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Week Of March 30th, 2008
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Saturday April 5th,
2008
-dean
Weekend Edition
Another week closer to tax day and (for
all us US residents) our George Bush money. Need to stimulate the
economy by sending me money, hey I'm always one to do my part!
Speaking of stimulating the economy...
A number of you guys have asked me
about the 500cc bottles Thermaltake Coolant.
Case Cooler has
the
Green UV Reactive Thermaltake Coolant on sale for $11. They
also have some generic but very
clean lined HDD Coolers in stock for $13.
Sidewinder
Computers has these ultra cool looking
ThermalRight IFX-10 Motherboard Backside Coolers on sale for $31.
These things are worth a look. They also have the
rubber fan rivet mounts that are so hard to find for $1.25.
We find
a lot of VGA postage up today. The
ASUS GeForce 9600GT 512MB Graphics Card over at
Tweaktown gets
the party started.
While the
aftermarket cooler is a little louder than the reference cooler, it’s
not something that you would really notice and it does manage to give us
roughly a 10% drop in temperature. Of course, this comes at the cost of
the card being dual slot which isn’t uncommon for most aftermarket
coolers.
Next up on the 9600 ride is the
XFX GeForce 9600GT XXX Alpha Dog as seen over at
Motherboards.org.
That said a pair
of these 9600GT cards in an SLI configuration are able to bring to your
viewing screen clean and clear visuals at 1920X1200 with all the bells
and whistles turned up on all games, including Crysis, which in my
humble opinion plainly is not a stable game in many instances and not
worth its weight in plastic.
Scaling up a notch is a NVidia 9800
based product in the
ASUS EN9800GTX. The pros at
Overclocker's
Club have the full on skinny.
The expectation
was that the 9800GTX would offer an incredible increase in performance
just like the G80 8800GTX did almost two years ago. The reality is that
while the EN9800GTX does offer an increase in performance over the
8800GTX, it does not offer the world domination type of increase in
performance that its predecessor did.
Sometimes a $60 is just what the doctor
ordered. Viper
Lair shows off the
Cooler Master CM690 Case.
Cooler Master has been known for making good quality cases, and the
CM690 is not one to break that reputation. The CM690 is a great looking
case. The overall style of the case is clean and subtle, with just
enough chrome accents. The mesh front and top panels not only look
classy but allow for better cooling.
Shifting the coolers we find a
Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler back at the
Hard|OCP.
Four heatpipes,
thirty-six fins, SSO bearings, Vortex Control notches, and
psycho-acoustic optimizations...wait just a damn minute. Let's find out
if Noctua spent more money on marketing or engineering.
Still over there is this review of the
Thermaltake Toughpower QFan 650w PSU.
Looks like a ThermalRight knock off to
me.
Xigmatek Red Scorpion S1283 CPU Cooler action up at
R&B Mods.
Looks like they got a damaged unit from the sound of things.
Well I am not
happy with the performance, I could see this running in a HTPC rig as it
is quite silent although it might be to big for a HTPC setup. I think
the uneven heatpipes on the bottom is the major part why this cooler
does not perform as a normal cpu cooler that has a heatsink connected to
the heatpipes.
More chops, hot and hot!
EagleTech I-Series JBOD Enclosure at Pro-Clockers.
Microsoft Zune 80GB
Digital Media Player at
Future Looks.
Maxtor Shared Storage II 1TB Unit at Techgage.
Hades-Gaming H1 Optical Gaming-Mouse at Technic3D.
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Friday April 4th
2008 - jeremy
The TGIF Edition
I think it's going to be quite a busy
day today at work, but at least it's Friday! The weekend has finally
arrived.
Let's hop on into the news bucket and
see what we can dig up.
Free Stuff!
Driver heaven
is giving away a Zotac 9800 GTX. Better hop on over there though
because I'd imagine there are gonna be a ton of people entering this one.
Modder's Inc is
holding a
Mod Your Mouse contest. This looks like it could be a lot of fun
if you're interested in getting into the modding market. I love the
first rule.
1- It must be a
computer mouse, not a REAL mouse. (Hey, you know you were thinking about
it.)
Movin on along,
Hardware Secrets
has a look at the
Thermaltake M9 Case Review.
AMD Zone has a
GeForce 9800 GTX in SLI.
What can we say
but at last Nvidia has given us the GeForce 9800 GTX and it appears to be
the fastest single GPU on the market and keeps Nvidia in the driver's seat
when it comes to the performance crown. But while the the GeForce 8800 GTX
launched around $600 when it was released the GeForce 9800 GTX is launched
for $330. This is partly due to a strengthened AMD and also because the
9800 GTX isn't as earth shattering as the GeForce 8800 GTX was. This isn't
a bad thing though, it is faster and it is a much better value than it's
predecessor. Compared to the GeForce 9600 GT though things are quite often
in the titles closer than they are farther apart. The 9800 GTX is never
behind but it seems Crysis is definitely CPU bound still at this part.
Once we get to older titles the 9800 GTX starts flying and both cards do
excellent in SLI.
OCIA takes a look at
the neat little
Aspire X-QPACK Micro ATX Case.
ASUS gets some attention from
Hot Hardware as
they check out the
M3A78-EMH HDMI AMD 780G Motherboard.
We’ve already reached the conclusion that
AMD’s 780G chipset is a huge step forward. It’s significant for the
mainstream market because the core logic delivers DirectX 10 functionality
and enough muscle to actually drive some of today's current gaming titles.
To AMD, the chipset represents a foundation for its new platform
message—something it hasn’t had before. Expect AMD to run with the idea
that its processor, chipset, and graphics solutions are all better
together.
There are still a good number of Video
Cards hitting today.
Tweaktown has the
ASUS GeForce 8800GS TOP 384MB card on the bench.
BHFO Takes a look at
the
Leadtek WinFast PX8800GT.
The commendable mid-range card gives access
to any game out today. The overall size, price, and performance puts the
Leadtek 8800GT leagues ahead of the older and more expensive G80 8800GTS
640MB. The higher GPU, memory, and shader clocks help the G92
tremendously. The 200USD price point combined with the performance makes
this video card for budget conscious gamers, business and casual customers
have better options that are more cost effective for the job they require.
There's some sweet case action going on
as well. Have a look at the
Apevia X-Supra G Type Case up on the bench over at
Hardware Logic.
Motherboards.org
has got the
SilverStone KL02 Kublai Series.
I hear a lot of talk about the Cooler
Master Cosmos cases but I've never personally had the chance to check one
out. Future
Looks has just that opportunity with the
Cosmos 1000 Full-Tower Case Review today.
Overall, I’m very
impressed with the Cosmos 1000. It’s a super solid case that I definitely
wouldn’t throw out of bed for leaving cookie crumbs. Its unique design,
performance, and features definitely make it one of my favourite cases of
all time. Despite some minor irritations, I have to say that this case has
really earned my Editors’ Choice.
Hardware Secrets
follows that up with an
Antec
NSK4480.
The
Tagan BZ900 900W Modular PSU looks like quite an impressive unit.
Overclocker's
Online has more.
Big Bruin closes us
out this morning with the
Cooler
Master Real Power pro 1000W PSU.
The results from the testing portion of the review
show that this unit is more than capable of handling a decent system with
an overclocked dual core Intel processor and a higher end Nvidia
GeForce 8800 series graphics card. In
reality it would be capable of handling much more, and may get the chance
to do so as there should be no need to upgrade the power
supply even if the other system components
are upgraded significantly.
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Thursday April 3rd
2008 - jeremy
The Quick Edition
It looks like there's a bit more going
on than there was last time I had a peek in the bucket. There's
still some 9800 GTX Reviews comin in as well.
Let's dive right on in.
There are a bunch of sweet looking video
cards making a showing this morning.
Pro-Clockers
has a look at the
Apevia Warlock 750W PSU.
After using the
Warlock for about week I could not find fault with it at all. It powered
our test bench thru some tests of other products we are reviewing. And it
stood up to the test with flying
colors.
The color that emanated from the power supply was pretty cool and nice to
look at, well, in the right environment.
The
Cooler Master Centurion 590 chassis gets some attention from the
Elite Bastards
this morning.
Considering that
price point, the amount of expandability available to the Centurion 590 is
incredibly impressive, from its mass of 5.25" drive bays at the front to
water cooling support at the rear, and with enough room for a vast number
of strategically placed fans to make even the most obsessive
system builder happy. The aesthetics of the case may not wow as the
Cosmos' does, but it succeeds in remaining reasonably attractive (to this
reviewers eyes anyway) as well as largely functional, and its noise and
cooling metrics from our testing backs up our thinking that this is a
well-thought out piece of hardware in many respects.
Tweak News shows
us the
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC2-8500 DDR2 Memory Kit.
The
3d Game Man is
next up on the list. Talkin' about memory, he gets a look at the
OCZ PC3-10666 ReaperX 4GB Memory Kit.
At PC3-10666 speeds the memory can
generate a fair amount of heat. Thankfully the heatpipe/heatsink combo
used works extremely well and it allows the modules to remain cool. Of
course excellent case ventilation is required for it to work to its full
potential. Like other DDR3 the downside is price. It's a lot more
expensive than DDR2, but it's the way to go if you are doing a complete
system upgrade. The OCZ PC3-10666 ReaperX 4GB Memory is great at
overclocking which is something any enthusiast will appreciate. It's also
very stable, reliable and compatible. So you can rest assured that it will
satisfy. If you are in the market for the coolest looking, performance
laden DDR3 memory on the market, check this stuff out.
If you need a motherboard to use all
this new DDR3 memory,
Tweaktown may just have the thing for you. Check out the
Gigabyte X48t-DQ6 DDR3 Motherboard.
The GIGABYTE X48T-DQ6
has also given us full confidence in the X48
chipset and
GIGABYTE’s design, though we do favor the ASUS P5E3 Premium’s inclusion of
the WiFi controller and their third PCI Express x16 slot onboard over the
GIGABYTE setup, as it lacks the option for CrossfireX and a third graphics
card to run as a physics engine, or just to use for a large PCI Express
based SAS/SATA controller. This is where ASUS gets the leg up, however the
power efficiency and overclocking crown so far goes to GIGABYTE’s
X48T-DQ6.
We've got a few sweet coolers showin up
today as well.
We've got some more goodies to close
things up this morning. The
Ultra M998 Chassis over at
Driver Heaven
could be a big hit.
The Ultra m998 is
a fine chassis. Based on a classic design and improved by Ultra, it should
easily become a favourite of hardcore enthusiasts who enjoy a sturdy,
lightweight and roomy case. The build quality of the m998 is excellent, as
is the thermal and acoustic performance. The downside is the price, which
we feel may be too high for the majority of enthusiasts.
Techware Labs
shows us the
ICY BOX NAS Enclosure.
And last up today is the
ECS A780GM-A Motherboard.
So where do we
stand with the ECS A780GM-A motherboard? It would be a wise investment for
a workstation or a computer for everyday use. In the science benchmarks,
even though it was not the best, the scores were not bad, especially in
rendering. It is simple to use and has all the features that an average
user would need, and best of all, it's fairly inexpensive.
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Wednesday
April 2nd,
2008
-dean
Do you think this means the 9800GTX is out?
Before we get started, everyone welcome Steve West to the crew here at the
OC Cafe'. Steve is
cutting his teeth around here so be easy on him.
Now that the non-disclosure agreements
have expired, let's look at all the GeForce 9800GTX reviews out...
The
Hard|OCP has the BFGTech GeForce 9800GTX.
Anandtech has a reference design GeForce 9800GTX in 3-way SLI.
Zotac GeForce 9800GTX at
Benchmark Reviews.
Another
Zotac GeForce 9800GTX card but at
TechPowerUp.
Here's a translated German review on the
Zotac 9800GTX at
Technic3D.
Bjorn3D has the XFX 9800GTX unit on deck.
Another XFX 9800GTX card is reviewed
by the crew at
Overclocker's Club.
Here's a second 9800GTX at
Overclocker's Club with the ZOGIS 9800GTX.
ASUS EN9800GTX on deck at
Overclock3D.
BFG 9800GTX at
Hardware Canucks.
Yet another BFG 9800GTX but this one is
at
Hexus.
eVGA e-GeForce 9800GTX review at
NVNews.
GeForce 9800GTX Round-Up: BFG, EVGA and Zogis at
HotHardware.
XFX 9800GTX action up at
Neoseeker.
Reference design 9800GTX at
Bit-Tech.
Nordic Hardware
takes things a bit further with a
high end VGA round up to include the ATi Radeon 3870 X2, GeForce
8800GT, GeForce 8800 Ultra and of course the new GeForce 9800GTX.
Last we have the card that arrived last,
namely GeForce 9800GTX. Sure, in many ways a very good card, but since
the price tag is about $350 it should be an option for people who
doesn't dare to venture for HD 3870X2. The performance is fantastic from
time to times, perhaps a bit clouded by the fact that it gets surpassed
by 8800Ultra in some tests.
While this far from keeps the ATi/NVidia
see saw balanced, here's a review of the
ATi HD 2400 XT 256MB Video Card at
The Tech Lounge.
For about $60 you can free up a couple hundred
megs of system RAM, get awesome video acceleration, and take all that
energy efficiency to the bank. This is the perfect little entry-level
discrete video card that doesn't compromise on video acceleration or use
any of your system resources. But there's no chance that you'll ever
play 3D games with it.
We reviewed the
Sunbeamtech Acrylic HTPC Case not too long ago. The pros at
Mikhailtech
have one up on the review bench.
Sunbeam really
surprised me with their Acrylic HTPC case. It meets most of the
requirements for a good case. There are a few drawbacks, but they are
relatively minor and can be easily fixed. The first concern is the lack
of fan filters, for which there are many fixed out on the web. Secondly,
I’m not sure who wants a big blue glowing box under/on top of their TV
while they’re watching Transformers, but that’s easy enough to
fix by using non-led fans.
Bigbruin 5th Birthday Party Giveaway - brace yourself for a deluge
of goodies- (Patriot Viper Series 2GB PC3-12800 DDR3 Memory Kit, ASUS
EAH3870 TOP 512MB Overclocked Radeon HD3870 Graphics Card, ASUS EAH3850
TOP 256MB Overclocked Radeon HD3850 Graphics Card, CoolIT Prize Pack -
USB Beverage Cooler, PCI Cooling Booster, and RAM Fan, and two $25 Best
Buy Gift Cards)
Check
out the
Tuniq Ensemble ENS-1200w PSU that
Tweaktown has
reviewed today.
Bottom line... If you
are looking for high-end power, there are a huge number of choices.
Looking for quality high-end power? That number goes down.
Looking for quality high-end power at a reasonable cost? Look no further
than the Tuniq Ensemble 1200.
Free Stuff! (XFX 790I motherboard)
Thermaltake BlacX SATA Hard Drive USB Docking Station coverage over
at PCStats.
Thermaltake has
devised a novel docking station that can be used to quickly connect one
SATA I / II 3.5" hard drive or 2.5" notebook hard drive to any computer
with an available USB2.0 socket. The hard drive slides into the hot swap
capable dock without any tools, screws or transport caddy, and ejects
with the push of a button.
US Modular Cold Fusion DDR2-800 2x1GB Memory Kit reviewage at The
Tech Lounge.
At stock, this RAM performed as well or better
than the best DDR2-800 kits I've reviewed, even outperforming memory
with tighter timings.
Silverstone continues their tradition
of high quality enclosures. Look over the
Silverstone GD02 HTPC Case as reviewed by the
OCIA.
Today I have for review one of Silverstone's
newer HTPC series of cases, the Grandia GD02. If you liked the style of
the full-size GD01 but were just looking for something a bit smaller,
the GD02 might be right up your alley. It's a micro-ATX size case, and
like most HTPC enclosures it is designed to blend right into the other
devices in your entertainment center, with a brushed aluminum finish on
the front, available in either black or silver.
3DXtreme
also takes a turn at the
Thermaltake BlacX SATA HD Docking Station today.
With a pricepoint in around $40, it's
easy to see this as a cheap external storage solution. All you have to
do is pick up more cheap SATA hard drives. Now we just need someone to
create an HDD rack for all the drives we'll be stockpiling.
What's really in Patrick's box?
Eagle Tech I-Series Dual SATA HDD USB Enclosure
at Madshrimps.
SteelSeries Ikari Laser Mouse at Techgage.
Kingston DataTraveler 400 2GB Flash Drive
at Think Computers.
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Tuesday
April 1st,
2008
-dean
Who you call'n Fool Edition
No big pranks here. We are going
to be an island of stability today in what you can expect to be reports
of 10GB VGA cards and triple-quad NICs... Let's see what's up on
the serious side.
Jeremy starts things out with an
acrylic case review in the
Sunbeam 9-Bay
Acrylic Case. Check it.
The new NVidia GeForce 9800 GTXs are
out.
Inno3D of course in addition to
Chaintech and
Albatron are all putting out press releases. You gotta love
3-way SLI.
This card
is being released on the heels of its sibling dual-GPU 9800GX2 with all
of the same high-performance NVIDIA features plus 3-way SLI
capabilities. The 9800GTX-512X has one less GPU than its big brother
(9800GX2) but it makes up for it with higher clock speeds and a trimmed
down price.
We have a number of VGA
cards being reviewed here and there today. Let's start out with
PowerColor HD 3450 at the
Overclocker's
Club.
The
HD3450 is designed as a next generation card supporting all of the
newest techlologies and that it does well. This card is not designed for
the gaming market and you will not be playing games at those ultra high
graphics, but it is great for movie playback and running Vista's
features.
TechwareLabs
has another but more generic
ATi Radeon HD3450 up for review today. Looks like they have
another take on this card.
It is powerful
enough to handle all Windows Vista effects and can perform superbly for
normal office use. On the other hand I would not consider this to be a
card if you are a mainstream gamer and like to emerge yourself in the
game. For being priced at only $39.99, the price / performance ratio is
outstanding.
Always nice to see a water cooled ready
VGA card.
Elite Bastards has a go with a brand spanking new
Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 X2 Atomic WaterCooled VGA Card.
Moving on to the
specifics of Sapphire's Radeon HD 380 X2 Atomic WaterCooled, it's really
quite exciting to see an AIB partner on the ATI side of the fence take
on the concept of a built-in, standalone GPU water cooling system, and
this particular part is ripe to offer just this kind of functionality.
The
ASUS EN9600GT TOP 512MB has gotten a lot of good press of late.
Techgage adds to it.
NVIDIA's 9600
GT card is a great offering for the price range, but
ASUS ups the ante by offering a TOP version that
adds 70MHz to the core and 100MHz to the memory. Add
in HDMI support and the ability to overclock the
card even higher... then the EN9600GT TOP proves to
be a great offering.
Keeping with the brand name/generic offering scheme we
find TechARP and a
reference design NVidia 9600 GT.
The
Thermaltake's BlacX has shown up most everywhere else, it's about
time The Tech Report
weighed in on it.
The BlacX's
docking station approach to external storage certainly won't replace
traditional hard drive enclosures, but for technicians, enthusiasts, and
anyone who has bare drives hanging around their lab, home, or office,
it's a brilliant idea.
DDR3 prices are dropping alright but it
still remains a bit out of many folks' reach. The
Super Talent Project X 2GB DDR3-1800 Kit that
BCC Hardware
reviews will set you back over 500 clams.
We have just
taken a look at some blistering fast DDR3 from SuperTalent. We've got
the PC3-14400 on the bench that comes with timings of 7-7-7-21. This is
some of the fastest DDR3 currently available and is now somewhat
affordable. As DDR3 prices drop and the performance improves, we will
see more of this on the market and in consumers rigs.
Thermal Compound Roundup over at Technic3D.
The
Cooler Master Cosmos S Case is still making the rounds.
Hot Hardware is
the latest.
At about $250, the Cooler Master COSMOS S
is not an inexpensive proposition. That's a lot of coin to spend on a
PC chassis that doesn't include a power supply. But given this case's
innovative features, good looks, and spacious interior, we can't help
but like it. Having built countless systems over the years, in numerous
different enclosures, we're comfortable saying the COSMOS S is one of
the best we have ever worked with.
ASUS PG221 22-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor anyone?
If you are looking around for a low cost board to be be the basis of a
HTPC, the
ECS
GF7100PVT-M GeForce 7100 mATX Motherboard may just be the ticket.
Big Bruin has
more.
In use as HTPC I was very
pleased. While connected to a 720p HDTV via HDMI, Windows applications
looked sharp, movie playback was perfect, and even under the most
demanding conditions the system stayed cool and quiet. Even though the
scores weren't great in tests like 3DMark06, the CPU and chipset coolers
remained cool to the touch under this heavy stress.
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Monday March 31st
2008 - jeremy
The Short Edition
I'm not sure what happened this past
weekend, but there's just about nothing in the news bucket this morning.
Very few reviews seemed to have taken place.
So, moving right on into it, let's see
what we've got.
The crazy folks at
Madshrimps start
us off this morning as they take a look at the
Jetway and HIS HD3870X2 vs HD3870 in Crossfire.
All-in-all, the
single HD3870 is doing great already, but people with a higher budget
might want to look out for the NVIDIA 8800GTS 512MB. Technology wise the
HD3870X2 might not be that bad of an option either, if ATI could make sure
that we could get around 60% extra in-game performance then I'd say that
the X2 is a product with a pretty decent performance/price value, but
unfortunately things turned out rather different for us. Going for a
HD3870 CrossFire setup looks almost absolutely unwise now, price wise the
X2 scores better while offering the same performance as a real CrossFire
setup.
Overclocker's
Online have a go at the
Silverstone KL02B-W.
I love the look
and solid feel of the case and the cooling performance is actually quite
good and silent. The quick disconnect fan is a very innovative idea that I
wouldn't mind seeing used in other cases. The tool less feature in the
case, 5.25" bays, are really easy to use and hold the hardware solidly in
place. While a purely personal opinion, I think the case has a clean and
elegant look to it that would fit in any office or room. In the end
Silverstone has a solid case, but could use a boost in a few areas.
TechARP's got a
Desktop Graphics Card Comparison Guide.
CDR Info shows us
the
ASUS Maximus Extreme.
Compared with
another Asus X38 motherboard, the P5E3 Deluxe WiFi Edition, we found that
the P5E3 seems to be faster in memory tests, while Maximus Extreme is
faster at the CPU tests. Again the performance differences are too small
so we would say both motherboards performed more or less the same. As far
as overclocking is concerned, we saw that both mainboards reached very
easily the 490MHz FSB, with potential to go up even higher.
Tweak Town keeps
things moving in the right direction. And quickly. Have a look
at the
NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX in Tri SLI.
The GX2 continues to be
a good offering for people who want to jump on the SLI bandwagon without
getting themselves a SLI motherboard.
However, if you’re looking at building a new system it might be worth
checking out a 780i motherboard and a pair of 9800 GTX cards which really
gets things pumping.
Hot Hardware
closes things up this morning as they take a look at the
Asus Eee PC.
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