by Lonewolf on Saturday 13 February 2010 - 12:43:27
Mushkin Io series 128GB SSD @ OCC
"With Mushkin's products, the one thing you can count on is performance. The Io Solid State Drive lives up to the high standards that Mushkin sets. While testing the drive, I was impressed to see that it held its own against the best drive I had tested up until this point - the Patriot Torqx 128GB drive."
ATI Radeon HD5570 DX11 Video Card @ Benchmark Reviews
With this latest release, ATI is doubling back to fill some gaps in its wildly successful Radeon HD5xxx series of video cards. The previous release, the HD5450, was the logical terminus of their GPU bisecting act. In fact, they got a little carried away, and lopped off almost all the Stream Processors, in order to reduce the power requirements down to the lowest possible level. This time, the goal was to create the best performing low-profile HTPC card they could. The HD5570 is the first in a series of HD55xx video cards, and for now, it will probably be the top card in the group. Loaded up with the Redwood GPU from the HD5670, 1 GB of GDDR3 memory, and an all copper active GPU cooler, the HD5570 looks to be the King of the low-profile world, without the attendant King's ransom. Follow along with Benchmark Reviews as we see how it stacks up against its siblings.
"I am going to look at the latest netbook from Hercules today. If you have never heard of Hercules, the company is more known for its video game controllers than computers. The Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W may have the same hardware on the inside that most netbooks run, but it does look different from the masses on the outside.
Shoppers looking for a netbook that won’t look like every other netbook that is launched may want to check the Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W out. The guys will want to know that the floral design on the lid does make the machine a bit feminine looking. Check out the rest of the review for all of the details on the Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W."
Foxconn A7DA-S 3.0 Motherboard Unboxing Video @ eTeknix.com
Today we are unboxing the Foxconn A7DA-S 3.0 motherboard
This motherboard is packed full of features and is from a reliable manufacturer. It supports DDR3 and the latest AM3 processors including the Phenom II series cpu’s.
ASUS Eee PC 1005PE Netbook Review with the Intel Atom N450 Processor @ Legit Reviews
"The ASUS Eee PC 1005PE is based on the same external design and features as our previous favored Eee PC, the 1005HA. While the external shell is nearly identical, what lies under the hood is a whole new platform from the improved power consumption of the Intel Atom N450 CPU and slightly improved graphics with the Intel GMA 3150 integrated GPU. When we began testing the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE, we quickly realized the new Pineview Intel Atom processors and platform were all about further reducing power consumption in order to continue to increase battery life. We were impressed to see the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE was able to meet the same battery life duration as the ASUS UL80Vt notebook which featured an Intel CULV SU7300 processor..."
"Today we are testing another CPU cooler from Titan: Fenrir. It supports all available CPUs, has a tower design, four 8-mm U-shaped heatpipes and a 120-mm fan. Other coolers with similar design performed very well in our tests; will this cooler perform well too?"
CM Storm Sniper Black Edition Case Review @ Hardware Secrets
"CM Storm is a brand from Cooler Master focused on high-end gaming products. We\'ve already reviewed Scout case and Sentinel Advance mouse and both got our highest praises. Let\'s see if Sniper Black Edition also follows the same path."
Looking for a dedicated media player that does it all? And by does it all I mean plays 1080p, supports many codecs, and supports bit-torrent? Than look no further than the Patriot Box Office.
"Steelseries produce a range of gaming gear from mice and mats to keyboards and clothing, providing a range of useful additions to gamers of all abilities. Among the plethora of toys from this Danish-born company is a selection of more than a dozen mousing pads. The mouse mat is an oft-forgot element of the gamer's apparel. Much attention is given to mice and high-resolution monitors, but people tend to forget about that extra layer in communication between man and machine. So we'll now take a look at the Steelseries 9HD Pro Gaming mouse mat, designed to meet the extra demands of precision gamers. "
64 GB Solid State Drive Round-Up @ Hardware Secrets
"Solid state drives (SSDs) are now somewhat affordable for the user that wants to boost the performance of his or her computer. Today we are going to review the latest release from five different manufacturers (Intel, Kingston, Mushkin, OCZ and Patriot), with prices ranging from USD 200 to USD 300."
Lenovo had one of the largest showings from any single PC manufacturer at CES this year, and while sifting through the company's new lineup of machines can be a daunting task for the average consumer, it was pretty clear from the outset that the ThinkPad Edge would be one of Lenovo's standout products of 2010. In many ways, it's a departure from the ThinkPad norm. It's the first ThinkPad to be available in more than just black (it will also ship in red), and there are a copious amount of customization options. Processors from both AMD and Intel are available, and it ships in 13", 14" and 15" form factors. It's not usual that a single machine type is available in ultraportable, mid-size and full-size notebook form factors, but the Edge seemingly breaks the mold..
If you're a motivated enthusiast Hardwareslave.com are looking for you. We are looking for news editors and reviewers to join our growning site. To become a contributing editor for our website and email the admin.
"As an iPhone owner, I’m familiar with the Griffin line of iPod/iPhone/Apple accessories. I’m also familiar with the shortcomings of the iPhone’s speaker, and that holding or cupping your hand around the speaker port will enhance (or at least change) the sounds coming from it. A friend of mine even suggested building a wave-guide to enhance the sound from the iPhone speaker. Griffin has done just that with its passive amplifier dock, the AirCurve. The iPhone sits in this plastic dock that has an acoustic wave-guide positioned directly under the speaker port. Modeled after the human ear canal, the waveguide amplifies and equalizes the sounds before ejecting them out the front of the device. It is completely passive and requires no batteries."
ECS A785GM-AD3 Black Series Motherboard @ OCIA.net
"By the middle of Q1 2009 AMD began releasing new AM3 based processors with integrated DDR3 memory controller, and a revised 785G chipset with new SB710 Southbridge soon followed. ECS joined the fray with their A780GM-M and A780GM-M7 micro-ATX motherboards, and just as they did previously with the AM2+ A780GM-A Ultra, they have followed these with an upscale, full size ATX A785GM-AD3 Black Series. Sharing many of the same features as the rest of their Black Series boards, the A785GM-AD3 offers solid caps, gold plated CPU and RAM contacts, Special ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration) and support for AMD OverDrive or traditional overclocking via M.I.B. II BIOS tweaking utility."
Ultra X4 500 and 850 watt Power Supply’s @ LanOC Reviews
When it comes to power supplies, you may or may not know the name Ultra. Ultra is known for selling affordable power supplies with a few extra design elements thrown in (power supply with a window and lighting anyone?). Having heard of them or not you are going to want to take note, they released a new series of power supplies that have been getting high marks from some of our friends. With us being backed up with work, we are just now getting to testing ours out. Here is what we found out.
"Just before CES we were made aware of an incoming package from Vantec. Instead of bogging us down with a sit down meeting where we could go over performance graphs, pie charts and a bunch of nonsense that you guys wouldn’t want to read even if you were stuck at your in-laws all weekend, Vantec has done us all a favor and just shipped over their latest products. In our package we received a PCIe USB 3.0 controller card (PN: UGT-PC302) and the latest prototype of the soon to be released NexStar 3 SuperSpeed (PN: NST-280S3-BK).
The USB 3.0 PCIe Host Controller is a two port device that is so small that it may just fit GIGABYTE’s X58A-UD7 with the massive heat sink installed. The Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed appears more like a retail unit than a prototype. The only thing that gives it away is the white box that it was shipped in. Everything inside of the box appears to be ready to go, so I don’t think we will have to wait too long for retail availability."
“Water cooling a CPU has been around for quite some time and EK Water Blocks has been on the scene for over eleven years now. No stranger to us, we’ve seen many of their designs across our testing bench. EKWB is finally releasing the Supreme HF (high flow) CPU block, the successor of the popular EK Supreme, so let's take a closer look at see how this water block performs.”
“A few weeks ago when I got back from CES I went out and met up with my usual group of friends. Being the “tech guy” in the group two of my friends had to show me their new phones. Both were smartphones to my surprise, most of my friends are not tech people at all and have no need for all of the functions of a smartphone. The 2 phones were the Samsung Moment and the HTC myTouch. My two friends were really excited to show me how they customized the Android home screen and all of the applications they had. I’m an iPhone guy and I’ve had my iPhone for quite a while. It felt good ha ving one of the only phones that could have apps on it, but now almost anyone can get an Android phone! This begs the question, is Android taking over the mobile OS market?"
"For some reason these newer chips like odd numbered multipliers, so I decided to stick with a multiplier of 21 rather then staying with the beloved 20. I began by increasing the FSB in increments of 10, and then increasing the voltage when needed. I also tried to run my memory as close to 1600MHz as I could. For this reason I would occasionally have to adjust the memory multiplier, which was extremely easy to do. I was surprised because, on every other 1156 board I've used, I've only been able to get my i5 to around 4.1Ghz. With the UD4P, I was able to push slightly above 4.3GHz. Not to shabby! I'm sure with a bit more tweaking one could do some serious damage with this board."
PowerColor Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCS+ OC Video Card @ TweakTown
"It's hard enough to be a video card manufacturer that embraces both sides of the fence, let alone one that only specializes in one of the two major producers of GPUs. Companies like PowerColor, Sapphire and HIS need to really have stand out versions of popular models. The good news for these companies is that half the work is done; ATI have managed to produce a great line-up of models for us to choose from.
Now it's up to the partners to make what is a good card a great one. PowerColor have actually gone a bit crazy lately; they've got a number of really stand-out models in the series which include models from the 5600 series all the way to the 5800 series."
HIS Radeon HD 5450 1GB Graphics Card Video Review @ eTeknix.com
Today we are looking at the HIS Radeon HD 5450 1GB Graphics Card. It is a passively cooled card which uses little to no power and is aimed mainly at the HTPC market.
It supports the latest DirectX 11 technology as well as having support for ATI Eyefinity and ATI Stream technology.
"In a world that is all about Information, we need plenty of space to store all of it. Today we will be looking at the Nexus Edge, a high-end computer case aimed at no one less than you and me, the casual IT-consumer. Nexus presents this case as a high-class one with great functionality for everyday use. Less see if Nexus can keep their promises."
"If you've never bought a case from Zalman because you always thought they are too expensive, we have good news. Zalman is going to release a mainstream case series, called Z7, in March. Featuring two models, Z7 (USD 65 MSRP) and Z7 Plus (USD 75 MSRP), we had the privilege to review the Z7 Plus model one month before its launch. Let's see if this product will be a good buy and in tune with Zalman's reputation for quality."
"The AMD Athlon II X2 255 had a more than solid performance when putting through the paces today. It may not have performed as well as the Quad Core processors did, but keep in mind it is a dual core processor. When I ran the benchmarks on 1 core of each processor I was astonished to see the performance. The AMD Athlon II X2 255 was at or near the top of the list in those benchmarks. It was also able to overclock to 3.95GHz on air cooling, which is impressive for a $75 processor..."
Tips for Judging Motherboard Quality @ Hardware Secrets
"With more and more components being integrated inside the computer CPU, the motherboard doesn't affect the system performance as much as it used to just a few years ago. So what makes a given motherboard a good motherboard?"
CiragoTV Platinum CMC2000 500GB Network Multimedia Player @ TestFreaks
"Today for review I’ve got another multi-media player from Cirago. The product is called the CiragoTV Platinum CMC2000 Network Multimedia Player and it does come with a hard drive, a choice of 500gb or 1TB in capacity, I got the 500gb version for review. I’ve looked at two other Cirago media players here on TestFreaks but this one is actually a NAS box as well which can be connected wired or wireless. The box itself uses a 3.5” hard drive inside and has connections for pretty much everything including component, composite and HDMI along with optical and coax as well. The CMC2000 even includes a card reader and two USB ports so you can view pictures or play your files from them quickly and easily. "
"Lite-on's eHAU424 external USB2.0 optical drive gives you writing speeds as fast as 24X for DVD+/-R media. It can burn through dual layer DVD+ and DVD- media and write to CD-Rs and CD-RWs as well. While Blu-Ray media is not supported, the LiteOn eHAU424 will work with photosensitive Lightscribe media for those who want to add a graphic element to custom mix tapes (for example) by burning the label right onto the disk itself."
"The EnhanceTech TS800 IP is an enterprise-level solution for iSCSI attached storage. Resembling a full-size ATX case, the TS800 contains three gigabit network controllers, an on-board computer and web server, a RAID controller capable of level 6 arrays, and a hot-swap backplane with room for 8 SATA drives. The novel aspect here is the use of the iSCSI standard, essentially using an existing TCP/IP network infrastructure to pass packets of data that mimic a more traditional SAS solution. Part of this process is specialized software on the client end to attach the device as a volume."
The Office of Film and Literature Classification – Friend or Foe? @ TweakTown
"From the outset, I wish to note that this article is an editorial and as such, reflects my own personal views, of which I generally try to keep subjective. However, in this article, I will be giving an opinion which you, the reader, may or may not agree with. Whichever category you fall into, I welcome your thoughts in the TweakTown forums.
Whilst I consider myself to be fairly right wing in regards to my political views, I have always had an in-principle personal view against censorship. Whilst I acknowledge that there are certain things that should be seen and heard, for the most part this should be left up to the person to decide what they should view and hear, or if that person is a minor, left to the parents to monitor."
Sans Digital Tower Raid TR4UT 4-Bay Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ Tweaknews
"The TR4UT from Sans Digital is a strong contender in the external storage market. With four drive bays supporting up to 8TB of storage, both home and small business users alike can easily back up important files using USB or the newer, faster eSATA interface. Top it all off with tool-free installation, fast performance and quiet operation, and you have yourself an external storage unit that is hard to beat."
Hardwareoverclock.com has posted another Core i7 Overclocking Guide. Last week they has take a look at the Core i7 860 LGA 1156 processor and its Overclocking properties. There have been experiments with air, water and dice cooling. We also have a real try for everyday documented with pictures. The article is in German, but the screens and tables are international.
"Offered in both grey and red finishes, each wrapped in a reflective zinc alloy frame, the A-DATA Nobility S805 is a very attractive looking device. Its heft, at 25g (.88oz), is substantial for its size and certainly gives the perception that this is a well constructed and rugged piece of hardware. It comes packaged with nothing other than a warranty information brochure and is available in capacities ranging from 4GB to 16GB..."
