Earlier this year we went hands-on with the R4 from Fractal, a mid tower solution to the Define product line. We were quite pleased with the humble case, the simple Fractal facade silently housing a myriad of features. Our one complaint was the weight of the chassis, to which Fractal responded by sending us the R4’s big brother full tower, the XL R2. I'll be installing a full ATX building and, against better judgement, showing it off at our upcoming LAN party.Take a look with us, we could use an extra hand lifting.

Five years ago if you were on the market for a case there were really only a few directions to go. More recently this has changed considerably; there are so many manufactures that weren’t even in the market five years ago. One of those manufactures is Corsair, moved into the market with a very impressive 800D and has been slowly filling out their product lineup from then on. The Obsidian Series 350D that I will be taking a look at today is the first mid tower from the Obsidian Series. With styling from the popular 800D we know it looks great, but the only way to find out where it stands otherwise is to look at it more in depth.

Quite a market has developed for high end mechanical gaming keyboards. Gamers, both professional and otherwise, have begun to migrate towards the tactile feedback each individual keystroke or double tap provides. With this growing market, the usual names have thrown their hats into the ring with offerings that both impress and amaze. Today I take a look at Thermaltake’s top of the pyramid offering, the Meka G-Unit Illumination Edition and see if this monster of a keyboard can tangle with its competitors.

We have been on a Mid Tower kick here lately with case reviews and a few have left us impressed while others leave us scratching our head with odd design choices. One of those cases was the Urban S21 from Thermaltake, a company generally known for good, solid case design. Today Thermaltake is back with another mid tower offering in a slightly higher price range, the A31 Chaser. While the color of the Thunder Edition was enough to catch everyone’s attention at CES, I will be putting the Chaser through a more thorough examination today.

It’s been a few days now and not only have I set all of the PCs around the house back up, I also took the time to do detail cleaning around my desk. Even after a few days I feel little tired, an impromptu nap that went until 3pm yesterday helped some but it’s going to be a little while before I’m back to normal. All of it means we had another successful LAN. Of course the work doesn’t stop on Sunday for me, but before I get too far into it I wanted to post up a little bit of a roundup. Read on to hear more about it.

It’s amazing how far technology has gone when you look at the mobile phone market. It really wasn’t that long ago when the RAZR flip phone was the hip thing to have. Now most people have large screens, fast internet, and more processing power than you would ever have imagined. With that in mind, it does seem a little crazy that we still have to plug our phones in all of the time to charge them. When I picked up my Nexus 4, the wireless charging feature was one of the most interesting to me. Today I will finally be able to show off what it’s all about with the new TYLT VÜ wireless charging pad.

Remember when everyone wanted Intel’s enthusiast CPUs? Pepperidge Farm remembers. With Ivy Bridge and then Haswell pushing the mainstream CPU lineup ahead quickly it seems like it has been ages sense the launch of X79 and with it Sandy Bridge-E. That’s not to say they still aren’t powerful, but with multiple competing launches from Intel alone the platform hasn’t exactly gotten a lot of attention. Well today we get to play a little catch up with the introduction of the Ivy Bridge-E CPUs. Specifically I’m going to take a look at the i7-4960X, their new flagship CPU. Let’s take a peek at what is new.

When it comes to building PCs, the enthusiast builds that we here at LanOC focus a lot on are only a small part of the market. A lot of builds don’t require 6+ cores and multiple GPUs. In fact a lot of people don’t need or want dedicated GPUs at all. AMD and Intel both recognize this with their focus on upgrading the integrated graphics of their mainstream CPUs and APUs. When AMD sent over their new Richland-based APUs, the A10-6800K and A10-6700, I was excited to see how they compare to previous APUs we have taken a look at and to see if the APU would be capable of any gaming without adding a dedicated GPU.

If you are on the market for a new keyboard there is a good chance given the market trends that you might be considering a mechanical keyboard. Back with membrane keyboards all you really needed to consider was the keyboards features, software, and to some branding. Now, even once you have decided to go with a mechanical keyboard you have to consider what kind of switch type you want and of course most people don’t really know what the colors mean. This is one of the questions I’m asked all of the time, because of that I figured I would talk a little about it here. I hope it helps you on your decision.

With the sheer amount of media we consume on a daily basis, the mobile market is constantly evolving with newer and newer ways for us to store and transfer all this data. A while back I reviewed Carry Technology’s Wi-Reader Pro and was impressed by the functionality and usefulness of a portable, wireless cloud device and today I am back again with another similar device. Join me as I take a look at Kingston’s MobileLite Wireless Reader and put it to the test to see if it can bring anything new to this budding market.

When Razer first introduced the Naga a lot of people made jokes and references to its phone like number pad on the side. Then soon after, not only did I see a lot of people sporting them, but a lot of the manufactures introduced their versions of the MMO mouse. Suddenly it was only partially crazy to have a full phone number pad under your thumb. Recently Razer introduced their new Naga 2014, the second major redesign of the Naga although I would consider the 2012 edition to be less of a “major” redesign. I’m really excited to see what they have learned from the last model and changed for this model. I have been using it for a little while now and I can finally tell everyone about my experience.

When it comes to enthusiasts we put a lot of thought into the parts we put in our PC, but don’t often think about what connects us to the internet. Most people will grab any old router from a brick and mortar store that suits their needs. I feel that more information should be acquired, especially for something that is only purchased once in a blue moon. Will the router suit my needs? Will it suit my needs long term?  Will it continue to hold up as the technology improves? All of these questions and more will be considered while looking at the Western Digital My Net AC 1300.

It wasn’t all that long ago that we took a look at the Razer Orbweaver, their mechanical gaming keypad. I was a little surprised when the latest product from Razer was actually another gaming keypad, the Razer Tartarus. The Tartarus is a non-mechanical gaming keypad that is sold along with the Orbweaver. That means it actually is replacing the Nostromo for Razer’s membrane gaming keypad. I’m excited to see what has changed, the Orbweaver made a few big improvements, I’m curious if any of those made it into the Tartarus.

We just can’t seem to charge our gadget batteries enough these days. Whether on the go or simply during our day to day routines we are always on the lookout for ways to keep our phones and tablets from dying on us. Recently, I reviewed a portable, high capacity battery that offered the ability to charge our devices on the go and today I am back again with another. This time I take a look at the Neptor NP056K portable battery pack from Eagle Tech to see if this emerging market for pocket USB chargers is a competitive one or merely the latest fad.

Between sensor, grip style, and overall design the CM Storm gaming mouse line is made up of a nice variety of options. Until now, Cooler Master has only offered one product with the Avago 9800 sensor, boasting 8200 DPI support, the Sentinel II. The Havoc, which we’ll be taking a look at today, is “designed for precision gaming”, so it seems natural to be equipped with a sensor that provides such a diverse range.

As impressive as reference cards can be when they are introduced, it’s always impressive to see what all of the manufactures do with them when they have a little time to toy with the overclocks and fit their aftermarket cooling designs. A good example would be the card I’m going to take a look at today. The MSI GTX 760 Hawk looks similar to the GTX 780 Gaming that I recently took a look at, but with a yellow theme that would go perfectly with their new Z87 M Power motherboard. I wonder how it will perform compared to the reference GTX 760 as well as the aftermarket cards. They set the mark high, so MSI is going to have their work cut out for them.

Earlier this year we covered a whole collection of HD 7790’s from various manufactures but there was one missing. I was a little late getting my hands on a Sapphire card and due to other launches I’m even later getting to telling everyone about it. That does mean we have a chance to compare how the HD 7790 is performing now and along with that we get to see how Sapphires Dual-X dual fan cooling design performs. If its anything like the past few aftermarket cooler designs that we have seen from Sapphire I should be very happy.

Cooler Master has done a good job with their mechanical keyboard lineup to make sure they provide options for both gamers and mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. That means they have keyboards that focus on backlighting and macro keys as well as more simple designs that the enthusiasts tend to enjoy. At CES this January I caught a glimpse at a full sized keyboard that reminded me of the simplicity of the Quickfire Rapid. This was the Quickfire XT and today I will finally be taking a look at it. Let’s see what its all about.

Over the past few years I could count on one hand all of the wireless gaming mice that have been introduced, it’s just something that you rarely see. That is because a lot of gamers will push back citing wireless lag and battery life issues. Those issues can be an issue, but there are still a lot of people who end up gaming with their everyday wireless mice because of the lack of gaming options. That is where the Logitech G700s comes in; this is Logitech’s only wireless gaming mouse. With that in mind I was excited to see how the G700s compared to both the G500s and the other wireless mice that we have tested in the past.

Thermaltake has always been known for their superb case design and quality throughout the years. This time they are back with a Mid Tower offering in the same price range as many leading competitors with the enthusiast additions we have come to expect.  Present are the optimized ventilation, cable management and tool-free bays we all love to see delivered in an aesthetically minimalist package. Will the Urban S21 prove to be a hit or end up as just another option? Joins me as we give it the once over and see if the Urban Mid Tower stacks up.