Week of July 26, 2009

We live in the multimedia age that is ever growing and has created wonderful possibilities. Never before has there been various ways where we can attain and enjoy media on our personal computers. We have a vast variety of media to enjoy such as high definition videos that we can download, video blogs that we can watch, and streaming media such as YouTube that we can enjoy. There has never been a better era to live in and the fact that these technologies are still advancing makes it so interesting to look forward to.

"The ASUS M4A79T Deluxe is a premium AM3 motherboard for discerning consumers that want to push their AMD system. How stable is this board? How high can I push my overclock? How well does the BIOS function with the latest in the Phenom II line-up? These are questions we hope to answer as we push this board to find out."

For now, the HD 4890 is ATI's best video card besides the dual-chip HD 4870 x2. With an overclocked out of the box clock speed of 870MHz and a memory clock speed of 1050MHz, the Sapphire Vapor-X video card is faster than the default clocked HD 4890s on the market. This card is available on Newegg for $249.99 making it a $30 premium over the 1GB version of the same card. 2GB only really makes a difference when high resolution AA+AF is enabled. Also be aware of the system requirements are slightly wrong on their website.

“Soon after presentation of E-30 model, that introduced a lot of new features like 11 focus points and HyperCrystal II display, we had a chance to test successor of E520 model: E-620. Although this model also belong to entry level DSLR cameras it shares many features with much advanced E-30 model. Body, for example, is made out of rigid plastic and very much looks like body of E-30 model…”

"The Sentry 1 controlled five fans, featured a monochromatic screen and fit a 5.25" drive bay. The Sentry LX also controlled five fans, but featured a multi-colored display and took up two 5.25" drive bays. The new Sentry 2 combines a multi-colored LCD of the LX with the compact form of the Sentry 1 and adds a touchscreen display. Let's take a closer look!"

Logitech's G13 Advanced Gameboard is a solid creation and it looks amazing. It provides a great set of functions for RPG games and strategy games.

Serious gamers need serious hardware; tons of fans and quality gear are a must. When we first reviewed the Solano 1000 we were incredibly impressed with its performance and “bang for your buck” attributes. Azza has welcomed us again to try out the Azza Fantom which is essentially the exact same case with one led HDD rack and a snazzy new bezel. Let’s take a close look at this case and see how well it stands up next to the latest Thermaltake:

"Today we reviewed Cooler Master V10, a giant air cooler that besides having 10 heatpipes also uses a TEC (Thermo-Eletric Cooler), a.k.a. Peltier cooler. Will this device really make a difference in refrigeration performance? Let's see."

"When the AeroCool Touch-2000 is installed, it is a thing of beauty. It's very modern and touch screens are all the rage these days and are showing up virtually everywhere. At $53.99 shipped, you can certainly find a cheaper fan controller but not one with an integrated temperature monitor, touch screen operation and the added bonus of audio jacks, eSATA and USB ports...."

If you happen to have the Leadtek version of the GTX275 then you are in luck, because today I will show you exactly what you have to do to get this cooler to fit perfectly on your GTX275. Don't worry, its nothing that takes an advanced knowledge of machining, just a few tools from the garage are all you will need. These include a saw, or any other cutting device such as a Dremel (I did it with a hack saw). Certainly a Dremel will make it much easier. You will also need a screw driver. Not too demanding hu? Thats enough talk, lets take a closer look at this cooler.

Choice is something that end users love to have and the Element G is all about that. The abilities to control everything from fan speed, noise level, and to even the flavor on the day fan color is incredible. On the inside the modular type setup allows you freedom to set things up the way you want them and not compromise layout or cable management.

Historically most people couldn't justify the expense of a dual-monitor setup in spite of the productivity gains multiple screens afford. So most people were relegated to drooling over the possibility while watching movies like "Swordfish" (possibly the most eye popping multi-monitor setup ever) or the 2008 remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" which reflects not only the broad adoption of multi-display configurations, but also demonstrates currently available "next generation" display technologies like Microsoft's "Surface". Today, even entry level PC's as well as nearly all laptops have graphics cards capable of multi-monitor support - so at Benchmark Reviews we decided to address the most important questions: "Will you really be more Productive?", "What do you need to know?", and "What will it cost?". Benchmark Reviews will answer all of these ! questions in-depth in this article on Using Dual-Monitors to Optimize Productivity.

If you have ever lost or damaged your notebook’s power cable before you understand how important and expensive they can be. The cable for my Eee PC runs just under $55 bucks on Amazon right now, and my old laptop’s cable was even more than that. Cooler Master recently introduced their SNA95 power supply for notebooks. With 95 watts and adapters to fit almost any available notebooks the SNA95 looks like it could be a good replacement or supplement for your notebook. Let’s take a closer look.

If you want a modern video card that runs DirectX 10 games there really isn't another choice than the HD 4650 on the market right now. NVIDIA has abandoned the AGP market, with the last AGP video card the 7900GT, which is a DirectX 9.0 product and not competitive with the HD 4650 in any respect. The GeForce 6800GT was not playable at 1280x1024 on DirectX 9.0 games but on the other hand this was one of the first DX 9.0 supporting cards, so that is to be expected.

The Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB SATA hard drive is an excellent choice for putting together a ‘green’ external storage solution. Putting this drive in an external enclosure, or better yet a NAS, will allow for some energy savings, especially if the drive is accessed frequently. I can definitely see myself putting a LP drive (or more) in a NAS to replace my expensive home server.

If you need to move a lot of data around then the Patriot Xporter Magnum 64 GB is a great choice for you. It offers enough storage for all your needs on the road and pairs that with maximized transfer rates of up to 33 MB/s. Patriot has also thought of aesthetics and designed their $150 USB stick in a menacing red.

"Toughpower XT is an updated version of the famous Toughpower series from Thermaltake, featuring two novelties. First, a set of three LEDs that gives you basic status about the power supply working conditions. Second, a switch where you can configure the power supply fan to keep spinning for 15 or 30 seconds after you turn off your PC, which in theory can increase the product life-span. Another difference is the use of a single-rail design, while the original Thoughpower series uses a four-rail design. Let's test the 750 W model and see if it is a good buy."

" It's been a while since I've taken a look at any PC cases here I think... but I've got three of them coming up for review now. The first being what I have today from Xclio, the Godspeed One Advanced. This case features speed controlled side and top mounted fans, and enough room for a decent system to fit in it. Overall it's not a bad case, but there are some minor issues that I came across that need to be mentioned, so read on to learn more...."

"The Enermax ECO 80+ EES 350AWT PSU arrived Technic3D. See you in the following Review from Technic3D the 350W PSU with two +12V rails (17A), 120mm Twister Magma Fan, 4x SATA hard disk connectors and 1x PCI-e 6 Pin."

Since the Gigabyte Geforce GTX 285 is non-overclocked, it should perform just like any other Geforce GTX 285 out there. It will be interesting to to see how the Gigabyte Geforce GTX 285 will actually perform against other Geforce based cards on the market. Can Gigabyte deliver the goods? ... Will the hardcore gaming enthusiasts consider Gigabyte as a serious contender to players like XFX, BFG or EVGA?

With the GA-MA790FXT-UD5P Gigabyte send a new high-end AMD socket AM3 motherboard into the race. As a result of using DDR3 memory there should be a small performance increase. How the MA790FXT performs this is what you can read on the following pages.

We have all three cases in the Element lineup in our lab at this very moment. We're bringing you the Element G right now as it is one of our favorites. Thermaltake labels the Element line as professional cases but the G version is more gaming than professional, making it a favorite of ours. The Element G has a lot to offer in addition to plenty of room for storage and very colorful lighting. To control the flashy colors illuminating from the fans, Thermaltake put a knob at the top of the case . What else is there? Read on and find out.

"Lately we've seen several SSDs that feature the Indilinx "Barefoot" controller and Transcend's Ultra is another such multi-layer SSD, so we know it's going to be very fast. The question is how does it stack up against some other popular SSDs on the market? Today we’ll pit it against some of the fastest traditional hard disk drives and SSDs to find out."

Today we are taking a look at the our first tri channel ddr 3 kit. Corsair was kind enough to send us a 6Gb kit of their 1600MHz memory. With timings/latency at 7-7-7-20 we are looking at quite decent timings so it is going to be interesting to see what we can do with it when it comes to the overclocking part of this review.

“When everyone thought that DDR2 memory is “dead” and that there will be no innovations in that area, OCZ surprised us with new Low Voltage modules that provide respectable performances. These modules can be recognized by LV mark and found in Blade and Platinum series. We got two kits from Blade series that are certified at 1066MHz and 1200MHz. Most important feature of these modules is their performance levels at nominal (DDR2) voltage (1.8V) and even small overclock margin. Chips used on these modules can achieve maximum performances at 2-2.1V so adding more voltage will not result in performance gains…”

"Physically, Phenom II X2 core is a quad-core Phenom II die. Rejected quad-core dice are locked down to obtain processors with fewer cores and maximize yield. Athlon II, it turn, has the Regor die with two physical cores and no L3 cache. As a result, this die is only 117.5 mm², while Deneb takes up 258 mm². It will be interesting to see how the lack of L3 cache affects performance of the K10 core."

Designed with a military theme in mind, the Ammo features many things that set it apart from ordinary 2.5' enclosures. Made of military grade metal, the Ammo is designed to withstand harsh conditions. Along with its data access RFID security feature, the physical protection of the drive was thought of as well. Within the enclosure is a silicon absorbing unit that reduces vibration and physical damage to the drive. Paired with the military grade casing and RFID security feature, In Win's Ammo is much more than a standard drive enclosure.

When it comes to a cool feature packed Network Attached Storage device you'll be hard pressed to find anything more versatile than the QNAP TS-219P NAS. It comes with a whole laundry list of features specific to the task of serving up files but also for serving up other things like web applications, multimedia content, dynamic database content and even downloading files over BitTorrent.

Continuing our series of AMD-based motherboard reviews, today we have a review of Gigabyte's budget-oriented GA-MA770-UD3. This is one of the most popular AM2+ / AM3 compatible motherboards on the market for the simple reason that it offers a seemingly unbeatable price / performance with a rich feature set. Let's hope it can live up to everyone's lofty expectations.

MSI are a big brand when it comes to motherboards and they've received world wide regard for their P35 motherboards. Since then, not everything has gone their way, though, with some critics disappointed with their P45 range in part down to the BIOS configuration.

You’ve got that 2.5″ hard drive just laying around, why not use it? Icy Dock’s new MB663USR-1S has got you the fix for whatever you and your drive need, whether its internal or external, expanding laptop memory or enhancing a desktop. Though, that does seem like an awful lot for one piece of bay equipment to handle. Luckily for us, Icy Dock has sent us one to put to the test ourselves.

The ASRock A790GXH/128M motherboard with the AMD 790GX chipset and the SB750 southbridge is not only designed for Socket AM2, but it is also an excellent board for newer AMD Socket AM2+ and AM3 processors with support for DDR2 memory modules. It offers enormously high overclocking results and also the onboard graphics unit is very positive, but read more in the following ocinside.de test report.

"Electronics giant Samsung has just introduced a new 8GB touch screen sensitive video MP3 player called the Samsung YP-P3. As you might expect, it's practically bursting at the seams with features, chief amongst these being a large, bright 3-inch colour LED display that has a swanky new touch screen interface, the kind popularized by a certain competitor's iProduct."

The house hold computers these days are pumping out mass amounts of wattage that we have previously never seen before. Along with this huge power output is in efficient energy lost due to heat. Temperature is an overclockers worst enemy not to mention the long term effect it has on your expensive computer components. There are a number of cooling options these days but the large majority use air cooling because liquid cooling and the over the top liquid helium and nitrogen cooling are way to expensive. This is where our friends at CoolIT come in to the picture with their very affordable liquid cooling option the Domino, with no messy liquids to top up or leaks to destroy your expensive hardware. Let’s get a good look at this evolution in cpu cooling technology:

Storage sizes and speeds have changed over the years, but nothing really ground breaking until now. Solid State Disk drives are the way of the future and today we are going to look at one of Patriot Memory's Torqx 64GB SSD's

"As you can see, Windows 7 performed very close to what Windows XP did. Windows XP only lasted 9 minutes longer than Windows 7 at idle, but both lasted over 10 hours on our ASUS Eee PC 1005HA! Our movie playback test showed a slightly larger difference of 26 minutes, but we were still satisfied with the results. Our overall impression is that we were not overly impressed with Windows 7's battery life performance, but it did not disappoint, either...."

"Strip away the plastic shell, aluminum cladding and Chiclet-style keys, and every netbook boils down to almost exactly the same hardware. They all seem to share about 90 percent of their DNA - which is why many companies are starting to look past the stagnant hardware inside and turning to the outside as a way to stand out. Asus already joined the party with the fashion-savvy S101, then with the metal-clad 1002HA, and now continues its quest for thin with the 1008HA Seashell. It may not pull anything unusual under the hood, but super-slim dimensions and a sleek shell make it one of the most lust-worthy netbooks we've laid eyes on."

Power supplies are often a neglected part of any computer rig. They have neither the interest of a graphics card nor the features of a motherboard and so often finds itself bottom of the list when it comes to building a rig. However, the humble power supply is an essential part of any computer and a bad unit can ruin not only itself but also other components. Other things to consider are the peak output power, efficiency and whether it is SLI ready, but the main thing that a PSU needs to achieve is rock solid rail stability. OCZ sell a range of different wattage units and today we look at one from the ModXStream range that aims to achieve all this and more. Introducing the OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W…

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W Power Supply PRICING & SHOPPING

OCZ expands the Reaper series with the HPC tri-channel kit. This one runs at 1866 MHz and offers CL8 right out of the box. The heatspreader design with heatpipe cooling looks menacing, but will it manage to keep cool under pressure when we push the memory to the limit and reap some praise?

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Reaper HPC 6 GB DDR3 1866 MHz CL 8 Kit PRICING & SHOPPING

The GM-M8000 from Gigabyte is the newest gaming mouse to hit the market. Nicknamed the Ghost, the M8000 is aimed at the gamer that wants it all: performance, precision and speed. The Ghost offers an industry highest 4000 DPI. Of course, DPI of this nature and speed is not one for the weak. At 4000 DPI, you will see the pointer zoom across the screen at an incredible rate. If you can control it, you're nearly guaranteed to beat any enemy in an FPS.

Considering the state of the global economy, along with local recession and unemployment, performance computer builders have had to make some difficult decisions. It's not easy to convince enthusiasts that they should invest their money in mechanical hard disk products in the age of Solid State Drives, especially when performance favors SSD's almost two-fold. But the cost of high-performance HDDs has remained very affordable, and the capacity is ever-expanding. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the 300GB Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 10,000 RPM SATA Hard Disk Drive against a large field of high-performance storage solutions.

CLICK HERE FOR WD VelociRaptor 300GB PRICING & SHOPPING

"Throughout the review I was really rooting for this heatsink. I was originally optimistic at the idea of having a passive heatsink and consequently my optimism was definitely not misplaced. Thor's Hammer turned out to be everything I expected of it and it really took the cake in terms of performance compared to any other heatsink I have reviewed thus far. Thor's Hammer even beat out the TRUE by a whole degree in the idle overclocked test. To say I was amazed would be a harsh understatement. If you are honestly looking for a good silent setup, Thor's Hammer by Xigmatech is the way to go. This heatsink will run you about $64.99, which isn't too pricey either. It's only cheaper than a TRUE by $5, though I'm not too sure if it beats it out price/performance wise but it comes close than any other heatsink I've seen yet and it uses a direct heatpipe touch, which I have up until now not seen a decent performing heatpipe touch heatsink. Overall, the only con I can really speak of is the tough installation I had with it, but apart from that this heatsink performs very well."

As multimedia technologies and uses become more prolific and part of our daily lives, consumers are looking for products that fill more than one role. Historically, TV tuners have been rather one-dimensional, good only for TV viewing (and limited functionality at that) but that's no longer the case. Rarely do people nowadays look for products that "only" support one of anything.

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS My Cinema EHD3-100 PRICING & SHOPPING

With AMD’s newest processors making a splash into the CPU market, the demand for boards based on their chipsets has suddenly expanded by leaps and bounds. MSI has been leading the rush to cater to the burgeoning AM3 enthusiast market and the new 790FX-GD70 is their new top-end contender. It makes some lofty promises but can it compete in such a competitive market?

CLICK HERE FOR MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 Motherboard PRICING & SHOPPING

SteelSeries is all about gaming. Their mission is to create performance enhancing gaming gear, created for and by leading professional gamers. SteelSeries continuously strive to better themselves and work with leading professional gamers from three different continents to create their products.

CLICK HERE FOR SteelSeries Siberia Full-Size Gaming Headset PRICING & SHOPPING

Late last year, we reviewed AMD's flagship FirePro workstation graphics card, the V8700. It was the first professional video card based on the RV770 graphics processor and it impressed us with its performance and relative affordability. Half a year later, AMD has released a new ultra high end product that promises to pick up where the V8700 left off. The FirePro V8750 sports the same RV770 GPU and 800 shader processors, but offers improved memory performance by way of 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 900MHz, which offers 115GB/s of peak bandwidth.

"The Sentry 1 controlled five fans, featured a monochromatic screen and fit a 5.25" drive bay. The Sentry LX also controlled five fans, but featured a multi-colored display and took up two 5.25" drive bays. The new Sentry 2 combines a multi-colored LCD of the LX with the compact form of the Sentry 1 and adds a touchscreen display. Let's take a closer look!"

Eagle Computer’s may not be the most well known name, but the ET-AR504LR-BK Soundstage Speakers with Subwoofer certainly have a lot to offer. You can expect excellent sound from these speakers whether you are listening to music, watching a movie or playing your favorite games. They have excellent range, you get a wireless remote and a built in equalizer display. The wood cabinets give it a more natural sound than you get with the typical plastic materials used.

"The build quality is surprisingly good for a budget case. There are no acutely sharp edges or corners, the panels slide off and on with ease and the drive bays are sized properly - not overly spacious or tight. The NZXT Beta case primarily employs rivets and bends for its construction with nary a weld in sight. The panels are thin and somewhat flexible but not excessively so and the aforementioned interior paint appeared flawless to my visual inspection. For those on a budget looking for a solid case minus the frills but offering more than the average comparable chassis, you can't do much better than the NZXT Beta..."

Since most Solid State Drives (SSDs) are NAND flash based, it's only natural for Kingston Technology to include a range of SSDs. There are 3 different series within Kingston's range of SSDs. Each series target different segments of the market. I've complied a list for easy reference.

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston SSDNow V-Series 64Gb PRICING & SHOPPING

"Today for review I’ve got the Sandisk Sansa Connect 4gb Mp3 player from Geeks.com, it’s a ‘white’ box’ so there’s not original, fancy packaging, but the product inside is in new condition. The Sansa Connect is a small MP3 player that’s easy to use, and it’s inexpensive as well, coming in at under $40. The main reason that it’s priced so low is not only because it’s an older product but because it’s limited in functionality. What I mean by this is that normally the Sansa Connect comes with Wi-Fi built into it, the one I have for review today does not, the Wi-Fi enabled ones do cost a bit more. There is a little secret though that I can share with you, you can easily enable Wi-Fi functionality with just a firmware upgrade so you get a full functioning Sansa Connect for about $20 less than one that comes with it already enabled. So read on to learn more about this great little MP3 Player from Sandisk… "

CLICK HERE FOR SanDisk Sansa Connect 4GB MP3 Player PRICING & SHOPPING

“This time in our test lab arrived new member of HAF (High Air Flow) family: 922 model. Design, target user group and idea are the same as for its older brother HAF 932 except this is mid tower chassis. Chassis is made out of steel and plastics with mash front grill. Exterior is black with front mask that is dominated by “silver” Cooler Master logo…”

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master HAF 922 PRICING & SHOPPING

Last year, Silverstone sent me their updated Impervio based replacement to the original Olympia 1kW unit, called the OP1000-E. This unit did pretty well at the time, but carried with it some issues that I felt detracted from the unit's prospects in the market.

Well, here we are in July of 2009, and the platform's been revised again. Now, I get to run the OP1000-P through my house of horrors and see if it comes out in one piece. Let's take a look and see if this one finally breaks the trend of perfectly capable but ultimately bland offerings from Silverstone.

CLICK HERE FOR Silverstone OP1000-P 1000W PSU PRICING & SHOPPING

Since the release of the Audioengine 5 (A5) speakers, a slew of websites, magazines, and newspapers have published rave reviews on these versatile, powered bookshelf speakers that are meant to introduce the average consumer into high-end audio for a retail price of $350 (though found elsewhere online for about $325). They have designed the speakers to be used with a variety of input sources and listening environments. The A5 comes with a comprehensive selection of cable accessories and conveniently placed ports, making it easy to connect the speakers to most standard audio sources, especially Apple products. But most importantly, these speakers sound exceptional. Why are they exceptional? Read on, but first let’s open the box and see what’s inside.”

CLICK HERE FOR Audioengine 5 Premium Powered Bookshelf Speakers PRICING & SHOPPING

Today we recieved a real heavy weight board on our test bench! Asus sent a sample of their Rampage 2 Extreme motherboard which really seems to be an overclocker board filled with features so you can boost the crap out of your Core i7 boards. We are going to twist and turn it to see what type of results we can get from the board.

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Rampage 2 Extreme Motherboard PRICING & SHOPPING

"A couple of weeks ago we started playing with the Samsung S3C29RBB01 controller that is found in the Corsair Performance Series and Samsung PB22-J solid state drives. We were impressed with the Corsair P256’s cost per gigabyte and found that it was a very good performer as well. The drive was able to win a couple of our benchmark tests and more surprisingly they were tasks that you would use on a daily basis, something that surprised us since our first generation Samsung drive we reviewed was heavily optimized for server orientated tasks.

One area that we just glanced over in our review was Samsung’s Self-Healing feature. Today we are going to talk about this exclusive technology that is built right into the drive. Let’s get right along with it and have a detailed look at Self-Healing to see what it does and why it is such a hot topic."

"Overclocking the Dominator GT memory was tricky. I could get close to 2000MHz, however I had to really loosen the timings to the point that the bandwidth suffered a lot. It would not run anything stable at less than 9-9-9-22 timings and that was a big jump from the stock settings. So I took a different approach and left the timings at 6-6-6-18, pushing the reference clock up a little at a time until I could not boot and pass memtest86+ without any errors. I was at a wall at 215MHz above the reference clock even when I pushed the voltage of the Dominator GT set up a bit. When I ran some tests, it was stable and performed a lot better than when the timings were loosened with the higher speed. So for the overclocking tests, I will be running the Dominator GT set at 1720MHz with latencies of 6-6-6-18."

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair Dominator GT TW3X1600C6GT Memory PRICING & SHOPPING

The graphics card market is pretty much a two man slugfest at the moment. ATI and NVIDIA trade blows at irregular intervals in a brutal game of strategy. The GeForce GTX 275 was a punch that NVIDIA held in reserve, just waiting for ATI to release their HD4890 card. When launch day came for ATI, lo and behold, NVIDIA had the GTX 275 up their sleeve, ready for production. Essentially, the GTX 275 combines the GPU of the GTX 285 with the memory architecture of the GTX 275 with performance and pricing that neatly slots between the two.

MSI is an established player in the graphics card market, and their take on the GTX 275 pulls no punches. They put together a unique design, featuring twin PWM fans and a 5-heatpipe cooler, for their N275GTX Twin Frozr OC Edition, and one look should tell you that they are serious about performance. Benchmark Reviews is pleased to offer you a detailed, fact-filled look at one of the products at the heart of the sweet spot for gaming graphics.

CLICK HERE FOR MSI N275GTX Twin Frozr OC Video Card PRICING & SHOPPING

“Today we will have a look at a unit from their ultimate performance range, the UCP 900W. The UCP (Ultimate Circuit Protection) series is designed to offer the best possible electrical performance and reliability to the most demanding of users. Today we will find out just how good the unit is.”

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master UCP 900W PSU PRICING & SHOPPING

Remember when UV first became popular? I must have spent my entire McDonald's salary tricking out my case with every UV light I could get my hands on. My PC glowed like a street racer. It was in its own movie. I eventually moved out of the UV phase and into the LED era, where I remain even today. It seems a little more conserved to me. But UV is still popular, and today's review is living proof. But this fan is much more than just a glow recipient.

It's called the Wing 12 from Gelid. Here is the down low:

Intels recent Core i7 CPUs promise plenty of processing powerwhereby the new Nehalem micro architecture brought some very basic changes. Meanwhile there is already the second pile of i7 CPUs hitting the stores with the 950 and 975 XE. This was reason enough for us to update our benchmark lists and also add the results of the Core i7 940.

CLICK HERE FOR Core i7 CPU PRICING & SHOPPING

"Up on the review block today I've got the Asus Eee PC 900A that Geeks.com has provided me for review. You might be wondering why I'm reviewing the Eee PC 900A when newer ones are out there, the reason is that it's a refurb, and Geeks kind of specializes in cheap netbooks and refurbished ones. Many people out there don't care for refurbs, but the ones at Geeks are like new, no marks, nice and clean, all ready to go for you. The Eee PC 900a is an Atom N270 based netbook with a 4gb SSD drive in it and it has an 8.9" screen along with Linux installed as the operating system. I've spent quite a bit of time playing with the 900A and have come to a few conclusions about it, and not all are good ones... "

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Eee PC 900A PRICING & SHOPPING

With the growing amount of people purchasing iPods, iPhones and other audio equipment, it’s sometimes hard to find the perfect speakers. Here today at Tech-Reviews we have a company who are relatively new in the audio department and have produced what looks like a pretty decent product. Let’s see how it performs.

CLICK HERE FOR Eagle Tech Arion ET-AR402IR-BK iDock Speakers PRICING & SHOPPING