Week of May 4, 2008

The Hiper Anubis is an incredibly sturdy chassis, which goes the "trusted and true" route. You will not find any fancy layout or interior screw-less system, but thumb screws instead. The beautifully designed front is one good reason to give the Anubis a little plaque with a unique serial number on it.

CLICK HERE FOR Hiper Anubis SHOPPING & PRICING

"FSP has been around for more than a decade. In that time, they have built themselves up as one of the largest power conversion product purveyors in the world. Among their power products are personal computer power supplies. We recently reviewed their 700 watt FX Epsilon. Today we have a smaller FSP unit from a different line; the FSP Blue Storm II 500 watt PSU."

Pity the poor, impressionable kid who's psyche and view of life will be forever warped because of violent, no redeeming value video games. Take Grand Theft Auto (GTA) IV. Blood, guts, sex, drugs, rock 'n roll. Take-Two's Rockstar dropped a cool $100 million to develop this horrific game. If only the kids could wrestle the controls away from the Atari generation dudes and dudettes.

"Patriot has been one of the newer companies to come on board at TweakTown to supply us with their high performance memory for testing, and so far we have been pretty impressed with their line of high performance memory. Once again they have come on board to send us their new series of DDR3 modules. Today we have Patriot’s Viper Fin DDR3 2GB dual channel memory kit.

The sticker on one side of each memory module contains info on the modules. The kit we received was rated for speeds of 1866MHz or 933MHz core speed with timings of 8-8-8-24 at a maximum voltage of 1.9v. The modules are all RoHS which means they are manufactured with lead free solder."

Our friends over at Coolink were nice enough to provide us with one of their recent offerings to look at today; the GFXChilla Graphics Card after market cooling solution. Coolink is a brand of the Kolink International Corporation founded in 1996 and at the time primarily in the Asian market. In 2005 it made it's foray into the European market and is now a well known brand there. Now Coolink is spearheading it's move into the American market with it's GFXChilla with it's value minded GPU cooling solution.

"The Coolermaster Aquagate Mini R80 is a self contained watercooling system designed for a broad range of Intel and AMD processors. Unlike a lot of CPU watercooling systems which can be complicated to install, fill, bleed and monitor, the Aquagate comes pre-plumbed and pre-filled with an ethylene glycol based coolant. The system is guaranteed for two years operation without need for refill, so to get started all you need to do is mount the CPU block and attach the heat exchanger to the side of the computer case."

The Diamond HD3650 1GB is not a bad card as it does support DirectX 10.1 features, meaning that you can play the latest and greatest games on the computer with full visual fidelity. The problem becomes, when price comes into play along with the performance of the card, the card just doesn't cut the mustard. Another review of this card states that at $95 USD, this card is an ok buy and I would agree with that statement. At $130 online from various sources (Newegg, ZipZoomFly etc.) the card is not a good buy as there are better choices for your money.

CLICK HERE FOR Diamond Radeon HD3650 1GB SHOPPING & PRICING

A Silverstone case with LED lightening in none rectangular front panel? The Kublai series is Silverstone's entry in the Gaming/Enthusiast ATX case market. Build with less expensive materials it aims to find a balance between price, looks and features. We take a look at the KL03 model in this review to see how it stacks up to the competition.

CLICK HERE FOR SilverStone Kublai Series KL03 Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"Fortunately, the heat sink blew away most of my doubts about the product. The Zipang is shockingly well built and extremely solid. It feels like serious quality, not at all flimsy like many others in this price range. Again, the shear size of the fan speaks for itself; attached resolutely with fan clips. I ran my hand across the the six heat pipes, which connect to the main cooling fins, in not only one section, but two sections, distributed on the bottom and throughout the center (UPHC as dubbed by Scythe). In addition, the Zipang includes a thick sub-heatsink, attached to the main cooling plate directly. This reminds me of the famed, but obsolete Thermal Right XP-120, except on some serious steroids."

“Arctic Cooling is probably most well known for CPU and VGA coolers but a few years ago they started branching out into cases. The concept behind AC’s case range has always been silent but effective cooling and this philosophy also extends to the PSU’s that are bundled with each chassis. Today we are reviewing one of the newest additions to the Silentium range, the T3.”

Today we are going to take a look at GIGABYTE's high end motherboard, the X48T-DQ6. GIGABYTE makes two versions of this board utilizing Intel's X48 chipset. The X48 which is a DDR2 variant and the X48T which is the DDR3 version that we will be covering today. The X48 brings minimal changes to the chipset when compared to the X38 and the only tangible difference should be more overclocking headroom. In recent years GIGABYTE has truly reinvented itself as a leader in innovation. In today's world the name of the game, or color to be more specific, is green. We have green cars, green homes and now you can add motherboards to the growing list of items going green. GIGABYTE has made a concerted effort to produce motherboards that use the least amount of energy possible without sacrificing performance. A task not easily accomplished. To this end they have dubbed this innovation DES or Dynamic Energy Saver. A system which can adjust voltage, power phases and clocks speeds of the board and CPU to ensure as little energy as possile is wasted while providing as much power as needed. Is it possible to have a power efficient system without losing performance?

CLICK HERE FOR GIGABYTE X48T-DQ6 SHOPPING & PRICING

BT: So, speaking of other Warhammer games, did you know about Iron Lore shutting down? Their last game was the Warhammer 40K Dawn of War: Soulstorm expansion and the company said that piracy played a big part in their closure.

JD: Yeah, well if I’m honest then piracy is the number one concern for a PC gaming developer.

"Enermax has recently released two high-efficiency power supply series, MODU82+ and PRO82+. The name implies that products from these two series have efficiency of at least 82%, but Enermax says they actually have efficiency of at least 84%. Both use the same internal project, with MODU82+ models using a modular cabling system. Today we are going to take an in-depth look on the 525 W model from the PRO82+ series (also known as EPR525AWT) and see if it can really deliver its labeled power and efficiency. Read on."

CLICK HERE FOR Enermax PRO82+ 525 W Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

Much like other 3650 cards, you get a pretty good performer packed with features for a low price. The inclusion of native HDMI-out is a big plus for anyone running a home theater PC setup, but others are not left out with VGA and DVI connections as well.

CLICK HERE FOR Diamond Viper HD 3650 1GB SHOPPING & PRICING

..." Canon has finally offered compact digital camera with 8 megapixels. This point-and-shoot camera gives impression of reliability and well built product. Canon IXUS 80 IS has all standard and expected functions without unnecessary "fancy" stuff that some manufacturers implement with intention to attract customers. Canon intended this model for users who desire modern, reliable and quality photo camera without any unusual functions (with limited usability)."...

"Audiophiles, listen up! XtremeMac has just introduced its next-generation Tango, the new X2, offering a high-fidelity three-way speaker system designed for use with your iPod. It contains two full-range speakers, two tweeters and a subwoofer. The question is simply as follows: Does it offer better performance than its big brother, the original Tango?"

CLICK HERE FOR XtremeMac Tango X2 SHOPPING & PRICING

A few months ago, ASUS jumped into the audio card market with both feet with the introduction of their Xonar product line. One of the first models to market was the premium Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity 7.1 sound card. The D2 boasted a superb retail package with all of the cabling, software and extras one would need thrown in, along with a slick, eye-catching design, for around $180. Not only did the Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity 7.1 deliver on all fronts, but it also proved to be solid competition for Creative, who still has somewhat of a stranglehold on add-in audio card market.

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS Xonar DX PCI Express 7.1 Audio Card SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today for review I've got the Thermaltake M9 ATX case, it's a mid-tower style case that is sort of a basic case but offers some nice features and looks good as well. Aesthetically the M9 is very pleasing with an almost solid black exterior, nice contour lines and an overall sense of style to it. When powered on the blue LEDs of the included fans make a nice contrast with the black and make for a very nice presentation, its also quiet and does a decent job of keeping your system cool."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake M9 Mid-Tower PC Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"Companies like CoolIT Systems played a large role in turning water cooling into a mainstream practice by making it available on a large scale, even getting their products in the hands of big box builders like Alienware.

Today we are going to look at CoolIT’s latest water-cooled processor heatsink, the PURE. CoolIT calls their cooling systems “Fluid Heat Exchangers” and have been building their FHEs for a couple of years now."

CLICK HERE FOR CoolIT Systems PURE CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

Viking: Battle for Asgard is an interesting combination of a third-person Oblivion and God of War. As an avid fan of both of these games, Viking is a welcome alternative to all of the lame horror and action games released lately. Add into the mix a bit of Age of Empires, and woah.can I have a minute alone?

CLICK HERE FOR Viking: Battle for Asgard SHOPPING & PRICING

"An early look at the listed specifications confirms that the cooler makes use of six copper heat pipes attached to a copper base, with a large number of aluminium fins to dissipate that heat. The Hyper Z600 comes with no fans by default, but is only recommended to be used in this passive configuration with CPUs that sport a TDP of up to 89 Watts - Anything above this, and you'll either need some decent chassis-based cooling or to install a 120mm fan on the Z600 itself. Speaking of which, the cooler supports the installation of either one or two 120mm fans to aid with cooling."

I have to say that I’m impressed with the Asus EAH3870 X2 graphics card – it’s quite a step away from the reference design and innovation like this should be encouraged. The inclusion of four DVI ports will be a welcome addition for anyone looking to run more than a couple of monitors on their workstation and what makes it even better is the fact that, unlike Nvidia’s SLI, ATI CrossFireX technology scales across multiple displays.

CLICK HERE FOR Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB graphics card SHOPPING & PRICING

X48 is new, but there are many boards already begging for your dollars. We are taking a look at the most robust of them all, the P5E3 Premium, which includes built-in WiFi, a great board design and fantastic overclocking abilities. It would almost be a perfect board if it weren't for the $375 price tag.

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS P5E3 Premium WiFi-AP SHOPPING & PRICING

"Overclocking a pre-overclocked card? Can it be pushed any further? The answer is yes. It didn't take me long to discover that this video card does not like to be pushed, but I was able to obtain a minimal overclock on the already overclocked beast of a video card. I reached 850MHz on the core clock from the stock frequency of 840MHz, and on the memory I obtained a frequency of 975MHz over the stock 960MHz. It's not much, but we'll see if it gives a performance increase at all."

CLICK HERE FOR VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 SHOPPING & PRICING

“The Razer Destructor Professional Gaming Mat is certainly something gamers should look into buying. Razer's test showed an increase in tracking of 37% with laser mice and 25% compared to other gaming-grade surfaces. This surface is of the highest quality. Razer claims it as the Razer Fractal surface for high-precision gameplay. Something that you probably haven't seen with any other gaming-grade mousepad is a protective carrying case, which comes included with the Destructor. Perfect for on-the-go gamers.”

"For most computer savvy users, transferring data between two computers is relatively easy. If you have a network set up, you can share data between two computers. Alternatively, you can simply use a flash drive... but that might not be very efficient if you are transferring a large amount of data. But, for those users who aren't as "skilled" with computers, this can present quite a problem. I have seen countless people burn CD after CD of data to transfer to their laptop, which of course is time-consuming and wasteful."

David Copperfield may be able to make an entire house disappear, but missing windows are an event that nearly everyone has encountered. This occurs more frequently with laptops, as they frequently change profiles that have different video outputs (especially if you use a docking station). Some programs save their last window positions, so if you opened a program when you were docked, then the program may open off-screen when you are undocked.

"Like the price of a barrel of oil, the megapixel count of D-SLRs continues to climb. When Canon and others first unveiled popularly-priced digital single lens reflex cameras, 6MP was the resolution spec, and everyone was thrilled. Today, 6-megapixel cameras of any type are practically ancient history. In fact, most new D-SLRs such as the Nikon D60, Pentax K200D or Sony DSLR-A200 kick off at 10MP with 14s becoming much more prevalent in 2008, such as the recent Editor's Choice-earning Sony DSLR-A350. As for the new Canon EOS Rebel XSi, it fits right between them with a resolution of 12.2MP, but proves slightly more expensive if you look at it on a pure pixel-for-pixel comparison. Yet digital cameras are about much more than pure resolution-they're about speed, picture-taking ability and loads of little things that separate the good from the bad. With that in mind, it was time to see if Canon had a winner on its hands-or, to put it bluntly, a clunker instead."

CLICK HERE FOR Canon EOS Rebel XSi SHOPPING & PRICING

"Cooler Master has recently launched a new entry-level series of power supplies, eXtreme Power Plus. Products from this series are very simple, with optional passive PFC. We reviewed the 460 W model (RS-460-PMSR-A3), which costs only USD 40. Is this a good product for the average user? Can it really deliver its rated 460 W? Let's see."

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 460 W Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

With the recent purchase of Hyper Sonic OCZ has added another company to their portfolio, further diversifying their product range. Hypersonic's AG2 Notebook, which we have on our testbench today has been engineered to be light weight and portable with less than 1.8 kg. The design also looks stunning with its a high quality, glossy paint.

"NVIDIA Hybrid SLI and HybridPower technology are welcomed additions to the enthusiast computing scene and give consumers another reason to purchase NVIDIA platforms. Having the ability to turn off the discrete graphics at will is one of the coolest new features we have seen on a PC. It's amazing that it took this long for someone to figure it out, but the time has finally come. NVIDIA Hybrid SLI technology was found to be pretty solid for being brand new technology.The slight performance decrease was expected, but the ability to use HybridPower seems to outweigh the performance hit..."

Ruffy takes a look at the new NESTEQ 700W PSU which is rated at 80+ efficiency. We ran some in use tests and shows you why the attention to design detail from the modular design, types of cables, quantity of cables provided that in effect seem to double due to their patented Enhanced Easy Connection System is worth you taking a look at this PSU.

" ASE Labs has always explained the benefits of having redundant storage and backups. There are series of articles devoted to each technology. Sans Digital is a big player in RAID enclosures and their latest model, the MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ delivers USB2 and eSATA support to a 2 disk array of your choosing. This combines the best of both world for data backup and redundancy. It really is an excellent product. "

CLICK HERE FOR Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ RAID Enclosure SHOPPING & PRICING

"S3 hasn’t stopped releasing graphics cards, but we just don’t seem to hear much about them anymore. Hopefully that’s going to change with the release of the Chrome 430 GT. It’s a low-end card that seems to be capable of taking on the big boys at NVIDIA and AMD.

Trying to fire up GPU-Z just resulted in an error due to none of it being able to be recognized, though the core comes in at 625MHz and there is 256MB of GDDR2 memory running at a speed of 500MHz DDR. We have a 64-bit interface, 64nm core, PCI Express 2.0 support, Direct X 10.1 and Open GL 2.1 support."

"Noiseblocker have created some pretty immense coolers in the past, notably among them is the Coolscraper series which combines high performance cooling with ultra silence. Now they've sent me the much anticipated Coolscraper 3. Lets see if it lives up to the high standard that we have come to expect from Coolscraper over the past few years."

"Gaming mice provide many features that are unavailable in standard mice. These options include higher DPI, the inclusion of counterweights, Teflon feet and precise tracking speeds. The two biggest names in the Gaming Mice arena include Logitech and Razer. Well, move over boys, there is a new contender. Hades Gaming has released the H1 Optical Gaming Mouse and this mouse holds it own against the big boys. "

The Silverstone Treasure TS01B is a very unique 2.5" SATA hard drive enclosure. You may not only use it as a plain USB 2.0 powered unit, but may also set it up to safely encrypt your hard drive as well. The two included RFID tags then act as keys to gain access to your data.

"While renaming products to GeForce 9xxx, NVIDIA launched another graphics card based on G92 -- GeForce 9800 GTX. It's the most powerful single-GPU graphics card, designed to replace GeForce 8800 GTX (and probably GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB in the nearest future). However, at this moment GeForce 9800 GTX stands in between GeForce 9800 GX2 and GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB."

CLICK HERE FOR NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX Graphics Card SHOPPING & PRICING

" The cooling performance of the Coolermaster Hyper Z600 is very good for a passive CPU cooler. What really makes this cooler shine is the total silence ... of course it has no fans ! "

In today's gamer-friendly market there seems to be no shortage of gaming peripherals to choose from. Unfortunately for the games, however, not all peripherals are created equal - making it difficult and risky to choose. Today I hope to help with your decision by taking a look at the Wolfking Warrior XXtreme gaming keyboard. As an avid gamer that has always used a basic keyboard, the comparison will prove to be a great test for the latest Wolfking.

CLICK HERE FOR Wolfking Warrior XXtreme SHOPPING & PRICING

“In a few short years, OCZ has really made its mark in the PC enthusiast world. They have branched out into power supplies, CPU coolers, thermal compound, peripherals, flash media, they even have a new phase-change cooler for those extreme overclockers that need sub-zero temps. But, OCZ's forte is still high-performance system memory. Today I will be looking at OCZ's latest offering in the ReaperX series, the ReaperX PC3-1066 (DDR3-1333) 2 gig kit. Will the DDR3 ReaperX prove to be the awesome overclocker that its DDR2 little brother is? Read on and see...”

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ ReaperX HPC DDR3-1333 2GB Memory Kit SHOPPING & PRICING

Xigmatek has really made a name for themselves over the past year thanks to the Heat-pipe Direct Touch technology that they have embraced. When Benchmark Reviews originally reviewed the HDT-S1283 cooler we were absolutely astonished by the incredible results. Once again, we are the very first to test the newest hardware, and you'll be impressed to know that this product delivers the performance needed by overclockers while fulfilling the enthusiasts wish list for attractive features. Benchmark Reviews introduces the Xigmatek Achilles S1284 HDT CPU Cooler CAC-SXHH4-U02 and tests the performance against the top competitors.

The LifeBook U1010 from Fujitsu, an Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) claimed by Fujitsu to be the world’s smallest Notebook PC. Utilising a mere 5.6” WideScreen LCD and 3.5G Wireless Broadband Connectivity, we see if it’s any good.

"One word describes my feelings about the Thermaltake M9 VI1000BWS - fantastic! It performed very well in my tests, looks awesome, and the included 120mm fans manage to push a good amount of air while remaining very quiet. The tool-less drive bays and expansion slot retainers were very well made - I didn’t even break one! From top to bottom, this is my favorite mid tower so far, and its very reasonable price makes it an even more attractive option."

CLICK HERE FOR Thermaltake M9 SHOPPING & PRICING

"The gargantuan Archos 705 WiFi's attention-grabbing features include a 7-inch touchscreen, 160GB hard drive, integrated WiFi and digital video recorder functionality. What's more, because of its size, the device often gets compared to an ultra-portable PC, only minus the productivity features and processing speed that would make it truly deserve such categorization. But remember: Archos's goal - emblazoned on the front of the metal casing - was to make a large-screen mobile DVR for traveling video junkies. Extras like WiFi are meant more to provide greater access to content than to enable the 705 as a laptop replacement, and because it has less lofty ambitions than Cowon's overburdened Q5W, the gizmo achieves its goals fairly well. We just wish Archos had aimed a little higher with the most important feature of all: Audiovisual quality."

CLICK HERE FOR Archos 705 WiFi SHOPPING & PRICING

"Shopping for a monitor isn't exactly straightforward, though. As if picking a size weren't hard enough, you also have to balance your standards for specifications versus price. That's too much work for a lot of people, especially after they just spent a month researching the best hardware to buy, and they stick with the well-known names like Samsung and Viewsonic."

..." SanDisk, as one of mayor flash memory manufacturers, naturally has big USB flash drive portfolio. It's very hard to stand out, when there is a huge amount of different USB flash drive models from different manufacturers on the market. Generally speaking, you can only recognize a specific type only by its different USB casing. Design of casing is something that all manufacturers pay attention to attract more customers. On the other hand, in the eyes of final user a big plus is always bigger capacity and speed of data transfers."...

CLICK HERE FOR SanDisk Ducati Extreme SHOPPING & PRICING

Any consumer of computer gear, gadgets, or home theater equipment knows that their stuff starts to look a little worn after a while. It doesn't take long at all before your shiny new iPod gets a few unsightly scratches, diminishing its value and distracting from the gadget's coolness. PC enthusiasts can carve deep gouges in their cases during the course of system maintenance. Let us not forget that scratches can also destroy data on those new BluRay and DVD discs. All of these minor scrapes and scratches not only make your equipment look dated, but lowers its value.

As the Media Center or Home Theatre PC becomes more popular in homes the need for a better way to interact with the PC on the other end becomes critical. While the standard remote control may be good for most functions, what do you do when you have the need to input information or data, or type in searches? Logitech has created the diNovo Mini which is essentially a tiny bluetooth keyboard which allows you much greater freedom with your HTPC. The diNovo Mini combines all the functionality of a touchpad, keyboard, and hotkeys all into one tiny palmtop package that even has back lighting. Check out our review of this cool accessory.

CLICK HERE FOR Logitech diNovo Mini SHOPPING & PRICING

"The Nano Silencer TLI-U is ideally sized for 1U server chassis, nano formfactor PCs, car PCs and media center microATX-style cases. The entire TLI-U heatsink stands no taller than 45mm, and uses the same swagged aluminum fin technique as the Micro Silencer model. Twin sintered wick copper heatpipes and a total weight of just 214 grams make the TLI-U a capable low mass cooler for weight sensitive applications. For the sake of convenience the heatsink even comes with a pre-applied patch of 8 W/mK rated gray thermal interface material on the bottom."

"The ASUS M3N-HT has many upgradable options such as the ability to run triple SLi if you have the cards available, or Dual SLi if you do not want to spend that much on GPUs. The temperature test with the Mempipe was not the greatest drop in temperature, but when a user is overclocking, every degree is a help to get the maximum out of his system. The Express Gate feature is a noble idea with a wealth of uses, especially if you need to get online to get a driver when you cannot get Windows to operate."

CLICK HERE FOR ASUS M3N-HT 780a SLi SHOPPING & PRICING

"From a technical point of view we understand that Auzentech has fully licensed Creative Labs’ X-Fi chip onto their own proprietary circuit board design. So what does that mean? Well it means arguably the world’s fastest and most advanced audio processing at the average consumers reach right now, with upcoming driver support for Dolby Live, DTS interactive and since we have a Creative chip, the very latest in EAX surround technology.

My first impressions were good with a very noticeable notch up from the low-end after swapping from the Xonar. Not only did the low-end sound a lot beefier, it had a lot more character to it; more warmth and depth."

CLICK HERE FOR Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 Sound Card SHOPPING & PRICING

Are you in the market for a small form factor m-ATX motherboard that can give you blistering performance for your multimedia needs, plus the ability to play the latest Direct X 10 games? And as a bonus you can install a second card to gain CrossFireX for your games. Then you have to check out the Sapphire PURE Hybrid CrossFire 780G Innovation Motherboard.

Early this year while NVIDIA outlined their plans to mix things up at the high-end of their AMD chipset line-up with the IGP-equipped nForce 780a SLI, but it has taken quite a bit of time to bring that product to market. Today though, we present to you three nForce 780a SLI-based motherboards (two from Asus and one from MSI), that are sure to pique the interest of all of the AMD fans out there. For the first time since the Phenom launch, AMD fans will now be able to pair up NVIDIA's flagship graphics configurations with an AMD CPU and exploit all of the features inherent to both.

Our friends over at Mushkin were kind enough to send us a 2 Gig kit of their yet to be released XP-3 DDR3 12800 (PC3- 1600) that runs at 7-7-6-18 at a modest voltage of 1.85-1.9v. According to reports gleaned from the Web they show cased them at CeBIT this year. It's our pleasure to announce the XP3 series modules at CeBIT this year?, said Brian Flood, Mushkin director of product development.

The OCZ ReaperX HPC memory series is the newest variant of the heatpipe cooled memory available from the manufacturer. Its new design improves on the cooling with dual heatpipes and finer fins to keep the parts cool. In our testing we saw excellent performance going all the way to DDR2-736 at 3-3-3-12.

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

Ultra's X-Pro range consists of many units with a power output ranging from 600W to 800W. Today we will take a look at the two most powerful units of this particular series, the X-Pro 750W and the X-Pro 800W. Today we will find out if they should be in your shortlist for an upgrade or for a brand new high end gaming system.

CLICK HERE FOR Ultra X-Pro 750W SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR Ultra X-Pro 800W SHOPPING & PRICING

Vantec has added another member to the NexStar 360 lineup. The 3i boasts some things that we have not seen from Vantec in their many ages in the industry. In the past year or so we have seen motherboards feature energy efficiency, now we have it in hard drive enclosures. The 3i has an integrated controller that can regulate power to the drive resulting in less power consumption, less noise and longer drive life. Adding the real reason why we buy hard drive enclosures, which is for data storage, the new Vantec housing may be worth taking a look at.

“A little while ago, ThinkComputers reviewed the Zalman ZM500-HP 500W power supply unit. This time around, Zalman, maker of fine cooling products and power supplies, submitted for review a more powerful, but louder version of its line of power supply units, the ZM850-HP 850W. This 80PLUS-certified unit has lots of connectivity with its modular design, and two heatpipes and an ultra-quiet fan keep the unit virtually silent. The review is here.”

CLICK HERE FOR Zalman ZM850-HP 850W Modular Power Supply SHOPPING & PRICING

Fortunately, since the PC Enclosure market is roughly organized into three segments; entry/OEM level, mid-range and performance/enthusiast, all you need to do to begin your case search, is to figure out which segment of the market fits your systems needs and zero your search down to that particular segment. Someone looking to spend between $25.00-$75.00 on their future system's enclosure need not waste their time exploring the expensive performance/enthusiast segment of the market, and so forth. Well, if part of your criteria is that you are on a budget or a first time builder, then usually the place to start is at the entry and budget mid-range levels.

CLICK HERE FOR NZXT Alpha Classical Series Mid-Tower Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"Lian Li certainly put a lot of thought into the design of this case, even taking the time to implement the classic separate thermal zone design that is common to many full-tower and server cases. Can this case wow us like the PC-A17 did, though?"

Cooler Master's Real Power M850 power supply is one of the first power supplies that has six 12V rails. This should be enough power for all your SLI or CrossFire needs. Like many other PSUs today, the M850 comes with a high gloss reflective case and a large number of connectors.

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master Real Power M850 850W SHOPPING & PRICING

"At this time there just aren't enough advantages past GeForce 9800 GTX SLI to recommend 9800 GTX 3-way SLI. If you are looking for the absolute highest framerates, 3-way SLI will provide this, but it will not allow you to improve your gameplay experience in some games, so you are paying extra money for nothing unless you want the performance for canned benchmarks. GeForce 9800 GTX SLI seems to be rather efficient for high-end gaming at this time, with Crysis being the exception. While Assassin's Creed was just released, and is a beautiful game, it ended up playing very well even on a single GeForce 9800 GTX with the highest in-game settings. GeForce 9800 GTX SLI will allow you to run it at 2560x1600, but 3-way SLI will not improve upon this."

CLICK HERE FOR 9800 GTX SHOPPING & PRICING

Today we take a look at Diamond's lower cost, mainstream Radeon HD 3650 that increases total on-board memory to 1GB, but in doing so, uses lower cost, slower GDDR2 chips. In the pages ahead, we'll aim to find out if additional on-board memory really impacts performance more so than a smaller footprint of faster GDDR3 memory.

Artiom takes a look at the fastest DDR2 memory currently available from Kingston in their HyperX line. This memory is meant to blur the lines and crank out pure speed and performance. How well does it do?

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC-9200 SHOPPING & PRICING

"We saw MSI mix it up just the other week with the 9600GT by overclocking it and going down the aftermarket cooler route. Aesthetically speaking, the card really didn’t do a lot for us, but as we dived deeper into the testing of the card we became pleasantly surprised by the performance the cooler offered.

The latest 9600GT variant from MSI sports the same cooler along with an extra 512MB of GDDR3, giving us a grand total of 1GB. The card also carries with it the same overclock we saw on the 512MB model which should aid in getting some extra performance over stock clocked offerings."

"The ECS N8800GT 256MB packs in double the memory with an available BIOS update giving you the performance of a true 8800 GT 512MB. The extra memory along with a nearly silent heat sink/fan combo and a $169 price tag assures it to be a great success!"

We continue our exploration of some of the market's lesser known power supplies today with the GP-PS550BP from GlacialTech, a budget unit featuring semi-fanless operation, passive PFC, and a promise by the company of being capable of full power to 45 degrees.

Bjorn3D has previously reviewed the performance difference of the stock 9800GTX versus various high-end and mainstream graphic cards: namely the 8 series cards (review). We are fortunate to receive the Foxconn GeForce 9800 GTX Extreme OC card which features clock speed of 780/1900/2360 (core/shader/memory) as opposed to the reference speed of 675/1688/2200. Today, we will put this card against other mid-range graphic cards ranging from the last generation G80 to current generation G92 cards and even the HD card from AMD.

Our study analyzed 1,325 product reviews by CNET Editors across all categories during the 2007 calendar year. We reveal statistics such as CNET's average editorial rating, average ratings by brand, average ratings by category, and the distribution of reviews rated at each point on CNET's 10-point scale.

“ASRock came on board in 2002, not long after I started building my own rigs. In those six short years, they have come up with some remarkably innovative designs for economy motherboards. Today I will be looking at the ASRock Penryn 1600SLIX3-WiFi motherboard. ASRock has taken the nVidia 680i SLI chipset, given it the capability of running the new Core 2 Extreme 1600mHz FSB processors, added WiFi, and placed that in an economy-minded board.”

How would you like to have 32 gigs of storage in your front pocket? There was a time when just a one gig flash drive was the ‘big drive’. Just enough storage room to transport a few pictures of the loved ones or enough to hold a few songs to share with your best friend. Times have changed and needs have increased. Now we have movies, programs and other large forms of files that would shallow a one gig drive. That’s when a drive like the Voyager comes into play. Besides an abundance of space, the Voyager is rigid and durable as well.

CLICK HERE FOR Corsair Voyager 32GB Flash Drive SHOPPING & PRICING

The bundle and support are very well with the XFX Black Edition GeForce 9800GTX, it comes with COD4, which is one of the hottest PC gaming titles available at this moment and costs around $49.95 at most e-tailors or retailers making the card a more attractive buy. Support and warranty options are well taken care of BY XFX as they take very good care of their customers in the after purchase environment and quick RMA return times. Overall this card is a solid piece of equipment that excels in the 1920X1200 and below resolutions with moderate AA and AF settings. In the 1680 and 1280 resolutions you can turn up the AA and AF settings to their maximum values and get great FPS gameplay. Not quite a gamers gold card, but definitely a Gamers Silver card award winner.

"When you take the Cooler Master Hyper Z600 out and get it alone, you are able to see how extremely large this piece of hardware actually is. Not only is it tall, it is also very wide. You can also see that the entire cooler is made out of aluminum, which is a very common choice between all manufactures to use for a cooler nowadays. All four sides of the Hyper Z600 look very similar; actually looking at only the fins, they are aligned the exact same on every side. This heatsink is setup very differently than any of the others that I have used before. There are two heatpipes that attach to the base and soar all the way up to the top of the heatsink and are positioned in each of the four corners of the unit."

Noctua has always fascinated me with their cooling solutions. They take the concept of product refinement to a new level, and often times simply tweak key areas of an existing design rather than reinventing the wheel. A perfect example of their research and development is found in the NH-U12P CPU cooler. This new product replaces their older NH-U12F model, and now features a NF-P12 cooling fan. Through the use of four heat-pipe rods configured in a "U" design, the NH-U12P borrows from the well-established performance record of many top-level coolers. Additionally, Noctua emphasises the complete experience beyond simply cooling the processor, and optimizes their products to operate with very low noise levels.

CLICK HERE FOR Noctua NH-U12P Heatpipe CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

Looking for excellent gaming performance but also want to keep PC noise to a minimum? The EN9600GT Silent from ASUS is the card to buy. It couples the power of the 9600 GT with pure silence, and costs little more than the stock model, making it a great choice for either the HTPC or desktop.

San Jose, California – May 6, 2008 – Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today launched a new line of MasterDrive solid state drives (SSDs) that are 100% interchangeable with hard disk drives (HDDs), but are faster, lighter, use less power and are far more rugged and reliable.

MasterDrive SSDs use NAND Flash rather than magnetic platters as the storage medium, giving them many advantages over HDDs. These drives have no moving parts, and therefore are completely silent, lighter weight and more reliable than HDDs. Moreover, they consume a fraction of the power of HDDs, meaning they produce less heat and offer longer battery life in mobile computing. MasterDrive SSDs use a SATA-II (3Gbps) interface to support high bandwidth and broad compatibility with motherboards, and have a standard 2.5-inch form factor. Proprietary wear-leveling algorithms extend the life of these SSDs.

From the concept of the Rally Flash Drive family, OCZ has done everything right: a sleek slender body with fast performance. As the series matured and evolved to the Rally2 Turbo, the drive has had a few cosmetic changes and the performance has kicked into a higher gear. The curved edges with no protruding parts and overall small body makes it an easy fit into pockets while the 25-30MB/s performance guarantees you quick copy from hard drive to flash.

CLICK HERE FOR OCZ 4GB Rally2 USB Flash Drive SHOPPING & PRICING

"X48 has certainly earned a name for itself now. While Intel has been at the back end of adapting new technologies that actually work (forget the Rambus incident), the X38/X48 chipsets are somewhat ahead of their time.

What can be said for the DFI X48 LANParty board other than yet another success from this once OEM company is that DFI has really taken on a new persona over the last three years. With a huge boost in R&D, DFI are designing boards that are not only functional, but look just as good as they perform."

"CoolIT claims that installing the PURE cooler is quick and easy, but I found that installation into my case - a Lian-Li PC-P60 - was a little more trouble than I expected. The problem I encountered stemmed from the sizable depth of my case, and the PURE's tubing was too short to span the distance between the CPU and the radiator mounted on the hard drive cage. I ended up resting the PURE's main assembly on my RAM slots, so that I could mount the CPU block without stretching the hoses too far."

CLICK HERE FOR Coolit Pure SHOPPING & PRICING

The Cooler Master Centurion 590 is a very affordable entry level case that brings a lot of features from much more expensive enthusiast class enclosures. Its nine 5.25" drive bays offer ultimate expandability, large video cards will also find a comfortable home in it.

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master Centurion 590 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Audioengine's stellar A5 "bookshelf" speakers knocked me flat with perfect sound. The fact that this company would trust invisible air tubes over good ol' copper to not screw up their performance is a compelling sign that their new Audioengine W1 is dyed-in-the-wool wireless solution, but I'm hella skeptical. While I certainly don't believe that Monster's onto something with their oxygen-free copper and gold lies, I'm not positive that I won't be able to tell the difference between wires and nothingness."

The NH-U12P is the newer version of the NH-U12. It has the same basic features as the NH-U12F, but is paired with the new Noctua NF-P12 120mm fan. The Noctua NH-U12P has shown that it preforms better than its older brother, the Noctua NH-U12F.

CLICK HERE FOR Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

"The Coolermaster Hyper Z600 heatsink is a novel passive CPU heatsink for today's dual core processors. Its' 'star' shape, widely spaced aluminum fins and prodigious number of silvery copper heatpipes allow it to work without the benefit of a fan, albeit within specific thermal limits. As far as passive cooling goes (and I mean true passive cooling without any fan blowing toward it) Frostytech threw caution to the wind and stressed the Coolermaster Hyper Z600 heatsink in its passive mode."

GMC are a Korean manufacturer of PC cases and they are continuously trying to design innovative and functional products for enthusiasts who would like to have something a little different. Today we will take a look at one of their latest creations, the R-3 ‘Corona’. The R-3 is a tower case designed to fit a standard ATX system but with the minimum possible dimensions, making it considerably smaller than any standard ATX case out there. Of course such a design has downsides as well as advantages which we will examine in this review.

"Yesterday I looked at the Thermolab Micro Silencer CPU Cooler, today I've got the Thermolab Nano Silencer. If you thought the Micro Silencer was small then you'll be amazed at the size of the Nano Silencer, it is about half the size of the Micro and still performs almost as well. I'm truly surprised by the performance of this cooler when you consider just how small it is. Since it's so small there should be no problem fitting it into any size case, and there should be no compatibility issues with motherboard or cases. "

"As Spire say, they are a name synonymous with quality and innovation and most innovative companies respond aptly to market trends. One of these trends is that many people now have expensive high end graphics cards and prolonging their life has become paramount for many. With that in mind, Spire have sent the "Powerfuse" over-voltage surge protector for us to review."

The XFX nForce 790 Ultra SLI motherboard is designed for the latest generation 45nm Core 2 processors with Front Side Bus speeds of up to 1600MHz. Based on the NVIDIA nForce 790i MCP chipset, this powerful ATX platform supports all the latest enthusiast technology. This versatile platform is SLI 3-way and 2-way ready and features NVIDIA Enthusiast System Architecture, MediaShield Storage, NVIDA System Tools, and NVIDIA DualNet Technology. Read on to see how it performs!

CLICK HERE FOR XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

Getting the Kingston HyperX 2GB PC2-9200 DDR2 memory kit up to the stock speed of 1150MHz was tricky only because it is an odd speed that I couldn't quite dial in with the settings found in the test system's BIOS. But getting into that general range required minimal effort, and even overclocking to well above 1200MHz was pretty much plug and play.

CLICK HERE FOR Kingston HyperX 2GB PC2-9200 DDR2 Memory SHOPPING & PRICING

In 2008, older viewers who have lived their whole lives in 4:3 will initially gawk at a custom interface like 11:15 and feel that the ratio is odd, confining, or forced - but no one is wondering whether or not a widescreen LCD looks awesome ripping HD, because we've warmed up to the idea in the movie theater. Widescreen seems like a natural evolution, although just a few years ago we were staring at our moderately hi-res, bulky 4:3 CRTs, and marveling at how crisp the images looked in comparison to a normal television. No doubt you'll see some of the hip kids reverting to 4:3 for its "vintage" appeal, and there might even be readers out there who have taken that stance already; arguing that the TV ratio they grew up watching Thundercats on will never - EVER - die, regardless of what widescreen is doing at large.

"INTEL's X48 chipset is the much anticipated follow up to the X38 chipset....which in turn was the much anticipated follow up to INTEL's hugely successful P35 chipset. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or industry insider to know that many in the enthusiast community are less than thrilled about the "marginal" improvements during the progression of chipsets, especially considering the prices some of these motherboards are going for (in excess of $300). While this isn't to say any of the three chipsets are poor performers, I find it a bit curious that INTEL has run these chipsets out as they have, taking the overall performance of each into consideration."

GlacialTech was nice enough to send us one of their Altair A380 HTPC cases to take a look at today. With many computers being turned into Home Theater Personal Computers and their proximity to your other Audio Visual equipment it's nice to have a small foot print case to fit in the limited space you have. While silently doing their job of replacing DVD players, DVRs, and other similar Audio Visual equipment it's just unsightly to have a bulky PC standing out like a sore thumb there by your entertainment center.

If you are not familiar with Aeneon’s DDR3 modules here is a quick rundown. Aeneon makes two different lines of DDR3, the first is their ‘value’ line which has no heat spreaders and a better price point. But the second series is the one that many of us would choose as it is meant for the overclocker and gamer that wants the most out of their rig. XTune is what this line is called and sports a very clean set of heat spreaders and pretty good timings. For those that are into numbers, how does 8-8-8-15 at just 1.5 volts sound?

CLICK HERE FOR Aeneon XTune DDR3-1333 SHOPPING & PRICING

Sorry people, was in an area that I thought had internet only to find it was down for technical reasons. I am back in the office and news will be continuing as normal for Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

Nathan