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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Thursday, 14 November 2019 13:37
At this point, nearly everyone has their own RGB fans on the market but really only a few companies have been innovating at all. Corsair has been at the forefront of that so much so that Corsair and RGB lighting has become a meme sometimes on Reddit. Its okay Corsair, this is a safe space, we can talk about your love for RGB. Specifically, I want to talk a little about their new QL series of RGB fans that is launching today. I’ve had them around the office for a few weeks and I’ve had time to play around with them a little. Corsairs' big change with QL fans is that they have “spectacular lighting from any angle”. With lighting similar to their Light Loop fans, only this time around they doubled up and have lighting on the back as well and the edges have the lighting visible as well.
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Category: Audio
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Published: Wednesday, 13 November 2019 06:44
Okay, I’ve been a little late to the party on in-ear Bluetooth earbuds. I own a stack of higher-end wired earbuds and I have been sticking with them for a while now. I’m sure I’m not the only one being a little stubborn both because of the money invested, but also because wired performance has been a lot better. Well I recently took a look at a pair of wireless earbuds to use when out mowing and I liked them. But they haven’t really overtaken the wired performance yet, so I am still on the lookout for a set to wow me. Especially now that my own phone no longer has a wired headphone jack. Jaybird is a Logitech brand and as much as it pains me to even bring up, but with the holidays coming up they were showing off some of their products and the Jaybird Vista caught my eye. Today I’m going to check them out and see if they can finally replace my wired earbuds for good. They might even potentially make a good open for those of you shopping over the holidays, but lets reserve that for after I’ve tested them.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Monday, 11 November 2019 15:56
The portable storage market is mostly split up into three categories. You have flash or thumb drives, portable external drives, then large capacity full-sized external drives. What you need to use the drive for will determine which type you might need. But over the years one thing is for sure, thumb drives have taken over the market. They are small, portable, and they have been quick. But have you ever shopped for extremely high capacity thumb drives? To get a 1TB thumb drive you end up giving up a lot of that portability and performance is mediocre at best and the pricing can get really crazy. Not to mention there are a lot of fakes, even Amazon has them right at the top of the listings when you search for 1TB thumb drives. 1TB portable hard drives have been around for a long time but they are big and bulky, even when you get one based on 2.5-inch drives and they are extremely slow. This is why the portable SSD market has been taking off, you can get impressive performance, portability, and a capacity big enough to use as a game drive or to transport your important files. Well Crucial has finally jumped into the market with their introduction of the X8 and I finally have one in. I’m excited to check out the performance and see if it is faster than the two other portable SSDs that I use with my laptop.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 08 November 2019 22:18
Not long ago I took a look at the XFX RX 5700 XT Thicc II Ultra and while there were some aspects of the card that I liked, like the styling. I wasn’t impressed with its cooling performance and the price point that they had it listed. It was being sold as a flagship card but didn’t have flagship performance. Well XFX reached out and let me know that the price on the Thicc II was dropping and they had a new three fan design that would be coming, the Thicc III Ultra. Because I’ve seen a lot of people who think that the II and III in the names is the revision number, no it represents how many fans the card has. Anyhow I went through and retested all of our RX 5700 XT’s including the Thicc II Ultra and then tested the new Thicc II Ultra as well and today I’m going to check out the new card and see how it performed in our test suite. Is the new model enough to justify a flagship price? We will have to find out!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 06 November 2019 16:30
When it comes to aftermarket RX 5700 XT’s I had the chance to check out the Thicc II from XFX but around that time I also had a card from Gigabyte come in. They sent over the RX 5700 XT Gaming OC. Unlike the Thicc II the Gaming OC sticks a lot closer to reality when it comes to card size, with exception to card length which the Gaming OC cards with their triple fans are always long. But I’ve been curious to see how the RX 5700 XT Gaming OC performs in comparison to the larger card as well as the reference card. Cooling is especially important given the cooling and noise issues of the reference card. So today I’m going to take a closer look at the Gaming OC and then run it through our test suite and see how it performs.
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Category: Power Supplies
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Published: Thursday, 31 October 2019 20:45
Not too long ago I took a look a the Silverstone SX700-G which at 700 watts is one of the highest wattages per square inch power supplies there is. As far as traditional sized SFX PSUs it is also one of the highest wattages available as well. But there is one that beats it. That would be the SF750 from Corsair. I’ve had great experiences with Corsair power supplies and run them in a few of my own PCs. Well Corsair actually sent the SF750 over to use in our Dr Zaber Sentry 2.0 review and build but it came in late. I didn’t want to miss checking out Corsairs powerful little SFX, so today let’s check it out!
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Tuesday, 29 October 2019 20:41
Back in 2017 at CES iBUYPOWER teased a concept that they had been working with, a PC case with a monitor built into the side panel. Now that idea itself isn’t completely new, there have been modders who have done it. But what they did was just have the LCD panel and nothing else, leaving a transparent side panel that you can still see everything inside with everything on the display floating and showing up almost like magic. This is well and good for a concept, but producing and selling what is basically a very complicated case mod is a whole different story and frankly I didn’t think they would do it. When last year at CES 2018 they actually introduced their Snowblind series of builds which included this feature I was surprised and impressed and it had me considering trying to do the same thing myself with a build. Buying a full build from them for the feature didn’t really make sense given my experience with PCs. Well at the start of this month they made that a lot easier with the introduction of their first individually sold case, the Snowblind. Well today I finally get to check it out in person. I’ve been collecting white components to go inside the build and today I’m going to check out iBUYPOWERs first case and check out its side panel window LCD as well!
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 25 October 2019 20:09
I haven’t had the chance to check out Corsair’s mouse offerings for the last few years. The last time I had a Corsair mouse in the office for testing was when they launched the Glaive RGB. Corsair has been busy bringing out new models and its high time that I check a few out. So I reached out about two recently introduced wired mice. The M55 RGB Pro and the Nightsword RGB. The M55 Pro RGB fits the bill for what I normally like in a mouse, an ambidextrous mouse with a simple, somewhat lightweight design, and an optical sensor. The kicker on it is its $39.99 price point so I’m excited to see how it performs. While testing that though I am also going to check out the Nightsword RGB is a little more mainstream with a little more weight and a shape that reminds me a lot of the always popular Logitech G502. Both mice have the potential to be great so let's take a closer look at each and see what sets them apart.
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Category: Power Supplies
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Published: Thursday, 24 October 2019 13:20
If you visit LanOC often you might notice I love checking out and using SFX power supplies. Early on they were limited in power, heat, and even in options with most models not even being available with modular cables but over the years that has changed significantly. I even took a look at an 800-watt Titanium model just last year. But a lot of the innovation has been with the SFX-L form factor which is similar but not as small as the normal SFX form factor even though a lot of cases only support the latter. But Between Corsair and Silverstone big strides have been made in SFX as well like Silverstone’s SX700-G. It doesn’t have the same Titanium 80 Plus rating as the SX800-LTI but it does win in wattage per liter with an impressive 882 watts per liter. Today I’m going to check out the SX700-G and see what Silverstone has been up to in the true SFX form factor, check it out.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 23 October 2019 15:38
Not long ago AMD pushed their 3950X launch out into November and when they did that they also teased in that same announcement that it will come out with their Threadripper 3 processor family. With that, this isn’t a bad time to revisit the cooling options. Unlike every other consumer CPU, Threadripper is large enough that it actually required all of the heatsink companies to go back and redesign their heatsinks to get full coverage. With that there are a lot fewer options available for Threadripper. But there are two big names that stand out. Cooler Master partnered with AMD and is who designed and sells the Wraith Ripper heatsink which goes in line with the rest of the Wraith air coolers that typically come with AMD CPUs. Then there is Noctua, who went all out with three different models in their Threadripper lineup. Today I am going to check out all four of those coolers and see how they perform to help those of you waiting for the new launch or others who have been snatching up the marked down Threadripper 1 and 2 models.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 18 October 2019 19:33
Continuing with my coverage of the aftermarket AMD RX 5700 models, the first RX 5700 XT that came in was from XFX. They sent over their top of the line model, the RX 5700 THICC II Ultra. Now the THICC branding kind of goes along with the Fatboy branding that I made fun of at the RX590 launch and adding Ultra in as well for the name does make the cards name a little crazy, silly, and long. But none of those things have anything to do with performance. Beyond maybe being a little embarrassed when you tell everyone your new video card is THICC, the name isn’t even in the top 5 things to worry about with your video card purchase. So today I’m going to focus on the card itself, how it performs, and I want to take a look at the new cooler design. Is the new look XFX going back to some of their great past designs or is it sticking with the flashy fake carbon fiber type theme they have been doing recently? Initial looks put the new design as looking good, but let’s find out more.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 16 October 2019 22:20
The history of the SteelSeries Sensei actually starts back with the SteelSeries Xai which launched back in 2009. The Xai was a huge departure from their previous mouse the Ikari and its new shape was ambidextrous and smaller using some of the popular mice in CS 1.6 like the Intellimouse and feedback from gamers to create the Xai shape. I covered the Xai back then and loved it but it did have some problems. SteelSeries later took that same shape but with an upgraded sensor and an onboard processor and introduced it under a new name, the Sensei. We actually had the first English review of the Sensei all the way back in 2011. I started using the Xai as my main mouse and quickly switched over to the Sensei after its launch and for a solid 8 years used the Sensei or one of the many other variations like the RAW or game or team branded models as my main mouse and in my LAN bag as well.
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Category: Audio
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Published: Thursday, 10 October 2019 10:29
Corsair launched their Void Pro series of headsets back in 2017 and that included both wired and wireless models. Two years later they are relooking at the lineup with a new Void Elite series. They sent over one specific model, the VOID RGB ELITE Wireless. You can see how the Pro is now Elite and RGB was, of course, added into the name as well. This new model comes in at the same $99.99 price point of the original and today I’m going to check out what is different with the new model and I’m going to see how it performs. I love wireless headsets, years ago I got tired of running over my own cord and getting up and pulling on my cord, causing damage. I’m curious if Corsair’s headset will be a good option for others who have had those same issues.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 04 October 2019 18:10
When I took a look at both the AMD RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT at their launch I was extremely impressed with their performance and the price point that AMD was aiming for. While I normally like blower coolers, the reference/blower cooling on both of the RX 5700 cards had a really hard time keeping up with thermals causing both heat and noise issues. Because of that, I have been excited to get my hands on aftermarket cards to see how they could potentially improve on things. Well today's the day, Asus sent over their RX 5700 Strix and today I’m going to check out what the card has to offer in both features and performance. So let’s dive in and see what sets it apart from the reference design!
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Tuesday, 01 October 2019 16:41
Earlier this year I had the chance to check out the Ballistix Elite 3600MHz 4X8GB kit and I was impressed with the kit. The aesthetics were great while not going with RGB lighting or anything flashy. The Ballistix Elite kit has a military styling and that kit specifically ended up being solid in performance. Well, Crucial has a new SKU for their Elite lineup with a higher clock speed and they sent them over. I already know what to expect for aesthetics but the 16GB 2x8GB kit they sent is running at 4000MHz with timings that are a little loose. Today I’m going to check the kit out, test its performance, and play around with overclocking and see how the new kit holds up.
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Category: Audio
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Published: Friday, 27 September 2019 12:03
Anyone who knows me would never consider me to be an overly active person. I’m white and pasty and well beyond overweight. But there are times you need to be an adult and slip outside and do some maintenance around the house. For me weakly that includes mowing the yard. This is also one of the only chances I have to put some music on my phone and toss earbuds in and jam. After moving I upgraded from a push mower to a riding mower, but one of the downsides of this has been issues with me pulling my earbuds out by the cord when driving and when driving around low trees. It’s a big concern and frankly, mowers can be dangerous so I have been thinking about trying out wireless earbuds for a while. Well a few weeks ago Philips sent over their UpBeat wireless Earbuds and I have been playing with them. Today I’m going to take a look at them and talk about how they have worked for me. Let’s go check them out!
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Tuesday, 24 September 2019 13:19
A mouse is a mouse, right? Well there have been a few mice that have come out that have had me excited, but lets be honest for the most part it has felt like everyone is just updating to the latest “in” sensor, adding RGB lighting where they can, and taking on things that can be mentioned on the box or in an online listing as a big feature. A little balance in adding just a few cool features and things are okay. But some mice get a little crazy and they end up huge and extremely heavy. Now if you were following the trends in mice you might run into people on Reddit drilling holes in their mice and doing everything they can to make their mouse lighter. Well, a few companies have been leading the lightweight market including Logitech on the wireless side, but it is finally hitting the mainstream companies including Razer which just recently brought out something. Well the mouse a lot of people have been waiting for is from Cooler Master with their MM710. They have been following the enthusiast market on the keyboard side for years so it isn’t a huge shocker that they would also do the same with their mice. The MM710 packs all of the features people are modding into their mice including the holes. Today I’m going to check out their new mouse and find out what all the excitement is about.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 20 September 2019 15:59
The G602 is a Logitech classic that was launched back close to the launch of the original G502. What really set it apart was its use of a traditional battery, not a rechargeable wireless setup for what our friend Ed over at Sapphire would call a “True Wireless” setup. The G602 had an extremely long battery life and it was the only mouse in the post G502 age at Logitech with more than the standard two side buttons. Funny enough the G602 was replaced with the G603 but it dropped the extra side buttons and went with a different shape so it was a little bit of a surprise to see Logitech switch back to the features of the G602 when I had a call with them about the new G604. It gains the Hero 16K sensor of course and drops some weight. Today I’m going to check out the new mouse and see what it’s all about.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Wednesday, 18 September 2019 12:54
The PS4 launched with a 500GB hard drive and later came out with a 1TB model. If you were really lucky maybe you have the ultra-rare 2TB 500 Million limited edition model. But for the most part you are going to be a little limited in storage capacity on the PS4. It is 6 years old now! The Xbox One isn’t much different as well. But games still continue to get larger. My wife and I picked up Red Dead Redemption 2 at launch and it took up 99 gigs and required 150GB of space to install. Talk about a quick way to take out a big chunk of your storage and frankly I don’t want to have to uninstall it and have to go through that full installation later, it takes forever. Both can get an upgraded hard drive, but if you don’t want to go through that trouble Western Digitals WD_Black gaming-focused lineup has expanded to add a few different options. Today I’m going to check the P10 Game Drive which is a USB based external hard drive designed to expand gaming storage on your PC, PS4, and Xbox. I’m going to see what the new drive has going for it and then check out its performance as well. With capacities of 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB even the smallest model isn’t going to get clogged up from a single game install.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Thursday, 12 September 2019 18:53
M.2 SSDs and heat have been an ongoing issue for a while now. They don’t always need to worry about heat, but they often end up in areas like behind a motherboard where there is no airflow or right under your hot video card that is spewing out heat from the bottom right on to the drive. Motherboards have added heatsinks but a lot of them are more like metal covers that hold heat in. On our Crush build a few years ago I had issues with our drive overheating and adding small stick on heatsinks was the solution. That said when heat isn’t an issue heatsinks aren’t needed at all. But all of this has ended up with a few companies bringing out SSDs with heatsinks like the SN750 that I took a look at. Well, Viper Gaming sent over their VPN100 a while back and today I’m going to check it out and see how the drive performs as well as how well the heatsink it ships with performs.
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