SteelSeries Desmo
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- Category: Other
- Published: Thursday, 23 February 2012 18:12
We have taken a look at glasses from a few different manufactures that claim to help relieve eye strain while working on your PC. From our experience they can be very helpful as long as you can get over the yellow tint that they all have. Even then the designs we have seen have resembled normal glasses or in one case even they looked just like a pair of hunting glasses. The problem with that is when you’re trying to game with your headset on they can still become uncomfortable. SteelSeries has been working with Gunnar glasses to design a few pair of glasses designed specifically to be comfortable with your headset on. Today we will be taking a look at one of those glasses called the SteelSeires Desmo. We know how the glasses perform but will they be comfortable for gamers? Let’s find out!
You guys have seen the results from our testing of both the XFX R7770 Black Edition OC and the Sapphire HD 7770 OC. I'm sure it was fairly expected but here are our Crossfire testing results using the press drivers. As you will see their are still a few crossfire bugs to be worked out just like we saw with our HD 7970 crossfire testing. But when the drivers work right these two cards paired up make for a cheaper sollution to get Performance similar to the HD 7950 and the GTX 580. Not bad for two cards that would cost you around $350 to pick up. Thats $100 less than what it would cost you to get a GTX 580 and close to the same for the HD 7950!
The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre is still relatively young and gaining popularity quickly. Though still in beta, Dota 2 has generated a lot of attention in the past couple of months, having been the spotlight of a million dollar international tournament and in and out of court over the rights to the name Defense of the Ancients. If you’re thinking about trying DoTA or Dota 2, here’s what you should know coming from Summoner’s Rift.
Sapphire is always known for the wide variety of cards they product for each card series. The HD 7770 is no exception. This time around we are taking a look at their HD 7770 Overclocked edition. Apparently the 1 GHz stock clock wasn’t enough for them, so they gave it up bump up to 1150 MHz. With the HD 7770 priced similar to the HD 6770 and HD5770 cards at their launch I am excited to see what this card has to offer. The HD 5770 was a staple in our small form factor builds around the office for a long time. Now it’s time to give them an upgrade!
Not everyone can afford to go with the most expensive video cards on the market; most gamers have a more limited budget. This is mostly due to the fact that there are more gamers from the 13-30 age groups than anything else. Between being too young to work, poor college students, and then young budding family’s money is always tight. When your budget has you building a $600 dollar gaming rig there is no way you will be dedicating all or even half of that towards the video card. It’s important for gaming, but without the rest of your components you’re not going anywhere. That’s where AMD’s new HD 7770 comes in, at a price point that still leaves room in your budget. Of course we need to see how it performs, for that we are taking a look at XFX’s R7770 Black Edition Double D overclocked edition.
Earlier this month Star Trek: Online went the Free To Play model, meaning anyone can have their own starship and participate in one of the best science fiction franchises of all time! Why is that significant to this article? It is significant because I am a Trekkie. I openly admit it. When HornetTek contacted us to do some reviews on their products, this product definitely caught my eye for two reasons. One, I like hard drive enclosures and external storage solutions. Two, it is named "Enterprise". There is even a glimpse of the good 'ole 1701 on HornetTek's website.
Extended batteries. When I mention those two words, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Does anything even come to mind for you? Well, to most people that I talk to about getting an extended battery for their phone or other mobile device they just respond with “I will just make sure that I plug it in every day.” But what if you use your device all-day, every day, and you find yourself on a long flight across the Pacific? What if you are just too lazy to plug your phone in every night? Well, the Power Fort is a device that claims to be the savior of those moments. But how does it hold up in testing? Let’s find out!
With AMD’s new HD 7970’s rocking the boat slightly with both price and performance it’s about time we started to see the slow trickle of GPU’s that will fill in the rest of the HD 7000 series video cards. First on the list is the HD 7950, a card that a lot of people have been waiting for because of the high price of the HD 7970. There is no doubt that it’s not going to outperform the HD 7970, but how will this new card compare to the GTX 580? Today I’m not taking a look at a reference card, we have skipped directly to the XFX Double Dissipation Black Edition Overclocked version, similar in design to what we saw with their R7970.
I recently posted up our HD 7970 crossfire results. AMD released their 8.921.2 RC11 driver update the same day as our last post. Here are updated graphs showing the crossfire performance with the new drivers. I still experienced flashing and artifacts when in game water was in view and our test bench would have odd lockups when left sitting idle for a while. The performance increases with the new drivers are impressive, I hope they work out the rest of the bugs. Two HD 7970's is the best performance you can get currently (short of adding even more cards, lol) but without the driver support its going to be a tough sell. 
Everyone and their mom have jumped into the mechanical keyboard party over the past year. Typically each of the keyboards has a fairly standard layout with a few small differences to help them stand out. When we saw Cooler Master’s new offering I was excited to see something a little different. If you have ever seen a Filco keyboard this may look familiar. The new Cooler Master QuickFire Rapid is a compact keyboard without a number fad for those looking for something that doesn’t take up very much room on your desk. Sounds like a perfect keyboard for going to LAN’s doesn’t it? We thought so, let’s take a look.
When looking at cases for your next build, there are several ways that you can go. On the high end, you have a plethora of options and can spend hundreds of dollars on one. Then, there is the middle-of-the-road good quality case. For a budget build, there are is also a litany of options. When looking at a budget case there are some sacrifices that you make for the sake of price. Today we are looking at the MSI Raptor case, a budget case with some interesting options. Does this case’s unique options make up for the shortcomings of being a budget case, or is this another case you should skip even on a budget build? Let’s put it through its paces and find out.
With the release of the Meka G Unit, the keyboard category has the most players in Thermaltake's eSports line. The G Unit itself is the third reincarnation of the Meka family, featuring mechanical switches among other gaming enthusiast features. The professional gaming market has never been hotter, nor more demanding. Let's see how Thermaltake handles the heat.
Now that we have had a chance to take a look at a reference design HD 7970 and see how dominating one can be I am excited to take a look at XFX’s new Black Edition Overclocked R7970. Unlike most of the other manufactures their version is both overclocked and equipped with their Double Dissipation cooling solution, a heatsink that has to be one of the sexiest coolers on the market. We know how the stock card performs, but how will it perform with a 1000Mhz clock speed and a badass cooler? Let’s find out!
All of the holidays, New Years, and CES cause a chaos this time a year. Last year we had the Sandy Bridge launch in the mix. This year AMD's new GPU series launch is packed in as well. Around the holidays we saw a few reviews using AMD's reference design. Sampling was very limited; today all of the manufactures can finally release all of their reviews. Today we are covering Sapphires first card of many, the HD 7970. This card uses the reference design and cooler and should be a great way to judge the series’ performance without any overclocking or aftermarket cooling. AMD advertises the HD 7970 as the world’s fastest single GPU, let’s find out!
The first case that I ever got excited about pre-release was the Cooler Master Cosmos. With a futuristic design packed full of features it was an impressive design. It wasn’t without its problems though and Cooler Master did a good job fixing them the 
Naming a product after the subject of a Ludacris song definitely garners up images of fast cars, hot women, and wealth. Does the Fantasy from HornetTek live up to my fantasies of a personal media player, and is it something you should consider adding to your already crowded home entertainment system? Read on to find out!
Merry Christmas to everyone! Being a geek, I find it extremely fascinating the various ways people who are of the geek persuasion celebrate the holidays. We do not just go purchase inflatable Santa Clauses on motorcycles and Rudolphs in helicopters to garnish our yards. We also do not just string a bunch of lights and call it quits. We engineer Christmas. Today, I would like to feature a local light display that is long on engineering. 
When Thermaltake introduced the BMW designed Level 10 a few years back they got everyone thinking outside of the box. Of course with its price tag of almost 1,000 dollars they are few and far between. They followed it up with their Level 10 GT, a case inspired by the Level 10 but with a much lower price tag. The Level 10 GT has been a popular case but we haven’t had a chance to take a look at it. When the Level 10 GT Snow Edition was introduced I knew it was time to finally see what the fuss is all about. Today we are going to take a look at one of Thermaltake’s flagship cases, lets dig into it and find out what it’s all about.
In order to break out of the normal mold NZXT took a different route than the other manufactures and paired up with PC Modder/Builder Craig Brugger (craigbru). Together they worked together to design the Phantom. The Phantom quickly became a popular case with both enthusiasts and case modders. Soon after, a white and black version was introduced, starting the trend of different color cases. When one of our members came across an orange and black version I couldn’t help but beg and plead to get one in. Considering the color combination is a Newegg exclusive I was really happy to find out they could get us one. Today we are FINALLY going to take a look at the NXZT Phantom LanOC Style.