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Reviews Around The Web
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Choose Web Reviews from this Maker:
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Monday, July 7, 2008
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Tagan has done an excellent job with the Black Pearl aluminum chassis in many ways due to the fact that it offers a variety of features and no real drawbacks of any type in its overall achievement. From its front control panel and easy access pop-out USB 2.0 ports to its roomy interior and solid construction the Black Pearl is winner. The fact that the BP comes geared for liquid cooling is another bonus that will highly benefit the user that is planning on exercising that feature. The only drawback to this fine enclosure is it's close to $300.00 price tag that will daunt many users on a budget, but for those who do not care for price and do not want to skimp on their case, this is a bad boy.
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As a minimalist, I normally prefer function over form. However, the CoolJag Programmable Mini LED Flash fan incorporates both. A great 120mm fan, it comes with the added benefit of showing off your individuality with your choice of four different messages of up to 16 characters. Fully clear, the fan allows the text to be emphasized thanks to the blue and red LEDs.
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Overall, I think that the X4 9350e and 9150e are a very welcome addition. AMD's Phenom processors are generally pretty power hungy, so it is good to have some more efficient models to choose from. As we've seen, it can be a pretty potent chip when combined with multi-core friendly applications. Its low TDP, four cores and decent performance make it a great choice for an HTPC or an everyday desktop PC for an environmentally conscious multitasker.
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The Gigabyte G-Power II Pro really has surprised us. It's able to fill both the role of an extremely high performance cooler, and a very quiet one as well. With the fan running at full speed, and combined with a well ventilated case, the G-Power II Pro will produce simply brilliant results, yet with the adapter used and the fan speed dropped, you get a near silent cooling solution. However, there are still minors flaws - namely the sheer size of the chrome shroud which obscures motherboard mounting screw holes, although those of you who follow our advice and seek out cases with a good removable motherboard trays won't be effected.
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Performance on the DX48BT2 was excellent in every respect with Sysmark scores around 197, just 3 points below the ASUS P5E3 Premium board that has the highest score to date. The Intel board has the distinction of not being able to overclock very well but Intel boards tend not to be good overclocker's anyway compared to the "Tweaker" boards from companies like ASUS and Gigabyte or MSI. For the hardware enthusiast that wants to overclock their Intel CPU there are other boards on the market using the same chipset that do the job very well. Intel dominates the CPU and motherboard market with their Core 2 series of CPUs and their various motherboard chipsets.
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Netbooks have certainly made an impact since their introduction, with consumer interest driving up strong sales. With even more models announced since Computex 2008, will the strong interest and demand replace the notebooks of today? We'll delve in to this matter from the basics.
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Today I'll be looking at a new introduction to the lapdesk market from LapLogic.com. Actually two new models with one being regular sized and one being the super-sized model. They're called the new AeroGel Extreme and AeroGel Extreme - Wide laptop desks. With so much competition out there, let's see what sets these new units apart from the pack.
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A few years ago we looked at a few Qpad mousepads and since then these pads have been used by us. I have not been able to find another pad that works as well as these and and because of this we are going to look at the new CT pad which is available in various sizes and colors. This new CT pad lets you choose between a soft or hard top depending on the thickness you choose.
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The test results show that the Coolink GPUChilla dropped the idle temperatures by 49% and the load temperatures by an impressive 45%! Our only complaint on the Radeon HD 4850 was how hot the card ran and the Coolink GPUChilla took cooling to the next level. The 49% reduction at idle put the Radeon HD 4850 at 33C, which is better than we expected. The factory heat sink works, but it obviously leaves room for improvement...
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Despite the wide variety of cases out there, from HTPC units to full towers, there's one quality that they should all possess in order to qualify as being worthwhile and that is having good airflow. It doesn't matter if a case looks like the next Mona Lisa if it doesn't keep your rig cool. With this in mind, NZXT has released the Tempest, a gaming-oriented case that claims to be the "Air Flow King". With six fans included stock, two of which are huge 140mm units the Tempest certainly looks the part. Can this mid-tower live up to the hype?
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AMD has a range of chipsets available for its Phenom processor, these including the 780G chipset; the first of the 7 series to come out from AMD, and by far one of the most powerful integrated chipsets available today. ASRock has been one of the loyal followers for AMD and has produced some rather impressive boards for its low budget status. The company has come up with a new 780G chipset oriented board designed for the HTPC and Digital PC environment.
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The Asus EN9600GT Top/HTDI/512M is a Geforce 9600GT based PCI Express graphics card. It ships pre-overclocked from the factory for roughly a 10% gaming edge, and packs in a typical 512MB of GDDR3 memory. It's nVidia Geforce 9600GT GPU runs at 720MHz (up from the stock of 700MHz), while memory and shader clock speeds sit at 2000MHz and 1800MHz respectively. Asus retail the EN9600GT Top/HTDI/512M videocard for roughly $50 less than a Radeon HD4850 card will set you back, and comes with a pretty basic accessory bundle.
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The touch-screen revolution is well and truly here, and following the KF600, LG continues to entice consumers with another touch-screen mobile phone, the LG KF700.
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The 4870 is an excellent card, but for now, all the models are functionally identical, and there are yet to be factory-overclocked cards, let alone custom-cooled models. Variation ranges from changing the sticker to adding spiffy adapters. If you buy Diamond, you're not buying a different card, you're buying better service, only they're not charging extra.
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The Zotac nForce 790i Supreme Mainboard arrived Technic3D. The Mainboard with Overclocking functions and 3-way-sli for all Intel Socket 775 CPUs. See you in the the following Review over 500 MHz FSB with Quadcore on Windows Vista 32Bit SP1.
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