Station features a dual HDD design and no-nonsense looks. Look and see why iStarUSA's latest offering may be your next HDD docking solution.
Call it being secretive, selective, being optimistic, or simply realistic, the multi-layered facet of AMD management, presented the company to market analysts and the press. There's quite some matter to decipher from the presentations held at the main sessions of the AMD Analyst Day 2008 event. We attempt to explore what AMD could have in store for you as a consumer, investor, or simply a spectator to a company showing a fair bit of resilience as it battles hostile market conditions.
The Spedo Advance package looks like a modded and tuned sports car. There is plenty of space for optical drives and it can hold six hard drives. The three 230 mm fans cool that engine inside the chassis.
