Week of July 27, 2008

“Well, I'm back yet again. A scant few weeks ago, I took a look at Thermaltake's fairly good ProWater 850i kit, making just one observation - performance could probably see a great improvement if another, larger radiator had been added. While this concept had in fact been done before on their BigWater 745i, it was stunted by mediocre radiators, a weaker pump, and an older waterblock. Considering that two of these three factors were corrected in the 850, logic would dictate that throwing the third improvement in would make this kit really shine. Though it's a shame that I don't have the older kits on hand to give a performance review against, I feel that this pair of reviews should give users a good idea of the performance they stand to gain, provided they have the desire, and the space to plumb a second radiator, as well as a videocard waterblock into the loop. That being said, let's crack open the box and see just what a $70 upgrade entails.”

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake TMG2 Radiator SHOPPING & PRICING

" ... Both CF cards offer a lifetime warranty, total capacity of 8Gb, and supports the new higher 266X speed. There were no compatibility issues at all when used with our aging Canon EOS 300D digital camera. "

CLICK HERE FOR Adata 8Gb Compact Flash Card 266X SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston 8Gb Compact Flash Card 266X SHOPPING & PRICING

"Now before you go and say "oh no, not another enclosure review", this one has something that most barebones HDD enclosures don't. It has the ability to be networked directly from your switch or router without needing a host machine. So essentially you plug this into your switch (or router) and everyone on your network has access to this drive which is useful in many ways."

CLICK HERE FOR EDGE DiskGO 160GB Network HDD SHOPPING & PRICING

The price of LCD screens has steadily declined and in the last few years, larger monitors are starting to become relatively affordable. This is especially evident in the 19", 20" and 22" categories, where we see a significant number of products in the sub-$300 range. However 24" and larger screens still remained premium products until very recently. In the last year or so we have seen the first 24" screens to dip below the $400 mark appear on the market. The products in this new category of value oriented 24" screens almost universally combine a large and cheap TN panel with a basic monitor housing and stand to produce a cost effective product.

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung SyncMaster 2493HM Widescreen Monitor SHOPPING & PRICING

The ECS A770M-A motherboard is based on the AMD 770 chipset and supports the latest AM2+ processors available (up to 95W TDP). It provides four DDR2-1066 capable sockets, one PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, eight channel HD audio and eSATA. This affordable board provides the basics you would need to build a budget AMD system and allows you to save your cash or spend it on other components. If you happen to be in the market for a reasonably priced, no frills motherboard you will want to check out this review. Read on to find out if the A770M-A has what it takes to be the foundation of your next build.

CLICK HERE FOR ECS A770M-A Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

Today we will be covering the ATI top card in the form of the 4870. The 4870 is based on the long awaited RV770 from AMD. The RV770 core was manufacturer from the 55 nanometer technology. This whole technology is what gave us DirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1 and PCIe 2.0 support. The most impressive feature that we see in the new 4870 GPU is the GDDR5 which is clocked at 900MHz in this new AMD card.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire HD 4870 512MB SHOPPING & PRICING

In today's world of ultra mobility, technology companies seem almost uniformly focused on developing smaller components designed to accompany us just about everywhere. Remember the early mobile phones? For those of us old enough to remember, the first commercially available cell phone came out in 1983 - the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x. It weighed in at a hefty 28 ounces and measured 13' x 1.75' x 3.5'. Talk time was about 30 minutes, it took roughly 10 hours to recharge, and could go a whole 8 hours between between charges! And by the way, this 'little' beauty could be purchased for just shy of $4,000 U.S. when it hit the market on March 6th, 1983.

CLICK HERE FOR Tagan Monolith SHOPPING & PRICING

"With a card that is overclocked well above the standard version, there is usually very little overhead to push the video card even further without voltage or BIOS mods that, of course, void your warranty. With the additional cooling capabilities of the Toxic HD4850 I was able to max out the Catalyst Control Panel clock speeds on just the first go-round. 700MHz on the core and 1200 on the memory - not too shabby! Then I started to push further. But, to do so, I needed to download and use the AMD GPU clock tool. This utility allowed me to set clock and memory speeds above those from the CCC. The highest GPU core speed that was at least 3DMark06 stable was 740/1212; unfortunately, this was stable only for just the Futuremark benchmark. So, I started backpedal.ing until I finally stopped at 731MHz on the GPU core and 1206MHz on the memory. This setup was good for all of our benchmark suite, as well as an extended COD4 session just to verify that the settings were indeed "good". The additional cooling that is offered by the Zalman cooler kept the temperatures in check, with a maximum temperature of 64 Celsius in my 27 Celsius room."

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire HD4850 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Like most of their recent coolers, the Zalman CNPS9300AT uses a circular heatsink design, and just like previous 9000-series coolers the CNPS9300 uses an upright orientation with heatpipes connecting it to the base. CNPS stands for Computer Noise Prevention System, and Zalman uses this designation on all products designed for noiseless operation. Can an air cooler designed to be "noiseless" really provide enough cooling for modern processors?"

CLICK HERE FOR Zalman CNPS9300AT CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

As with all things, CPU cooling solutions have a "circle of life" and today we will be looking at the continuation of the TRUE line with the "TRUE Black 120". This cooler is not a major refinement upon the TRUE line as it is the same design as the regular TRUE, but it is more of a Special Edition than an actual successor. This all-black model is all about looks by taking the striking design of the TRUE and making it bark at the moon.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermalright TRUE Black 120 CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

Perhaps the most important asset of the Super Talent Pico-C is its tiny form factor combined with its large capacity of 8 GB. Read performance was up to par with other drives. In terms of build quality and looks, the flash-based USB drive is very solid and sleek, although susceptible to fingerprints. It is also waterproof, which is a great thing.

CLICK HERE FOR Super Talent Pico-C 8GB USB Flash Drive SHOPPING & PRICING

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

“Olympus E-520 is considered as ticket to D-SLR world and its price speaks for itself. When you take this model into your hands you really got the feeling that you are holding a quality pro model that can accomplish a lot. For testing purposes we’ve got two additional lenses: Zuiko Digital ED 50 mm Macro and telephoto lens Zuiko Digital 50-200mm (equivalent of standard 100-400mm). Olympus E-520 is available in two variants: kit with zoom lens Olympus Digital 14-42mm (we got this one also on test) and variant without this lens (just body)…”

CLICK HERE FOR Olympus E-520 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Not all electrolytic capacitors are manufactured equally. Japanese and solid caps have better quality, protecting your equipment from the infamous capacitor leakage problem and also increasing the life-span of your equipment, especially if it works at high temperatures, like it is the case with power supplies. In this short tutorial we will teach you how to identify Japanese capacitors and why they have a better quality."

Thankfully, the crazy engineers over at BFG aren't allowed to leave the facility and must work on nothing other than creating the fastest cards around. The card we are speaking of today is none other than the GTX 280 H˛OC edition from BFG. Fitted with the newest full-face water block from DangerDen and overclocked for good measure, this is one serious card. But underneath all of the copper and silicon lies a softer side, a greener side. You see this card doesn't just churn out frames faster than anything you've ever seen before, it also likes to save you money by using less power while it's not gaming. Read on to find out what other wonders this card holds and if it deserves a spot in your next build.

CLICK HERE FOR BFG GTX 280 H˛OC SHOPPING & PRICING

"When visiting the Channel Expo trade show in Birmingham a few months ago, I stumbled upon one booth with a product that really caught by eye. The booth was owned by "TheGamingCollection.co.uk" who were demoing a new version of the classical gaming chair, this one called the Renegade. It features speakers in headrests, 12 individual motors for rumble response from the chair itself, and a built in drinks holder and storage space. Needless to say, with my quick impression at the show I had to get one for review, and thanks to GamingCollection, that was made possible. So today it's time for me to take a second, more detailed look at the Renegade Gaming Chair."

"In this review we will be looking at the X48 BlackOps from Foxconn. This is an enthusiast designed motherboard with the intent to cover the entire enthusiast spectrum. Weekend and professional overclockers will enjoy the powerful bios options, gamers will enjoy the easy of use and hardware profile options, while the hardcore enthusiast will enjoy the variety of cooling options and wide range of available features."

"The HDT-S1283 from Ximatek may not have a name that rolls off the tongue with ease, but it is light, easy to install, easy on the wallet, and it has a spoiler; that has to at least add 1 or 2 horsepower. Aside from the possible clearance issue with some large chipset coolers I didn't find anything that I didn't really like about the HDT-S1283..."

A couple of years ago we had a look at several gaming and illuminated desktop peripherals from Revoltec, including the first version of Lightmouse as well as the Fightboard and the Fightmouse of their gaming series. Revoltec have expanded their gaming series with the FightPad Advanced which is a mini-keyboard designed for FPS games and released three new versions of the Lightmouse. These are the very products we are checking out today.

Vizo is back with a new notebook cooler aimed at enthusiasts looking for the perfect blend of performance and portability. Leveraging on the success of their popular Ninja line of notebook coolers, Vizo introduces the Xena II, a lightweight and highly functional notebook cooling solution designed for 12” to 15.4” laptops. Boasting a unique tilting, 360 degree swiveling base, the Xena II looks to supplant its competition. Will Vizo’s newest addition to their notebook cooling lineup pass muster? Can it compete with other more expensive coolers in its class?

"The overall layout and design of the Rampage Extreme does indeed basically match most other Republic of Gamers parts, which makes for what is overall a pretty clean and well thought-out layout with no obvious complaints about bad component placement that I can think of. By default, the northbridge ships with ASUS' 'Fusion' cooling system which allows for water cooling of the chipset, but this can be switched to a more traditional chipset cooler, as we'll see later. The southbridge cooler also includes a spot where you can autograph your motherboard, so if you fancy yourself as the next world renowned overclocker then your scribble could be immortalised forever more as you become a God amongst men. Or something.

This particular motherboard also sports some top-notch power regulation capabilities, courtesy of a sixteen phase power supply which utilises three phases for its northbridge and two phases for memory while claiming power efficiency as high as 96% to make for a stable system that shouldn't generate too much excess heat."

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS Rampage Extreme Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

When it comes down to it, OCZ provides choice. It has clear pro's and con's and isn't for everyone, but it doesn't apologise for it - it has taken an angle and refined the Flex range to make a product of potential. Let's not stray from the fact the Flex II feels special, no, masculine in its design and it should certainly push the rest of your hardware to its limits. Coupled both with a great price and our criticisms are set schtum. Provided it has passed the essential "will it fit" question: if we wanted 4GB of ultra high performance memory to overclock the nuts off our systems - we'd certainly grab the OCZ Flex II PC2-9200 kit, then have a good night out with the wad of cash left over.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ DDR2 PC2-9200 Flex II 4GB Series SHOPPING & PRICING

NVIDIA's new GeForce 9800 GT Series is not really new. The performance, specification and GPU are identical to that of the GeForce 8800 GT. Only a few minor features like Purevideo HD and Hybrid Power are present. At least Zotac showed a bit of creativity and added a bright orange PCB and higher clocks out of the box.

For the power hungry overclocker and the bling-happy enthusiast, Benchmark Reviews brings you a review of Crucial Technology's 4GB Ballistix Tracer DDR2-800 kit (BL2KIT25664AR80A). Outfitted with red LEDs, tight timings, and EPP settings that go up to DDR2-1000, could the Ballistix Tracer be the overclocker's system memory kit of choice for the DDR2 platform?

CLICK HERE FOR Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB DDR2 Memory Kit SHOPPING & PRICING

"The Eagle Consus External Hard Drive Enclosure does a great job doing what it was meant to do. There really isn't a lot to say in conclusion, as it neither really came out and wowed me, but it also didn't disappoint. Typical transfer speeds were seen, even when equipped with a hard drive that can handle much faster. However, it still did beat out the other external hard drives in all but one metric. The sturdy feel of the casing makes me feel comfortable dropping an expensive drive in and not really needing to worry much about damage it might encounter. Eagle's attention to packaging and included accessories was a nice surprise that most manufacturers miss the target on. Overall, the Eagle Consus does just what it is supposed to do."

CLICK HERE FOR Eagle Consus SHOPPING & PRICING

"I'm of two minds on this wireless SD card. It's clever, unique, relatively inexpensive, and essentially universal. It's pretty, in a memory card sort of way. It has a couple of flaws that would be far from deal-breakers if, as a whole (hardware and software) it just did more. Without raw image support, this Eye-Fi creation will never be the memory card for professionals. Without open wireless networking support, it won't help the traveling photographer. The direct-to-online photo service feature is cool, but indiscriminate, posting every underexposed, blurred up-nostril without remorse."

CLICK HERE FOR Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card SHOPPING & PRICING

The Silverstone Commander ESA Edition enables complete system monitoring functionality through the nTune System Monitor. Instead of going for one of the few ESA enabled cases out there, the CMD01 Commander gives unprecedented flexibility, as you can enable ESA connectivity for any case of your choice.

"Playing games over the internet like Counterstrike or Team Fortress 2 without a headset is really frustrating. It's faster to issue commands and ask for help by speaking into a microphone than by typing on the keyboard - which usually will get you killed (virtually, we mean). That's why the serious gamer always confides in a good headset while playing. Razer, a company known for their gaming mice, is releasing a headset pompously dubbed as a "gaming communicator", the Piranha. It's an entry-level model when compared to the Barracuda headset, which has a bigger size and more sound features. Let's proceed to our field test of the Piranha."

CLICK HERE FOR Razer Piranha Gaming Headset SHOPPING & PRICING

“After tabulating the results, CPU temps are kept well within very reasonable levels across the entire spectrum of testing. While standard system use is really good, at a full 1GHz overclock, we start to see the limitations of copper and heat pipes as is the case with most every air cooler. Above these frequencies, most every cooler starts to suffer simply due to physics. If you're cranking out the insane frequencies beyond this, you'll naturally want to consider water cooling. The speed and ease of the installation coupled with the performance have me considering recommending the SunbeamTech Core Contact Freezer as the ideal cooler for those who build gaming or performance systems.”

CLICK HERE FOR SunbeamTech Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

Xthermal are a Polish company who design fans aimed mainly at those seeking a silent cooling solution, today we have the pleasure of looking at two of their products; the Xthermal BTF80 and 120 Pro.As the names suggest the BTF80 is an 80mm fan and the BTF120 is a 120mm fan.

Today for review I've got the Tempest Mid-Tower PC case from NZXT, this case is actually rather large, and it includes six 120mm fans to keep your system nice and cool. To be honest, when I saw those six fans included I was expecting a fairly loud case, especially with a name like 'Tempest', but I was very pleasantly surprised when I powered my system on to hear only a low hum coming from the Tempest. The Tempest is not only quiet but very well made, it has lots of room to get your system in there, and the blue LED accents really add to the overall look of the case.

CLICK HERE FOR NZXT Tempest Crafted Series Mid-Tower SHOPPING & PRICING

Designed for enthusiasts with extreme over-clocking and gaming performance in mind, the GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS5 is based on the killer combination of the newest Intel X48 chipset plus support for the latest 45nm multi-core processors. The GA-X48-DS5 is CrossFireX enabled with true dual PCI-E 2.0 x16 connectivity for the ultimate in extreme gaming performance and has a BIOS full of overclocking features.

"NVIDIA has just launched the new 9800 GT which is basically the old 8800 GT. So, they haven’t really launched a new product, rather, a new name. The renaming of cards is becoming a bit of a pain in the ass, but really there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it. The best thing we can do is help keep people educated so they don’t upgrade from an 8800 GT to a 9800 GT or an 8800 GS to a 9600 GSO.

The thing is, though, these new cards come with new pricing which tends to be lower than their original counterpart, which means that they become more competitive than ever and that’s something we’re not going to complain about."

AMD's new HD4800 GPU's have created quite a stir in the computer world. Offering great performance for a low price they have managed to get Nvidia to cut their prices on most of their new cards just to get in line with AMD's new offerings. While the HD4850 is a nice card it is the HD4870 that many have been waiting for as it not only is clocked higher than the HD4850 but also comes with the new GDDR5 memory promising higher frequencies and of course more performance.

Today we are reviewing a HD4870 card from HIS, the HIS HD4870 512 MB. As the name suggests this is a basic HD4870 with 512 MB GDDR5 memory and the same cooler that we find on reference cards from AMD. We have tested the card in a variety of games and compared it to cards from the previous and the current generation of AMD and Nvidia cards.

CLICK HERE FOR HIS HD4870 512 MB SHOPPING & PRICING

There are more than enough cables for video cards, hard drives, optical drives, and peripherals. All cables are long and there should not be an issue reaching most locations in large full tower systems. The 120mm fan is very silent, I actually looked inside the grill to see if it was spinning. Having a high efficiency power supply will save money on your electric bill, another added bonus to purchasing the OCZ Technology EliteXStream 800W unit.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Technology EliteXStream 800W Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

High resolution LCD monitors are everywhere in today's market. Seems that every PC manufacturer these days includes one with their offerings and usually has some decent upgrade offerings for better and larger models at rather reasonable extra cost. As prices are dropping, it is almost crazy to think that anyone in the market for a monitor wouldn't be looking for a nice flat panel LCD monitor like the Acer AL2002W 20" wide screen monitor. Here at Benchmark Reviews, we are going to take a look at this budget minded monitor.

The Raidmax Iceberg case is a mid range enthusiast case. It features 3 -120mm blue LED fans and 1 - 120mm black rear exhaust fan. The case sports two unique one click easy access side panels and is setup with pre-drilled holes for water cooling. This case has a lot of great features going for it along with plenty of room for your hardware.

CLICK HERE FOR Raidmax Iceberg Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"While the Lubix didn't do very well with music, it did a much better job with calls. The main reason for this is because you don't need super high quality sound reproduction when you are talking over a cellphone since the compression applied by the carrier already knocks the quality down. I found these suitable for listening to calls, and the people on the other side of the phone had no complaints either. While it is a little different to have something in both ears for a phone call, it wasn't too bothersome."

CLICK HERE FOR Lubix Stereo Bluetooth Headset SHOPPING & PRICING

“Most of the 20inch monitors have similar dimensions, mostly thanks to short stand (part between base and panel itself). Because of that it is not easy to achieve ergonomically right height, if you don’t have worktable with raised stand or mount solution for monitor. Samsung 2053BW shares same faults with its competitors but it also has few advantages. Base has swivel option that allows this monitor to be rotated around vertical axis. Construction details cannot be discovered (it’s sealed in plastic casing) but we assume that it’s not that complicated and expensive solution.…”

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung SyncMaster 2053BW SHOPPING & PRICING

"When buying a hard disk drive most users are only concerned with the drive's capacity. Should you also care about performance? We compared the performance of nine mainstream 250 GB SATA-300 hard disk drive models from Seagate, Samsung, Western Digital, Maxtor and Hitachi. Is there a big performance difference among them? Is it worthwhile to pay a little bit more and get a drive with a bigger buffer? If so, which is the fastest 250 GB in the market? Check it out!"

CLICK HERE FOR 250 GB Hard Disk SHOPPING & PRICING

NorthQ are a relatively newly formed Danish company who have a diverse range of products ranging from PC cooling solutions to power supply units. We have reviewed many NorthQ products in the past, including several power supply units which we found to be very capable. Today we will take a look at another NorthQ power supply, the Black Magic Flex 650W. This is a modular PSU selling at a very competitive price.

"Some of you may be surprised by the results, while others may not. I have to admit, I expected the VIA Nano to come out on top given its superscalar out of order architecture, but I did not expect the Intel Atom to take such an overall beating. The Nano looks like a power efficient version of the Pentium 4 while the Atom looks like a power efficient version of the VIA C7. Everything old is new again?"

" You are probably like most people when they go on vacation and use a digital camera with a few memory cards. It would be great if you didn't need a computer all the time to constantly backup your photos. The MS1U from Sans Digital is billed as a digital photo bank and it does just that. It takes a laptop (IDE) hard drive and converts it into portable storage for your memory cards. "

VIA caused quite a stir a few months ago when the company first revealed initial details regarding their low-power Nano processor. At the time, the product was referred to by its internal codename of Isaiah and the president of the design center that was tasked with making the processor was decidedly outspoken, which made for some exciting reporting. When news of the Isaiah core first broke, we hopped on the line with Glenn Henry, VIA's Centaur design center president, and got many questions answered regarding the processor's architecture, features, expected performance, and the company's plans for the CPU. We also covered the official announcement of the VIA Nano processor and detailed the exact models that would be available at launch. One thing we hadn't been able to do, however, was a direct performance comparison of the VIA Nano processor versus Intel's recently released Atom, which is target at the same market segment. Thankfully, we were recently given the opportunity to take a VIA Nano reference platform for a spin to see what it could do and will be presenting our results for you here today.

"It seems like NVIDIA graphics card releases run as clock work with the Catalyst drivers from AMD. With the GTX 280, GTX 260 and 9800 GTX+ released not all that long ago, it comes as no real surprise that NVIDIA has gotten up once again and released not only one new card today, but two.

The first card is the 9800 GT which is what we have here with us now. The other is a 9500 GT which of course sits at the lower end of the scale when it comes to performance. Unlike some of the more recent releases, it seems that companies are already prepared to attack the 9800 GT with new cooling methods and overclocks. We see here that GIGABYTE has already strapped a Zalman cooler onto the newly released card and Palit are ready to go with an overclocked model carrying the "Sonic" naming scheme, too."

Overall it has to be said that Be Quiet! has made a fantastic product - it works, it has supreme efficiency, excellent quality outputs, lots of cable variation (which is perfect for a modular PSU) and is damn near silent to boot. We were really struggling to find things wrong with it because it's really not that expensive when you look at the whole package, and the only thing that grates us is the RMA to Germany - other companies offer better after-sales support.

I expected the Tuniq Ensemble 1200W power supply to perform well after seeing what the 950W Tuniq Miniplant had to offer a few months ago, and my expectations wound up being exceeded. The unit ran cool and quiet, managing to provide stable power to the beefiest system I could put together while producing a trivial ripple of a fraction of one percent.

The AirTV-1000U DVB-T TV Tuner is something you would not expect from a company like AirLive. They are known for their excellent networking products, not TV Tuners. The USB based AirTV-1000U features some interesting features, like recording, EPG and time shifting support.

“When it comes to our computers, we'd love to always have the biggest and the best. However, reality indicates that isn't always possible. But that also doesn't mean we have to "settle" when it comes to memory options. For the PC enthusiasts who are looking for quality and value, Kingston offers the KHX6400D2LLK2/4G Memory Kit, a product in their HyperX DDR2 line. The HyperX DDR2 offers faster speeds, lower latencies, higher data bandwidths and lower power consumption than DDR.”

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston 4GB PC2-6400 HyperX Memory SHOPPING & PRICING

Corsair is one of those companies no matter what they venture into it will be a success. Not only are they one of the most successful memory manufacturers but last month we took a look at their Voyager 32GB flash drive and it too was a big hit. Corsair has of lately broaden their range of products to include power supplies. The HX received great awards from around the web. based on the same tech that made the HX a hit the TX series is sure to be a benchmark in the world of power supplies. The unit that we will be taking a look at today is the 750 watt model. According to Corsair the TX is designed to give you maximum amount of power with the maximum of protection but at a minimum amount of money spent.

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair TX750W Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

The CoolIT Systems coolers are certainly a unique way to get into liquid cooling. They come pre-assembled and are maintenance free. We are taking a look at their dual card cooler for two GeForce 8800 GTXs, but CoolIT offers a very similar variant for the GTX 260/280 and for AMD cards as well.

The Thecus N5200 Pro is no doubt, an awesome unit. It is flexible, fairly easy to use, and it's fast, oh let me tell you, it is fast. But, it also is not without a few kinks. When it comes to hardware, Thecus knows a thing or two and have assembled a cutting edge NAS powered by common everyday off-the-shelf hardware tied together with a custom mini-ITX motherboard, a combination resulting in unmatched performance.

CLICK HERE FOR Thecus N5200B Pro Network Attached Storage SHOPPING & PRICING

Maxtor's diminutive OneTouch 4 Mini pushes the capacity envelope again, packing a positively huge 320 gigabytes of storage into a tiny enclosure. It's also one of the sexiest mini external drives we've seen. Is the OneTouch 4 Mini 320GB a portable storage slam-dunk?

CLICK HERE FOR Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini 320GB SHOPPING & PRICING

"The ASUS P5Q-E motherboard aims to do just that by featuring Intel's new hotness, the P45 Express chipset that has everyone buzzing. Among its many highlights, the P5Q-E delivers native 1600 FSB CPU support, CrossFireX capable, eSATA, RoHS certified and recognizes up to 16GB of DDR2-1200 memory. Wow. Considering this all comes at an affordable price point, I couldn't wait to get it in the lab and on the test bench. If you're in the market for a new motherboard, you'll definitely want to check this review out. Read on as HardwareLogic unleashes its entire benchmarking suite on this board to find out if its worthy of being the foundation of your next build."

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS P5Q-E Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"Rather than get into a lengthy and scientific analysis on the thermal resistance of various substances, I'm going to focus strictly on hard testing data. What I hope to answer in this article is simple—are there measurable performance differences between premium grade thermal pastes? And if so, how much?"

This is a full aluminum unit designed for normal and extended ATX motherboards complete with separate heat zones to enhance PSU, HDD and motherboard cooling.

" ... Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC2-9200 2Gb Kits are a must for any overclocking enthusiast who's still using DDR2 motherboards. It's capable of running even higher, reaching 1200Mhz easily ... "

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC2-9200 kit SHOPPING & PRICING

"Setting up the EVGA UV Plus+ UV16 could not be easier. First you'll want to plug your monitor into the display adapter. As the manual states, drop in the driver CD, install the driver when prompted, reboot. Once Windows comes back up you're ready to hook up the USB cable to your laptop/desktop. After an extremely brief "found hardware" your display may flash, and then will be visible on the newly attached monitor. On the two systems that I installed this on the monitor started in clone mode. A simple click on the system tray icon brings up options to change it to extended and even lets you choose which way you want to extended it..."

"Today for review I've got a bit of bling for you, we all like gold, no matter guy or girl, gold is something that signifies money, power and status in our society and has for many centuries, so how about a 24k gold plated USB drive? Super Talent has come out with a special version of their very popular Pico-C USB drive, this time they've gold plated it with 24 karat gold to add a bit of class and style to this already excellent and popular product. The Pico-C Gold is so small and looks so good that you could possibly wear it as a charm on a necklace or even a bracelet. Included with the Pico-C Gold is also a strong gold chain that can be used to attach the Pico-C to your keychain, phone or anywhere else you wish to. While the Pico-C does look good, looks aren't everything as we know, so I've put the Pico-C up against a few other popular USB drives on the market today from ATP, OCZ and Super Talents own as well. "

"When it comes time for an enthusiast to upgrade his or her processor, it's usually quite a momentous occasion. Lots of planning goes into the perfect choice of hardware, and it's not uncommon for a cooler upgrade too; as faster usually means hotter. Therefore they usually go for something something much beefier than before – not one which looks similar to the stock Intel model. It’s odd saying that as today, we've got a Spire CoolFlow for review, which does, look remarkably similar to the stock Intel heat-sink and fan. Let’s just hope it gives a boost in performance."

With this latest chipset release, ASUS has created the diverse P5Q series product line, with a total of nine different P45 models announced so far. We say "so far" only because if the company's seventeen P35-based motherboards are any indication, we can expect a few additional models down the line. The fact that ASUS offers such a vast selection of models catered to many different price points is another factor that explains the company's popularity among the D-I-Y computer crowd. The motherboard we are reviewing today is the P5Q PRO, which is squarely aimed towards the mainstream market.

"If you have an older car or truck, you don't have to envy the new car owners who have built-in iPod docks. You can have your music close at hand in your old vehicle with the new DLO TransDock Deluxe. The TransDock Deluxe is an in-car iPod dock and FM transmitter that plays your iPod through your car stereo, also charging its battery. It also allows you to play videos on bigger LCD screens (if you have them already installed on your car) and charge cell phones or any other device that can be charged thru a USB port. Let's take a good look on DLO TransDock Deluxe."

"Similar to the Silent Square EVO, the ASUS Triton 79 Amazing heatsink makes use of the fin-fan-fin arrangement to get the most from its two towers and quad heatpipes. Sandwiched in the middle is a 120mm PWM fan that spins at 1300RPM, making the Triton 79 Amazing fairly quiet under power. The heatsink is compatible with Intel socket 775 and AMD socket 754/939/940/AM2+ processors, stands 148mm tall and weighs in at 670 grams."

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS Triton 79 SHOPPING & PRICING

"If you're the paranoid type or just someone who cannot afford to have his or her data stolen, the Maxtor BlackArmor external backup drive will likely bring you a large dose of piece-of-mind. Data on the drive is encrypted with a key at the hardware level using government-grade 128-bit AES encryption, so if you lose it whoever finds it will have zero chance of recovering the data. Even better, if someone steals the drive and doesn't have the password, they can reformat the drive but the process destroys the encryption key, making all the data inaccessible even by data recovery professionals. This high level of security comes with a high price tag though, and the drive also suffers a few design drawbacks too, so you should only consider it if data security is a top priority."

CLICK HERE FOR Maxtor BlackArmor 160GB SHOPPING & PRICING

"Each and every video card is not going to overclock to the same level, just as the same CPU will not always overclock to the same level for any number of reasons. This holds true with the Palit GTX 280. When overclocking a video card, heat can become an issue in the same way that heat can impact your ability to overclock a CPU. Fortunately, I was able to push this card slightly higher than the XFX model that I reviewed. An increase of 126 MHz on the GPU core and 176 MHz on the memory are pretty stout overclocks. These speeds represent an increase of almost 18% on the GPU core and almost 14% on the memory. While not as over the top as the 9800GTX, there is definitely significant head room to play with. Does this increase in GPU and memory clock speed equate to similar performance increases? I think it's time to find out."

CLICK HERE FOR Palit GTX 280 SHOPPING & PRICING

There’s no sugar coating the fact that the Triton 85 is a turkey. With very poor thermal performance, a tricky (and easy to break) mounting system and a high price, the advantage of silent cooling is completely lost in the swamp of negativity surrounding it's other flaws.

We feel a lot of the blame can be laid at the top down design of the heatsink, which interrupts the airflow through the case and blows hot air straight down onto the motherboard and surrounding components rather than towards the case exhaust where it needs to go.

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Triton 85 SHOPPING & PRICING

" ASE Labs prides itself on giving you fair and honest reviews for all types of computer products. This is one of the reasons that ASE Labs has been around for over seven years and keeps going strong. Today ASE Labs has the Eagle Tech N-Series Pro Serial ATA to USB2 Hard Drive Enclosure on the review bench. The fair and brutally honest review follows. "

At Cebit earlier this year Cooler Master were displaying their new range of CPU coolers, however they were not quite ready for retail availability. That changed in May with the release of the Hyper Z600, a large but very stylish item which is designed to operate silently or in single and dual fan configurations. Today we will be running the Z600 through a number of tests using Intels X9770 CPU to establish just how good Cooler Masters new product is.

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master Hyper Z600 CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

"Of course, the question is: Is it worth it to spend the extra money on a BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX, rather than a standard NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280, for a nearly indistinguishable difference in gameplay? We don't think that it is. A possibly bigger question is whether or not the now lower price of the BFGTech video card can overcome the great value presented by the ATI Radeon HD 4870. The new Radeon is clearly less powerful than the GTX 280, but it is so much cheaper, its value goes a long way toward mitigating its less impressive performance. Obviously the overclocked OCX is going to afford you benchmark monkeys better scores."

Let's face it... the headset included with the Xbox 360 leaves a lot to be desired, which is why third-party companies come along and release their own products that aim to blow it away. We are taking a look at one such headset today, in the form of the Turtle Beach X3, and answer the question of whether or not it's worth its ~$90 price tag.

CLICK HERE FOR Turtle Beach X3 Xbox 360 Headset SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today I am going to be looking at a product from a company that, until fairly recently, I knew very little about. That company is Zaward and they are best know for their cooling products so it may come of no surprise that the product in question is the Zaward Gyre ZCJ010 cpu cooler. A "gyre" is a vortex so I am hoping for some decent results."

Aside from competition, it shows that ATi and NVidia are starting to recognize that of the 100% of us who would like to buy a $600 card, only about 1% actually can and do. Cutting that price premium in half opens these products up to a significantly larger audience.

CLICK HERE FOR Visiontek HD4870 SHOPPING & PRICING

"When it comes to thermal compounds, there used to be only one real choice; Arctic Silver. Unless you were building OEM type systems and selling them to others, AS was really the only viable choice for a quality high performance product. Over the past year, however, things have changed dramatically. Several new contenders have come to the front of the market place and shown that there are better solutions.

Enter GELID Solutions, a company founded in 2008 whose goal is to design and manufacture thermal solutions. Though new to the business market, the company is led by a pair of men with experience in the PC cooling industry and aiming their new and growing product line directly at the enthusiast/gaming segment."

Both the GTX 260 and the GTX 280 were launched a little over a month ago and while the higher end 280 was available immediately at launch, the less expensive 260 was greeted with a paper launch. Since that time, Nvidia seemed to have been surprised by ATI's launch of the HD4800-series of cards which turned out to be extremely successful and performed above what many expected them to. In order to combat these lower-priced cards, Nvidia has sent the prices of the GTX 280 and GTX 260 into freefall. Once retailing for a bit over $400, GTX 260 cards can now be had for a shade under $300 after rebates here in Canada in some rare cases. Say it with me again: "competition is good".

CLICK HERE FOR BFG GTX 260 896MB Video Card SHOPPING & PRICING

The Raidmax Iceberg impressed us with its sturdy and quality construction. We were definitely not expecting an aluminum case to be so strong, but the thick aluminum of the Iceberg makes it one of the strongest cases we've seen. The design of the case also makes it one of the easiest to disassemble, from the nice side panels to the easy-to-remove front panel. Cooling options provided were also very decent, with four fans out of the case.”

CLICK HERE FOR Raidmax Iceberg Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"Overclocking this board took a lot of trial and error, but I finally managed to get it stable and good to go. The CPU core voltage maxes out at 1.30v on this board, so you are limited in how far you can push it. Also it did not like a multiplier greater than 14x, after that the computer would not even boot. I also had to put the HyperTransport multiplier to 10x to have the link remain stable. Since I could not modify the memory settings, which had a default 1:2 divider, they had a mind of their own. After all of the bumping and resetting of the CMOS I finally got to 2.950GHz stable, and no problems while running the benchmarks. So with that, the overclocked tests will be run at 2.950GHz on the Phenom X4 9850."

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS M3N78 Pro SHOPPING & PRICING

The Lian-Li V1010 is the successor of the very popular V1000. It now incorporates some of the new and unique features, which you will find in the X2000 or X500, at a much lower price point.

CLICK HERE FOR Lian-Li PC-V1010 Aluminum ATX Case SHOPPING & PRICING

When I choose a computer case, I am often drawn towards a couple of things: good looks and cool features that will make building and using the computer enjoyable. Thermaltake, makers of a wide variety of computer products, sent us a sample of one of their new cases, the Thermaltake M9D mid-tower computer case, which from the package seems to combine stylish looks with a sophisticated design. Can their case live up to these lofty goals?

So youve picked up a fancy new iPhone have you? Youve spent at lease two hundred dollars on one of the hippest phones available. What should happen if you ever dropped your baby? Well it would be scratched and perhaps even broken. How are you supposed to start conversation with other Apple enthusiasts or the average Joe if your iPhone looks like a piece of crap? Simple. You fork over some cash for the OtterBox Armor Case.

CLICK HERE FOR Otterbox Armor Case for iPhone SHOPPING & PRICING

Underneath almost every GTX 280 cards sticker is the same card in the GTX280 family of cards, with differences being cosmetic in nature in almost every case. There are a few bold partners who make spec changes and such, but that is a limited number of cards being brought to market at best. My point is this; almost every GTX280 you see on the shelf was made with the same spec and same manufacturing procedures so who you buy from becomes a very valid concern in a sea of manufactures. Palit is the biggest NVIDIA and ATI partner with the positions and distribution levels to bring solid business to the game. The Palit GTX280 is another Editors Choice product as it features the fastest single chipset card in the world the NVIDIA GTX280 and Palit’s card is priced at under $500.00, a winning price at this time point.

CLICK HERE FOR Palit GeForce GTX 280 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today for review I've got a new entry into the thermal compound competition, it's from Coolink and it's called Chillaramic. The '-ramic' part of the name denotes that it is a ceramic based compound, something that is sort of rare when it comes to thermal compounds these days, most are metallic based compounds as they've been shown to have the best thermal conductive properties, but many newer ones have no metal particles at all in them. "

“One of common ways to attract customers is to redesign product from time to time. This time Toshiba Satellite’s turn came up and we tested exact model Satellite A300D-125. Letter “D” point to AMD processor but the whole story about external looks can be applied also on Intel variant.

In two words – dazzle everywhere. Not only has that cover partially looked like mirror but the complete keyboard is done in shine black so-called piano finish. Notebook looks powerfully despite the fact that is actually real magnet for dust and fingerprints…”

CLICK HERE FOR Toshiba Satellite A300 SHOPPING & PRICING