Week of December 21, 2008

Instead of dressing a drive with the aluminium look that tech geeks adore, or with an almost never-ending list of colours, Samsung came to the party with fashionable looking drives that would probably get much attention from everyone, including the ladies.

In the end, I was very impressed with the Cooler Master V8's performance. Using a total of 8 heat pipes, it makes a strong impression on any enthusiast's heart. The build was solid, installation was a breeze, and it looks very impressive inside of the tower.

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The motherboard also supports onboard WiFi, eSATA, gigabit ethernet, DDR2 ram upto DDR2-1066, and what's more ... it comes with their "i-Instant Boot" feature, solid capacitors and it's AM3 ready. Other bonus features include 3-way and 2-way SLI bridge connectors, as well as a SLI switch daughtercard and the WiFi module/antenna.

The ECS X58B-A Black Series motherboard is available online for a price of only $260. This compares favorably in the price department to other X58 motherboards which have a heftier premium. As we move into 2009 we will likely see the prices of these motherboards reach a more mainstream level allowing more people to use them. ECS has been trying to make their way back into the enthusiasts mindset for the last few years and have succeeded wonderfully with the ECS X58B-A Black Series motherboard as it has all of the features of the competition with the noticeable exception of supporting three way or more SLI or Crossfire as the board only has two PCI Express x16 slots limiting you to two-way SLI or Crossfire. Not a big difference considering all the other great features of his board. I give A Hot Product Award as it does excel in a few key areas to the enthusiast user.

"Today for review I've got a supplemental power supply from FSPGroup called the Booster X5, it's a 450 watt PSU that fits into a 5.25" bay of your case, it's made just for your video cards with four PCIE power connections built in. The idea behind this product is to give the user a little extra power for those newer, power hungry video cards, it's a great way to supplement your standard power supply if it can't handle it instead of going and buying an entire new power supply for your system. "

“These motherboards are a pretty good deal, though from what I can find, the price of the two is almost identical, averaging only $6-10 between the two models. With such a miniscule difference, the only reason to take the 790 over the 780 would be if you are building a very cheap system that still has a video card. Also having 100% solid state capacitors on the 790 will provide another advantage. There is an order of magnitude increase in reliability from liquid caps to solid. Anyone who has seen a blown cap knows how much of a headache that can be. “

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In Win has been around for as long as I can remember. Back in 2000, when I had just gotten out of the military, I bought one of their full tower server cases. I ended up having it for a few years, but after those few good years, my good old case started falling apart. So when I went looking for a new computer case it seemed like In Win had fallen off the face of the earth. I looked and looked for their products but I never could find any. Well, here it is, eight years later and In Win finds me. So, I am going to show you one of their newest additions, the Matrix computer case.

In Win were established back in 1986 and they never tried to diversify beyond designing and building computer cases. Merely a few months ago the company released a long line of high performance PSUs, the Commander series. Today we take a look at the high end 1200w model.

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In this article, Benchmark Reviews sets out to detail the performance differences between SSD products attached to the JMicron JMB322 host-based controller and the Intel ICH10R, but instead discovered a larger problem. While read and write performance can sway unpredictably between SATA controllers, the most disturbing subject is the inconsistency between test tools. One version of ATTO Disk Benchmark can record result different from another, while HD-Tach gives different results on the same version and driver. Please read more to learn of the pitfalls and perils when testing SSD's between platforms.

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A little while back, I reviewed Antec's Signature series 850W power supply. Toward the end of that review, I threw down a challenge: any company who thought they could do better than that unit should give it a shot and send me the resulting power supply.

“Last time when we tested Intel Core i7 CPU (Nehalem) we used Intel DX58SO Smackover motherboard. This time we will test motherboard designed for overclokers that want to squeeze maximum out of their Nehalem CPU. Motherboard is manufactured by ASUS and it belongs to ROG (Republic Of Gamers) series. According to ASUS reputation this motherboard dictates new standards when it comes to Intel Core i7 motherboards. Despite dimensions of motherboard packaging itself, label “Designed for Overlocking” also suggests that this package holds something special inside…”

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"Intel's new Socket-1366 platform won't become mainstream for quite some months yet. And if it does ... it will cost a fair bit to upgrade anyway. So, why not concentrate on the present. If you plan to stay with Socket-775 with DDR3 ram, then the DFI LanParty DK P45-T3RSB Plus is worth considering. It's a great all-rounder and offers decent performance with great overclocking potential."

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We have just released a review of 7 HDDs with up to 1,5 Terabyte (Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital), including new 1,5 TB ST31500341AS from Seagate. We did not just benchmark the I/O-Performance and the response latencies, but also the power consumption of each drive.

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I hope everyone has a great Christmas and I wish all of our readers the best. May your stockings be filled with DDR3 and under the tree by stuffed with Newegg giftcards.

And if you are online for more than 1 hour today, push yourself away from the computer and spend some time with family. =)

Today we?re looking at a HD 4870 X2 from Gainward which carries those two words we love to see; Golden and Sample. What has Gainward done to make the card so special? -We will find that out in just a minute.

With overclocking not reserved for the elite anymore, manufacturers have found ways to incorporate features in their hardware to make overclocking easier. Most of this however has been in the way of software such as drivers or overclocking utilities. Zotac might have cornered a tiny market segment with their latest toy, the Nitro.

With the introduction of the Intel's newest CPU's, Intel has also released a new chipset along with it. The X58 has proven to be an absolute power house in terms of all-out performance, and not just in gaming performance, but in anything we put it through. This X58 Platinum motherboard is just that, an MSI power house.

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With the Eclipse 7520-010R MSI presents it latest flagship in their motherboard portfolio. This product comes with a lot of features and goodies. For example you can find a Creative based X-Fi PCIe soundcard which you can put on a nice black PCB that carries a huge heatpipe cooling solution.

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"Prebuilt computers have usually had two thing not going for them, Price and performance. Performance usually comes in the form of a price tag outside our reach or when in our price range the performance is not there. As enthusiasts we think we can always do a better job of building a superior rig at a better price than the companies that do it day in and day out. Most times I would say that is true. But with the CyberPower Gamer Xtreme Xt system I think the watermark has been set on both the price front as well as the performance front. For $1500 dollars you can have a system that will run today's games and applications much better than a similarly equipped system using not last years technology but technology that was released This year! If you wanted to build this system you would be hard pressed to find the identical components used in this system at a price even $600 higher than the $1500 dollar asking price. This system from CyberPower just crushed our poor testbed system that really is no slouch."

"Getting a new cell phone this holiday season? If you are, you'll probably want a Bluetooth headset to go along with it. They provide handsfree calling so you can concentrate on what your doing while having a conversation at the same time. Since it's Bluetooth (which almost all new phones have), you won't have any wires to deal with. We've rounded up the top five Bluetooth headsets that you'll want to get to go with that shiny new cell phone."

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"Logitech has had a great deal of success with their diNovo-branded keyboards. The original, the diNovo Media Desktop, was released over five years ago and featured a keyboard, media pad and mouse. A few years later, the diNovo Edge was introduced and despite its high price tag, is still one of the most popular media keyboards among end users. Since then, we have seen the diNovo Edge Mini and even Mac versions come to fruition. Today we will be taking a look at the latest incarnation of the diNovo, the diNovo Keyboard for Notebooks.."

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The OCZ Technology SLI-Ready 2GB DDR3-2000 dual channel memory kit is almost ahead of its time. The eVGA 790i motherboard does support SLI-Ready memory up to 2000MHz, but it did have some trouble staying stable at that speed. Testing really didn't show much advantage over a ‘slower’ kit, and if you can run with tighter timings at lower speeds you may be better off.

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I've put the G.Skill 64GB MLC SSD through its paces and am pleased with its overall performance. It's absolutely quiet, it draws less power than your regular hard drive, my boot times have dropped by ridiculous amounts and overall performance keeps up with some of today's newest platter hard drives available. It's definitely not the fastest hard drive out there, but the future is definitely bright for G.Skill's SSD family.

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Finally, a chassis that is designed for the enthusiast that combines noise dampening features with expandability and storage. Introducing the Whisper silent full tower chassis from NZXT, improving upon the successful of the NZXT HU-001 chassis, the Whisper is another step up from the Hush. Featured in a large size E-ATX Full Tower, the Whisper can support up to NINE hard drives and a total of SIX 5.25"; bays with ample space for large expansion cards. 10mm dampening foams, rubber grommets, and padded PSU holder are some of the major features in silence. The NZXT Whisper is the complete solution for the enthusiast who is not willing to sacrifice silence for performance. Benchmark Reviews recently got a hold of one of these cases and I must say I'm intrigued so now let's just see if the Whisper lives up to it's name or not.

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"In this review Frostytech is testing the just released Spire Thermax II heatsink, and if you can find it for an affordable price you should find it thermally satisfying. In any event, Spire's Thermax II heatsink stands 155mm tall, is 125mm wide and accommodates one 120mm fan that spins at 1000~2200 RPM. Weighing it at roughly 550grams, the Thermax II is compatible with both Intel socket 775 and 1366 processors."

“Kingston's new 2 GHz memory kit joins the ranks offering stability and dependability as we've all grown to expect. Kingston is already in a very select group of vendors to offer professional and enthusiast memory. Despite their market position, the HyperX PC3-16000 2GB Kit weighs in at a staggeringly low $125 price tag. If that's not low enough to entice you to upgrade from your older P4 or lack luster DDR2 based Core 2 Duo board, then I don't know what will. It's stable, it's affordable, it's Kingston, and it's time you stepped up.”

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The Gigabyte EX58-UD5 looks to be an excellent motherboard for the computer hardware enthusiast looking to make the jump to Intel's Core i7 processor. It overclocks a Core i7 model 920 processor with ease. The EX58-UD5 was stable, very quick, and looks to be trying to service the enthusiast with a no-BS approach of just doing it right and not trying to dress it up to be something it is not. We have no problem suggesting the EX58-UD5 for your Core i7 build. It is a good product.

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"In the first part of this article, devoted to the new architecture from Intel, we'll try to find out what we can expect from the new processor without tests, proceeding only from its specifications. And the second part of the article, to be published a tad later, will be devoted to verifying our assumptions in practice."

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" I have to congratulate HIS for producing such a fine graphics card. It's one of the fastest single GPU Radeon HD 48xx graphics card that we've tested to date. It may not be as fancy as a dual GPU Radeon or the latest Geforce GTX295 ... but at its current price, it offers good value for money with excellent performance. It's definitely worth considering if you're a mainstream to high-end gamer."

CoolIT have taken their experience with OEM designs and the rigorous quality and performance standards involved in these builds and used them to create a product which they claim is high performance, feature rich, universally compatible, indestructible, simple-to-install, fail-safe, long lasting and last but not least, extremely affordable.

The 790GX brings a lot to the table in form of features and performance for the dollar. The main feature would definitely be the integrated Radeon HD 3300 graphic chipset. Sharing up to 512MB of memory any board possessing this integrated GPU will be a simple source for moderate gaming. And if gaming isn't your cup of tea but visual performance is, then how about support for multi-display setup without the use of an additional video card? Yes, the 790GX packs a lot and we will begin our coverage of the chipset with the Asrock AOD790GX/128M.

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The i7 series of processors accompanied by an enthusiast grade motherboard utilizing the X58 chipset were one of the most highly anticipated product releases since the Core 2 Duo. At the time of the launch Intel introduced their DX58SO motherboard affectionately nicknamed the "Smackover". The DX58SO motherboard is without a doubt the most feature laden endeavor that Intel has undertaken to date. It is not only slanted towards the the serious overclocker but it provides a bevy of BIOS related features that could easily take take Intel's latest product to the next level of performance.

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"Setting the I7 965 up to run at stock speeds is a no brainer really, but to push the limits it took a little bit of trial and error. Well, a lot of trial and error. There are a few ways to go when overclocking the Core I7 processor and system. You can up the baseclock or if you have an unlocked processor the multiplier can be increased while maintaining the lower overall baseclock (133MHz). The first BIOS was not all that overclocking friendly, but the 132b BIOS changed that. Just upping the baseclock alone is not enough to get you up to the 200MHz level. Whereas the P6T was incredibly resilient when it came to recovering from a bad overclock, the MSI was not nearly as friendly. It would more often than not fail to boot after pushing the limits just to have to clear the CMOS. This resulted in a total loss of your settings so taking good notes is essential. Touching just about all of the voltages was required to get to 205x19 and 822MHz on the six gigabytes of system memory. To get there the Vcore was bumped to 1.42, the memory to 1.64v, the QPI voltage to 1.425, and the IOH to 1.4v as well as bumping the timings to the modules' default 9-9-9-24. I could boot up to a 215MHz baseclock but could not gain any stability at this level."

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We've reviewed many Home Theater cases over the years at OCModShop. Some of them have multimedia features that are seamlessly integrated with the case, while many others are nothing more than standard desktop cases with a fancy front panel. There are several cases I have owned that were awesome, but converting them into Home Theater cases would have been way more trouble than it would be worth.

“We've seen a recent rise in popularity of Quad Core CPUs, dual GPUs, and more power hungry system components. The need to power these systems in a stable environment is greater than ever, and the power supplies required to feed these setups are a select group of products. Today we're examining the InWin Commander 1200w power supply, a unit that feels like a tank, which is appropriate given its military-styled theming and design, to find out if it's boom or bust.”

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"It seems like a strange question to ask. CAN you buy an off-the-shelf Dell computer, and install a water cooling system in it? Well I suppose why not? It’s certainly worth a try. I decided to take my Dell Dimension 2400 / P4 and see just how compatible it would be. I’m anticipating a few snags along the way, but at first glance there are no obvious showstoppers."

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It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything from HIS and now was really as good a time as any to see what the company has been up to with the HD 4800 series from ATI becoming such a popular line-up.

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"Adding three EVGA GeForce GTX 280 video cards into the mix provided some interesting results as it showed that adding a dedicated PhysX card helped performance across the board. I actually expected the performance to level off at some point, but that obviously didn't happen this time around. If the Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason TechDemo benchmark utility proves to be an accurate reading for upcoming PhysX game titles it looks like dedicated PhysX cards and SLI will be the most cost effective way to get the performance you are looking for..."

"AMD released the 780G IGP chipset earlier this year, with its highly-acclaimed onboard HD3200 graphics and an emphasis on multimedia and casual gaming. While originally paired with the SB700 southbridge, the new SB750 began showing up on 790FX/GX boards in mid-summer, and has by now begun to filter down to some of the lower end chipsets such as this one, the A780GM-A Ultra from ECS. One new feature of the SB750 is support for AMD's Advanced Clock Control, which is supposed to help achieve higher and more stable overclocks. ECS completes the A780GM-A Ultra with AMD OverDrive capability, solid caps, integrated VRM heatsink and support for up to 160W for the CPU."

"HP's Photosmart D5360 inkjet printer is a solid printer that has useful photo-related printing features paired with some advanced printing features as well. It has pretty good text and photo quality and a lot of multimedia features, as well as CD/DVD printing. The D5360 is a decent choice for anyone looking for a multi-purpose printer that is economical and useful as well."

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You want to get away from air cooling and those oversized heatpipe setups are adding a lot of unwanted stress on the motherboard, but you don't want to endure the cost and hassle of converting your system to a water cooled unit. CoolIT Systems Inc may just have what you are looking for with their newest liquid cooling setup that goes by the name of Domino A.L.C. (Advanced Liquid Cooling).

We evaluated the original Dell XPS 730 in early May, shortly after its initial release. At the time, it was Dell's latest high-end gaming machine and word on the street was that it would be the last to carry the XPS badge. Moving forward, Dell was to concentrate on their Alienware gaming brand and the XPS brand would lose its gaming focus to embrace multimedia and content creation. Naturally, we checked with Dell directly, and while they did confirm the rumor, they also assured us that the XPS 730's life wouldn't be cut short and it would go one to live through a full product cycle. It seems they weren't bluffing.

We take a closer look at the small Noxon iRadio Cube which allows you to stream music straight from the web over its integrated wireless network connection. The iRadio Cube also features a classic FM antenna and the unit can be used as an alarm clock, waking up to your favorite tunes.

There's no doubt about it - for nine out of ten scenarios, the Intel Penium Dual Core E5200 will yield the best value, as long as you can heavily overclock it. If only AMD's Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition was happy to reach 3.5+GHz stably it would yield a far more competitive or even the best value processor in more tests.

"I've seen systems that are worth hundreds and thousands of dollars fall to poor PSU choices. I've seen one PSU kill two motherboards in a row because they thought buying a flea market PSU was a good idea. I've seen video cards that cost $300 (USD) and more die because people thought their PSU would be enough to drive the GPU. You name it I've seen it. Including a $20 dollar 650 Watt PSU burn down part of a house. Computer PSU's aren't something to skimp on.

You can take your chances in the PSU crap shoot and go cheap, or you can buy a quality PSU like the Seasonic M12D 850 Watt Modular and know that you will enjoy a long safe computing experience. Keep in mind that cheap PSU might still be running but, PSU that are cheap don't provide good solid voltage so every time you push that button your shortening the life of your computer. Be smart, go with a good quality PSU from a manufacturer like Seasonic that will provide years of good service and keep that gaming shrine safe from the dreaded flea market PSU catastrophe."

"With stock latencies at 9-9-9-24, I had to find out just how tight the timings would go at the factory default voltages. By manually adjusting the timings and setting the voltage to the 1.5 volt JEDEC spec voltage the modules easily ran timings equal to the Qimonda 3x1GB set. To get the modules higher, I just kept increasing the bclock frequency upward until the system would not boot. I then adjusted the timings and voltage of the modules and pushed further until I finally hit the wall at a 209 bclock frequency. Adjusting the voltage up to 1.7 volts did not allow for an increase any higher without failing memtest. Since the timings were loose at the low end, I kept the timings at the defaults for overclocking since additional voltage did not allow for any tightening of the latencies. All said and done, an increase of 169MHz on the memory without a severe increase in the supply voltage to the DIMMs should offer a nice performance boost for real world applications and gaming."

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"Benchmark Reviews is no stranger to the Radeon HD 4870 and today we add one more to the ranks: the ASUS EAH4870 Dark Knight Top. This 'DK TOP' model comes equipped with ASUS' famed Dark Knight cooler and claims of a 9% performance lead over stock 4870's thanks to an impressive factory overclock. In today's review, we'll put this claim to the test and find out what kind of performance the EAH4870 DK Top brings to the table."

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"eStarling has taken the digital frame and merged it with social networking features to help you connect with friends and families. The built in WiFi makes it a cinch to send pictures to the frame directly from your computer, through email or even from your cell phone."

"And all you have to do to be a part of it all is to simply own one. But what about those people that want to take it a step further? There are bloggers all around the world wanting to get their word out, and what better way to do it than the net? And what better format than audio. You spurt your random nonsense into a microphone, send that crap to cyberspace, and every person on the planet with an internet connection has access. And the peeps over at X-OOM have the studio to help you make your dreams of being a world-wide-blabbermouth come true. Today I'm checking out X-OOM's Podcast Studio, and I'll check out the joys of podcasting for myself. But first, check out the info:"

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“First thing that crosses everyone’s mind upon mention of SSD is high price or, lower price that results in lower performances (much lower even compared with Hard Disk Drives). It doesn’t have to be always like that and many manufacturers are trying to change that prejudice when it comes to SSDs. One of those companies is Silicon Power from which we got one MLC SSD 64GB with low price (for an SSD) and promising specifications…”

“With Intel’s new Core i7 processors’ need for a new socket and X58 chipset, ASUS is marketing its P6T Deluxe as a high-end, feature-rich board that should satisfy even the most discerning consumer. With the X58 motherboards inherently being enthusiast-class, there are slim pickings out there but the P6T Deluxe is probably one of the best all-around boards we’ve ever come across.”

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"With the Dark Knight S1283 Xigmatek presents a towercooler which should have an enormeous cooling potential. Three heatpipes with eight millimeters in diameter are directly built into the ground plate through the "Direct Touch" process. You'll also find a big and silent 120 mm fan to transfer the heat to the environment. Special about the Dark Knight is its very good looking black design."

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"Windows Vista of course, has lots of extra features, which usually means you need a faster computer to keep the same speed as the previous generation. One of the most basic things people do with their comptuers is browse for files using Explorer. Sometimes you can think your comptuer is really slow, because Explorer is busy getting video or photo thumbnails, or doing other automatic things to "make your life easier".

Explorer can be made to display faster if you toggle some of these optional features off. The result of these tweaks mean your Vista computer will only work faster, at a cost of some eye candy."

“Aten is a company I’ve checked out before, not surprisingly, both times it was a KVM switch. If you don’t know already, that’s because that is all Aten does. KVM’s, are used to control 2 or more computers from a single set of “Keyboard, Video and Mouse”. Almost every computer repair shop and server farm admin uses or wants to use a KVM. It keeps the costs down, and just make things easier to deal with. Server farms can have hundreds of computers controlled by half a dozen KVM switches that takes up only a single "U" worth of space. If you've ever seen '24' you've seen them go to the giant server room and pull out a sled that has a LCD monitor and keyboard built in, that is a KVM unit.“

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"SSD drives are slowly making it on to the market but the prices still scare alot of people of. The SSD drive does not have any movable parts which makes it completely silent and also more well performing than our current harddrives. Price and small drives are still the main issue but I have seen over 200GB drives hitting the market already although today we are taking a look at a 64GB SATA 2 drive from Gskill."

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"Blu-ray DVD technology has been taking off recently and prices on the Blu-ray players have dramatically come down over the past year. If you're in the market to buy a new DVD player for your home entertainment setup you might want to take a look at getting the Samsung BD-P2500 Blu-ray DVD player. It delivers very good image quality and sound features, such as Netflix streaming functionality, that help make it one of the best (and one of the cheaper) Blu-ray DVD players around."

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"The new Lian Li Silent Force 750W (PS-S750GE) PSU arrived Technic3D. See you in the following Review from Technic3D the next High efficiency PSU with 135mm Fan, four 12V rails, 6 Serial ATA connectors and 2x PCI-e 6+2 Pin. 100W Overpower output for one hour continuously (Maximum)?"