Week of August 3, 2008

I do a lot of case reviews as the junior reviewer at Pro-Clockers. It doesn't bother me, because I've got a case fetish of sorts. In its own twisted way it works out fine for everyone involved. Over the years, I've owned big cases, small cases, weird cases and modded cases. To be honest, I change cases more than some men change shirts. The last few years, I settled in with the Antec Sonata II. It's a great case and did what I needed it to do. However, I changed it for the Aerocool AE Plus last month. Always a sucker for big fans, the Aerocool drew me in. After trying out the Sunbeamtech Quarterback, I switched again. My main rig is now happily housed in the slightly odd, yet highly functional Quarterback. Read on to see why I changed cases.

CLICK HERE FOR Sunbeamtech Quarterback Mid Tower SHOPPING & PRICING

Thecus' N5200 PRO NAS device holds up to five drives internally in any RAID configuration desired for maximum safety. With plenty of features and a modular design, when it comes to both hardware and software, it fits anyone's needs. As the N5200 PRO uses a fast 1.5 GHz CPU it has serious potential to stomp the competition.

CLICK HERE FOR Thecus N5200PRO NAS SHOPPING & PRICING

While the GTX 280 might be the most powerful single cored graphics card on the market at the moment, it didn’t seem to be greeted with welcomed arms. A high price tag and small to no gains over its older dual GPU brother, the 9800 GX2 meant that people didn’t get all that excited about it.

"... The MSI N9600GT Hybrid Freezer offer total silent operation and 1Gb of DDR3 ram. This card is probably more suited to the mainstream gamer who's after silence and occaisonal high resolution gaming. "

The use of the GDDR5 memory, increased bandwidth, DirectX 10.1 and a 55nm GPU it sounds like it should place this card in the higher end of the “pay for what you get” scale, but it can be had for about $285 USD.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire HD4870 512MB SHOPPING & PRICING

"For just under $100, the BlueAnt Supertooth 3 Bluetooth Handsfree Speakerphone is not only the best speakerphone system we have used, but with the addition of the Text-To-Speech function and ridiculously long battery life, it is one of the most versatile Bluetooth mobile devices we have seen..."

"For me, Windows Mobile has always been primarily focused on data access, rather than data creation or modification. The Touch excels in this regard. It's not a multimedia powerhouse, but it will get an acceptable job done for most of your basic needs. If HTC added a hardware keyboard and a standard audio port, I think this would be a perfect Windows Mobile device. For now, if you are looking for a small, attractive smartphone and you can put up with a less than-ideal input solution, the Touch may be a great option for you."

CLICK HERE FOR HTC Touch Smartphone SHOPPING & PRICING

“At the moment we saw it, we knew that this was the love at first sight. Canon FS11 is in true sense of word, compact digital camcorder with innovative and attractive functions, futuristic design and 16GB of memory for storing recorded video material. Canon Company revived camcorder market with FS11 model. It uses built-in memory instead of MiniDV tape or CD/DVD media. Canon FS11, beside low power consumption and small dimensions, brings completely new approach in recording home videos…”

CLICK HERE FOR Canon FS11 SHOPPING & PRICING

Up until this point we have somewhat shunned full-on dual card reviews but with the current popularity of Crossfire and ATI's current crop of sub-$300 graphics cards, it is high time we tackled this subject. In this performance review we will be taking a look at Crossfire configurations with HD4870 cards from Palit, HD4850 cards from Sapphire and a few little interesting twists (Mixed Crossfire) and turns (Crossfire by combining 4800-series and 3800-series cards) along the way.

“You can't really put a label on this motherboard or designate it for any particular kinds of users. There are far too many useful features that you don't find on your typical budget motherboards. And while many professional motherboards also tend to offer the bare essentials, that's not what you get here. At this price, you can't go wrong if you're on a budget and really want a good quality motherboard. It's going to be really tough topping this one with anything else.”

CLICK HERE FOR GIGABYTE EP45-DS3R Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"What is there to say about the Scythe Ninja 2 besides the fact that it not only looks good but can perform quite well! I was quite surprised when it came down to the testing, that the Scythe Ninja 2 CPU cooler was only beaten by the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme. Scythe has done something quite well with the release of the Ninja 2, as it not only performs well, but it also runs at relatively silent. I was unable to hear the supplied 120mm fan over the my HD4850 stock cooling or over the other fans installed inside of the case. I was still disappointed to see that Scythe did not include a PWM feature with the fan. Since the fan is already quiet, slowing it down isn't really necessary, but a PWM feature would be nice to have as an alert if your CPU fan stops."

The storage needs in computing today have grown tremendously as opposed to a few years ago. More and more people need massive storage to store a large Music or Video collection. Some just need to read through a pile of drives to see if their functional, others need the flexibility of swapping drives in and out without having to break out the tool kit and seat it in an enclosure or mount it in a chassis.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake BlacX SE SHOPPING & PRICING

As it stands though, the EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Superclocked, while offering a superb warranty and Step-up program, is going to struggle in the already congested market. EVGA can want its brand to carry a premium but at the end of the day the overclock on the card is minor and only translates to a one or two frames per second advantage over a stock card, compared to the four or five frame per second advantage of the higher overclocked cards, which can now be had for less money than EVGA are asking for the superclocked. It’s very hard to justify the price of the EVGA.

" Just a few weeks ago, the Radeon HD 4850 was released and with it came a huge boost of performance for the price. The 4870 is the highend version of the RV770 series of GPU released from AMD. Sapphire provided a card for this review and the Radeon HD 4870 is here. "

"On air with no voltage mods, it seems that the maximum clock speeds that can be achived are right in the neighborhood of 766MHz on the GPU cores and 1105MHz on the GDDR3 memory. I say this after benchmarking two reference design cards from different manufacturers that basically overclocked identically. The difference between the two cards clock speeds can be counted on one hand. The 166MHz overclock on the GPU core offers an increase in performance in many of the game benchmarks tested. Keeping the cores cool by manually increasing the fan speed to 100 percent does help in achieving a higher overclock, just not more that 766MHz on the core in this case. 166MHz on the core and 105MHz on the memory are respectable overclocks when it comes down to it. When the CPU speed is ramped up the 9800GX2 takes off. This card from Palit performed almost identically the the XFX model I looked at several months ago. Scores of close to 19000 in 3DMark06 with the CPU at 3.6GHz show the potential of the card. While you can always hope for more ultimately what you get on air is what you get."

CLICK HERE FOR Palit 9800GX2 SHOPPING & PRICING

This motherboard is available online for $150, making it targeted for the mid-range market and not the enthusiast motherboard market another board in the $200-300 range would be in. The board has support for SLI after setting jumpers and enabling it in the BIOS with two NVIDIA video cards of the same type. The integrated graphics is a bonus that has several benefits over not including one. HybridPower is especially beneficial in this day and age where everyone is trying to save the environment and make the move to a greener PC world.

CLICK HERE FOR XFX nForce 750a SLI Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

This Bundle is clocked with 2000 MHz and perfect for all overclocking systems. The Performance with 2000 MHz is very fast, this is already well known. The question is, what about the usage of the memory for the maximum overclocking?

If you travel a lot, or even a little, chances are you own a laptop or notebook PC. And you probably own one of those neat little carrying cases as well. They have just enough room inside for the computer itself with a little left over to stick the power cord inside next to it. If you're lucky, there'll be a pocket on the front like mine where you can put any extra gadgets you have. That would be the perfect place to put the new Verbatim Notebook Essentials Kit.

Ultra Portable laptops have reached new levels of usability and even shrunk in size recently. What Asus started with its introduction of the EeePC other manufacturers have continued and introduced their versions of the now popular "Netbooks". We take a look at one of the nicest designs on the market right now with HP's 2133. This all aluminum masterpiece would fit right in on the show room floor and gives its owner just the right asthetics and feel. But we test out the engine under the hood in addition to the fit and finish of the 2133. Find out what our inspection showed.

CLICK HERE FOR HP 2133 SHOPPING & PRICING

Lexar's new entry level 8 GB SDHC card is quite unique. It is both reasonably priced and offers really good performance for a "Class 2" card. Actually the card surpasses the Class 2 requirements in our testing. At around $50 quite a nice achievement.

CLICK HERE FOR Lexar 8 GB Class 2 SDHC SHOPPING & PRICING

"You can see all manner of designs and technology these days on CPU coolers ranging from the weird and wonderful, to the more conservative and stylish. But it is the technologies behind the cooling that matters the most to any hardware enthusiast. One technology that has offered impressive performance in the past is the HDT design, where the heatpipes actually touch the CPU. This should deliver greater and faster dissipation due to increased contact between the heat transport components, in this case the heatpipes and the core.

One product that has this tech and wishes to use it to create some hopefully great results, is the Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer. Lets take this one for a spin and see how its does. "

CLICK HERE FOR Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer SHOPPING & PRICING

"DDR3 has been progressing slowly, but at a steady pace and it’s not looking like stopping. While the JEDEC officially only supports 1333MHz DDR3 on its records, Intel has gone a step further; something we wouldn’t have expected them to do. They’ve pushed the boundaries of DDR3 by introducing the XMP profiles that allow speeds of 1600MHz and very soon 1800MHz on its X38 and X48 chipsets with DDR3 memories.

While this may seem quite impressive, it’s still not enough; not when the 2000MHz barrier is in sight and quite a few companies are pushing to reach it. Corsair says it has managed to hit speeds well beyond that."

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair Dominator DDR3 2133MHz 2GB Kit SHOPPING & PRICING

Over the last few months one of the well know companies out there has been astonishing gamers and enthusiasts everywhere with it's top end updated memory kits and gaming gadgets that are the talk of the town. The company in question is OCZ Technology, keeping it's name in lights since Xmas 2007, with their product range rapidly expanding at a lightning fast pace. From high end DDR2 & DDR3 modules right through to their newest range of peripherals and DIY gaming notebook - OCZ is fast becoming a one-stop-shop where you can purchase all the necessities for your beast machine.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ PC3-10666 ReaperX HPC SHOPPING & PRICING

This new Aerocool S9 case is offered currently in three different editions. The S9 pro version impresses with an enormous 400mm fan in the side panel, the S9 A version is provided with an acrylic glass side panel and the tested S9 standard version can take two 120mm fans in the side panel. In all three versions the Aerocool S9 chassis provides good air circulation, because there is an additionally pre-mounted 120mm fan with LED lighting in the front and an optional preparation for a further 120mm fan at the rear of the case. The following review will show, what this Aerocool S9 standard Mid Tower chassis has to offer.

Following up the X48TurboTwins-WiFi, ASRock continues with the philosophy of catering to the mid-range and high-end (enthusiast) markets with a board utilizing another new Intel chipset, the P45R2000-WiFi. The latest from ASRock is based off the popular Intel P45 chipset, a follow up of the P35 chipset, and allows for high speed DDR3 memory support along with two PCIE2.0 slots for your CrossFire needs. Along with the latest and greatest chipset, the board hosts a number of innovative features such as support for 1600 and 1333 FSB processors out of the box as well as hybrid DDR2 and DDR2 memory compatibility.

"BFG offers several different models of power supplies, from the value-oriented GS to the modular MX series, all the way up to their top of the line ES-800; they have something for every need and budget. The one I have for review today is the LS-550, which seems to fall somewhere in the middle of their lineup. Despite the relatively smallish power rating, the LS-550 offers quad +12v rails, 6 and 8-pin PCIe and ATX 2.2 version compatibility, all backed up by an impressive 5-year warranty."

CLICK HERE FOR BFG Tech LS-550 Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today for review I've got an excellent product from Thecus, it's the N3200 NAS box and it is a truly feature rich product that can add a new dimension to your storage capabilities of your home network. The N3200 is essentially a home storage server and it's billed as a 'Home NAS' but it's much more than that, it offers features that even a small business can utilize. With the N3200 you can have up to 3 Terabytes of storage capacity added to your network, the N3200 also offers various RAID solutions including RAID 5 which offers excellent security and performance for your data. On top of the security features theN3200 offers the ability to stream your media to other devices, a built in surveillance system with compatible webcams, HTTP, FTP and Bittorrent file transfer protocols, a print server, and even the ability to be wirelessly networked. The N3200 in physical size is small as well, but don't let it's size fool you, it's a fully featured NAS box that anyone can utilize for their storage needs. "

CLICK HERE FOR Thecus N3200 NAS Box SHOPPING & PRICING

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

"It would be very, very hard not to covet this video card. I know I recently said that the 9800 GTX was the sexy card, but this one might actually look nicer, eye of the beholder and all. And it's not just skin-deep, it's faaast, and because of that, we can overlook its frightening heat production and power consumption. But it isn't a bargain. Thanks to price warring, it's in the 'you gotta be crazy' and not the 'price is no question' bracket, and because of that, it'll get more attention than it might deserve. It's compelling, after all--especially the idea of quad SLI. Not that I'd turn one down, but the people for whom it makes sense are fewer than the people that can afford it. That is to say, it's a great piece of hardware, but it's only a good idea in the strictest of circumstances."

"Zalman GS1000 is a hybrid aluminum/steel full-tower case from Zalman: its side panels and details from its front panel are manufactured in aluminum, while its internal body is manufactured using the traditional zinc-coated steel. This helps reducing the price of the case compared to all-aluminum units. This case has four 5 ¼" bays and six 3 ½" bays for hard disk drives on the front of the case, three of them with hot swapping capability, and several other features."

CLICK HERE FOR Zalman GS1000 Case SHOPPING & PRICING

“We prepare a little surprise for you from Creative, and it is not mp3 player nor is sound card, neither one of products Creative is best known. For this test we got headphones attended primary for all air plane passengers, but also for all those who love great and crystal clear sound. Aurvana X-Fi is their name and it’s obvious that name originate from words Audio and Nirvana. Well, name does tell it all…”

CLICK HERE FOR Creative Aurvana X-Fi SHOPPING & PRICING

Thermaltake has raised the bar with their ESA-qualified Armor BWS6001 case. The case has all of the expansion options you expect from a Full-Tower ATX case and the features that you need as well. Extras like the optional accessories tray and external SATA port on the IO set this case apart from the competition at this price range. Thermaltake has taken their expertise in water cooling and construction and applied it to their case design. If you're looking for a case with the features that most want including a removable motherboard tray this case has it. ESA is an NVIDIA initiative for system builders that want total control of the system. For a price online of $250, this case is well worth the price for the hardware enthusiast wanting the extra room and space a full tower case offers.

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake Armor VH6001 Case SHOPPING & PRICING

" ... With an overclocked GPU and memory, the performance of the Sapphire Toxic HD4850 is best we've seen for a Radeon HD4850. It definitely offers one of the best price/performance ratios available to any mainstream gamer. "

Jason Dumbaugh tests the Striker II Extreme motherboard from Asus to bring you the real scoop on just how EXTREME this motherboard really is. Does it pass our tests? What kind of performance can you expect from the Striker II Extreme?

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Striker II Extreme Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

Hiper have three different series of PSUs, the Type-S series consisting of low output and simple units, Type-R series consisting of modular high performance units and the Type-M series consisting of non-modular high performance units. Setting the Type-S series aside, the main difference between the Type-M and Type-R units are the modular cable connectors.

"The Thermaltake MaxOrb heatsink is a novel design based around a half-dozen heatpipes and six individual arcs of cooling fins. I have to wonder if its design was born out of a desire not to infringe on existing patents, rather than sheer innovation... but in any event, the approach here guarantees an even fin pitch across the complete cooling surface area. In that respect the MaxOrb breaks new ground, allowing it to stand out from heatsinks of similar shape."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake MaxOrb Heatsink SHOPPING & PRICING

Sapphire's new HD 4850 Toxic graphics card comes with a preinstalled Zalman VF-900 GPU cooler that greatly reduces the operating temperature of the card. Also the operating frequencies have been bumped quite a bit, with some additional overclocking potential left in the card.

The need for good and reliable storage is increasing as we record more and more of our lives digitally. Whether it is important private photos, our music collections, or even our DVD-collections that have been ripped to disks - we need ways to store these files safely. At one time, floppy-discs were large enough to store most of our important files, but we are at a point today where DVDs are not even large enough for most people to store all they want.

CLICK HERE FOR Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UTN+B SHOPPING & PRICING

"Some may look at the cooling package of the Tagan CS-Monolize and think that it is not very elegant, but more along the lines of brute force. Well sometimes a hit with a big hammer is what gets the job done, and Tagan brought a really big hammer. They stuck two fans pushing 150 CFM each in a case that only takes up 2.4 cubic feet of space. So getting fresh air into the case is not an issue..."

"With the firestorm of success that was and still is the Antec Nine Hundred, how could Antec possibly expand on a design that has won countless awards and accolades? Easy! Introduce the Antec Twelve Hundred, the successor to the Nine Hundred, only in this iteration, take a proven design and make it even bigger, badder, and bolder. With this newest enclosure, Antec delivers a one-two punch that has left other chassis manufacturers reeling. Or has it? Will the Twelve Hundred live up to its hype? Is it the true heir to the Nine Hundred? HardwareLogic brings out the heavy artillery to find out!"

CLICK HERE FOR Antec Twelve Hundred Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"This card was a bit tough to overclock because the temperatures held it back. I was able to get the card from the stock GPU clock speed of 625MHz all the way up to 675MHz. The memory went up from the stock frequency of 990MHz up to 1075MHz. Overall, that's a pretty good overclock, especially since this card was overclocked 35MHz more on the GPU and 30MHz more on the memory than the PowerColor HD 4850 that it's competing against. With an aftermarket cooler, I'm sure this card would be able to go much higher than what I got it at."

CLICK HERE FOR Gigabyte HD 4850 GV-R485-512H-B SHOPPING & PRICING

Today, we will be dissecting the Lian Li A77 full size case. The pure size of the A77 alone is enough to win over most of us. But for me it’s the style and other features like the 12 bays, the locations for numerous 120mm fans, removable motherboard tray, top panel and fan controller. You may say there are many other cases that have these features. There are none that do it the way Lian Li does. So now we will jump into the review and get to know this beautiful tower.

CLICK HERE FOR Lian Li A77 Aluminum Full Tower SHOPPING & PRICING

Big as a whale and about to set sail, Benchmark Reviews brings you a review of OCZ's overclocker grade, heatpipe-equipped ReaperX HPC 4GB DDR2-800 kit OCZ2RPX800EB4GK. Outfitted with massive heatspreaders and a frankly unorthodox cooling system designed to handle voltages up to 2.2v and beyond, OCZ's ReaperX HPC kit may be just waht the die hard overclocker is looking for.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ ReaperX HPC 4GB PC2-6400 Memory Kit SHOPPING & PRICING

OCZ is offering a full line-up of DDR3 memory. Their Platinum Series was always known for their great price/performance ratio and this Enhanced Bandwidth kit is no different. It offers tighter timings at 1600 MHz than the competition, at a lower price point. So can it give us some serious bang for our buck?

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ DDR3 1600 MHz Platinum SHOPPING & PRICING

Need an SLI motherboard but have less than $200 to spend? No need to stress, as the 750i SLI chipset was designed with you in mind. We are taking a look at how eVGA put the chipset to good use in the form of their 750i SLI FTW board, which offers solid performance and overclocking-ability, in addition to great board design.

CLICK HERE FOR eVGA nForce 750i SLI SHOPPING & PRICING

Geeks provided us with todays review product, we are going to take a look at a Blu-Ray player that also is a dvd burner. If you don't know what Blu-ray is I recommend you Google for it as it is the new format that will replace DVD in the near future. Blu-ray players are dropping in price as the become more mainstream, we are going to compare picture quality today and also see how loud and how well this product works.

"Aaah, storage. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have enough of it. Be it in a server or on the go, you can’t really ever have too much hard drive space. Today we’re taking the time to have a look at a hard drive caddie from a company called VOX.

We will today have a look at how the VOX V1 goes up against another caddie we have with us and also against one of our Samsung 1TB drives that is already installed in our system. Before we get into that though, let’s have a look at the package VOX has put together along with a closer look at the caddie itself."

"... The Asus Rampage Extreme is an excellent product and will certainly attract a lot of fans. It will undoubtedly find its way into a lot of top end systems. "

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Rampage Extreme (X48) Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

The integrated graphics market is an interesting one to say the least. With the release of the HD3200 graphics on AMD's 780G platform and the release of the 8300/8200 from NVIDIA there are two good choices to integrated graphics on the AMD side of the platform while on the Intel side of the market there's only one, as Intel's integrated graphics just doesn't cut the mustard. The 8200 is not for the hardcore enthusiast wanting to play the latest games with AA and AF on. Instead it is for the HTPC enthusiast wanting an inexpensive motherboard with onboard graphics to play their Blu-Ray Discs on their HDMI HDTV, light gaming and everyday use. XFX's solution offers everything you need to run a HTPC with HDMI connection, good High Definition Audio and the small form factor size, the 8200 from XFX gets the job done.

CLICK HERE FOR XFX GeForce 8200 Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"Up on the review block today I've got one from Xigmatek, it's the SD964 HDT CPU cooler, not a real fancy name, but then again what's in a name right? It really doesn't matter what it's called as long as it performs! The SD964 is a small heatpipe style CPU cooler, at least in comparison to others on the market today, but it is by no means small in terms of performance. The SD964 dominates over most others out there in our tests on both C2D and C2Q CPUs... "

CLICK HERE FOR Xigmatek SD964 HDT CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

We test two 9500 GT cards, one from Leadtek and one from Galaxy. We share with you our preliminary findings with these two sub $100 video cards who aim to take the performance/price crown at the entry level. Can these cards impress? How do they stack up to the 9600 GT and 8600 GT read on to find out.

"Raidmax has just launched a series of mini-tower cases targeted to the female audience, Aura, available in four unique colors: seashell pink, emerald green, polar blue and "really black". This case has five external 5 ¼" bays, two external 3 ½" bays and three internal 3 ½" bays, coming with two 120-mm fans, one on the left side panel and the other on the rear panel, and screwless mechanisms for fastening disk drives. We reviewed the seashell pink version, check it out."

CLICK HERE FOR Raidmax Aura Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"The iPhone 3G is mostly what we were hoping for in the second version of the too-popular-for-itself handset. Apple addressed call quality concerns, as well as demands for a faster Web experience via 3G and corporate email support, already making it a worthwhile upgrade for many first-gen iPhone owners. And while the addition of stereo Bluetooth and Assisted-GPS are mere catch-ups to other smartphones, the new App Store boosts it way ahead. We're a little disappointed that the iPhone 3G still lacks video recording, and we'd like a user-replaceable battery and expandable storage, but overall it's a thoroughly satisfying phone and iPod."

CLICK HERE FOR Apple iPhone 3G SHOPPING & PRICING

There are some issues. Shoddy speakers and a trackpad that is more hand-cramping and difficult than doing the secret ant-man handshake with every ant in a colony are the main problems, but the Aspire One does a good job of overcoming them and still offering great performance and usability. It isn’t quite perfect, but it comes damn close and is definitely the most attractive subnotebook we’ve seen since the Eee PC 701 first landed.

CLICK HERE FOR Acer Aspire One SHOPPING & PRICING

The Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512MB graphics card may look just like a unit from the HD3870 series, but it is a top of the line model offering a PCI Express X16 interface, a 750MHz core clock, and 900MHz GDDR5 memory which makes things very interesting thanks to the greatly increased bandwidth (in comparison to GDDR3 and GDDR4).

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512MB Graphics Card SHOPPING & PRICING

"A lot of the time I use my computer in the late evenings when the ambient noise is very quiet in my house, so trying to keep PC noise to a minimum is important so as not to annoy me/disturb others. With testing the Noctua NF-P12+NF-B9 fans today I have been treated to a taste of really quiet computing."

"A company “built on gamers’ dreams,” NZXT has since expanded upon their “Crafted Series” cases, into a line of more modest, yet still stylish, “Classic Series” cases, and even two lines of power supplies. They have, for the most part, enjoyed great success with all of their products, which are known for being high quality despite having a lower than usual cost. Today we have for review the NZXT Performance Power 800W power supply, one whose launch was abnormally silent and hasn’t received much attention."

"At the 2008 Computex event, Intel officially took the curtains off its 4 series PCI Express chipset range which is set to replace the original 3 series of chipsets. Intel’s 4 series not only brings Crossfire support to the mainstream, thanks to its ability to run two PCI Express x8 slots for GPUs, but it also adds PCI Express 2.0 to all of its 4 series of chipsets. That’s right, even the low-end of the 4 series gets a new PCI Express controller hub.

Today we have been sent two of the newest members of the 4 series family from ASRock, and they are loaded with features for the home user along with some nice overclocking for the enthusiast. Today we take a look at the ASRock P45R2000-WiFi and the P43R1600Twins-WiFi. How do they stack up? - Come and see with us."

"In Win is a king of case manufacturers. Their purview extends across the entire realm of beige, from the calm sea of beige to the shallow cliffs of beige, with the inoffensive beige plains between. I speak in jest. I have a soft spot in my heart for the oft-marginalized company, mainly because they made the first case I ever bought. It was, you know, off-white, a mini-tower affair that came with an adequate PSU. And even though I've since played with the full spectrum of cases, that first case I still have, and still use. Despite the color, it was way ahead of its time, both in layout and features. So I look at the Alpha360, boxed up in Engrish, and I think, people should know about these guys. These cases are awesome. I mean, these specific cases. The rest are all King Beige."

CLICK HERE FOR In Win Alpha360 Mini-Tower Case SHOPPING & PRICING

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

" Today for review I've got an 8gb microSDHC card from Kingston, it's a Class 4 card which means it should perform well with a rated transfer rate of 4MB/s. So read on to see if this microSDHC card lives up to its rating and how it compares to a couple other microSD cards I've got on hand."

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston 8GB microSDHC Card SHOPPING & PRICING

“This time we have tested a middle-lower class motherboard but nevertheless an interesting model, Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R. Gigabyte was always, at least when it’s comes to DS3 series of motherboards, known for simplicity and real good production quality. As far as this model is concerned, there is enough space around CPU socket, so you can very easily mount any cooler. EPS 12V connector is positioned in upper left corner while 24-pin ATX connector for supplying components on motherboard is placed in upper right corner…”

CLICK HERE FOR Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R SHOPPING & PRICING

"Here are 15 iPhone apps we consider essential - they all work with the iPhone 3G, and many run on the iPod Touch and original iPhone as well."

CLICK HERE FOR iPhone SHOPPING & PRICING

“One of the last cases to make a hit with the enthusiasts was the recent Antec Nine Hundred. To give you a little recap, it offered front Dual Blue LED 120mm fans along with two internal 120mm fans, a unique side window with the optional 120mm cut out behind the black screen, 200mm top exhaust fan, top mounted front panel ports, and looked pretty cool. You can still find them on several shelves and makes one heck of a mid-tower case. After patiently waiting, we received word that the Antec Twelve Hundred was finally on the way. If you liked the Nine Hundred and just about bought one, you'll really appreciate the Twelve Hundred. It's one of those cases you might just have to have.”

CLICK HERE FOR Antec Twelve Hundred Gaming Case SHOPPING & PRICING

“Our good friends at ASRock feel your pain. Building practical solutions for tough problems into motherboards is what they are best known for, and they have just released what may be the answer to your problems, an Intel P45 board capable of running both DDR2 and DDR3 memory. This isn't a new idea, a few companies did the same thing with the P35 last year. Most attempts were less than awesome, but ASRock's board was clearly the best attempt. With this experience under their belts, ASRock has released the P45R2000-Wifi. Will it be the solution for those wanting a gradual crossover from DDR2 to DDR3? Keep reading to see!”

The Gigabyte EP45-DQ6 features might have had a few limitations but they were far out weighed by the functionality and performance of the board. In a lot of the testing we did against the older P35 chip set Asus P5KC we saw a 30% or more performance increase with the EP45-DQ6. The Matrix Raid Array we set up on 2 hard drives and partitioned to run dual boot XP/Vista worked perfectly and provided a superior transfer rate that exceeded 100 MB/s and after things got broken in was hitting 120+ MB/s in most cases.

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High end is not their only area of expertise however and recently XFX offered us the opportunity to review a number of their value segment motherboards with onboard graphics, they told us that their products were capable of taking on the best AMD and Intel had to offer. This is quite a claim so after tracking down some impressive AM2/Socket 775 boards we put XFX to their word.

“Logitech G51 speakers were the first with prefix “G” (G as a short from gamer). Sound, as one of important component of any game, should be the best as possible, so engineers from Logitech did their best to satisfy expectations of most demanding users with this model. The first thing you’ll spot is definitely futuristic design of G51. Engineers from Logitech were probably led with idea that gamers have affections to that “futuristic” look…”

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"... The Asus Rampage Extreme is an excellent product and will certainly attract a lot of fans. It will undoubtedly find its way into a lot of top end systems. "

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Rampage Extreme (X48) Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

GMC is a Korean manufacturer who focus almost entirely on the design and production of HTPC cases. We have reviewed several HTPC cases from them in the past, as well as several unique tower cases, but today we will take a look at one of their more basic models, the H-70. The H-70 is a standard ATX midi tower case designed to meet the large demand for quality (but not flashy or expensive) midi tower cases. Although it is not a chassis which you could compare against a high end aluminum full tower model, it has several features which will have it standing out against other cases in its sector.

"Today on hand, we have the newest member of the X4 family; the 9350e. This CPU is a quad core offering with 2GHz core clock. It’s designed for a power efficient quad core system. Let’s take a look and see how it compares to the X3 and the Athlon 4850e.

While it’s beyond us, AMD really has big plans in energy efficient computing. This is where the X4 9350 fits into the picture; part of the same line that the Athlon 4850e we tested fits into as well."

Today we are taking a look at one of the top of the line cards at this time. The card costs a bit more than the others on the market so the main question is does the card really perform so well that it's worth putting the money into it. We are going to compare it vs a few other Asus cards that have proven to perform quite well and we will also see if we can tweak a bit more out of the card even though it's factory tweaked already.

"In this review Frostytech will be testing out a curiously shaped heatsink from Thermaltake called the V1 (CL-P0401). The V1 heatsink stands 144mm tall and is entirely made of copper components. What makes this heatsink stand out are the shape of its fins, from one angle it the V1 almost resembles a flame! Thermaltake have assembled the V1 heatsink from two radial copper fin sections which look like they were once intended for a VGA thermal solution. The copper fins are punctuated by four copper heatpipes and arranged so that air is drawn in through one set of fins before being expelled out the other side of the heatsink."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake V1 Heatsink SHOPPING & PRICING