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?
