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Crucial Ballistix Tracer Blue 3×2Gb DDR3
March 6th, 2009
With it being tax time and computer upgrade season we have been seeing a lot of our members upgrading to new i7 setups. I was even lucky enough to win a setup while in Vegas thanks to our friends at Coolermaster. With DDR3 ram becoming more prevalent, especially when run in Tri Channel with the new i7 setups its no surprise that every ram manufacture is bringing out their new kits. While at CES we did get to take a look at Crucial’s new Ballistix Tracer color series. Well knows for their led lighting that flashes to the speed of ram access, I was really happy to see they are producing a line using only one color to help match today’s high end rigs. Today I will be taking a look at a Blue set of TriChannel 3 x 2 GB RAM from Crucial with a color matched LED, heatspreader, and PCB running at 1600Mhz.
Plextor PX-B310SA Blu Ray drive
February 23rd, 2009
In the Disc drive industry it’s really hard to stand out. Most people just pick the cheapest drive with the specs that they are looking for. This may work for some people but anyone who has lived with the cheap drives should know that they can sometimes be noisy and unreliable. One company that has made a reputation of quality in the disc drive market over many years is Plextor. I’ve seen people throw down two and sometimes three times the price of a cheap drive just to be able to have a Plextor drive. The reason for this is all about quality and noise, for those same reasons I was excited to hear that I was going to be able to check out their new PX-B310SA BD Combo Super Multi Drive. My excitement doubled when I realized I would be able to watch The Dark Knight and other Blu Ray movies in 1080p on our 52-inch television. So today I’m going to find out if the PX-B310SA is a quality drive that’s quite enough to include in your HTPC without sounding like a weed eater running.
Shuttle SP45H7
February 10th, 2009
In the PC gaming world it seems like everything just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Recently we looked at the Coolermaster 840, at over 22 inches tall it’s a very large case. What if you could pack your whole rig into something no taller than a DVD case. This is where Shuttle comes in; they have been designing barebone setups for 19 years that defy what most people say should fit into a small form factor case. In fact, they were the first company to produce a SFF system. Barebones of course means you get a case, power supply, and motherboard; leaving you to only get your HD, disc drive, CPU, Ram, and video card. Today we are going to look at their SP45H7 barebone, with a Intel P45 chipset and a SFF case I suspect this has the possibility to be a great lan party setup.
Antec Veris Multimedia Station Basic
February 2nd, 2009
High-end PC gaming can be considered a niche market without too much of a stretch. Its expensive and doesn’t always translate well in the price to performance ratio department. Home theater PCs, on the other hand, are a niche within a niche, due largely to the pain and expense necessary to maintain a separate computer simply to watch television. Furthermore, you can’t use just any hardware in an htpc. If you want one that can decode high-def movies and television or even lightly game you can’t just slap the oldest stuff you have lying around the house into a case – the tech has to be somewhat competent. Antec has recently come out with the Veris product line to help blur these lines a bit. Whether you’re looking to turn your main rig into a pseudo-htpc, or trying to spice up an already assembled home theater solution, read on for our experience with the Veris Basic.
Cosmos S Mods Part 1
December 17th, 2008
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A few of you may have noticed that when I reviewed the Coolermaster Cosmos S a few weeks ago I didn’t use our normal test rig for the testing. I liked the case enough that I decided to move my personal rig over too it. I did have a few complaints about the case and I hope to post a few small updates on here as I work on making the case fit my style. My biggest complaint was the lack of a side window. Coolermaster was kind enough to send a new side panel with a window out to get me started on the updates to this case.’
In Win Commander 850 Watt power supply
December 5th, 2008
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We have seen In Win both on here and at our lanpartys. We have seen that they produce interesting and different PC cases. Apparently, they have decided to branch out into the power supply market. Considering their involvement in the gaming community, I am excited to see what they can do in the power supply market. In Win provided us with their Commander 850 Watt power supply. We are going to install the power supply into our HTPC build to see how well the modular cable setup performs in a tight fit.
VIZO Mirrorbox CR
October 22nd, 2008
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Everyone today has atleast one digital camera anymore. You can’t even buy film cameras at most retailers anymore. Some households have more than one along with other devices that require flash memory cards. When happens is you end up with 4 or 5 different cables to be able to transfer files to your pc. VIZO has provided us their Mirrorbox CR that works with a very wide variety of cards. They are far from the first company to produce a product like this, but they hope to produce one that has great functionality, performance, and style. We are going to take a look at the Mirrorbox CR to see how well they did at that goal.
Antec TruePower Quattro 850
October 9th, 2008
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It’s hard to stand out in the power supply market, there really isn’t that much you can do to a power supply that hasn’t been done a few times at this point. Companies really have to depend on word of mouth and high wattage ratings to get people to consider their products. In the past I’ve heard good things about Antec’s power supplies, generally they weren’t considered to be top of the line but a good mid range power supply. Recently they have stepped up and are trying to change that image; one of their big gunners is the TruePower Quattro series. You can only get the Quattro series in a 850 or 1000 watts at this time, they are only looking to put these babies into high end gaming rigs. You may have noticed the TruePower Quattro 850 in our review of the Twelve Hundred; today we are going to take a closer look at it. Read more…
A-Data G-Series DDR2 Memory
September 11th, 2008
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A-Data, relatively new company, has been around for 7 years. Starting with twenty employees, A-Data has grown into Asia’s biggest Ram provider. They have recently been popping up in the US market. Their commitment to the US market is proven by their opening of the Miami, FL branch of A-Data on July 17th 2008. With Microsoft getting the bugs worked out of Vista and ram prices dropping unbelievably low you couldn’t ask for a better time to invest in more ram for your computer. Ram is one of those things that you can’t have too much, but you can have too little. We have the chance to take a closer look at A-Data’s G (Gaming) branded DDR2 memory. Specifically their DDR2-800G 2GBx2 with a Latency of 5-5-5-12. Check out how it performed Read more…
Seasonic M12 700 Watt Power Supply
August 12th, 2008
One of the most important PC components is the power supply. Without a good quality power supply putting out enough clean power to power your high end video card and quad core CPU, you would be stuck with a pile of useless parts. Today’s power supply’s have a lot of shoes to fill. They must put out enough power to meet any demand you will be able to throw at it, now and with future upgrades. All of the power must be clean and stable power, you wouldn’t want something to fry because you didn’t give it clean enough power. Then most recently people have been concerned about noise and aesthetics, the fans on power supply’s keep getting larger and quieter and you see things like windows and racing stripes on “gaming” power supply’s. This has also lead to the popularity or modular cabling, to me one of the best ideas to come to power supplies in years! Seasonic, one of our lans sponsors has provided us with their M12 700 watt power supply to check out.
VIZO UFO 4 port USB Hub
July 4th, 2008
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Having been looking for a powered USB hug to replace the junk one that came with our rock band kit I’ve learned two things. One, it’s hard to find any one hub that people can recommend. It seems the quality of almost every hub is hit or miss at best. Two it’s hard to find one that stands out. VIZO has been kind enough to send one of their “UFO” USB hubs along with a power kit. Let’s find out how they perform. Read more…
VIZO’s Cold Cathode’s
May 15th, 2008
In the word of gaming and Lan Partys, it’s about more than who is the best player. It’s also about showing off your rig. People spend months getting their computers setup looking sharp so people can drool over them online and in person. One of the many ways to do this is to add lighting to the inside of your case. Cold cathode lighting is one of the best ways to do this. There are many different brands, sizes, and colors to choose from. VIZO has provided us with a set of their blue 12 inch cold cathode lights to review today.
Vizo Master Panel II
May 14th, 2008
How many products can have a slogan of “No need to go the Back… Do it in the Front!!”? That alone is enough to get my attention, but I’m also a little bit of a perv. Vizo has provided the second iteration of their Master Panel. It’s designed to bring all of your normal usable ports to the front of the case. This could be perfect for people who have their plugs on top of their case. Read more after the jump.
