Beginner's PC

04:03:00 PM

Today overclocked versions even of the highend graphic cards are quite usual. As NVIDIA and AMD are just again fighting for the performance leadership HT4U.net found out what ASUS's overclocked version of the GeForce GTX 280 can do to achieve this goal. The review of the ASUS ENGTX280 TOP can be found here:
Source: ht4u

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"The XtracPads Hammer is another new mouse pad from the XtracPads series. It's a harder surface and it offers the hexagonal pattern for increased sensitivity for better mouse tracking. It also offers a much bigger surface than any hard surface from Xtracpads before and it's much thinner as well. Making it almost a part of your desk."
Source: burnoutpc

Category: Audio / Sound

Intel Nehalem architecture

04:01:00 PM

"I mentioned before that Intel is using Nehalem to mark the return of HyperThreading to its bag of weapons in the CPU battle; the process is nearly identical to that of the older NetBurst processors and allows two threads to run on a single CPU core. But SMT (simultaneous multi-threading) or HyperThreading is also a key to keeping the 4-wide execution engine fed with work and tasks to complete. With the larger caches and much higher memory bandwidth that the chip provides this is a very important addition."

Source: pcper

Category: CPU / Processors

ASUS ENGTX280 TOP

04:00:00 PM

"In the end, it almost always comes down to price and performance. You can buy this video card right now for $429.99 USD after MIR. The ASUS ENGTX280 TOP is one of the fastest pre-overclocked video cards available, based on the fastest single-GPU available."
Source: hardocp

Tagan EL DIABLO A+ Case Review

09:03:00 AM

The Tagan El Diablo Super Mid-Tower case is an excellent starting point for those wanting the ultimate in airflow on their new computer system. The 360mm side fan and 250mm front fan are the best in their class. The El Diablo A+ case has two minor flaws, the water cooling holes and a few cabling issues. Other than those two issues the Devilish case warrants a Hot Product award for innovative cooling, and the ability to run long PSUs in a Super Mid-Tower case. The other features I really liked were the tool less installation design meaning that you can install the drives, and expansion cards without screws and the aesthetics being part of the functionality of the case.

Source: motherboards

Category: Cases

Thermaltake Bigwater 780e ESA 3-Bay Liquid Cooling System Review

09:02:00 AM

“Today it is much more practical for my checking out watercooling, and our friends at Thermaltake have sent their latest complete watercooling setup, the Bigwater 780e ESA watercooling system. With a 120mm radiator, 530cc reservoir, and 500 L/hr pump, all fitting in three 5 1/4" drive bays, this is Thermaltake's nicest self-contained watercooling system yet. With this being my first attempt at watercooling, it will definitely be interesting. Read on to see whether I succeed, or whether I make one hell of a mess, trashing my motherboard in the process!"

Source: thinkcomputers

Category: Cooling / Heatsinks

The back-to-school season is upon us, bringing with it droves of students stocking up on books, school supplies, and something trendy to wear on that all-important first day back. Notebooks are popular at this time of year, of course, but if portability isn't a priority, desktops can offer substantially more horsepower and flexibility at significantly lower prices. The time is right, then, for another update to our system guide. It's been almost two months since the guide was updated, and its contents already read like an ancient Babylonian tale etched on stone tablets. Well, maybe not. But things change quickly in this industry, and the last two months have been no exception. Thanks to falling prices spurred by the introduction of new products, we've managed to slip a quad-core processor and a Radeon HD 4870 into our $1,000 Grand Experiment system. The $500 Econobox's gaming chops have been upgraded with a GeForce 8800 GT, too, and our $1500 Sweet Spot build has been lavished with RAID and other high-end luxuries. To make things even more interesting this time around, we've fashioned a sub-$300 PC based on Intel's new Atom processor. This system won't set any performance records, but it should satisfy users looking for basic, no-frills desktop functionality in the kind of small form factor that easily squeezes into cramped dorm rooms. Read on for all the details on this and other builds in our latest system guide.

Source: techreport

Corsair XMS2 DHX DDR2 800MHz 2 x 2GB

09:00:00 AM

"To start off the overclocking on the Corsair XMS2 DHX memory, I started pushing the frequency up by changing the memory dividers on the motherboard BIOS. I was able to get the memory to 1000MHz by loosening the memory timings to 5-5-5-15 and keeping the voltage at 2.1v. I did try to get the RAM to go to 1066MHz by raising the voltage to 2.2v, however it would not remain stable at 5-5-5-15. I was able to get them stable at 6-5-5-18, but the scores were lower than at 1000MHz (5-5-5-15) so that is what I stuck at. The overclocking tests will be run then at 1000MHz with timings of 5-5-5-15 at 2.1v which is a 20% overall overclock for these modules."

Source: overclockersclub

Category: Memory

Palit Radeon HD4870X2 Videocard Review - Hot Hot Hot!

06:04:00 AM

Today PCSTATS is testing Palit's latest videocard, the Radeon HD4870X2, sporting a pair of ATI/AMD's powerful 4870 (Radeon 770) GPUs. This dual slot card is intended to provide gamers with the power of a dual video card Crossfire setup in a single unit, and features a huge 2GB of onboard GDDR5 video memory, enough to keep both GPUs fed and happy. The Radeon HD4870X2's have an interesting price entry point, considerably lower than nVidia's original price for the geForce 280, which the twin HD4870 GPUs are aimed squarely at dethroning. We'll have to see what happens now that nVidia has slashed prices...

Source: pcstats