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.
