Week of August 2, 2009

We saw Sapphire really mix it up recently with the HD 4890 ATOMIC version of the card. The company hasn't stopped there, though, now choosing to do even more with the model. ATI partners really don't have the range of graphics cards to play with like NVIDIA ones. What this means is that we tend to see companies offer more variants of the same model.

Can you name one bad case that Antec has had on the market in the last couple of years? I didn't think you would come up with any simply for the reason that they invest a lot of time and energy in the developement of a case prior to it being seen by the public. Today we have the pleasure of reviewing the Antec P193 case which is one of my personal favorite cases. Come on along as we check this beautul case out from top to bottom.

CLICK HERE FOR Antec P193 Case SHOPPING & PRICING

Thermaltake has done a pretty good job with the Element G. It has enough small touches like sheathed cables, fan/LED controller and SSD mounting to let you know they really put some thought into the case design. If you have a need for storage, there is plenty of space for your needs as well. The styling can go from subtle with the LEDs turned off to flashy with them turned on, so it really gives you a lot of options to fit your tastes.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake Element G Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today’s review sample, the OCZ Neutrino, gives the consumer a little bit of wiggle room outside of the norm of entirely preconfigured netbook systems. The Neutrino arrives without hard-drive, RAM, or operating system, leaving the purchase and installation of these components entirely up to the user. Because those are the only components that really vary between netbooks, all of the choice you might want in specifying a netbook is yours."

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Neutrino 10" DIY Netbook SHOPPING & PRICING

Performance gaming can cost you a bundle these days. Even though the cost of the components has come down the cost for the gaming grade cases has not. You are still looking at one hundred and some change for a mid-tower case and two hundred plus if your go full tower. Granted there are some exceptions to the rule and the Thermaltake Element T is one such case. Coming in at under a hundred bucks it is a serious competitor with all of the extra spots for future case improvement. There aren’t too many cases out there that will come in under one hundred with a fan over 120mm’s like the Thermaltake Element T, so let’s get a look at it closer:

" Today for review I’ve got the ioSafe Solo 500gb USB External Hard Drive, and it’s one heck of a drive in both size and how it protects your data. The Solo weighs in at 15lbs and it’s fireproof and waterproof, it’s truly a great way to protect your data from disaster. I’ve spent time with it testing it of course, but I also decided to test just how waterproof it is, I tossed it in a stream nearby to test just how waterproof it is. Read on for videos, pictures and tests of the ioSafe Solo… "

Today we're going to take a look at the OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD and the OCZ Agility 128GB SSD. They both sport the highly touted Indilinx Barefoot Controller which, as we've seen, in previous reviews cures the stuttering in the 1st gen SSD's and provides blazing fast speeds. The OCZ Vertex is the Performance line of SSD's and the Agility is the Value (or mainstream) line of SSD's. Since both have the Indilinx controller and the OCZ name behind them they're sure to be smoking fast but where do you want to put your hard earned cash, top of the line Vertex, or Mainstream Agility. Since they both have the same controller and use Nand Flash MLC technology it's sure to be an interesting benchmarking session.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Vertex 60GB SHOPPING & PRICING

The CoolIT Systems Domino A.L.C. CPU cooler is quite an interesting concept. I like that more and more companies are designing compact, sealed units for the enthusiast. This makes it much more affordable for those who want to get into liquid cooling without the expense of having to know exactly what to buy. The fact that this is a completely sealed unit makes it that much nicer.

CLICK HERE FOR CoolIT Systems Domino A.L.C. CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

A few months down the line and two further companies have brought to market drives based on Samsung and Indilinx controllers. Today we take a look at those products to see what Corsair and Crucial offer us. Also included in this review is an updated SSD from OCZ which takes their excellent Indilinx based Vertex range and enhances the performance to create the Vertex Turbo.

CLICK HERE FOR SSD SHOPPING & PRICING

Sometimes these frontal devices are more interesting than cases and some of the other things we review on a daily basis. And this next items is one of those times. The Aerocool Touch 2000 is a handy little display that allows the user to keep a watchful on eye the internal working of the PC. And if any adjustments are needed it’s done via touch and not the clicking of little buttons. Let’s take a closer look at the Touch 2000.

Yesterday I took a look at the FreeAgent Go, I came out thoroughly impressed with Seagate’s portable hard drive and awarded it with our gold ribbon. To go along with the Go today I will be taking a quick look at their FreeAgent GoDock+, a dock for their go series that includes a USB hub also. Given the performance and quality of the Go I have little doubt that the dock+ will perform just as well.

With laptop sales consistently topping desktop sales, a comfortable and cool computer is quickly becoming a top priority. There are many laptop coolers out on the market with similar features. So how does one decide on which cooler to purchase? Some of the important traits include angle between laptop keyboard and computing surface, structural rigidity of the unit, cooling capabilities, transportability, and of course price. Let's see how the NZXT Cryo S does in each of these categories.

CLICK HERE FOR NZXT Cryo S SHOPPING & PRICING

It has been a while since we have reviewed any products from Xclio so when they contacted us and asked if we would be interested in reviewing two cases we jumped at the chance. The item we are reviewing today is the Xclio Blackhawk SuperTower Case. This case has one of the most interesting fan controllers we have seen. Come on along and check out this case and see what we are talking about.

The MA785GMT-UD2H motherboard has a lot going for it. It is relatively inexpensive at 89.99 on Newegg as of this morning. For that price you get the full package including the best featured integrated graphics on the market, High Definition Audio in the form of the Realtek ALC889A CODEC, low noise with no fans on the NB, and a decent performer to boot. HTPC owners will love the fact that the integrated video and sound can play back full lossless Blu-ray with ease and do it without a noisy, hot external video card. Performance is exactly in line with the previous motherboard I tested with this chipset, with only small performance differences typical of two different benchmark runs. The board overclocked pretty well almost hitting 20% stable overclock with no voltage modification, which is pretty good.

"The Kingston 32GB DataTraveler 112 USB 2.0 Flash drive is a decent little device as long as you aren't looking for blistering fast read/write transfer speeds. The DataTraveler 112 should be fast enough for mainstream use or for those that don't do a whole lot of file transfers. If you only use a USB 2.0 Flash drive to back data up or to move files around when needed, then the DataTraveler 112 should be perfect..."

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston 32GB DataTraveler SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today we're looking at the SilverStone Strider 1500W power supply, an absolute monster unit that is somewhat appropriately named if you're a fan of the Half Life 2 gaming series. Let's take a look at the beast and see what it brings to the mix."

"Continuing our series of CPU cooler reviews, today we tested Thermaltake TMG IA1, which uses the now classical tower design with U-shaped heatpipes, using a fancy shape on the heatsink fins. Will this design be translated into higher performance? Check it out!"

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake TMG IA1 CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

"3Rsystem's Iceage 90 heatsink is built around the popular "heatpipe direct touch" technique that so very many heatsinks on the market today rely on. The only difference is that this mid-compact heatsink stands just 115mm tall, instead of 165mm, making it suitable for PC chassis that can't accommodate much more than a 92mm fan above the CPU socket."

"The Seagate Momentus 7200.4 drive performed very well throughout the testing. The drive even gave the bigger brother the 3.5" Seagate 7200.11 drive a run for its money and even beating it out the majority of the time. The overall read and write speeds were the best of the comparison drives for all of the testing, reaching over 100MB a second at one point. The fact that this is a 2.5" hard drive this makes it a great contender for everything from a laptop, to a server. With desktops and servers trying to save more space, this drive makes a great candidate for any situation you need. The Seagate Momentus measures only 9mm thick so this can be placed into the thinnest notebook and even some netbooks. With this speed comes a price tag though. At $119.99 for the Seagate Momentus, it breaks down to $0.24 a gigabyte."

CLICK HERE FOR Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB SHOPPING & PRICING

When it comes to storing and transporting your data there are a few options. Unfortunately floppy discs just don’t work well with the needs of people today. USB Flash drives continue to grow reaching up to 128Gb’s for a price (a 256gb model was just announced also) . But at least for now the only way to keep all of your photos with you are portable hard drives. When it comes to hard drives Seagate is obviously one of the big names, and with their Free Agent product line you can get just about any size and color that you would like. Today I will be taking a look at their FreeAgent Go 320 Gb drive, one of their portable hard drives.

CLICK HERE FOR Seagate FreeAgent Go 320gb PRICING & SHOPPING

The Kingston Hyper DDR3 2000MHz 3GB ram kit is all that and a bag of chips. This kits will give you blistering speed you want when mixing ram overclocks with CPU intense frequencies. Yeah you may look down at the 3GB amount of ram here but you most remember that you need an 64-bit operating system to support anything over 4 gigs. The chances are most readers are still sitting on the XP OS. Many have not elected to jump on the Vista wagon. So this kit is ideal for many including someone like me. So, sit back relax and read on as we take a look at the latest kit from Kingston.

Evercool is back with another cooler that takes aim at the middle market segment like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. The segment dedicated to winning the hearts of people on tighter budgets or who don't need any form of extreme air cooling. The best thing about the new Buffalo CPU cooler is that it can be had for about $20 online and has the ability to offer much better cooling than the stock Intel cooler. Is the Buffalo enough to tackle the biggest issue inside a computer tower, heat?

"Thermaltake advertises the Element as a gaming oriented performance chassis with optimal cooling ability, massive storage capacity and LAN party security. All three models share roughly the same layout, they're all constructed of steel, offer three 5¼" and seven 3½" bays and have the same fan locations available, however each varies slightly in dimensions and weight. The T is the only one of the three that comes with an unpainted interior and lacks the internal power supply / drive support bracket and pre-installed intake fans of the other two. Simply comparing the three visually we see that the T model also has a more basic appearance than the other two. Is the Element T merely a stripped-down, no-frills case or can it actually compete with the other models in the Element series?"

Once in a while you may come across an item that makes you take a second look, not because of what it looks like but more of what it doesn't look like. The In Win NA Hard Drive enclosure happens to be one of those items.

CLICK HERE FOR In Win Na Hard Drive Enclosure PRICING & SHOPPING

CLICK HERE FOR TWEAKNEWS.NET'S REVIEW ON THIS PRODUCT

"Up on the review block today I’ve got the SV470XVT 47” HDTV from Vizio, this is a 120Hz HDTV and it’s considered one of the higher end models of the 47” line of Vizio HDTVs. The main feature of this TV is of course the 120Hz refresh but it also features Smooth Motion technology, along with SRS TruSurround XT through three built-in 10Watt speakers. The SV470XVT is a big upgrade over the previous model I reviewed, both in terms of video and audio quality. This TV can be had for around $1400 depending where you like and it’s well worth it if you desire quality picture an sound, but it does have a few flaws… "

CLICK HERE FOR Vizio 47" LCD 120Hz HDTV SV470XVT PRICING & SHOPPING

X58 chipset has been introduced to the market for 9 months, and is still on top-of-the-range of Intel product line. For some main board manufacturers, Micro ATX is no longer a low-priced product. We would like to introduce you MSI X58M which is a price-valued Micro ATX, which retails below $200.

CLICK HERE FOR MSI X58M PRICING & SHOPPING

"OCZ's Agility is the latest in their solid state drive product lineup, and with it featuring the Indilinx 'Barefoot' controller we have no doubt it'll likely be fast. But the Agility is considerably less expensive than its competitors by using some cheaper memory chips. How significantly will this affect its performance? How does it stack up against other SSDs? Is it worth the money? These are questions consumers want to know, and so do we. Today we'll put the OCZ Agility against its competitors, as well as its sibling the renowned OCZ Vertex, in order to definitively answer those questions."

“ViewSonic is company that is recognizable as monitor manufacturer, but recently they have begun to widen their product portfolio. One of the new products that is the result of this expansion is VNB100 netbook. Since the netbook market is nicely (over)saturated this move by ViewSonic can be characterized as bold one. Since this is their first netbook we were really eager to open the box and see how ViewSonic perceives an netbook…”

While we hope that overall build quality will not be sacrificed to eke out the best possible efficiency numbers, some companies have made sure their old “high quality, high efficiency” mentality stays is place. As you may have already guessed, Corsair has been fighting with all hands on deck to ensure output quality remains top notch while efficiency numbers increase. One of their latest creations is the HX850; a power supply that promises to take this merry bunch of buccaneers to the pinnacle of power supply supremacy.

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair Professional HX850 850W Power Supply PRICING & SHOPPING

While the majority of users will be interested in the above products there is an every growing selection of liquid coolers on the market that are designed to be easily installed and maintained. Corsair’s latest cooling product fits this description perfectly. Based on an Asetek design the H50 has the $79.99 CoolIT Domino firmly in its sights and aims to become the number one choice in that price range.

"It seems that manufacturers are really serious on the race for who has the smallest case, and Antec is a serious contender with ISK 300-65, a tiny mini-ITX case that in order to reduce its size to the maximum it uses a laptop-style external 65 W power adaptor. Is it worthwhile buying this case? Let's see."

CLICK HERE FOR Antec ISK 300-65 Case PRICING & SHOPPING

As you might expect from an XXX branded part from XFX, the GeForce GTX 275 XXX features improvements to all areas in terms of clock speed, while still making use of NVIDIA's reference cooler. This gives the XXX a new core clock speed of 670MHz with a shader clock of 1476MHz. Memory clocks see around a 4% increase, with a new speed of 1180MHz (2360MHz effective).

CLICK HERE FOR XFX GeForce GTX 275 PRICING & SHOPPING

"Consider it mega-zoom madness, or more like a super-zoom summer fever. Fresh on the heels of the somewhat challenged 20x zoom Canon PowerShot SX1 IS and the Editors' Choice 20x Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX1 comes the Nikon Coolpix P90 with a more potent 24x lens. Like the Canon and Sony, it too is a wide-angle zoom, but in this case it's a whopping 26-624mm, versus 28-560mm for the SX1 and HX1. And the Nikon is a 12-megapixel digicam, versus the 10-megapixel Canon and 9.1-megapixel Sony. That said, the P90 isn't nearly as sophisticated or as expensive as the other two, plus it only takes VGA videos, compared to 1080P movies from the others. The P90 is really for the person who just wants to take pictures and is looking for the convenience of a huge zoom. Let's see if it's worth the cost of entry, or if you should spend more for a different camera."

CLICK HERE FOR Nikon Coolpix P90 PRICING & SHOPPING

Today we have one of Corsair's entries into the SSD field, the P64. This drive happens to have a whole 64 GB of storage space. This is plenty enough room for your operating system, as well as a few important programs. The advantages of a larger drive are of course more storage space, but this comes at a steep price. Right now the 64 and 128 GB SSD's are your best bet for a combination of storage and price. Corsair has long been one of the leaders in computer technology, so this addition to their line of products should be looked at before you make a choice on what SSD you want.

"The cream of the crop graphics cards now tend to be dual core designs such as the GTX 295 or, if we are talking ATI, 4870x2s. However, single core cards are still very much in the scene and competing right at the top end of graphics card technology.

Today we will be taking a look at a card from Zotac’s GTX 285 range – the Infinity Edition. This particular one features a GPU water block instead of the reference air cooling as well as being factory overclocked with a core 722MHz.

The card certainly makes for nice reading on paper but will it really justify the high price tag attached to it? Let’s take a look..."

"Like the Beta, the Panzerbox comes from NZXT's Classic Series, those chassis typically with a more conservative appearance than their Crafted product line. Also along the same lines as the Beta, the Panzerbox is advertised as a mid-tower case and comes painted black inside and out. But there is where the similarities end. The Panzerbox is constructed of aluminum rather than steel, and features a unique shortened size that nearly lends itself to being classified as a micro-tower design."

CLICK HERE FOR NZXT Panzerbox Mid-Tower Case PRICING & SHOPPING

When Thermaltake first released the Element Series cases a lot of us never had any idea that there was going to be so many variations as there is today. We have reviewed the Element S previously so today it is our turn to check out the Element T mid-tower case.

Xigmatek hasn't been around for long but in their short time in the highly competitive CPU cooler market, they have already made quite the name for themselves. In today's review we take a closer look at their new flagship product: the massive S126384 Thor’s Hammer.

CLICK HERE FOR Xigmatek S126384 PRICING & SHOPPING

"LS and MX are sister power supply series from BFG, with models from MX series coming with a modular cabling system, a 120-mm fan and an auxiliary 80-mm fan on the rear, while models from LS series use a 135-mm fan and no modular cabling system or second fan. Initially both series used the same internal design, however this is not entirely true anymore. All models from MX series are manufactured by Fore Point (one of the factories from Fortrex), but LS-450 and the new version of LS-550 (marked as "LS-550 (New)" on their website, being the model we are reviewing today and currently available on Newegg.com) are manufactured by Enhance. The old LS-550 and LS-680 are manufactured by Fore Point with the same design as models from MX series. According to BFG they will move all models from MX and LS to Enhance in the future, and when this happens units will be either released with new wattages (e.g. LS-700 instead of LS-680) or will have the name "New" added to their name."

"Standing 157mm tall, Xigmatek's Thor's Hammer heatsink tips the scales at 800 grams and has a rather boxy footprint of 120 x 116mm. It accomodates one or two 120mm fans that mount to the fins with special rubber vibration absorbing posts. No fans are supplied with the Xigmatek S126384 heatsink, allowing users to pick a high speed 120mm fan or ultra quiet model of their liking."

CLICK HERE FOR Xigmatek S126384 PRICING & SHOPPING

"Wow, the NZXT Beta sure has taken me on a wild ride. I like the looks of the Beta. There are better looking cases out there, but none for this price. Even so, the Beta is sleek and stylish. I love that NZXT has painted the interior, and the paint they used is of high quality. The meshed 5.25" drive bay covers are a nice feature and, coupled with the 1/4" foam for air filtration, really put the Beta ahead in potential. I would like to see every vendor start using these covers. Although there is only one 120mm fan included, it is of high quality and can easily compare to some of the retail fans available. It would be nice to see at least one more fan included for exhaust on the rear vent, but at such a low price, you could pick one up at any retailer or e-tailor pretty easily. The two 120mm vents on the side panel leave open a huge window of opportunity. Personally I think it would be a great spot to mount a 2x120mm radiator for watercooling using the 2 pre-drilled holes in the back."

When it comes to cooling our CPU's down, we all want a cooler that not only performs well, that cooler also has to be priced competitively. There are a ton of CPU coolers out there to choose from. While the good ones come in at a hefty price tag of 60 USD or more, the average person may not be able to fork out that much on a CPU cooler. Well there are other alternatives at a much lower price point. The downside with these types of coolers however is that they usually can't cut it for cooling an overclocked processor.

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master Hyper 212+ PRICING & SHOPPING

Overclockers and performance enthusiasts share the same desire to cool their processor with the best possible hardware solution. Benchmark Reviews first tested the cooling performance on the Intel Core i7 platform in the Best CPU Cooler Performance LGA1366 - Q1 2009 article, which discovered the now-famous Prolimatech Megahalems CPU Cooler. With such a dominant hold on cooling performance, the CPU cooler industry has been slow to respond with even better products. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests a new collection of products in the Best CPU Cooler Performance LGA1366 Q2 - 20! 09.

CLICK HERE FOR CPU COOLER PRICING & SHOPPING

"Now we need to make the NFTS partition we just made active. This is where MBRWiz comes in. If you haven't downloaded it, get it now and for simplicity, save it to your desktop. Click Start then Run. In the Run window type CMD and click ok. You should now be looking at the COMMAND window. Now we need to change directories so we can see the Desktop that is done by typing CD DESKTOP and hitting enter. Now we need to see what number Windows has assigned the thumb drive; to do this type MBRWIZ /LIST and hit enter. Mine is number 5..."

"Starting out with inputs, you have a couple of options available here, with the ET-AR504LR-BK capable of accepting connections via either stereo RCA jacks or a single 3.5mm input. There's no way to switch between these inputs on the music, leaving you needing to use one or the other ideally. Audio is then output to the two satellite speakers via a pair of RCA jacks, clearly labelled and colour coded for left and right."

With the subject of today’s review Arctic Cooling hope to continue their successful line of GPU cooling products, read on to find out if the Accelero XTREME 4870X2 is up to the task of cooling ATI’s dual GPU monster.

"Thermaltake's Element series of cases is geared to the 'professional' consumer. Not exactly sure what that means, but we did examine the Element S and found it to be an excellent mid-tower case. Now Thermaltake has released the Element G, with a bit more flash and features that seem more suited to the gamer market. So does 'professional' still apply here? Again, we're not sure. But instead of pondering the philosophical questions that concern the nature of what it means to be professional, how about we grab a drink and take a look at this mid-tower instead? Sounds a bit more fun, don't you think?"

"Since the modules are rated at 1600MHz 9-9-9-27 what better place to start then to see if the loose timings can be improved upon. To start with I lowered the Cas Latency, TRTP and TRD to 8 and the TRAS to 24 all while running the default 1.65 volts. Expecting a black screen I was surprised that the modules booted and then tested fine at 8-8-8-24. Next I started bumping the memory speed up by increasing the bclock a few MHz at a time and rebooting. Then thing is the modules kept scaling with the 8-8-8 subtimings until I reached 1884MHz. So far 284MHz worth of extra clock speed. At this level I was able to benchmark game and run stability tests at will. Any higher though required the Cas Latency to move to 9. Voltage did not help and above 1.68 I would get errors so the max voltage used was 1.67 volts. Moving on up from 1884 I finally reached 1976MHz with the timings at 9-9-8-24 with the memory voltage at 1.66 volts QPI volts at +220 and the CPU at 1.28 volts. 376MHz (187MHz actual) worth of increase for a set of memory that costs just 131 bucks is nothing to sneeze at. Unfortunately 2000MHz just was not to be for me on this set. So close yet so far."

Zalman Technology has earned itself a reputation that is hard to beat or even get close to in the silent and near silent computer accessory line-up. Today we are reviewing the newest addition to their CPU Cooler line-up, the item is the CPNS 10X Extreme CPU Cooler. This unit features a 120mm fan and uses five U-shaped heatsinks to aid in heat removal. Relax and come along as we review this great item.

“This time we got an very interesting device from ASUS: EeeBox. This is small form factor PC that has mixed functionality between desktop systems and netbooks. Main features are low power consumption, small dimensions and decent performance rates. EeeBox mainly targets SOHO market but it can be interesting solution for all not-so-demanding users…”

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS EeeBox B202 PRICING & SHOPPING

"Who hasn't screamed at the monitor when a faltering internet connection disrupted an otherwise good online match? No matter how powerful and gaming-oriented a PC is, sometimes lag is inevitable. To try and minimize these problems, BigFoot Networks released the Killer Xeno Pro, a network card sold by EVGA that takes control of the internet away from Windows and manages the bandwith to the user's gaming needs. The operation is a bit complex but the purpose of this test is to see if it delivers what it promises."

CLICK HERE FOR EVGA Killer Xeno Pro Gaming Network Card PRICING & SHOPPING

"We discussed the importance of backing up the data stored on your computer's hard drive in a previous story. But what happens if your computer is lost or stolen? Notebooks are particularly vulnerable. A thoroughly executed back-up plan will alleviate data loss, but do you want strangers perusing the highly personal information you've stored on that machine? We didn't think so; that's why we put together this guide to keeping your electronic data secure."

When it comes to water cooling a PC, there is still a number of users out there that cringe at the thought of having water in their chassis. Although they are focusing on the negative side of the combination, the use of water cooling in a PC has come a long way over the last few years. With the increase in popularity of water cooling, manufactures are creating more user friendly water cooling options for those that don't want to dive in head first. The CoolIT Domino Advanced Liquid Cooling (ALC) system is just one of the examples available to the public wanting to get their feet wet with water cooling. The Domino ALC allows a user to cool his/her CPU with water while taking a lot of the hassles that come with water cooling out of the picture. Is the Domino ALC what you're looking for?

The M17x is Alienware's current flagship gaming notebook. It features an anodized aluminum shell that is available in a variety of colors, including silver, black, and red, and its 17" LCD sports a covering comprised of a shingle sheet of glass, that runs from edge-to-edge. The M17x also features 'BinaryGFX' technology which gives users have the ability to switch between discrete or integrated graphics and a 'Stealth Mode' in which the discrete graphics cards are turned off and other components throttle down to achieve a 65W power limit. We tested a high-end configuration, complete with an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor, dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs, 8GB of RAM, and 1TB RAID 0 array, and it put up the best benchmarks scores we have seen from a notebook to date...

"Netbooks are all the hot thing right now in the tech market because you can get portable computing for under $400 and they offer some really nice features as well. In particular, the Toshiba Mini NB205-N210 has 1GB of RAM, a large 160GB of hard drive space, a 10.1-inch widescreen LCD, and is an Energy Star 5.0 certified PC, which means it uses less power and therefore gives you a lot of battery life."

CLICK HERE FOR Toshiba Mini NB205-N210 PRICING & SHOPPING

"There are a bunch of great Bluetooth headsets on the market today with the Aliph Jawbone, BlueAnt Z9i, and the Plantronics Discovery 925 leading the way. From my perspective, the Plantronics Voyager PRO should be considered by anyone who wants one of the best sounding Bluetooth headsets on the market. The DSP is certainly dialed into reducing background noise and excels in almost all noisy environments..."

CLICK HERE FOR Plantronics Voyager PRO Bluetooth Headset PRICING & SHOPPING

Cases, chassis, enclosures, towers; there are so many names for the component that houses the rest of our computer components. There are also a lot of chassis out there to choose from. Some are small, some are big, some are medium sized. There are even oddly shaped chassis. With all of the chassis choices out there on the market, you have the option to pick and choose a chassis that fits you personality.

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master Elite 310 PRICING & SHOPPING

One of the first companies to put forth a good set of triple channel memory was OCZ. Surprised? Probably not. We tested their 3GB 1333MHz kit some time back. But in the quest to get all you can get from a lonely 920 you need some massive bandwidth. That is why we are taking a long look at OCZ's newest series of triple channel memory, the Blade. The Blades sports new heat spreaders and some incredible timings to go along with the 1600MHz of bandwidth.

While at CES this past year I had the chance to tour the Lian-Li booth and check out many unique and stylish cases. Along side of the Lian-Li, Lancool their side company had a collection of their cases being shown off also. Today I have the chance to check out their Dragon Lord K58 case. Being my first experience with Lancool and Lian-Li I am excited to see their quality first hand. Considering the hype from others, I doubt that I will be disappointed.

CLICK HERE FOR Lancool K58 PRICING & SHOPPING

"The Corsair HX750W is an 80 Plus Silver certified power supply and the figures obtained during testing confirmed this with the efficiency peaking at a massive 90% on 230VAC. Combine the excellent efficiency with top notch DC voltage load regulation and low ripple/noise on all the rails, and the Corsair HX750W is up there with the best. The box lid carries the Nvidia SLI Ready logo, but I wasn't able to confirm this on the Nvidia SLI website, so perhaps it will appear in the next update. The Corsair HX750W has four 6+2-pin PCI-E connectors, making it the ideal power supply for any high end SLI or Crossfire configuration, especially when you consider it delivered 50A on the 12V rail with very low noise."

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair HX750W Power Supply PRICING & SHOPPING

From the perspective of a gamer that is used to playing games with all of the settings on maximum and with high resolution, the 785GM-E65 is a bit of a disappointment, being that performance in games is not fully playable with high settings enabled. This motherboard is not targeted for the hardcore enthusiast who would likely have a bleeding-edge video card anyway so that's not a big issue. The casual gamer wanting to play games with all of the visual fidelity and features of the discrete card will love the integrated graphics as the HD 4200 has support for Shader Model 4.1 and fully supports DX 10.1.

With generation 3 guidelines for the 6.0 GBps SATA interface already being used in prototype motherboards for show at the not-so-distant 2010 CES in January, it's understandable to see the speeds of Solid State Drive products increase so quickly with each new model. The Indilinx Barefoot controller has become the backbone chip for over a dozen different SSD models, first introduced in the OCZ Vertex SSD, and now make a return appearance in the OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD series.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Vertex Turbo MLC SATA SSD PRICING & SHOPPING

"The product is from Envizen and it’s much more than just a portable TV, it features a built-in memory card reader, along with a USB port, HDTV tuner, remote control and even a DVD player as well. The USB ports and memory card slot can be used to view pictures or even videos, and to listen to music, so it’s actually a multi-media player as well. The complete kit even includes a carrying case that can be converted into a mount so it can be attached to the back of a car seat so your passengers can watch videos on the go. This product is the only one like it that I know of on the market today, at least one that features everything that this one does, so read on to learn more about it… "

"The Sapphire Radeon HD 4730 also featuring the BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC2. The Sapphire Radeon HD 4730 has a 8% higher clock speed, 48% higher memory speed and 576 extra pixel shaders compared to the BFG GeForce 9600 GT OC2. Another advantage the Sapphire Radeon HD 4730 has is the GDDR5 and Directx 10.1."

Hardwareoverclock.com has posted another video card review. Last week they has take a look at the Zotac GTX295 Single PCB. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 295 packs the raw power of two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 graphics processors on a single card. This design enables a better cooling solution and lower noise.

"A couple days ago I took a look at the CoverBee sleeve for smaller netbooks like my Asus Eee PC 900A, today I’ve got one from GearZap again, it’s the ZeroShock III Netbook case for netbooks and laptops ranging from 10.6” to 11.1”. As the name suggests it’s made to protect your netbook or laptop from damage from shocks like falling, or dropping. The ZeroShock III is nicely made with dual zippers, lots of padding and even a front zippered pocket to carry some extra stuff along with you if need be. "

The boxed cooler had big problems keeping the CPU stable at 3.4Ghz. It was just stable enough to run prime custom 20K FFT. Trying to boot at 3.5Ghz resulted in lockups, BSOD's or straight errors when starting prime. When the testing was over I immediately removed the motherboard from the PC. Imagine it takes a few minutes to do so, then I started to remove the stock cooler, I can assure you it was still very hot. Its fan also spun flat out all the time during the test and was very audible. With the TRUE doing the cooling, the rig behaved far better. Squeezing 22°C off the boxed cooler is already very nice. Even testing at 3.5Ghz was no issue. More however, was limited by this particular CPU we tested. The Corsair H50 continued to impress me, by gaining 2°C over the TRUE setup.

Many enthusiast users snigger at the mention of Dell, however at Driverheaven we know there are a percentage of users who either don't have the skillset to build their own computer or who just don't have the time. It is also worth mentioning that with this particular system Dell offer a 3-4 year in home service in the case of any major issues occuring.

“Gaming is all about taking it to the extreme. In the pursuit of the best gaming experience, gamers have stopped at nothing to achieve this always-rising goal. Overclocking, adding another GPU/Videocard and upgrading are the typical paths and all of them have the downside of generating extra heat, which is potentially damaging to components and can impede performance. To remedy this, a proper case with good airflow is needed. Usually, a full tower provides the best option, since the extra space not only permits more fans but also provides the proper clearance for airflow as well. NZXT was thinking exactly this with the Zero 2 case, a steel-chassis full-tower beast that boasts a capacity for an impressive seven 120mm fans.“