Hwbot launched a nice new competition called HWBOT Country cup a while ago. Taking 7 benchmarks over 7 weeks with each new stage, limitations (hardware, benchmark wise) only being announced a few days before the start. As it was a country cup an average of the best 3 submissions would count. Time to regroup instead of going for individual or team benching. Belgium has got very few active OCers left, luckily for OC Team Be we got some support form PC-overware.be team. Stage 5 had Wprime32 as chosen benchmark and the main hardware limitation it had to be run on a single core CPU.

AMD Sempron 140 Extreme Overclocking Experiment @ Madshrimps

If you’re an avid computer enthusiast you probably have heard of Arctic Cooling as they are one of the top pc component
companies around. They specialize in CPU, GPU, and PC cooling that is extremely functional and extremely quiet. Using that experience they have now started a new line of ear phones as part of their Arctic Sound unit.  Today we will have a look one of their higher end units, the Arctic Sound E352

Arctic Cooling E352 Earphones @ Rbmods

"It is time for our second contest. Three lucky winners will be able to walk away with either a SilverStone DS221 2.5" HDD Enclosure, a set of 3 Coolink SWiF2 series cooling fans or a Titan TTC-G9TZ Notebook Cooler. This contest starts on April 10th 2010 and will end on May 10th 2010 at 5PM PST. Entering is simple..."

Cooling and Enclosure Contest @ BayReviews.com

"The Coolink Corator DS is new in the sense that it also features a new type of cooling method. The feature Coolink calls its Gapless Direct Touch (GDT) technology is a new concept and with the help of a gap induced design, allows for an all copper contact area."

Coolink Corator DS Review @ Tweaknews

"Representing the new ASUS P7P55D-E series, this motherboard supports USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s. It uncovers the potential of these controllers without limiting other interfaces. ASUS P7P55D-E Premium justifies its top-class nature, offering corresponding features, quality, as well as power and cooling systems."

iXBT Labs Review: ASUS P7P55D-E Premium Motherboard

The art of the high-end enthusiast motherboard is one practiced by only a few major manufacturers. While most every aftermarket motherboard has some sort of overclocking ability, there are only a select few that push things to the extreme. EVGA is one such company and their new motherboard division is dedicated to creating some of the best motherboards you can buy.

EVGA P55 Classified 200 Motherboard Review @ Ninjalane

MSI's HD 5830 Twin Frozr II uses a shiny metal heatsink that comes with two fans to keep the card cool. In our testing we see nice overclocking potential of around 20% which can easily bring the card to new performance levels.

MSI HD 5830 Twin Frozr II @ techPowerUp

We take a closer look at one of the latest HTPC cases coming from the mainly USA known brand Vidabox. A leading manufacturer of digital entertainment and control systems and solutions. They offer now there vCase3 case for the "build your own HTPC" freaks among us. How does this stand in the world of the case builders? Let find out

VidaBox SLIMv3 vCase3 Premium mATX HTPC Case Review @ Madshrimps

There is no such thing as a "perfect" OS, but given that Microsoft's Windows costs a pretty penny and Linux is free, it's a little strange that the latter can do certain things far better than the former. We're taking a look at our favorite ten, which includes the partitioner, automatic logon, troubleshooting, customization and more.

10 Things Linux Does Better Than Windows @ Techgage.com

As more and more people choose to embrace the mobile  lifestyle, the more they’ll realize that it’s perfectly suitable to rely on a notebook  for all of their computing needs. Even hardcore gamers, coders, graphic artists, and the like have been able to enjoy the mobile lifestyle with some very powerful portable system. With power though comes heat and heat is a very real enemy to portable electronics, especially laptops, even netbooks.

A Futurelooks News Flash - Futurelooks' Wish List of Features For The Perfect Notebook Cooler

Company Unveils Cutting-Edge 2.5-Inch Solid State Drives for the Consumer Market SAN JOSE, CA—April 8, 2010—OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (OTCBB: OCZT), a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and flash-based storage as an alternative to hard disk drives (HDDs), today unveiled the Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive (SSD) Series. These are new enthusiast-class SSDs designed for consumers who are seeking unprecedented speed and reliability with the goal of enhancing both their daily computing experience and long-term productivity. “OCZ’s original Vertex Series of solid state drives have become a top seller due to the product’s exceptional performance and reliability,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. “The new Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSD lines continue that tradition by incorporating the latest controller and firmware technology. They are an excellent solution for customers who are looking for improved transfer rates and best-in-class input/output per second (IOPS) for a wide range of uses, ranging from entertainment to workstation and tier 2 storage applications. Additionally, this new product line highlights our continuing determination to be the market leader in the high reliability memory and flash-based storage market.” Building on the features that distinguished their highly acclaimed predecessors, the Vertex 2 and Agility 2 incorporate a cutting-edge new controller design that delivers superior performance across the board. As the higher-end option, the Vertex 2 excels in 4KB random writes up to 50,000 IOPS and features transfer rates up to 285MB/s read and 275MB/s write. For the value-conscious enthusiast, Agility 2 provides similar performance at a lower price point and delivers identical read/write rates and 4KB random writes up to 10,000 IOPS. OCZ Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs not only provide a faster, more responsive PC experience, but also promote cooler, quieter and more energy-efficient conditions compared to traditional mechanical hard drives. Built with SATA 3Gb/s, the drives easily integrate into today’s mobile and desktop platforms and feature TRIM support for Windows 7 systems. Available in 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB capacities*, Vertex 2 and Agility 2 will begin shipping in the next few weeks through OCZ’s extensive global channel. Both series come backed by a three-year warranty and OCZ’s dedicated technical support for ultimate peace of mind.

HIS recently released its entry-level Radeon HD 5450 silent, low-profile graphics card targeted at those looking for a simple step-up from integrated graphics, packing all the essentials of this generation's GPUs. The model we're looking at has double the onboard memory at 1GB, native HDMI with 7.1 audio, and examining what it brings to the table with its added costs.

HIS Radeon HD 5450 1 GB @ techPowerUp

Crucial is popular for good reason, the reviews for their RAM have always been on a positive, with good reliability and overclocking ability. We will see if this is the case for their Value Ram kit as well.

Crucial DDR3 1333 Value Ram Kit @ TechwareLabs

San Diego, April 08. 2010

 

Mad Catz™ Interactive, Inc. (“Mad Catz” or “the Company”) (AMEX/TSX: MCZ), a leading third-party interactive entertainment accessory provider today announced that its new range of lifestyle Eclipse-branded accessories and Cyborg R.A.T.-branded premium gaming mice are now available for pre-order at Amazon.com.

 

Announced to critical acclaim at the 2010 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) and the 2010 CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany, the new range of products are due for release in Summer 2010 with consumer interest continuing to prove substantial based on online traffic received since the launch of the two websites (www.eclipsetouch.com and www.cyborggaming.com) designed to inform and update consumers on the benefits of the new product lines.

 

Products available for pre-order on the Amazon.com website include the following:

 

Triple Channel memory kits are a good investment for Intel Core i7 systems.
However, the test system for DDR3 memory modules is based on an AMD Phenom II processor and supports only the Dual Channel mode.
We have some nice Triple Channel kits for the 10 years ocinside.de April 2010 drawing, so it is obvious to test them on the AMD system with three modules, two modules and one module.
Let us have a look, how high the Crucial 3GB PC3-10600 Triple Channel DDR3 kit can be overclocked and if a purchase of the inexpensive Crucial 3x 1GB DDR3-1333 kit can be worthwhile also for an AMD Dual Channel system.

Crucial 3GB Kit DDR3-1333/PC3-10600 CT3KIT12864BA1339 Memory Review

"Motherboards supporting DDR2 memory are in limited demand these days. On the other hand, modern Athlon II and Phenom II CPUs are still backward-compatible with this memory as well. Consider this MSI 790XT-G45, if this is important for you."

iXBT Labs Review: MSI 790XT-G45 Motherboard

Overclockers around the world use Corsair memory kits for their high-speed performance. Similarly, Corsair SSD storage products have continued this tradition. The Corsair Nova V128 CSSD-V128GB2-BRKT is an Indilinx-ECO Solid State Drive kit that designed to deliver 270 MB/s maximum read speeds and offer 195 MB/s writer performance. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests ACHI speeds for the Corsair Nova-series V128 SSD against the fastest SSDs available.

Corsair Nova V128 Solid State Drive Test @ Benchmark Reviews

Today we are taking a look at a PSU from a new sponsor of ours. The well known Cougar have sent us their latest S550W PSU that we are going to be comparing both in performance noise vs some very high end PSU's on the market.

Cougar S550W PSU @ Rbmods

"The i3DSpeed informs you about performance of popular graphics cards and the best price/performance deals in the market. In this issue we added GeForce GTX 480, 480 SLI test results."

iXBT Labs Review: i3DSpeed, March 2010