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 ?
