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| The Obama Brand? /// Thomas Monk |
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Nelson Mandela has streets, hospitals and schools named after him. Kennedy and Lennon are now airports. So what is being named in honour of President Obama? How about a USB stick!
Active Media Products, manufacturer of unique USB drives including the WWF Penguin and Panda drives, today announced immediate availability of the new 8GB Obama USB drive. the new USB flash drive that commemorates President Barack Obama, and comes pre-loaded with President Obama’s Inaugural Address.
www.activemp.com
I guess that's fitting for a 21st Century President. What next... the i/o-bama wi-fi router?
Think on 
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Battlefield 1943 Release Dates /// Thomas Monk |
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Electronic Arts announced today that Battlefield 1943 will be available for Xbox 360 on July 8th and for PS3 on July 9th, priced 1200 MS Points and $15 respectively - the PC version is scheduled for this September. , or 1200 MS Points.
www.gamershell.com
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Domino ALC System /// Thomas Monk |
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When CoolIT System first came on the market it was very obvious that this was not your mothers CPU cooling company. First they brought us the Freezone Elite and we were totally impressed by its performance. Now they are offering the Domino Advance Liquid Cooling System which has a MSRP of less than $100 USD.
www.hi-techreviews.com
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Thermaltake Element G Case /// Thomas Monk |
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Thermaltake Element G (a.k.a. VL10001W2Z) is based on the same internal design used on Element S - seven internal 3 ½" bays, two internal 2.5" bays, etc -, but externally they are completely different products. Let's see what the differences between the two are and if it is worthwhile buying this case.
www.hardwaresecrets.com
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Nyko Wii Charge Station /// Thomas Monk |
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Most other game manufacturers have discovered that rechargable controllers is the way to go. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have rechargable gamepads. Even Nintendo's own DS has a built-in rechargable battery. With everyone getting on the "green" bandwagon, it doesn't make sense to suck up a set of AA batteries every 15-20 hours.
www.ocmodshop.com
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Maximo iM590 iMetal earphones /// Thomas Monk |
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Relatively unknown Maximo recently released their iM-590 earphones. Based on a 9 mm driver and boosting a metal exterior these earphones will undoubtedly turn some heads. The price of just $59 certainly will.
www.techpowerup.com
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Sparkle GeForce GTX 275 /// Thomas Monk |
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Sparkle may not be the first manufacturer that comes to mind if you're considering a new video card from Team Green, but the company is hoping its GeForce GTX 275 series can score it some mindshare in the sub-$250 segment. It's been a few months since the first wave of GTX 275 and ATI 4890 cards hit the market, and more mature drivers may shed a different light on relative performance.
www.legitreviews.com
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Kingston SSDNow M-Series /// Thomas Monk |
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The Kingston SSDNow Upgrade Kit is a product whose time has come. Not only does the retail kit make it much easier to install a blazing fast SSD into your desktop in less than 30 minutes with your data migrated over, but it also gives desktop users the option to easily install a traditional notebook sized drive into their desktop.
www.tweaktown.com
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Eagle Arion 2.1 iDock Speakers /// Thomas Monk |
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Today for review I’ve got the Eagle Arion ET-AR402IR-BK 2.1 iDock Speakers with Subwoofer, it’s an iPod dock, but most any audio source can be hooked up to it. When you first get the Eagle Arion iDock, the first thing you’ll notice is that it’s heavy and very well made with a nice subtle design to it.
www.testfreaks.com
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CoolIT Domino A.L.C /// Thomas Monk |
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For true CPU cooling performance and silence, air cooling is not thought to be the solution. You need water cooling. It seems a scary concept – cooling your processor with water – which is why many enthusiasts steer clear of the idea. Moreover, it can be costly with an average kit easily topping the £100 mark.
tech-reviews.co.uk
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Tales of Monkey Island Trailer /// Thomas Monk |
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Telltale Games has released a new gameplay footage and several new screenshots from Tales of Monkey Island, showcasing the next installment in the Monkey Island series, delivering a completely new epic storyline that will unfold across five monthly episodes on PC and WiiWare.
www.gamershell.com
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Call Of Juarez 2 Review /// Thomas Monk |
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Bound In Blood is a complicated story which once again deals with a cursed treasure in the setting of the wild west. You are introduced to Ray and Thomas McCall, brothers in the Confederate army who leave their posts to rescue their family home from union soldiers.
www.gamingheaven.net
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Rosewill RM-8500 Mouse /// Thomas Monk |
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For average users, a mouse is just a pointing device, but for hardcore gamers having a mouse with high DPI and precision is a matter of life and death in the virtual battleground. The reality is that for even average users who are using large displays, they will also benefit from a high dpi mouse because it helps to move around the screen without much need for hand movements. Just try to move across the screen with 500 or 800 DPI mouse if you are using a 22'' display or larger and try to do the same thing with a mouse with 1000 DPI or higher and you will notice how quickly and easily you can move across the screen.
www.bjorn3d.com
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Lenovo ThinkPad T500 Laptop /// Thomas Monk |
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Five years ago back in 2004, IBM sold their PC business onto the Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group. Today we’re going to be taking a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad T500, a laptop which is said to withhold the qualities the industry has come to expect from the ThinkPad series.
www.driverheaven.net
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Nexus 9000 Liquid Cooling Pad /// Thomas Monk |
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Today at Tech-Reviews we have the TDD-9000 Nexus Cooling Pad. There are many different types of cooling solutions for notebooks available and each claim to work wonders, but the Nexus Liquid Cooling Pad specifically claims of a whopping 17 Degree drop in laptop temperature (based on their own independent tests). It’s now time to find out whether or not their claim is the result of an exaggerated marketing company or reality.
tech-reviews.co.uk
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OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD /// Thomas Monk |
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OCZ's premier Vertex SSD is put under the test microscope. We evalute whether a £325 drive makes sense.
www.hexus.net
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Sapphire Toxic HD4890 VaporX /// Thomas Monk |
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Armed with a nice vapor chamber heatpipe based cooler and with it's clock frequency locked at a steady 960 MHz, this little beast is ready for some serious gaming action. And it doesn't stop there though, even the nice phat 1 GB graphics memory is clocked higher at 4200 MHz.
www.guru3d.com
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NZXT Khaos Aluminum case /// Thomas Monk |
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When on the look out for a new case to out fit your rig, you may have a peek over at what NZXT is producing. NZXT is still a young company, only being established in 2004. However, they have produced a fairly decent sized list of computer chassis, some with a very unique design and look. With the NZXT Khaos at hand, one can only speculate as to what NZXT has in mind as a "unique" and "unparalleled design".
www.techwarelabs.com
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Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P /// Thomas Monk |
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AM3 has never looked so good. With support for both DDR2 and DDR3 on the same CPU, the possibilities with this platform are endless. We have already seen quite a few good boards come out, either supporting one or the other technology and some with both. But one thing remains constant; a good price and a pretty good performing board and CPU combo for the outlay.
www.tweaktown.com
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Maxcube Amoris 6010 case /// Thomas Monk |
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For Maxcube's first case, I must say I am impressed with the features it brings to the table. Not only is the case sleek and stylish, but it has function as well. The case features two more front USB ports than most cases I've seen and is following with the new trend of bring eSATA to the front panel as well.
www.overclockersclub.com
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Radius Atomic Bass Earphones /// Thomas Monk |
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We all know that the "stock" earphones that come with most products are not the best. The iPhone is not any different, the earphones that are included are good, but nothing great. There are so many third party earphone's made specifically for the iPhone it is hard to choose. Well Radius has sent us their Atomic Bass Earphones for iPhone that have a quite low retail price compared to other earphone's out there.
www.thinkcomputers.org
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Evercool Buffalo CPU cooler /// Thomas Monk |
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The Evercool Buffalo HPFI7-10025 CPU cooler offers Socket 1366 compatibility in a small form 100mm fan setup. It is a good looking little heatsink that offers stunning value as the least expensive Socket 1366 performance cooler on the market. The question is, however: how well does it cool?
www.pureoverclock.com
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9500GT & 9600GT on a Diet /// Thomas Monk |
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We check out low-profile incarnations of the GeForce 9500GT and 9600GT from Albatron and Galaxy... how do they fare compared to their full-sized brethren?
vr-zone.com
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Nyko Metal Drum Pedal /// Thomas Monk |
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In all seriousness, not everyone can be as awesome as me while playing a little guitar controller for Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Thanks to Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour, those people can play the drums. Playing these toy drums feel more like playing real instruments than the little guitar controllers. Until the cheap foot pedal breaks, reminding you just how much of a toy these thing can be.
www.ocmodshop.com
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SSD performance in Vista /// Thomas Monk |
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Our last SSD round-up caused quite a stir for using an older test system with Windows XP. We've now explored SSD performance on more current hardware with Vista x64 SP2, and you might be surprised by the results.
techreport.com
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Corsair CX400W Power Supply /// Thomas Monk |
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CX400W is the simplest power supply offered by Corsair, featuring active PFC, a 120-mm fan on its bottom, single-rail design and costing only around USD 50. Is it a good product?
www.hardwaresecrets.com
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Kingwin XT-1264 HTC Cooler /// Thomas Monk |
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New for 2009, Kingwin has replaced the RVT-12025 with a newer, updated tower cooler dubbed the XT-1264. Both models retain their machined individual copper heatpipe base with aluminum fin configuration coupled with a 120mm fan. The new cooler design is a few millimeters shorter than the old RVT but nearly 2½cm thicker for increased fin surface area. Heatpipe count has been increased from three to four for better performance and heat dissipation. Support for Intel's socket 1366 is also added.
www.ocia.net
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Nokia N97 - A Means to an N /// Thomas Monk |
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It's been said that good things come to those who wait. We did wait for six whole months after the Nokia N97 was announced during Nokia World in December 2008. Thankfully, the wait is now over, and today we bring you the full review of Nokia's flagship model for 2009. Find out if the N97 lives up to its hype.
www.hardwarezone.com
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OCZ FATAL1TY 550W PSU /// Thomas Monk |
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Most PC’s however will not require such a huge amount of power which is why there are many high performance, lower wattage PSU’s currently on offer. With this in mind I introduce the: OCZ Fatal1ty 550w PSU.
tech-reviews.co.uk
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City of Heroes Issue 15 Trailer /// Thomas Monk |
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NCsoft and Paragon Studios have released a trailer for Issue 15: Anniversary, showcasing the latest content update for City of Heroes. This update features new mission options for both Villains and Heroes, as well as new costumes and faces.
www.gamershell.com
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Gainward GTX 295 /// Thomas Monk |
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Gainward is getting ready to launch a GeForce GTX 295 with 1792MB memory on a single PCB. The graphics card is predicted to have a great interest with computer enthusiasts globally.
tech-reviews.co.uk
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Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ OC /// Thomas Monk |
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The new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 comes with 216 stream processors, 24 more than the original GeForce GTX 260. This gave it a small 12.5% boost in texture fillrate while everything else remained the same. This small improvement, however, gave the GeForce GTX 260 new life and allowed it to better compete with the Radeon HD 4850.
www.techarp.com
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EVGA X58 3X SLI Mobo /// Thomas Monk |
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With a whopping $425 price-tag, $125 higher than their baseline X58 motherboard, EVGA is confident that they have a board which can out-class all others in order to demand such a price premium. But what do you get for that extra $125?
hothardware.com
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Nanovision MIMO USB Monitor /// Thomas Monk |
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Nanovision did the thinking for you and introduced their MIMO UM-710 monitor, which is a cute little seven-inch secondary monitor. It is based on USB technology, so it is incredibly easy to hook up, and works on just about any modern computer. Unfortunately, your host computer needs a decent amount of horsepower to drive this thing, as we'll soon see.
www.ocmodshop.com
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Apple iPhone 3.1 OS Update /// Thomas Monk |
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The new beta build 7C97D for iPhone OS 3.1 has no official changes as of yet but reports suggest that it makes both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS much speedier moving around in the operating system. Supposedly there is a new feature in Safari called, "Fraud Warning" which warns users when visiting phishing and other fraudulent websites on their phone.
techfragments.com
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Vuzix iWear AV310 Widescreen /// Thomas Monk |
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One of the great features of this product is that it can run for up to eleven hours on a single ‘AA’ battery, that’s more than enough for most any viewing needs. It comes complete with connections for iPod and standard A/V as well. The idea behind Vuzix products is privacy, they are small and lightweight allowing you to take them anywhere with you really. So read on to learn more about them.
www.testfreaks.com
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MSI Wind U100 Overclocking /// Thomas Monk |
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MSI recently released a BIOS update that includes overclocking features in the BIOS for the Wind U100 netbook series. Once this feature is enabled in the BIOS you can select a CPU overclock of either 8%, 15% or 24%, for a maximum overclock of 2GHz. Read on to see how far we can overclock our U100 and to see what overclocking does for performance.
www.legitreviews.com
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Acer DX900 Dual SIM Phone /// Thomas Monk |
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Acer hopes that the DX900 will be a sure fire hit but the amount of consumers who are actually looking for dual SIM functionality is likely to be a small minority. With this in mind, can Acer still produce a phone which warrants purchase using just a single SIM card?
verdisreviews.com
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Split Loop Water Cooling /// Thomas Monk |
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When water cooling multiple video cards we still daisy chain the two video cards together. This becomes increasingly problematic when dealing with 'High Restrictive' video card water blocks. This guide is a modification of these types of cooling systems, and with a bit of time, luck, and also a lot of patience, they can be integrated into other aspects of water cooling.
I run a split loop. The more usual daisy chaining method is more of a problem with components further down stream receiving warmer water at less pressure. However, I don't really think that's much of an issue. You could work out which card overclocks the best and place that second in the chain. In this example a separate radiator is used in each loop, however one larger rad in the main flow would do just as well. I use just one rad, but that does happen to be a car radiator! Balanced flow resistance is still an important consideration in a split loop system. If the water blocks in one loop present greater resistance than the blocks in the other then the loop with the greater resistance will suffer a proportional reduction in flow rate. I fed one loop into my GTX 295 graphics card and then on to my 8800 GTX PhysX accelerator, and the other loop into my CPU and then into my North-Bridge cooler. It seems to work okay. I split a single 1/2 inch into two 3/8 inch. This will introduce a pressure drop, but my system is run at a higher pressure than normal anyway. The more natural split might be a 1/2 inch into two 1/4 inch. Again, I don't think pipe diameter makes a huge difference. Although they say water pressure is important, water temperature and flow rate are still the most important factors.
www.bjorn3d.com
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Promise SmartStor NS4600 /// Thomas Monk |
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It's a 4-bay NAS in case you were wondering.
Today we are dusting off the SmartStor NS4600 from Promise Technology for a round of benchmarks. This new NAS device is designed to replace the older NS4300N by significantly boosting performance. While the hardware specifications look promising, we were once again reminded of the importance that software plays.
legionhardware.com
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Razer Salmosa Gaming Mouse /// Thomas Monk |
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Most recently, Razer has now further entered the entry-level gaming mouse product with the introduction of the Salmosa, which is a sub-$40 USD but still promises high precision with its 3G infrared sensor.
www.phoronix.com
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Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME /// Thomas Monk |
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Manufactures of the highly popular Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Cooling are definitely not a manufacturer unknown to computer cooling solutions. One range of product which Arctic Cooling is significantly growing its product base in is CPU coolers. Today we’ll be reviewing the latest processor cooler to enter their product portfolio, the Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME.
tech-reviews.co.uk
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Cooler Master HAF922 Chassis /// Thomas Monk |
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Today we’re going to be looking at another model in the HAF lineup, the HAF 922. The HAF 922 is effectively a brother to the 932 and offers a selection of the key features but in a smaller package at a cheaper price.
www.driverheaven.net
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ASUS Radeon HD 4890 Voltage /// Thomas Monk |
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The Voltage Tweak model from ASUS is something we've heard about for a while now. The idea behind it is that ASUS gives the user even more control of the card when it comes to overclocking. Not only do you have the ability to overclock the standard clocks like memory and core, but you also have the ability to adjust the voltage.
www.tweaktown.com
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Cooler Master Sileo 500 case /// Thomas Monk |
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Is your mother complaining to you about her computer being too loud? I bet she also doesn't like all the bells and whistles of a lot of gaming cases, but I have an answer to your problem. The Cooler Master Sileo 500 is a plain, yet sturdy case jam packed with sound insulation material. You probably want to check this out even if your mother isn't complaining to you because the Sileo 500 also comes with a 500 watt power supply for an affordable silent case & power supply solution.
www.thinkcomputers.org
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Gigabyte P55 motherboard /// Thomas Monk |
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We have the opportunity to show you a P55 motherboard stripped down butt-nekkid. Now we can't say much more about the chipset, neither can we test it with a processor. So this sneak preview is merely a quickie session with photo's about Gigabyte's P55 offering.
www.guru3d.com
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Core i7 Memory O/C stability /// Thomas Monk |
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In today's short article, we'll have a look at the effect of just one memory timing, the Back-to-Back Cas Delay timing, which seems to be one of the more important timings both performance and stability-wise. If you're looking for a solution for your high-frequency capable memory kit, performance increase with low-frequency memory or stabilizing high BCLK/high memory ... this is something for you.
www.madshrimps.be
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ECS Black Series X58B-A mobo /// Thomas Monk |
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The Intel Core i7 is the current king of the desktop performance market and shows no signs of slowing down. At present, the Core i7 processor is the superior number crunching executioner of choice compared to any other CPU solution to cross this test bench to date. This success would be for naught without the X58 platform which currently solely supports it.
www.futurelooks.com
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Thermaltake Litepower 450W /// Thomas Monk |
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The Thermaltake Litepower 450W power supply is an absurdly plain-looking unit that claims not to be run-of-the-mill. Let's see if judging a book by its cover proves unwise today as we put the Litepower to the test.
www.pureoverclock.com
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Antec ISK300-65 HTPC Case /// Thomas Monk |
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Benchmark Reviews recently called on the Antec ISK300-65 Mini-ITX HTPC computer case to complete our NVIDIA ION Home Theater PC project. The lightweight mITX case offers a 65W power supply and room for a slim optical drive and 2.5" SSD or HDD. The Antec ISK300 fits two 80mm fans along the side, which help exhaust heated air out of the enclosure. Enthusiast can stand the ISK300 case upright, allowing this HTPC enclosure to fit nicely beside other entertainment center electronics.
benchmarkreviews.com
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Macbook Pro Kingston SSD /// Thomas Monk |
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Hello everyone, today we post our very first video review based on upgrading a 13'' Macbook Pro Laptop with and 80GB Kingston SSD and 4 GB of Crucial DDR3 8500 1066Mhz memory. This was a fun review to do as it takes us in a different direction than the standard written reviews you are used to seeing on motherboards.org. Thanks for all your support, we hope you enjoy this new video review format.
www.motherboards.org
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Seventeam ST-750P-AF PSU /// Thomas Monk |
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Seventeam is slowly entering the US market and ST-750P-AF is one of the few products from them available around here. Is it a good product? Can it deliver its labeled power?
www.hardwaresecrets.com
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Rocketfish 550W PSU /// Thomas Monk |
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The electronics store chain Best Buy has several house brands and two of them are used for computer components: Dynex and Rocketfish. We have already reviewed Dynex 400 W power supply and Rocketfish 700 W power supply. While the models we reviewed a while ago were manufactured by Huntkey, Best Buy decided to hire a different company for their 550 W model: CWT. They also replaced Huntkey as the manufacturer for their 700 W model, so the 700 W model you find now on stores today (labeled "RF-700WPS2") is manufactured by CWT, not by Huntkey anymore.
www.hardwaresecrets.com
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Sanyo eneloop Solar Light /// Thomas Monk |
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Sanyo helps you step towards ecological friendliness with the eneloop Solar Light, a portable LED flashlight and rechargeable battery with USB output, all powered by a solar panel.
www.hardwarezone.com
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Galaxy GeForce GTX 285 OC /// Thomas Monk |
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NVIDIA's GTX 200 class cards require some serious gear to keep them cool. Galaxy has gone the whole nine yards and has stacked a large triple-fan cooler from Artic Cooling on top of their GeForce GTX 285 card to ensure it is undoubtedly the coolest of its class.
www.hardwarezone.com
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AMD TWKR Giveaway /// Thomas Monk |
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Well, today’s the day that the word is out on the AMD TWKR CPU. As speculated, it’s a high current chip that can take the extreme stresses of Liquid Nitrogen overclocking.
www.wallacesantos.com
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Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme TIM /// Thomas Monk |
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Lately we've been looking at a few different thermal compounds and this time up we're looking at one aimed at the high end user and overclocker so we should be expecting better results than the premium thermal compounds that most consumers buy.
www.eteknix.com
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Call of Juarez 2 Ships /// Thomas Monk |
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Recently, it has become common for many people to have an external hard drive enclosure, these generally speaking have been purchased with the HDD already installed for a greater price than an enclosure and a HDD. This means that there is money to be saved by buying the components separately and fitting them yourself. With that in mind I introduce the Vizo Saturno.
tech-reviews.co.uk
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Vizo Saturno 2.5in Ext. HDD /// Thomas Monk |
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Recently, it has become common for many people to have an external hard drive enclosure, these generally speaking have been purchased with the HDD already installed for a greater price than an enclosure and a HDD. This means that there is money to be saved by buying the components separately and fitting them yourself.
tech-reviews.co.uk
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Sapphire HD 4730 512MB /// Thomas Monk |
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Sapphire's new HD 4730 is based on the RV770 GPU which is used on the HD 48xx Series. Such a choice had to be made because the availability of the HD4770 GPU is extremely limited at this time - while customer demand is up. Sapphire offers their card with 640 shaders and 512 MB GDDR5 memory at an extremely competitive price point of only $79.
www.techpowerup.com
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Interview: Alienware /// Thomas Monk |
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Hi, I’m Frank Azor and I run Product Planning and Management for Dell’s Gaming brand Alienware. My responsibilities include managing the team that plans and creates our worldwide product roadmap and the definition of all of our products within it.
www.driverheaven.net
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Kingston HyperX memory cooler /// Thomas Monk |
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What Kingston has come up with is the Kingston HyperX Fan or KHX-FAN as it’s labeled on the package. The KHX-FAN is a memory cooler that uses the power of a motherboard header or any 3-pin fan connection to spin the dual fan designed arrangement. I’m no stranger to what these types of coolers are capable of do | |
