Taking a look at computer retailers online, and even our past CPU cooler review history, it's easy to see that the most popular style of heatsink right now follows the tower design.  It's no surprise as towers with their heatpipes and large radiators perform well.  But performance aside, they have major downsides including high height and low base clearance which interferes with RAM with tall heatspreaders.  Both the benefits and downfalls of the tower style of heatsink were evident in our last CPU cooler review of Noctua's NH-D14.

XFX Radeon R7950 Black Edition Video Card @ Benchmark Reviews

Benchmark Reviews recently took a look at XFX's R7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation version of AMD's new top-end Tahiti-based video cards. It's the fastest single-GPU video card we've ever tested, but the $600.00 price was a little hard to take, especially with NVIDIA's GTX580 widely available for more than $100 less. Today XFX has supplied us with the next step down the Tahiti line, the R7950 Black Edition Double Dissipation.

Sapphire 7950 Overclocked Edition Video Card Review @ TechwareLabs

With the release of the new Radeon 79xx series cards we may have witnessed a change in graphics King. The 7970 is without a doubt currently the performance king.  The problem is priced anywhere from $579 for the standard edition 7970 to over $800 for an overclocked version you have a card that few but the affluent can afford. Into the Sapphire 7950 Overclock Edition an enthusiast level graphics card more than capable of rendering any game you want to play even in Eyefinity (as we will demonstrate) for a mere $480 or lower. This puts it in a much more affordable and thus more appealing category.

AMD Radeon HD 7950 & XFX R7950 Black Edition Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

AMD has finally released Radeon HD 7950, which happens to be the cut-down version of the Radeon HD 7970 graphics card that hit the streets on January 9th, 2012. The AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics card is based on the same 'Tahiti' core architecture that is used on the Radeon HD 7970, but some has less features and lower clock speeds. Read on to see how the Radeon HD 7950 performs!  After spending some time with the AMD Radeon HD 7950 we found it to be to be a very capable graphics card that was hands down faster than the AMD Radeon HD 6970/6950 from the previous generation. From our performance numbers it looks like the AMD Radeon HD 7950 should have no problem beating the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 video card and as you saw in our test results it was even able to beat out the EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified in a number of benchmarks...

AMD Radeon HD 7950 Video Card Review @ Hardware Secrets

The Radeon HD 7950 is a Radeon HD 7970 with fewer processors and a lower memory clock rate. It is based on the same new architecture as the more expensive model, dubbed “Graphics Core Next” or simply “GCN,” and supports the new PCI Express 3.0 connection and the latest DirectX version (11.1). For a detailed explanation of the new features present on this new architecture, please read our Radeon HD 7970 review.  At USD 450, the Radeon HD 7950 fills the void between the GeForce GTX 570 (USD 370-400, if you can still find a video card based on this chip) and the GeForce GTX 580 (USD 470-500 for models with the standard clocks and 1.5 GB of memory) in terms of pricing.

AMD Radeon HD 7950 Video Card Review @ HardOCP

AMD is launching the Radeon HD 7950 today. The Radeon HD 7950 sits just under the recently released Radeon HD 7970 on the performance tree. The AMD Radeon HD 7950 is part of the Radeon HD 7900 series, and shares all of the Radeon HD 7970’s features. The AMD Radeon HD 7950 simply put, is the Radeon HD 7970 scaled down to sell at a lower price point, in this case $449 MSRP. The Radeon HD 7950 will be sold for $100 less than a Radeon HD 7970 at $549. This allows more people to be able to afford the performance of the Radeon HD 7900 series. As of writing this, we are seeing many Radeon 7950 cards listed on Newegg, all above MSRP as might be expected on launch day.

AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review Feat. Sapphire & XFX: Sewing Up The High-End Market @ Anandtech

As has been the case for AMD since the 5000 series, AMD has gone with a two-pronged approach to binning and cutting down their flagship GPU for their second-tier card. The first change is an across-the-board reduction in clockspeeds, with the core clock being dropped from 925MHz to 800MHz and the memory clock being dropped from 5.5GHz to 5GHz. The second change is that the shader count has been reduced from a full 2048 SPs to 1792 SPs, accomplished by disabling 1 of the GPU’s 8 CU arrays and allowing AMD to use Tahiti GPUs with a defective CU array that would have never worked in the first place.  No other changes have been made, a particularly important consideration since it means all 32 ROPs and the 6 64bit memory channels are still in place. Altogether this gives the 7950 86% of the ROP throughput, 75% of the shader and texture throughput, and 91% of the memory bandwidth of the 7970. This should put the 7950 in direct competition with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 580, which typically trails the 7970 by a similar degree. Otherwise compared to the 6000 series, this makes the core performance gap between the 7950 and 7970 a bit bigger than between the 6970 and 6950, while the memory bandwidth gap is identical.

AMD's Radeon HD 7950 graphics processor @ TechReport

The same GPU silicon, a chip code-named Tahiti, drives both of these graphics cards. In the 7970, it's at the height of its massively parallel powers, with 32 "compute units" (CUs) and clock speeds approaching one gigahertz, quite a lot for a graphics chip. For the 7950, AMD has disabled four of Tahiti's CUs, leaving it with 28 CUs intact and operational. That means a minor reduction in a few key graphics capabilities, including FLOPS and textures filtered, in each clock cycle. AMD's recommended clock speeds are also down, from 925 to 800 MHz, further tempering the 7950's potential throughput. The consequences of these changes may look pretty big on paper. After all, the 7950 gives up nearly a teraflop of computing power and an equal percentage of texture filtering prowess versus the 7970.

Akasa Venom Toxic Full Tower Chassis Review @ eTeknix.com

The Venom Toxic is a full tower chassis which, thanks largely to its huge dimensions, supports a wide variety of components including the gargantuan E-ATX and XL-ATX motherboard form factors. Motherboard support isn’t the only weapon in the Venom Toxic’s arsenal though. 6 external, tool-less 5.25″ bays, 1 of which can be converted into an external 3.5″ bay, and 6 internal 3.5/2.5″ HDD/SSD bays ensure that even the most avid computing enthusiast’s storage requirements will be tended to. Enthusiast grade quality is again shown in the form of 10 tool-less PCI slots and an abundance of cable management grommets, ensuring a clean system even when all 10 expansion slots are populated.

NZXT Phantom 410 Chassis Review @ Tweaktown

Let's be real honest here. In the realm in which I live, as a reviewer, there is a level of trust that develops as you work with companies over the years. As a guy that is in the position to recommend things to others, I take that aspect seriously. When I put my "seal of approval" on it, I mean it! I don't see any reason to waver in how to explain it, or any issues bringing failures to the forefront when said failures do pass through my hands, just ask Gelid why I haven't heard from them since I failed their GPU cooler. That is an extreme example of my approach with companies and their products. Getting back to my original point, when dealing with various manufactures, a report and a trust is built as you see they are making great strides to improve things, or on the flip side, those that don't show any initiative, I'd rather not bring that material to your attention.  With NZXT I am torn. Over the last few years I have seen great things come from them over many facets of the product lineup. The complete lack of any acknowledgement of any issues with their latest coolers, even though I was to find out later that they were fully aware that the fans sent were out of spec, but allowed me to test it as if it were just like what you would have bought retail, and that wasn't the case at all. I made strides to contact the company directly and was met with no reply, and had to gain my information from the third party PR firm that handles their products. Now that I put it all on the table, you can obviously see the level at where I hold NZXT has been knocked down a few pegs, and their lack of any help up front or after has definitely left a mark, even if just for a short time.

Thermaltake Smart Series 730W Power Supply @ Pro-Clockers

Today, we will be taking a look at a power supply aimed at people looking for a power supply that just works. Not only just work but is a quality product and built with all the protections one would normally get in a good power supply.  Thermaltake is claiming that the new Smart series power supply is just that. The Smart series is only offered in a non-modular version for now. But the power range within the spectrum of everybody building a system from basic web browsing to gaming that reason is 430 to 730 watts.

Glacialtech Igloo H58 Heatsink Review @ Frostytech.com

On the test bench today is Glacialtech's Igloo H58 heatsink - a tower style exposed heatpipe base CPU cooler that marks one of the best efforts by this Taiwan-based thermal solutions manufacturer. The heatsink cools very well on both Intel and AMD platforms as you'll shortly see.

NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case Review @ Real World Labs

By retaining its original set of features the latest revision of the Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case by NZXT is not only beautiful in terms of design, offers superior airflow and has a spacious interior capable of housing even the largest possible hardware components but it now also features top I/O USB 3.0 connectivity.

GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-12800 1600MHz 16GB Quad Channel Memory Kit Review @ Madshrimps

The Enhance Corsa 1600Mhz 16GB Memory Kit from GeIL offers decent performance at a good price and comes with a specially designed heatsink which cools the memory chips with the help of the airflow inside the case.

ASUS P8H67-M Evo Intel H67 Express Motherboard Review @ PCSTATS

The ASUS P8H67-M Evo supports one PCI Express 2.0 x16 videocard (x16 mode) and up to 32GB of dual channel DDR3-1066/1333 memory in 64-bit operating systems like Windows 7. Beyond the stock Intel H67 feature set, ASUS' P8H67-M Evo motherboard includes two USB 3.0 ports care of the uncommon ASmedia AS1040 controller, an IDE connector (that's rare these days!), eSATA II port via the low end Marvell SE6111 controller, four different video outputs (any two of which can be used for dual-monitor set ups) and an assortment of ASUS-gimicks like GPU Boost, EPU and MemOK.

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.