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?
QPAD is known to produce some of the best mouse pads on the market. Their pads are optimized to give gamers the best possible experience. The QPAD EC-R is the smaller sister of the QPAD XT-R. It is a bit thinner, which makes it more comforable to use. Also the price has been reduced a, to make it more affordable.
Mad Moxx has been providing pre-modded cards to their customers for several years now. Their GeForce 7900 GTO Burstfire is a GeForce 7900 GTO, overclocked to 7900 GTX speeds. In our benchmarks we saw that performance is identical to the 7900 GTX, at a much lower price. What makes the Mad Moxx product special is that you retain your warranty and the GTX overclock is tested and guaranteed.
Art. Lebedev is well known for its industrial designs as well as the Optimus range of keyboards. The Mus2 is a very nice looking optical mouse, shaped like a mouse pointer. This would make the perfect accessory for every HTPC. We take a look at it, to acertain if it performs as well as it looks.
When Intel Core Duo hit the stores, people went crazy. Many wanted to experience the amazing performance for themselves. Now, Intel brings us the QX6700 - a quad-core CPU. Is another revolution about to take place? Or are we going to find just a small increase compared to dual core? What about single threaded applications? Multi-core scaling?
Lian Li is entering the media PC enclosure market with their PC-C30 series. With more and more media system components available and enthusiasts looking for the perfect balance of form and functionality the PC-C30 series is a perfect choice. Many enclosures limit builders and enthusiasts to certain components where as the PC-C30 allows them to use whatever they need to fit their demands.
The Razer Barracuda HP-1 is a unique headset which offers true surround sound. A number of small speakers in the headphone are placed at different positions and are driven by a small amplifier included with the headphones. Now you can enjoy positional sound effects while using a headset. In our testing we found out that this makes quite a difference in games like Counter-Strike or Battlefield, where you can locate enemies based on the sounds they make.
Apevia is the new company name of Aspire. The Apevia X-Cruiser sports three gauges with blue light as well as a window for a small price tag. While the inside is quite simple and does not feature anything out of the ordinary, the outside look of the case did bring a smile to our face, especially considering the price tag and multiple color choices available.
The PC-A10 is a fantastic case. All the little things that Lian Li does over and over again make this case stand out from the crowd. The anti-vibration mounts for the fans, drives and side panels, the removable motherboard tray, PSU tray and drive cages, as well as the tool-less design make this case a pleasure to work with.
Crucial has always been highly thought of by all serious overclockers. They have catered well for the enthusiast market with their Ballistix and Ballistix Tracer range of memory. Today we take a look at the Crucial Ballistix PC2-5300 2 GB kit, which has given us some stunning benchmark results! Reaching speeds of over 1 GHz, and breaking the 10,000 MB/s barrier in Everest Read.
The Scythe Karma Meter is a drive bay device to monitor the temperature inside your case with 4 separate diodes, control the fan speed of up to four fans and set the master volume of the PC. The Kama Meter shines with perfect build quality as well as 8 different back light modes. We take a close look to see if its features are useful and temperatures are accurate.
No.Identity Pads is a rather new mouse pad maker, but they listened to what gamers and professionals wanted. The NOIDpad gaming surface is a high-quality hybrid cloth mat that offers exceptional precision and tracking performance. For a small premium you can print your own logo onto the mat in an incredible quality. All this comes at a modest price of EUR 20, your custom logo adds EUR 5 to the price.
The be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 750W is a PSU of the next generation. It has four independant 12V rails which can supply 20 Amps each. You can connect up to four PCI-E video card connectors which makes this a great PSU for a GeForce 8800 GTX SLI rig. The power supply uses a modular concept which is a great way to keep the cable mess in your case at a minimum level. With over 30 connectors available this PSU will be able to power all peripherals you may have.
NVIDIA's new G80 GPU is the first to implement DirectX 10 support and Shader Model 4.0. Palit is one of NVIDIA's board partners who is selling the GeForce 8800 GTX. The card comes with 768 MB of video memory and can will run whatever you throw at it at highest resolutions with maximized settings. We test the card against the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX, X1900 Crossfire and the Geforce 7900 GTX.
The Scythe Kama-Thermo is a very simple, blue backlit temperature LCD display with a connected diode. The cheap price tag makes it very appealing to most case modders. It is quite small, but has large enough digits and a very good contrast so that the temperatures can be read from further away. The Kama-Thermo combines simplicity and functionality to form a great little device.
