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Category: Power Supplies
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Published: Wednesday, 24 December 2014 08:49
Over the past few years we have really seen the Small Form Factor market grow, especially when it comes to small easy to transport gaming PCs, or what we call LAN Rigs. Early in 2013 I upgraded our Lunchbox 2 by upgrading the cooling and opening up room for airflow with a new SFX power supply from Silverstone. Later when I built Lunchbox 3 I used the same model of power supply. Why didn’t I change it up? Well not only did the first 450 watt SFX power supply perform reliably for me, but also frankly there just wasn’t any other competition. Silverstone had the highest wattage in the form factor not to mention the only SFX power supply with modular cabling. Well today we have the chance to check out the new top dog in SFX power supplies, Silverstone’s 600W SST-SX600-G.
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Category: Motherboards
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Published: Friday, 19 December 2014 11:08
Due to Intel releasing new chipsets often a lot of people might think that the motherboard market has a big focus on Intel boards. As I have seen in the past on our forums, our Facebook, and even at our events there is still a large AMD following that is hungry for the latest and greatest to support their preferred vender as well. Well when looking to lock in a board for future AM3+ testing I ended up with the Asus Crosshair V Formula in my hands. Today I’m going to dig into it and see what makes it Asus’s flagship AMD board.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 17 December 2014 15:05
So the story behind todays review is that Weyman Kwong of WASD Keyboards and Jeff Atwood got together because they couldn’t find a simple and clean mechanical keyboard that they truly loved. I can see where they are coming from, as someone who has developed a love for Mechs over the years if you don’t like the gaming styling you really are limited to just a few keyboard. It gets even worse if you are like me and still like having backlighting. After working with WASD Keyboards on our Keyboard Customization article they offered to send over a Code keyboard to check out. I only had one problem, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to check out another TKL that I love for test bench and LAN use or if I would look at the Code as a potential replacement for my main keyboard where I need a full number pad. Lucky for me they completely understood and sent over one of each, giving me a chance to check out both and to check out both of the keyswitch options.
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Category: Mobile
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Published: Friday, 12 December 2014 13:40
This fall I had the chance to take a look at two of the most popular Android phones on the market and compare how well each of them performed compared to each other. The response to that was overwhelmingly positive. So to follow up with that today I will be taking a look at another pair of flagship Android phones, this time the Droid Turbo and the latest version of the MotoX. While both phones have a lot of similarities, a lot of you might still be wondering which phone is best for you. Today I’m going to run through their features, performance, and find out if one or the other stands out from the crowd.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Monday, 08 December 2014 15:23
With such a wide variety of mice on the market we sometimes tend to focus just on what comes out from the largest of the manufactures. We sometimes forget that some of the companies that we now see as being large brands used to just be small up and coming brands. It’s nice to step back and check out what some of the other manufactures are doing. A great example of this is Cougar, just a few years ago they jumped into the fan market and we were very impressed with their offering. I’ve even seen some of their fans in use at our events. Well recently they jumped into the peripherals market and today I will be checking out their 700M gaming mouse to see if it has what it takes to stand out in a crowded market.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 05 December 2014 14:09
I remember just over 5 years ago at CES was the first time I had ever seen a sealed water cooling system. At the time, it seemed a little crazy. How would it fit various PCs? What about maintenance? At that time the only real options were custom setups using parts designed for fish tanks. That company introduced their kit later on (Cool-It’s Domino), it had its share of problems, not to mention trying to convince people you weren’t crazy when you said you want to put water inside of their PC. Years later it feels like everyone has gotten into the market and those designs have improved year after year. Cooler Master for the last few years has been trying there hand at it. Today I have the chance to dig in check out their latest model, the Nepton 240M. They have had a few Nepton models before but this is the first 240mm model.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 03 December 2014 13:16
With RGB mechanical keyboards being the latest bandwagon that most manufactures are jumping on I have been keeping an eye out for RGB keyboards that are a little different. One that stood out to me was the RGB80 from Rosewill. Rosewill’s history in the mechanical keyboard market is actually better than you might think. They have had good boards are great prices. The RGB80 is of course an RGB keyboard but unlike the others it is only available in a TKL (TenKeyLess) version. The LAN attendee in me is reminded each time I see or use a TKL keyboard that they help same room at and when packing for LANs. Will the RGB80 be the next big LAN keyboard? Let’s find out.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Friday, 28 November 2014 18:59
With the small form factor market growing we are finally starting to see a nice variety of case designs available for people who are looking to build Mini-ITX and Micro-ATX PCs. Fractal has been producing a variety of cases for that market basically from their inception. When they introduced their Node 804 I was extremely excited about it. Not only did they keep things fairly small, but they also went with a split design that I am a huge fan of working with on cases. What I mean by a split design is that the power supply and some of the components fit behind the motherboard tray leaving the motherboard side of the case clean. Add to that Fractals typical clean styling and we have the makings of a great case. Well today we have the chance to dig in and check the Node 804 out and find out if it is as great as it looks.
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Category: Motherboards
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Published: Monday, 24 November 2014 11:05
When it comes to Mini-ITX motherboards people are going to have a wide range of feature requirements. For some, as long as it supports their CPU and it has a x16 PCIe slot they are good to go. Others want to have a lot of the features they would find in their full sized builds including wireless AC, different storage connection options, and even upgraded audio. Personally I have been on both sides. When I’m building a budget Mini-ITX build I can skip out on the features but when I’m building a crazy LAN rig like the build we put in the In Win D-Frame Mini only the best will do. Asus continues to impress me with their drive to pack anything and everything into their Impact boards. Well today I’m going to take a look at the latest one, the Maximus VII Impact. This is officially the second Impact board, based on the Z97 chipset. Is this the perfect LAN rig motherboard? Let’s find out.
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Category: Motherboards
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Published: Friday, 21 November 2014 12:25
If you are anything like me then you most likely aren’t just limited to having a PC or two in your office, you most likely are using an HTPC or something similar at one or more televisions in your house. You could just pick up one of the many options available on the market right now, or you could put together something yourself. I’ve done this a few times in the past but over the past few years the prices for capable components have come down and let’s be honest, the performance requirements aren’t really going anywhere until 4k becomes a little cheaper. So today I’m going to take a look at a nice budget motherboard with a built in quad core AMD Fusion APU from Biostar. I don’t expect the A68N-5000 to be a hardcore gaming board, I’m really just curious how well it will handle simple tasks that an HTPC or small home server would require.
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Category: Motherboards
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Published: Wednesday, 19 November 2014 19:38
When shopping for a new motherboard I’ve found that a lot of people tend to lean toward what you have had good experiences with in the past. For me I have a short list of companies that I tend to prefer in my personal rigs and MSI is on that list. When I covered the X99 launch I didn’t have the chance to check out their X99 offerings but today I finally do. They sent over the X99S MPower. It isn’t their highest end board but it is damn close. Now I can sit down and see how it compares to the competition. My previous experiences with MSI MPower boards have been good, but the X99 boards I have tested to date have been extremely good, will it be able to keep up? Let’s find out.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 14 November 2014 11:51
Earlier this year I had the chance to take a look at the Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2014 with its new key switches. Razer hasn’t exactly been sitting on their hands between then and now though. A few weeks ago I had the new Razer Blackwidow Ultimate Chroma come in. This is part of a whole series of products with full RGB lighting. In the past I have knocked Razer for going with green a color that only a few people are building their PCs in. With the Chroma line this shouldn’t be an issue. Will this be enough to win people over? Let’s find out.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 12 November 2014 12:33
By now, a lot of you most likely have figured out that I have a bit of a thing for various keyboards and mice. I’ve even been known to make sure the backlighting on my keyboard matches with my mouse and with my PC build as well. Oddly enough, through all of my keyboards the only time I have ever really customized a keyboard was when I had the chance to review a custom keyboard from Max Keyboard. The fact that I haven’t dug deeper into this is curious because generally I have a hard time leaving things alone, especially my cars and my computers. It’s not that I hadn’t seen the photos of everyone’s keyboards on r/mechanicalkeyboards and GeekHack, I just never did it myself due to not knowing enough and frankly not having the time. Well after reviewing the new Novatouch from Cooler Master, I decided to take advantage of the Cherry MX stems and dive a little deeper into keyboard customization and finally show everyone what it is all about. I reached out to a whole list of companies who make a variety of products to help you take your new mechanical keyboard and turn it into something completely unique, today I’m going to talk a little about what I found!
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Friday, 07 November 2014 20:14
One of the best things about case modding is being able to create something unique and show it off online and at LANs. The modding community has been growing even more popular over the past 5 years thanks to events like PDXLAN. Sadly some people just don’t have the time or sometimes the skills to be able to be involved in things like that. I have run into that as well, I get the itch to rebuild but I just don’t have the time to put together what is in my head. In Win has really stepped up over the past few years with a whole series of cases that fill in that gap. They are unique and well built in a variety of designs. We use their H-Frame Mini for our event router and for the past half a year I have used a 901 for my PC at events. Well In Win recently introduced the D-Frame Mini, just in time for me to start on a new event PC. Some of you have seen it, today I will take a closer look at the pro’s and con’s of the D-Frame Mini.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 05 November 2014 11:02
For years now I have been a huge fan of Noctua products, especially their fans. I will admit though, it took me a while to get used to the odd brown colors that they use. After a while I came to the conclusion that it was worth having fans that didn’t necessarily go with my builds because their performance is amazing. Recently Noctua finally introduced two new fan product lines that feature two new color schemes that most likely will fit a little better with most builds while still being unique enough to still stand out as Noctua fans. Today I will be checking out their IndustrialPPC and Redux fan lines. IndustrialPPC is black with a dark brown and Redux are light grey with a dark grey. We know how well Noctua fans perform so today I will mostly just be showing off the new color schemes. Enjoy!
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 31 October 2014 22:36
For the past few years the only thing that membrane keyboards still had over mechanical keyboards has been the ability to run full RGB backlighting. Well this is no longer a problem, nearly everyone has their own RGB mechanical keyboards in the works or coming out now. A great example of this is the new Tesoro Lobera Supreme. Tesoro has had a few variations on their Lobera but up until now they all just had a single backlight color. Today I’m going to see if going full RGB is worth it. Additionally this will be the first time I have had the chance to check out a Tesoro keyboard, we can see how they compare to the competition.
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Category: Audio
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Published: Tuesday, 28 October 2014 20:26
The tech geek in me loved hearing about the new SteelSeries Siberia V3 while the developing grumpy old man in me was a little concerned. I have learned over the years that sometimes a launch like this can be an amazing thing and other times companies change things just to change things and they end up messing up something that was great in the first place. You see, the original Siberia was good, but had many flaws. When SteelSeries introduced the Siberia V2 I was seriously amazed. They really stepped things up. Heck, I’ve been using the V2 with both the office and also with my LAN rigs for a few years now. Now with the introduction of the Siberia V3, will this model be a requirement in the office as well? I sure hope so, but improving on the Siberia V2 will be a tall order. Let’s take a look to see what has changed to determine that!
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 22 October 2014 14:49
Those of you who come around often, will have most likely figured out that I have a thing for small form factor PCs. I have been building small PCs with big video cards for years, even before Mini-ITX became the norm. Trying to pack the fastest hardware into the smallest possible case is challenging, but also rewarding when you don’t have to break your back carrying a huge PC into LANs. I know a few of you have been catching on to this, I have been seeing LAN rigs showing up a lot on my Facebook and at the LAN. Well when Intel launched their NUC I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one, well my wife just happened to win one at a LAN. So today I’m going to check out what the NUC is all about and put it together with some cool hardware from Kingston and a Harmony Smart Keyboard from Logitech to help put it to use as an HTPC.
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Category: Mobile
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Published: Friday, 17 October 2014 11:10
Picking your new phone is a big decision; you are going to be stuck with it for the new few years. Because of that you don’t want to pick the first one you look at. This is especially difficult for people who have been in the Android ecosystem because there are such a wide variety of phones. Currently two of the most popular are the LG G3 and the Samsung Galaxy S5. Both have a lot of similarities and big followings. I’ve been using both phones for a good portion of the summer, today I’m going to look back and see how they compare to hopefully help a few of you decide on what phone is best for you.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Monday, 13 October 2014 15:33
These days even a lot of the low power cards still require dual PCI slots. So if you have a setup that requires a single slot video card solution it can be a little hard to find something that performs well and will also fit in your case. I don’t think people realize it, but XFX does a great job of creating a wide selection of cards to cover special uses like this. In the past we have seen models from them for people who need half height cards and even silent models. So it wasn’t a big shock when they sent over their R7 250 Core Edition single slot card. Really, the only question is how does it compare to the dual slot cards. If it’s anything like their past cards it should perform well, but the only way to find out for sure it to run it through our benchmark suite and see how it performs.
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