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.
