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Monday February 8th
2010 -
dean
First Edition
Sunbeam/Tuniq has a new contest up on
their Facebook page. You could be one of the first to take
advantage of some new USB 3.0 gear. Check it
here.
Speaking of Tuniq, the
Hard|OCP starts out
our news day with a piece aptly titled,
Tuniq Propeller vs. Thermalright Venemous X.
Thermalright has
been a company name that is synonymous with high end CPU air cooling for
years now. Tuniq is one of the newer guys on the block when it comes to
the elite heatsink and fan unit. Today we have a showdown of epic
proportions, at least to the computer hardware cooling enthusiast.
Propeller vs. Venemous X.
While some would say the HD 4870x2 is a
dated card, others including myself would say that it packs a MEAN punch
and is now more affordable to the masses.
PCShopTalk shows
off the
Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME 4870X2 VGA Cooler which is a nice way
to deal with some notorious heating issues this card has.
People that will
buy this type of cooling for their 4870X2 video cards must be patient,
because the installation can take sometimes up to one hour and a half;
this is because, usually, the thermal pads don't install in a perfect
position from the first time and we have to do lots of reseats to
complete the job. Also, we have to make sure that when we install
the heatsinks for the VRMs, we are aligning perfectly with the holes on
the PCB.
MSI
N240GT-MD512 OC/D5 anyone?
Bjorn3D has the
skinny on this $90 wonder.
The latest GT
240 from NVIDIA is manufactured with the 40nm processing technology that
will ensure the card runs cooler than previous generation of cards. Not
only that the card runs cooler, it also consumes less power. As a
result, the GT 240 draws power directly from the PCI Express slot and
does not need any auxiliary power. This is good news for those who wish
to upgrade their system without spending extra money on a power supply.
Kicking it up a notch is the crew of
the
Overclocker's Club as they put a sample of the
PowerColor Radeon HD 5750 through its paces.
Performance at
stock was right about where it should be, there weren't any surprises.
The 1GB of memory helped out in some games at 2560x1600 while others the
card was just too weak. Once the big overclock set in though, this card
was a performer! It wasn't ground shattering, but it did help the 5750
catch up to the other cards and made it feel less like a low-midrange
GPU.
Lots of VGA cards on deck with
Tweaktown being
next up with coverage of the
MSI Radeon HD 5770 HAWK 1GB Video Card.
The HD 5770
in my books is already a great card. It's great for gamers who don't
want to spend HD 5800 money but still want to do some serious gaming. To
be honest, though, next to the HAWK version from MSI the stock one looks
slow. The ability and ease of adjusting the voltage on the HD 5770 HAWK
is fantastic.
Motherboards.org
is next as they check out the
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 Video Card.
The Home
Theater PC owner with a low-profile case this card is the perfect fit.
It offers much higher performance than the latest integrated graphics
technology from Intel or AMD, draws less power, has no active cooling
and has the ability to run three monitors on a PCB that is the same size
as the previous generation HD 4350 card which has the same specs in
terms of Stream Processors.
At least we found one NVIDIA card reviewed.
Benchmark Reviews
has it laid out on the
EVGA GTX275 CO-OP Video Card for your Monday.
Most partners simply produce the
reference design and slap an identifying sticker on the card's cooler;
although some might replace the reference design cooler with a quieter
or more powerful solution, with few exceptions there's little to
distinguish one partner's version of a specific card from another
partner's version of the same card. EVGA breaks out of this rut with
their EVGA GTX 275 CO-OP PhysX Edition, model 012-P3-1178-TR, which
combines NVIDIA GTS250 and GTX275 GPUs on the same card, and Benchmark
Reviews takes it around the block to see what it's got.
NZXT Hades Case action for the brave. See
Overclockers
Online for more.
NZXT has manufactured a good case
and after some modification, Hades has found a place to call home with
this reviewer. Beautifully sculpted and outrageous airflow for $89.99 US
is astounding. I'd recommend this case to anyone looking for cutting
edge styling, great airflow and nice cable management features as long
as you don't use liquid cooling and/or a large heat sink as the case
will not close.
This and that.
Ultra X4 1600 Watt Full Modular PSU at Tweaktown.
Microsoft Explorer Wireless Rechargeable Mouse at Tweaknews.
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Saturday February 6th
2010 -
dean
Snowed In Again Edition
Being snowed in here on the East Coast
really makes me sit back and consider the seeming contradictions of what
we consider entertainment. Immediately after harvesting my crops
on Farmville, I sit back and watch Zombieland which was all after
building a hamster cage for my son while humming Metallica tunes in my
head. Perhaps it's just the snow.
Moving on, let's check the news
bucket.
Pro-Clockers
has a go with the bargain priced
Gigabyte GV-R545OC Radeon HD 5450 Card.
One should be
smart enough to know that not all graphic cards are aimed at the next
great FPS. Video cards are broken down into segments just like anything
else. There is the gamer, the graphic workstation owner and many others
that have a GPU aimed at them. In the case of the Radeon HD 5450, we
could possibly have the best home theater GPU on the market.
Here we find the
NZXT Beta EVO Mid Tower Case reviewed over at
Think Computers.
The NZXT Beta
EVO is surely an improvement over the original Beta case. The many
upgrades to the case make it all that much better. The case offers what
people look for in a gaming case at an affordable price, between $40 and
$60, depending on where you get it. Overall there’s really not a lot you
can say bad about this case, it does what it should do while having the
extra features that other cases of this price range don’t have.
There are a bunch of cases reviewed
now that I'm looking deeper in the bucket. Here is
R&B Mods and the
XClio Nighthawk Case.
Today we have a
review with one of XClio's mid tower cases, priced at $80. This case is
targeted at both the average and the hardcore gamer, XClio attempts to
hit multiple markets with their 'Nighthawk'. The Nighthawk features
support for up to 8 HDD's using their unique 'smart modulation system,'
and also supports full size video cards, including ATI's new beast; the
5970.
Followed up with the
SilverStone Grandia GD05 HTPC Case that the pros of the
OCIA are checking out
today.
The
SilverStone Grandia GD05 is a great SFF HTPC case that packs a lot of
stuff into a very small space. Although it requires using a micro-ATX
motherboard, it will fit a standard size power supply and even a full
length video card, possibly even two. The brushed aluminum appearance of
the front bezel will let the GD05 look right at home in most any
entertainment center, and the incredibly short 12.8" depth ensures you
won't be left with part of the case hanging out the front.
Next up case wise is the
Thermaltake Element V Case by the crew of
PureOverclock.
The
Thermaltake Element V, with flash and features for the gamer crowd,
offers some considerable space for higher-end gear. Can it fit a
behemoth Radeon 5970? Yes. Does it have a 2.5" SSD bracket? Yes. But to
truly suit the gamer crowd, does it have the prerequisite cliché LED
flashing lights? Yes. Well then, let's have a closer look at the
Thermaltake Element V full tower and see how it stacks up.
Benchmark Reviews
has supersized it; well at least AZZA did. See what they think
about
AZZA's Solano 1000R Full Tower Case.
The AZZA
Solano also boasts "maximum thermal management with fans installed
everywhere" to keep your high end hardware cool. In sum, a total of two
230mm fans, two 140mm fans and one 120mm fan work in harmony to provide
you maximum airflow.
Our friends at
Techware Labs
have some coverage of the
Cooler Master ATCS 840 Case.
The
spacious interior allows for ample room for you to work inside and have
the new latest and greatest pieces of hardware. The case itself blows
out mostly cold air unless we were attempting to overclock and push a
processor to its limits. However the hot air was quite literally only
blowing out towards the top in the spot where the CPU was. At a price of
$179.99 at Newegg this may be one of
those cases you want to shell out some extra cash for, you wont regret
it.
A little mobo-age for your weekend in
the
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P Motherboard that
PC Stats has on
deck.
Enter the Gigabyte
GA-P55A-UD4P motherboard, based on Intel's P55 Express chipset with a
trio of augmentations that push its capabilities beyond the typical
Intel P55 offering. Top of the list is Gigabyte's 333 Onboard
Acceleration marketing pitch, which in real world terms is USB3.0, SATA
III and 3x USB power. Phew... all the GA-P55A-UD4P needs now is a
Laser-7 optical connection and then you can finally hook up that Wii!
Odds and Ends.
Zalman CNPS10X Extreme & CNPS10X Flex CPU Coolers at Bjorn3D.
SteelSeries 7G Gaming Keyboard at Overclock3D.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU Cooler
at Hardware Secrets.
Kingston HyperX 1600MHz 12GB Triple Channel Memory Kit
at Test Freaks.
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Thursday February 4th
2010 -
dean
Another One Edition
Looks like another winter storm headed
in. Even my kids groaned at the notion of staying home again.
Yikes! Let's move on to more pleasant things.
Our friends at Tweaktown show off the
ATI Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire.
What's
interesting is just how far along CrossFire has come. In almost every
benchmark we saw gains of around 90% with a second card added. Only a
few generations ago performance was all over the place with a second
card being a hindrance sometimes. You can see that even with these low
end cards, Crossfire gains are extremely consistent these days.
Here is Tweaktown's review of the
Sapphire HD 5450 as a single.
Benchmark Reviews
has a go with the
Radeon HD 5450 as well but this review is on the card in stand alone
trim.
With the
architecture it inherits from the Cypress, the ATI HD5450 has all the
modern features that the larger GPU brings to the table. However,
sporting only 292 million transistors, including just 80 Stream
Processors, the new card idles along at 6.4 watts and never pulls more
than 20 watts; no matter how hard you drive it. They've even managed to
do this without the energy-saving benefits of GDDR5 this time, as the
card will be equipped with GDDR3 or GDDR2, depending on the model and
preference of the AIB partner.
PureOverclock isn't to be left out with coverage on the new
Radeon HD 5450. This card is from the Sapphire stables.
The Sapphire
Radeon 5450 is a very small, low-power, silent, budget graphics card,
marketed in the sub-$50 range to consumers who may be interested in
something for their HTPC or the occasional foray into some light gaming.
It's the baby of the 5000 series Radeon cards, and offers some great
value for those people with a minimal budget.
Let's see, one more review of the
Sapphire HD 5450 for you. Thank
Hardware
Canucks.
Speaking of
price, ATI has decided to compete directly with a pair of newly-released
NVIDIA cards: the GT 210 and GT 220. According to our research, both of
these 200-series cards have recently undergone a bit of a price cut in
anticipation of the HD 5450. You can now find GT 210 DDR2 cards for
about $45 while the significantly more powerful GT 220’s price ranges
from $60 for the 512MB DDR2 models to about $75 for the 1GB GDDR3 units.
As such, the HD 5450 bridges the gap between these two cards but ends up
competing with both so it will be interesting to see how well it
performs.
Yet the Radeons keep on coming. Up
a notch is the
GIGABYTE HD 5670 1GB Card that is reviewed by the pros of
Bjorn3D.
The 5670 video
card does perform decent however. The only people I can see that would
use this video card, are those who have a HP/Dell computers that does
not have an additional PCI-E power plug from their PSU who want a little
bit of a booster in the graphic department. Or for those who are using
an HTPC that just wants a video card for HD/Internet TV watching that
just wants a plug and play configuration with no extra wires to attach
may find this an attractive card.
Still at Bjorn3D is this post on the
Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor-X.
HIS Radeon HD 5750 coverage up at none other than
TweakNews.
HIS has done a
great job of releasing a feature-filled HD5750 option for the mild
gaming consumer to consider. With excellent cooling and an included free
DX11 game, this HD5750 for US$155 can be summed up against other HD5750s
as being one of the best options available.
Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor-X anyone? See
TechPowerUp for
the skinny.
Sapphire has
chosen to stick with the proven AMD PCB design and added their custom
Vapor-X cooling solution. Unfortunately the clock speeds have remained
the same as on the reference design: 850 / 1200. Considering that all
other overclocked version from other AIBs (that I have seen to far) go
to like 875 / 1250, there is not much difference anyway. Sapphire HD
5770 Vapor-X can be found online for around $175, which is $20 more than
the reference design from AMD.
Treat bag.
Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler at PCShopTalk.
Cooler Master GX 750w PSU at Hardware Secrets.
Cooler Master GX 750W PSU at PureOverclock.
Noctua NH-D14 Dual Fan CPU Cooler at
Pro-Clockers.
Ultra X4 600w Modular ATX PSU at Overclock3D.
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