Week of May 3, 2009

"The Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, a 3.0GHz dual-core processor based on the 'Wolfdale' core that is being manufactured on the 45nm process. This socket 775 processor packs in 6MB of L2 cache and operates with a 1333MHz Front Side Bus speed. The Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 retails for around $170 USD which makes it considerably more affordable than quad-core processors with equivalent clock speeds and cache."

CLICK HERE FOR Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 PRICING & SHOPPING

I need more space! Well, why not a small 2.5" external hard drive enclosure? It just so happens that today I will be taking a look at just such an item, the Travel Plus 2.5” SATA to USB External Enclosure, sent to us from the good folks at HornetTek.

" Today for review I’ve got a handy little gadget that will give you all kinds of information about your electrical devices including what it costs to run it. The product is the Kill A Watt EZ, and it not only give you a cost breakdown of your electrical usage but it gives you a bunch of other useful information as well like wattage, amps, voltage, frequency and even power factor. The Kill A Watt EZ is a very useful device for techies and non-techies alike to learn more about the devices you’ve got that are using electricity. "

CLICK HERE FOR Kill A Watt PRICING & SHOPPING

Corsair are well known for their excellent performance memory, rugged flash drives and in recent times have released a number of award winning PSUs. They have also dabbled in the cooling market previously with the Nautilus 500 which was the easiest water-cooling product to install at the time of release.

Finding the right chassis for a system build is like setting up the foundation before building out the design of your computer and working your craftsmanship into the intricate details of component selection and configuration. Start with a good foundation that caters to your build requirements and you're bound to have a better overall end result when you hit the power switch to boot up for the first time. And though the average enthusiast might choose a larger full tower case with real estate to spare, for many there is also beauty in smaller, more space-efficient designs. We've covered our share of monster "gaming cases" here at HotHardware but we felt it was high time to look at something a bit more diminutive.

CLICK HERE FOR Antec Mini-P180 PRICING & SHOPPING

There comes a time in every reviewers life when they get swamped, it's just part of the process. Recently we got 4 CPU coolers that came in on the same truck. Quite the surprise to say the least. We saved the best for last, the Noctua NH-C12P SE 1366. A cooler that rivals the legendary TRUE 120. We wanted to see just how much it rivals the TRUE 120 on a level playing field so we're going to use the Noctua fans that came with the NH-C12P on the TRUE 120 and put them head to head on the Core i7 965 Extreme and see which one stays on Quadzilla. Searching for the best air cooling alternatives has been a long road and one with no visible end. We're about to switch back to water cooling on the test rig because i7 reviewing has slowed down enough to dip below the insanity level. In the mean time lets get back to the Noctua NH-C12P revisit.

CLICK HERE FOR Noctua NH-C12P SE PRICING & SHOPPING

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 introduces the 40nm RV740 GPU paired to 512MB of DDR5 video frame buffer memory, and a double-height cooler allows the 100277L model video card to operate at 750MHz. As of May 2009, the Sapphire HD4770 sells for as low as $99, which allows gamers to create a very affordable CrossFireX array using this mainstream graphics accelerator. Benchmark Reviews compares two Sapphire Radeon HD4770's assembled into a CrossFireX set against a large collection of high-performance GPU's for the tests in this article.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 PRICING & SHOPPING

"When I first got this case I was a little skeptical of its design. The case looks visually appealing and does not disappoint in performance either. Overall installation was fairly easy, however I was not able to use the tool free solution for expansion devices with my video card. Apart from that, everything went together smoothly. It does however sometimes require a bit more force to get the panels on. Another major thing (or at least what I thought of as major) was the fact that hard drives are installed with the cables facing outward. However, in the end this does not really matter since the VGA Turbo Cooler covers over this, preventing you from seeing them anyway. I thought it was great that the front panel LED connector wires came bundled together, making them easier to manage. As with a lot of mid tower cases, it was hard to fit the video card and power connectors in, but they do fit. Overall this case performed well, but while it has some pretty good things going for it, some of the bad outweigh the good."

Believe it or not, this is our first review of the GTS 250 since we decided to sit back and wait for the initial fury of yet another rebadged card release to die down. Now that the GTS 250 has settled into the market (and quite well at that), we felt it was time to take a look at what a few different manufacturers had to offer. We have also recently seen a number of sales which have really piqued people’s interest in this card. Just remember, the GTS 250 seems like nothing more than a gussied up 9800 GTX+ on paper but as we will see, Nvidia’s board partners have added their own unique spin to things.

CLICK HERE FOR GeForce GTS 250 PRICING & SHOPPING

"Sapphire first introduced its graphics cards which implemented the Vapor-X coolers back in 2007 with its 3870 Atomic cards. The Vapor-X technology meant that graphics cards could be efficiently cooled and still remain silent using a liquid coolant which vaporised at the hot GPU’s IHS. Recently Sapphire has revitalised their Vapor-X video cards with the birth of the HD 4850 and 4870. Today we’ve kindly been given the 4850 to review, let’s see how it performs."

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire Vapor X PRICING & SHOPPING

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

In this review we will be looking at MSI version of this new card called the Radeon HD 4890 OC. OC stands for overclocked meaning it comes from the factory with a slightly better clock speed from what ATI had intended. Typically OC cards don't overclock well but with a little tweaking you can usually squeeze out a few more frames or, simply leave the card alone and enjoy the nice performance boost.

CLICK HERE FOR MSI Radeon HD 4890 1GB OC Graphic Card PRICING & SHOPPING

"When comparing the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB (ST9500420AS) to other popular hard drives like the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB and the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB, you can see just how fast the drive performs. The Seagate Momentus 7200.4 has the fastest read and write speeds of any notebook hard drive that we have ever tested. The Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB has write speeds that best the Super Talent MasterDrive OX 64GB Solid State Drive (SSD) and come in just under the Intel X25-M and Kingston SSDNow M 80GB SSDs..."

CLICK HERE FOR Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB Notebook Hard Drive PRICING & SHOPPING

If you've taken a look at the Lycosa keyboard before, you may be scratching your head and wondering just what the difference is between it and Razer's latest Arctosa. At first glance the two appear virtually identical, including the overall shape, size and of course Razer's penchant for coloring everything either gloss or flat black. But there are a few minor differences that warrant taking another look at this product line, starting with the specification sheet.

CLICK HERE FOR Razer Arctosa Gaming Keyboard PRICING & SHOPPING

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

“One of the best netbooks that we tested so far, HP 2133 Mini-Note , has got its successor in form of, eagerly awaited, HP Mini 2140. Beside display size (8.9 inch at older and 10.1inch on the new model) differences between HP 2133 and HP 2140 are minimal when it comes to external aesthetics. Chassis is 6mm longer and 1mm wider and ventilation grills are redesigned. For all those that are not familiar with our review of HP 2133 we will just say that HP 2133 has very good quality build and nice business look…”

CLICK HERE FOR HP Mini 2140 PRICING & SHOPPING

"Over the years the Sony Cyber-shot digital camera has been a popular point-and-shoot camera, so when they announced a new Cyber-shot with a Carl Zeiss 5x optical zoom wide (28mm) lens that takes photos at 12.1 megapixels and shoots 720p HD video, we just had to take a look."

CLICK HERE FOR Sony Cyber-shot W290 PRICING & SHOPPING

"There are two unshakeable truths in the CE biz: Technology never stands still, and prices always drop. Although you'll occasionally kick yourself in the butt when you see the HDTV you bought drop by a third in a year's time, this overall trend is a good thing, especially for procrastinators. The new Vixia HF200 is a good example. This new entry-level AVCHD camcorder records at 24 Mbps, compared to last year's 17, which translates to better video on your TV screen. It also has an improved image sensor, a more powerful zoom lens, plus it costs less than the 2008 HF100. Now how bad is that? This is Canon's most affordable high-def model, and we were delighted to put it through its paces to see if it was worth the wait."

CLICK HERE FOR Canon Vixia HF200 PRICING & SHOPPING

When it comes to todays games we play, we need a mouse that can react fast, have smooth non jarring movements, be able to go from slow precise movements to extremely quick movements with ease, and not have to go into a control panal to do so. Lets face it, them mice of yester year just don't cut it for todays gamers. We as gamers also want to be able to adjust the wieght of the mouse to custoim tailor that part to our every day daily needs,while our mice on multiple mousing surfaces. We also want this to be done effortlessly as well.

There has been a steady stream of processor releases from AMD in recent times. Whether it is revisions of triple and quad core models or the addition of DDR3 parts to the product line there has always been something new to look at regularly. Two weeks ago we took a look at the latest high end Phenom 2, the 955 (Read The Review) and now AMD have another release for us to cover. The Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition.

CLICK HERE FOR AMD Athlon X2 7850 B.E. PRICING & SHOPPING

CLICK HERE FOR Radeon 4770 PRICING & SHOPPING

"The Thermaltake Litepower 450W is rated for a very respectable 85% efficiency, which places it in the 80 Plus Bronze classification. Another feature of the Litepower to be noted is the impressive five year warranty offered by Thermaltake. The Litepower 450W has some features more often associated with a high quality power supply, such as the large 120mm fan, open mesh rear vent and a nice amount of heft to the unit. The UL identification number E190414, indicates that this particular unit is manufactured by FSP Group."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake Litepower 450w PRICING & SHOPPING

"To start off, we must say that we were really disappointed with the name chosen by Arctic Cooling for this product. 550RF leads you to believe that this is a 550 W product, when in fact it is a 500 W power supply. The 550 W on the name is the peak power, which according to the manufacturer can be sustained for only ONE SECOND. This kind of gimmick is typically used by low-end manufacturers and we wouldn't expect this from a Swiss-based company. But besides that, is Fusion 550RF a good product? Let's see."

ASUS has sent us one of the first samples of their new EAH4890 TOP which uses a SuperML capacitor that is supposed to offer cleaner voltage resulting in better overlocking. Also this is the first card to feature a 6+8 pin PCI-Express power connector for improved voltage delivery. Last but not least, ASUS is now using a dual fan cooler with six thick heatpipes.

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS EAH4890 TOP PRICING & SHOPPING

"Streaming standard-def movies from computers and remote hard drives to televisions has been old hat for years now. But for high-def connoisseurs looking to step up to the good stuff - pure 1080p digital content - extreme file size and bandwidth constraints have severely hampered streaming and storage. The EVA9150 solves that issue with 802.11n networking capabilities for more bandwidth, and an onboard 500GB drive for storage and buffering, making it one of the few boxes capable of streaming Blu-ray quality video. If you're looking to go discless, this machine's the ticket - but is it worth the price?"

CLICK HERE FOR Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite EVA9150 PRICING & SHOPPING

I guess, when they say it's aimed at the mainstream market ... they really mean it. Still, the MA770T-UD3P has a lot of great features including Gigabyte's Easy Energy Saver, 2oz Copper PCB, as awell as their advanced 8+2 phase CPU VRM power design.

The GTS 250 is the latest addition to the Performance class of Nvidia GPUs. It is no secret that this particular GPU is a direct descendant of the 9800GTX series of cards. The core is a G92b. The G92 has gone through a die-shrink to 55nm as opposed to the older 65nm, and thereby reduced the energy consumption and cut back on the heat a little.

There are very few products that grab enthusiast attention like SSDs have. OCZ has created a well-deserved buzz around the industry since they launched their Core II, Apex, and Vertex multi-layer cell SSD products for retail consumers. Now they've gone one step further, and designed a SLC SSD for the demanding enterprise server segment. Benchmark Reviews welcomes the OCZ Vertex EX SSD OCZSSD2-1VTXEX120G into the ranks, and our bandwidth performance tests compare the Vertex EX to several other SSDs occupying the high-end market.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Vertex EX SLC SSD PRICING & SHOPPING

"We're looking at the Cooler Master HAF 932, a full tower that water cooling enthusiasts will find particularly enticing. Does this case meet all of the requirements that we expect out of a case, and then some? Does it really deserve the HAF, or High Air Flow, designation? That is what we are here to find out."

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master HAF 932 PRICING & SHOPPING

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

"The QNAP TS-509 is a full-featured and powerful NAS server designed to provide centralized data storage for businesses and enterprise workgroups. The unit offers support for a full range of storage volumes including RAID 0/1/5/6/5 + hot spare as well as single drive and JBOD configurations. In addition to these features, the TS-509 offers RAID level migration and volume expansion that not only allow you to add additional drives but to replace existing drives with ones of higher capacity. These features ensure the unit can grow along with your storage needs. Additional features such as dual LAN connections with failover and load balancing only add to enhance its attraction as a solid business-oriented storage server. The unit also has several features for sharing multimedia files and other functions such as a Web server and automatically downloading files. These features may be more of a nod to the serious non-business user, although that is not the primary target market."

CLICK HERE FOR QNAP TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS PRICING & SHOPPING

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

"Clearly, the OCZ Throttle eSATA Flash Drive is a speed demon. In USB mode, the drive performed on par with the OCZ Rally 2 Turbo, making it amongst the faster USB based drives we've tested. In eSATA mode, it just leaves everyone behind. In the small file tests, the Throttle was almost 100% faster than it's closest competitor."

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Throttle eSATA Flash Drive PRICING & SHOPPING

Jetway has contacted us to see if we would like to take their HZ01 and put it on our test bench. Always wanting to do business with a new company I would not turn them away. The HZ01 is based on the ATI 790GX boasting all the features we discussed earlier, but also some surprises as well. The first thing we saw that was unique about the HZ01 is that it utilized SO-DIMMs DDR2 vice standard 240 pin DIMM. Yes, you heard it right laptop ram. PC6400 of the 200-pin variation.

It's been some time now since Thermaltake released the Toughpower series of units, and since then things have changed in the market. The competition is getting tougher, the power supplies are getting more efficient, and it's just getting harder for one company's CWT based unit to compete in a market flooded with similar built units.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake Toughpower XT 850W PRICING & SHOPPING

To replace the GTX 280, NVIDIA has released the GTX 285 – a graphics card which sports a 55nm GPU and the same 240 stream processors as the GTX 280. The GTX 285 that we’ll be reviewing today is made by Zotac – a quickly growing company who make some cracking graphics cards and motherboards. Anyway, let’s unleash this beast and see how it performs. Introducing the Zotac GTX 285 AMP! Edition…

Looking for an edge when it comes to PC gaming? Well, Xoxide, provider of a wide range of computer accessories, sent us one of the latest gaming keyboard, the Razer Arctosa. Razer is a well-known gaming product manufacturer that has produced many well-known gaming products such as the Razer Diamondback and Viper mice. Will this new keyboard bring similar performance to both gaming and everyday applications? That is what we’re here to find out.

CLICK HERE FOR Razer Arctosa Gaming Keyboard PRICING & SHOPPING

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

A while ago we heard ASUS was going to mix it up with the HD 4870 X2 and today we've got the card in our hand and we're going to take the time to see exactly what ASUS has done with this HD 4870 X2 to make it stand out from the pack.

In this review, we'll be taking a look at the Coolit Domino ALC (Liquid Cooling System). It's a complete self-contained liquid cooling unit designed for use with any desktop PC. Notice I didn't use the words "water cooling". According to Coolit, the Domino ALC uses a special coolant that has anticorrosion/antifungal additives, as well as superior thermal convection.

CLICK HERE FOR Coolit Domino ALC PRICING & SHOPPING

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

ATI launched this card for a MSRP of $109 with a $10 rebate making it a sub $100 card. At this price point, ATI has a winner as performance is close in most cases to the bigger brother the HD 4850 and GeForce GTS 250. DirectX 10.1 features have begun showing up in games like Tom Clancy's HAWX game, a flight combat game set in the near future. NVIDIA will have a hard time competing in this category as the HD 4770 is smaller than their chips and therefore more chips can be manufactured on the same wafer and decreasing costs. This level of one-upmanship between the two companies is great for the consumer, especially in these trying economic times.

The Olympus Stylus Tough-8000 is the top model in Olympus' newly renamed "Tough" series of digital cameras that are made to survive the battles of everyday life. This camera is able to survive a drop from 6.6 feet, capture photos at up to 33 feet underwater, withstand 220 pounds of crushing force, and it can be used in temperatures as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius). With these capabilities, it’s likely the photographer will surrender before this camera does....

CLICK HERE FOR Olympus Stylus Tough-8000 PRICING & SHOPPING

There are a huge number of power supply companies out there ranging from the well-known brands of Enermax, Corsair and Cooler master to much smaller less well known brands. Today, we have a unit from one of the less publicised companies – InWin. We’ve previously seen great things from this company with the likes of the B2 Stealth Bomber and their PSU series too features a strong military theme. Introducing the InWin Commander 750W unit…

CLICK HERE FOR InWin Commander 750W PRICING & SHOPPING

"Thermaltake's T3000 fanless notebook cooler comes with aluminium fins, embedded heatpipes, and enough base to cover the full notebook. Promising great performance in a fanless and silent setup, let's find out if it does the job or comes up short."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake T3000 PRICING & SHOPPING

“Few months ago we tested Cooler Master V8 cooler and we announced that there will be more models in this new V series . This time in our test lab arrived V10 model that pretends to be top model of current line-up. This is the model that Cooler Master has hopes for becoming “king of the hill” model for some time, at least when it comes to CPU coolers. Cooler Master V10 is packed in nice and simple box with lot of information on it about the product inside. Most important information that we found was the fact that this cooler can be mounted on almost any socket…”

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master V10 PRICING & SHOPPING

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

"The 4770 was obviously designed to be a low-end card, and for this reason it doesn't compete with the GTX 285 behemoth from Nvidia - but it's not supposed to! What it does do is decode high definition video extremely well. For $120, you can get a video card that decodes video with almost no CPU usage whatsoever. I took a few hours to watch some of my favorite movies, and CPU usage was extraordinarily low. About 80% of the time, CPU usage was reported at 1%; occasionally this would get as high as 3%, but the most that I ever saw was 5%. What's even cooler is that the movies ran extremely smooth the whole time. If you're a movie lover, and you'll be building a multimedia PC, I'd definitely think about purchasing a 4770."

CLICK HERE FOR Diamond HD 4770 PRICING & SHOPPING

How much data storage is enough to satisfy your enterprise needs? Thecus would like to assure you their N7700 SATA-drive NAS server has you covered. With seven hot-swappable drive bays assembled into a rugged stackable chassis, the N7700 aims to safely house large collections of data in basic-disk JBOD, RAID-0, 1, 5, 6, and 10 arrays using either the EXT3, XFS or ZFS drive format. Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports can be configured for network load balancing, failover, or 802.3ad aggregation modes; and also adds up to 9000K MTU jumbo frame support to each. A single Intel Celeron M 440 processor powers the N7700 on a 533MHz FSB, using 1GB of single-channel DDR2 memory to process requests. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the bandwidth speed of the Thecus N7700 against several of the best Gigabit NAS servers available.

CLICK HERE FOR Thecus N7700 PRICING & SHOPPING

Headphones or speakers are often a product overlooked by casual gamers but good quality audio reproduction in a game can make a huge difference in your ability to outwit and defeat your enemy. Over the next few pages we’ll look at how the Sennheiser PC-350s can enhance your experience.

CLICK HERE FOR Sennheiser Pc350 Gaming Headset PRICING & SHOPPING

"Taking all of this into consideration, most users simply can't afford / stomach the pain to spend $800 for only 64 GB of storage capacity regardless of what kind of memory it uses. But, these same users also desire something that is quick and won't cause stuttering / pauses when used as an OS drive, a common problem with early generation SSDs. For those that fall into this category, OCZ created the Apex Series of solid state drives. Utilizing an internal RAID 0 configuration to help eliminate poor performance and stuttering, can the OCZ Apex live up to our expectations of what a midrange MLC-based SSD should deliver?"

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Apex SSD PRICING & SHOPPING

In this review we are going to take a long hard look at the Cooler Master V8 air based cooling solution. This heatsink may lack the TEC cooling (and mystic aura which accompanies that tech) of the V10 but it promises to offer some amazing performance. The V8 has awfully big shoes to fill and it will be interesting to see how it performs not only on the i7 test bed but the older 775 one as well.

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler PRICING & SHOPPING

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

The CM Storm Scout is the newest additon to the gaming line-up of Cooler Master. It comes packed with a lot of gamer oriented features and mean looks. To top things off, the Scout features a built-in handle so you can carry your rig to that next big LAN party without breaking a sweat.

With the FZ120 Zerotherm presents a tower cooler which comes with a very competitive price tag but still promises solid performance. For little money you get four heatpipes and specially shaped fins.

CLICK HERE FOR Zerotherm FZ120 Tower Cooler PRICING & SHOPPING

Looking at the specifications, it's one of the most feature-packed motherboards for the AM3 platform we've seen to date. And when I say feature-packed, I really mean it. Take for example the InstantBoost feature and the support for both DDR3 ram (upto DDR3-1600) and CrossfireX (upto 3-way Crossfire - switchcard included). But that's not it ... there are other features such as the onboard Radeon HD 32xx graphics with several outputs including VGA, DVI and HDMI. There's also masses of connectivity, which includes SPDIF optical output, eSATA, Firewire, 6 USB ports and gigabit ethernet.

CLICK HERE FOR ASRock M3A790GXH-128M (AM3) Motherboard PRICING & SHOPPING

"The Intel X25-M/Kingston SSDNow M Series 80GB SATA 2.5" internal SSD is a very impressive drive that looks great on paper and held its own when it came to the benchmarks. The SNM125-S2/80GB lead many of the read benchmarks, but trailed other SSDs in the write benchmark tests. Intel claims their drives and firmware is better suited for wear-leveling, but that is something we can't test. Sometimes slower is better and if the drive lasts longer it might be worth it..."

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston 80GB SSDNow M Series Drive PRICING & SHOPPING

I see the Seagate FreeAgent Theater media player as a great option for someone looking to get their digital media on to their home theater without much stress. A simple setup process, a variety of audio/video connections, a useful wireless remote control, and intuitive on-screen controls are just a few features that will make the device enjoyable for users of any tech ability.

CLICK HERE FOR Seagate FreeAgent Theater Media Player PRICING & SHOPPING

"If you've been waiting for the prices of HDMI-equipped A/V receivers to come down to earth, Sherwood's new RD-7503 should help you pull the trigger. While it doesn't have every bell and whistle, it does boast a long list of features and can be expanded to include more. And with an online price less than $400, it costs only a little more than a good Blu-ray disc player."

CLICK HERE FOR Sherwood RD-7503 PRICING & SHOPPING

When DDR3 memory was first introduced a couple of years ago, to overclock this type of memory was fairly simple. Just increase the voltage loosen up the timings and start increasing the FSB. Now since the Core i7 CPU's were introduced back in november, we can no longer start adding an insane amount of volts to our memory to overclock them. Having a limitation on the amount of memory voltages we can apply, a voltage limitation of 1.65 volts. Well, unless you want to take a chance on bricking a perfectly good CPU. Having this limitation of voltage to the memory has left the memory world up in arms, how do they come up with memory that performs well with good timing's all the while not go above the 1.65 voltage limiation.

"The Sapphire HD 4890 Atomic Edition is a ready to be a prime time player. In the single GPU field, the GTX 285 has been the undisputed king of the mountain, and usually carries the title of the fastest single GPU card on the market. It now has competition in this category, as the HD 4890 Atomic puts a serious dent in the performance gap between ATI and Nvidia. So much so that when pushed, the Atomic HD 4890 even pulled ahead of the factory overclocked GTX 285 in more than a couple tests. Not quite there, but getting much closer. What makes this card appealing to me is the fact that Sapphire has once again gone out and produced a video card using their own PCB, with improved voltage regulation, added their own Vapor-X cooling, and delivered a factory overclocked video card that serves notice that ATI will not allow Nvidia to rest on its laurels. Usually you wait months for a card like this to appear, but Sapphire wasted no time bringing this one to market."

Believe it or not, despite the HD 4890's launch last month, the HD 4870 is still totally relevant, thanks to ATI's current pricing structure. There's a card for every budget, and if you're willing to spend around $180, you can get hooked up with a 1GB version of the card we're taking a look at today. It's silent, keeps cool, and still delivers great performance for the money.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X 2GB PRICING & SHOPPING

AMD made a push to reach the 40nm GPU milestone, and they have accomplished that goal, fabricating a chip that should run cooler and draw less power than its predecessors. Sapphire is one of the companies at the forefront of the 40nm market, and we have one of their Radeon 4770 cards fresh off the production line. But the question remains: does it push great framerates?

The Samsung P3 is a very good player, and makes a great addition for any avid music listener. The design is very stylish, and the improved interface is very intuitive and works like a charm. The haptic feedback adds a lot of value to the player, and the glass touch screen is very accurate. The ability to just drag and drop your music into the player is also a plus, and the Bluetooth connectivity with headsets and mobile phones makes room for a lot of options.

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung YP-P3JCB PRICING & SHOPPING

“When ATI/AMD presented new generation of graphics cards based on RV770 chip, first model was Radeon HD 4850. This model, despite few problems, became mega popular when it comes to HD 4XXX series of graphics cards that now consists out of so many models. Although it was first presented, Radeon HD 4850 was far from top-performance model. Nevertheless even today its sale rates are high because its main advantage was price. For relatively small amount of currency you will get GPU with 800 stream processors (Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3) that is enough to run all new games…”

After 200 Hours of testing we are proud to present our first CPU Cooler Roundup of 2009, featuring a 23 different products compared to the best out there; make use of our dynamic chart generator to compare up to 72 Intel/AMD heatsinks.

"Clearly, the OCZ Throttle eSATA Flash Drive is a speed demon. In USB mode, the drive performed on par with the OCZ Rally 2 Turbo, making it amongst the faster USB based drives we've tested. In eSATA mode, it just leaves everyone behind. In the small file tests, the Throttle was almost 100% faster than it's closest competitor."

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ Throttle eSATA Flash Drive PRICING & SHOPPING

"Building the fastest and most responsive Dell Mini 9 Mac for a price less than the stock Dell Mini 9 with the same specs and lower grade components from Dell is really quite simple and should take less than an hour. "

Since we noticed the silence when we started into the Phenom 2 reviews we were short a chassis and turned to Thermaltake for an alternative. We didn't need another huge chassis sitting around and Thermaltake came up with the perfect chassis for our needs, the ElementS chassis with it's sleek good looks and solid steel construction fit our bill. We've had the Element S for a while now (Our apologies Thermaltake) but we got 4 or 5 CPU;s in quick succession that kept us from our appointed task. Now that we have a little breathing room we'd like to introduce you to the Thermaltake ElementS Chassis.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake ElementS PRICING & SHOPPING

Today we are taking a look at one of the latest MSI cards on the market! We got a sample of their N285GTX SuperPipe OC which has a twin fan cooler, and thicker heatpipes for better cooling. This card should clock a bit better than the others on the market with this new cooler and maybe also be a bit more silent although that remains to be seen.

CLICK HERE FOR MSI N285GTX PRICING & SHOPPING

The card has only one PCIE power connector, which I think is great ... as it reduces cable clutter and also means that it will use less power ... unless you wish to Crossfire two of these cards ;) So, what are we expecting in terms of performance? Well, you have to remember the HIS Radeon HD 4770 is aimed at the mainstream market, So don't expect too much from it ... especially when it's priced at very attractive £80. However, having said that, it should perform pretty well against other Radeon HD 48xx cards or even Geforce GTS 250.

"The Intel DX58SO motherboard was just an awesome board to work with. It made the transition to Core i7 easy and enjoyable. We had absolutely no issues at all using the board. It met all expectations that one would have with an Intel board. As we looked at performance on this board it was very good, and it shows how much promise there is with the X58 express chipset and the Core i7 CPU. If you are looking for a power boost in performance, you will find it here..."

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Ever since the introduction of Tri-Channel DDR3 memory, we have been seeing a whole slew of different memory types and speeds. But not all memory is created equally. What makes one memory better than another is the ability to overclock and maintain that speed better than the other types of memory. Crucial has proven to be one of these memory manufacturers.

"Gigabyte Radeon HD 4770 review also featuring the Sapphire Radeon HD 4830. The Gigabyte Radeon HD 4770 has a 24% higher clock speed, 44% higher memory speed and the same 640 Pixel Shaders as the Sapphire Radeon HD 4830. The Gigabyte Radeon HD 4770 does have a disadvantage which is the 128Bit Memory Interface which is half that of the Sapphire Radeon HD 4830. Will the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?"

"Overall, the build quality of the Thermaltake Litepower 450W is basic, and corners have been cut - but not where it matters. The case is unpainted and cables unbraided, perhaps to cut costs, but the printed circuit board is good quality by a reputable manufacturer. Packaging and accessories are basic but adequate, but is the price low enough to reflect this? More about this later. Let's see how well it performs."

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The CM Storm Scout is not as small as it might sound but it is much smaller than the CM Storm Sniper. The bold hard lines of the case accented with a flat black finish is just plain awesome. The Scout features a full mesh front for full air flow, and a black textured finish that is almost stealth like in appearance.

"You may have heard of Compustocx by their more recognizable shortform name, CSX. Although CSX is a bit newer on the scene, their Diablo lineup of memory modules are well known to overclocking enthusiasts around the world. So sit back and enjoy the ride while we juice up the voltages and push these sticks to the limit."