You don't have to be an audiophile to appreciate the enhanced surround sound effects from Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio found on most Blu-ray Disc movie discs over the standard Dolby Digital or DTS formats found on standard DVD movie discs. The lossless audio compression formats and/or the two extra channels of sound output really adds a significant amount of realism to the whole movie watching experience. The problem is most HTPC owners don't have the ability to experience these enhanced formats due to a lack of sound cards on the market that can support these formats. Benchmarkreviews has the ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3 Slim sound card that does just that. Benchmark Reviews have put it through a series of tests and have determined whether HTPC owners can rejoice or not. ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Slim Sound Card @ Benchmark Reviews

Fremont, CA, and Glasgow, UK, July 20, 2009 — Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced its revved-up line of Crucial solid-state drive (SSD) products — the fastest, highest capacity Crucial SSDs to date. The most dramatic change in this new generation of Crucial SSDs is the blazing-fast read and write speeds. The flagship 256GB Crucial M225 SSD screams at an impressive 250MB/sec read speed and a 200MB/sec write speed. The new Crucial SSDs enhance system performance by improving operating system boot and application load times. They also utilize a SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) interface and feature MLC NAND flash components housed in an industry standard 2.5-inch drive enclosure, making a Crucial M225 SSD easy to install. "By upgrading their system with a solid-state drive, mobile computer users will enjoy a faster, more rugged system with storage built for mobility. The fact that SSDs don't have any moving parts makes Crucial solid-state drives quieter, cooler, and more durable than traditional hard drives," said Robert Wheadon, Lexar Media's senior worldwide product marketing manager.

Taipei, Taiwan—2009—Evercool Thermal Corp., Ltd., one of the famous and professional cooler and fan manufacturer in Taiwan. Today, EVERCOOL would like to one HDD cooler named “Armor”. People pay more and more attention on computer cooling nowadays. Therefore, not only for CPU coolers and NB cooling pads, but for hard disc cooler, Evercool is also going to launch one HDD cooler named “Armor”, which can be compatible with 5.25” hard disc. Although the space of Armor is small, the real capacity is not small. Armor converts the dual 5.25” drive bays into a three 3.5” H.D.D.. 8cm fan with two ball bearing makes fan’s life get longer. In addition, the meshed and fashionable design is like the protected armor and increases the air convection to make the greater cooling effect. To consider the inconvenience and problems of fan cleaning, the filter is designed to a dismantled one, so that users can clean or exchange the filter to keep its inside clean easily and filter the dust effectively that is a convenient design and considerate feature. Moreover, the other advantage of Armor is shock absorption design. The four rubber spacers at the bottom can absorb the shock, protect the hard disc and reduce the damage of hard disc from shock. “Armor” HDD cooler is available in July 2009. For further product information, please visit: www.evercool.con.tw.

July 17, 2009 [Taipei, Taiwan] SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd., one of the leaders in consumer PC power supplies, proudly announces the spectacular achievements of the EVGA overclocking team, led by Kingpin and Shamino, two of the most prolific overclockers in the world in breaking all existing 3DMark records.  The world record runs were made on June 27, 2009 with a pair of NVIDIA GeForce GTX295 and an Intel Xeon W3540 CPU.  The CPU was super cooled by the use liquid helium to around 240°C which enabled an incredible overclock of 5.069GHz from the default speed of 2.39GHz.  To cope with this massive increase in power draw from the overclocked CPU and system, Kingpin and Shamino relied on SilverStone’s OP1200 and the newly release Strider ST1500 power supplies.

 

Last month, we took a look at AMD's new mainstream processor: the Athlon II 250. We were impressed with both performance and cost. Today, Benchmark Reviews looks at an equally impressive motherboard: the Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P. Based on AMD's 770 series chipset, the MA770T-UD3P is one of the first mainstream motherboards to offer full support for AM3 processors and DDR3 memory. Throw in Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 manufacturing process and price tag of only $80, and it's easy to see why this board is quickly becoming a budget-build favorite. Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 Motherboard @ Benchmark Reviews

The MasterDrive SX is one of the latest offerings by Super Talent. Using a Samsung controller, Super Talent is relying on proven technology to bring the best to your PC. The 128MB of DRAM cache offers some of the fastest random access rates and transfer times I've seen. The sequential speeds are in the 200MB/s range and show little difference whether the drive is brand new or completely full. If I had to nitpick the drive and find a flaw, it would be the short 1 year warranty Super Talent is offering where other manufacturers are up in the 10 year mark. Despite that, Super Talent has a winner on their hands. Super Talent MasterDrive SX SAM28GM25S 128GB SSD Review at CCE Reviews

"Sometimes, quality and good looks don’t come hand in hand. However, after spending some time with the iPopperz earbuds I can say that’s not the case. They are a nice upgrade from the set that comes bundled with iPods and other media players. You have your choice of several different colorful designs and don’t have to give up good sound quality in order to add some style to your digital life." iPopperz Fashion Earbud Headphones Review @ Tweaknews

We got the MicroATX Asus Rampage Gene II on the test bench. Does this PCB shrink mean it doesn't have the full package on board? Is it really worth cashing out for its bigger brother, the Rampage Extreme II? Some questions that many users would like to see answered in this not so usual motherboard review. Most of you have seen a zillion of photos/reviews already of this piece of art. Madshrimps will take a light approach on its features, but dedicates a few more pages to focus on performance and overclocking! Asus Rampage Gene II Review - An Extreme 2 On A Diet? @ Madshrimps

If you have a lot of spare hard drives laying around that you want to see if they work and what they contain, but dont want to take the effort to install them in your desktop, Sunbeamtech has a solution for you.  This device is also a perfect fit for an IT person to use as a data recovery tool.  The device I am referring to is the SATA and IDE to USB Adapter.  Benchmark Reviews is pleased to give you a closer look at this device, and just what we can expect from a tool like this.  It boasts USB 2.0 high-speed tranfer rates, and the ability to access files on drives both 2.5" and 3.5" in size.  So, if you are an IT professional, or just someone who has a lot of spare drives laying around that you want to see what is on them, check out this product from Sunbeamtech, and the review from Benchmark Reviews. Sunbeam SATA-IDE-USB Adapter @ Benchmark Reviews

Corsair gets their feet wet again, after close to 3 years they have introduced another water cooling product, the previous one being the Nautilus 500 back in 2006. This time around they’ve also opted for an all-in-one kit, but build inside the case, fitted onto the exhaust fan, a case with 120mm exhaust is a requirement, a large wallet is not! The Corsair H50 will be introduced at price of ~€/$70 which is pretty much on par with high end air cooled heatsinks out there! So can an all-in-one kit impress us? Let's find out! Corsair Hydro Series H50 CPU Water-Cooling Kit Review @ Madshrimps

Lian Li has built up a reputation over the years for their cases and the ARMORSUIT PC-P50 certainly carries on that legacy. The PC-P50 packs some quality tool free designs that make swapping components a snap. You also get the quality aluminum build and finish we have come to expect from Lian Li cases. Lian Li ARMORSUIT PC-P50 Case Review at Overclockers Online

NZXT is teaming up with Bigbruin.com to sponsor another give away! Up for grabs are three great items from the NZXT line up; the Beta PC Case, the Avatar Gaming Mouse, and the Cryo S Laptop Cooler. There is a new twist for winning this contest, and this time around you have to leave Bigbruin.com in order to enter. Bigbruin.com - NZXT Summer Give Away

With multiple core CPUs, multi-GPU video graphics sub-systems and hotter than hot mainboard north and southbridge chipsets it becomes necessary for most gaming computers to have more and more fans. With the fans comes noise. Of course there's water cooling, but not everyone is capable or even brave enough to give that a try. So what do you do? Well one option is to use a fan speed controller. There are many fan controllers available but today Benchmark Reviews will look specifically at the NZXT SEN-001LX Sentry LX aluminum digital dual-bay fan controller. NZXT Sentry LX SEN-001LX Digital Fan Controller @ Benchmark Reviews

"Razer, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals, is thrilled to announce the Razer BlizzCon Contest.  After completing quests found on the Razer contest page, one lucky gamer will enter to win an all-expense-paid trip for two to BlizzCon 2009. The contest kicks off July 10, 2009 and runs through July 31, 2009 and is open to all legal residents of the 50 United States and Canada.  At the conclusion of the contest, Razer will select at random 10 winners per quest and one first prize winner for the trip to BlizzCon.  The selection will occur within 30 days after the contest ends.  The winner eligible for a trip to BlizzCon will be notified by email that he/she has been selected.  The winner will also be announced on the Razer web site at http://www.razerzone.com. Ten winners will receive a Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse.  The first place winner will receive a trip for two to BlizzCon 2009 including airfare, hotel and $300 spending money or, as determined by the winners’ choice, the Razer Prize package, which consists of a Razer Death Adder Gaming Mouse, a Razer Carcharias Headset, a Razer Lycosa Keyboard and $500 determined by the winner’s choice."

Fremont, CA. July 16th, 2009.- Corsair®, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer memory, power supplies and flash memory products, including solid-state drives, today announced the Extreme Series X32, X64 and X128 high-performance SSDs, in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB densities respectively.

Built using the renowned Indilinx Barefoot controller and Samsung MLC NAND flash memory, the Extreme Series has been designed to offer the highest performance currently available on the market, with read speeds of up to 240MB/s and write speeds of up to 170MB/s.

"The combination of the Indilinx Barefoot controller, Samsung flash memory, and 64MB of on-board cache delivers blistering, stutter-free performance, eliminating the bottleneck imposed by traditional mechanical hard disks," said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair. "The new Extreme Series SSDs are ideal for use as primary drives in desktop and notebooks systems, and also for RAID 0 configurations in high-performance desktops for enthusiasts who want extreme performance."

Read more from Corsair...

"For years, the focus on computers has been on faster, better performing systems.  Recently, however, with rising energy costs and more environmentally conscious consumers, computer manufacturers have turned to designing machines that use less energy, cost less, and still have many of the advantages of modern computer systems.  In the realm of mobile and energy efficient computing, two real competitors have recently emerged.  Via, with their Nano chipsets named after biblical references, has dominated the field until recently; at least as far as pure statistic performance is concerned.  Intel is the other name, and with that name they have competed quite fiercely for the lion's share of the mobile and ultra-economic computing market.  But name is all they had to go on, since their products, the Atom series, have fallen short of the standard set by Via.  With the release of Intel's newest Atom, though, that has a! ll changed.  Benchmark Reviews is bringing you the down and dirty on the first ever dual core processor made specifically to combine improved performance with low energy consumption as we test the Intel BOXD945GCLF2D Atom 330 Intel 945GC Mini-ITX Motherboard/CPU combo kit." Read more from Benchmark Reviews...

"I usually don't go into budget card reviews expecting a whole lot but I usually come out surprised. The SX95GT doesn't give you barn burning performance but it provides decent playability coupled with a bevy of connection choices;b HDMI, Display Port and DVI. Sparkle is even generous enough to include the hard to find SPDIF cable for any HTPC aficionados." Read more from Overclockers Online...

"The purpose of this article is to illustrate the proper way to install a Core i7 LGA 1366 processor. Overall the process is really not difficult and once you understand the mechanics you'll be a pro in no time." Read more from Ninjalane...

"The NZXT Cryo S is a great accessory, it provides additional cooling for your notebook without adding much noise, improves posture by tilting the keyboard and comes with extra USB ports. If the Cryo S had a power off switch for the fan, this would be the complete cooler to own." Read more from CCE Reviews...

"Looking for a 600~700W pc power supply but haven´t decided yet what to get? We at Madshrimps have tested three popular products from major brands like Coolermaster, Zalman and OCZ. We compared features, performance and efficiency. Which one to get? Read on to find out!" Read more from Madshrimps...