With HTPC's gaining more and more in popularity, various input devices and peripherals for them are becoming a more integral part of the market. With many options to choose from for keyboards, mice and the combination of both, it's hard to come to a conclusion on what suits the HTPC best. Vidabox may have an answer with their Vidabox Premium Wireless Keybaord w/ laser trackball as an all in one solution.
The Scythe Kama Bay Amplifier is made for all of you who want to use a pair of efficient passive speakers along with your PC without having to shell out the big bucks. Priced at only € 50 this amp could easily become an integrated part of your rig offering very solid performance for its price.
The Lian Li PC-A7010 takes many of the features found in the Armorsuite or X2000 and wraps it into a sophisticated, but understatement clean look. Every feature within the case aims for ease of use, reliability and to deliver a quiet computing experience.
The Corsair Dominator Series of 4 GB kits does not only manage to deliver a great overclock but also offers exceptional performance at lower speed settings, making this a kit for almost every scenario. Its attractive price of $125 is a very affordable way to get into the 4 GB club while still being able to run serious overclocks.
Today AMD launches their new HD 4830 Series. The cards come with a reduced shader count of 640 and lower clocks to fit into the $100 to $150 segment. In our testing we saw amazing overclocking of over 30% which should bring the card much closer to more expensive solutions.
PowerColor's new HD 4830 features the same 640 shader pipes as the AMD reference design, but comes with a big dual-slot cooler. Also new is a native HDMI output which supports HDCP and 7.1 channel audio. Thanks to a PowerColor designed PCB the card will retail about $10 cheaper than the reference design from AMD.
The newest addition to the HFI headphone lineup from Ultrasone is called the HFI-680. These new mid to high end cans should effectively fill in the gap between the old Ultrasone lineups 650 and recently launched HFI-780.
AMD's new Radeon HD 4550 comes in a passively cooled version without fan. Such a noiseless experience is crucial in media PC designs where you don't want to be distracted by any fan noise. Also included is a native HDMI and DisplayPort output for connection to your big screen. With a price of around $50 the card even offers some potential for casual gaming.
A-DATA's 4 GB Vitesta Extreme Edition DDR2 memory kit offers great performance at a low price of only $75. The memory can even run CL3 at the specified 800 MHz, with a small voltage increase and scales up to DDR2-1066 at CL5.
The Zaria A20 is a unique chassis. Having features like a kick-start power button, interchangable side window, out of the ordinary fan placement are just some of the highlights. The optional SIM module gives you total access to your fans, their lighting and several thermal sensors within the Zaria A20.
The iStarUSA T-5 SS SAS/SATA Mobile HDD Rack is an affordable, easy to use mobile storage solution designed to make hard drive swapping easy for both the novice end-user and the professional server administrator. No nonsense looks, durable craftmanship, and quiet/smooth operation are some of the inherent qualities of the T-5 SS Mobile HDD rack.
Lian-Li is known for their unique high-quality cases. They are now offering a chassis for the Xbox 360. The black case should finally make your console look good next to that fancy TV of yours. We pack the XB-01 with the consoles guts to see how it fares.
Ultimate Ears just released a completely new earphone dubbed the Super.fi 5. It is aimed at budget conscious earphone users looking for a good sounding, decent looking set of in-ears. The new radical design is a major leap forward compared to the old Ultimate Ears design.
HIS' latest HD 4670 card comes equipped with the VGA Silencer made by Arctic Cooling. It also features an extra 30 MHz core clock. Even though it is factory overclocked we saw another 10% overclocking potential on both core and memory.
The Ninja HS is Vizo's newest addition the their high quality notebook cooler line-up. The unit is made of heavy duty materials, encased in a nearly indestructible paint job and featuring a USB 2.0 hub. The cooling area can also be aligned to cool your notebook where it is needed most.
OCZ's PC2-9200 Flex II modules can be used with both air and watercooling. They are designed for 1150 MHz DDR2 at CL 5 with 2.1V. In our testing we could easily push the modules above DDR2-1200 without an extra voltage increase.
Chieftec's new HM-02B HTPC case has been specifically designed to support regular sized graphics cards and power supplies. Integrated in this very reasonably priced media PC enclosure are a VFD display, card reader and vibration dampening for optical and hard drives, making it one of the best choices on the market we encountered so far.
The Aerocool Hi-Tech 7 Pro features a huge 400 mm fan which is the biggest ever seen on a computer case so far. Also included is a fan controller and thermal monitor up front. We fire the turbine up to see how that monster fan performs.
Lexar's new FireWire 800 CF Card Reader uses the powerful interface to offer unprecedented bandwidth with allows you to optimally use the latest CF card technology. While the traditional USB interface is limited to a maximum of about 30 MB/s, the FireWire interface goes up to 100 MB/s. Clearly a difference if you move a lot of files to and from your CF card.
Razer's newest mouse is an entry level gaming device, stuffed with their awesome sensor technology at a great price point of $39. This makes it an interesting choice if you want go for a Razer mouse for the first time without spending a lot of money.
Lexar is joining the frey of high-performance UDMA Compact Flash cards with their Professional 300x series of cards. We get to take a look at their 8 GB version with a big, pleasant suprise during benching.
Sapphire has engineered their own version of the Radeon HD 4850 with cost and cooling in mind. The card's new unconventional heatsink looks good and keeps the card cool - far below reference design temperatures. The best of all is that the card costs only $169.99 online which makes it the cheapest HD 4850 available today.
Today NVIDIA released their updated GeForce GTX 260 GPUs which come with 24 extra shaders, for a total shader count of 216. Zotac has also overclocked their card beyond the GTX 280 clock speeds which results in a card that is just 1% slower than the regular GTX 280, yet costs over $130 less.
Head-Direct EF1 is the name of a brand new headphone amplifier made by the guys behind Head-Direct. The amplifier is a hybrid design which means that it mixes the best from both tube based amplification and solid state amplification.
The Evercool Transformer 6 is a cooler made to look good and perform well. The included fan controller allows it to remain very quiet for day to day usage but then give added performance and brighter LED lights for the overclocking enthusiast. With a large 120 mm bright blue LED fan, six heat pipes, a stainless steel coating and performance coming close to the newer HDT coolers, the Transformer 6 is certainly one to please!
