News

The market for PC cases is more competitive now than it has ever been. To have a product stand out, it not only needs to be well built and designed, but it also needs something to make it noticed. HardwareLogic has the Cooler Master Storm Enforcer, a case that brings a few interesting innovations to the market while still carrying a relatively value-oriented price tag.Next Page »

Sure, you can spend tons of money on a gaming case. Do you really want to spend $200 or more on an enclosure for your components? Antec doesn't think that should be the case. Their Six Hundred v2 targets the $100 budget crowd and while it is a nice looking case, there are certain things that Antec could do better.Next Page »

Sometimes you need a component to really differentiate your build from another. There are few unique parts to pick from, but every so often there comes certain components that really light up. The Tracer series from Crucial is one such product and the new Smart Tracer series promises to make your RAM light up in all different ways.
Next Page »

We have said that optical drives and media are on the way out. It is just how technology churns. Still, we are happy to keep a few spare optical drives around and an external drive means portability. The Lite-On eNAU608 brings more features than the previous eNAU108 we reviewed earlier. LabelTag and LightScribe are the biggest additions.Next Page »

While most USB devices are fairly low bandwidth, people need to have external storage that is fast enough for backup. No one wants to wait around for that file copy dialog to finish. Kingston wants to put USB 3 to the test by marrying one of their SSDs and a USB 3 controller in a single package. The HyperX MAX 3.0 is ready to go.Next Page »

Technology moves pretty fast, in this day and age. It was back in April that we said Thermaltake would produce a USB 3.0 BlacX and the BlacX 5G is their newest model featuring the superspeed design.Next Page »

Sometimes your stuck with a situation that renders your internal optical drive useless. Either the drive goes bad, or some other random problem occurred. You could opt for another internal drive, but external drives offer portability and ease of installation without hassle. The Lite-On eNAU108 is their newest slim USB drive.Next Page »

There are many times that it becomes difficult to add more internal storage to fileservers. The basic one is running out of drive bays. While USB or eSATA drives may seem like a quick fix, it quickly becomes a problem when you need redundant storage. Sans Digital has the answer with its 5-bay TR5UTP. The TR5UTP handles all RAID calculations on its own leaving you with performance externally.Next Page »

With USB 3.0 proliferation continuing to spread, more and more manufacturers have been scrambling to introduce cases that support the new standard. Thermaltake has heeded the call created by this new standard by introducing several new cases with USB 3.0 support included, and today HardwareLogic has such a case, the Armor A60 mid-tower case, up for review. We really liked the older Armor A90, but will the A60 be able to live up to the standards set by its bigger brother?Next Page »

When it comes to the important task of cooling PC components, there is no substitute for a full-tower case. Even the cheapest of them tend to offer features you really can't get in mid-tower cases, and the physical size of the case is an asset by itself. NZXT is no stranger to PC cases, and today HardwareLogic has the NZXT Phantom up for review. Available in multiple colors, the Phantom is NZXT's newest entry into the market, and it does certain things quite a bit differently from other full-tower cases.Next Page »

The ominous and looming Dark Fleet of cases from Antec have arrived. This new line brings a much different look from previous high-end designs like the Hundred series. The DF-85 is a full size ATX case with plenty of room for cable management and includes some special features. It also has a red and black design which is always a plus.Next Page »

You've come to the right place if you want speed. If price is no option, enter the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB drive. This SSD packs in two ARM9 CPUs for blazing fast transfer speeds of 355MB/s on reads and 215MB/s on writes. It is faster than 3Gb/s Serial ATA can handle! Crucial has upped the ante in the super fast SSD market.Next Page »

It isn't often that you see innovation in PC fans. Other than the occasional oddball sizes, fans are generally standardized in design. Seemingly answering the call, Sharkoon has created the Silent Eagle series of PC fans. Sharkoon has applied some clever ideas to their fans in hopes to differentiate them from the others on the market as well as increase performance. Today, HardwareLogic has the Silent Eagle 80mm and 120mm models up for review in order to determine if the innovation equals improvement.Next Page »

Today HardwareLogic is looking at the Thermaltake Armor A90, another new product in Thermaltake's Armor range of midrange PC cases. It offers a stealth fighter-esque exterior design, but does it have quality and practicality to back up the looks?Next Page »

Over the past few years, we have seen a myriad of new coolers in our lab here at HardwareLogic and time and again, Thermaltake has proven themselves very capably of making a great product. Today we take a look at Thermaltake's latest offering, the Frio. Does this cooler continue Thermaltake's trend of creating great coolers, or will this just be a forgotten chapter in cooling history? Read on as we put the Frio through it's paces and see if it lives up to its name.Next Page »

The importance of a good PC case cannot be understated. They provide airflow for components, as well as protect them from the elements. Despite this, people building PCs may substitute lower quality cases when the money runs out. In order to provide a good performance alternative for those working on a budget, Thermaltake has introduced the V3 Black Edition.Next Page »

Combining silence, convenience, and style, the Fusion Remote Black is an excellent enclosure for a home theater PC. With its special triple chamber design and dual 120mm fans, the Fusion Remote Black runs quietly and coolly. If that weren't enough, the Fusion Remote Black boasts an included remote control and media management software.Next Page »

Why would Kingston be coming out with a 30GB SSD boot drive if they already have a 40GB for sale? Without providing TRIM or garbage collection, Kingston scrapped the product and wanted to produce something the community was asking for. The 30GB boot drive was born with a new controller and slightly better specs.Next Page »

With SSDs becoming more popular and with newer operating systems finally offering native support, it is only natural that more and more companies would be stepping into the ring with products. Today, HardwareLogic has the Imation M-Class 128GB SSD for review, and is one of Imation's many entries into the SSD market.Next Page »

It is always interesting when a new controller steps into the market for SSDs and today we are looking at the Kingston SSDNow V+ Series with the new Toshiba T6UG1XBG drive controller. Will this new controller be a step up or another JMicron disaster? Read on to find out.Next Page »

Low profile cards are not the most easy thing to come by, especially in the video card area. Sapphire has just released the Radeon HD 5450 and it comes with low profile brackets. This is the card to use in a HTPC once the drivers for GPGPU get settled. Our conclusions represent the same findings as the original Preview.Next Page »

If you're a mobile warrior, you may find yourself suddenly developing a case of RAM-envy. After all, 6GB, once considered an obscene amount of memory, is fast becoming typical thanks to Intel's Core i7 platform (the socket 1366 variety), and it's not unusual to see 12GB. Heck, some companies have even begun releasing 24GB kits. This begs the question, does your laptop's 4GB cut it anymore? We asked Crucial if they'd send us their 8GB DDR3-1066 SO-DIMM memory kit so we could answer this very question, and since they obliged, so will we.Next Page »

Last August we took a look at the NZXT Beta enclosure. We found that to be a very well-rounded case compared to other cases in it's price range. Today we are taking a close look at NZXT's Panzerbox. Also black in color, this case has a little more to offer. But, it also comes with a slightly higher price tag. It's still not an expensive case, though, just not ultra low budget like the Beta. So let's dive in and take a closer look at what the Panzerbox has to offer.Next Page »

Fountain Valley, CA -- November 16, 2009 -- Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is adding 12GB triple-channel HyperX® memory kits in support of Intel’s LGA1366 Core i7™ systems. The DDR3 XMP-ready kit consists of six 2GB modules running at 1600MHz and 1.65 volts.

The 12GB memory kit helps increase overall system performance in 64-bit operating systems. System builders and ultra enthusiasts who deploy 12GB of Kingston® triple-channel memory will find performance increases in such tasks as video encoding, processing large photo files, graphical rendering and extreme PC games.

The memory kit has been tested with great success on motherboards with six sockets such as the Gigabyte GA-X58-UD6 and Asus P6T Deluxe motherboards. Kingston HyperX memory is backed by a lifetime warranty and free 24/7 technical support. For detailed information please visit the Kingston Web site at http://www.kingston.com.

Taipei, Taiwanー12rd November, 2009ーG.Skill International Co. Ltd., manufacturer of extreme performance memory and solid-state storage with solid quality, has today released the world’s fastest DRAM modules rated at a groundbreaking DDR3 2200 CL7-10-10-28 1.65V 4GB (2GBx2), and specially tuned for Intel Lynnfield Core i7 870, 860 processors.

Furnished with the brand new design PI series heatspreader, these modules once again represent G.Skill’s commitment to pushing the boundaries and providing overclocking enthusiasts and extreme gamers with the best DRAM modules for breaking overclocking world records. The kits will be sold with G.Skill’s Turbulence memory fan to decrease the system temperatures and provide further overclocking headroom during tweaking.

The 2200 CL7 PI series kits will be available at G.Skill’s collaborated distribution partners immediately with affordable price. All G.Skill’s computer memory products come with life-time warranty and G.Skill’s FAE team is always ready to provide consumers complete technical support via online forums, telephone and email.

Taipei, Taiwanー11st November, 2009ーG.Skill International Co. Ltd., manufacturer of extreme performance memory and solid-state storage with solid quality, has today released its Falcon II SATA II 2.5” Solid State Drive (SSD).

Featuring the new Indilinx ECO controller, the Falcon II SSD can be perfectly matched with the latest 34nm NAND flash memory, which has a greater data density for a positive impact on affordability for the customer. Along with a large 64MB DRAM cache and specialized controller design, the Falcon II SSD provides the ideal, stutter free stability and long life through advanced wear leveling algorithms. The performance of the 64GB SSD is rated at 220/110MB/Sec (Read/Write), while the 128GB and 256GB SSDs are rated at an impressive 220/150MB/sec.

In addition, the Falcon II will feature the latest Indilinx 1819 version firmware which offers improved support for the Windows 7 TRIM command. The Falcon II provides Windows 7 users an ideal SSD solution with high performance and stability.

All G.Skill’s Falcon series SSD solutions come with two years warranty and G.Skill’s FAE team is always ready to provide consumers complete technical support via online forums, telephone and email.

City of Industry, CA, November 11, 2009 – GIGABYTE Technology CO., LTD., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced two new challenges for PC overclockers everywhere. Utilizing a GIGABYTE P55 motherboard and Intel Core™ i5 or i7 CPU, contestants worldwide will compete for the overall “OverclocKing” title. The officialsponsortop three overall 3DMark 06 scorers worldwide on a GIGABYTE P55 motherboard will be crowned OverclocKing, along with some pretty amazing hardware loot from GIGABYTE, Antec, Kingmax, GlacialTech and Enermax. There will also be a weekly lucky draw for contestants entered in the OverclocKing challenge, with winners receiving a GIGABYTE motherboard.

In addition, this year will feature a brand new competition called the 3DMark 10K Challenge. This special competition is for anyone using any Intel chipset based motherboard. The first 3 competitors who submit a 3DMark score of exactly 10,000 will get a ton of new hardware from GIGABYTE, Antec, Kingmax, GlacialTech and Enermax. Contestants can use ANY version of 3DMark to enter. Even if they don’t make the first three, contestants should still send in their 10K score, as they will automatically be entered for a lucky draw at the end of the competition to win one of several new GIGABYTE motherboards.

“GIGABYTE is thrilled to partner with Futuremark to host the second annual OverclocKing challenge.” commented Tony Liao, Associate Vice President of Marketing at GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. “Even though the P55 platform is billed as a mainstream platform, overclockers worldwide have been able to set some amazing new overclocking records using their GIGABYTE P55 motherboards, so we are excited to see who will walk away with this year’s OvercloKing title.”

“Overclocking is growing in popularity all the time and on average we see a new benchmark result submitted to our database every 4 seconds. This worldwide competition provides two levels of competition, our new 3DMark 10K Challenge as well as the usual overall top scorer. We will be surprised if records are not broken using the latest P55 motherboards,” said Jukka Mäkinen, Futuremark’s Vice President, Products and Services.

Grand prizes for overall top score and 10K Challenge include a GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD6 Motherboard and GV-N26SO-896I VGA card, Antec Twelve Hundred gaming case and TruePower Quattro TPQ-1200 Watt power supply, “KINGMAX” DDR3 2200 Dual Channel Overclock Memory Module, GlacialTech X-wing Cooling Pad, and (2) Enermax 12cm Apollish Fans.

Everyone who enters and posts a 3DMark score of exactly 10K (10,000) will receive a copy of Futuremark’s newly announced Shattered Horizon™ zero gravity multi-player first person shooter game for PC (prizes limited to the first 200 contestants scoring 10K). In addition, everyone who posts a score for the 10K challenge will automatically be entered for a lucky draw to be held every day with the winners receiving a copy of Shattered Horizon (30 winners will be announced).

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/raid-on-shattered-horizon/57737

http://www.shatteredhorizon.com

The contest will run from Nov 1st through Nov 30th, so click below for more details about the contest and how to enter:

http://www.futuremark.com/community/competitions/gigabyteoverclocking/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/yougamergirl

City of Industry, November 11, 2009 – GIGABYTE Technology CO., LTD., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, recently released BIOS updates for their full series of P55 based motherboards to solve the iPhone sync issues with the Intel® P55 chipset. The iPhone syncing issues appear to be limited to only P55 chipset motherboards and now users of GIGABYTE P55 chipset motherboards simply need to update their boards with the latest BIOS version to enable syncing with their iPhone device.

The latest GIGABYTE motherboard BIOS updates are available at:

http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Default.aspx

Or for automatic BIOS updating, users can download the GIGABYTE @BIOS™ live BIOS updating utility at:

http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Motherboard/Utility_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=Utility&FileID=52

San Jose, Calif.—November 10, 2009—OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and flash-based storage as an alternative to hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced its collaboration with SandForce on OCZ’s next generation of mainstream and enterprise solid state drives (SSDs). Based on the highly-anticipated SandForce SSD Processor family, OCZ’s new line of SSDs will be the pinnacle of storage options designed to optimize complex IT infrastructures as well as the computing experiences of everyday consumers.

To accommodate a wide range of consumer and enterprise storage applications, OCZ’s impending solutions will feature various configurations of SandForce’s innovative SF-1500 and SF-1200 SSD Processors and multi-level cell (MLC) and single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, all with the objective of providing best-in-class storage with exceptional performance, reliability, endurance, and power efficiency. The SandForce-based SSD line will be available in multiple interfaces including 3Gb/s SATA and 6Gb/s SAS in capacities ranging from 50GB to 400GB, addressing an assortment of storage and infrastructure requirements.

“OCZ is committed to delivering SSD solutions to our enterprise clients and also has a strong following for our consumer solid state products; partnering with SandForce enables us to offer an even more robust offering to both these markets,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. “Together with SandForce we are focused on making enterprise-class MLC-based SSDs which offer excellent reliability and performance coupled with superior total cost of ownership for all our customers.”

“OCZ has a proven track record in the design and manufacture of solid state drives and is in a distinctive position to deliver SSDs to both the enterprise and consumer space,” said Thad Omura, VP of Marketing at SandForce. “SandForce SSD Processors reliably enable the usage of low cost, MLC-based SSDs in volume, mainstream enterprise applications.”

The OCZ Technology Group aims to take storage to the next level with SandForce SSD Processors, further increasing the advantages of SSDs over traditional hard disc drives for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), enterprise clients, and enthusiast consumers who place a premium on performance, total cost of ownership (TCO), and efficiency. Product announcements will be made in the next few weeks leading up to the 2010 International CES show.

Today we're checking out a product from Mushkin's fastest DDR3 memory line, specifically designed for the X58 chipset. The Redline XP3-12800 kit provides a 6GB capacity, runs at 1600MHz with 6-7-6-18 timings, and requires the industry standard 1.65 volts. With an XMP profile for simple overclocking, this kit is designed to provide a boost to any system that can make use its increased speed and lowered latencies. Read on to find out if this is the enthusiast level memory upgrade you've been looking for.Next Page »