Posted by Ian on 23rd May 2012 - 0 Comments
PureOverclock have published their latest review, the BitFenix Shinobi XL full tower case:
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The BitFenix Shinobi XL is a full tower case that appears to borrow the great ideas we saw on the Shinobi, while expanding them into a larger version, with a few tweaks. Mid-towers can only do so much for some people, and for those that need a full tower option, perhaps for a water cooling setup or expensive gear, the Shinobi XL looks to be a great option.
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Read the review here.
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Posted by Becky on 22nd May 2012 - 0 Comments
Frosty Tech have reviewed the Thermaltake Frio Extreme Heatsink - they look into whether size really does matter:
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"It's hard to believe that heatsinks for Intel and AMD microprocessors could get any bigger, but that's exactly what's happening. 2012 marks the year of "the really big heatsink" and Thermaltake's Frio Extreme is the latest example of this trend. The Frio Extreme is a large twin tower heatsink with two massive 140mm fans and a commanding foot print of 150mm square! Standing 161mm tall and weighing 1.23 kilograms, the Frio Extreme is destined for full tower gaming cases with plenty of room to spare.
As you might expect, the Frio Extreme's dual 140mm PWM fans are arranged in a push-pull configuration and scale in speed from 1800-to-1200RPM. Behind each fan is a 110mm tall aluminum fin tower connected by a row of six standard heatpipes to a nickel-plated copper base plate. The twin fans drive up to 106CFM of air each, so the heatsink is a bit loud when running at full clip. The fans are PWM, but the manufacturer also supplies a voltage regulating/PWM fan speed controller with which users can dial back both fans speeds simultaneously. The heatsink is built around 6mm diameter heatpipes and is rated for heat loads of up to 250W. Retail price for the Thermaltake Frio Extreme heatsink is pegged at $95USD/CDN. It installs onto Intel socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775 and AMD socket AM3/AM2/FM1 processors."
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Read more here.
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Posted by Becky on 21st May 2012 - 0 Comments
Kit Guru have reviewed the Alpenfohn Matterhorn PURE CPU cooler - it may not be a name you have heard of before, but offers great value for money.
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"Today we are taking a look at the Alpenföhn Matterhorn PURE CPU cooler, a competitively priced mid range cooler for those who seek high performance at low cost. In enthusiast circles Alpenföhn have already earned a reputation for solid build quality and striking aesthetics.
There are many CPU coolers on the market today, and its increasingly difficult to distinguish the men from the boys in terms of price vs performance. Many follow a traditional design of a single tower with a solid base (Copper and Nickel seem to be a popular choice) and dense fin array, with anywhere between 2 and 8 copper heat pipes connecting to it all together.
Alpenföhn have a great selection of coolers on the market which vary from the lowest level cooler, the ‘Panorama’ to the big daddy of their selection, the ‘K2′. Each cooler varies in looks and performance, however the over engineered appearance is consistent throughout, along with a standard 120mm fan, which is also designed by Alpenföhn inhouse."
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You can read more here.
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Posted by Becky on 18th May 2012 - 0 Comments
eTeknix have reviewed the ECS Elitegroup Z77H2-AX Golden Board (Z77) Motherboard - and yes, that is actually gold plating:
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"The Z77H2-AX features as part of the Black Extreme Golden range, and what a fitting name this board has considering its not so subtle styling. Not only will you find golden heatsinks, but also a golden CPU socket and pins to match and this all relates to the build quality that goes on behind this board and others in its range.
The Golden Board series involve extreme testing under extreme circumstances including high temperatures and extensive military-grade testing in conjunction with the gold plated aspects of the board to give a longer life expectancy and to improve performance and stability.
This board certainly has a very unique market to appeal to and one that we are quite interested to see the size of the growth behind as we can’t honestly see consumers rushing to the shops to purchase a board that looks only fine enough for the Sultan of Brunei and Bill Gates.
The Golden Board series revolves around the Gold 4Ever stance with includes giving golden quality, stability, cooling and royalty meaning that we should see some fantastic results here today; at least in theory."
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You can read the full review here.
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Posted by Becky on 17th May 2012 - 0 Comments
Legit Reviews have recently taken a look at the overclocked Intel Core i7-3370K 'Ivy Bridge' - here's what they thought about it:
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"The Intel 'Ivy Bridge' system is clearly a strong platform. When we looked at the performance with our initial article it was clearly faster than the previous generation was. At the same time, there are clearly some... not sure if I would say flaws, but definitely some concerns for enthusiasts. It seems that the days of hitting 5.0GHz on air cooling are gone, at least for this generation of Intel LGA1155 processors. What isn't clear at this point, is if we are strictly being limited by temperature, or if the new 22nm die just isn't as overclocking friendly as it's predecessor.
Today we weren't able to bring our Intel Core i7 3770K 'Ivy Bridge' processor beyond 4.7GHz with complete stability. This is a little disappointing, but not the end of the world and we are still getting a massive overclock for 'free' so to speak. We also have to keep in mind that processor frequency isn't quite as important as it once was. A short time ago we took a look at performance scaling across several of the Intel 'Sandy Bridge' Processors and our AMD Radeon HD 7950. There truly wasn't as much of a difference as we had expected to see. That isn't saying that there is no difference, but if you're PC's primary concern is gaming, 100-300MHz isn't going to make or break the experience. Especially if you consider that when it comes to clock to clock performance, the Intel Core i7 3770K 'Ivy Bridge' processor is faster than the Intel Core i7 'Sandy Bridge' platform. We saw this in our launch article at default speeds with the Intel Core i7 2700K and again today with our Intel Core i7 2600K clocked at 4.7GHz!"
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You can read the full review here.
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Posted by Becky on 14th May 2012 - 0 Comments
LanOC have reviewed the Lian Li PC 100 “The Hammer” - if sleek and expensive is what you want then this may be the case for you:
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"Once again Lian Li has come up with a unique design that should make other case manufactures second guess how they are designing their cases. The new design is far from being trouble free, but if you can get past the interesting issues like trying to run your cables through the case to the front to hook up to the rear I/O panel, then you will be rewarded with amazing airflow and lots of room. Speaking of lots of room, this has to be one if not the only mid tower case on the market that can fit an XL-ATX motherboard and any length video card that you can imagine. Add all of that with Lian Li’s typical high quality and all aluminum construction and you have a good case. If they flipped the motherboard around the other way and cut a couple holes in the motherboard tray they would have one of the best cases on the market."
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You can read the full review here.
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Posted by Becky on 11th May 2012 - 0 Comments
Bjorn 3D have reviewed the Gigabyte Sniper M3 motherboard - here's a snippet:
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"The Gigabyte Sniper M3 is the board we are taking a look at today. Just like the previous G1 motherboard line from GIGABYTE, the Sniper M3 it is a gaming centric board with many gaming style features all packed into a micro ATX form factor board. We have seen other offerings of gaming boards that are mATX and they are usually lacking in specific areas due to the small size and the simple fact that there is only so much PCB real estate. Gigabyte prides itself on the high feature set provided by the G1 series. The Sniper M3 should be no different and we expect to see some good thing from this board. Now lets take a look at what Gigabyte has to offer on this go around."
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You can read the full review here.
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Posted by Becky on 10th May 2012 - 9 Comments
Today sees the launch of the GeForce GTX 670, being the latest in the 600-series from NVIDIA. The GTX670 has a much more consumer friendly price tag than the GTX 690 released recently, let's see what the reviewers think:
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"The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 has become the card to have if you are looking in the $400 price range and want the best of everything!"
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Legit Reviews
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"The GTX 670 is a strong addition to the latest range of GeForce cards. From that price point and above NVIDIA are hard to beat and we look forward to seeing how they take on the Radeon 7800 series..."
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Hardware Heaven
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"Overall the GTX 670 is a beast of a card that comes at a reasonable price of $399 when looking at the current-generation high-end segment. AMD's HD 7950 costs $380 and is hopeless against the GTX 670. HD 7970 at $450 might be a tiny bit faster, but loses on power and noise - and is 50 bucks more expensive."
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Tech Power Up
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"Ultimately, we feel that the new GeForce GTX 670 is another strong offering from NVIDIA. The card offers all of the features of the higher-end GeForce GTX 680 and 90+% of the performance, but at a lower price."
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Hot Hardware
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Exel running total help
