Those who have been to one of our LAN parties know that our location is central to many larger cities, Fort Wayne being one. We’ve attended a few LAN events in that area, including one hosted by member Reaper from Fort Wayne Gamers. It was exciting enough to hear that John had volunteered his coding expertise for an indie game studio just on the heels of releasing their first game, but we were even more so when we learned the studio was local, operating out of Fort Wayne. We quickly made contact, and were invited to sit in during one of their weekly meetings.

We have looked at products from the CM Storm line up before. Most recently we took a look at the CM Storm Scout 2 case. We also took a look at the CM Storm Sirius not too long ago. Of course we know that headsets are a key part of any gaming setup – what is the point of having a pretty kick-ass rig if you can’t hear the guy sneaking up behind you? Really it is more than just gaming; personally I listen to a lot of music via my headset, so that is also high on my list of qualifications. The Sonuz might just fit the bill – today we are going to find out.

It’s difficult to write about items themed around Diablo III and resist the urge to write about the success (or lack thereof) of the game itself. There are plenty of opinions about the game, but one thing we can agree on is that they stem from high expectations created from such successful franchise. Love it or hate it, you most likely remain a fan of the series.  SteelSeries has a line of peripherals inspired by Sanctuary to help scratch your Diablo itch.

The GX-7 is the first CPU cooler in GELID's 'Gamer' product line, the same line which the DarkForce mid-tower we recently covered belongs to. It is however only their second tower cooler, the Tranquillo occupying the 'Silent' product family along with a handful of compact and low profile coolers. Though we generally enjoyed GELID's maiden chassis voyage, the GX-7 is relates more to the company's cooling roots, and we're looking forward to seeing how their newest cooler performs.

Noctua’s products have always been considered quiet, high quality, and innovative cooling solutions. Noctua’s NF-F12 is no exception. The NF-F12 stands for Noctua focused flow 120mm premium fan. This fan is an improved version of the popular NF-P12 model. Noctua refined there new design over a two-year development cycle. This might seem excessive for a fan; however, the features Noctua has incorporated into this fan are impressive to say the least. The focused flow system is intended to force air through heatsinks or radiators more effectively, due to the fan’s static pressure. Noctua's contentious attention to noise reduction has led to a few new implementations on this front as well. The Noctua NF-F12 was built to perform, so without further a due, let’s see how this premium fan fairs.

Those that know me best are aware that my passion for electronic gaming goes behind just playing them. I’m an advocate for video games and the industry they are born in. Amidst a society that is constantly looking for scapegoats, the bright side of that industry is often masked by constant, unjustified blame. This is one of the many reasons I get excited when I see groups such as Child’s Play and Extra Life using video games as a means to raise money for very worthy causes. One that hits very close to home for my family is the fight against breast cancer.

My first computer chassis was the Cooler Master Cosmos, a behemoth I lugged proudly from home to LAN party and back again. Large, full towers are what first come to my mind when I think of Cooler Master cases, despite transplanting my LAN rig into the Cooler Master Scout, which coincidently is used as an HTPC when I’m home. Cooler Master has offered the Elite 100 as a mini ITX HTPC solution, but its thin, vertical form factor prevents it from dual-serving as a LAN rig. Can the Elite 120 Advanced meet both needs?

Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T series of gaming mice have made a splash on the pc peripheral market for two years now. Cyborg has released several versions of their R.A.T  design, with a little redundancy. The R.A.T 3, 5, 7,  7  Albino, 7 Contagion, 7 Infection,  7 M.M.O, and the wireless R.A.T 9 all have subtle differences. The original  flagship model for Mad Catz is the Cyborg R.A.T 7. The Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T 7 was released in summer 2010,  so you might be wondering why someone would review this  product a full two years after its release date. The R.A.T 7 unusual design has begun to appear on other mice in its price range. The “precision aim” button, a  key feature of the R.A.T 7, is now available on the Corsair M60. The extendable palm rest plus  exchangeable thumb/pinky rest will be on the unreleased Razer Ourobroos. With this trend in mind, let’s take a  look back at  the Cyborg R.A.T 7, an innovative gaming mouse that still has much to offer the current hardware enthusiast.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

If you are an avid reader, you have most likely seen countless Asus motherboard reviews and even a few audio products as well recently. Something that is a little rarer is having an Asus video card come through our office. When Asus contacted me asking if we wanted to take a look at their upcoming GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP, there wasn’t even a hesitation. We have already taken a look at the reference GTX 650 Ti; this card on the other hand is nothing like it. Sure you have the same architecture, as you would expect. But the DirectCU II TOP is almost twice as long, has twice the cooling, and has a considerably different PCB even. It’s no off the shelf reference design, today we are going to dig in and see what all of that means for you when looking to buy a GTX 650 Ti.

Today, around six and a half months after the launch of the first Kepler-based GPU from Nvidia, we have the final piece to the 600 series product line. Just under a month ago we took a look at the GTX 660, and a month before that the GTX 660 Ti. Along with the GTX 660, Nvidia introduced the GTX 650. With the focus being on the GTX 660, there were only a few reviews of the GTX 650 to be found. Today we are going to take a look at the card that fits right in between the GTX 660 and the GTX 650, the GTX 650 Ti. With a price point just between the $109 of the GTX 650 and the $229 of the GTX 660, Nvidia is hoping to bring in people looking for decent performance that don’t have it in their budget to throw down over $200 for a single component.  Let’s take a closer look.

The licensing people over at SteelSeires must stay very busy. A quick glance over on the SteelSeries website shows a whopping 15 different games that they have peripherals on. This doesn’t even count special models with pro gaming team logos on as well. The LanOC Guild Wars 2 Guild (LOL) will be very happy to hear that SteelSeries introduced a full set of Guild Wars 2 peripherals at the games launch. Well we may or may not have intercepted a whole box of Guild Wars 2 goodies. We are going to take a look at each as well as the group together. Are you going to have to pick up your Guild Wars 2 peripherals for your next game? Let’s take a look and see what they are all about. 

Earlier this year I had the chance to visit the OCZ offices. While being shown the offices I could sense the excitement. At that time they finally had the Indilinx crew in the office and they were very excited about how having an in house NAND Controller and firmware production would change the future of OCZ’s SSD business. The first drive that Indilinx had a hand in was the OCZ Vertex 4. Today we are going to put the Vertex 4 to the test in our new benchmark suite along with a few other SATA 3 drives to see how they perform. I hope that the same excitement that I saw in the OCZ offices will equal top notch performance from their current flagship SSD. 

A few weeks ago we took a look at the Asus ROG Xonar Phoebus audio card. Asus, with its Xonar brand, has made a big name for themselves in the audio card market. When it comes to things to attach to their sound cards, they are a little less known. They really introduced a new gaming headset with built in Active Noise Canceling. When I hear about this, I couldn’t help but think about all of the times I’ve been at a LAN and wished I could cutout the hum of 100+ gaming PCs. Because of that I jumped at the chance to take a closer look. How will the active noise canceling work out in a gaming headset?

A whole room packed full of people who share similar interests, dress up in amazing Cosplay, and different artist and stars available to meet. For some of you Comic Con isn’t anything new. Those from large cities like LA are used to having a local Comic Con. Those of us in the middle of nowhere typically don’t have events like this. Lucky for me, a few hours away we do have the Mid-Ohio Comic Con once a year. Alex and I took the day and went down to check out what it was all about this weekend. As you can expect, we came back with lots of photos of the Cosplay and just maybe a few story’s as well.

Borderlands. While most people know what the game is now, not many had heard of it before its release in 2009. It quickly became a smash hit and a household name with its clever writing, enjoyable gameplay, and its bazillion guns. With the sequel launching on September 18^th this year, I saw my entire Steam friends list switch to Borderlands 2 only moments after its launch. Gearbox has done it again, I have only managed to quit playing the game long enough to write this review.

Just over three years ago Cooler Master introduced their Storm product line with the Storm Sniper, soon after they introduced the Storm Scout. In those three years there has been one other case that I have seen more of around at different LAN partys. The combination of its built in handles, support for full ATX motherboards, and blacked out styling have made the Scout a huge success. After three years Cooler Master has decided to introduce a new version of the Scout. Considering the original’s success, this is an important launch. I really hope that they still manage to keep what made the original great while giving it a fresh look.

In the PC audio world, there is a major divide as far as people who find onboard audio more than enough and users who absolutely must run a sound card. In recent years, onboard sound has improved considerably. But no matter how much they improve it, it main flaw is being on the motherboard itself and not a separate circuit. When it comes to sound cards, there are just a few top manufactures with Asus being one. Asus recently introduced a new sound card focused on the gaming market under their ROG (Republic of Gaming) line called the ROG Xonar Phoebus. I’ve had it running in my gaming system, today we will talk about my experience thus far.

Yesterday I had the chance to publish my reviews and testing results from two different GTX 660’s one a reference designed card with and overclock from EVGA and the second another overclocked card with a unique thermal solution from MSI. Assuming you took a look at both reviews I’m sure you are very curious if I paired them up and did testing.. Of course I did! I put them through the same collection of tests that I tested the individual cards with.  Today we are going to take a quick look at the results and see what just under $460 in GTX 660’s will get you.

As you guys may have noticed, today Nvidia introduced their GTX 660 and GTX 650 cards. We put an overclocked reference design to the test. Now it’s time to take a look at what MSI has to offer. Our last video card review from MSI had an interesting dual fan design that we had never seen before. This time around we are taking a look at the GTX 660 Twin Frozr 2GB OC edition. That may be a lot to say, but if our last experience with an MSI card is any indication this could be an interesting model to keep an eye out for. Let’s take a look at what MSI has done different from the base reference design.

It wasn’t that long ago that we had the chance to take a look at the GTX 660 Ti and check out its amazing performance at the $300 price point. Along with the copy of Borderlands 2 that was bundled with it at launch I was impressed with its price. Of course there are still people who can’t afford that price point. Because of this, Nvidia continues to fill in its Kepler lineup, today introducing both their GTX 660 and GTX 650. We will take a look at what the launch is all about and then put our EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked 2Gb to the test at both stock and overclocked speeds to show you the performance difference when you pick up an overclocked model like the one provided by EVGA today.