Wed Reviews

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When people think about ITX, there are a few stigmas that come to mind. The first is that there is limited choice. The second is that performance is lacking. While these two points may have been true in the past, no longer is ITX relegated to the specific niche crowd. Intel has been releasing ITX boards for a long time and their latest releases have come a long way. The DG45FC is an ITX board that accepts 45nm CPUs. Pairing this board with a Core 2 will give you performance of a full sized desktop in a tiny package.

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Western Digital makes some excellent products and relatively recently, it pushed very hard into the external storage market. When I asked about if they are worried about the impending SSD emerging market, there was really no big worry, yet. Even so, hard drives are their bread and butter and solutions exists for nearly every segment of the market. I always say how important it is to have a backup solution and the My Book Studio Edition II aims to fit that bill with ease.

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Kingston Technology makes all kinds of memory products. While most enthusiasts know of their high end RAM, there is another facet of products that Kingston has a bring presences in. Flash is a huge consumer market and Kingston hopes to capture all segments of the market including the tiny form factor type drives. The 4GB Data Traveler Mini Slim drive comes in to sweep up this "size matters" crowd.

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Antec makes superb computer cases for all types of situations. One of the latest markets of custom cases is the entertainment PC. There are specific requirements for a PC that fits with a home theater setup including good cooling and a small A/V form factor. Antec has a new case called the Micro Fusion Remote 350 which targets this exact market.

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While we haven't been disappointed with the CyberPower machines we've reviewed in the past, we've yet to have our socks knocked off. CyberPower's new Gamer Xtreme XT has the potential to do just that, utilizing Intel's freshly minted Core i7 platform, a smokin' fast HIS Radeon HD 4870 X2 videocard, and a Blu-ray burner all wrapped up in a affordable package. Keep reading to find out if this newest addition to CyberPower's gaming lineup dazzles or disappoints.

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We're all familiar with Silverstone's exquisitely crafted enclosures, but how many of us realize that Silverstone also caters to the laptop crowd? Entering the fray is Silverstone's debut into the notebook cooler arena, the Silverstone Noble Breeze NB01B. Utilizing three 92mm cooling fans and all aluminum construction, this cooler looks to usurp our long standing favorite, the NZXT Cryo LX. Will the NB01B manage to oust its competition? Has Silverstone crafted a notebook cooling masterpiece, their first ever in this hotly contested market?

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NZXT is teaming up with Bigbruin.com to sponsor a College Football Bowl Game Challenge! Up for grabs are four great items from the NZXT line up, and in order to enter you just need to make your picks for seven of this season's top college football bowl games!

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The bottom line is that the entire series of ASUS EEE PC netbooks are pretty cool, fun, and easy to use; and the refurbished EEE PC 4G 701 netbook is no different. If you are looking for a low cost, light weight device to keep you connected when you are away from your main computer, this is a great option to consider.

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This may be NZXT's first foray into gaming mice, but they have produced a solid initial offering. The Avatar seems to mix elements from other popular gaming mice with a bit of NZXT's own innovation to create a recommendable product. The comfort and performance of the mouse are key selling points, but the high level of customization is obviously important, too.

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While I have been familiar with and impressed by cases from Lian Li for years, I did not know exactly what to expect from one of their power supplies. I assumed that the same high standards and attention to detail would be applied, and the 750W Maxima Force Series power supply confirmed that. It is a well made unit designed to serve in a variety of system configurations.

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The Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe graphics card is a one off Radeon HD 4870 X2 that features dual GPUs with a pre-overclocked core and memory speed, and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. With 2.4 teraFLOPS of graphics horsepower and 1,600 stream processors the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe might just be the most powerful graphics weapon for gamers on the planet today. Read on to see what makes this card different and to see if it should be in your next gaming system.

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Buying an awesome tricked out computer case is the nerdy equivalent to buying a suped up hot rod of a car. The case is the outward manifestation of awesomeness inside. AeroCool does its best to combine car and computer with its AeroRacer Pro case. Unfortunately AeroRacer won't get you as much attention with the ladies as a real car, but it terms of nerd street cred, it works rather nicely. Also unlike a car, this case won't break the bank with its cost. So does the AeroCool AeroRacer Pro have what it takes to leave others behind in the dust? Lets take a look and find out.

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This is TestFreaks, and we like to test stuff! Today for review I've got what claims to be a tough and rugged USB drive, is it? Well it's the ATP ToughDrive Camo 8gb USB drive and I've put it to the test, I've run it over with a car, I've washed it with my laundry and I even turned it into an ice pop complete with stick! USB Popsicle anyone? Read on to learn more about it, check out the video of the adventure and some still pictures as well.

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Amongst aftermarket coolers there are the usual economical, performance, and no-holds-barred categories, and the cooler in this review most definitely is targeted at the no-holds-barred enthusiast that wants the best performance regardless of price. Of course, those simply wishing to own one of a very limited edition, high-performing, and flashy cooler to proudly display in their windowed PC during LAN parties might also crave a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Copper and be willing to spring for it.

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Performance wise, the NH-C12P is one of the best downdraft coolers available, and compares favorably with the better coolers on the market irrespective of design. In my book, the board cooling benefits of a downdraft cooler are well worth the minimal performance hit incurred. Opinions will vary on this point, and it will be up to the user to decide what's most desirable for a particular platform.

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Possessing the largest LCD of any digital photo frame in its class, the widescreen Samsung SPF-105F Photo Frame is truly a gorgeous gadget for shutterbugs or photo buffs. From the high contrast, high resolution screen with bezel mounted touch controls to the extremely long feature set including USB monitor functionality and 1GB of built-in memory, this beast packs a ton of tech into its sleek and stylish case. Read on to find out if the Samsung photo frame can live up to its promises.

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Laptops are more and more becoming desktop replacements for most people. You can get laptops that are just as powerful as desktop machines and even better you can take them with you. Since they are using the laptop as a desktop replacement often time's people use full-sized computer keyboards and definitely a mouse. Logitech has come up with the perfect thing for these people, the Alto. The Alto is a notebook stand matched with a full-sized keyboard. Read on to learn more about the Alto Cordless!

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When it comes to water cooling, Swiftech is one of the most popular brands out there, known for their high performance and high quality water blocks among liquid cooling enthusiasts everywhere. We look at their new MCW-NBMAX, a Northbridge chipset block for the ASUS Maximus II Formula and Rampage Extreme boards for today's review.

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MSI offered to all gamers with limited budget G-Series of notebooks (G is for gaming). While most of other manufacturers classified gaming notebooks as higher range notebooks emphasizing more than just performances, MSI was led by a different logic. Driven by desire to cover as much as possible of the market, MSI turned the page and offered models that definitely move boundaries in quality sense comparing to previous notebook models from the same manufacturer. Models GX720 and GT735 have almost identical chassis and we will first tell something about mutual elements and then we'll look at their distinctiveness.

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The Diamond HD 4870 1GB can take today's latest games and blitz right through them, providing buttery smooth gaming enjoyment. At a price under $300, high end gaming never looked so good and cost so little. In the driver department I have had no problems with ATI's 8.12's. The inclusion of the AVIVO video converter for FREE is a welcome sight. I like that I don't need to install third party applications or a second utility aside from the driver to do basic temperature monitoring, basic overclocking, and tweaking the fan speed...

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So you're looking to build a new computer or are upgrading your current system. The last thing on your list is probably the case. It really shouldn't be. If it is, you're usually left with a flimsy, cramp and ugly heap of metal which is supposedly a PC enclosure. You're kidding right? Well no, it's true and most of us can put our hands up and admit we've done this on more than the odd occasion. So how about a case which actually has an affect on your internal components and is a joy to work with? Will that step up a mark on your wish list of parts for a new rig? Well after reading this review on a case which offers silence, an aluminium chassis and modernity, you may just think twice. Introducing the NZXT Whisper...

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It was obvious from the second we started benchmarking that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB graphics card that the CATALYST 8.12 drivers have not been optimized for Cryostasis. Cryostasis is part of NVIDIA's 'The Way It's Meant to be Played' program and the game isn't due out for a couple months, so the ATI results don't mean much right now. The NVIDIA performance numbers, on the other hand, should be pretty close to what you'll see when the game hits store shelves and the numbers are solid. Adding a dedicated PhysX card to the system did improve the average frame rate, which is interesting to see considering we were using a GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 graphics card...

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Today for review I've got a case that is huge, it's a full tower style case from our friends over at Xclio, but it's much more than that, it's got quite a few other features as well. The Xclio 1000 PC case features nine 120mm fans built in that can be changed to one of several different colors, along with the ability to control their speeds as well. The front has got three doors covering the drive bays, each door has its own fan along with individual controls for each one. Inside you'll find room enough for any system with room to spare for expansion, and there's a plethora of hard drive bays so you'll have room for terabytes of storage as well.

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PC-7F is an all-aluminum mid-tower case from Lian-Li coming in two color options, black or silver, and two side panel options, solid or with a transparent side window (this version is also known as PC-7FW). It comes with a very attractive price tag (USD 130 - USD 140 in the US) and features that will certainly please the average user. Is this a good product? Let's see.

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Both the AMD Athlon X2 5050e and the Athlon X2 7750 processors serve a place in today's market, but the roles for the two processors are clear as night and day. The AMD Athlon X2 5050e is perfect for those wanting to build a system that uses low power and has a quiet cooling solution. The thermal properties on the Athlon X2 5050e were amazing and the fact that the processor runs at just 41C under load on the factory heat sink was most impressive...

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ASRock approached with maximum creativity and decided to squeeze everything possible not only from the Southbridge, but also from the Northbridge: they installed the 2nd graphics port and added nominal CrossFire support (8x + 8x), although only 790X and higher-end chipsets officially possess this feature.

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Storage demands are not getting any lower by the day and hard drive manufacturers keep increasing the capacities to cope up with all our digital data usage such as pictures, movies and audio files. We take a look at two drives today- the Western Digital Caviar Black with 1000GB of unformatted space and the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 which has the largest capacity for a single drive at the moment- 1500GB of unformatted space.

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It has been awhile since the first designer cases showed up on the market, but the battle for the best continues. Manufacturers have always tried to make a design that looks very attractive, while having unsurpassed performance. Today, Tagan has supplied us with the El Diablo A+ case, which hopes to exceed in both fields. This case combines some cool elements, like LED lights, with unsurpassed cooling. If its 360mm fan isn't big enough for you, then I am afraid your thinking way too big. That is not the only thing that is big in this case, just about every other part of this case is simply huge.

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The Sentry LX is a high-end, well constructed thermal monitoring unit, which gives you constant access to five thermal sensors and five case fans at once. It also includes a date & time display, so you can enjoy those longer gaming sessions without losing track of time.

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If you're looking for a cooling solution that is difficult to install, has mediocre cooling performance and is annoyingly loud, the Vantec AeroFlow FX 120 is the ideal product for you. On the other hand, if you're like most PC enthusiasts, you'll want to avoid this product like the plague. The installation process has more PITA than the Greek restaurant my wife and I visited last night. Furthermore, the cooling performance is lackluster at best and the fan whines like a harpy in a Greek tragedy.

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Overall I have mixed feelings about the Antec Skeleton. The geek in me loves it; the dad in me is scared of it. As a father of two under the age of 10 there is more then one occasion that something will go flying across the room. Even in my office I was leery of people around the system that were holding drinks and leaning over the case. Those that have pets at home might also want to think twice as a cat on catnip might find the 250mm disco fan a little too interesting...

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After first wave of cheap netbooks, luxurious variants are starting to appear on the market. As it was the case with first netbooks, ASUS again made a first move in that direction and as result we got one crossbred luxurious netbook in our test lab. Even though ASUS N10J, technical sample that we got in our test lab, looks like classic representative of netbook product (with slightly bigger dimensions), it's not that simple to determine its product category. If we would try to define netbook product category in general, we would say that they have: small dimensions, low power consumption CPU, integrated graphics and no optical device. ASUS N10J is all that and something more.

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Left 4 Dead, a revival of the FPS Horror Genre, was released on November 18th 2008, published by Valve and much to our surprise, was a DX9 game. The single player game consists of four levels where you're trying to reach a destination and get rescued. Each of the four levels has its own rescue point. While making your way to the rescue points you'll encounter hordes of Zombies, the occasional Boomer, solitary Hunters, occasional Zombie Witches, choking Smokers, and the dreaded Tank. Each has its own strategy, and their AI allows them to attack in different ways. While Zombie AI is what you'd expect from the recently dead returned to life, Boomers and Hunters have a more refined AI that allows for some strategy.

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A month ago NVIDIA had introduced the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) that brought PureVideo-like features to Linux. Our initial benchmarks of this video decoding API within NVIDIA's binary driver were quite favorable as it was able to dramatically cut down on the CPU usage when playing H.264 video files. To see how well NVIDIA's VDPAU really is though, we have carried out some more thorough testing now and our hardware consists of a CPU we purchased for $20 USD and a NVIDIA GeForce graphics card that retails for just $30. Can this very low-end hardware manage to play high definition videos under Linux?

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The new Cooler Master ATCS 840 is an all-aluminum full-tower case supporting two power supplies, coming with four fans (one 230-mm fan on the front panel, two 230-mm fans on the top and one 120-mm fan on the rear), removable motherboard tray, several other features we will talk about and a very conservative looks. Let's take an in-depth look on this latest release by Cooler Master.