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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 04 November 2013 16:37
Having recently reviewed a cadre of big block, multi-heat pipe air coolers it is about time to switch things up and today that is exactly what we will do by taking a look at an AIO water-cool solution enthusiasts have been anticipating. Back in July, many were troubled by the news that Swiftech would be ceasing sales on its popular H220 AIO/DIY hybrid cooling kit due to a patent dispute. While some chose to import units, others simply took the news in stride and searched elsewhere for their cooling hardware. Today is the day that all ends as Cooler Master have partnered with Swiftech to bring us a spiritual successor in the form of the Glacer 240L.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 01 November 2013 12:50
Today we are back again with another multi-heatpipe CPU cooler, this time from one of the larger names in performance cooling. Gelid Solutions has been around since 2008 and have proven themselves to be manufactures of quality cooling products and accessories. Slated for the test bench is The Black Edition, a seven heatpipe air cooler that promises both quiet operation and high end performance. Will this cooler be able to stand up to our tests and impress or be relegated to the bottom self and forgotten? Let’s find out.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 17:18
Today we take a look at our second cooler from Be Quiet! and while I was left impressed by a few features and performance found in the Dark Rock Pro 2, the massive size of the cooler left a bit to be desired in the board real estate department. This time around we are looking at a few less heat pipes, one less fan and a drastically different design in the Shadow Rock TopFlow. Will this different design match its sibling in performance and hopefully offer us a bit more space to stuff our components? We shall see.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Tuesday, 29 October 2013 11:56
Today we take a look at a much more basic cooling component that no build can be without. I am, of course, talking about the simple case fan and whether you are packing your case full with the intent to air cool or just need a few good radiator fans for water cooling there are numerous choices available to you. Cooler Master seems to think they have just the answer you’ve been looking for with their JetFlo 120 and we got our hands on a pair for a quick round of testing.We will see how they stand up once installed and the air starts moving.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 28 October 2013 11:42
Processor cooling is one of the most important choices a builder can make for their system. While the market is flooded with many options and styles to choose from, one market has always remained competitive and populated with choices year after year. I am, of course, talking about the large, multi-heat pipe air coolers and today we are going to take a look at the Dark Rock Pro 2 from Be Quiet! to see if it holds up through installation and our new testing procedures. Is it worth your money? I don’t know but I hear the Germans make good stuff.
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Category: Games
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Published: Wednesday, 23 October 2013 14:48
With the success of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series it is easy to forget that they have another widely successful stealth-action series up their sleeve. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell has been around since 2002 when it caught our attention with those ever recognizable glowing green trifocals. While the series hasn’t had the annual release attention since 2006, Ubisoft Montreal still kept the series strong with the release of Splinter Cell: Conviction and this year Ubisoft Toronto take the reins with Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Promising to deliver the same stealth-action we’ve come to enjoy, it is time to take a look at the latest installment in the Splinter Cell series.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Monday, 21 October 2013 18:56
Earlier this week I had the chance to take a look at Asus’s Matrix R9 280X Platinum, today I’m going to come back down to earth a little and check out their R9 270X DirectCU II Top. With a price that fits better into budget builds I’m curious how many of the features I saw on the Matrix will carry over into this card. I have high hopes for the card, but after seeing a few R9 270X’s from other manufactures I can say without a doubt that Asus has their work cut out for them. Let’s dig into it and see what it’s all about.
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Category: Audio
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Published: Wednesday, 16 October 2013 15:12
Thermaltake has churned out a long list of products under their Tt eSPORTS branding this past year and with each offering have displayed unique designs and portability minded function. Earlier we reviewed the MEKA G-Unit Illuminated keyboard and today we are back with a headset. The Cronos is a mid-range offering looking to deliver on the brands staples while also offering clear audio and voice communication all gamers crave. Join me as I put the Cronos through its paces and see if it is indeed worthy of the Tt eSPORTS name.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Monday, 14 October 2013 19:04
When I spoke about the AMD launch of its new R9 cards, I mentioned that most of the cards are rebadged versions of the 7000 Series cards. That doesn’t mean manufactures couldn’t go out of their way to improve on the designs themselves. Asus attempted this with their flagship R9 280X called the Matrix R9 280X Platinum. The Matrix itself brings a lot of amazing features, but the platinum edition is handpicked and equipped with a higher overclock to go with it all. Today I’m going to take a close look at the card to see what sets it apart from the rest of the R9 280X’s on the market.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 11 October 2013 13:17
When it comes to AMD video card manufactures there really only a few different names that come to mind. At the top of that list for most people will be Sapphire. Those of you who made it out to LanOC v13 will also remember that Sapphire joined us for our event as well. When they offered to let us take a look at their new R9 series cards, I jumped at the chance. Boy was I surprised to see that they had made some significant changed to their product line, especially the Toxic model that we are going to take a look at today.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 10 October 2013 08:20
Every new launch means new custom PCB designs from the manufactures. The first to hit our office this time around was an R9 270X from Gigabyte with their Windforce cooler design and an overclock. In the past I have been impressed with Gigabytes Windforce designs for their pure cooling power, I’m excited to see what three cooling fans on a large heatsink will do for keeping the R9 270X cool. But first let’s take a look at the card.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 09 October 2013 12:06
In the world of Small Form Factor builds you are always compromising. You either have to give up some performance for a smaller size or give up some size to get the performance you are looking for. Recently though, this trend has been starting to change. My last LAN build was easy to carry around while having (at the time) the second fastest GPU from Nvidia and a high end CPU. Of course because of my GPU I couldn’t go any smaller. Asus has a new GPU that is going to change that. Their new GTX 670 Direct CU Mini is the same length of a MiniITX motherboard. With that size, my LAN rig is going to need a complete rebuild.. To go smaller!
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Category: Mobile
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Published: Tuesday, 08 October 2013 16:27
Here in just a few months it will have been two years from when Motorola introduced their Razr MAXX. That length of time is significant for a few reasons. First, most of you know that a lot of people run on two year contracts for their phones so a lot of the original Razr MAXX owners will be on the market for replacements here at the start of the year. Two years is also important because it wasn’t long before the original MAXX was introduced that Google purchased the company for a whopping 13 Billion dollars. In that time as well things have changed in the phone market. Sure the iPhone is still around but who would have thought that Blackberry would still be around and that the phones that were once so powerful and huge are now considered slow and normal in size. What a perfect time for Motorola to introduce its third MAXX phone. This time the they dropped the Razr name all together and just went with the Droid MAXX and its smaller battered brother is called the Droid Ultra. I’ve been using the MAXX for a while now and today I’m going to tell you a little about my experience.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Tuesday, 08 October 2013 10:23
If you have been paying attention at all, there has been a lot of talk about what AMD has been up to on the video card side of things. Part of this is related to them inviting some of their press and partners out to Hawaii to show off their upcoming product launch. Why Hawaii? Well this follows their islands name scheme. For those who didn’t make it out there they did a live video stream as well. There they showed off information about the cards but avoided specifications and major details. In place they focused on details about their new focus on in game audio for example.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Monday, 07 October 2013 12:46
If people left things alone and didn’t continue to innovate we would all still be driving around in Model T’s rather than the car options we have now. Lian Li has impressed me every time I have had a chance to check out their cases, but they haven’t been sitting on their hands. I recently had their new PC-10N come in. With their new rail design for motherboard installation and with its corners cut off the PC-10N does have a few new features while sticking with the all-aluminum design that Lian Li is known for. Of course I can’t leave it at that, I had to dig into the case and see what it is all about.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Friday, 04 October 2013 09:00
Years ago most every PC you came across was beige in color and a tower or desktop in size/shape. As things have progressed we saw that slowly move from beige to black and we now see a lot of manufactures offering white as well. It has happened so much other component manufactures have taken notice and we now see everything from RAM to power supplies that also come in white to match. When it comes to size, things have changed as well. We now have a range of options from large builds down to small table top PCs. Today I’m going to take a look at the Fractal Node 304 white. We have covered the Node 304 in the past but I’m excited to see what it looks like in white.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Thursday, 03 October 2013 14:06
Earlier this year we went hands-on with the R4 from Fractal, a mid tower solution to the Define product line. We were quite pleased with the humble case, the simple Fractal facade silently housing a myriad of features. Our one complaint was the weight of the chassis, to which Fractal responded by sending us the R4’s big brother full tower, the XL R2. I'll be installing a full ATX building and, against better judgement, showing it off at our upcoming LAN party.Take a look with us, we could use an extra hand lifting.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Monday, 30 September 2013 09:00
Five years ago if you were on the market for a case there were really only a few directions to go. More recently this has changed considerably; there are so many manufactures that weren’t even in the market five years ago. One of those manufactures is Corsair, moved into the market with a very impressive 800D and has been slowly filling out their product lineup from then on. The Obsidian Series 350D that I will be taking a look at today is the first mid tower from the Obsidian Series. With styling from the popular 800D we know it looks great, but the only way to find out where it stands otherwise is to look at it more in depth.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 27 September 2013 02:37
Quite a market has developed for high end mechanical gaming keyboards. Gamers, both professional and otherwise, have begun to migrate towards the tactile feedback each individual keystroke or double tap provides. With this growing market, the usual names have thrown their hats into the ring with offerings that both impress and amaze. Today I take a look at Thermaltake’s top of the pyramid offering, the Meka G-Unit Illumination Edition and see if this monster of a keyboard can tangle with its competitors.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Wednesday, 25 September 2013 19:57
We have been on a Mid Tower kick here lately with case reviews and a few have left us impressed while others leave us scratching our head with odd design choices. One of those cases was the Urban S21 from Thermaltake, a company generally known for good, solid case design. Today Thermaltake is back with another mid tower offering in a slightly higher price range, the A31 Chaser. While the color of the Thunder Edition was enough to catch everyone’s attention at CES, I will be putting the Chaser through a more thorough examination today.
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