Week of September 7, 2008

Building a new rig and trying to get the best bang for your buck? Today Jack swoops into the economy performance class and pulls out the Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H Motherboard. For those of you that are looking for something that really performs, but are on a budget, you may want to check this out.

CLICK HERE FOR Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"With a 10-inch display, a fast and efficient Intel Atom processor, and lots of storage MSI's Wind Netbook is viable competitor in the new subnotebook "netbook" line of notebooks."

CLICK HERE FOR MSI Wind Notebook SHOPPING & PRICING

What do you get when you take a standard HD4850 video card and start overclocking it, then add heatsinks to each of the memory modules and then top it off with a Zalman VP-900 heatsink? The answer is the Sapphire Toxic HD4850 Video Card. Come on along as we test this card out and see if it is deed lethal of just displaying symptoms.

CLICK HERE FOR Sapphire Toxic HD4850 SHOPPING & PRICING

QNAP are a company well known for making class leading NAS system for home and office use. Today we are testing the newest device in their range the TS-509 Pro which features support for 5TB as well as 2 x Gigabit RJ-45 ethernet ports.

CLICK HERE FOR QNAP 509 Pro NAS System SHOPPING & PRICING

"The $34 Tritton AX Micro Bluetooth headset (TRI-BH200) is a solid performer that does many things well. Filtering out excessive room noise or enhancing your voice is not it's strength at all, but if you are looking for a economical and stylish Bluetooth headset, you need to make sure you look at the Tritton AX Micro..."

Quite simply, the game itself may be OK (though not exceptional) but the actual experience you are buying is just awful. It doesn’t work and if we’d have paid for it instead of just getting a review sample then we’d feel angry, cheated and disappointed. We’d take the game back and get a refund straight away because this product is broken, however we're sure that a patch (or many) in the next few weeks to months to fix it into a playable state. The problem is, there's absolutely no guarantee of this.

The first motherboard comes from ASUS, and is a member of the gamer-oriented Republic of Gamers series, which we have taken a few looks at in the past. We've been mostly impressed by what they've offered in this series, and expect no less with the Rampage Formula. Next up is the X48T-A from ECS. We can honestly say that we haven't seen much from ECS in the past couple of years in the enthusiast segment, so we aren't exactly sure what to expect, but if early impressions mean anything, this "Black Series" board means business. Finally, following on the heels of their popular Bonetrail X38 board, Intel has sent along the DX48BT2, which, like the X48 chipset itself is more or less an update of the original. Three boards, three manufacturers, all shooting for the top spot in our round-up. Who will come out on top?

CLICK HERE FOR Intel X48 Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

Today we are looking at the 9800 GT from GIGABYTE. It is a mid-range offering and a re-spin of the wildly popular 8800 GT with Hybrid SLI support thrown in for good measure. We intend to compare this card to its bigger brother the 9800 GTX+ as well as the competition's HD 4850 and see where we land. For those of you looking to game on a budget I invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. We have a couple of surprises in store for you today so without any more ado, let's get to it.

CLICK HERE FOR GIGABYTE 9800 GT SHOPPING & PRICING

"Up on the review block today is an interesting accessory that can be used with basically anything with a video output, it allows you to have a personal theater experience that you can take with you. The product is from Vuzix and it's the iWear AV920, it allows you to have the equivalent of a 62 inch screen for your own personal viewing pleasure. It's basically a set of futuristic looking glasses with two LCDs screens inside, attached to the sides are also built in headphones. In my time with the iWear AV920 I've found it to be an interesting product to be sure, that does have its usefulness and some unique features that most people will appreciate. "

CLICK HERE FOR Vuzix iWear AV920 SHOPPING & PRICING

E-power’s Thunder 550 watt PSU - Is it as touted? A quiet, efficient, “3 in 1” power supply? And, what exactly is a “3 in 1” PSU? Read on friend!'

“Swiftech has introduced a new flagship CPU water block, the Apogee GTZ. While it shares a similar monker of its predecessors, it promises to leap beyond the GT and GTX performance numbers. The new block sure looks great, but performance is King as we say, so today we'll find out if Swiftech has managed to succeed or succumb to its own marketing hype."

As gaming and computer productivity become more refined, having the ability to fine-tune and customize the mouse movements becomes more crucial than ever. To help meet this challenge, SilverStone created the Raven gaming mouse. This brilliantly designed input device gives gamer and users unprecedented control over the mouse movement by not only utilizing a blistering fast laser sensor capable of 3200 dpi and 50G of acceleration, but also adds independent X & Y axis adjustments. With perfectly centered laser, 50-50 weight balance, carbon fiber surfacing, and a convenient thumb wheel that can perform quick task switching. Benchmark Reviews tests the SilverStone Raven SST-RVM01B 3D gaming mouse.

"After seeing the results that the custom cooled MSI HD4850 delivered on the overclocking front I was eager to see if I could duplicate that same success on a reference card. The answer is no I could not, but I came close. After all the time spent searching for that ideal mix betweeen GPU core clock speed and the memory clock speed I was stopped at 675MHz on the GPU core and 1075MHz on the memory. Not massive clock speed increases but enough to go to the mat for it. With these increases came the corresponding increase in performance. Seen mostly at the higher end of the gaming benchmarks. By comparison, the clock speeds for the MSI card were 25MHz higher on the core and 1187MHz on the memory. Close, but no cigar on beating those clock speeds. To get the clock speeds of 675MHz on the GPU core and 1075MHz on the memory I used a software application called AMD GPU Overclock Tool to make changes outside the range available in the Catalyst Control Center."

CLICK HERE FOR Palit HD4850 SHOPPING & PRICING

Where the Force 3D card really shines and steps way out ahead of the competition is with the Freezer DHT cooler. Our load temperatures were some 20 degrees cooler than what we saw as idle temperatures with reference design HD4870 boards. This superior cooling also kept the variable rate fan spinning so low as to be silent. But with spectacular cooling often comes spectacular overclocking. The Freezer DHT cooler card maxed out the Catalyst built in overclocker at 800MHz on the core and 4.4GHz on the memory and ran that so rock solid I know there is more room in there.

"Although ATI are taking all the top spots in the graphics card game at the moment, nVidia have their own offerings that promise good performance at a reasonable price. One such card is the mid-range 9600GT OC from Galaxy, which we managed to get hold of today. Let's see how it holds up."

CLICK HERE FOR Galaxy 9600GT OC SHOPPING & PRICING

Heat is the enemy and as you know we are all about destroying the enemy. Today, Chris takes a look at the JETART NP8800 laptop cooler which will chill your notebook without killing your cash. See how well this cooler will perform while helping you beat the enemy.

Today's mail saw the arrival of Apevia's X-Sniper G-Type case. Packed with great features like LCD temp display and fan controllers, the X-Sniper promises to be a great price/performance case.

CLICK HERE FOR Apevia X-Sniper Tower SHOPPING & PRICING

iStarUSA's xAGE-N99 HDD Docking Station is a simple, easy to use hard drive dock for 2.5" and 3.5" internal hard disks. It utilizes most of the transfer speeds that USB 2.0 has to offer and demonstrates excellent read and write speeds with a great price/performance value. For a company that has been making server and storage products for close to twenty years, iStarUSA certainly does not dissapoint.

CLICK HERE FOR iStarUSA xAGE HDD Docking Station SHOPPING & PRICING

To sum things up, the F2-8800CL5D-4GBPI is a good kit as long as you don't expect too much above stock speeds. However, with attractive heatspreaders and even more attractive prices of DDR2, this is a great kit to add 4 gigabytes of memory for very little dough.

CLICK HERE FOR G.Skill 2x2GB PC2 8800 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Kingston is one of the big wigs when it comes to producing memory modules. Kingston HyperX memory modules have made some impressive strides; the DDR2 modules are amongst the highest quality out there. And with DDR3 showing clock frequencies up to the 2000MHz range now, Kingston is on the front line of clock power.

Today Kingston enters the XMP market with the highest clocked XMP kit we have seen thus far, that being 1800MHz. Let’s see how it compares to our OCZ XMP 1600 modules."

"Will Wright and his EA-funded army at Maxis have been tinkering away with Spore for years. Usually when development schedules start to stretch, either there is something deeply flawed with the gameplay that needs tinkering or the developers are taking extra care to ensure that everything is polished before unleashing their masterpiece to the world. Spore is no exception - in many ways it's a very polished piece of digital entertainment. It also tries many new concepts, yet ultimately falls back to familiar game mechanics and has it's fair share of issues."

CLICK HERE FOR Spore SHOPPING & PRICING

“In all probability people in Dell came to a conclusion that there is a gap between Inspiron and XPS notebook series so they decided to fill that gap with new Studio series of notebooks. This new notebook brand was presented to public in June this year and models sold under this name are intended for home users. Studio series is positioned between Inspiron and XPS series not only by its market position and price tag but also it is visually mix of those two series. By its design it leans more to XPS series (logically) because it is more attractive…”

Today marks the official release of the HD 4670 and the HD 4650 into the sub-$100 category which was up until now the sole domain of the Nvidia 9500 GT and before it the 8600-series. These cards are not for those of us who want the best of the best; they are for people who want a card to be a jack of all trades which can play games at lower resolutions while offering kick-ass HD video decoding.

"The Igloo 7223 Light E is a fairly compact AMD K8 heatsink, made just of extruded aluminum with a 70mm fan. The Glacialtech Igloo 7223 Light E is rated for a maximum load of 80W, and is very quiet. Glacialtech's Igloo 7223 Light E heatsink stands a squat 51mm tall and comes with a fixed speed 70mm fan that rotates at a quiet 2600RPM. Weighing in at a feather 256grams, the Igloo 7223 Light E is compatible with AMD socket 754/939/940/AM2 processors of 80W TDP."

"Looking at the back plate of the Xonar HDAV 1.3, we can see that much of it is taken up with two HDMI connectors - One input and one output. The input takes in the video signal from your standard graphics board, be it NVIDIA, Intel or ATI, DVI or HDMI, while the output sends out the final HDMI signal containing both video and audio (if you select it to do so within the board's driver) to your display device. Away from HDMI connectivity, the HDAV 1.3 itself features a digital SPDIF output (with support for both coaxial and optical connectivity), two analogue outputs for stereo speakers (front left and front right), and an input which can be configured as either an SPDIF in, line in or microphone port as required."

“So here it is. A well marketed, acceptably manufactured, and very difficult to install cooler, marred only by it's substandard performance... it really seems like everything went downhill since I opened the box. While there are a number of good ideas here, they all falter on the same lines. Let's start with the simplest one. By layering the two sets of fins over each other, a lot of the heat dissipated just goes to return, and heat up the fins below. This isn't the first time, or the first company to have this problem, nor are they to try and alleviate it in a simple manner - put the cooler fins on top.”

"Overclocking this board felt exactly the same as overclocking the Gigabyte EP-45 Extreme. The only difference is that the multiplier had to be 6 on this DS3R whereas on the Extreme I could take it to 7. I was able to obtain a front side bus of 500MHz, which is quite good. I definitely could have gone further but the memory was holding me back. As much as I fought, I wasn't able to get anything higher than 500 x 6. I tinkered with the memory until it would finally pass MemTest and Prime 95 in Windows. Overall, it was easy to overclock but the memory was holding the motherboard back."

CLICK HERE FOR Gigabyte EP45-DS3R SHOPPING & PRICING

Generally speaking, spending more money in the mainstream arena nets you quite a bit more performance in some scenarios and if the 4670 hits closer to £60 than £50, and the XFX 9600 GSO XXX Edition manages to drop under £70, you'll find better value for money in the Nvidia part. Obviously, performance is higher, but it's also proportionally higher when you factor in cost as well.

GMC have designed the K-2 Ebony, a midi tower case combining the space and expandability of a standard ATX towerwith the feature-set of a high-end HTPC case. The Noblesse K-2 Ebony is a more elegant revision of the K-1, their first HTPC tower case which we reviewed over a year ago.

"ECS A790GXM-A Black Series is a socket AM2+ motherboard based on the latest chipset from AMD, 790GX. Formerly known as RS780D, this chipset provides on-board video using a new graphics engine (Radeon HD 3300) with a dedicated 128 MB GDDR2 on-board memory (feature called "Side Port" by AMD) and also providing two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (running at x8 if both are used at the same time). In this review we will compare the performance of AMD 790GX to AMD 780G and GeForce 8200, and we will also analyze Hybrid CrossFire performance. Check it out."

Is your video gaming lacking the punch you need to play full bore? You might need an upgrade to something with a bit more kick, read Mike's review of the 4850 which promises to jumpstart your game and not deplete your wallet.

Zalman has been is the business of making heatsinks that do are made to do amazing jobs of reducing heat and maintaining a quiet surrounding. They have come up with a 113mm high heatsink that is specifically designed for use in HTPCs. It may be small, but it does and excellant job of cooling without making to much noise while doing it.

"Turtle Beach's X4 wireless gaming headset is a great way to tap the enormous console market. Wireless headset? Playing video games in the living room at night without bothering anyone? Sign me up! Wirelessness isn't the best thing for audiophiles, but gamers [and perhaps more importantly, the people around them] are willing to sacrifice some things for a little convenience. Honestly, what's a little signal noise against a backdrop of orchestral gunfire. On top of that, the competition is a little weak. The mic that comes with the 360 is uncomfortable, ugly, and above all, it isn't a headset. It's got one Walkman-class scratchy plastic earphone with limited flexibility and added discomfort to make you avoid online gaming. Turtle Beach, with all their experience and wisdom, is right to make a quality headset that not only slides right into place with a 360, but also any other analog input you care to sport around your ears. This isn't their first set of 360 cans, so the X4s have big shoes to fill."

"... If you're after an affordable motherboard for the AM2/AM2+ platform that's pretty feature-rich, then look no further. It offers decent performance for a mainstream motherboard, at price worth considering. "

"Swiftech has been around since 1994 and is perhaps best known for their thermoelectric and liquid cooling solutions that first gained popularity in late 2000 / early 2001. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to test the Swiftech H20-220 Compact water cooling kit, and liked it so much I'm still using it on my primary system. Today I have for review the Apogee™ GTZ, Swiftech's new flagship water block. While it shares the same name with its predecessors, it also leaps beyond the GT and GTX performance charts thanks to an entirely new design that pushes and refines both thermal and mechanical specifications to the limits of today's technology."

"If you're not interested in paying extra for overclocking headroom you'll never use, the ECS P45T-A motherboard is a great board to consider. Built with the Intel P45 Express and Intel ICH10R chipsets, the ECS P45T-A motherboard supports all Socket 775 Intel processors running with a Front Side Bus of 800/1066/1333 MHz. That includes the new generation of 45nm 'Yorkfield' and 'Wolfdale' Core 2 Duo processors. Gamers who plan on running a pair of CrossfireX enabled videocards in tandem (say, a pair of Radeon HD4850's for example), will find two PCI Express 2.0 compliant PCIe x16 slots at their disposal."

"With the increasing amount of tower-type CPU coolers on the market, enthusiasts seem to have entirely forgotten about the classic top-down format. So today, we’ll be taking a step back from tower format heatsinks by reviewing the Noctua NH-C12P – a cooler which surprisingly, uses the top-down design. Let’s resurrect this staple of days gone by, and find out if it can beat today’s preferred format."

"The Optimus Maximus keyboard: Hype or functional? If you haven't heard of it, you definitely need to watch this video on the first keyboard to use OLED displays for each key."

More than 7 years ago, the first fan controller review was published on the ocinside.de hardware portal.
When you compare the older Digital Doc 5 fan controller with the current Aerocool Modern-V,
it is easy to see one big difference, because especially the design of the new LCD panel is much more beautiful.
Let us see if the operation, technology and price of the Aerocool Modern-V fan controller is also recommendable.

"Today for review I've got the Elite 3.5" SATA to USB/eSATA Hard Drive Enclosure from Kingwin. As the title suggests it's an enclosure for a 3.5" SATA hard drive that will allow you to use either a USB or an SATA interface to access your data. The Elite also includes a one-touch backup button as well for quick and easy backups of your important data. From my time with the Elite, I've found it very aesthetically pleasing, well made and easy to use."

"Not too long ago NVIDIA launched their new entry level video card, the Geforce 9500 GT. Today we take a closer look at what extra performance can be had when you add a second card in your system; we compare the performance of the 9500 GT in SLI to a single 9600 GT"

The Intel Atom certainly isn't incapable, it's just not as hardcore as modern performance CPUs and for the cost it's a good base for very low power, very low cost bare bones PC or any number of other uses: NAS box, server, DVD and SD video player? We would have liked Gigabyte to have included Gigabit Ethernet or one large heatsink with no fan - we've seen MSI's Wind board prove that's possible, and there's little reason not to have included the S/PDIF pin-out because the solder points are already there.

Are you one of the many computer users that just can't justify spending $300 to $500 on a single video card? Or maybe you are looking for a solution for that Home Theater PC (HTPC)? Well today we're going to have a look at Leadtek's newest entry into the video card market: the WinFast PX9500 GT. This is by no means a top-of-the-line gaming card, and it was never meant to be. The 9500 GT claims to be an excellent solution for viewing HD video - we'll take a look at that today - as well as heat and power issues to see just how well this card fills the niche it was designed for.

"Today I am going to be looking at a product from a company that isn't usually associated with the computer hardware industry. The company is Pioneer and the product is one of their new DVD rewriter's the DVR-116DBK. Coming from a big household name like Pioneer I expect it to be cutting edge, even though Pioneer isn't generally known for computer hardware."

"So in the end, would I recommend this case? Not as a case for an extreme enthusiast, but as a standard desktop case or even as an HTPC case, the Matrix is well suited for the job. I would however, love to see Thermaltake’s next stab at this design. I want to see better temps but keep the side access option, that was a nice touch. For now, as it sits without the additional optional cooling features, the case was outperformed by the comparison cases. At less than $50, you get what the case comes with. As a performance PC case, the Matrix is ill suited in stock trim, but add the optional cooling features to reduce component temperatures and you have a classy looking mid tower case."

Here coverage of ATI's newest mainstream video chipset release:

Tweaktown
TechpowerUP
HotHardware
LegitReviews

Thanks to the lowered pricing of memory these days, it's not uncommon for relatively unknown companies to throw down the gauntlet for the bigger boys and this is a good thing, as it keeps the market leaders on their toes at the very least. With that in mind, today I have a kit entitled the XTune from Aeneon which is interestingly a subsidiary of Qimonda, the chip makers. Their reputation has always been relatively good when it came to memory chips, so how will their own brand of kit stand up to the flack? Let's find out.

Today Kyle has a look at the low cost nicely designed Centurion 590 by Cooler Master. This feature packed case comes with plenty of extras and may be perfect for your next rig or your current rig. Find out what Kyle liked and what he disliked about the 590.

CLICK HERE FOR CoolerMaster Centurion 590 SHOPPING & PRICING

HIS has just released the IceQ4 version of the AMD Radeon HD 4850. The IceQ4 cooler is a dual-slot solution which ensures low temperatures under both idle and load. Also HIS has overclocked the card which results in a nice performance boost compared to the reference design card.

CLICK HERE FOR HIS HD 4850 IceQ4 512 MB SHOPPING & PRICING

"In this review PCSTATS is pleased to be testing MSI's P35 Platinum Combo motherboard, an Intel P35 Express and ICH9R platform that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 memory formats (though not at the same time). The MSI P35 Platinum works with 45nm Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors, and every other socket 775 chip that runs on a 800/1066/1333MHz Front Side Bus. "

CLICK HERE FOR MSI P35 Platinum Combo SHOPPING & PRICING

By now, few can deny the convenience of having a small size, high volume storage device that is able to travel with them in the same manner as a set of keys or wallet. I was first introduced to a thumb drive several years ago at a LAN party I was hosting. Until that time I really couldn’t understand why someone would spend forty to fifty Dollars on a small device that only held 32 MB of data, but that same day my outlook changed when we needed to transfer an antivirus update to a server without exposing it to the network.

"The OCZ PC2-9200 Flex II 4GB memory kit steps up the game for 4GB memory kits. No longer does 4GB have to be associated with slow and loose timings. Focusing solely at the performance available, this kit really does give you the flexibility to choose between tight timings or high frequencies with appreciable read, write, and copy bandwidth across the board. Factor in the overclocking, Extended Voltage Protection, and the Xtreme Liquid Convection heatsink and you've got a well rounded memory kit..."

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

"We continue our hardware torture tests with the Twintech 9600 GT. Using a custom build phase-change unit we cooled the GPU and overclocked it to new heights. Can we break some world records? Read on to find out."

“It’ s been a while since AMD-ATi Company introduced, so far the best integrated chipset – AMD RS780 i.e. AMD780G which surpassed, by performances of integrated graphics and by quality of video display, its competition. nVIDIA soon after introduced its 780a chipset that offered support for SLi and didn’t fall much behind AMD/ATi RS780. Comparing to AMD RS780, nf780a is attended for more expensive motherboards that are equipped with better and more quality electronics. But, motherboards with RS780 couldn’t go hand in hand with specifications of “hot” quad core Phenom processors (dissipation is up to 140W) and it often happened that cheap 780G motherboard in combination with such a processor broke down in guarantee time period…”

"The first thing you'll notice when looking at this Intel cooler is that NPowertek NPH-775-140HC looks very much like Intel's retail box thermal solution. The NPH-775-140HC is rated for heat loads up to 130W, however we'd suggested keeping things to energy efficient Intel CPUs that have a sub-95W TDP rating."

We’ve been visiting over the past few weeks how the new ATSC digital standard will affect many people over the coming months. This transition from analog to digital broadcast will signal a new era that that will take place on February, 17, 2009. The ATSC standard was developed for what we now know as the HDTV and we’ve been reviewing products associated with bringing us this same content on our PC’s. But is the experience different as it is on a dedicated HDTV set?

CLICK HERE FOR Samsung PN50A650 50" Plasma HDTV SHOPPING & PRICING

So, rather than skimp on features, ECS has been providing their latest Black Series affordable motherboards with many of those seen on more expensive solutions. A while back, we had the pleasure of checking out the AM2+ supporting A780GM-A Motherboard with the AMD 790 Chipset. While it encountered a few glitches with random memory kits, it wasn't all bad results. Stability wasn't an issue and there were decent integrated features.

CLICK HERE FOR ECS GF8200A Motherboard SHOPPING & PRICING

"What is there to say about the Sunbeam Core-Contact Freezer? For starters, we can talk about the design of the cooler. I was impressed with the aerodynamics of the cooler, a seemingly simple "X" design actually helped out quite a bit when it came to getting the temperatures lower, also the built in bent fins that are supposed to help cool the surrounding motherboard components is an extra positive as well. The base of the Core-Contact Freezer is very unique as the four all-copper heatpipes are showing and have direct contact with the IHS of the processor, which allowed for a better transfer of the heat build up. The cooler is also very large in size, though it is still lightweight, which is always a nice combination as it has the surface area to cool the quad core processors while not weighing down the motherboard and adding extra stress on it."

CLICK HERE FOR Sunbeam Core-Contact Freezer SHOPPING & PRICING

The Thecus N3200 3-Bay SOHO network storage system is much more than a typical network attached storage device, and is something like a Swiss Army knife of networking and storage functionality. In addition to making sure your important data is well looked after on three hard drives configured in your choice of RAID arrays, it makes sharing it locally and globally rather easy.

CLICK HERE FOR Thecus N3200 3-Bay SOHO Network Storage System SHOPPING & PRICING

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

Palit are one of a growing number of companies who now sell Nvidia and ATI cards which means that in the same price range they can often have several competing products. In the case of the sub $200 market two such products are their 9800GT and 4850 Sonic graphics cards.

CLICK HERE FOR Palit 9800GT Sonic SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic SHOPPING & PRICING

We've all been there. That first computer that everyone builds themselves. It's built on a McDonald's employee budget and a dream to make all your gamer friends envious. And they will be. But sinking hundreds of dollars into new hardware won't get you envied if your case looks like you picked it up out of a free box at Goodwill. You can have the most powerful engine on the planet, but you slap that shiznit in a Pinto and all you're getting is laughs from the homies.

CLICK HERE FOR Ultra Grid Case SHOPPING & PRICING

Now we will find out just how different they are in the details. The OCZ edition has opted for the blue rubberised grip which is a solid choice as I like the rubber on this grip; it’s a soft and silky silicon feel but it doesn’t leave your hand sweating and struggling for grip.

I have reviewed a large number of heat sinks during the time that I have been reviewing computer hardware. Yet I have never reviewed one that tipped the scales as far as this one did. Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily saying large is bad because the Cooler Master Hyper Z600R will also rank as one of the best heat sinks we have ever reviewed. So come on along as see what we learned.

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master Hyper Z600 Heatsink SHOPPING & PRICING

"The Intel line of Solid State Drives is certainly one of the most anticipated pieces of hardware for 2008. Intel without a doubt raised the bar with what one can expect with Solid State Drives by producing a drive that can compete with any drive on the market, be it solid state or a hard disk. The highlights of the Intel X25-M has to be the fast that it uses hardly any power, puts off little heat and the insanely fast read and access speeds. The SSD architecture looks a lot more appealing now that Intel has entered the market and I'm sure that this is only the beginning of many more exciting products to come down the pipes..."

In the past we have reviewed several products from CoolIT Systems. Both the Pure and the Elite passed through our lab and received accolades while never offering the absolute extreme performance we hoped they would. Now, enter the Boreas which is lovingly installed into a Silverstone TJ07 chassis and is supposed to offer some insane sub-ambient cooling. It better blow our socks off considering its $800 price tag...

"Cooler Master HAF 932 is a full-tower case targeted to gamers, coming with three big 230-mm fans rotating at 700 rpm and one 140-mm fan rotating at 1,200 rpm - HAF stands for High Air Flow -, six external 5 ¼" bays and five internal 3 ½" bays and several other features. Let's take an in-depth look on this new Cooler Master case."

CLICK HERE FOR Cooler Master HAF 932 Case SHOPPING & PRICING

"With the introduction of the SL Series notebooks, Lenovo continues its trend of pushing the ThinkPad name out of its lofty perch and into more affordable territory. The 14.1-inch version bulks up a bit for the sake of keeping price low, but retains Lenovo's signature ThinkPad durability and feel, along with competent performance for a business machine. But some minor issues still need to be ironed out."

CLICK HERE FOR Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 SHOPPING & PRICING

So you want all of the benefits that Blu-ray has to offer, but you dont want to rip open your computer, because who knows, you may let the magic smoke that runs your computer out! Have no fear, LiteOn is here! Introducing to you, the LiteOn DX-401S, a portable Blu-ray reader (BD-ROM). So, can this USB Blu-ray reader run with the big dogs, or will it be a complete failure?

The criteria to get on my desk are rather stringent. A case has to be sturdy. After all, it's sitting on top of a desk and is subject to gravity, especially during Battlefield 2142 sessions. It must be rather spacious inside. I trade out parts frequently and I hate cases that are stingy on the square footage. The build quality must be top notch. This goes beyond the basic toughness. A case has to look nice and be well-built which means all doors and panels are flush, the buttons work, I/O panels function, and there can be absolutely no sharp edges. My tetanus shots aren't up to date and I'm not ready for a booster. To get a case in that soon to be coveted position, a company pretty much has to showcase their ingenuity and dedication to quality.

CLICK HERE FOR Raidmax Iceberg Mid Tower SHOPPING & PRICING

NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400 GT Series is based on the same G96 GPU that is also used on the 9500 GT. The 9400 GT has half the shaders however, which seriously limits the uses of the card in a gaming PC. On the other hand this greatly reduces the heat output which allows a completely passive solution. Point of View differentiates their card by using 1 GB of video memory and bundling a full version of the Wall-E game.

CLICK HERE FOR GeForce 9400 GT SHOPPING & PRICING

"Super Talent have created a new line of tiny Flash Drives that not only offer you the best in style but also performance as well. Today we are taking a look at Super Talents new Gold PICO USB Drive. Available from 1GB, right through to an amazing 8GB, in such a tiny space which is really setting a high standard in the small USB market. Super Talent sent me the largest size available in there range of 8GB and I can't wait to get started on this review so let's get started shall we."

CLICK HERE FOR Super Talent PICO - C Gold 8 gig - Limited Edition SHOPPING & PRICING

"Today PCSTATS is testing Palit's latest videocard, the Radeon HD4870X2, sporting a pair of ATI/AMD's powerful 4870 (Radeon 770) GPUs. This dual slot card is intended to provide gamers with the power of a dual video card Crossfire setup in a single unit, and features a huge 2GB of onboard GDDR5 video memory, enough to keep both GPUs fed and happy."

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"Today HardwareLogic looks at one of Gigabyte's newest mid-range boards, the GA-EP45-DS3R motherboard. Like many before it, the EP45 touts Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 2 nomenclature, a set of technologies the company claims "can deliver dramatically lower temperature and longer system lifespan." Combined with several power saving features, Gigabyte has built up quite the spec sheet. Can the EP45 also deliver the performance?"

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

The word on the street about eye candy and high resolutions is most definitively true. The single GPU of the standard HD4870 simply couldn't take these settings. At several spots as you can see from the graph, I thought the card had locked up. Certainly not the case with the HIS HD4870x2.

CLICK HERE FOR HIS Radeon HD4870x2 SHOPPING & PRICING

The Osiris comes in two color choices, silver and black. Our test model comes in flashing the lighter color choice and presents a very nice physical appearance. As noted in our introduction, it is a mid-tower design so does not give the impression of wanting to need a room for itself due to a large footprint.

CLICK HERE FOR Hiper Osiris Mid-Tower Enclosure SHOPPING & PRICING

The 4850 is a great mid-range card at under $200 MSRP and is gaining momentum as a well priced gaming solution. Newegg has the MSI card for under $195, only $5 more than the standard MSI 4850 without the special cooling. MSI's card has the distinction of being the coolest running HD 4850 I have yet to test with temperatures 10 degrees less than the standard reference card under load. The HD 4850 supports all of the features of DirectX 10.1 meaning that if a game requires it the card supports it. As the little brother of the HD 4870, the HD 4850 from MSI is a great choice for all but the most hardcore enthusiast who would want the more expensive 4870 or HD 4870 X2 cards in any event. At the end of the day the MSI R4850 512M video card is worth the extra $5 as it runs much cooler than the standard 4850 card and sacrifices nothing for it in terms of performance or features.

CLICK HERE FOR MSI Radeon 4850 R4850-V101 Video Card SHOPPING & PRICING

" Today for review I've got an interesting product from Altec Lansing, it's made specifically for portable audio players like iPods, and mp3 players or really just about anything that has a standard audio mini jack output. It's called the Orbit-Mp3 Portable Audio System, and it is portable, it's small and lightweight, the one thing interesting about it is that it is only one speaker, but that one speaker is supposed to provide a 360 degree sound field to project sound in all directions."

CLICK HERE FOR Altec Lansing Orbit-Mp3 Portable Audio System SHOPPING & PRICING

"Competition is fierce at the $150 price point, both NVIDIA and ATI have products for you which were considered high end not too long ago. How does the newcomer HD 4850 stack up to the Geforce 9800 GTX? We compared them head to head, and threw an overclocked HD 4850 into the mix."

CLICK HERE FOR ATI HD Radeon 4850 SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR NVIDIA Geforce 9800 GTX SHOPPING & PRICING

“Creative's X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty sound card is the audio company's latest release, and this time it's an attempt to provide a quality product with a PCI-e interface in a market that is woefully underdeveloped. Creative is banking on gamers' thirst for an immersive experience, but can Creative shake its Windows Vista driver woes and reclaim its former glory? Follow along with us while we run through the maze of audio testing and see how this card performs in Windows Vista.”

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“On fast-growing market of small portable computers another “big player” put itself into play in the struggle for leadership. Acer’s trump card is Aspire One model A110-Ab. Term netbook came out as result of need for making boundary between these little guys and classic notebooks. Therefore, the most precise name of tested device should be Acer Aspire One A110-Ab Netbook (A110-Ab is just a model identification for certain region). As people from Acer are aware of fact that they are a little bit late with launching of this kind of device on market, they tried different approach – attractive price and different design solutions from competitions…”

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"The Pure Digital Technologies' Flip Camcorder, affectionately known as "The Flip", has quickly become one of the best-selling camcorders. We decided to review one to see why this small video cam is so popular."

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"Overclocking the Foxconn A7DA-S was a breeze with the Fox Central Control Unit. Having everything in one place like this made it easy resetting the values and trying it again. Little by little, I raised the CPU speed until I hit a wall. Since most Phenoms do not like much on the CPU speeds, once I hit that wall at 205MHz I used the unlocked multiplier feature of the Black Box Edition chip to squeeze more power out of the processor. I was able to raise the multi to 15x and all of this on a 1.45 voltage for the CPU. This gave me an overclock of 3.075GHz, which is the best overclock I have reached on this Phenom X4 9850 to date on any platform."

Though the migration will be gradual, starting first at the consumer level, then moving into the industrial and enterprise space, it's a matter of time before the world literally goes solid state for its storage. In the short term, especially at the consumer level, the SSD market is expected to have explosive growth over the next year or so, some analysts predicting well in excess of 100% annually. It goes without saying, Solid State Storage is a safe bet.

As PCs found their way into more homes, they quickly became a staple of modern life. And like most things in modern life, what worked yesterday won't work today. This not only includes components like faster CPUs and video cards, but also fancier cases and enclosures. People grew tired of the cookie cutter beige box and wanted to express themselves through radical looking cases. Once manufacturers began to take notice and it was only a matter of time before every enthusiast was given a sea of choices when it came to picking a suitable chassis. Whether you wanted a full tower, mid-tower, or HTPC, you had plenty to pick from. Side-panel or no side panel? It's all good. Even color was no longer restricted to just beige, black or silver.

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The Akasa Blue Aurora has consistently impressed us throughout the review, and we were actually quite surprised at just what an excellent cooler it is – Akasa is not generally harped about across online communities as the best thing since sliced bread. In fact, we’ve genuinely struggled to find anything really wrong with it and between this and the 965, we would actively encourage people to reconsider the constant recommendations of old.

"If however, you play at 1920x1200 or lower, then the XFX GeForce GTX 260 XXX is clearly the better value for you. For $279.99 the XFX GeForce GTX 260 XXX offers a very high level of gameplay experience in every game, and is the real champ of this evaluation. A stock clocked version of the GTX 260 will run you as little as $240 after MIR with Free Shipping. Certainly not as big a cost delta as we see with the XXX version of the GTX 280. Considering the warranty that is extended on this highly overclocked XX card that allows you to install your own cooling system, you might very well find the GTX 260 XXX worth the additional cost."

CLICK HERE FOR XFX GeForce GTX 280 SHOPPING & PRICING

CLICK HERE FOR XFX GeForce GTX 260 SHOPPING & PRICING

"Asus is one of the most respected companies by computer enthusiasts. Everyone knows them more as a powerhouse in the motherboard industry but they do dabble in wide range of hardware, including CPU coolers, like the Lion Square that we will be examining today. At first glance it does seem like Asus is trying pack a little bit of flare in a package that can hopefully keep up with top tier air coolers on the market. Asus is apparently trying to present an eye-catching product for enthusiasts that are looking for something beyond the typical bland. If they can do that and still sufficiently chill our CPU then many enthusiasts could be impressed. Let's test this thing out and see if you will be impressed."

CLICK HERE FOR Asus Lion Square CPU Cooler SHOPPING & PRICING

"The use and features of the Thecus N5200 were impressive and this is partly due to the fact that it has been on the market now for well over a year. The firmware and setup wizard have been updated a number of times over the months and my testing went without any problems. I was a little nervous when I started building the server as the Western Digital WD1500 hard drives I used were not on the HDD compatibility list provided by Thecus, but the N5200 was compatible with them!"

CLICK HERE FOR Thecus N5200BR NAS Server SHOPPING & PRICING

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

“Adobe Acrobat made its first appearance in 1991, while its PDF file format, from the start, was designed as multiplatform electronic communication instrument. Appearance of Internet had significant influence on future development of this format, thereby forcing Adobe to make even better tool, which in time will become one of dominate methods of data exchange on the Net, but at the same time they had to keep their role in professional printing domain…”

CLICK HERE FOR Adobe Acrobat 9 SHOPPING & PRICING

Today we are taking a look at the new Asus 4870 X2 which is set to push the performance boundaries even further, these preoverclocked cards are lovingly referred to by Asus as the "TOP" versions.