Enermax Fulmo GT Big Tower Chassis Review @ Tweaktown

It seems Enermax has really picked up the pace the past year and is delivering quite the assortment of products in getting ready for this year. Not too long ago we took a look at the ED-T60 CPU cooler with its T.B. Vegas fan and multiple lighting schemes which made this cooler attractive and customizable to your own preference. Then we sort of stepped out of the box and went into peripherals with the Briskie wireless keyboard and mouse. From what I thought was essentially a PSU and cooler maker, the Briskie made me look at Enermax with much wider eyes as I took the blinders off to see what they actually have to offer. Now, we again step outside the "norm" and get a chance to look at what Enermax is now bringing forth in chassis design.  This new chassis takes cues from other chassis we have seen already, but still has enough of its own accents to make this new chassis a case that will have no issue standing taller than most of its competition. The "big tower" as Enermax labels it, should really be called a huge tower chassis. In the design quest for this chassis, the main idea was to allow any motherboard up to and including HPTX, or the form factor made specifically for the SR-2 from EVGA, and with the SR-3 in the works, even if you missed out on the original, you now have a chassis worthy of housing its predecessor.

Sharkoon T9 Mid Tower ATX PC Chassis Review @ eTeknix.com

With the hundreds of PC cases that are on the market today, the spectrum of styles and designs is very wide.  On the bottom end of the scale there is the case that is there to do its job and not much else, whereas on the top end of the market, there are the highly customisable cases that have stacks to offer.  The design of these cases follows pretty much the same pattern, but there are some people out there that would like to have a case that on the outside is a little understated & aesthetically clean and on the inside has a little more to shout about.

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler Review @ Tweaknews

To sum it all up, Cooler Master's new Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler has great performance, yet leaves a relatively small acoustic footprint. The included mounting solution is very robust, if a bit fussy to install, and Cooler Master includes an extra pair of fan clips should the user wish to add another fan.

GELID Solutions Darkforce PC Case Review @ Legit Reviews

Gelid Solutions recently entered the PC case market with introduction of the DARKFORCE mid-tower enclosure. This case will try to wow you with some cool innovative features while keeping to the Gelid Solutions focus. The focus of the company is to give a PC enthusiast a product with great cooling capabilities while also having great aesthetics.  The DARKFORCE mid-tower comes into a saturated field of mid-towers made for PC gamers and enthusiasts. Gelid Solution will need to take a unique approach to find ways to distinguish itself from the competitions at the entry price of $120 in the US market. After an overview of the specifications, it looks like Gelid Solutions has used its past experiences to put something a little different into this product...

Enermax Fulmo GT Full PC Case @ Pro-Clockers

We will be taking a look at the Fulmo GT from the eye of the water-cooling system builder. Reason being is the Fulmo GT offers so much room for such a system. It is not often you can find a tower that can support dual loops without having to mod or having to go big with extra large expensive cube cases from case makers like CaseLab, Lian Li and Mountain Mod. We are not saying the Fulmo GT is small but its total area spans up and down and not up and down and left and right taking up more space and looking like a small refrigerator.

ASUS P9X79 WS Workstation Motherboard @ Benchmark Reviews

Generally when we here at Benchmark Reviews get a motherboard in to test, it's aimed at a specific market: it might be an enthusiast-oriented motherboard for gaming, or a micro-ATX motherboard designed for a HTPC, or even just an inexpensive motherboard for users on a budget. Today, though, we have one of ASUS' "Workstation" motherboards: the ASUS P9X79 WS. How does it differ from other X79 motherboards, what's the performance, and should this board be on your short list for your X79 rig?

Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6670 @ TechwareLabs

Today we have the Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6670. This is, among other things a low-profile graphics card capable of being installed in an HTPC with half-height PCI brackets. Coming in at just under $90, this card is "inexpensive" in terms of the graphics world. I personally would expect to be able to play dated, and non-graphic intensive games with ease, let's see if the HD 6670 can deliver - but first, lets get Sapphire's take.

Samsung 830 Series 128GB Solid State Drive Review @ Tweaktown

Our Samsung 830 sample has some trick components, kind of like a race version of a street car. There aren't any titanium valves or exhaust, but the 830 does give us our first look at 20nm flash. The flash is of course made by Samsung and doesn't conform to traditional ONFi standards, but it is Toggle Mode and very fast. I suspect it won't be too much longer before we start to see other SSD manufactures taking a closer look at Samsung 20nm flash for their SSD products built on other SSD controllers. The last time we saw a SandForce SSD with Samsung flash was on the G.Skill Phoenix 100GB and that flash was left over from the Indilinx Barefoot era.  Also new for us is the Samsung controller with three ARM cores. The controller connects to your system via SATA III (backwards compatible with SATA I and SATA II) so it's able to break the 285MB/s limits of SATA II when used with a native SATA III chipset. We've seen Samsung controllers in the past, some of the first SSD products we reviewed were based on Samsung controllers and they were very stable and very fast for their day. Since that time Samsung has played a large role in the OEM market providing whole products to all the major players.

Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 800W Power Supply Unit Review @ eTeknix.com

The Thunderbolt Plus series comes in four different wattages ranging from 800W to 1200W, I will be taking a look at the smallest 800W unit. Looking at the power table, we can see that there is more difference between the Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt Plus units than features, every unit in the Plus series outputs all of it’s 12V power through a single rail which is fantastic news as it removes the pain of balancing rails, which may phase gamers a lot more than it would enthusiasts The unit outputs a total of 780W through its 12V rails which means that the unit is capable of providing almost all of it’s power to the all-important components such as graphics cards and CPUs when required. This unit can push 65A through a single rail which is a pretty hefty amount which requires a higher build quality to maintain stability- you can already see why this is the Plus version!

AMD Llano A8-3870K APU Review @ TechwareLabs

With AMDs' Llano and Bulldozer line releasing within 8 months of each other it was only a matter of time before we saw them merge. The main complaint about Llano was the inability to overclock anything. Well now we see 2 unlocked versions come into the market: the A8-3870k and the A6-3670k. With AMDs rich heritage in overclocking and GPUs what kind of performance can we expect out of these? Lets first take a look at the new line desktop Llano APUs.

ECS X79R-AX Black Series Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews

ECS is letting Legit Reviews get a little hands on time with their Intel X79 motherboard offering. The ECS X79R-AX is part of the Black Extreme series of products from ECS. The ECS X79R-AX Intel X79 motherboard offers up a number of features all for a low price of $239.99. How will it stack up against our previous Intel X79 motherboards? Read on to find out!  For the most part the ECS X79R-AX Intel X79 motherboard performed on par with our other Intel X79 systems. In most of our tests it was just below the performance level of the GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD7. In all fairness though, we are talking very small margins of maybe 1%-2% total, well within any margin of error in the benchmarks that we used today. The downside to that statement is that it was consistently on the bottom of the charts...

Asus DRW-24B3LT SATA DVD-RW Drive Review @ Tweaknews

Asus has shown us another solid product with the DRW-24B3LT. This well-rounded drive can write to a recordable DVD at up to 24x and testing showed that it's not only fast, it can also produce consistently reliable discs. The inclusion of a white faceplate is a nice touch, and the software bundle is useful for many types of CD/DVD projects.

SilverStone SST-GD06B HTPC Media Center Case @ Benchmark Reviews

In this article Benchmark Reviews gets to evaluate a HTPC case from SilverStone's Grandia line; the GD06. With these smaller cases, space is always an issue. This is becoming increasingly critical as high definition content becomes ubiquitous. Not only do we want to view our new content in more pixels than our brain can even process, but we want to upscale the old content, or view it in 3D, and do it upside down, right side up and inside out. While you're at it give me dish, cable, recording, streaming, email, gaming and the kitchen sink. Oh...and it needs to fit in a single box on my entertainment system. Well, SilverStone is at least trying to provide the box, the rest is up to you. They've expanded on past models to fit even more powerful toys inside your HTPC. Read on to see how model SST-GD06B crams the performance you demand and puts it on your shelf.

Prolimatech Panther CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

The Prolimatech Panther is a CPU cooler with a tower heatsink, four heatpipes and a 120 mm fan with LEDs. It seems to be a smaller version of the Armageddon CPU cooler, which we already reviewed. Let's test it and see how well it performs.

Gigabyte X79 UD3 Motherboard Review @ Ninjalane

In this review we will be looking at the Gigabyte X79 UD3 motherboard based on the Intel X79 chipset and supporting the new LGA2011 Sandy Bridge E processor.  Gigabyte is offering three X79 motherboards in the Ultra Durable lineup starting with the UD3.  The UD3 is the main level consumer motherboard designed to be a low cost entry level board with some teeth.  UD5 is an enhanced level motherboard with similar specs but supporting twice as many memory slots and fancy blue heatsinks.  UD7 is no longer the top level consumer motherboard but rather a board designed for the enthusiast overclocker and hardware zealot.  All of these motherboards feature the core Gigabyte technologies including the 2oz copper PCB.

In our past Solid State Drive Roundup, we found that the performance offered by SSDs is nothing short of phenominal.  Apple, a company that prides itself in its focus of customer experience knows this, and as a result offers the availability of SSDs across it's Mac computing product line.  However when looking at its MacBook Pro line, the cost of configuring an Apple built-to-order SSD powered notebook is steep.  Apple offers 128GB, 256GB and 512GB SSD storage upgrades at the prices of $200, $600 and $1200 respectively (as per the Apple Store in Canada).  Luckily there are vendors like Other World Computing who specialize in providing products and upgrade solutions catering towards Apple users.

Patriot Pyro SE 240GB Solid State Drive Review @ Tweaktown

2011 has come to an end, but that doesn't mean technology is slowing down one bit. For the second year in a row the solid state drive market was dominated by SandForce. If you wanted to produce a drive that was capable of the highest performance possible, you needed to start with a SandForce SF-2200 Series controller and pair it with either ONFi 2.0 or Toggle Mode NAND flash.  Looking out on the horizon we don't see SandForce trying to leap frog themselves early this year and we don't see why they would need to. Last month we looked at the latest from Indilinx (OCZ Octane) and Marvell (Corsair Performance Pro) and neither controller managed to muster the performance of the SF-2281. Sometime in the middle of 2012 we'll see Team SandForce manufactures move to 24nm Toggle Mode and maybe even 20nm IMFT flash, but neither of these technologies will bring a great deal to the table over the tried and true SF-2281 / synchronous flash combination we have today. The Patriot Pyro SE uses this magical combination to deliver amazing performance for general computing tasks and at an equally amazing price point.

Anidées AI-6B Mid-Tower Chassis Review @ eTeknix

A new chassis manufacturer brings a fresh new feel to the market with the AI-6B mid-tower chassis, but can it rival some of the bigger known brands?

Thermaltake Overseer RX-I Review @ Hardware Secrets

The Overseer RX-I is the latest full-tower case from Thermaltake. However, its physical dimensions are similar to mid-tower products from other manufacturers. Unfortunately, there is no official standard to categorize a case as full-tower or mid-tower. According to Thermaltake, they are saying this case is a full-tower model because it has four 5.25" bays, eight expansion slots, and supports E-ATX motherboards, even though the typical full-tower case looks bigger.

A8-3870K vs. Core i3-2105 CPU Review @ Hardware Secrets

AMD released recently its highest-end CPU with integrated video, the A8-3870K "Black Edition," which comes with its clock multiplier unlocked, giving you an extra overclocking option. In this review, we will compare it to the A8-3850 and to its main competitors from Intel: the Core i3-2105 and Core i3-2100.

ECS H67H2-M Black Edition Intel H67 Express Motherboard Review @ PCSTATS

On the review bench today PCSTATS tests the ECS H67H2-M Black Edition microATX motherboard, built on the Intel H67 B3-stepping chipset and supporting socket LGA1155 Intel 2nd Generation Core i3/i5/i7 2xxx-series 32nm Sandy Bridge processors. The Intel H67 chipset makes it possible to output HD video content via HDMI or Display Port to a big screen HDTV, or hook up dual LCD displays over Analog VGA and DVI monitor connections.

Bitfenix Raider Mid Tower Case Review @ Legit Reviews

The soft touch finish and the clean mesh panel that goes from the font over the top is very stylish while allowing for excellent thermals. The top mounted 200mm fan port is a unique option and the bottom 120mm optional fan intake is a great touch. This case allows the mounting of up to five fans, with two being 200mm or four fans with three being 200mm variety. Quiet airflow should not be a problem in this case. We loved the USB 3.0 / USB 2.0 cables from the top I/O ports, what a ingenious design...

G.SKILL Ripjaws-Z 16GB DDR3-1600 Memory @ Benchmark Reviews

Although the company was established in 1989, G.SKILL is still not as familiar a name in the memory market as are Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston, and others. But in the past few years they've built their portfolio of memory (and memory is almost all they do) to encompass a broad selection of price/performance points ensuring that system builders and enthusiasts can find virtually anything they need. Today Benchmark Reviews tests G.SKILL's "mainstream" DDR3-1600 16GB quad-channel memory kit for Intel's X79 platform.

Silverstone SUGO SG08 mITX Case@ Pro-Clockers

Yes, Silverstone has cases like the SG05 (SG06) but they can only support a GPU up to nine inches. And you also have the SG07, which can house much longer cards. But Silverstone isn’t one to leave customers without options. Their newest SFF casing is called the SG08. The SG08 can support a GPU up to 12.2 inches long which would include the Nvidia GTX 580. And there is no need to look for a power supply as the SG08 comes with a 600 watt power unit.

Fractal Design is a Swedish computer hardware company that specializes in the areas of enclosures and power supplies.  When I think of other Swedish companies, Ikea and Volvo come to mind, and like their Swedish brethren Fractal Design designs and engineers its products with a Scandinavian design philosophy.  Following the major pillars of this style of design result in the creation of products that are functional, minimalistic and modern in style.

SilverStone SST-PS07B mATX Computer Case @ Benchmark Reviews

It's a fact that has proven itself over and again: technology shrinks. Even for performance oriented enthusiasts, it isn't always better to "go big or go home." In fact, the more technology shrinks, the more useful it becomes. Consider that the first commercially available computer's CPU and memory was 14' x 8' x 8' and weighed 29, 000 LBS (UNIVAC I)! Sixty years later and your smart phone occupies just 3/8" x 3" x 2" of space, weighs just over 4 ozs, and runs at 1500Mhz. Today, and in the spirit of shrinking technology, Benchmark Reviews investigates the SilverStone SST-PS07B mATX mini-tower computer case.

Biostar TH67XE Intel H67 Express Motherboard Review @ PCSTATS

The powerful socket LGA1155 Sandy Bridge processor may have the integrated graphics core, but it's the Intel H67 chipset which makes it possible to output HD video content via HDMI and Display Port to a big screen HDTV. The TH67XE can also support a couple LCD monitors for a cost effective dual screen office PC. The only thing this board really cannot do... is overclock.

Thermaltake Frio Advanced CPU Cooler Review @ Real World Labs

Featuring very good performance levels thanks to its dual 130mm PWM fans, universal CPU compatibility and a smaller size than other similar performance units the latest Frio Advanced CPU Cooler by Thermaltake has but a single drawback, quite high noise levels especially at load.

Thermaltake Overseer RX-I Full Tower @ Pro-Clockers

Today, we will not be taking a look at their clothing line-up but one of their newest cases. The RX-I aka Overseer is a full sized chassis that is aimed purely at the gamer in us. From the future-like front facial to the interior opening for large video cards says I want to be a gamer rig. But what Thermaltake has done with the full-sized case is make it pretty inexpensive for the consumer. So, check out the review to see what you will get for about $120.

Thermal Compound Roundup - January 2012 @ Hardware Secrets

Following up on our Thermal Compound Roundup – December 2011 review, we are adding five more thermal compounds to our roundup, for a total of 55 different models from Akasa, Antec, Arctic Cooling, Arctic Silver, Biostar, Coollaboratory, Cooler Master, Coolink, Deepcool, Dow Corning, Enermax, Evercool, EVGA, Gelid, Glacialstars, Innovation Cooling, Masscool, Nanoxia, Nexus, Noctua, Phobya, Prolimatech, Scythe, Shin-Etsu, Spire, StarTech, Revoltec, Rosewill, Thermalright, Thermaltake, TIM Consultants, Titan, Tuniq, Xigmatek, Zalman, and ZEROtherm. In this review, we will determine if certain products are superior to others. We will also try another alternative thermal compound to see if it works.

Seagate GoFlex Desk 4TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive Review @ Bigbruin.com

The massive capacity of the Seagate GoFlex Desk 4TB USB 3.0 hard drive could probably store your entire media collection with room to spare - and with the USB 3.0 interface it can transfer it with lightening speed. The included software is more of a basic solution; if you want something a bit more robust you'll have to pony up $50 or find another third-party solution.

Sapphire Radeon HD6450 Flex Edition Video Card Review @ TechwareLabs

In addition to being a low profile silent media PC ready card, the Sapphire Radeon HD6450 Flex Edition video card also boasts triple DVI monitor support right out of the box. This is impressive for a sub $100 card, But what kind of performance can a $70 card really provide? See why this super cheap card packs features and performance that may just surprise you.

WD MyPassport 1TB USB 3.0 Drive Review @ OCModShop

There are a few different small external hard drive solutions that are perfect for notebook and netbook users. These drives should be small enough to fit inside a laptop bag, but have enough speed and capacity under the hood to not slow you down. Western Digital’s MyPassport 1TB hard drive could be the answer you’re looking for. Not only does it offer a ton of storage, but comes in a small form factor and is equipped with USB 3.0 technology.

HIS HD 7970 3GB Overclocked Video Card Review @ Tweaktown

Today we're moving over to a HIS HD 7970 video card and since it follows the reference design and MSI have just released a new version of Afterburner that allows voltage adjustment on the new HD 7970, we figured it was time to see how the overclocking capabilities of the new card is.  Before we cover the overclocking ability, the first thing we need to do is take a closer look at the package HIS has going on before we move in closer to the card itself. Once that's done we'll check out the specifications and how we went with overclocking. Then as always we get into the testbed and of course check out the performance of the card.

Seagate Momentus XT 750GB SATA III Hybrid Disk Drive Review @ Real World Labs

By doubling the available onboard SLC NAND Flash memory and by adding 50% more storage space capacity compared to the 1st generation the 2nd generation Momentus XT by Seagate is now a powerful mix between a 750GB 2.5” 7200RPM hard disk drive and an 8GB solid state drive.

Super Talent USB 3.0 DataGuardian 32GB Flash Drive Review

The new DataGuardian USB 3.0 Flash Drive from Super Talent gives us the possibility to protect the data stored on it by locking its entire filesystem with a password; the user interface that pops up when the drive is inserted is user friendly and we can re-enter the password two more times if we got it wrong the first time.

Seagate 2TB Barracuda XT 6Gb/s SATA III Hard Drive Review @ PCSTATS

In this review PCSTATS will be testing out Seagate's 2TB, 6Gb/s SATA III Barracuda XT hard drive. This 3.5" desktop hard drive features an increased 64MB onboard cache where other 2TB drives only have 32MB and it supports Native Command Queing (NCQ). The Barracuda XT is the performance oriented drive in Seagate's stables, a spindle speed of 7200RPM gives it a healthy maximum sustained data rate of 138MB/s.

Cooler Master Cosmos II Computer Case Review @ Bigbruin.com

The Cooler Master Cosmos II is definitely a case for those who won't settle for the run-of-the-mill. It is an extremely well thought out case that combines great convenience features with appealing aesthetics, and low noise/high performance cooling. In the end I have to agree with Cooler Master's assessment that it was "inspired by luxurious supercars".

XFX R7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation @ Benchmark Reviews

AMD might have trouble keeping up with the competition in the CPU arena, but their acquisition of ATI allowed them to become a major player in the graphics world. AMD and NVIDIA regularly trade places in the "fastest video card" rankings, and while NVIDIA's been good holding down the title with its current high-end, the Fermi-based GTX 580, it looks as if AMD's new Tahiti-based Radeon HD 7970 will snatch the crown away...especially if it's a hot-rod, factory-overclocked video card like today's test subject: the XFX R7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation.

Seagate 500GB Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive Review @ PCSTATS

Seagate's Momentus XT is a 2.5" notebook drive of a half-Terabyte in capacity that stands out from the crowd because it contains 4GB of SLC NAND flash. The NAND flash is used as sort of a 'fast access repository' to store commonly used data, though at 4GB, the SSD portion of this hybrid drive accounts for only 0.8% of its total storage capacity. The two platter, 7200RPM Seagate Momentus XT posts an average read latency of 11.0ms, write 13.0ms. Seagate's 3Gb/s SATA II ST95005620AS drive retails for round $156 USD / £90 GBP and requires no special drivers or software.

Everybody and anybody looking to build a new PC knows that getting an SSD is the way to go.  Compared to their mechanical hard drive brethren, SSDs are absolute beasts performance wise.  Users who make the switch to SSDs will immediately benefit from a long list of things including quick boot times, fast application loading and high file manipulation speeds.