Week of October 19, 2008

"The biggest news on Apple's latest MacBook update may also be the most obvious: it's not plastic anymore. Apple has canned the old (and iconic) white MacBook look in favor of a new unibody aluminum design that makes the MacBook and its larger brother, the MacBook Pro, much tougher to distinguish now. The company has also nixed another extraneous button with the complete removal of any mouse buttons, replacing them with a mammoth touchpad that actually acts as one giant button, and pulls the same multi-touch tricks as Apple's iPhone, opening the door to all sorts of convenient shortcuts. While these major changes, along with a handful of smaller ones like an LED-backlit LCD screen, help make the notebook one of the best looking and most solid we've ever laid eyes on it, its price takes a hike accordingly as well."

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Nowadays, being “green” is the in thing. Many people are trying to find ways to save energy and save the planet, and there are a number of companies who are adopting those principles in designing their products. Coolmax, a maker of a wide range of cooling and other computer products, has released a new green power supply, the Coolmax CUG-950B 950W PSU. Does being green come with a sacrifice in performance? Read on to find out.

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The positives of this card are many. With the updated Catalyst 8.9 drivers and the higher clock speed of the overclock button, this card can compete well against the ATI 1GB cards, with the increased memory not coming into play unless you use higher resolutions AA and AF settings. 8X AA and 16X AF is where the 1GB Framebuffer shines. Otherwise the Palit card beats the ATI reference 1GB card across the board when it is in overclocked mode.

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"There's always a first time for everything. NZXT is known for its line of designer cases and now the company is entering the gaming mice market with the Avatar. Following the steps from its cases, the Avatar is also a designer product. But it's not only easy on the eyes: it delivered a solid gaming experience and quickly endeared itself to us. Despite being a debut, the Avatar didn't feel the pressure and got a standing ovation like a pro."

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"Today we'll examine a GeForce 9800 GTX graphics card from Zotac that has a unique cooling system and the Hydra kit from ECS that offers two GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards, a customized liquid cooling system from Thermaltake and an expansion unit with a heatsink, liquid container, and pump. Note that the former solution is also available with the GeForce 9800 GTX+ modification."

The ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra consists of a twin pack of GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards combined with a ThermalTake BigWater 760is liquid-cooling kit. It's possibly the first of its kind to include two graphics cards and a liquid-cooling kit, all in one box.

"The first movie to be tested was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This title is MPEG-4 (H.264) and has Dobly True HD 5.1 handling the audio side of things. The Intel DG45ID motherboard with X4500HD onboard graphics needed to use the CPU more during playback as it averaged 35% CPU usage to play the movie. With the Radeon HD 4830 graphics card installed in the system the average CPU usage lowered to just 9%, which is a 74% reduction in CPU usage..."

"The Matrix features a dual slider with standard keypad and full qwerty keyboard that allows for quick and easy texting and emailing. It also features a video camera that you can zoom while recording, a 1.3MP still camera, Bluetooth, MP3 player and even XM radio. "

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Things are about to change in desktop memory. DDR3, which has been getting a bad rap from Intel users, is about to bloom into its heyday. DDR3 memory will run on pre-Nehalem series CPU's, but it was really designed with Intel's Nehalem in mind. People who scoffed at DDR3 as not being much better than DDR2 will soon have their noses rubbed in it in a big way.

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It’s weird. At the start of writing this review, we admitted that yes, the Eee PC S101 does look nice. It looks very nice even and it feels great to use. Now though, faced with the interminable truth that this new colour and shiny hinge motif is costing users an extra £150 or so, we’ve had a change of heart. This shiny new coat of graphite paint isn’t good, it’s reprehensible and the only thing it really does is colour our final judgement of the Eee PC S101.

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.

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I am a fanboy of American automobiles especially the old school ones like the Mustangs, Chevells, Novas and many others. And one of the reasons I am so into these cars is because of the big blocks ( V8 for the unknowing) that these cars all had. Pure muscle is where it is all at. And the Coolermaster V8 takes its name from just these types of cars. The V8 is 865g of copper and aluminum so you can say this one is a big block. Today we will see if the Coolermaster V8 can perform like the cars did back in the 60s and 70s.

As we have said in the past: the market for cases is expanding rapidly and smart, forward thinking manufactures are quick to turn a good idea into reality if it means increasing their market share. Today we will be looking at a one such company's latest design: the MicroFusion Remote 350 from Antec. This is a "powerfully petite" HTPC case camouflaged in such a way that it perfectly integrates into even the most stylish of home theatre entertainment systems.

"Last week Frostytech showed that ASUS' Triton 85 heatsink was good for scrap metal.. this week Frostytech tests Coolermaster's new V8 heatsink. The Coolermaster V8 heatsink is one of the nicer thermal solutions from the company in a long while, and well worth your attention today. Built from four modular sets of aluminum fins, the V8 utilizes no less than eight heatpipes to give it a cooling capability of up to 180W! The experts at Frosty were quite impressed with the new V8 this time around."

"CWT is the manufacturer behind several well known power supply brands, in particular Corsair and Thermaltake. Today we are going to do an in-depth test with their CWT-750VH model, which is a 750 W unit with modular cabling system and a 140-mm fan, to see if it can really deliver its labeled power and if it is identical to any power supply from Corsair or Thermaltake. Check it out."

"One has to remember that the Gigabyte EP45 UD3 motherboard was designed and aimed at the mainstream market, so to see it doing so well is quite a surprise. What makes it even more appealing is the price ... it's really affordable and it offers great features that won't break your bank."

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Far Cry was one of my favourite first person shooter games of all time, so when I heard that a new team were making the 'follow-up', my heart sank. Ubisoft Montreal are responsible for the sequel and it shares absolutely nothing in common with the original classic of a few years ago.

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Some of the additional features are useful, but others aren't so useful – the remote is an interesting inclusion and it really dictates the direction of the 24WMGX3. And as an entertainment and productivity hub, it works pretty well thanks to its huge array of connectivity options. Some would argue that there's no use for all of these inputs, but if you've got your PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii all in your bedroom, it’s an ideal solution that doesn't compromise on the image quality front.

"This motherboard would have been almost a perfect choice in its class but for the tainted impression from its overclocking. As for the AMD 790GX chipset itself, we'll continue testing it in other motherboards. But our first impressions are very good so far: we've managed to raise performance to a noticeably higher level, and the power consumption has become even lower. That is, we've got what we were promised."

Not everyone can afford to spend lots of money on a motherboard or need all the extra fancy stuff you can get. This is where companies like Elitegroup (ECS) come into play with their budget minded boards. Today we are going to be taking a look at one of those products, the ECS P43T-A2 V1.0.

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"Having previously reviewed the InWin Commander 750w, and being very impressed, the guys at InWin thought I should have a look at their bigger, badder version, the 1200w. Let's see if this can stand up to the already sterling reputation of the 750w version."

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"The Pico-C Gold 8gb USB drive not only looks great but it's part of the popular Pico series of USB drives from Super Talent making it durable and water resistant as well. Don't let the classy look of this drive fool you though it's capable of fast transfer rates clocking in at about 30MB/s, so it's not only good looking but fairly fast as well. "

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If we look at the various models we however notice a small gap in the line-up. The gap obviously is between the HD4670 and the HD 4850. Either you spend around $80 or take a steep step up to $150 and above. The GPU that we are going to talk about today is aimed to fill that gap and give users an opportunity to get more speed while still not having to pay for the HD 4850. The GPU is of course the HD 4830 and the RSSP is $100 - $150.

Working with the Thermaltake V9 has been an experience in getting used to a smaller case again. The size is just right for a budget minded person. It will allow for a Full ATX motherboard with lots of room for a taller heatsink. Then factor in the ability to use a SLI or Crossfire setup and knowing you are covered in the cooling area.

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AMD has done a great job bringing the Radeon HD 4000 series to market and they now offer a product at every price point available and the offerings are impressive. The AMD Radeon HD 4830 was found to be a solid performing graphics card that was able to play current game titles at decent resolutions with many image quality settings cranked up. How can you complain with the performance numbers on the Radeon HD 4830 when the price point is only $129?

NuForce isn't the first company to bring high-end audio to the desktop, but their first complete PC audio system blends trendsetting aesthetics and audiophile-quality performance to form one of the most intriguing new PC audio systems we've yet seen. Do the Icon-1 and S-1 provide a little slice of audiophilia on your desktop?

Well the smoke has cleared, the dust settled and most of the rumors and hype have been laid to rest with regard to the first phase of NVIDIA's launch. For the last month or so the revised editions of the GTX 200 series are beginning to appear. Today at Benchmark Reviews it is our pleasure to review the Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! Edition. This graphics solution reputedly takes the GTX 260 to the next level of performance primarily due to NVIDIA's second generation architecture coupled the addition of 24 streaming processors, upping the total to 216. We fully intend to focus all our technology and energy to either prove or disprove that allegation.

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Today we are looking at the G.Skill 64GB SLC drive. The drive is a rebadged Samsung drive like the four we reviewed in various levels of RAID back in June for DVNation.com. The difference between then and now is that the G.Skill 64GB drive cost just a little more than the 32GB model did when that article was written.

“Like many of the other companies finding reviews on our pages lately, Cooler master's claims to fame come from eternally supporting the enthusiast edge of the industry. Though their start was found in cooling products, Cooler Master went on to begin producing branded fans, heatsinks, power supplies, and even liquid cooling systems. In that vein, the V8 is more or less a rectification to this departure - a step by Cooler Master to return themselves into the realm of performance cooling. With the capacity to blow away almost 180w of heat, the V8 has the potential to slide Cooler Master back up into the echelons of performance cooling, though it may well have a few hindrances along the way. With that said, it's time to see what this latest offering can do.”

"Evercool is an up-and-coming company in western markets that focuses entirely on ‘PC Thermal Solutions’. Today, we have their latest product; introducing the Evercool HPC 925-CA CPU cooler. Will this cooler to be able to impress just as much as the likes of many other tower-format coolers? Only one way to find out."

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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.

"Thermaltake have sent us some of their aftermarket RamOrb RAM coolers, but the package that we were sent for this review was rather unusual, in being that Thermaltake have partnered with GSkill and the RamOrbs came installed complete with 2GB DDR3 at 1800Mhz of GSkill memory (which was a very nice realisation when it was discovered)."

The interactive Intel product ID guide is used for a fast and easy identification of the most Intel processors. Just select the description of the Intel processor in the interactive guide and you will see immediately the most important technical informations like the frequency, power, L2 and L3 Cache, Socket, etc. The current version 2.1 contains a lot of new processors like the soon coming Intel Core i7 and Core i7 Extreme CPUs. Additionally, completely new are the current Intel Atom processors, but also more than 30 Xeon processors, several Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo and much more Intel processor informations.

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If you are not familiar with the brand name Ikonik, fear not. You will find yourself in the majority. Ikonik is a relatively new company that is gearing a product line and aiming at the enthusiast. While not a huge market segment, we are a very vocal one and our opinions often filter to the more mainstream buying channels.

"I was very surprised to see that the Xigmatek Battle Axe VD964 perform so well. We all know that the Readon HD 4850 gets really hot, so when the Battle Axe cooled the card by almost 50% ... it's definitely a real eye opener."

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"I've got a double review for you today, I've got both the 4gig and 8gig versions of the Corsair Flash Voyager Mini USB Drives. These drives are rubberized for ruggedness and extremely small in size to be able to take them, and your data of course, anywhere with you. The Flash Voyager Mini is a cap-less drive giving it bonus points in my book as I just hate it when I lose the caps, the Voyager Mini is a retractable style drive that's easy to use and looks great. "

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"The MSI N9600GT Hybrid Freezer is equipped with 1Gb DDR3 memory and features an unique cooling solution which works passively when in 2D mode, and only makes noise when running 3D applications or games. MSI overclocked the GPU and Shader for increased performance, let´s find out how it compares to a vanilla Geforce 9600 GT."

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The G.Skill 4GB DDR2-800 Pi Black Series dual channel memory kit is an interesting new offering in the aging PC2-6400 DDR2 memory market. The kit was able to run at 800MHz with extremely tight timings of 4-4-4-12, while using a rather economical 1.8V. While the kit is rated for 1.9V, I found that much voltage wasn't necessary at stock speed, and was adequate for running the modules all the way up to 1000MHz.

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“On the test bench today is Sunbeamtech's Core Contact Freezer, which offers Heatpipe Direct Touch (HDT) technology, a newer trend in tower-style heatsinks, and promises some efficient cooling numbers.”

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“For every period on time there is optimal monitor (screen) size. Nowadays, smaller monitor isn’t cheap enough and isn’t worth of savings while the bigger one still doesn’t justify the difference in price. The thing is that lately, mid range monitors and even from low range, become very quality pieces of hardware. And if you pick by random any of them, there are small odds that you’ll chose “piece of junk”. As result of these changes on local and global market it is actually very favorable state for nowadays buyers. Now you can have bigger monitor on the table with more than acceptable price especially if you buy it on sales. So, according to all that, wide monitor with 22-inch diagonal is the best buy at the moment. Keeping that fact in mind, we gathered eleven models that can be classified as cheaper and we did comparison test…”

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RV770 certainly packs plenty into that transistor count, with a full core sporting a massive 800 Stream Processors to handle and process vertex, pixel and geometry shader data, arranged as arrays of sixteen units (or SIMD cores), of which there are ten. The cut-down version of RV770 used in the Radeon HD 4830 has two of these SIMD cores disabled, giving a total of 640 Stream Processors for it to play with, together with eight dedicated texturing units.

"With the second generation of its benchmark-setting iPod Touch, Apple has managed to move the gold standard in personal music players yet another notch forward. Though existing touch owners may not find the list of upgrades compelling enough to spur a pricy upgrade, shoppers looking for the most well-rounded, sleek and capable PMP on the market will find the second generation iPod Touch close to perfection."

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"Overall I was pleased to work with this case. Hardware installation was straight forward, although a little time intensive. All temperatures were well within safe ranges, even on low fan speeds, which kept the case nearly inaudible up close. The look of the Antec Micro Fusion 350 would fit in well with any home theater, and the cooling capabilities along with reinforced top panel allow for it to be stacked with other devices. Vents located on the top panel allow the processor heat sink fan to suck in fresh air, while the bottom panel helps cool the motherboard. The remote control is small, simple, and works well even across the room. Also, the front panel LCD display will scroll news gathered online while it is not being used for media purposes, and will display the name of any media being used – movie names, music titles, even the time and date. It is very nice to have an included remote, as it would be a hassle to purchase one separately."

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Central Processing Units tend to run really hot when you're overclocking. There are some really good air cooling solutions available out there, but for some of us it's just not good enough. Wanting to squeeze every last drop of performance out of a piece of equipment drives us. Running thermoelectric solutions leads to really exhaustive moisture prevention control methods that most of us just don't want to deal with. A viable alternative to air cooling and thermoelectric cooling is water cooling.

Zotac's GeForce GTX 260 AMP²! Edition is a pretty good card in many respects, because it delivers good performance across the board and you'll get class-leading performance in games like Crysis and there's also an increasing push from Nvidia on things like PhysX and CUDA - features that will enable you to use your graphics card for more than just graphics. However, the situation gets a little murkier once you move away from that particular title and although there are benefits to CUDA, they're not going to be appreciated by everyone - it's still very early days for CUDA and so it's hard to judge the value of it figuratively at this moment in time.

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After Asus revealed the Eee PC back in 2007, there were bound to be some who would follow suit and release their own ultra portable notebooks. With hotspots appearing throughout cities all over the world the market is becoming ripe for cheap, ultraportable, easy to use computers to perform basic tasks.

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It doesn’t matter if you are a home user, network administrator or enthusiast; when you think of memory, Crucial always comes to mind. As you are well aware by now, memory makers are using their expertise and producing storage drives based on non-volatile flash memory. This category is divided into two types, SLC and MLC. The Crucial CT32GBFAB0 we are looking at today uses SLC memory which is considered to be the fastest of the two memory types.

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"NZXT now introduces the latest in their Classic line-up of cases, the Whisper silent full tower chassis. Improving upon the success of the HU-001, the Whisper is touted as a step up from the Hush mid-tower. Featuring a large size E-ATX full tower chassis, the Whisper can support up to nine hard drives and a total of seven 5.25" bays with ample space for large expansion cards. Dampening foam, rubber grommets and a padded PSU holder are some of the major features in silence."

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Asus are well known for their high quality products which range all the way from coolers to laptops. This is the first time we are going to test a laptop from Asus and we got their last super portable U6V model which has a smaller screen to make it more portable but it still seems to have fast parts inside. At a price around 1500$ this thing better perform well so lets take a closer look.

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“Ultimately, the DS-1000 is a serious Storage System designed to replace the need for packing more than six hard drives in to a computer server case. IT pros generally need the hot swap function since they are often replacing or upgrading drives. I would at least give Norco Technologies serious consideration in terms of the base unit. Who says you can't appreciate the unit and not use your own controllers?”

"Many people like the idea of having a completely transparent case and with the popularization of HTPCs - computers built to be connected to your home theater system for playing movies and songs - Sunbeamtech released an HTPC acrylic case. Since heat is one of the main concerns when building a PC inside an acrylic case (since acrylic can't dissipate heat, contrary to what happens with steel or aluminum solutions) Sunbeam's acrylic HTPC case features four 80-mm fans. Let's take an in-depth look on this case and see if lives up to our expectations."

"HTC's new Touch Diamond has been a pretty popular cell phone this past summer and now Sprint has their own rendition of it that lives up to the Touch Diamond reputation. It's stunningly beautiful touch screen display paired with the HTC 3D TouchFLO interface make it one of the most innovative cell phones out there. Most people want to know if it's an "iPhone killer"...read TechReviewSource.com's full review to find out."

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Raidmax has introduced a new member to its Performance Series Gaming Cases, the Raidmax AURA. A mid-tower computer case.

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" While Logitech is a company that graces ASE Labs' test bench often, it is not often that we get to see a highly targeted type of keyboard combo. The Logitech Wave Pro Desktop is targeted to the consumer market, unlike their G series products. Don't let that fool you. This combo has some good (and not so good) features that set it apart from its gaming brethren. "

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"In the first article dedicated to NVIDIA CUDA soft hardware architecture we focus on differences between CPUs and GPUs in parallel computing, peculiarities of GPU computing, NVIDIA CUDA features and limitations as well as its programming and memory models."

Cooler Master is a well known brand when it comes to cooling products and even gained a following with cases after the introduction of the old CM Stacker chassis. With many versions launched since then, Cooler Master has recently looked to create a truly enthusiast level following that isn't typically associated with their name. They started with the Cosmos and more recently the nice Cosmos S case that only an enthusiast would possibly be interested in (and pay full price for!), then they moved to their current range of power supplies and decided to create an entirely new model, the UCP series.

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Need a new mid-range GPU for under $200? NVIDIA's 9800 GTX+ is a good model to keep in mind, and ASUS' Dark Knight card in particular proves to be one well-worth considering. The card offers great gaming performance for the cash, even handling certain games at 2560x1600 with ease, has a sweet-looking cooler, and best of all, is priced-right.

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"The Diamond HD4870 video card with 1GB of GDDR5 RAM, has a great stock cooler installed on it, as it is able to keep it cool while under load as well as when it is idle. The card never went much over 85°C, which is higher than some of the other cards out on the market, however there is more dense and hotter memory modules on the Diamond card than others that made the temperatures higher. The dual slot design of the Diamond HD4870 card is both a good thing as well as a con as it does allow for a thicker stock cooling device, however it does make the card bulkier than if it had a slim card. By being that thick, it does cut into the amount of room and depending on how the motherboard it is being installed on is setup, it may not allow you to have a second card installed. The 1GB of GDDR5 installed on the card is a great addition to the card, allowing it to have more even scores across the different resolutions, however with its increased power consumption, it did take a decrease in the overclockability of the card. The performance of the card was also fairly straight across the board; the results from the benchmark testing were pretty much even with each other, there was not any that were significantly higher than another one."

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Figuring out what makes a good gaming mouse is always difficult. The mouse is definitely one of the most varied input devices around for computers. You find all sorts of different types of mice on the market for both gaming and regular usage. The biggest tenets of what makes a mouse good appear to be comfort and reliability. Enter the Microsoft Sidewinder X5 gaming mouse. This mouse goes for comfort by designing the mouse with the contours of a human hand in mind. It includes 2 customizable thumb buttons and a Vista shortcut button. It also features a laser tracking sensor that is capable of precision up to 2000 dpi with 3 custom dpi settings that you can change within the Intellitype software. We at Benchmark Reviews will give you the low down on this mouse.

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Hardware Canucks has reviewed plenty of motherboards over the last few months but this time we have something a bit different for you: the much anticipated micro ATX version of the P45-T2RS Plus board by DFI – the Lanparty JR P45-T2RS! The JR is a compact board designed for overclocking enthusiasts which means we have a typical DFI-style product but in a smaller package.

"When we think of Mini-ITX motherboards, we usually think of VIAs EPIA range. However, as of recently Intel has introduced Atom, a very impressive low power CPU. Its power usage has plummeted and its performance per watt has increased, but compared to Nano it still can’t handle the full load that a true CPU can. So until now it’s been a bit of a compromise on the CPU power if you want a small form PC.

ZOTAC, one of the relatively new names here at TweakTown has come to the rescue by introducing form and functionality with their new Mini-ITX motherboard based around the nForce 610i chipset; supporting an LGA775 Core 2 series CPU."

HD-DVD's fatal fall at the beginning of 2008 kick-started the race to build players that meet mass demand with consumer-friendly price tags. Samsung's BD-P1500 is among the first to challenge the $400 low water mark set by the PlayStation 3 with an even lower retail price of $299. A recent update from Samsung has added BD Profile 2.0 support to the player, bringing it up to speed with its pricier competitors, and making it solid and affordable choice for average home theater buyers looking to break into Blu-ray.

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"A traditional maker of gaming-grade peripherals, Razer introduces its mid-level keyboard, the Lycosa. Small and slim and featuring rubber-coated keys and headset connections, the product has an elegant and high-tech design - especially when the blue backlighting is on. But beauty can only go skin deep, so it's time for us to check out if functionality goes with its gorgeous design. Let's put the Lycosa through the test. "

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The Razer Mako 2.1 Advanced Desktop Audio System was co-developed by the audio scientists at THX with input from Razer. Over the last couple of months we have run the Mako system through a barrage of tests in real world use and today we will let you know if this system lives up to the quality associated with its creators.

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"NVIDIA has squeaked its way back into the best value category as long as you do not find yourself having to buy an NVIDIA SLI motherboard. And in the case of the high end SLI configuration using two GTX 280 cards, you can afford to buy an SLI motherboard and still come in less expensive than CrossFireX."

You may recall that the SG-850 received the first 10 out of 10 rating I've ever given out for performance, and I have a confession to make: after that product's very impressive showing, I installed it into my main computer where it is now running as I type this, displacing a very impressive in its own right 1200W unit. Not just any unit can make that claim, and you better believe that I want to see how the 650W version performs just as much as you all do. Let's get things rolling with a few box shots.

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"The Jawbone Bluetooth headset is one of the most popular on the market today, and they've recently released a version 2 which has been redesigned with a sleeker, more stylish look, and smaller profile, but yet retaining the same excellent noise elimination qualities of the original Jawbone."

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With DDR3 memory becoming cheaper and getting more and more popular, it's good to see memory manufacture's like G.skill still improving DDR2 memory modules. They are making them perform better using less voltage, while also improving the cooling of DDR2 memory modules. We are going to look at a set of memory modules that fits this catagory from G.skill, the PI Black series memory PC26400 DDR2 800MHz 4-4-4-12 with 1.9 volts. So let's take a look at how well they performed.

Looking at the Silverstone FT01, we see a real missed opportunity to deliver what could have been an extremely good case. To Silverstone’s credit, the FT01 is absolutely beautiful to look at – the understated elegance and style here is unquestionable, and if we were judging it by looks alone, it’d be getting a ten without question. The CPU thermal performance is also extremely good, beating the previous top spot holder by a full 2°C in the CPU load stress test.

"XFX's typical strategy with XXX-based boards is to stick with NVIDIA's reference cooling solution while bumping up clock speeds as high as possible, and that's exactly what we see here. Indeed, the clock speed boosts seen with this board are very impressive indeed, with this particular card shipping with a core clock speed of 680MHz while the GPU's Stream Processors are set at 1700MHz, over a 23.5% clock speed increases in both cases. The 384MB of GDDR3 memory on board hasn't been forgotten either, with an 18.75% boost to give us a final memory clock of 950MHz."

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MSI has built a stellar motherboard with the DKA790GX Platinum board. The board has all of the features that you would want from a 790GX motherboard including HD 3300 graphics with Crossfire X capability, ACC overclocking and more. From a performance point of view, the DKA790GX has nearly the same performance as the other 790GX board that I tested, meaning that it is pretty high on the totem pole. It did work better in Hybrid CrossFire than our previous 790GX boards and that is a very good thing.The 790GX integrated graphics are the best on the market in terms of performance and features and this is a great example of the total package MSI has put together in this motherboard. The Advanced Calibration Control that the 790GX supports allows for higher overclocking than the 790FX chipset, meaning that this board is a good choice for those wanting the best out of their system.

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"Every now and then, motherboard manufacturers will release a board specifically made for the high end market. Much like Intel's Extreme series processors, these extravagent boards throw caution to the wind and load up with as many features as possible, no matter what the cost. The last high end motherboard from Asus was the Striker II Extreme based on the 790i Ultra chipset and guess what folks, it's that time once again. Introducing Asus' latest luxurious creation, the Rampage Extreme featuring Intel's X48 chipset. This board overflows with awesome and takes high end to another level. The 'RE' provides native 1600MHz front side bus support, full x16 CrossFireX capability, up to 8GB of DDR3-2000 memory compatibiltiy, an X-Fi soundcard and the biggest bundle ever. If you like cutting edge, you'll love this review as I conducted both quad and dual core testing along with making use of those two PCIe x16 slots with 4870X2 cards in CrossFire. Oh yea! Read on to find out if this monstrosity can take the coveted crown as the best motherboard on the market."

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Intel's P45 chipset proves to be one of the best mainstream offerings ever created, and Gigabyte put it to good use on their EP45-EXTREME. The board offers sweet cooling ability (which the help of a lot of copper), amazing overclocking potential (500MHz stable with a Quad!) and fantastic power efficiency - all at a good price.

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Today we're examining the HSPC Top Deck Tech Station, an open-air case that features an improved design from the original, in an easy-to-assemble package that should prove very enticing to anyone who regularly swaps hardware or is searching for a test bench setup.

"The overall appearance of the Premium Wireless keyboard is pleasant, but plain. The black and grey color scheme is vaguely reminiscent of an older laptop keyboard. Regardless of aesthetics, the keyboard layout is practical and well thought-out. The key positions are similar to a laptop keyboard in their proximity to each other. The feature that makes this Vidabox keyboard stand out from most other keyboards, is the integration of a laser trackball into the upper-right keyboard surface. In addition, left and right mouse buttons can be found in the upper left-hand corner. This particular arrangement of the trackball and buttons suggests that two hands are needed to fully operate the mouse. This 2000-dpi trackball is very sensitive, so consider turning down your mouse sensitivity."

“The interesting thing is that we didn’t have up to now GTX260 graphics card on test, probably because majority is already more interested for more affordable products from latest nVIDIA generation of graphics cards even though it is consisted, for now, from two products in total. Anyway, we got one GTX260 for testing and it is signed by manufacturer that is worldwide known – MSI…”

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"Motorola has entered the touchscreen market (read: iPhone clone wars) with its Krave ZN4, available from Verizon. The handset's primary contribution to the cell phone technology war is its "touch cover," a clear flip-up front protective screen that is also touch-sensitive. Tap the touch cover and the Krave's actual LCD screen below reacts as if you prodded it directly. The concept's innovative in theory, yes. But instead of increasing functionality, this touch cover actually gets in the way, especially when you're trying to use the touch QWERTY thumbboard. All in all, we don't crave the Krave."

“Bursting onto the casing scene a bit back, NZXT has been one of those companies that has continually expanded and re-invents it's product line, expanding quickly beyond just chassis`. Beyond this, NZXT has chosen to craft it's own custom variants of many cases at their core, rather than simply slipping new panels over the edges. In this vein, the recently reviewed NZXT Cryo LX was a rousing success - mixing huge fans with a stylish cooling pad. With this spirit of expanding horizons, NZXT just recently upgraded their accessory lineup with the Sentry LX - a double bay, brushed aluminum faced, feature packed expansion to the Sentry 1. With that in mind, let's see if the 11 wires injected into the chassis by this panel are worth the hassle, of if this is just another flashy gimmick.”

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Over the years flash drives have become much larger, in terms of storage capacity, and more affordable. For the same price of a 256MB USB stick five years ago, you can now buy sticks with a capacity of 32GB such as the Kingston DataTraveler 150 32GB, which is the subject of this review. This drive not only offers 128x as much storage capacity as the drive you would have got five years ago - it's also a lot faster.

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Through all of the benchmarking and everyday use of the Xporter XT Boost I have been quite impressed. Even with the large capacity it is still a speedy drive. With a capacity of 32GB, the Xporter XT Boost can easily fit in your pocket and is a great replacement for that portable hard drive you might be lugging around.

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When you are in the middle of an intense battle in your favorite FPS game, do you ever wish you could change the sensitivity of the mouse as easily as changing weapons? The NZXT Avatar Gaming Mouse allows you to do just that with the press of a button and also has a series of lights to indicate what speed has been selected. How does it stand up in both gaming and non-gaming situations?

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"The OnAir HDTV GT incorporates an HDTV tuner, PVR capability, Dolby Digital 5.1 playback and more, with this tuner you can watch Digital (ATSC), Analog (NTSC) or Digital Cable (unencrypted QAM) TV. "

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"Did you know that the 'I' in MSI stands for 'Innovation'? Well, it doesn´t, but it should be changed, because of one reason: the MSI P45-8D Memory Lover. This motherboard features 8-dimm slot memory configuration, unseen on the mainstream desktop market. Madshrimps has a look at the performances of this motherboard in both DDR2 and DDR3 test setting comparing it to three other P45 motherboards; a 4-way P45 motherboard comparison in other words."