With the Tarantula Razer has created a keyboard that is designed to suit the needs of gamers. The keyboard offers programmable macro keys and lets you also reorganize your keyboard layout by swapping keys. As always, Razer's software is intuitive to use and offers a lot of features. Unfortunately with a $129.99 price tag the keyboard is fairly expensive.
Goldenmars are expanding from being an OEM manufacturer to targeting the retail market. To facilitate the changes, the company launched its signature brand "GeeDom" line of memory modules and flash based storage products. We are testing the Identity flash drive and SD card today which comes with a small LCD display that shows volume label and available capacity, even when disconnected from the PC.
Razer has always been known to produce some of the best mice and sensors on the market. They established their reputation with the Razer Diamondback which has now found a worthy successor. The Razer DeathAdder is the best mouse we ever tested, in both low sensitivity and high sensitivity. The bundled control panel is a breeze to work with and boasts a huge number of features. With a price of $59.95 this mouse also offers an excellent price/performance ratio.
At CES Zalman announced that they will enter the monitor market. The first product is a 3D display based on LCD technology. Initially there will be two sizes available, 19" and 22". Another more traditional new product was a fan controller that can measure the system's power draw.
The Radeon X1950 Pro series is one of the hottest selling video cards at the moment. It is competitively priced and can run all current games without breaking a sweat. Gecube has engineered a special TEC cooled solution for improved overclocking. In our testing we saw amazing clock increases of 20% on both the core and memory for a final clock of 682 MHz / 816 MHz.
The SteelSeries SteelSound 4H is a headset made specifically for gamers. Like its big brother, the 5H, it is designed to give you an advantage in games by making sure you hear all the little details like footsteps. The SteelSound 4H offers great wearing comfort even when used for gaming sessions of several hours.
A-DATA's My Flash PD7 USB Drive is certified for use with Microsoft Windows Vista ReadyBoost. In our testing this drive takes the performance crown with a sustained read transfer rate of 34 MB/s, far more than any other USB drive we tested so far. Access times are very important for ReadyBoost. Here the PD7 can shine too, only 0.6 ms is a new record as well.
Super Talent has recently announced their RBST line of USB sticks that support the Windows Vista ReadyBoost feature. ReadyBoost is a technology that enables you to increase system performance without doing any complex hardware upgrades. In our testing we see that the RBST offers amazing access times of only 0.9 ms and solid transfer rates of 17 MB/s for a very competitive price.
Everglide has been known to produce very high-end mouse pads for years. Now they ventured into the gaming headset market with their S-500 series of professional headsets. The headset offers excellent wearing comfort, even when used over longer periods of time. Also the sound quality is good for both gaming and listening to music.
Ratpadz was one the first companies to produce high quality plastic mats aimed at gamers who wanted absolute precision. The pad looks just like the original and is made from the same type of durable plastic. Can this old, relatively speaking, mat compete with the new sleek designs of the other big pad producers, read the review to find out.
OCZ's hottest announcement at CES was their upcoming 2000W powersupply that is so big that it is housed in an external case. Another promising product is their Equalizer series of gaming mice. These laser mice have a feature "Triple Threat Button" that simulates three keypresses when pressing a mouse button once. Quite useful for pistol action in Counter-Strike or to get off quick bursts.
Akasa has a full range of external hard drive enclosures. The integral line-up includes every connection variant from LAN and USB 2.0 to eSATA. The Akasa integral eSATA combines USB 2.0 and eSATA. You can also use an IDE or SATA drive with the enclosure. This makes the integral eSATA a very versatile enclosure. We use every possible combination and take a look at the performance of both connection types. Its stackable, sleek looks combined with the good performance make this a perfect choice for users who plan to use multiple external enclosures.
Func has always been known to produce some of the best gaming mouse mats in the world. They started off producing their infamous surface1030 which featured two surfaces: one rough and one smooth. Today we test the new version of their smooth surface namely the Func F10.S Large, which is aimed at low sensitivity gamers, and gamers who want the smoothest glide.
ASUS has been showing a number of innovations at CES. For example their XG Station which is the first external video card for notebook. The 7900 GS class card lets you play modern games on your ultra portable business notebook. Another show highlight was the W5Fe notebook which is the first to use a secondary display for Microsoft Windows Vista Sidekick technology.
The big attraction at Sapphire's CES booth was the Dual X1950 Pro, which uses two X1950 GPUs on one PCB with a total of 1 GB of memory. The card that is bigger than any other video card to date is designed to give top notch performance to users of motherboards with only one PCI-E slot. Also on display was a completely passively cooled Radeon X1650 Pro.
The Thermaltake LanBox is a portable case, which - as the name implies - is perfect for LAN parties. It features a large, comfortable and very sturdy handle, while keeping the weight down. It may cost more than other SFF cases out there, but certainly shines in every aspect. We let you know if the money is well spent for this case that is made to be the ultimate LAN party case.
Arctic Cooling has been in the video card aftermarket cooler market for several years. Their products are well known among overclockers and users that are looking to lower the fan noise of their video card. At this year's show they presented two completely fanless passive VGA coolers that can even cool GeForce 7950 and X1950 cards.
The Everglide Titan "Fnatic" is the first mousepad which is the result of the collaboration between Clan Fnatic and Everglide, hence the name. Everglide has always been known for producing high quality gaming surfaces. A great feature for low-sensitivity gamers is its size, it is absolutely huge. But will it live up to Everglide's standard and reputation?
The Danger Den Maze 5 is a waterblock that fits most ATI and NVIDIA video cards. It is engineered for optimum performance and flow rate. Danger Den has years of experience in designing water blocks, which you can see in this product. In our testing we saw an increase of maximum stable GPU clock by over 70 MHz compared to the ATI stock cooler.
The Ultra X-Blaster is a midi tower ATX case with a lot of potential. It may sport a small price tag, making the buy an easy one, but certainly does not disappoint. The case is quite sturdy, features drive rails for easy installation as well as a screwless setup for expansion cards. The included 400W XVS FlexForce modular power supply is a great addition, making this case the perfect allrounder for anyone looking to build their own system.
When deciding on components for a new system, users are often worried about incompatibilities with the memory of their choice. OCZ has teamed up with ATI to bring you CrossFire certified memory. This means that you can install this memory on any CrossFire certified motherboard and it is guaranteed to work. In our testing the modules performed very well over a wide range of timings from CL3 to CL5. To distinguish this memory from their other products OCZ colored the heatspreader in a beautiful ATI red which looks mighty good.
Razer and Microsoft have been known to produce some of the best gaming mice on the market. Not long ago the two competitors teamed up to create a new gaming mouse, the Microsoft Habu. This newcomer to the mouse market is of course packed with the latest technology that the two companies came up with. The design of the mouse is much like the old Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0, but you get some unique new features that only the Habu has.
The Akasa integral fusion combines two devices into one sleek functional device - an USB hard drive enclosure and a multi format card reader. It may not be the fastest enclosure for your money and the software may be a bit crude, but it gets the job done - that is what counts.
The G.SKILL F2-6400CL6D-4GBMQ are one of the first 2x 2 GB DDR2 memory kits that let you run high frequencies, DDR2-800 in this case. In our review we will point out the difficulties you will experience when installing 4 GB of memory on 32-bit platforms. Is this $500 memory kit the solution to a smooth Windows Vista experience?
