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Reviews Around The Web
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
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In the past when a new Noctua CPU cooler arrived on my doorstep, it was pretty much a given that I would have a new performance leader for air-cooled CPU heatsinks. Times are starting to change and I am beginning to have my doubts after the arrival of the Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer and ZEROtherm ZEN FZ120. It is difficult to imagine anyone making a cooler than can rival the performance numbers achieved by these two products. Given the history I have with Noctua products, I still have confidence in the products and if anyone is going to dethrone the CCF and ZEN FZ120, Noctua will be the one to do it.
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ASUS finally antes up to the bang-for-the-buck table with a value-priced product in their Xonar family of performance audio cards. It's got a solid feature set, and debuts with ASUS' new DS3D GX 2.0 environmental DSP, but does it break new ground in the price/performance department?
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Most people probably haven't heard of the Cyber Snipa brand. This was the first time that I've ever used or even heard of their products. Don't let this fool you. The Cyber Snipa Stinger is quite a powerful mouse and if you ask me, a better mouse than most other high end gaming mice. It offers everything you can think of in a gaming mouse: ergonomics, comfortable, weight system, mice feet, and horizontal scroll just to name a few. Read on further to see how good this mouse really is.
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More than anything else, the new NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset is designed for next‐generation processor technologies, and supports 3‐way SLI, Quad SLI, DDR3 with EPP 2, PCI Express 2.0, 1600 FSB CPUs, and the meticulous hardware control via the Enthusiast System Architecture (ESA). The ASUS Striker II NSE nForce 790i SLI motherboard provides true triple PCIe 2.0/16x lanes with support for 3‐Way SLI and Quad SLI. It includes 60 PCI Express lanes and 10 links, six SATA ports, one eSATA port, 10 USB, and two Gigabit Ethernet NVIDIA MAC, ATA‐133 interface, two PCI slots, and HD audio. Impressive right?
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Discover why the Sony NWZ-A826 Walkman Player holds its own against the competition with a great overall package at an attractive price.
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Featuring an unique heatsink that tries to blend the best of two diverging approaches to cooling, MSI's new N9600GT Hybrid Freezer factors in both passive and active cooling to showcase this interesting product, but failed to impress in our close scrutiny.
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Lite-On Corporation has been in the optical drive business since 1999 and makes many of the products that OEM system builders use in their computers. But they also sell products in the consumer retail market which are typically priced in the lower end of the scale compared with some of the equivalent models from other major brands. For this reason they're a popular choice for many home builders as well.
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The PocketJet 3 is pricey and prints only on special paper, but it's more convenient than a portable inkjet if you need to print black text in out-of-the-way places. If you need a portable greyscale printer to carry on a business trip, or find yourself increasingly wanting to print documents face to face with customers (such as invoices, purchase orders and so on), the Pentax PocketJet 3 Plus may fit the bill. But with its £499 price tag and no paper feeder for letter-size sheets, you're paying a premium for portability.
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Thermaltake makes an entire range of PC supplies including cases, cooling, hardware and much more. The last Thermaltake product I reviewed was the excellent Armor full tower case. Thermaltake is known for making great cases and the M9 looks like a mid tower case with ventilation as its prime agenda. Should the Antec Nine Hundred be worried? Perhaps...
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The Altair A380 is an affordable slim HTPC case, with a very clean look coupled with a very durable construction. The included power supply is 80 Plus certified and can easily power today's mATX boards with multi core CPUs. Also included is an infrared remote control which is compatible with Windows Vista.
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The Audiobyte certainly qualifies as both hi-fi and luxurious. The speakers are compact and well built, and they sound great. The major criticism is that the multi-box affair means you'll have to make a lot of space for the amplifier and the sub. Plus, the amplifier is only designed to power the speakers, so you can't connect external devices such as a videogames console or portable digital audio player. If these aren't issues and you're simply looking for a high-end speaker system for playing audio and games, the Audiobyte is a very satisfying and extremely honest sounding system. It may cost more than many competitors but it manages to deliver remarkably clean, neutral, high resolution sound in a very flexible and attractive package.
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Asus has appealed to the budget conscious, feature loving, overclocking enthusiast very well indeed even though some of these features are mutually exclusive in use. It's not perfect but it's evidently a clear that this is a thorough evolution over previous Asus products, even previous P35 boards as a whole. It's raised the bar massively for what mainstream should be compared to the previous generation, yet in almost every area it's still left us wanting more. Its hardware features are innovative and daring, but we find ourselves rhetorically questioning "would I actually use it though?" If yes, then jump on it like it was made of gold. Asus has proved that its P45 P5Q Deluxe is a step up from P35, and almost emulates X48 but for far less money: it has our vote for this reason alone.
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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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Bgears is a relatively new company that is creating some cool items that are being aimed at specialist areas of the PC market. An example of this is the HTPC enclosure being looked at today, the b-Envi. We plan on seeing if Bgears can come up with something that is different from the crowd, but at the same time we will check out the feature set to see if it is worthy of our hard-earned dollars. The first thing you notice about the b-Envi is the small stature. While this isn't uncommon in an HTPC case, most manufacturers have gone the route of making the box look like a piece of stereo equipment. Bgears has turned a different direction and have opted for an appearance like the old SFF cases, which actually had enough room inside to do something with.
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Apevia opened its doors in March of 1999 with the goal of providing "state-of-the-art technology at fair and affordable prices." The company may best be known for its gamer targeted PC cases, but they also carry other products - including PSUs. Today we have an Apevia 900 watt Warlock PSU ready for the test bench. With its clear acrylic side panels and multi color LED 135mm fan, it's obvious the Apevia 900 watt Warlock is target at the modder and gamer markets. But, has it "Got Game?" Let's find out.
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Computers of today are used in so many different ways that generate tons of heat. So, for those of us who know more about computers than just where the power button is, realize that we must do something to alleviate this problem if possible. One such way to do this is by utilizing system or case fans.
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