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Week Of April 13th, 2008
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Saturday April 19th,
2008
-dean
Weekend Edition
Let's start things off with a visit to
our sponsors.
Case Cooler has
the
Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler and the
Thermaltake MaxOrb Cooler on sale this weekend.
Sidewinder
Computers has a pump bracket for you water cooler folks that looks
like it would solve a lot of problems with secure placement. The
Absolute Pump Bracket is priced at $30 and well worth it.
The Tech Report
begins our weekend's news with the
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300
and the Core 2 Duo E7200 Processors.
The Core 2 Quad
Q9300 is Intel's most affordable quad-core processor, and it promises to
supplant a long-time favorite of ours, the Core 2 Quad Q6600, by
offering additional goodness at the exact same price. The Core 2 Duo
E7200, meanwhile, is Intel's cheapest 45nm dual-core CPU and a potential
goldmine of overclocking potential.
More processor coverage with the
Intel Q9450 Core 2 Quad Processor that is on deck at
Hardware Logic.
The performance
gains over a similarly clocked Q6600/Q6700 Kentsfield are not earth
shattering but definitely noticeable. With that said, there are
distinguishable improvements in power requirements and performance which
places this chip a step ahead. So if you are looking to start a new
build or ready to upgrade your processor, Intel's Q9450 quad core CPU is
definitely worthy for consideration and should be at the top of your
list.
Always one to release new case designs
and worthy improvements on old ones, Thermaltake has their
Thermaltake Armor+ Case up for video review today at the
3D Gameman.
Now I'm a big fan of the 8800GT so
seeing this review at
Tweaktown with the
ASUS EN8800GT 1GB card got me jazzed until...
Performance on the card is of course
good, it performs like an 8800GT should, but it doesn’t offer the
increase that you might think it will.
Fortunately, with the other bits and pieces that ASUS has strapped on to
the card make the justification for buying the 1GB 8800GT from them not
too difficult. You’re getting a better quality cooler, and there’s no
denying that more memory isn’t going to hurt you.
Gamepyre has the
next generation NVidia on deck today in Palit trim with the
Palit GeForce 9800GTX.
The 9800GTX is
the fastest single chip video card I’ve ever tested. Having said all the
positives on the 9800GTX, the 9800GTX is not much of an upgrade over the
8800GTS 512MB that was released last year and is in fact just an
overclocked version of that card with more power requirement and a
higher price.
Check out the
PowerColor AX3650 512MD2 at
Overclockers
Online.
While you can't
expect outrageous performance from a $70 card, you get pretty good
gaming performance and a load of features to go with it. Overall great
value. The 3650 is a perfect card for the entry level PC user who likes
to play some games. The inclusion of HDCP compliance and HDMI support
through a DVI to HDMI converter (sold separately) the AX3650 also makes
a strong argument to reside inside an HTPC.
The pros at
Bjorn3D share their
thoughts on the X48 based
ASUS
P5E3 Premium WIFI Motherboard.
The X48 P5E3
Premium does outperform our Maximus Formula X38 board by an
average mark ranging from 12%-15%. Whether that is enough of a
performance increase to justify the expense of this board is a question
you'll have to answer for yourself. From our standpoint at Bjorn3D it
will be one of the boards that we class as a "keeper" and one we'll use
regularly in future reviews.
The expense of the board is defined as
$350.
Another board on deck for your weekend
is the
MSI P35 Platinum Combo that is up at the
Hard|OCP.
Every now and
then a product comes along that raises an eyebrow, the MSI P35 Platinum
Combo is one such a product. MSI takes an unusual approach to making a
board that supports DDR2 & DDR3 memory technologies yet is enthusiast
oriented.
ThermalRight IFX-10 Motherboard Backside Cooler anyone?
It is fairly
safe to say that the IFX-10 is based on a quirky idea and it can pay
dividends under a variety of conditions, but don’t expect it to perform
miracles. It really only shines at the higher end of the acceptable heat
spectrum and has almost no effect on idle temperatures.
Still more.
MTRON PRO 32GB 2.5” SATA SSD at Tweaktown.
Vantec Hard Drive Dock at Pro-Clockers.
Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850w PSU at Overclocker's Club.
Corsair TX650W (CMPSU-650TX) PSU on Technic3D
Huntkey Titan 650w PSU at Driver Heaven.
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Friday April 18th
2008 - jeremy
The TGIF! Edition
I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya,
how little news there is this morning.
Let's see what we've got.
Overclock 3d
starts off with a look at some
Corsair XMS2 DHX PC2-6400 Memory.
As I said at the
start of this review, technology is moving forward at an eye watering
pace. DDR3 memory solutions are slowly starting to saturate the enthusiast
market and are getting faster and faster by the month. The XMS2 DHX kit
with us today though has shown that this trend is not becoming refined to
DDR3, with the ability to reach speeds of DDR2 1149 with a minimal
slackening of latencies this 4GB kit has outperformed a most of 2GB kits
we have seen in both overclock percentage and overall speed.
This is a cool idea.
Tech Power Up
has some
Lamptron Aluminum Case Handles.
What we have here
is a functional and sexy accessory for your case that is extremely well
crafted and much better looking than other offerings out there. The
handles were definitely designed with a hardcore modder in mind. A few
small details were missing in the packaging department and some of the
install time could be trimmed if the box would
advertise
recommended drill bit size and possibly include a hex tool. The fact
remains that these handles serve their purpose very well and look very
cool while doing it. If you are tired of lugging that box around without
finesse and do not mind paying a little more for near perfection and
beauty then by all means get yourself a set of these.
Overclocker's
Club keeps us moving along this morning as they take a closer look at
the
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-SH2 Motherboard.
Talkin about cool lookin, take a look at
the
Thermaltake Xaseer VI Super Tower Chassis.
Many people do not understand why anybody would get
excited about a case. To those people, any plain OEM case will be
perfectly fine. For the rest of us, we want a case that provides more than
the basics. The Thermaltake Xaser VI has the features we want! A removable
motherboard tray for easy installation,
multiple USB and e-SATA connections for
all kinds of removable devices, more than ample airflow to keep our
components cool, a reversible front door, and silent operation. All of
these features are included in every model of the Xaser VI series.
Driver Heaven's
got next. Check out the
Thermaltake ToughPower QFan 500W PSU.
If you're in the market for an external
HDD enclosure, the
Vizo Shuttle ST 2.5" SATA Enclosure is quite a nice looking piece of
work. BCC
Hardware has more.
Aphnetworks closes
up this morning with their look at the
Vizo Propeller II.
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Thursday April 17th
2008 - jeremy
The TGIT? Edition
It seems like today's Friday, but I know
that it's not. Strange. But it's ok, it's getting closer at
least.
Let's see what kinda news we can find.
Starting things off this morning, we've
got a few sweet video cards.
Tweaktown has a
look at the
ASUS EN9800 GTX 512MB Card.
As usual, the ASUS
offerings carry with them a slight premium over other models, but the
extra year warranty, CD Wallet and other pieces of software that ASUS
include might be enough for you to spend the extra few dollars.
The
Elite Bastards
check out the
XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB and Quad SLI Video Card.
Whether the
GeForce 9800 GX2 is worth that kind of outlay is dependent upon several
factors, but if you want high resolution gaming with all the eye candy
enabled, coupled with a choice of motherboard chipsets that extends beyond
NVIDIA's offerings, then this particular board may well be tempting. Yes,
it is only a couple of lower clocked GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB boards in SLI on
a single card at its heart (and certainly not deserving of the GeForce 9
series moniker much like the rest of its recent brethren), but in a sense
that's also its strength - We've seen plenty of recent evidence that
NVIDIA's SLI technology scales well and doesn't have a massive number of
compatibility issues these days, and the space saved and greater choice of
motherboards on offer from going down the GX2 route over a traditional SLI
setup certainly shouldn't be ignored.
Virtual Hideout
has also got a show of the
ASUS 9800 GTX 512MB Video Card.
Moving onto some other goodies,
Neoseeker shows
off the
ASUS P5E-VM HDMI Review.
Also, if you've got a system with all
these big guns in there, head over to
Bit-Tech and take a
look at the
Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W PSU!
While those who
need a 1,500W power supply are a small few, Thermaltake (and CWT) have
produced an ultra high power unit that's left us with highs and lows. On
one hand it's extremely efficient and provides a the most comprehensive
multi-GPU support we've ever seen, it has great modular connectors
and even ferrite cores on the PCI-Express cables. However, we feel some of
the cable choices could have been better and the hot spots at very high
load mean we can't really recommend it – we feel it just can't quite do
what it says on the tin, safely.
The
3d Game Man keeps
things rolling on along for us this morning as he shows off the
Lian Li PC-V2010 Case.
May as well stick to some nice cases.
Bjorn3d has the
Antec
Mini P180.
The Mini P180 is a
welcome addition to Antec's
Performance
One line of enclosures and stands up well against its larger siblings.
It's a sleek and stylish case with a lot of features packed into it.
Although the idea of a case aimed at gamers that only accommodates a
microATX
motherboard
was somewhat lost on me at first, I can certainly see the possibilities
now. This is a well designed case and it's refreshing to see one built so
well in a smaller size (understanding that "small" is a relative term and
this case isn't exactly tiny!). As Antec says, "Good things come in small
packages" and this certainly applies to the Mini P180.
Techware Labs
shows us the
AMD Phenom 9850 X4 Quad Core CPU.
Overclocker's
Club keeps things going for us this morning as they take a look at the
ECS GeForce 8800 GT.
I started to
notice little things during the review, like the memory on the ECS board
was the same brand as the ones on the ASUS card and that there were the
same number of chips. So I started to think if it is so alike physically,
then it should perform close to the same. Boy was I surprised! At 256MB,
the card was behind, but that was expected for half of the memory buffer
as the 512MB cards, but man, after that update the decrease in the memory
clock did not seem to be that big of a deal. Dollar for dollar and spec
for spec, you get almost the same performance of any other 512MB 8800 GT
for a lot lower of a price. ECS has informed me that at launch, pricing on
Newegg.com will be $179.99 with a $40 mail-in-rebate if purchased at that
e-tailor. For a final price of $139.99, give me a 512MB 8800 GT that will
touch that feature right now.
I4U calls next. Check out the
ASUS
EN9600GT TOP Video Card.
Closing up this morning is
XSReviews as they take a look at the Cyber Snipa Stinger Mouse.
What a cool looking mouse.
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Wednesday April 16th,
2008
-dean
Morning Edition
Let's get right to it today.
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 review anyone? The
Overclocker's
Club has more.
As enthusiasts,
many times we buy a lower end processor hoping for increased performance
so that we do not have to spend big coin on the top rated processors. Of
course, with the big bucks come a guarantee of processor speed whereas
in overclocking your mileage may vary. What you have with the Q9450 when
overclocked is performance that beats the QX9770 in all but a few
instances. On this account the Q9450 is a success. Ultimately, it means
top end performance for bottom line dollars (at least for a Quad Core).
Priced at $379, it does cost more than the Q6600, but is a far cry from
the $1400 of the QX9770.
The name says it
all.
DDR3 1800MHz Round Up (Patriot, OCZ, Kingston and Super
Talent) at
Pro-Clockers.
Is there a clear winner
here? Yes and No. If you had to conclude a winner it would have to
between the OCZ and the Super Talent. One achieved slightly higher in
the overclocking test and the other had better numbers when it came to
running timings at default. With the evidence seen here anyone with a
decent DDR3 based would not have any issues or concerns with any of the
kits.
Here's a single Patriot unit being
reviewed with R&B Mods
and their piece on the
Patriot Viper PC3-14400 DDR3 Memory Kit.
This is my first review from Patriot and they have suprised me quite
well. Finally the DDR3 kits are getting down in latency and also
speedwise. Since Patriot also offers lifetime warranty I really feel
these ram kits that they offer are a good contender for the big brands
on the market right now.
The Thermaltake DuOrb VGA Cooler was
and is an impressive unit. Tt has taken this design and applied it
to CPUs now. Check out the
Thermaltake DuOrb CPU Cooler that the
OCIA has a hold of and
has some surprising results.
The Thermaltake
DuOrb CPU Cooler is a perfect match for the DuOrb VGA Cooler. It looks
good and fits surprisingly well, given its large wingspan. The twin 80mm
fans and dual orb shaped copper/aluminum fin arrays is a unique design
not used by other product manufacturers. But also like its VGA brother,
the DuOrb CPU Cooler is only barely adequate at stock cooling, and can't
keep up with high voltage thermal power demands.
Now if
this review was written by Cole eating a Cookie...
Coolink ChipChilla Chipset Cooler review up at
TweakTown.
The ChipChilla is
also efficient; our testing has shown that the product is better than
the NVIDIA Reference Design Cooler, and by a large margin. The best
feature of the ChipChilla though is its ability to perform virtually
silent, even when running at full load.
Yea, that
and the name.
It looks like the big money networking
gear is here to stay. In the same vein as the KillerNIC, see how
well the
D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router does when
Techgage puts the
screws to it.
D-Link's DGL-4500
wireless router brings a lot to the table, including dual-band
operation, 802.11n support, a killer built-in OLED screen, on top of
features perfectly suited for online gamers. Of course, such a
feature-packed router doesn't come cheap, so is it worth your
hard-earned $180?
Cooler Master Cosmos S Case review over at
Hardware Logic
today.
The Cosmos S is
really a misnomer.......while it shares the same silhouette as its
predecessor, the Cosmos 1000, that's really where the similarities end,
as the Cosmos S is in fact a completely different beast. Where the
Cosmos 1000 focused on silent operation, the Cosmos S is all about
performance.
The
round out.
Hitachi Deskstar 500GB SATA/300 7200RPM 16MB HDD at Viper Lair.
ThermalRight Ultima 90 Cooler and
Vizo Sleet RAM Coolers at TechwareLabs.
OVC TC20 Earphones at TechPowerUp.
Thermaltake BlacX Hard Drive Docking Station at Techgage.
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Tuesday April 15th,
2008
-dean
Evening Edition
Time for a VGA line up of reviews.
Bjorn3D kicks it
off with the
HIS
HD 3870 IceQ 3 Turbo.
Both the 8800GT
and especially the 8800GTS 512 MB offer better performance for just a
little extra money. Even the HIS HD3850 is breathing down the HD3870’s
neck. With new GPU’s coming out from NVIDIA aimed at the same segment it
is looking to become more and more crowded and increasingly difficult
for the HD3870 to make itself heard.
Double your pleasure?
Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 1GB Graphics Card anyone? See Big
Bruin for more.
Even with the settings on high, there wasn't a game
played where the frame rates dropped low enough to be noticeable. While
the default settings should be more than enough to make any user happy,
you can always overclock for an even greater boost.
Let's ride this ATi train all the way
out with the budget conscious,
Diamond Viper HD 3850 as seen at
Hot Hardware.
ATI/AMD is currently ceding the ultra
high-end to NVIDIA, whose 8800 cards have been riding high for some time
now, and the 9800 seems to only be continuing that tradition. However,
for the price, the HD 3850 is quite an able performer. With prices
hovering around $169, buying one card is an easy sell; buying more than
one and setting them up in a CrossFire setup has an even more promising
outlook.
Looks like only one NVidia card
reviewed today and that is over at the
Hard|OCP with this
one on the
MSI N9600GT 512M OC Card.
The MSI N9600GT
512M OC offers a fast clock speed and sports a unique
cooling solution with a special quiet fan blade design.
We will compare gameplay performance of this sub-$200
video card in Crysis, Jericho, and CoD4.
Terratec 2400 Dual TV Tuner Card review posted by the crew of
Xtreme
Computing.
However in my
opinion the bundled Terratec Home Cinema software is a little rough
around the edges. There is no denying it works and it works very well,
as I said picture and sound quality is as good as any other TV card, it
has a lot of user definable settings and does everything that it sets
out to do. BUT in my opinion with a bit more time and effort it could
have been so much better.
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Tuesday April 15th,
2008
-dean
Afternoon Edition
Tax Day. Need I say more.
Let's see what we have in the hardware world today.
Now I'm all about a force feedback
steering wheel for games like NFS:Pro Street. Add in a clutch and
you're really cook'n, or are you?
Benchmark Reviews
has the
Force Feedback Pro Clutch on their review bench today.
On a negative note, the pedal unit is
very light and will slide all over the place regardless of whether it is
on carpet or a hard surface. The bottom of the unit has a few
rubber grip pads whose only purpose may be to avoid scratching your
floor as you are constantly trying to slide the unit back in place.
Still over there we find a review of
the very fine
Kingwin RVT-12025 Cooler.
Palit GeForce 9800GTX coverage by our compadres of
Motherboards.org.
The 9800GTX is
the fastest single chip video card I’ve ever tested. Having said all the
positives on the 9800GTX, the 9800GTX is not much of an upgrade over the
8800GTS 512MB that was released last year and is in fact just an
overclocked version of that card with more power requirement and a
higher price.
A what?
Scythe Zipang Cooler action posted over at
XS Reviews.
Scythe have
produced some insane coolers in the past, most notably
perhaps, the Scythe Andy. Oddly named, but whopping in
size and surface area. Now though, they've come out with
something bigger, badder and hopefully better; the
Sycthe Zipang, its monstrous. With 12 copper heatpipes,
and what is in essence, two heatsinks, I'm hoping for
some awesome temperatures from this one.
For the times that you just need a good $75 box.
The
Apevia X-QBOII Black Case
makes an appearance at the
Overclocker's
Club.
The X-QBOII targets enthusiasts
who do not want a large, bulky mid-tower, without being too small as to
make a computer totally useless. It takes micro-ATX motherboards and is
capable of holding two optical drives, two hard drives, and a large
graphics card, like an 8800GTX.
More and more.
ASUS DRW-2014 L1T DVD-RW at Virtual-Hideout.
SteelSeries Ikari Laser Gaming Mouse
at BCC Hardware.
Thermaltake Toughpower QFan 650w
PSU at Think Computers.
Auras Fridge JES-988 Passive VGA Cooler
at MadShrimps.
Super Talent Pico 8Gb Micro USB2.0 Flash Drive at Tweaknews.
Cyber Acoustics CA-5001 5.1 Speaker Kit at TweakTown.
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Monday April 14th,
2008
-dean
Morning Edition
One day left until taxes are due...
unless of course you get an extension like an estimated 10.3 million
other Americans are expected to do.
On an entirely different note,
Jeremy is off today celebrating his first wedding anniversary with his
lovely bride Laura. Congratulations you two.
Checking the news box we find that
Driver Heaven
puts up an
eight-way mid range VGA cage match that includes the Zotac 9600 GT
Amp! Edition, Gainward Bliss 9600 GT, ASUS EN9600GT, XFX 9600 GT XXX,
Palit 9600GT Sonic, Gainward 8800 GTS Golden Sample, Zotac 8800 GT 1GB
and ASUS 3850 OC Gear. Check it.
While the
Aerocool GateWatch 2 Thermal Monitor/Fan Control unit is a two bay
product, it is one of the hipper devices of this type on the market.
See it for yourself at
TechwareLabs.
The GateWatch 2
is definitely an attention grabber while its functionality seems to come
in second. We had issues mainly with the way it functions as a fan
controller as nothing beats a simple knob. As for its expandability, it
certainly can add to the functional nature of your PC through the USB
and audio ports.
Still over at TechwareLabs is a case
review on the
NZXT Rogue.
Nothing wrong with upgrading and stay
with DDR2 especially since it is dirt cheap right now.
R&B Mods has a
performance ASUS board on deck that stays true to DDR2 with the
ASUS Striker II SLI Formula Motherboard.
I would like to
go as far as saying this is the best DDR2 board we have tested this far
when it comes to stability/performance and overclocking. The board cost
a bit more but if you want the features you better cash up for them. I
will even give this board our Editors choice award for a extreme board
that will not dissapoint if you are a overclocker of a casual user.
More from the ASUS Striker line with
this
ASUS Striker II NSE 790i SLI Motherboard review
at
Think Computers.
But I do know that I am
well pleased at what Asus has done with the 790i SLI chipset on the
Striker II NSE. It is an incredible-looking board, with its massive NB
cooler, copper heatpipes, and large SB cooler. The board has more
features that anyone would ever use, in the few days I have lived with
the motherboard so far, I have only used a few of them.
Aeneon X-Tune DDR3 1333 MHz CL8 2GB Kit anyone?
TechPowerUp has
more.
The
OCIA has posted on the
Thermaltake Xaser VI Case that weighs in at $260!
The Thermaltake
Xaser VI is heavy and huge. And I'm not talking about your ordinary,
everyday kind of big either, I'm talking gargantuan... colossal...
humongous. Half an inch taller, almost two inches deeper and several
pounds heavier than even the mighty Cooler Master Cosmos. It was a
struggle to move the shipping container around, obviously not just for
me but also for UPS, as evidenced by the damage that occurred.
The use of perpendicular recording technology
allowed Western Digital to deliver a storage capacity of 500 GB using
only two platters. Fewer platters mean lower costs and lower power
consumption. The high areal density achieved using perpendicular
recording also greatly increased its platter-to-buffer transfer rate.
Little wonder how it did so well in our benchmarks.
Cruise over to
Hardware Secrets for some
Enermax Liberty DXX 500w PSU coverage.
mStation 2.1 Stereo Orb at
Overclockers
Online.
With the 2.1 Stereo Orb, mStation delivers on their
goal. The Orb is a stylish and great sounding speaker system that
doesn't have a large footprint. With a variety of colors and multiple
docking inserts, you can match your iPod.
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