Week of September 28, 2008

With the 9800GT from Gigabyte, you get all of the features, performance and more of the 8800GT that was the top dog among the under $200 video card market a year ago, for a more affordable price of $120 online as of this writing. With performance that rivals the other cards at this price point, the GV-N98TZL-512H video card is a solid choice as it runs cooler than the competition, is shorter so it can fit in smaller cases and is priced near the same as the ATI HD 3870 online but has higher performance. Gigabyte has done an outstanding job on another front as their card supports the Ultra Durable features and HybridPower. Two of these cards in SLI should outperform a GTX280 or come close to it for a lower price meaning that this is a good deal.

CLICK HERE FOR Gigabyte 9800GT 512MB Video Card SHOPPING & PRICING

"There are certain products in the PC hardware world that are completely dominated by big brand names like graphics cards and of course, CPUs. On the other hand, there are others that are more open and you often see little known companies popping up. One of these was kind enough to send me one of their power supplies was XSpice. The one they sent through is the Croon, and it's got a large 750w capacity. Let's see how it holds up."

Enermax are probably best known for their power supplies which have won numerous awards on DriverHeaven. The Galaxy range has powered many of our review systems since its release and newer ranges such as the Modu 82+ provide high efficiency and low noise which is ideal for the more mainstream system. Power supplies are not Enermax’s only area of expertise and they have slowly been expanding their product catalogue over the past few years to include items such as cases, keyboards and drive enclosures.

CLICK HERE FOR Enermax Aurora Premium Keyboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"The ASUS My Cinema-U3100Mini is a great USB receiver at a price that is very competitive with other brands on the market today making it a value that is hard to pass up. ASUS expects these to start selling early October with an MSRP of $49.99, which isn't a bad price in all honesty. Our contacts at ASUS have informed us that they just begun shipping these out their channel customers, so it won't get listed on Newegg and others until next week. Once they arrive they should be listed for under $50, which isn't a bad price for those that want TV on the go."

"The Gigabyte GV-R4850MC-1GH with it's fanless "Multi-Core" cooling technology is ideal for any gamer and HTPC enthusiast who cherish silence. The "Multi-Core" cooling technology really lowers the GPU temperatures by as much as 15-20 degrees Celsius over a standard stock cooler. The overall performance is on par with other Radeon HD 4850s, so it's all good here ... but for the hardcore enthusiasts, you might want to look elsewhere."

"The G800 Aerogel Extreme is aimed at professionals and enthusiasts alike that abhor having to suffer a notebook's hot exhaust on their laps. By utilizing the latest in space-age materials, the G800 lap desk is primed for consumers that demand a better cooling solution for their mobile lives. Can it deliver?"

The bottom line on the Jazz Elite HDV-188 5MP HD video camera is that it is a cool little gadget that is fun to use. It takes good photos and makes decent videos, but the conditions seem to have to be just right. It required a bit of experimentation to master the settings and to learn the limitations of the device, but I am generally happy with it.

While Zalman's CNPS9300 AT certainly isn't going to dethrone any of the top performance heatsinks, it is a very capable heatsink in a smaller frame than its older siblings. Installation is simple as long as you are used to removing the motherboard for Intel boards. Operation of the heatsink even at high speeds was quiet for me, though the amount of noise for something being silent can vary from application to application, however I wouldn't see the 9300 AT being a problem in a HTPC.

CLICK HERE FOR Zalman CNPS 9300AT SHOPPING & PRICING

"A few days ago I took a look at a Verbatim 160GB 2.5" portable hard drive and I found it to be a decent little product, but today I've got the Imation Apollo 500GB 2.5" portable hard drive for review. The Apollo is well made, looks nice, is small and portable and actually averages out to be less expensive per gigabyte when compared to others out there. "

CLICK HERE FOR Imation Apollo 500GB 2.5" Portable Hard Drive SHOPPING & PRICING

We like the HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX, we like it a lot in fact. It combines one of, if not the best third party cooling solutions we've tested with a healthy factory overclock and a custom-designed PCB that builds upon the reference design's power circuitry in particular. As you know, we're not particularly impressed with the stock cooler on the Radeon HD 4850 – it's not that it is a bad design, per se, it just doesn't do a good enough job of keeping the card cool without being a little on the noisy side. Without a doubt then, if you're in the market for a Radeon HD 4850, we'd recommend looking at one with an after market cooling solution.

In today's world, as CPU's get bigger and faster, we are finding out that not only do we want to have the fastest CPU available, but we are also wanting to gain that extra little kick by overclocking our CPU's. We also want to use an inexpensive cooling solution that will not only run quiet, but also keep our CPU's running cool without having to spend an enormous amount of money or having to spend a lot of time on setting up watercooling or phase change units. Which really leaves us only one choice left, aircooling. Aircooling is normally inexpensive and requires no real technological knowledge to set it up, while at the same time requiring the least amount of time for setting it up. Well, we may have a good canidate for that task. Today we will be looking at a new CPU cooler from Cooler Master, the V8.

"Such begins the introduction for Cooler Master's latest full tower design, the HAF 932. HAF stands for High Air Flow, which seems to be the driving force behind this case structure, with three 230mm fans plus another 140mm fan pre-installed. The entire front of the chassis consists of open mesh from top to bottom, and additional use of large openings in the side, top and rear."

Todays testing consists of the GIGABYTE EP45 Extreme and the ASUS P5Q motherboards which are based on the P45 chipset. Unfortunately we didn’t have any X48 DDR2 boards on hand to do tests with. However, looking at how well J&W have put this board together, we decided to see just how well the board can go against the new contender chipset, which is where J&W is aiming this board; a cheaper X48 with all the goodies.

"After carefully testing the Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler, you can see that it was able to keep about the same temperatures between the overclocked and the stock idle conditions, which let it tie the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme during the stock testing. But, when it was overclocked, it was 2° lower than the Thermalright. Cooler Master has done something right with this cooler, as the temperatures were lower than the previous champion, only by 1°, during the overclocked full load testing, but it was 3° higher during the stock full load testing."

"Well while there are still exposed parts of the wiring visible, the end result makes the back of the case much look cleaner. It's a mute point really, as no-one generally cares what the underside of your mobo tray looks like. But I suppose it does do what it was meant to."

"Overall, I was impressed by the ProWater 850i. Thermaltake has definitely brought watercooling to the masses. From the radiator to the clamps, everything is included. Thermaltake did a great job of ensuring this kit will fit just about any case and even included hardware and enough tubing to install it externally if it doesn't fit. The waterblock finish is excellent and the mounting system provides a very healthy amount of pressure. This kit is definitely not just for show. The ProWater 850i managed to outperform the very potent TRUE 120 with its fan at full speed and did very respectably in a silent configuration as well."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake ProWater 850i SHOPPING & PRICING

Swiss Engineering, Rolex, Army Knives, Arctic Cooling? All of these companies make a play on their Swiss heritage, but only one can be considered true value. Arctic Cooling has mesmerized with their products released in 2008, starting with their Freezer XTREME line of VGA coolers. Not only were the two samples sent over last year worthy of a rave review, but the price was in some cases half that of lesser performing VGA coolers.

Both cards are clocked at the exact same level, but feature different coolers and different sized frame buffers.

CLICK HERE FOR Gigabyte GeForce 9800 GT SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR Palit GeForce 9800 GT SHOPPING & PRICING

The Foxconn Digital Life ELA isn't an overclocking board but it has an overclocking board price. Priced at $240 on Newegg, this board is competing against boards such as the Gigabyte EP45-DQ6 and Asus P5Q Deluxe, both far superior overclocking boards. If the board were priced around $150 to $170 it would make more sense. Another route would have been to make it an mATX format to cater to the HTPC enthusiast..."

“Ever wonder why certain people love a particular car? To coin a phrase, it’s all about personality, baby. And a computer case is also about personality….though it probably won’t get you as much attention with the ladies as 007 does with the Aston. Follow along with us as we test drive the new Thermaltake Spedo Advance case and find out if it's their best to date.”

"This power supply features a modular cabling system with rounded sockets that glow blue when cables are connected and can be found being sold under several other brands such as AXP, eXtream, Hiper, Super Flower and XION and is available with several different power configurations. Featuring a 140-mm fan and with Kingwin saying that it can deliver 700 W at 50º C will this popular unit without active PFC survive our tests? Check it out."

CLICK HERE FOR Kingwin Mach 1 ABT-700MA1S 700 W Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

The mouse is the most essential piece of equipment of our computers. It not only allows us to easily access key areas of our Operating System, it also defines us as to who we are and how we go about doing that. Today, I am going to show you a mouse that can not only define us, but it will allow us to have even more control on how we can interact with our Operating Systems. This mouse has everything. It not only give's us the ability to make precise movements in games, but it gives us that same precision that we need in our other day-to-day tasks with our programs. You can go to extreme speed by pressing a button, as well as go from one profile to another with out ever loading a program to change that profile. With just a quick click of a button, you can go from one profile to another. This is just a start of what this great mouse can do. So, whatever your true needs are of a mouse, this mouse can and will give it to you. Today, I bring you, The Lachesis Mouse By Razer.

CLICK HERE FOR Lachesis Razer Mouse SHOPPING & PRICING

Antec has had great success in the computer enclosure market with several great designs ranging from mild to wild. Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere you should be familiar with one of their latter, the Antec 900, labeled as the Ultimate Gaming Case. In this article Benchmark Reviews will examine the anticipated successor; the Antec Twelve Hundred... The Unbeatable Gaming Case. With six bright LED fans and enough size to park a small hybrid car inside, could the Antec 1200 be unbeatable?

CLICK HERE FOR Antec Twelve Hundred Gaming Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"Here at XSR we’ve reviewed a lot of fans and talked endlessly about the importance of cooling and so on and so forth. However we seem to have neglected in the most part the role of the fan speed controller. In this age of HTPC, where silence is paramount, a fan speed controller is a very good idea. However can a controller compete with small programs that run in the back ground, a growing number of automatically variated fans or even motherboards that control everything automatically? I plan to find out by testing one such product, the Sentry LX from NZXT."

CLICK HERE FOR NZXT Sentry LX SHOPPING & PRICING

"With Computex 2008 under its belt, iStarUSA is once again basking in the glow of success. Unveiling the xAGE-N99-US HDD docking station for the first time at Computex this past June, iStarUSA was the recipient of the coveted Design and Innovation Award for this product. With our hands on one of the first samples offered in the United States, HardwareLogic is going deep undercover to find out if the xAGE-N99-US truly lives up to the publicity that has sprung up around it. Will the xAGE-N99-US win us over? Will this docking station make us weep with joy or cry with bitterness? Grab your tissues because we're about to find out!"

"Like most companies, Gainward has released a 9800 GTX+, but unlike most other companies, they’ve taken the time to do something with it. Today we find out what exactly that is and if it can make the 9800 GTX+ a little more exciting.

Unlike the HD 4850 we looked at from Gainward the other day, this card doesn’t come in under the Golden Sample naming scheme. That doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be an exciting card, though, so let’s check out the package before we take a closer look at the card."

"Lian-Li PC-60F to be honest is a decent chassis that's attractively priced. Yes, it looks a little boring ... but it offers excellent build quailty and with light-weight Aluminum construction. It will appeal to the more mature high-end user looking for a classy yet simplistic look."

CLICK HERE FOR Lian-Li PC-60F Aluminum Chassis SHOPPING & PRICING

“ATi surprised us with 4870 and 4850 graphics card and after that ATi did it again with 4870X2. This product was available to all users from the day it was officially launched and it reached the goal as number one by performances and by price range, as it was promised by ATi. This sudden success urged us on some thinking about new accepted ATi’s philosophy about multiGPU cards. If we look back in time, we could remember Rage Furry Maxx card as antic example and nVIDIA 9800GTX2 and ATi 3870X2 graphics cards from newer history and all of them were examples of fastest products in their own time…”

"Thermaltake V9 is steel mid-tower case targeted to gamers and usually when the manufacturer says that a case is targeted to gamers this means a good cooling system: this case has one 230-mm fan on the top panel, one 120-mm fan on the rear and one 120-mm fan on the front, plus the mesh used on the side panels use very big holes. V9 has also four 5 ¼" bays, two external 3 ½" bays and five internal 3 ½" bays, with the 5 ¼" bays and the internal 3 ½" ones featuring a screwless fastening mechanism. Let's take a complete look on this new release from Thermaltake."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake V9 Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"At idle and during video playback, we see an increase of around 70 to 80 Watts in the move from a single board to dual Radeon HD 4870 X2 - Not too bad, although 300 Watts just for Blu-Ray playback in a CrossFireX setup is rather a scary thought.

If that seems bad, you might want to look away before taking in our 3D rendering performance numbers - Almost 400 Watts for a single Radeon HD 4870 X2 is hefty, but with two boards in tandem you're looking at closer to 700 Watts, with power consumption likely to rise even higher in situations where both CPU and GPU are being pushed hard by a modern game title. Ouch."

CLICK HERE FOR AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Big doesn't have to mean expensive. Although the high-end 1080p resolution has become the de facto standard for most HDTV buyers as prices have fallen, Samsung's PN50A450 plasma-screen TV cuts resolution down to 720p in order to offer more screen real estate for the buck. Unfortunately, this corner cutting shows in the final video quality, which looks grainy and lacks the sizzle of better sets. But those who prioritize price and size over resolution may still find this extremely affordable television to be a good value. "

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung PN50A450 Plasma TV SHOPPING & PRICING

“The Tuniq Ensemble 1200 Watt Power Supply is the single largest PSU tested to date. There's obviously an enormous amount of power produced by the unit as well as an extremely respectable power efficiency rating. When purchasing this kind of PSU, you expect stable, reliable voltages for optimal system performance and it does not fail to deliver either. Granted it's large and heavy, but again, when you need this kind of power, comfort is the last thing you should concerned about. It's the Hercules of power supplies.”

CLICK HERE FOR Tuniq Ensemble 1200w Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

"The Sapphire HD4850 Dual Slot is a slightly different animal than the standard HD4850 from Sapphire. It maintains the same GPU (RV770) and amount of memory (512MB GDDR3 on a 256 bit bus), but is built on a Sapphire designed and built PCB, rather than using the reference design PCB. In addition to the non-reference PCB, there is the non-reference cooling solution to go with the board. There are no memory heatsinks used, but there is one additional heatsink at the front of the PCB. The clock speeds stay right at the factory specified 625MHz on the GPU core and 993MHz on the 512MB of memory. The card is slightly shorter than the standard PCB so this should allow some additional clearance in tight cases."

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire HD4850 SHOPPING & PRICING

The beauty of the fan and heatsink is in its simplicity, and these easy-to-install solutions offer users a nice performance bump without a big commitment. There's no doubt that water cooling is a formidable project. Chances are, if you haven't already gotten your feet wet, you're going to need a whole new case or some clever mods on the one you've got now. Taking the time to properly plan the whole thing out is enough to drive would-be overclockers back to their trusty fans and keep the air-based units blowing in from diverse manufacturers.

CLICK HERE FOR Zalman CNPS-9300 AT CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

If you've worked your way diligently through this review you will by now be thinking the 2693HM is something of a stinker. With the crappy colours, poor black tones, crushed whites, mediocre viewing angles, it certainly doesn't score highly in many areas.

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung's SM2693HM 25.5" Widescreen Monitor SHOPPING & PRICING

"In this article we return to memory speed and its effect on PC performance in real-life applications. Last time we were interested in Phenom X4 9850. Today we'll analyze a top processor from the other company -- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770."

CLICK HERE FOR Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 SHOPPING & PRICING

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

"If you have been stalling your upgrade for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, your time is now. If you are looking in the Enthusiast-class high end market, your "fastest" bet is definitely the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. It is brutally fast right now, and that should only improve over time with game and driver updates. In fact, we expect to see a good deal of the erratic framerates exhibited by AMD's 4870 GPUs to be fixed with its next driver release, but for now that is wishful thinking. However, the slower GTX 280 provided a great gameplay experience at 2560 resolution without the downspikes in framerate that annoyed us while playing the game with the 4870 X2. A good 4870 X2 will still cost you big bucks and when it comes to Clear Sky the GTX 280 is simply a better value."

CLICK HERE FOR S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky SHOPPING & PRICING

Thermaltake recently had incredible success with their version of this type of case which is called the M9. The M9 was a very good looking case and was a favorite here at Pro-Clockers. But just recently Thermaltake released a press release announcing their new case called the V9. Both cases have their similarities as well as their differences. One difference is the windowed side panel and a very large top mounted fan on the newer V9.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake V9 Gaming Case SHOPPING & PRICING

“AMD recently announced extension of its Black Edition processor lineup and as result dual cores K8 will be replaced with dual core and triple core K10 processors from 6000 and 8000 series. We got exclusive sample on test from AMD no more or less but triple core K10 from 8750 series with clock at 2.4GHz. Of course that we are talking about B3 revision made in 65nm technology process that keeps getting better and better thanks to recently introduced SB750 southbridge – chipset. SB750 has possibility of calibrating signal clock which allows free overclock for processors based on K10 cores for clocks higher than 3.2GHz…”

CLICK HERE FOR AMD Phenom 8750 Black Edition SHOPPING & PRICING

For those wanting an inexpensive card that does the job when playing back HD content or a HTPC (Home Theater PC) that wants a quiet card that doesn't draw a lot of power, the HD 4550 card will fit the bill nicely at a price of $50. ATI's reference card has HDMI and Display Port output meaning that it is better suited for the HTPC crowd than the EVGA card and can play back 8-channel Audio over HDMI which is a huge advantage for the Home Theater crowd. ATI's lineup from top to bottom is very solid with new chips on the cards. The EVGA 9500GT is a perfect example of the 9500GT cards on the market from various NVIDIA partners. This card is retailing online for a MSRP of $64.99 but there is a $15 rebate currently, making the effective price $49.99. At this price point the performance outstrips the ATI card but doesn't quite have the lower power draw of the other card nor does it have DirectX 10.1 features. A checkmark feature at this price point and performance metric, to be sure, but no NVIDIA cards supports it. EVGA's card is faster in sheer performance, but at this performance level it's a tossup for which card is really better as they both have their good points.

"OCZ had entered the gaming market niche with the Equalizer mouse, which we already tested. Now the company strikes gold again by releasing the Dominatrix, a larger model with rubber grip and adjustable weight - a common feature among top of the line gaming-grade mice. You may think it's a sex toy due to its somewhat inappropriate name (try asking for one at a friendly neighborhood gaming supply store) but if OCZ's intention was to demonstrate its capacity to dominate and beat the rivals into submission, Dominatrix is a well-deserved name. Let's see how it fares during our test."

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Dominatrix Gaming Mouse SHOPPING & PRICING

The packaging was actually folded, so when we opened the package we had to open it like a book. Once fully open we find the second of the two interchangeable grips and a brief description of the G9’s features. One thing that was mysteriously absent was a copy of their SetPoint software. It’s no big deal considering most people today have broadband Internet and after considering the fact that our G9 was a press sample, this could explain the missing CD. Anyways, what we did receive was the G9 laser mouse, a manual, a package of weights, and the two interchangeable comfort grips.

CLICK HERE FOR Logitech G9 Mouse SHOPPING & PRICING

Sapphire came out with a new 4670 series card that promise to help take those that are in the mid level area to a new high. Can a MSRP $79 USD card really help take you over the hump that you maybe be at now?

CLICK HERE FOR ATI Radeon HD 4670 Graphics Card SHOPPING & PRICING

Prior to Noctua’s announcement this past week, I’d come to the realization that it was time to build another workstation, this time for testing hard drives and NAS servers here at TweakTown. An article that will go into the details of all of the components used and why they were chosen will follow in the coming weeks, but since I have an exclusive pair of Noctua’s first heatsink designed specifically for the Opteron, we might as well take advantage of having the only pair outside of Austria.

"The ATI Radeon HD 4550 (RV710) graphics card pictured above measures in at just 6.625" in length and while it is a full height card it shouldn't have any issues fitting in nearly all of the cases on the market today. The very first thing that one notices with this graphics card is the lack of a heat sink and that is because this card only uses 20-25W and doesn't need a fan to keep it cooling. Under the heat spreader is a graphics core that has just 80 stream processors. This is far fewer than the 320 stream processors that can be found on a Radeon HD 4670 graphics card. Even with 80 stream processors the Radeon HD 4550 offers 96 GFLOPS of compute power, which isn't bad considering the MSRP on these cards will be between $45-$55!"

Anyone who has heard of ATI video cards has probably heard of Sapphire Technology. Sapphire is the largest producer of AMD/ATI graphics products in the world, and do far more than rebrand a product with their own label. The Radeon HD 4000 series launched with tremendous success not long ago, and Sapphire has tweaked the design to produce their own high-performance Toxic Edition of the popular Radeon HD 4870 video card. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests their graphics card against the competition to find out if a factory-overclocked model is worth the money.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 SHOPPING & PRICING

If you haven’t heard of Force3D before, you’re not alone. It wasn’t until the other day when I received an email from them that I knew of their existence. Concentrating on ATI based graphics cards, they have a full line-up of HD 4000 series cards starting from the HD 4650 and going all the way up to the HD 4870 X2.

"At 1333MHz, the Patriot Viper RAM was able to beat every other kit in its class at the PCMark Vantage tests, however the 9-9-9-24 latencies did not do the Viper RAM any justice at the 1333MHz speeds during the Sandra XII testing. Again, the Patriot Viper DDR3 at 1600MHz was able to beat the other comparison kits when it was tested using PCMark Vantage, but was unable to keep up during the Sandra testing. When the Viper Kit was overclocked to 1700MHz, however, it was able to beat out all of the other kits in every test."

Unfortunately, most of these new high tech keyboards cost more than many are willing to pay. This is where OCZ pops up on our radar with their new Alchemy series of keyboards. The Alchemy Elixir is a fairly standard keyboard but includes a lot of great features all focused on improving your gaming experience. Even better than its feature rich layout is the fact this keyboard is very reasonably priced. The Elixir goes for about $30-35 and is now widely available from most e-tailers and retailers throughout the country.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Alchemy Elixir Gaming Keyboard SHOPPING & PRICING

Samsung makes another return to Overclockers Online but this time we get the luxury of reviewing the Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray DVD player. This is not Samsung's first Blu-ray player as it's the 4th generation model and there have been significant improvements over this model and the BD-P1400, the model replaced by the P1500. The P1400 had average performance and we'll soon see if the P1500 has solved all of those.

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray Player SHOPPING & PRICING

"The Coolermaster V8 heatsink is one of the nicer thermal solutions from the company in a long while, and well worth your attention today. Built from four modular sets of aluminum fins, the V8 utilizes no less than eight heatpipes to give it a cooling capability of up to 180W!"

The result of all the demands for a business-class Eee PC model have led us to Asus 1000H, one of the latest members of the Eee family. In comparison to the original Eee, almost everything has changed, however, the core ultra-mobile Eee feeling remains more or less in-tact, even for those who require a larger screen. Has Asus hit a sweet spot with usability, size, and price, or have they just made the Eee PC into a big, bloated monster?

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Eee PC 1000H Netbook SHOPPING & PRICING

"As is the natural way of things, especially in the world of technology, progression is the name of the game. Faster, smaller, newer, is what it's all about. CDs and DVDs were great when they first came out, but as USB drive's started to increase in size and speed, they're plug and play ability has made them the medium of choice for transferring data from one PC to another. As a side development, people have started to use them to watch movies on portable media players as USB ports on DVD drives allow for quick plug-n-play movies. Today I have a flash stick from PNY, that comes pre-loaded with a movie, and not just any movie, a favourite of nerds the world over; that's right, Ghostbusters. So zip up your jump suits, and hook up your proton packs, let's take this flash drive for a test run."

"Not too long ago, we looked at the Thecus N5200 storage server system. We liked the N5200 (very much), but felt it might be a bit overwhelming for the typical home user. Enter the Thecus N3200, a NAS system with much of the functionality of its bigger brother, but targeted at the home or small business user. At least, that's what we were told. Is it true? Let's find out!"

CLICK HERE FOR Thecus N3200 NAS System SHOPPING & PRICING

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

Lian-Li is known for their unique high-quality cases. They are now offering a chassis for the Xbox 360. The black case should finally make your console look good next to that fancy TV of yours. We pack the XB-01 with the consoles guts to see how it fares.

CLICK HERE FOR Lian-Li XB-01 Xbox 360 Case SHOPPING & PRICING

Once in a while a product comes along and you look at it and wonder where it's been all your life. The features you always wondered why they didn't incorporate before are all there in one spot. It doesn't happen very often that products are so feature laden that you're taken aback.

"Needless to say, a balanced approach to building a computer is even more rewarding in the professional area. Generalization is hardly appropriate here, as it all depends on your tasks. Still, if we speak of popular modeling and design applications, it becomes easier because there are industry-recognized tools for benchmarking such applications. SPECviewperf 10 is one of them."

Today we will have a look at one of their latest and better PSUs, the Supernova 800W unit. The Supernova units are made to deliver good performance as well as a unique design at a competitive price.

"The basic bundle for the Silent 12 PWM is the same as the TC unit, including that sticker and rubber grommets for installation. However, as the name suggests this particular unit alters its fan rotation speed based around the PWM (pulse-width modulation) data provided by the system, so that it can regulate itself against CPU temperature. This does however require a four-pin fan header on the motherboard rather than the usual three-pin connector, so make sure your motherboard has sufficient four-pin headers free for installation."

"Overall the AudioFX Pro 5.1 has really impressed me in the design and styling aspects, right the way through to the Heckendorn Original custom touches throughout the unit. You can really tell that this headset is made for the Gamer in you, with aspects that you won't find in any other headset. The only issue I had really was the stuck on logo on the top, but I should not let that spoil my judgment should I?"

CLICK HERE FOR eDimensional AudioFX Pro 5.1 Gaming Headset SHOPPING & PRICING

“I’m not entirely convinced of the usefulness of the extra RAID levels in Sans Digital’s “7 modes”, without the ability to use them with USB, I don’t see much point. I also don’t like the RAID selection dial and “key” to open the drive sleds. Everything else, I like. The finish, the LCD, compact size. $170 seems like a lot, but look around at the competition, this falls right into place with everyone else. If you then include the extremely handy battery powered laptop drive enclosure, it switches from “right in line” to “a hell of a good deal” I actually fail to understand why the MS1U retails for $50, but I’m not going to complain.”

CLICK HERE FOR Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UT+B SHOPPING & PRICING

Foxconn is back at it with another motherboard that was shown at CES last year. Since the days of CES of 2008 many people have been on the look out for the ELA. The ELA is a new level of motherboard that is aimed at the digital media buff. How does triple PCIe slots, tons of storage options and various digital audio prospects the board looks to be a beast. But it looks that Foxconn has not forgotten about the overclockers out there neither. The board offers support for a front bus up to 1600MHz for the Intel CPU, a wide range of voltage settings and solid capacitors for stability. We will look to see if the ELA is close to offering what the BlackOps has even if it isn't one hundred percent aimed at the crowd.

We knew before we even wrote our first review that the card would represent good value for money, but the aggressive launch price of the new model meant that it was even better than we expected. Today it’s time to see what MSI can do with the card; apart from going the aftermarket cooling route they’ve also got a nice little bundle going on.

CLICK HERE FOR MSI GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Graphics Card SHOPPING & PRICING

We're taking a look at Intel's first attempt at a full-featured media center motherboard, the DG45ID. It's also our first look at their new G45 Express chipset, which promises to finally bring DX 10 support and hardware-accelerated HD video playback to their integrated graphics offerings. Can the DG45ID prove itself a worthy choice for your HTPC?

CLICK HERE FOR Intel Desktop Board DG45ID SHOPPING & PRICING

HIS has done a great job with their tuned up Radeon HD4850. The HIS card does carry a bit of a higher sticker price than vanilla HD4850s. Searching out Newegg it seems like the IceQ4 TurboX is going to cost you an extra $25. But the factory overclock seems to give you your money's worth from what we can see here and that is without even mentioning the cooler.

CLICK HERE FOR HIS HD4850 IceQ4 TurboX SHOPPING & PRICING

“We must admit that in recent times we’ve unfairly neglected gamers with limited budget that don’t have many possibilities to set a certain sum aside for purchasing some graphics card from higher price range. Let’s face it, nor ATi nor nVIDIA were much better. >From launching of GeForce 8600GTS and 8600GT and their price drop, nVIDIA did very little for this category of users. As “greens” are for some time occupied only with renaming of their products even these new low-cost graphics cards didn’t bring anything new, except for model GeForce 9600GT…”

CLICK HERE FOR ATi Radeon HD 4670 SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR nVIDIA GeForce 9500GT SHOPPING & PRICING

"Overclocking the EVGA 790i SLI FTW was very similar to the Striker II Extreme. Both boards reacted similarly when pushed with a quad core CPU and high speed DDR3 memory. Overclocking the memory takes a little patience but can be done. On this board I was able to push the test memory to 2100MHz but just could not find the stability I needed. 2000MHz was where the memory would really play nice with the CPU and board. When the memory is run unlinked from the CPU there is a performance hit so I found the best compromise between the memory and CPU at 1800MHz (450MHz on the CPU and 900MHz on the memory) Linked and Synced. When run in this configuration the performance is superior to when the memory is run unlinked. I found this configuration to be Prime stable for everyday use. This means no blue screens or lockups to eventually cause hard drive corruption. In all, it took a couple of hours worth of testing the memory to reach the speeds the overclocked benchmarks will be run at. The only issue I have is that the adjustments are much courser than those of the S2E. Even so, the results are similar."

CLICK HERE FOR EVGA 790i SLI FTW SHOPPING & PRICING

The Antec Mini P180 is a mini tower case that builds on the designs of the original P180 and P182, and puts those lessons to work in a smaller format. The smaller format comes at a price; only microATX motherboards are supported, but is that much of a penalty in the intended market segment? Benchmark Reviews is going to look at a computer case new offering from Antec that is aimed at a narrower market niche than most of their other products.

CLICK HERE FOR Antec Mini P180 mATX Computer Case SHOPPING & PRICING

“For many years, Verbatim is one of the leading names in the data storage industry. They are mostly recognized by their high quality and remarkably designed products. This time, we got Verbatim 500GB Portable Hard Drive for testing. Yes, 500GB means that it has 500GB of disk capacity. Packaging of this hard drive looks like most of Verbatim flash memory packages, only a bit larger. Through transparent plastics you can see grey colored device, with really elegant design…”

CLICK HERE FOR Verbatim 500GB Portable Hard Drive SHOPPING & PRICING

Ultimate Ears just released a completely new earphone dubbed the Super.fi 5. It is aimed at budget conscious earphone users looking for a good sounding, decent looking set of in-ears. The new radical design is a major leap forward compared to the old Ultimate Ears design.

CLICK HERE FOR Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Earphones SHOPPING & PRICING

Today more and more change monitors to the latest LCD monitors on the market, even the 19 inch screens are soon to small as the people choose the bigger 22 and 24 inch monitors to have enough work area. Geeks has a huge selection of various LCD screens and today we are going to look at a Debranded HP monitor that comes at a very afordable price as I see it. The question is though; will it work for fast FPS games and normal usage though?

Times have certainly changed and even budget memory comes with a heatsink these days. Memory now runs much warmer than the ambient air surrounding it and companies are spending a great deal of time and effort to cool their products. While early coolers were held in place with what amounted to double sided tape from 3M and the coolers were more for appearance than performance, a few companies have invested in thermal transfer material to effectively transfer heat away from the RAM and pass it to the cooler.