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News From Our Affiliates

Mushkin Io series 128GB SSD @ OCC

"With Mushkin's products, the one thing you can count on is performance. The Io Solid State Drive lives up to the high standards that Mushkin sets. While testing the drive, I was impressed to see that it held its own against the best drive I had tested up until this point - the Patriot Torqx 128GB drive."

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ATI Radeon HD5570 DX11 Video Card @ Benchmark Reviews

With this latest release, ATI is doubling back to fill some gaps in its wildly successful Radeon HD5xxx series of video cards. The previous release, the HD5450, was the logical terminus of their GPU bisecting act. In fact, they got a little carried away, and lopped off almost all the Stream Processors, in order to reduce the power requirements down to the lowest possible level. This time, the goal was to create the best performing low-profile HTPC card they could. The HD5570 is the first in a series of HD55xx video cards, and for now, it will probably be the top card in the group. Loaded up with the Redwood GPU from the HD5670, 1 GB of GDDR3 memory, and an all copper active GPU cooler, the HD5570 looks to be the King of the low-profile world, without the attendant King's ransom. Follow along with Benchmark Reviews as we see how it stacks up against its siblings.

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Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W 10.1-inch Netbook @ TweakTown

"I am going to look at the latest netbook from Hercules today. If you have never heard of Hercules, the company is more known for its video game controllers than computers. The Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W may have the same hardware on the inside that most netbooks run, but it does look different from the masses on the outside. Shoppers looking for a netbook that won�t look like every other netbook that is launched may want to check the Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W out. The guys will want to know that the floral design on the lid does make the machine a bit feminine looking. Check out the rest of the review for all of the details on the Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W."

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Foxconn A7DA-S 3.0 Motherboard Unboxing Video @ eTeknix.com

Today we are unboxing the Foxconn A7DA-S 3.0 motherboard This motherboard is packed full of features and is from a reliable manufacturer. It supports DDR3 and the latest AM3 processors including the Phenom II series cpu�s.

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ASUS Eee PC 1005PE Netbook Review with the Intel Atom N450 Processor @ Legit Reviews

"The ASUS Eee PC 1005PE is based on the same external design and features as our previous favored Eee PC, the 1005HA. While the external shell is nearly identical, what lies under the hood is a whole new platform from the improved power consumption of the Intel Atom N450 CPU and slightly improved graphics with the Intel GMA 3150 integrated GPU. When we began testing the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE, we quickly realized the new Pineview Intel Atom processors and platform were all about further reducing power consumption in order to continue to increase battery life. We were impressed to see the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE was able to meet the same battery life duration as the ASUS UL80Vt notebook which featured an Intel CULV SU7300 processor..."

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Titan Fenrir CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Today we are testing another CPU cooler from Titan: Fenrir. It supports all available CPUs, has a tower design, four 8-mm U-shaped heatpipes and a 120-mm fan. Other coolers with similar design performed very well in our tests; will this cooler perform well too?"

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CM Storm Sniper Black Edition Case Review @ Hardware Secrets

"CM Storm is a brand from Cooler Master focused on high-end gaming products. We've already reviewed Scout case and Sentinel Advance mouse and both got our highest praises. Let's see if Sniper Black Edition also follows the same path."

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Patriot Box Office Media Player @ TechwareLabs

Looking for a dedicated media player that does it all? And by does it all I mean plays 1080p, supports many codecs, and supports bit-torrent? Than look no further than the Patriot Box Office.

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Steelseries 9HD Review @ XSReviews

"Steelseries produce a range of gaming gear from mice and mats to keyboards and clothing, providing a range of useful additions to gamers of all abilities. Among the plethora of toys from this Danish-born company is a selection of more than a dozen mousing pads. The mouse mat is an oft-forgot element of the gamer's apparel. Much attention is given to mice and high-resolution monitors, but people tend to forget about that extra layer in communication between man and machine. So we'll now take a look at the Steelseries 9HD Pro Gaming mouse mat, designed to meet the extra demands of precision gamers. "

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64 GB Solid State Drive Round-Up @ Hardware Secrets

"Solid state drives (SSDs) are now somewhat affordable for the user that wants to boost the performance of his or her computer. Today we are going to review the latest release from five different manufacturers (Intel, Kingston, Mushkin, OCZ and Patriot), with prices ranging from USD 200 to USD 300."

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Lenovo ThinkPad Edge Review @ HotHardware

Lenovo had one of the largest showings from any single PC manufacturer at CES this year, and while sifting through the company's new lineup of machines can be a daunting task for the average consumer, it was pretty clear from the outset that the ThinkPad Edge would be one of Lenovo's standout products of 2010. In many ways, it's a departure from the ThinkPad norm. It's the first ThinkPad to be available in more than just black (it will also ship in red), and there are a copious amount of customization options. Processors from both AMD and Intel are available, and it ships in 13", 14" and 15" form factors. It's not usual that a single machine type is available in ultraportable, mid-size and full-size notebook form factors, but the Edge seemingly breaks the mold..

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LF news editors and reviewers @ hardwareslave.com

If you're a motivated enthusiast Hardwareslave.com are looking for you. We are looking for news editors and reviewers to join our growning site. To become a contributing editor for our website and email the admin.

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Griffin AirCurve @ Maximum CPU

"As an iPhone owner, I�m familiar with the Griffin line of iPod/iPhone/Apple accessories. I�m also familiar with the shortcomings of the iPhone�s speaker, and that holding or cupping your hand around the speaker port will enhance (or at least change) the sounds coming from it. A friend of mine even suggested building a wave-guide to enhance the sound from the iPhone speaker. Griffin has done just that with its passive amplifier dock, the AirCurve. The iPhone sits in this plastic dock that has an acoustic wave-guide positioned directly under the speaker port. Modeled after the human ear canal, the waveguide amplifies and equalizes the sounds before ejecting them out the front of the device. It is completely passive and requires no batteries."

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ECS A785GM-AD3 Black Series Motherboard @ OCIA.net

"By the middle of Q1 2009 AMD began releasing new AM3 based processors with integrated DDR3 memory controller, and a revised 785G chipset with new SB710 Southbridge soon followed. ECS joined the fray with their A780GM-M and A780GM-M7 micro-ATX motherboards, and just as they did previously with the AM2+ A780GM-A Ultra, they have followed these with an upscale, full size ATX A785GM-AD3 Black Series. Sharing many of the same features as the rest of their Black Series boards, the A785GM-AD3 offers solid caps, gold plated CPU and RAM contacts, Special ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration) and support for AMD OverDrive or traditional overclocking via M.I.B. II BIOS tweaking utility."

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Ultra X4 500 and 850 watt Power Supply�s @ LanOC Reviews

When it comes to power supplies, you may or may not know the name Ultra. Ultra is known for selling affordable power supplies with a few extra design elements thrown in (power supply with a window and lighting anyone?). Having heard of them or not you are going to want to take note, they released a new series of power supplies that have been getting high marks from some of our friends. With us being backed up with work, we are just now getting to testing ours out. Here is what we found out.

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Vantec USB 3.0 PCI-e Host Card w/ NexStar 3 SuperSpeed Enclosure @ TweakTown

"Just before CES we were made aware of an incoming package from Vantec. Instead of bogging us down with a sit down meeting where we could go over performance graphs, pie charts and a bunch of nonsense that you guys wouldn�t want to read even if you were stuck at your in-laws all weekend, Vantec has done us all a favor and just shipped over their latest products. In our package we received a PCIe USB 3.0 controller card (PN: UGT-PC302) and the latest prototype of the soon to be released NexStar 3 SuperSpeed (PN: NST-280S3-BK). The USB 3.0 PCIe Host Controller is a two port device that is so small that it may just fit GIGABYTE�s X58A-UD7 with the massive heat sink installed. The Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed appears more like a retail unit than a prototype. The only thing that gives it away is the white box that it was shipped in. Everything inside of the box appears to be ready to go, so I don�t think we will have to wait too long for retail availability."

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EK Supreme HF CPU Block @ PureOverclock

�Water cooling a CPU has been around for quite some time and EK Water Blocks has been on the scene for over eleven years now. No stranger to us, we�ve seen many of their designs across our testing bench. EKWB is finally releasing the Supreme HF (high flow) CPU block, the successor of the popular EK Supreme, so let's take a closer look at see how this water block performs.�

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Is Android Taking Over? @ ThinkComputers.org

�A few weeks ago when I got back from CES I went out and met up with my usual group of friends. Being the �tech guy� in the group two of my friends had to show me their new phones. Both were smartphones to my surprise, most of my friends are not tech people at all and have no need for all of the functions of a smartphone. The 2 phones were the Samsung Moment and the HTC myTouch. My two friends were really excited to show me how they customized the Android home screen and all of the applications they had. I�m an iPhone guy and I�ve had my iPhone for quite a while. It felt good ha ving one of the only phones that could have apps on it, but now almost anyone can get an Android phone! This begs the question, is Android taking over the mobile OS market?"

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Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 and GA-P55A-UD4P @ OCC

"For some reason these newer chips like odd numbered multipliers, so I decided to stick with a multiplier of 21 rather then staying with the beloved 20. I began by increasing the FSB in increments of 10, and then increasing the voltage when needed. I also tried to run my memory as close to 1600MHz as I could. For this reason I would occasionally have to adjust the memory multiplier, which was extremely easy to do. I was surprised because, on every other 1156 board I've used, I've only been able to get my i5 to around 4.1Ghz. With the UD4P, I was able to push slightly above 4.3GHz. Not to shabby! I'm sure with a bit more tweaking one could do some serious damage with this board."

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Asus P7H57D-V EVO Motherboard @ Overclock3D

Asus enters the fray of H55/H57 motherboards with it's flagship model.

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PowerColor Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCS+ OC Video Card @ TweakTown

"It's hard enough to be a video card manufacturer that embraces both sides of the fence, let alone one that only specializes in one of the two major producers of GPUs. Companies like PowerColor, Sapphire and HIS need to really have stand out versions of popular models. The good news for these companies is that half the work is done; ATI have managed to produce a great line-up of models for us to choose from. Now it's up to the partners to make what is a good card a great one. PowerColor have actually gone a bit crazy lately; they've got a number of really stand-out models in the series which include models from the 5600 series all the way to the 5800 series."

More information can be found here

HIS Radeon HD 5450 1GB Graphics Card Video Review @ eTeknix.com

Today we are looking at the HIS Radeon HD 5450 1GB Graphics Card. It is a passively cooled card which uses little to no power and is aimed mainly at the HTPC market. It supports the latest DirectX 11 technology as well as having support for ATI Eyefinity and ATI Stream technology.

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Nexus Edge Review @ XSReviews

"In a world that is all about Information, we need plenty of space to store all of it. Today we will be looking at the Nexus Edge, a high-end computer case aimed at no one less than you and me, the casual IT-consumer. Nexus presents this case as a high-class one with great functionality for everyday use. Less see if Nexus can keep their promises."

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Zalman Z7 Plus Case Review @ Hardware Secrets

"If you've never bought a case from Zalman because you always thought they are too expensive, we have good news. Zalman is going to release a mainstream case series, called Z7, in March. Featuring two models, Z7 (USD 65 MSRP) and Z7 Plus (USD 75 MSRP), we had the privilege to review the Z7 Plus model one month before its launch. Let's see if this product will be a good buy and in tune with Zalman's reputation for quality."

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AMD Athlon II X2 255 Dual Core 3.1GHz Processor Review @ Legit Reviews

"The AMD Athlon II X2 255 had a more than solid performance when putting through the paces today. It may not have performed as well as the Quad Core processors did, but keep in mind it is a dual core processor. When I ran the benchmarks on 1 core of each processor I was astonished to see the performance. The AMD Athlon II X2 255 was at or near the top of the list in those benchmarks. It was also able to overclock to 3.95GHz on air cooling, which is impressive for a $75 processor..."

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Tips for Judging Motherboard Quality @ Hardware Secrets

"With more and more components being integrated inside the computer CPU, the motherboard doesn't affect the system performance as much as it used to just a few years ago. So what makes a given motherboard a good motherboard?"

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CiragoTV Platinum CMC2000 500GB Network Multimedia Player @ TestFreaks

"Today for review I�ve got another multi-media player from Cirago. The product is called the CiragoTV Platinum CMC2000 Network Multimedia Player and it does come with a hard drive, a choice of 500gb or 1TB in capacity, I got the 500gb version for review. I�ve looked at two other Cirago media players here on TestFreaks but this one is actually a NAS box as well which can be connected wired or wireless. The box itself uses a 3.5� hard drive inside and has connections for pretty much everything including component, composite and HDMI along with optical and coax as well. The CMC2000 even includes a card reader and two USB ports so you can view pictures or play your files from them quickly and easily. "

More information can be found here

LiteON eHAU424 External DVD/CD Writer Review @ PCSTATS.com

"Lite-on's eHAU424 external USB2.0 optical drive gives you writing speeds as fast as 24X for DVD+/-R media. It can burn through dual layer DVD+ and DVD- media and write to CD-Rs and CD-RWs as well. While Blu-Ray media is not supported, the LiteOn eHAU424 will work with photosensitive Lightscribe media for those who want to add a graphic element to custom mix tapes (for example) by burning the label right onto the disk itself."

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EnhanceTech TS800 IP @ Maximum CPU

"The EnhanceTech TS800 IP is an enterprise-level solution for iSCSI attached storage. Resembling a full-size ATX case, the TS800 contains three gigabit network controllers, an on-board computer and web server, a RAID controller capable of level 6 arrays, and a hot-swap backplane with room for 8 SATA drives. The novel aspect here is the use of the iSCSI standard, essentially using an existing TCP/IP network infrastructure to pass packets of data that mimic a more traditional SAS solution. Part of this process is specialized software on the client end to attach the device as a volume."

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The Office of Film and Literature Classification � Friend or Foe? @ TweakTown

"From the outset, I wish to note that this article is an editorial and as such, reflects my own personal views, of which I generally try to keep subjective. However, in this article, I will be giving an opinion which you, the reader, may or may not agree with. Whichever category you fall into, I welcome your thoughts in the TweakTown forums. Whilst I consider myself to be fairly right wing in regards to my political views, I have always had an in-principle personal view against censorship. Whilst I acknowledge that there are certain things that should be seen and heard, for the most part this should be left up to the person to decide what they should view and hear, or if that person is a minor, left to the parents to monitor."

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Sans Digital Tower Raid TR4UT 4-Bay Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ Tweaknews

"The TR4UT from Sans Digital is a strong contender in the external storage market. With four drive bays supporting up to 8TB of storage, both home and small business users alike can easily back up important files using USB or the newer, faster eSATA interface. Top it all off with tool-free installation, fast performance and quiet operation, and you have yourself an external storage unit that is hard to beat."

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Intel Core i7 860 Overclocking guide @ Hardwareoverclock.com

Hardwareoverclock.com has posted another Core i7 Overclocking Guide. Last week they has take a look at the Core i7 860 LGA 1156 processor and its Overclocking properties. There have been experiments with air, water and dice cooling. We also have a real try for everyday documented with pictures. The article is in German, but the screens and tables are international.

More information can be found here

A-DATA 8GB Nobility S805 USB 2.0 Flash Drive Review @ Legit Reviews

"Offered in both grey and red finishes, each wrapped in a reflective zinc alloy frame, the A-DATA Nobility S805 is a very attractive looking device. Its heft, at 25g (.88oz), is substantial for its size and certainly gives the perception that this is a well constructed and rugged piece of hardware. It comes packaged with nothing other than a warranty information brochure and is available in capacities ranging from 4GB to 16GB..."

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News From Our Affiliates

NZXT Panzerbox Computer Case @ APH Networks

Ingenuity and great designs have revolutionized the world. Time and time again -- from the very first computer, to the first tanks that were rolled out during the First World War. Speaking of tanks, one of the most famous tanks of the Second World War was the German built Panzer IV. The Panzer IV revolutionized tank designs of many countries with certain elements that are found even in today's modern tanks. The Panzer IV simply bulldozed over the opposition when it was first introduced; as it was simply more than the opposing forces could handle from these powerful mechanical bulls. While it was far from the best tank of the war, it was a very valuable contender that led to much better and reliable designs later on. It's a fact that early Panzer IVs were unreliable, and had quite a load of problems. Even with all that, they managed to inspire a whole new approach to both interior and exterior tank engineering and design. At this point, you are probably wondering why there is such a huge history lesson in our latest review today. Well, the answer is actually quite simple. We have a new product that takes on the bold title of the Panzerbox. One thing that we appreciate is the naming of this product, is that it just simply evokes a feeling of dominance and a sensation of having a product that could make all other of the same category seem silly. With such a great name, also comes a great deal of expectation. Any case that can hold such a dominant sounding name should not only be a great source of ingenuity and new ideas, but also should crush the competition. Well, we hope so at least -- just like the early Panzer IV, there could always be room for improvement for progress of the overall product. Anyway, the product that we received was manufactured by NZXT, which has already been known for good budget cases like the NZXT Beta we have previously reviewed. Today, we will see how much the NZXT Panzerbox can live up to its bold name, and if they really trample over its competition and leave them in the dust.

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Thermaltake BlacX Duet HDD Docking Station @ APH Networks

When we reviewed the original Thermaltake BlacX back in April 2008, we commended Thermaltake for marketing such an innovative and convenient product, but we complained about its lack of essential features such as eSATA. The idea of allowing users to quickly swap internal hard drives on an external interface on-the-fly is undoubtedly excellent, but execution could definitely use some improvement. A few different variations of Thermaltake's BlacX were made since then -- a nearly identical station with added eSATA support, as well as the SE version that provides four USB ports in front. Sounds great, right? Well, how the heck do you make it better? Fear not. As far as Thermaltake is concerned, there is only one way to make the BlacX product line twice as good as it is already: Combine two of them, and make them into one unit, and then call it the 'BlacX Duet'. The end product? Thermaltake's latest hard drive docking station! As its name suggest, it is designed to combine elements of its excellent prior 2.5" and 3.5 serial ATA hard drive compatibility, added eSATA support from the second iteration, as well as the tried and true USB support for maximum compatibility since the first edition -- the Duet now features bays for accommodation of up to two desktop and/or laptop hard disk drives too! How's that for a change? We cracked one open for you to see how it works out in real life.

More information can be found here

G.SKILL F3-8500CL7D-8GBSQ 2x4GB Laptop DDR3 RAM @ APH Networks

It's actually a lot of fun to own a Lenovo Thinkpad. Besides the impeccable build quality, unsurpassed reliability, a keyboard feel that's not repeated in any other brands, and not to mention its incredible battery life -- there's always those questions from friends and strangers alike that command a level of hilarity. "What Pentium do you have?" is actually a question that I've been asked many times in the past year or so, referring to my T400. "Pentium II", I would reply jokingly, poking fun at those who completely missed my Centrino 2 vPro sticker on the left palm rest, and my screen showing an operating system interface no other than the one of Windows Vista (Or Windows 7 later on). But I don't blame them. Thinkpads have retained the same basic design since the 1990s; but it is the progressive refinement, subtle beauty, pride, and tradition that brings the brand loyalists together. Plus, I am a big fan of building the ultimate 'sleeper' device in places where I can be seen with them, whether it be cars or computers. Additionally, I can assure you Macbook Pros are stolen quite a bit around here at the university. Thinkpads? Less of a chance, to say the least! To be honest, there aren't a lot of components that are upgradeable in a laptop. But of those parts that can be upgraded, RAM is probably by far the most popular, thanks to its ease of implementation and important role in computer performance. Currently, the largest amount of RAM you can possibly fit in a typical laptop is 2x4GB, for an 8GB total. That's a truckload of memory -- unfortunately it could cost upwards of $700 USD retail for DDR3 SODIMMs at press time. That said, there's one company that has it affordable. G.SKILL's F3-8500CL7D-8GBSQ 2x4GB costs a hair under $400 for DDR3 with 7-7-7-20 timings at press time, and while we are at it, G.SKILL is a reputable, quality manufacturer to performance enthusiasts. So whether you are looking to enlarge your e-peen today (Raises hand), or requires a big boost in system memory on your laptop (That too), we have this review here for you today!

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Rosewill Green Series 630 W (RG630-S12) Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Rosewill Green Series 630 W (RG630-S12) is an inexpensive power supply, costing only USD 70. But is it a good product? Let's check it out."

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Prolimatech Mega Shadow Deluxe Edition LGA 1156 Ready CPU Cooler Review @ OCIA.net

"Prolimatech has also released a new version of the Megahalems. It is a Megahalems that has been covered with a beautiful black nickel plate and sports LGA 1156 hardware so it will fit every enthusiast Intel CPU built in the past five years or so. But under that shiny black nickel finish, it still is a Megahalems at heart. Today I will be looking at this cooler, the Prolimatech Mega Shadow Deluxe Edition. Will it keep my LGA 1156 i7 870 nice and cool? Read on to see!"

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Asus EAH5970 @ Neoseeker

"The EAH5970 is obviously a monster card. It uses two of ATI's most powerful GPUs, so it should do no less than crush the competition. This is of course what it did."

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Zalman MS1000-HS2 Case @ BCCHardware

While there is a lot to like with the Zalman MS1000-HS2, there are a couple of things that bug me a little bit with this case. As previously mentioned, the lack of fan on the second HDD module makes drives installed in that bay a little too warm for my liking. Granted, many users will not use more than three drives, but for the cost of a single fan, I believe Zalman should have stepped up and provided one with this case. . .

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The Future of NVIDIA 3D Vision @ OCC

"Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be one of the few people to see 3D Blu-ray in action and I must say, I was very impressed. If you have seen any of the recent 3D movies in theaters over the past year, you know how far 3D has come in the past decade. No more blue-and-red glasses. No more throwing things out at you just for the sake of 3D."

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Kingston MobileLite G2 USB Card Reader with 8GB SDHC Card Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Back in March we took a look at Kingston�s MobileLite 9-in-1 card reader. It was a great and very useful product. Well Kingston has redesigned the MobileLite, calling the new version the G2. The MobileLite G2 is a very compact USB card reader that supports SD/SDHC, microSD/SDHC, MSPD, MS Pro HG Duo and M2 cards. Since it is so small you can take it with you anywhere and it has the USB connection right on it so no extra cables to carry with you, let�s take a look."

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G.Skill Pi PC3-17600 4GB Dual-Channel Memory Kit @ TweakTown

"What's important about this is that it's easier to get two modules to work together at a higher speed than it is to get three. For this reason we're seeing dual channel kits of memory offer us some serious speed and very quickly after the release of the P55 chipset. Since PC3-16000 is being offered by most performance memory manufacturers, it's time for companies to begin to mix it up even more. Today we'll be looking at a PC3-17600 kit from G.Skill. How many MHz is that? Well, we're not going to give that away just yet. Before we look at the MHz of the kit we'll have a quick look at the package and also a closer look at the modules and any extras on offer."

More information can be found here

Seagate FreeAgent Go ST910004FAA2E1-RK @ Benchmark Reviews

Mobile storage of music, videos, pictures, files, and pretty much anything else you can think of is rapidly becoming more and more popular. Even the recent release of Windows 7 has seen unheard of amounts of people wanting to install the operating system using external storage devices such as flash drives rather than a DVD. Many workstations in offices don't include any sort of optical or other removable media devices other than USB drives. Seagate has always been a name well associated with storage and their most recent external hard drive series is another push forward helping people with all kinds of storage needs. Benchmark Reviews is taking a look at the Seagate FreeAgent Go 640 GB USB 2.0 External Drive, which is loaded with features, and even software, to make your life easier.

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QNAP TS-809 Pro Turbo NAS Review @ TechSpot.com

While popular among storage-hungry PC enthusiasts, network-attached storage has proven to be particularly useful in office environments, where sharing large amounts of data between several desktop PCs can become quite problematic. With the availability of 2TB hard drives, a majority of users will be satisfied with a 2 or 4-bay NAS solution. However, as data accumulates over time there are those who might require even more than that. Performance and feature set are two things you'll definitely want to keep in mind. From our experience in testing a range of devices we can assure you there can be huge differences from one offering to another. Some will provide you with transfer speeds of around 10-20MB/s, while other more serious models will deliver considerably better performance, but most still struggle to max out a Gigabit Ethernet connection. Our quest for bigger and better alternatives led us to one place: the QNAP TS-809 Pro Turbo NAS. Not only can this product accommodate more hard drives than we've seen before, supporting a total of eight, but it possesses power that is unmatched by any NAS device we have come across to date.

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AcoustiPack Ultimate and Extra Soundproofing Materials for PC @ [OC]ModShop

One of the ultimate goals of a Home Theater PC enthusiast is to achieve a completely silent appliance. There are several ways to achieve this by using low-power motherboards, solid-state drives, and cards that only require passive cooling. Although the components you choose in your system plays a significant part of its silence, the next level of noise reduction is reached when you apply sound dampening material inside your computer. A lot of testing and research has been done by many companies to come up with acoustic material to silence your PC or home theater rig. One of the high-end materials comes from Acousti Products, who asked us to test their AcoustiPack Ultimate material, along with their AcoustiPack Extra foam.

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OCZ Platinum 1600 Ram Triple Channel @ LanOC Reviews

In the ram market there isn't any one manufacture who is top dog, but there are a few that stand out. One of the few manufactures that targets enthusiasts and benchmarkers is OCZ. They entered the memory market in August of 2000 hoping to make the best high performance memory; over nine years later they have grown to be one of the most successful enthusiast ram manufactures on the market. Recently they have been known for their SSD's but their memory is what started it all. Today I have the chance to take a look at one of their 1600Mhz Triple channel kits for the i7 platform. Read on to see how it performed.

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Asus My Cinema ES2-750/PT/FM/AV/RC @ Overclock3D

Today we take a look at a little TV card from Asus, Does it fit the bill?

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Patriot Memory NAS GearBox Mini Adapter Video Review @ TweakTown

"What happened, though, when the folks over at Patriot Memory asked if we wanted to do a review of their new NAS GearBox? We knew from the pictures in the press release we weren�t expecting a full-on NAS of the normal variety costing well into the four figures, no� we were expecting a tiny little NAS device that could easily sit in the palm of our hands, weigh under one hundred grams and cost around $50 USD. Patriot Memory�s NAS GearBox is a tiny little NAS gadget with 10/100 Ethernet LAN support and it comes with two powered USB 2.0 ports for easily adding and sharing media and files over your network. We were a little skeptical about this device, as we are now starting to see more and more routers come with a USB 2.0 port for simple adding of storage to your network. Some even come with some extra features such as built-in torrent downloaders, for instance."

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FREETALK Everyman (USB) @ TestFreaks

"This modestly priced ($22.88) headset features Neodymium speakers, a unidirectional microphone, 3.5 mm jack and a USB connection. The dual input system allows the FREETALK Everyman to be used with either a computer or connect to a portable media player. It is designed to work with either Mac OS X or Windows. "

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Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player Review @ Legit Reviews

"Seagate�s FreeAgent Theater+ is one of the most versatile media players on the market. Based on the Realtek 1073 chipset, the guts of the Theater+ are technically the same as the Patriot Box Office. Doing a side-by-side comparison, however, shows the Seagate to be a tad quicker when navigating around menus and playing files. The operating systems for devices featuring the Realtek processor are notoriously clunky or bland. Not so for the Seagate. The OS is actually quite sleek � almost minimalist. Everything you need is there and is easily accessible. In fact, my 5 year old was able to pick up the remote and navigate successfully to The Clone Wars TV Series Blu-ray-rips that I stored locally on the FreeAgent hard drive..."

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Virgin Media Freedom Netbook Video Review @ eTeknix.com

"Today we are looking at the Virgin Media Freedom netbook. This particular netbook comes free when you sign up to a Virgin Media broadband package and comes supplied with an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1gb ddr2, 120gb hard drive and integrated sound and graphics. It�s perfect for travelling with but be warned it�s quite small."

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6GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer Triple Channel RAM Review @ TechwareLabs

RAM is one of those things that can be easily overlooked. It can be confusing picking out what kind and how much you need. However RAM is one of the most important pieces of your machine, and can be a serious bottleneck if you don't have the optimum RAM speed and amount. With more RAM you can do more things at once. Multitaskers rejoice, because here's the Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB Kit.

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Bang For Your Buck: Six Gaming PCs Explored @ HotHardware.com

You're stuffed full of turkey, you somehow managed to erect a Christmas tree (or not), and you're still recovering from Black Friday. Without a doubt, you've had one whirlwind of a holiday. But before you get too comfortable in that chair of yours, we should probably remind you that the gift giving day(s) you've all been waiting for is only a few weeks away. If you've been thinking of replacing that aging gaming rig of yours with something a bit more powerful as a gift to yourself (so to speak), we've rounded up a few solid options in varying price ranges that just might fit the bill. Oh, and you don't even have to get off of that sofa you're planted on to assemble these.

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Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme Review @ XSReviews

"Companies are now becoming wise to the fact that revising an existing product is often an all together better choice than starting from scratch to try and create something intrinsically different. In this instance, Tuniq, a subsidiary of Sunbeamtech, have attempted to improve upon the Tower 120 design. Now christened the Tower 120 Extreme, this CPU cooler has been beefed up a little to make it more compatible with the newer Intel Nehalem architectures through a series of improvements designed to uprate the cooling capabilities. Let�s take a better look at the product in question."

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NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 Graphics Card @ iXBT Labs

"The test results indicate that GeForce GT 240 significantly outperforms cheaper RADEON HD 4670, but loses as much to more advanced RADEON HD 5750. In other words, it completely corresponds to its MSRP of $99."

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Thermaltake Contac 29 CPU Cooler Review @ Tweaknews

"All in all the Thermaltake Contac 29 CPU Cooler can hold its own and the proof is there. When a sub $40 cooler can keep a blistering 140w AMD Phenom II X4 965 overclocked to 3.6GHz with 1.4v under 60 degrees Celsius, you know you have value!."

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Win a Copy of Dirt 2! @ Techgage

I have the game installed, but due to time, I haven't been able to load it up (and it's killing me), so to hold me over until I can finally get some time to play, how about we do a little contest? We have three copies of the game to give out, and entering couldn't be more simple. Simply sign up on our forums if not already and post in the comments thread for this news post. That's it.

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News From Our Affiliates

ATI HD 5770 Review @ XSReviews

"ATI recently jumped ahead of their closest rivals nVidia by releasing their latest generation of GPUs upon the market, just before the launch of Windows 7 in an attempt to cash in on the early adopters of Direct X 11. However, like always the first run of cards made available were mind blowingly expensive, so what's a mid-ranger looking for an upgrade to do? Fortunately it wasn't long before the slightly more mid-range options were made available, the 57xx series. For those with an aging 7 or 8 series card from nVidia - or a 3 or mid level 4 series from ATI - still powering your gaming rig, this could well be the card that you upgrade to. Is it worth it though? Let's find out."

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Xigmatek Thor's Hammer CPU Cooler/Heatsink Review @ Tweaknews

"Xigmatek's Thor's Hammer is a formidable weapon in the battle against processor heat. It performed on par with the very best coolers in the comparison using a couple of inexpensive and quiet fans. The Hammer is a big cooler, particularly with two 120mm fans hanging off of it, but it delivers big performance commensurate with its bulk."

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Cooler Master Hyper N620 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

"This time we tested Cooler Master Hyper N620 CPU cooler. This model has a tower design, six heatpipes and it is one of the few coolers on market that comes already with two fans. But does it have a good performance? Let's see."

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Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB @ Overclock3D

The Kingston SSD Now V+ 64GB solid state drive comes through the OC3D Labs. Does it's value price tag mean value performance?

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NZXT Avatar gaming mouse @ Neoseeker

"The design allows left or right-handed players, which is a key bonus, and the mouse also delivers respectable performance in action."

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TweakTown Holiday Buyers Guide 2009 @ TweakTown

"As we roll into December and the Christmas Spirit begins to affect all of us in both our moods and our bank account balances, you find yourself wondering what you should be buying that special computer loving geek in your life. Actually, you might find you're the computer loving geek and wonder what you should buy yourself. Better still, you know that your partner or parents are going to be sitting down on the computer in the next few hours and you think if you conveniently leave your internet browsing software of choice strategically placed on the right page of our guide, you might just get exactly what you want without having to say something. I know; I'm really that smart!"

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Antec Nine Hundred Two Mid Tower Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Anyone who�s been in the market for a case in the past couple years has probably heard of the infamous Antec Nine Hundred. Today we have a chance to look at the redesigned Nine Hundred Two, which offers the same features of the original, but with further improvements. Improvements include a complete black interior, built in fan controllers, and better quality materials. Read on further to see what else the redesigned Nine Hundred Two has to offer."

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Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD @ OCC

"Using this drive as an OS drive proved every bit as pleasing as when I used the 64GB version, without stuttering and hangups. Early SSDs got a bad wrap for the performance degradation that manifested itself as you used the drive and got close to full capacity. Patriot has available a Wiper utility that will clear all of the blocks of memory that have been written to, so performance can be kept at peak levels - helping eliminate this obstacle to disk performance."

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OCZ Z Series 650W @ PureOverclock

"Today more than ever companies are succumbing to the pressures of a more educated public, and submitting their power supplies for certification. So when you choose a power supply having 80 plus label on the PSU is a good starting point which brings us to the PSU we will be reviewing today: the 80+ Silver Certified OCZ 650W Z series power supply."

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Seagate Barracuda XT SATA-6G Hard Drive @ Benchmark Reviews

Somewhere between the speed of Solid State Drive technology and the reliability of value-priced Hard Disk storage is the Seagate Barracuda XT. The industry's first SATA 6GBps HDD features 2TB of data storage capacity, and is also the first product to receive compliance with the third generation SATA controller interface. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Seagate Barracuda XT hard drive against a cross section of competing storage products using the ASUS P7P55D Premium (Marvell 88SE9123) and Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 (Marvell 88SE9128) motherboards, comparing the model ST32000641AS hard disk on the both SATA-6G controllers as well as Intel's P55/ICH10 SATA-3G chipset.

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AMD Athlon II X2 240e & X3 435 @ Techgage

If on the lookout for a budget processor, whether it be dual, tri or quad-core, there's no better place to look than AMD. The company recently released eight new models, and in total, nine current Athlon II's retail for under $100. We're taking a look at two such models here, the X3 435 and X2 240e, to see how much bang can be had for so little buck.

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iStorage Pro iT8SAE 8-bay SAS / SATA Expander @ TweakTown

"Digital content has grown in all forms and new standards have put even more of a burden on storage. Lossless codecs and raw material have grown in size and a computer�s ability to access the data quickly is even more challenging than it was ten years ago due to the sheer volume of data needed. Back in the day a few 18GB X15�s would do the trick, nowadays the program suites being run are larger than 18GB! The bus width has also changed considerably, Ultra2 Wide SCSI at 80 MB/s was hot stuff, but the products we are looking at today are capable of churning data at close to 20 times that rate. Today we are looking at a product from iStorage Pro. iStorage Pro is part of the Ci Design, a major ODM with over 25 years of experience making products for major OEMs. Recently Ci Design entered the retail market under the iStorage Pro label and currently have over 25 models set to be released."

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A-DATA SH93 Rugged Portable Hard Drive Review @ TechSpot.com

While commonly overlooked, regular backups is one of the most sensible tasks one should perform when it comes to personal computing. Without the help of a secondary storage device or some sort of remote backup strategy, chances of recovering data should your computer's hard drive completely die overnight would be bleak at best. Reliability and durability should also be taken into account. Portable hard drives are just an accidental drop away from irrecoverable loss, so spending a bit more to ensure data safety is a no-brainer for someone as ham-fisted as myself. A-DATA has taken it upon themselves to deliver such a product with their new SH93 line, bringing the industry's first waterproof and shock resistant portable hard drive. The SH93 was designed for road warriors who need to take their storage with them on the harshest of environments.

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Intel Xeon 3450 Processor @ iXBT Labs

"Surely, Xeon X3450 and especially X3440 are more interesting for overclockers than Core i7 860 (cheaper, easier to overclock, demonstrate similar results at the same frequencies) or i5 750 (faster at the same frequencies). This is a curious phenomenon, considering that Xeons are designed for servers and workstations."

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Noctua NH-D14 140mm CPU Cooler @ TweakTown

"Noctua, who is already well known for having great performance in their coolers, and at almost silent operation, had recently released a new 140mm fan, the NF-P14. This fan boasts more CFM and lower noise than the already good NF-P12 that Noctua users are accustomed to seeing and using. From previous testing, I can see a bit of room for improvement on CFM, but to do that and actually lessen the noise levels, now this I got to see! Aside from the noise levels, Noctua �super sized� the cooling capabilities of this version, not unlike the V10 concept, but Noctua saw no need for the third radiator, or a TEC for that matter. The new release utilizes two large fin assemblies and two fans to get the job handled. Knowing what I have seen from Noctua, I am excited to say the least."

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Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W Power Supply Review @ TechwareLabs

Current power supplies are all about efficiency and power and for good reason, you want enough power for power hungry system while being efficient enough not to destroy your power bill. Thermaltake has updated their famous Toughpower line with the newer Toughpower XT 750w which we will be looking at today.

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Sonos ZonePlayer S5 @ TestFreaks

" Their second method to increase their market presence is the release of their first affordable stand alone music system � the Sonos ZonePlayer S5. Priced at $399 it is still somewhat expensive but with the S5 the user gets a single portable receiver and speaker solution. The S5 can be easily integrated into a Sonos enabled home or work as a solo device for the Sonos newbie."

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Thermaltake SpinQ Heatpipe CPU Cooler Review @ Futurelooks

Most every company has tried their hands at these more unique coolers, with mixed success. Thermaltake is one company that keeps putting out coolers that both look interesting and actually work. One of their coolers seems to take its influence for the ninja.

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HotHardware and TechVi Video Podcast No. 5 @ HotHardware.com

We have just posted up our latest video podcast at HotHardware. This week we peek at the computer enthusiast's wish list with our friends at TechVi. On the list this time around? We talk processors, video cards and notebooks / netbooks. Also, a look at the D5000, Nikon's latest DSLR sexy-cam, and ChromiumOS project, the pre-release version of ChromeOS from Google...

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Proporta Turbo Charger 3400 Review @ XSReviews

"These days portable equipment is as ubiquitous as vomit in pub toilets, which in turn has meant a general move towards devices that allow you to recharge in-situ. Presumably so as to avoid the need to wipe said vomit from a nearby mains socket, and saving you the trouble of constantly needing to replace removable batteries. It's also standard practice to make just enough of your product proprietary - or dependent on something that is - in order to maximise profit without pushing the consumer too far. This means you can end up carrying around a separate charger for every portable item you own along with the bushel of interfacing cables. Adaptors are of course abound, but it would be nice if more devices came with a selection of common fittings the way the Turbocharger 3400 does. This portable charger gives you the ability to juice up anything from mobile phones to hand-held consoles, and all on the move."

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Raidmax SKYLINE Mid-Tower Case @ BCCHardware

One thing I really appreciate about this case is that the HDD cage pivots outward to make drive installation easy. This works very well if you have large graphics cards installed and it would be a tight squeeze to slide the drives in place. The only downside is that there is only room for three drives. . .

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SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Performance on the ASUS P7P55D-E Premium Motherboard @ Legit Reviews

"Our testing here today showed SuperSpeed USB 3.0 reaching 135MB/s, which is only three to four times faster than the vast majority of Hi-Speed USB 2.0 devices. This is a huge performance difference and is amazing if you actually think about it. In the seven years that Legit Reviews has been doing hardware reviews seeing a performance jump of this magnitude is often unheard of. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 performance on the ASUS P7P55D-E Premium motherboard was simply amazing and offered a much better user experience than SATA 6Gbps, which Legit Reviews took at look at last month. What is amazing is that USB 3.0 performance should still get better..."

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Thermaltake Vi-On HDD Enclosure Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Vi-On from Thermaltake is a hard disk drive enclosure with a suspension mechanism for the hard drive, a sheet of rubber foam to reduce the noise produced by the drive and a temperature-controlled fan. It is available in two versions, with eSATA port and without this port, and two choices of color, black or white. Let's take a look on the black eSATA model."

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News From Our Affiliates

NZXT Guardian 921 PC Case @ DragonSteelMods

" The Guardian 921 is a steel case in a mid tower configuration. If you are looking for a light aluminum case to carry to LAN parties, this is not the one for you. But if your goal is to have a rugged sexy looking gaming PC then the Guardian 921 fits the bill. "

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Win Creative Gigaworks T20 Series II Speakers @ t-break

The GigaWorks T20 Series II propels audio enjoyment to a whole new level of acoustic fidelity - over its award-winning predecessor, the GigaWorks T20. This two-way speaker design comes with BasXPort technology, delivering excellent full range audio with rich extended bass, eliminating the need for an actual subwoofer. The silk dome tweeter with woven glass fiber [...]

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GlideTV Navigator @ TestFreaks

"Up on the review block today I�ve got the GlideTV Navigator, it�s a very unique product that is intended to be used with an HTPC to make life a lot easier, it�s a remote control for your PC basically. The Navigator fits in the palm of your hand, and features a touchpad like you�d find on your laptop, along with basic function buttons for media controls. The GlideTV Navigator can be used for basic navigation and control, but if you pair it with the GlideTV software interface it becomes much more useful. It�s a great little product really that if you own an HTPC you might want to take a close look at�"

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Sapphire Radeon HD5850 @ Hardwareoverclock.com

Hardwareoverclock.com has reviewed the Radeon HD5850 videocard. In the review you can find performance benchmark between another videocards and also any Overclocking tries.

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Antec Two Hundred Mid Tower Case Review @ Verdis Reviews

�The ability to stay connected to the net whilst on the move is becoming more and more popular with netbooks being the latest must-have gadget. With more power and quicker speeds combined with a decrease in product size, the need for efficient and effective cooling is an ever-greater necessity. One way to supply extra cooling potential is through a notebook cooler; the marketplace has been hit with a wave of these coolers released left, right and centre and all claiming to offer effective cooling. In reality though, many coolers just couldn�t hack it in terms of raw performance and just weren�t worth it. That said, added features such as USB hubs and such like have made some coolers a more tempting purchase. One such product that includes a hub to bolster its marketability is the Choiix Mini Air-Through Notebook Cooling Pad. Let�s take a look...�

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Patriot Viper Series DDR3-1600 8-8-8-24 XMP Ready Triple Channel Memory Kit @ OCIA.net

"Though they have been around since 1985, I have never owned any Patriot Memory products before now. My memory purchases have been from the �household name� companies, as have most of yours. I always enjoy reviewing products from brands I have never owned before, and was delighted when I was asked to review a Patriot memory kit. Today I will be looking Patriot�s Viper Series DDR3-1600 8-8-8-24 triple channel memory kit. It is designed for the i7, and supports Intel XMP. Of course it does all of this at the i7�s required Vdimm of 1.65v. Will the Patriot memory kit do us proud? Read on to see!"

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Mackie MR8 Reference Monitors @ DreamWare Computers

"Traditionally the only way to get the Mackie name on your monitors was to buy from their lone HR series - which are out of the budget of most small-time recording hobbyists and are highly acclaimed professional level monitors. Mackie does have their Tapco brand, but it's very budget minded. When Mackie released their MR series of monitors, people jumped at the idea of getting the same high quality monitoring technology Mackie is known for, but at a fraction of the cost. Having reviewed several sets of monitors here in the past, and having personally used even more, I've been trying for a long time to get a set of these MR monitors myself to review here for you. Today, that day has arrived!"

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Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player Review @ Futurelooks

Is there something in the air? Maybe in the water? It seems that so many companies that once focused on other areas, like memory and motherboards, have suddenly acquired a taste for consumer electronics and they�re all gravitating toward the appeal of HD media players.

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Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B LGA1156 @ PureOverclock

"Today we are looking closely at the Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B on the LGA1156 socket to see if it can continue its successful ways. More specifically, we'll overclock the snot out of our Core i7 and find out just how far the Rev.B can let us overclock on air cooling. As you'll soon see, we were quite surprised by the results. Follow along and find out why."

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Zowie Gear Hammer e-Sports Headset @ OCC

"If the headphones provided decent sound isolation from the real world, and the high end response was a bit better, I would recommend the headset as the best you can get. As I've tried to stress in this conclusion, the shortcomings are actually minor, and I found the headset hard to fault. You can really tell a lot of thought, design and consideration went into developing the Zowie Gear Hammer headset, and it all paid off as Zowie Gear have produced a headset worthy of the professional gamer."

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OCZ DDR3 PC3-15000 Platinum Series 4GB Memory Kit @ TweakTown

"Dual channel memory is back and honestly, it's back with a vengeance. The release of the P55 chipset from Intel has bought with it a huge amount of new memory modules due to its support for cheaper dual channel kits. We'll see what's going on with the PC3-15000 kit we have here today from OCZ. We'll check out the package and modules before having a closer look at the specifications and then its overclocking ability."

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ASUS Radeon EAH5850 @ Techgage

If we had an award for the "best bang for the buck", it would require little thinking to give it to ATI's Radeon HD 5850. For the price, it offers incredible power, superb power consumption, and of course, DirectX 11 support. We're taking a look at ASUS' version here, which along with Dirt 2, includes a surprisingly useful overclocking tool.

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NVIDIA- Past, Present & Future: An Interview with Jen Hsun Huang @ t-break

I had the pleasure of sitting face to face with the Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA- Mr. Jen Hsun Huang. The following are excerpts from that interview.

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Lian Li PC-B70 @ LanOC Reviews

A while back I took a look at a case from LanCool called the K58. LanCool is a Lian Li company that gives you Lian Li quality on a budget. Today I have the chance to take a look at Lian Li�s new PC-B70 case. This is my first experience with an all aluminum case; I�m excited to take a closer look.

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Enable Command Scrolling from the Keyboard @ [OC]ModShop

If you are a system administrator, then you probably find yourself using the Windows Command Prompt more often than most people. When running this window, old-school admins get into a DOS or Linux mindset and just don't like to use the mouse. Heck, one of the Microsoft interview questions for admins is "How do you fix a problem on a computer if the GUI is busted?". For those of you who feel your workflow is disrupted by taking your hand off the keyboard to use the mouse, then I have good news: you can change the Command Prompt to scroll mode by using a quick keyboard shortcut.

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Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 cpu cooler @ TestSeek

Arctic Cooling is one of the more well known manufacturers in the PC hardware industry, especially when it comes to smart cooling solutions. The company also manufactures power supplies and computer cases. The Swiss mark may be most known for the VGA coolers; �Accelero Xtreme� and �Accelero Twin Turbo� which are available for more or less all the medium to high end graphics cards on the market. Today I will take a closer look at a CPU cooler from Arctic Cooling which has been given an overhaul and has been released under a secondary revision, the �Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2�. This cooler excels in two ways; first: it�s really cheap and second: it�s compatible with a real long list of platforms including Intel�s and AMD�s newest sockets�

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Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City Xbox 360 Review @ TweakTown

"When Microsoft and Rockstar announced a joint partnership to have exclusive DLC content, the internet basically exploded. The most anticipated game in many years was going platform exclusive, to a degree. And considering that platform was not Playstation, the platform many people see as the one which built the GTA franchise, it was hard for some people to swallow. Earlier this year we saw the release of The Lost and the Damned on Xbox Live; a biker story taking place during the same time as the main Niko story from the original game. As promised, we have now seen the second DLC, The Ballad of Gay Tony, but in a surprise Rockstar has released these two titles as a singular package which is sold at retail and not only that, does not require the original game. Whether Episodes of Liberty City is worth the purchase depends on a few things which are explored in this review. However, it is clear that Rockstar has listened since the first DLC, because the second, TBOGT, is by far the best."

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Inno3D GeForce GT220 Graphics card Review @ XtremeComputing

"Today we are looking at the Nvidia GT220 1GB graphics card from Inno3D. This is an entry level graphics card from nvidia which supports DX10 and CUDA. Now that Inno3D have been introduced....."

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Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3-1333 RAM Review @ TechwareLabs

TechwareLabs reviews the Crucial Ballistix Tracer RAM, which aims to provide more flash for less cash. We'll see if it has the performance to back up the presentation.

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Wintec Filemate SolidGo Silver 60GB SSD @ Pro-Clockers

Solid state storage drives has become the must have device inside a PC in recent months. Easily one of the biggest upgrades that you will find to increase the performance of your system. Pricing has been the reason why many of us have not jumped on the wagon. Even with the decrease in pricing lately this drive can still cost you easily $200 for a mere 64GB drive. Wintec like many other companies make a few series of drives beginning with the budget low cost models using multi-level cell (MLC) to the more expensive higher performance single-level cell or SLC. Each will give you a noiseless drive while providing you with durable and incredible read and write times that a mechanical drive cannot touch.

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How CPU Features Affect CPU Performance, Part 5 @ iXBT Labs

"We proceed with our series of articles devoted to analyzing performance of modern CPUs in real applications and finding out the effect of processor features. This article dwells on the number of cores of Intel Core i7. That is we actually redo the first part of this series, but with a different processor this time."

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Thermaltake BlacX Duet Review @ BCCHardware

The Thermaltake BlacX Duet is a handy hard drive dock that makes switching drives fast, simple and convenient. It makes hot-swapping external drives a snap and provides great performance combined with good looks. It works with both 2.5" and 3.5" hard drives making it one of the more useful external hard drive devices around. The addition of a second drive slot expands its usefulness and should satisfy pretty much everyone who needs access to fast external storage. . .

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VidaBox Premium Wireless Keyboard @ techPowerUp

In this revision of the popular Vidabox Premium HTPC Keyboard, Vidabox has optimized for longer battery life and greater wireless range to ensure better long term usability, which makes it an outstanding HTPC keyboard. We take a closer look at this fine keyboard and show you how well it performs.

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Seagate BlackArmor NAS 110 1TB NAS Box @ TestFreaks

"I�ve taken a look at the Seagate BlackArmor series of external drives and NAS boxes in the past, today for review I�ve got another of the BlackArmor series, the NAS110. This one is a single drive NAS box that�s very easy to setup and offers all of the features of multiple drive NAS boxes. The NAS110 is aimed at those that want network storage but don�t want to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars, it�s a a little over $200 in cost and well worth it I think. I�ve tested it out, and compared it up against a few other NAS boxes I�ve got on hand and found it to be the fastest of the bunch. So read on to learn more about a great little NAS box� "

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News From Our Affiliates

NZXT Cryo S Laptop Cooler Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Last year we took a look at the Cryo LX notebook cooler from NZXT and we were very impressed as it kept our notebooks here nice and cool. While the Cryo LX was a great cooler it was not for everyone as it was quite large, fitting laptops up to 17-inches. So NZXT decided to make another version that performed the same, but was just a little smaller to accommodate laptops 15-inches or smaller. They are calling it the Cryo S and we have the review for you!"

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FIFA 10 Xbox 360 Review @ TweakTown

"2008 was something of a changing of the guard. Konami shipped the same game yet again with updated rosters (something EA has been accused of many times by this jaded journalist) and EA shipped what has quickly become known as one of the best football games ever. Peter Moore of EA liked what he saw and challenged the team to make an even better football game and in 2010 they have. There is no doubt that FIFA 10 is one of the greatest football games ever made and the promise of next generation football is finally coming to pass. The main focus for FIFA 10 has been the introduction of a 360 dribbling system. For those uninitiated in the sport, that is where the player runs with the ball. In the past we have been limited to the eight way directional system of the control pad, but this year EA has developed a system which allows for true 360 degree control. This adds so much depth to the game as you can jank around players and put together passes and runs in a much more smooth fashion than ever before."

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'Photoshop iPhone App Released' @ t-break

Adobe announced the availability of their extremely popular Photoshop application for the iPhone which, unfortunately, is only available to the US iTunes store at the moment. Featuring basic tasks such as image rotation, cropping and flipping as well as adjusting exposure and saturation, the app is more of a Photoshop.com kind of app than the [...]

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Genius Easypen i405 Graphics Tablet Review @ iGadget Life

"Modern laptops usually include a solid keyboard and a pointing device. While this works great for the typical requirement, it falls quite short as an input of choice when it comes to drawings, sketches, or fine illustrative control. For these instances, it is hard to beat the pen you can hold in your hand. The modern equivalence of this is the graphics tablet, which plugs into the computer and gives you a pen as the control device. A popular brand of graphic tablets is Genius, and they have quite a few offerings to satisfy the need. In this review we will focus on the Easypen i405."

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iFrogz 4th Gen Nano Luxe iPod Case @ TestFreaks

" It�s been a while since we�ve looked at any iPod accessories hasn�t it? Well if you�ve still got your iPod nano 4th Generation then the product I�ve got today might interest you. The product is a decent case from iFrogz called the Nano Luxe. The case is made of plastic, the top half is clear while the bottom half is black plastic that has a faint texture to it. Included with the case is a screen protector as well to further protect your nano."

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Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Tested in 15 Benchmarks @ Madshrimps

15 benchmarks, 5 resolutions, noise/power consumption tests and much more�

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NZXT PANZERBOX Aluminum Chassis Reviewed @ DragonSteelMods

"Today for review I've got the NZXT Panzerbox Aluminum Case which is a small case on the outside, but the way it is designed inside allows for lots of room to install most any system. The Panzerbox is sort of meant to be a portable case, it's small and compact in size, but yet has a lot of room for even large video cards and several hard drives. It features 190mm fans on the top and in the front, along with a 120mm rear exhaust fan as well so it offer quite a bit of cooling for your system. The case itself is designed and built well, being made of aluminum makes it lightweight for taking with you to LAN parties. The Panzerbox makes for a great home for you gaming system. "

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NZXT M59 Case Review @ Rbmods

NZXT's latest offering, the M59, is of course geared towards gamers. NZXT claims that the M59 combines superior airflow and sleek aesthetics with some excellent case building features to help speed along assembly and make upgrades a snap. Let's take a deeper look.

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Thermaltake Massive 23 ST Notebook Cooler Review @ Virtual-Hideout

�As everyone should know by now, laptops are big business. As we've heard many times over the past few years that laptops are outselling desktops more often than not these days and why not, they're more portable and do 99% of what the average person needs (web and email), not to mention wifi can be had almost anywhere. The hardcore geeks will still buy their big towers and heavy equipment, but those days are numbered. So with more and more laptops out there in the wild, and faster and hotter hardware being stuffed into them, the need for notebook coolers is at an all-time high. Thermaltake has answered the call with the Massive 23 ST notebook cooler. With its "massive" 230mm fan and support for 10"-17" laptops, they might just have a winner on their hands.�

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'MSI P55-GD65 Motherboard' @ t-break

With Intel's launch of the Lynnfield LGA1156 based Core i7 and i5 processors and the P55 chipset accompanying it, a range of motherboards is expected and we�re looking at one such board today- the MSI P55-GD65.The board reviewed today is supported by a variety of the usual overclocking features, including MSI�s Xtreme Speed Overclocking technology, [...]

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My Dress-Up � Nintendo DS Game @ TestFreaks

" Playing My Dress-Up works along the same lines. Just as real children play dress-up for no reason aside from having some silly fun, they can play this game for no reason aside from having some silly fun. That seems logical in concept, but it turns out that doing something pointless is less fun when you�re not at least doing it for real."

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4 GTX295 watercooler comparison@ Hardwareoverclock.com

Last week they has take a look at 4 kind of GTX295 watercooler. The testing samples are Aquacomputer Aquagrafx GTX 295, EK Water Blocks EK-FC295 GTX, Innovatek Cool-Matic GTX 295 and the Swiftech Epsilon GTX295. The most important themes in the review are the installation, the accessories and cooling performance.

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Aerocool Touch 2000 Touch Screen Fan Controller Review @ Tweaknews

"With the Touch 2000, AeroCool has produced a worthy successor to their popular line of bay fan control devices. This device is feature rich, user friendly has a bright, vivid touch screen that just begs the user to tweak their fans for optimal cooling or minimal fan noise."

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NZXT Lexa S @ PureOverclock

"A look at NZXT's lineup reveals a multitude of mid-towers, and the Lexa S is the latest addition to this extensive list. The Lexa S is a smart blend of value and quality, a combination everyone loves. A well-equipped little brother to the larger Lexa, let�s take a closer look at this new case and see how it shapes up."

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Nero Linux 4 - Still the Best Burning Tool for Linux? @ Techgage

One of the best features of Linux is its sheer number of free available applications. But once in a while, certain commercial offerings offer enough features and an ease-of-use that makes it worthy of consideration. Nero Linux is one of those. Now in its third iteration, Nero Linux remains the definitive optical-burning tool for the OS.

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HIS Radeon HD 4830 512MB Graphics Card Video Review @ eTeknix.com

"Today we are looking at the HIS Radeon HD 4830 512MB Graphics Card. This is a budget to mid range card from AMD delivering good performance in some of the latest games. HIS aren't heard from very much in the UK, but they offer good value for money, decent cooling, and a good warranty."

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Galaxy GeForce GT 220 1GB Video Card @ TweakTown

"From a regular gamer�s perspective, NVIDIA�s GeForce GT 220 GPU probably isn't really a video card you would buy. The chances are this is the kind of video card that's sitting inside your work PC, assuming it doesn't use onboard video. Does this make it a bad model, though? No, it's just aimed at a different segment. If you're looking for something that's going to pack a bit more punch than an onboard video solution, this is what you would buy - it's going to be perfect for those older games at those lower resolutions. Galaxy�s take on the new GPU is pretty standard - the cooler while being a little on the loud side does a good job of keeping the card cool. We also did see that World in Conflict was able to achieve a 30 FPS minimum, which means other games like Company of Heroes based off the same engine are going to be able run at the same numbers, which we consider playable."

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Samsung SC-MX20EL Digital Camcorder @ Bigbruin.com

The Samsung SC-MX20EL comes packed with useful features especially considering its small size and relatively low cost. It sure is nice to go to a sporting event with a camcorder that can fit in your pocket and still capture video on the other side of the field using the 34x optical zoom. I think most consumers will be quite pleased with the results given the $150 cost of this device.

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Palit GeForce GT 220 Sonic Edition 40nm 512MB Video Card @ TweakTown

"To be honest, this was a bit of a shock - we're not talking about a GTX 275, we're talking about a new low-end model. We have to wonder however, is this model worthy of the �Sonic� title, which has impressed us so often in the past? It's been a while since we've seen anything from Palit and the video card they chose to reintroduce us to them was the GT 220 Sonic. With Galaxy already setting the benchmark for GT 220 performance, we'll find out if Palit are able to improve upon that with a video card that carries the Sonic name."

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XFX Black Edition 850w ATX PSU @ Overclock3D

XFX's entry into the PSU market may look like it's a prop from an alien sci-fi movie, but how will it cope up when placed up against the OC3D anal probe testing procedures?

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Palit GeForce GT 220 Sonic 512 MB @ techPowerUp

NVIDIA's new GeForce GT 220 is built around the new GT216 graphics processor, which is NVIDIA's first chip to be made in a 40 nm process. Another novelty is support for DirectX 10.1. Palit's Sonic Edition comes with higher clocks out of the box and an extremely well optimized low-noise fan.

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Palit GT 220 Sonic Edition @ OCC

"Having tested out many of the applications I mentioned in the past, the Palit GT 220 offers decreased time to complete a task than the CPU alone. The Palit GT 220 is not a gaming powerhouse but it does allow you to play at 1280x1024 with settings that are not the bottom of the barrel but fall into the middle of the road. With GPU computing becoming more mainstream, people are finding the tangible benefits of using the GPU as not just a video card but a way to increase productivity and make use of this new way of doing old tasks."

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Skooba Checkthrough Rolling Laptop Case @ Legit Reviews

"Instead of just talking about the bag, we went to the airport to ask a few TSA agents at the Los Angeles International Airport what they thought about the Skooba Checkthrough Rolling Laptop Case and if it would indeed help with getting through security. Each one could easily tell that the bag was indeed one of a handful of "checkpoint friendly" cases (by not only the way it folds open, but by the logo and tagging on the outside. The TSA agents said that if the user would leave their laptops in the case, there would be no fuss whatsoever. The only thing that will set off an alarm or raise a flag is if there is something on top or below the computer when it is on the x-ray machine. Of course, the bag will need to be rechecked or inspected closer if you are trying to check unapproved items..."

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Zotac GeForce GT 220 1 GB @ techPowerUp

Zotac's new GeForce GT 220 is based on NVIDIA's new GT 216 GPU which features 48 shader processors. While this is certainly not enough to play games at high resolutions it is sure fine for casual gaming. Windows desktop use and HD video playback is what this card is really targeted at and here it shines with extremely low power consumption and good feature set.

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PDC World Championship Darts for Nintendo Wii @ TestFreaks

"On the review block today I�ve got PDC World Championship Darts from O-Games. PDC let�s you compete against professional dart throwers on the Wii, and you can actually simulate throwing a dart with the Wiimote. It�s an interesting concept, and one that doesn�t work too well really. Simulating throwing something with the Wiimote is bound to end up with bad consequences, broken TVs or possibly hurt pets or people. World Championship Darts though is game that does offer quite a bit of features like character creation and editor, real-world tournament locations, actual PDC pros as playable characters, and multi-player mode as well. "

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Dead Space: Extraction - Wii @ LanOC Reviews

Grab a plasma cutter and try to make it out alive in the latest survival horror game that is ripping up the Nintendo Wii! Use the Wii Remote to aim with pin-point precision as you try to escape the USG Ishimura with your mind and body intact.

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Lexmark Interact S605 All-in-One Printer Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Today's world of printers is a far cry from the days of the first dot-matrix printers that only printed black ink on special pin-fed continuous paper. Today's All-in-One printers can print, copy and scan in color. And the newest ones are also promising wireless printing, improved ink handling, and Internet connectivity. We decided to look at the Lexmark Interact S605 All-in-One printer to see if these new features are worthwhile additions or insignificant elements."

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Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for Xbox360 @ Bona Fide Reviews

" Today for review I�ve got the Xbox360 version of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. UA2 puts you in the shoes of 24 heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe. The premise behind that game is that the government is trying to force the heroes and villains to register and basically become their private force, problem is that not everyone agrees with this. Iron Man is heading up those that are for the registration, and Captain America is leading the anti-registration forces and it�s essentially an all out civil war between the two sides."

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News From Our Affiliates

Mini Ninjas - X-Box 360 @ LanOC Reviews

Join Hiro as he embarks on an epic journey to restore peace to a world on the edge of chaos. Using magic, Ninja tools, and superb training mighty Hiro must save his friends and the world from an army of evil Samurai. From snowy mountaintops, to lush forests, Hiro fights hordes of enemies and several boss Samurai culminating in the ultimate fight against the Evil Samurai Warlord. From the same company that brought us the gritty Hitman games, comes a non stop, 3D, Ninja adventure that's a blast for all ages.

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AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Socket AM3 Triple Core Processor Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Today I will be looking at my first triple core processor, the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition. It has been around about six months now, and the price has dropped a fair amount, making this CPU a definite consideration for an economy rig. With some careful shopping, using this processor and the motherboard I will be using for this review, you could easily build a rig less peripherals and operating system for under $600. Read on to check out the Phenom II X3 720!"

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Gigabyte GeForce GTX 260 Super Overclock @ Techgage

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 260 is not a new card. In fact, it's been available for over a year in its 216 Core form. So is it even worth a look at today? Where Gigabyte's "Super Overclock" version is concerned, yes. Although it costs less than a stock GTX 275, this new card beat it out in almost every single game and setting we put it through.

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Intel Corei7-820QM Mobile CPU Benchmarks @ t-break

Intel launched their new Nahelam based Core i7 mobile CPUs in Dubai yesterday. The following three CPUs are going to be initially available under the Core i7 umbrella at the moment along with some specifications Core i7-720QM Core i7-820QM Core i7-920XM Frequency 1.60GHz 1.73GHz 2.0GHz Smart Cache 6MB 8MB 8MB Turbo Boost 2.80GHz 3.06GHz [...]

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Top 5 Smartphones for October 2009 @ t-break

We recommend the following five Smartphones for October 2009PositionNamePrice (AED)1Apple iPhone 3GS3500-45002Blackberry Curve 890018003Nokia N9726004Samsung Jet23005Apple iPhone2500-3500

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Interview with Good Old Games + Giveaway @ TechSpot.com

Good Old Games is just about that, reviving PC gaming classics. Having started with just two publishers and 40 titles backing them up, one year later GoG.com has expanded to include nearly 30 publishers and over 130 games, among which are such classics like the original Fallout, MDK, Duke Nukem 3D and many more -- priced reasonably between $5.99 and $9.99 for a DRM-free copy. Following on from our last giveaway earlier this year, Good Old Games is just reaching its first anniversary, so we thought it would be a good idea to check back on them to see how things were going (and get more freebies for our readers, of course). We talk with the service's PR manager, Lukasz Kukawski as he comments on the challenges the service has faced, their DRM-free model, and a few other tidbits on the GoG operation. Also... Don't miss our GoG giveaway! Just comment what game you would like to receive for free and mention any other PC gaming classic you loved back in the day, and you are in. We will randomly select from 15 participating users and announce a winner on Sunday night (October 11).

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Cirago CST5250 250GB Portable USB Hard Drive 2.5" @ TestFreaks

"Today I have the Cirago 250GB Portable USB Hard Drive for review. The CST5250 is one of the smallest 2.5� external hard drives I�ve come across, making it very portable, but portable doesn�t mean much if it doesn�t perform well. The CST5250 is also nicely made, it has a metal housing so it should be able to endure a bit of daily abuse and the metal should help keep it cooler as well. "

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ZOTAC�s New ION ITX-F Series and the MAG ITX System @ MEGATechNews

While many graphics card manufacturers have been focusing on just their cards, ZOTAC has been doubling efforts in the ITX motherboard market producing the best low power, ITX desktop motherboards. Because of this, they've pretty much remained the uncontested ITX champs. A good example of this ingenuity would be the ION ITX-F series that was announced a few days ago. Today we get a special LIVE sneak peak at both of their new products in the silicon. What do you mean two? Well, there's also the new MAG "Mini All-in-one Giant" ITX system too!

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ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 PWM CPU Cooler @ TweakTown

"When I hear the name ZEROtherm it immediately takes me back to seeing the images of the �butterfly cooler� all over the net. This copper and red CPU cooler was quite the step away from the �norm� of cooler manufacturing and has put ZEROtherm on the map. The BTF series of coolers were brought up as that cooler shows how the company took a basic idea and kept improving upon it until they had an effective all copper version with a 92mm fan, eventually replacing the 80mm they started with. Onward into building bigger and better things, they went with the ZEN series, moving up to a 120mm fan to cool things off and using an all copper base and heat pipes to draw heat into aluminum fins. This was a uniquely designed, tower style cooler that utilized a clip on fan to do the work. These are all great ideas that we have seen most manufacturers using up to this point. So why not keep with the trend?"

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Turtle Beach Ear Force P21 Gaming Headset @ Legit Reviews

"The latest offering from Turtle Beach for the PlayStation3 is the Ear Force P21 gaming headset. I would not describe myself as an avid gamer, but I've recently started playing Killzone2's online multiplayer via the PlayStation Network (PSN). The play is team oriented and my inability to communicate was proving to be a real disadvantage. I needed a good headset that allowed me to hear the game in stereo while being able to talk to my PSN teammates..."

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Teufel Concept E 300 Review @ XSReviews

"Surround sound and the home cinematic experience is a market that has been on the rise with users looking for crystal clear sound to give the full-fat experience whether it is with movies, games or music. The German speaker specialist, Teufel, may not be that well known in the UK, but in other European countries it appears to be building up a strong reputation for its high quality speaker sets. The home cinema now features a number of different ranges from the Motiv and Columa series up to the more expensive LT sets. Whilst in terms of sound quality and performance, these sets have been impressing users alike, with many of the systems stretching past the �1000, they can�t be considered particularly affordable. With this in mind, Teufel created the Concept PC/multimedia speakers of which we will be taking a look at the E300 version offering a 300W sub, 5.1 surround and a price tag within budget of a larger proportion of enthusiasts. Let�s get stuck in."

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Athlon II X4 620 Review @ Hardware Secrets

"AMD took the lead by announcing the first quad-core CPU to be offered on the USD 100 range, Athlon II X4 620. Thus this CPU promises to deliver a terrific performance to entry-level PCs. Will this promise hold true? Let's see."

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Thermaltake ISGC-400 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

"We have reviewed three Thermaltake's ISGC series coolers, ISGC-100, ISGC-200 and ISGC-300, with results varying from one to the other. Lets see how the fourth cooler, ISGC-400, will perform?"

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BFG GeForce GTX 285 OCX 1024MB Graphics Card Video Review @ eTeknix.com

"Today we are looking at the BFG GeForce GTX 285 OCX 1024Mb graphics card. This particlar card is brilliant for people who want the very best from the latest games. It�s a high end card for the extreme gamer, incorporating the latest technology for the very best gaming experience."

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NZXT M59 Case Review @ Hardware Secrets

"NZXT is establishing itself as a brand with good and yet inexpensive cases. M59, for example, costs less than USD 60 and yet has several features traditionally found only on high-end models, like the interior painted black, 2.5" bays, eSATA port, meshed covers, place for installing fans on the top panel, screwless mechanisms for installing hard drives and more. Let's see if M59 is a good pick."

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The New Arcade @ iGadget Life

"These days, our concept of arcade has been redefined once again. Not only do we have modern-day versions of full-on arcade game units, but every gamer has the ability to bring a new type of �arcade� into their home via downloadable content. The new arcade � the Xbox Live Arcade � has brought a refreshed meaning to the word, and a new breed of games that could go on to become the immortal �arcade� titles of the �00s. "

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Sasmsung LapFit LD190 USB + VGA LCD @ BCCHardware

The Samsung Lapfit LD190 is a very unique display that is marketed at a unique demographic. It offers basic LCD functions with a very basic resolution. It doesn't have an adjustable stand, nor does it support DVI, HDMI or HDCP content. What it does bring to the table is display connectivity via a USB cable. This allows you to put additional displays on your laptop. While most laptops support dual screens, the Lapfit gives you the ability to take things up a notch and add even more displays. . .

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OCZ Agility 60GB Solid State Drive Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Lately it seems like everyone is releasing new solid state drives. Recently we reviewed the Vertex series drive from OCZ, which was one of their performance drives based on the ever popular Indilinx Barefoot controller. The thing about SSD drives is that they are still quite expensive. OCZ realizes this and has released a mainstream drive that is basically identical to the Vertex series of drives except it uses different NAND chips, they are calling it the Agility series. This change allows OCZ to aggressively price the Agility series, let's take a look."

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Logitech G19 Keyboard for Gaming @ OCC

"Obviously the G19 keyboard is very customizable. The keyboard has 12 macro keys, an LCD screen that can be set to display a wealth of information, and a backlight that can display most any color, although some colors display better than others. Additionally, the ability to change between three profiles at the touch of a button is key. If you have several games you switch between, you can make three separate profiles, complete with different backlight colors, to handle all your custom key macros."

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ioSafe Solo External Hard Drive w/ Disaster Protection @ TweakTown

"Tornados, earthquakes and hurricanes all pale in numbers to house fires. The US Fire Administration estimated there were 1.5 million fires in 2008. We have been recommending NAS servers for years and preached about the importance of using RAID 1, RAID 5 or RAID 6 for data security, but never once had we really thought about what would happen with these products once you start adding water or fire to the mix. Luckily ioSafe was thinking about these situations and started doing something about it. Today we will be taking a look at the ioSafe Solo, a low cost, single drive, USB 2 external drive bay that can take the temperatures of a house fire as well as the water used by the fire department used to extinguish the fire. Let�s have a closer look at the specifications and features."

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SilverStone Raven RV02 Full-Tower @ Techgage

SilverStone's Raven RV01 chassis might not have been the most well-received, but the company has attempted to make up for all the mistakes of the initial chassis with a follow-up, the RV02. Fortunately, the company has done just that, and except from a rather minor issue, and possibly its price, this is almost a perfect chassis.

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Seasonic S12D 750W @ PureOverclock

"Seasonic is one of the most respected names in the power supply industry, not only manufacturing their own brand-name units, but also acting as an OEM for several other major companies as well that have Seasonic designs but slap on their own sticker. Needless to say, Seasonic has a well-established reputation in the industry. Seasonic's S12D 750W power supply certainly appears to be very capable, so let's take a closer look and see if it can indeed suit gamers' needs."

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Seagate Free Agent XTreme 2Tb @ LanOC Reviews

Over the past few months we have taken a look at a full selection of Seagate�s business and home external hard drives. Seagate took a note from the late 90�s with the latest drive we are looking at. The Free Agent Xtreme is a personal desktop drive with a 2Tb capacity. So what does Xtreme stand for? Maybe the drive is made for extreme conditions? Or maybe it skydives? I�m going to dive in and find out what it�s all about, how it performs, and how extreme it really is.

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Logitech Performance Mouse MX @ TestSeek

It is not a secret that the Performance mouse MX is first of all intended as an �all tasks� mouse. Of course I tested its gaming capabilities as well which you can read about further down in this review. Without a doubt, the Performance Mouse MX has some really interesting specifications as you can see from the table below. One of the most prominent features is the new �Unifying� technology which connects up to 6 devices to one single USB receiver. The only downside is that this technology is not compatible with older wireless products from Logitech�

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Batman: Arkham Asylum (Games for Windows) @ Barry's Review Blog

�What begins as the capture of Batman's most notorious enemy quickly turns into a deadly, nightmarish trap in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Led by the Joker, the inmates and some of Gotham City's most notorious super-criminals have seized control of the asylum and it's up to Batman to take it back. But there's more to Joker's diabolical scheme than turning Arkham into his own twisted playground and destroying the Dark Knight...�

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HIS ATI Radeon HD4770 Graphics Card Review @ Tech-Reviews.co.uk

Today we have an ATI HD4770 to review from the popular company named HIS. HIS are one of the leading manufacturers of ATI graphics cards. To see how this budget monster performs, we�ll be comparing it to a card just �20 more expensive. Time to see how this RV740 GPU video card performs�

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Top PC Games for this Holiday Season and Beyond @ TechSpot.com

With the holiday rush approaching, it can be difficult to keep track of all the popular video games launching each week -- much less those on the horizon. Whether you're a casual gamer or just doing a little early Christmas shopping, we've collected a list of games we're most interested in this holiday season and the first quarter of next year.

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GTX 260 Super Overclock from Gigabyte @ Neoseeker

"Gigabyte has sent us their latest: this Super Overclock version of the GTX 260. We intend to find out if the "Super" is a superlative or not. The video card market is crowded with all sorts of nice cards -- so let us see if this baby has enough of an overclock to keep pace with the competition."

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The Great Patriot Memory 128GB Xporter Magnum USB Flash Drive Tweetaway! @ Futurelooks

Futurelooks has teamed up with Patriot Memory, makers of high performance memory modules, solid state drives (SSD), flash drives and peripherals, to give you a chance to win one of our biggest (yet smallest) prizes yet! We�re giving away one of these most excellent Patriot Memory Xporter Magnum 128GB USB Flash Drives to a lucky winner.

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Chenbro RM11602 Server Case @ TechwareLabs

Our friends at Chenbro have sent us a 1U server case to review. The Chenbro RM11602 case is a rack dense Computing-Oriented Server Chassis. This case is designed for tool-less, easy installation and with outstanding thermal protection.

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IN-WIN Maelstrom Full Tower Case Review @ Legit Reviews

"The IN-WIN Maelstrom case is a full tower chassis in their Destiny-extreme series which, if you can't discern from the name, is geared towards high-end systems. While a full tower case, it is not quite as overwhelmingly large as some in that category although it still has some heft to it at roughly 27lbs. Retailing for $109.99 shipped, the IN-WIN Maelstrom certainly is a fair amount cheaper than many higher-end cases and hopefully after reading this, you'll have a good idea as well as our opinion on if the price represents a good value for this product..."

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Zotac MAG ION Nettop @ techPowerUp

Zotac is well known for their graphic cards, but the company goes one step further and applies their engineering skills we have come to love in form of their mini-ITX boards and poured them into their first NVIDIA ION Nettop. The Zotac MAG packs a dual core Atom 330 with an ION platform, 2 GB of memory and 160 GB of hard drive space along with a few other surprises. All for an extremely competitive price tag.

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How Stuff Works: Computer Graphics Cards @ TestFreaks

" You know the words you�re reading right now? You�re seeing them thanks to your computer�s graphics card. The game you just played? Yeah, that was the graphics card too, big guy. Without your computer�s graphics card, your monitor is as useful as a can of baked beans for viewing things. "

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News From Our Affiliates

Race To Witch Mountain HD Movie Review @ TweakTown

"A semi-remake of the 1975 live action film Escape to Witch Mountain, now re-titled Race to Witch Mountain, continues to have nothing to do with Witches, but everything to do with kid friendly sci-fi. Taxi driver Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson, A.K.A. �The Rock�) gets slightly more than he bargained for (in all senses of the word) when two children (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) board his ride. When he delivers them to an address in the middle of the desert, he�s quickly drawn into an interstellar battle between evil aliens, good aliens and, of course, Government agents ready to do all manner of nefarious tests on all of them. Disappointingly, this is well and truly family entertainment by numbers. Surprisingly, even the production values are pretty cheap � take a look at the chase through the deserted house for the most obvious set I have yet seen in a film. Still, as far as family friendly movies go, I have seen worse. Particular mention should go to the child actors, especially the ever delightful AnnaSophia Robb who came to notice in 2007�s Bridge to Terabithia. She has such emotion in whatever performance she gives and has beautifully expressive eyes. She will be one to watch in the next few years."

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Samsung 55-inch Ultra-Slim UN55B7100 1080p LED LCD HDTV Review @ ModSynergy.com

"Well since reviewing the Samsung 650 Series HDTV�s just a year back, a lot has changed and further improvements have been made to LCD technology in just a short time. So what Samsung and many other HDTV manufacturers have done to improve LCD technology is to use LED�s instead as its light source effectively creating a better solution to render deeper blacks and better color as the HDTV can selectively turn off a certain pixels light source similar to what a plasma HDTV can do. That�s exactly what has been done and today we see and share with you many more benefits of LED LCD technology.�

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Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme CPU Cooler @ OCIA.net

"Being an avid overclocker means hundreds of hours and many different methods of cooling will be implemented in the quest for a cooler processor. This involves experiments in thermal interface materials, application of said pastes, lapping, airflow, and most importantly coolers. CPU coolers come in many shapes and sizes, and more often than not, those shapes and sizes have a direct bearing on the cooler's ability to draw away and dissipate the heat created by energy lost in your processor. Today we get to test the newest offering for Tuniq: the Tower 120 Extreme."

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Samsung SyncMaster XL2370 LED LCD Monitor Review @ Futurelooks

Whether you�re just a casual web surfer with an interest in Facebook and Twitter or you�re a hardcore gamer who enjoys World of Warcraft and Team Fortress equally, there�s a good chance that you want to have a quality monitor in front of your face. You can save some money with a debranded HP LCD monitor or you can splurge on something newer and fancier. For folks who value aesthetic appeal as well as usable performance, the Samsung SyncMaster XL2370 appears to be a seriously solid option.

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Gigabyte GTX 260 Super Overclock @ hardwarelogic.com

"It might seem silly to post a GTX 260 review this late in the game, and it would be if this were any other GTX 260. But what sets Gigabyte's latest iteration apart from the competition is an aggressive overclock that makes this the fastest-clocked GTX 260 in the galaxy. Just how fast is it? While Nvidia's reference design calls for a 576MHz core and 1998MHz memory, Gigabyte goosed the GPU to 680MHz and supercharged the memory to 2500MHz. That's enough to edge out EVGA's SSC Edition by 5MHz on the core and almost 200MHz on the memory, and leave most other GTX 260 barely visible in the rear view mirror."

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MSI X340 Slim Core 2 Solo Notebook Review @ Legit Reviews

"The MSI X340 Slim notebook surprised me a bit. It has an innovative design that makes it have a professional, sleek look and it does not lose functionality for the sake of style. The keyboard is large, and the keystrokes are soft and comfortable. The touchpad is in an awkward place, but I am glad that it can be turned off with a function key. From the student who likes to take notes on a laptop to those that like style along with an ultra-portable solution, the MSI X340 Slim notebook fits the bill..."

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HIS Radeon HD 5870 1GB Video Card @ TweakTown

"It becomes hard to review the same card over and over again. We have companies who make the effort to send their product so of course we make the effort to review it. At a launch, however, we've got many companies who want the coverage, but 90% of the time the only difference between the cards is a sticker and sometimes a game in the bundle. What we need to do when it comes to looking at the performance of the card is to mix it up in how we compare it. We've already had a look at how the card compares to the main competitors. We've then had a closer look at how it compares to its previous generation sibling, the HD 4870."

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Cocoon Innovations CLB551 Laptop Case @ TestFreaks

" Today for review review I�ve got another case from Cocoon, but this one is for laptops up to 15.4� in size. It also features their GridIt system, along with several pockets and lots of room for your stuff. I was truly surprised by just how much stuff I could get in this case and still have room left over. Like the netbook case, this one is also nicely made and should offer decent protection for your laptop while providing room enough for all of your stuff."

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Zotac GTS 250 AMP! Review @ XSReviews

"The G92 core has been around for a while now with Nvidia utilising the GPU in a number of different cards making sure to keep renaming though so as give the illusion of a new product altogether. The core has evolved from the 8800GT to the 9800GTX+ right up to the GTS 250. This latest card uses a 55nm process tapping into both the heat and power consumption reductions combined with decent overclocking scope. So, as Zotac are prone to doing, they took the original GTS 250, used their overclocking prowess and came up with a new revision � the GTS 250 AMP! The shader, core and memory clocks have all been increased to extract maximal performance and so with any luck we should have a card that can deliver a similar price vs. performance ratio as ATI's 4850 and 4870 offerings. Let's see what it can do."

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Lenovo ThinkStation S20 Workstation Review @ HotHardware.com

Today we have a Lenovo workstation - the ThinkStation S20 - on our bench for some testing. Some of you may be wondering what a "workstation" really is. Well, it's a term more commonly used in a business environment, especially one in which CAD/CAM design, 3D rendering or high performance computing occurs, and it basically just refers to a higher-end desktop or laptop. In the environments we've worked in, we've heard workstations referred as high-end desktops or laptops, tech PCs, and technical workstations. In this context, workstations (at least the desktop variety) are frequently comprised of components you typically see in servers. In particular, the motherboards, memory and processors are often server-class. It is also not uncommon to find workstations sporting high-end storage controllers and hard drives as well. The ThinkStation S20 we are evaluating today sports a 2.93GHz Intel Xeon W3540 processor, 4GB ECC DDR3 memory, a 500GB SATA hard drive, and an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 video card. This Lenovo workstation is definitely packing some serious horsepower. Keep reading to see just how well this powerhouse performs.

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Glacialtech X-Wing R1 Notebook Cooling Pad Review @ Frostytech.com

"The Glacialtech X-Wing R1 notebook cooling pad accomodates chronically overheating notebooks with footprints of up to 365x250mm, either while sitting on a desk or resting comfortably on your lap. That means netbooks with screens as small as 7" and full size laptops with screens as wide as 17" should fit onto the X-Wing R1 without a problem. The bottom of the X-Wing is curved so it rests across your legs comfortably, without restricting airflow or cutting into you as some all-metal notebook cooling pads will."

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Samsung LN55A950D1F 55" LED-backlight LCD A950 HDTV Review @ PCSTATS

"Today PCSTATS will be reviewing the very top end of the Samsung LCD HDTV family, the 55" Samsung LN55A950D1F. Samsung's A950 series of LCD HDTVs has been designed to be the next step in image fidelity for liquid crystal display technology. These home theatre HD TVs use Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) that can selectively illuminate sections of the screen at a time, which means that they have a wider color gamut and better colour reproduction. They also boast superb black levels, do away with back light bleeding, and offer unbelievable dynamic contrast ratios. The Samsung LN55A950D1F is a 55" 1080p LCD screen that supports both 60 and 120 Hertz refresh rates. Samsung rates the dynamic contrast ratio of its new localized LED back light at an astonishing 2,000,000 to 1, with an overall brightness rating of 500 cd/m2."

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HDD vs SSD on a Netbook � Acer Aspire One D250 @ iGadget Life

" My Acer Aspire One D250 came with a standard mechanical hard drive, and recently I acquired another SSD drive so I figured why not swap the HDD out for the SSD as that seems the popular way to go these days. Now I knew the read and write speeds of the SSD would be much faster than the lowly 5400RPM hard drive, but I was curious as to how much of an actual affect it had on the system as a whole though. I wanted to know just how much an SSD effects everything in the system and not just the transfer rates or read/writes. So of course I took the time to run a whole lot of tests, not only comparing the SSD to the HDD but I ran system wide tests as well to see where anything might be different, or if anything had improved elsewhere besides just the reads and writes. So read on t find out what I did�"

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Gigabyte P55-UD5 @ Techgage

Alongside Intel's Lynnfield launch, Gigabyte launched close to ten motherboards, one of which we're taking a look at here. The P55-UD5 is the company's second-highest offering, and it shows, with its huge feature-set, 12-phase power solution, overclocking-ability, robust BIOS, keen design and more.

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ThermoLab BADA @ OCC

"The ThermoLab BADA heat sink was packed sturdily and was one of the top performers in testing, beating out similar-sized and even some of the larger heat sinks. The manual was very readable with no discernable typos or major grammar problems as can be found on other heat sinks and products that are produced overseas. The fins were straight as was the base. The base had some minor scuffing that could easily be fixed with some lapping. For only having three heat pipes this heat sink performed far better than others with even twice the amount � proving that the number of heat pipes does not always make the difference, but that design quality does."

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AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ PureOverclock

"Not since the heyday of the original Athlon has AMD really stuck it to Intel, but this new Athlon II X4 sounds very promising. Sure it's inexpensive, but what about performance? Is it completely handicapped by the lack of L3 cache that its larger sibling the Phenom II carries? Can the new Athlon Quad overclock any better than recent AMD offerings, and if so, just how far can it go? We'll answer these questions today, and there are some very interesting surprises in store for you."

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TweakTown Storage Product Testing - Our How To Video Guide @ TweakTown

"There are many programs on the market to test hard drives. Personally I would love to use every single one of them in testing, but don�t think I could keep you interested for 30 pages of benchmarks. In the past every hard drive was the same; you had cache, platter speed, platter density and interface, boom, bing, bam, run the tests write it up and call it a day. Today we are going to walk through the testing procedure for storage here at TweakTown. There are a few categories that will be covered; SSDs, HDDs, RAID controllers, NAS servers and DAS servers. Since our previous AMD Opteron workstation was starting to run into performance issues with the latest round of ultra high performance SSDs, we have built a new workstation and want to thank a few of the companies responsible for helping to get the parts together."

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Xigmatek HDT-S1284 CPU Cooler @ Modders-Inc

Are you looking to extend the life of your older 775 socket CPU? Perhaps you want to take advantage of the deals out right now? Whether you are waiting for the new Processors to come out or building a budget system you want a cooler that will give you the best performance at the lowest cost possible.

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Shuttle X50 All-in-One PC Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Intel's Atom platform has been a huge success since it has launched, without the Atom chip you probably wouldn't know what a netbook is! With its huge success many companies are creating all types of different products based on the Atom. With this comes the nettop, a small form factor, inexpensive, low-wattage desktop computer. Today we will be looking at one of the most powerful nettop's out there the Shuttle X50. It features the Atom 330 dual-core processor, 1GB of memory and a 15.6-inch touch screen display."

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OCZ Blade DDR3-1600 6-6-6 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit @ OCIA.net

"When Intel released the i7 last year, all of the memory manufacturers immediately answered with low-voltage triple channel DDR3 kits. If you didn't know, Intel's VDIMM requirement for memory used with the i7 CPU/X58 chipset is 1.65v to prevent damage to the i7's internal memory controller. Though the standard voltage for dual channel DDR3 memory modules is 1.5v, voltages for DDR3-2000 modules commonly run 1.9v and higher. This posed a definite challenge to the memory guys� regardless of speed, timing, or overclocking capability, 1.65v is it!; no extra voltage to add stability to that high speed or those tight timings."

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XCM Xbox 360 Diamond Clear Case and Controller Set @ Bigbruin.com

Today we venture off the beaten path of our normal reviews and get up close and personal with the XCM Xbox 360 Diamond clear case and controller set. The XCM case mod will help distinguish your Xbox 360 from all of the units out there sporting one of the three basic looks; standard white, Halo 3 green, and the Elite black. Is a mod like this too much for the average gamer to take on? Well it is time to find out.

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Patriot Torqx 128GB MLC SSD Review @ Legit Reviews

"The Torqx performed very well and near or at the top in just about all benchmarks. That being said, benchmarks do not always equate to how the drives perform in the real world and over time. I spent some time playing around on Windows 7 installed on the drive for quite while. I did a lot of multi-tasking, simultaneous file copies and moves, and played a game or two as well. I didn't notice any problems with stuttering and the system felt very crisp and responsive with Windows booting in less than twenty seconds from completion of BIOS load..."

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Review of Be Quiet! Silent Wings USC case fans @ TestSeek

The great majority of PC users don�t know about the difference between high quality fans and the ones that comes with standard desktop computers. There are many manufacturers in this market but if we are talking about high quality, long lived and silent case fans, it comes down to only a few manufacturers. Be Quiet wants a piece of that market and are clearly directing the Silent Wings fans towards enthusiasts and expert PC users. They market them as extremely silent, long lived and being able to move a great volume of air�

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1 Day Left - Win an ioSafe Solo 500GB Rugged USB External Hard Drive @ Bigbruin.com

ioSafe is offering up a 500GB Solo to the person that can come up with the most interesting new way to test the disaster protection provided. Between the various reviews conducted around the world, and tests that ioSafe has conducted in-house, the fire and water protection have been challenged rather extensively. But, this doesn't mean that there aren't tons of new ways for the device's disaster protection to be proven. Come up with an interesting new way to test the ioSafe Solo and not only will you win one of your own, but ioSafe just might use your idea to demonstrate the capabilities of the device at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.

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GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD5 LGA1156 ATX Motherboard Review @ Futurelooks

A couple months ago, we got an in-person sneak preview of GIGABYTE�s P55 line up minus a few boards we�re sure to get our hands on soon. There were plenty of features and software offered that encompassed the entire P55 series. Overclocking capabilities are about the only thing that separates the various available models. Rest assured, exemplary stability and reliability are a standard feature on all of GIGABYTE�s boards.

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Applesac 13� MacBook Sleeve by Colcasac @ TestFreaks

"I received a new laptop sleeve from Colcasac called the Applesac, designed specifically for my 13� MacBook. This sleeve is very model specific, so when I say 13� MacBook I mean 13� MacBook. You�ll be hard pressed to get anything else in this thing with such a precise fit. But for those who use said laptop as their machine of choice, read on for info about a pretty slick product. "

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Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance & CS-M FPS Tactics Pad @ TweakTown

"I know my first mouse was a simple two-button, beige, loud clicking monster from days long ago. As time progressed from roller-balls to optical mice, things vastly improved, not only for movement, but no longer was the need to constantly remove hair from the roller ball. While optical sensing was a huge leap in mouse technology, Lasers sure stole the show. Along with all the internal technological advances, the exteriors have also come a long way from the square, beige mouse I had for my Commodore 64. In steps Cooler Master are throwing their hat into the peripherals market and along with the new Storm line-up offers their best effort at mouse design. They�ve taken all the best features of mice already on the market and added a few never before seen technologies imbedded into their design. This sounds like a very promising package in my opinion."

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Thermaltake EVO_Blue 750 Watt Power Supply @ Pro-Clockers

Today I will be taking a look at another gift from Thermaltake that was sitting on my front door step when I arrived home today. The gift came in the form of a brand spanking new Evo_Blue power supply. The Evo_Blue comes in two different wattage's. The first is a 650 and the second is the 750; which, we will be examining today. My first impression of the Evo_Blue was it was made more for modders and other creative individuals out there than gamers and enthusiasts. You will see more of why I say this in a few.

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Chillblast Fusion Switchblade Review @ XSReviews

"While the majority of readers of sites like this will be builders of their own PCs, there are some of you that will always consider purchasing a pre-built one. The reasons for doing so are multitudinous. Not only do you get a professionally built unit, but you get a nice fat warranty and in the case of many, a guaranteed functioning overclock without the need for all that tweaking and testing. Some would argue this removes the fun from the whole thing and there is of course the cost to consider. With that in mind though, lets see what Chillblast, PC systems and component salesmen have got packaged up in their Fusion Switchblade platform."

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Kodak ESP-7 All-in-One Printer Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Kodak is one of the most recognizable names in the photo industry. It seems logical that a company so well-versed in photo developing and printing would create an outstanding photo printer. With Kodak's claim of having the cheapest ink costs, we were enticed to give the Kodak ESP-7 a closer look."

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AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6 GHz Socket AM3 Quad-Core Processor Review @ PCSTATS.com

"AMD's most recent 45nm Athlon II processor just graduated from dual, to quad core. The AMD Athlon II X4 620 is a 2.6 GHz socket AM3 chip destined for mainstream PCs; could it be the darling CPU option for those on a budget? One thing's for certain, there couldn't be a better chip to land in the midst of global belt-tightening, especially as the quad-core Athlon II X4 620 retails for just $99 bucks."

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News From Our Affiliates

AMD Radeon HD 5870 PCI-Express Scaling @ techPowerUp

AMD's latest generation of graphics cards offers unprecedented single GPU performance levels. Such performance requires an optimum environment, especially important is PCI-Express bandwidth. We investigate if these cards can still deliver on a PCI-E x8, x4 or even x1 link.

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ATI Radeon HD 5870 DX11 Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

"From a performance perspective the ATI Radeon HD 5870 blew away the Radeon HD 4890 and the GeForce GTX 285 graphics cards in the benchmarks that we ran on Windows 7. The Radeon HD 5870 is by far the fastest single GPU graphics card that we have ever benchmarked and it is the real deal. It doesn't have an annoyingly loud fan, suck down obsessive amounts of power or heat up your room while you aren't gaming. The user experience with this card is very well rounded and it is tough to find anything negative to say about it..."

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Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB Graphics Card @ TweakTown

"For a while we saw a flurry of new NVIDIA cards while ATI kind of sat stagnant. That's stopped now with the release of the new HD 5800 series from the red team. Over the next few months we're going to see plenty of the HD 5870 we have with us today, along with the lower HD 5850 and the higher HD 5870 X2. Not only that, though, we're going to see companies like Sapphire, HIS, GIGABYTE, ASUS and more put their own spin on it, be it an Atomic or Toxic model or Turbo and TOP ones. What we think the HD 5800 series is capable of today is going to be proven wrong with companies giving us even more performance than the stock clocked model we'll be looking at here first up."

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AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 DirectX 11 GPU @ HotHardware.com

Over the past couple of weeks, we've been completely preoccupied trying to come up with a catchy and informative introduction for this article. We thought maybe it would be fun to play off of AMD's tree-laden GPU codenames to come up with an interesting segue into the Radeon HD 5800 series' power efficiency. But we came up short. Then we thought we could use an image of the Radeon HD 5870's cooler and draw a parallel to the awesomeness that was the original Bat Mobile, but a couple of folks from AMD snagged that idea. Even being briefed on the technology we're about to show you on the very same aircraft carried that scooped up the Apollo 11 astronauts didn't cure the writer's block. Then it hit us. Why bother? PC Enthusiasts are always chomping at the bit trying to glean even the slightest bit of information about cutting edge GPU technology. And that's exactly what we've got in store for you right here. We've got a sneaking suspicion that telling you all about the first DirectX 11 compatible GPU, that's crammed with over 2 billion transistors, produced using an advanced 40nm process, would get you all worked up into the kind of frenzy that a no pithy intro could. So, feast your eyes on the Radeon HD 5870, check out the specs and features below, and read on for full scoop on AMD's latest flagship GPU. Just don't get too worked up, too quickly. We want you to make it all the way to the end without passing out..

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ASUS EAH4890 TOP HTDI/1GD5/A Radeon HD 4890 Rev. B Videocard Review @ PCSTATS.com

"Today, Asus has claimed that is has perfected the Radeon HD 4890 and the RV790 GPU, with a custom-designed videocard that it calls the EAH4890 TOP. The EAH4890 TOP has everything you'd expect from a reference Radeon HD 4890: the GPU and shaders are clocked at 850MHz and accompanied by 1GB of GDDR5 memory that runs at an effective speed of 3.9GHz (975MHz quad-pumped). Where the Asus EAH4890 TOP differs is in its construction. Asus has made dramatic changes from AMD's reference Radeon HD 4890, with a re-designed PCB, new power management, an improved heatsink, and more powerful air cooling. The result is a videocard that holds a lot of promise for some extreme overclocking and tweaking."

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Fractal-Design Newton R2 with 800 Watt @ Hardwareoverclock.com

Hardwareoverclock.com has reviewed another power supply. Last week they has take a look at the Fractal-Design Newton R2 with 800 Watt. The Manufacturer Fractal design is Nr.1 in Sweden, the country with icy temperatures and crazy overclockers. The Newton R2 PSUs are available in 650, 800 and 1000 Watts. With a hand picked, high quality 135mm fan mounted with rubber fittings, the fan will only spin as much as needed under the different loads.

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ATI Radeon HD 5870 Review @ TechSpot.com

Following a successful run with the codenamed R700 family of GPUs, which was originally released back in June 2008 as the Radeon HD 4000 series, AMD is launching the highly anticipated R800. Debuting to no one's surprise as the ATI Radeon HD 5000, the new series is said deliver around 2x more performance than previous generation Radeon cards, and brings DirectX 11 support to desktops for the first time. On our test bed today we have a reference HD 5870 graphics card packing some 2150 million transistors and produced on a 40nm process. With an introductory MSRP of $380, the Radeon HD 5870 is roughly $120 cheaper than today's undisputable performance champ, the GeForce GTX 295. It is also almost twice as costly as the Radeon HD 4890, however, which begs the question: is the Radeon HD 5870 really that much faster? Today we finally get to find out, as we will be comparing AMD's latest and greatest offering against every single high-end graphics card released over the past year.

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ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 Preview @ Overclock3D

The second coming of the infamous 9700 Pro or another sick HD 2900 puppy that needs to be put down? Let's find out...

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Sapphire HD 5870 @ OCC

"I didn't think ATI had it in them to step up the performance on a video card this much in one fell swoop. The disappointing small jumps in performance from the 3 series to the 4 series are laid to rest with the massive performance increase over the previous ATI king of the single GPU hill, the HD4890. When you look at the performance you can tell that the level of performance delivered by the GTX285 was just a jumping off point for the performance expectations. After running the first bench with the Sapphire HD5870, the first thought in my head when I saw the result was "Damn, ATI is back." The Sapphire HD5870 even compared favorable to the dual GPU giants the HD4870x2 and the GTX295 in more than a few of the benchmarks."

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IDF 09 SF: Day 1 Roundup @ Techgage

There was much discussed during the first day of IDF, including Atom, mobile and lightweight computing, Atom, more Atom, updates regarding industry trends, discussion of the company's continuing innovation with building smaller, yet faster chips, and much more. Oh, and there was some talk of Atom, as well.

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Intel Core 2 Duo Processors Revisited @ iXBT Labs

"Two processor cores are the reasonable minimum for most desktops today. Most processors we are going to review today fall into the magical price range of "up to $200" and can be used in a $500 PC performing much better than a relatively inexpensive notebook (or a four-year-old top PC). So, this choice is justified, when you have a strictly limited budget or just don't want to spend too much money."

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How Stuff Works: DVDs and DVD Players @ TestFreaks

" Many people are clueless about how a DVD disc and player actually works � they just know they should keep from abusing the shiny part, and shouldn�t use it as a coaster. While those things are very true, there�s a lot more to a DVD than sticking it in your player and waiting for the lion to roar. Let�s take a layman�s look at a DVD�s anatomy and how a DVD player reads it to craft the movie and sound stored within."

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Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB in CrossFire @ TweakTown

"We're not going to blabber on too much here, because we're sure you don't want to read about us having two HD 5870s. You just want to know what happens when we put those two HD 5870s into the one system and run our flurry of benchmarks. I have to say, over the past few releases we've had the ability to do Crossfire testing at launch, but the drivers haven't been ready from ATI. To be honest, when it came to these drivers we weren't sure if it was going to work, but with our cards installed and the drivers installed we were greeted with a window that told us that Crossfire could be enabled once we had rebooted."

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Jetway HA08 Combo L Socket AM2+ Motherboard @ Pro-Clockers

If you are one to lean towards the overclocking and gaming aspect of the motherboard then you will be happy to know that there is still support for the hybrid Crossfire with mated with a Radeon compatible video card. AMD was really looking out for the enthusiast when developing this chipset. To add to the excitement of the 790GX chipset we will see if we can get more performance unlocking the rest of the cores in our X2 550 processor.

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All Phenom Models @ Hardware Secrets

"Phenom is the latest CPU series from AMD, based on their new K10 architecture. In this short tutorial we will list the main specs of all Phenom models released or announced so far."

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Intel Core i7 Goes Mobile - Core i7-920XM 'Clarksfield' CPU Review @ Legit Reviews

"Based on the current 45nm Nehalem micro-architecture, the Intel Core i7 mobile lineup consists of three Clarksfield processors. The flagship mobile processor is the Core i7-920XM Extreme Edition followed by the mainstream Core i7-820QM and Core i7-720QM. The new platform brings the two-chip design to laptops which will increase efficiency when compared to the three-chip design of the Penryn-based mobile platform. With the memory controller now on the CPU and IO controlled by the PM55 Express chipset, we should see the mobile market catch up with the desktop market in terms of performance..."

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Intel Core i7 Mobile Processor (Clarksfield) Review @ HotHardware.com

For quite some time now, Intel has been the undisputed leader when it comes to laptop CPU performance. This advantage comes from the fact that Intel has successfully scaled its desktop processor technology for use mobile platform. That trend continues with the latest mobile processor platform being unleashed today from Intel: the "Clarksfield"-based Core i7 Mobile processor family and the new PM55 Express Chipset. This marks the first time that the "Nehalem" Core i7 microarchitecture has been ported over to the mobile side. The fact that the mobile version of Nehalem makes its debut only two weeks following the launch of Intel's Core i5 ("Lynnfield") mainstream desktop CPU and P55 Express chipset is no coincidence. As it turns out, the Core i7 Mobile processor die is identical to the desktop version, but uses mobile packaging--as far as the microarchitecture is concerned, Clarksfield and Lynnfield are essentially the same thing. The lower power demands of Lynnfield (as opposed to the original Nehalem architecture) are in large part what enable it to also be used in notebooks...

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Olympus Stylus Tough-6000 Digital Camera Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Would you believe - a small digital camera that is waterproof to 10' (3 meters), shockproof to 5' (1.5 meters) can withstand temperatures as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius), and takes great pictures? That is what Olympus promises with their Stylus Tough 6000 digital camera. So we took a close look at the Stylus Tough to see how it delivered on these promises."

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ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB @ TheTechLounge

"Better adaptive anti-aliasing, better video playback, better performance, and priced in reach for anyone who wants one--seriously, for less than four hundred dollars, given how cheap everything else is now, anyone can afford it--the HD 5870 is the card to get for gaming performance, performance/ watt, low noise... there�s a whole host of good reasons."

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Fixing the IE8 Black Bar Bug @ Hardware Secrets

"After migrating to Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP, the menu and the favorites bar would go black with no apparent reason. So far we didn't discover why this happens and when or if Microsoft will release an update to fix this bug. Meanwhile, learn the trick we are using to restore the menu and the favorites bar to its correct color. The problem can be seen on Figure 1."

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Kingston Technology 64GB SSDNow V+ SATA Solid State Drive Review @ Futurelooks

Kingston Technology is back with a new and improved version of their value series of SSDNow solid state drives called the V+ Series. While the original entry level SSDNow Value Series was a competent drive based on it's price point, it did suffer against faster foes based on its use of the infamous JMicron controller. Having said that, Kingston did a great job tweaking the controller and made it a great value for those who just had to have an SSD at a more entry level price.

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Antec P183 @ OCC

"If you are looking for a new case to house your components, I would strongly suggest taking a look at the Antec P183 computer case. I was able to achieve some good-looking temperatures and the overall build quality of the case is excellent. You will be able to hide just about all of your PSUs cables that maybe messing up the look of the inside of your current enclosure solution. Antec has packed many awesome features inside of a nice looking chassis without going overboard and making it too cluttered."

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Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB SSD @ PureOverclock

"Not all SSDs are created equal; there is a wide range of performance available on the market. An example of this is Kingston Technology's SSD lineup; they run the gamut, from their rebadged Intel-based X-25 to the JMicron-based V-Series, and now the Samsung-based V+ drive. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.....they have it all. With the completely revamped internals, we believe the V+ is a wise departure from its similarly-named predecessor, and is an evolution in performance. But the real questions is how well can the Samsung architecture stand up to the powerhouse Indilinx-based SSDs? Today we'll find out."

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LanCool Dragon Lord PC-K62 Advanced Mid Tower Case @ TweakTown

"LanCool offers a few mid tower chassis� and within those is a series named Dragon Lord, of which the case we are looking at today is part of. At LanCool�s site there are seven cases that carry the Dragon Lord series name. All of these have the same basic chassis design, just each individual case has an option or two the others don�t, making each chassis in the series unique. Today we are looking at the PC-K62 which LanCool had sent me as a pre-release version. While the packaging may have changed a bit and an instruction booklet may be included in yours, the chassis is as complete as it is going to get and you will see this same chassis with all the same options as I am about to show. Let�s get a look at the LanCool PC-K62 and see just what sort of features and options this budget minded chassis has to offer."

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In Win Ammo Secure Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ Tweaknews

"In-Win has come up with a successful combination of unique styling and practical functionality with the Ammo enclosure. Security is the name of the game here with a steel outer shell to protect the drive from the elements and RFID encryption to ensure important data isn't compromised. The enclosure will also make a good conversation piece when other people see it, since it is made to look like an ammunition clip."

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AMD Radeon HD 5870 Video Card Overclocking @ Legit Reviews

"Wasting no time, we started ratcheting up both the GPU and memory speed. At default voltage, we were able to reach a maximum stable overclock of 935MHz GPU and 1280MHz Memory. This is a gain of 85MHz and 80MHz respectively. We were able to get the card to run at 950MHz but would lock up midway through the second 3DMark Vantage test. With a little more voltage 950-1000MHz should not be a problem on the ATI Radeon HD 5870..."

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MSI R4890 Cyclone OC @ Neoseeker

"The Cyclone OC gets a bit of an overclock, but nothing terribly substantial: it gains a 30MHz gain to the core, while the memory runs at the same speed. The cooler looks like it could handle more, so this seems a bit tame for an OC -- for comparison, the recently reviewed VisionTek HD 4890 OC ran at blistering 950MHz."

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Tech Tip: Get the Most Out of Your Google Search Results @ TechSpot.com

With Bing slowly but steadily rising in popularity Google is facing more pressure than ever to rejuvenate the search experience it has to offer. Sure, they still hold a clearly dominant share of the market at about 64.6% (versus 19.3% for its closest rival, Yahoo), but then again Google has proven to know better than to just rest on its laurels. Over the years, the Mountain View-based company has been enhancing its search engine not only to provide quality and relevant results, but also let users be more particular about their searches with dozens of special features and operators. Despite this, I am willing to bet that most people just use the vanilla search as is. Fair enough. I mean Google is supposed to be easy to use, so why complicate it? Well, for starters, these functions are meant save you a lot of time and effort. I'm sure the more inquisitive of you know all about the basics, like quoting your searches to find exact matches, and then some -- but that's truly just the tip of the iceberg. Today we'll be highlighting some of our favorite Google search tricks.

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Guitar Hero 5 Multi-Platform Review @ TweakTown

"The traditional style of Guitar Hero returns. Highways display on screen and you hit the buttons on your guitar or drum in time with the music. On different difficulty levels and songs, the intensity increases and the challenge improves, but all in all the formula remains the very same since Red Octane first unleashed its sleeper hit back in the PS2 days. As mentioned earlier, Guitar Hero 5 is all about the mega stars and some of the biggest names in music feature. Names ranging from Johnny Cash through to Kurt Cobain and Shirley Manson give an eclectic mix as well as add a level of authenticity to the game and music credibility not seen in the genre yet. However, there was one mistake Activision made that just turns the game a bit cheap and nasty."

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OCZ Agility Series SATA II 2.5" 60GB SSD @ TestFreaks

"Today I�m looking at the new Agility Series of SSD Drives from OCZ Technology, specifically their 60gb capacity model. The Agility Series is the middle of the road product line, between the budget style and the high performance style, they�re sold as a �mainstream drive�, or something for someone who wants good performance but yet wants a lower priced drive than other SSDs out there today. I�ve put the OCZ Agility Series SSD up against a few other drives including another SSD for testing and comparison, so read on to see how it performs� "

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IDF Day 2 Coverage, Mobile Computing: Defining Cool @ HotHardware.com

The second day of IDF kicked off with a fevered pitch of mobile technologies while Intel's Dadi Permutter and Mooley Eden stepped through a slide deck and several tech demos that gave us a view of where Intel is today with their new generation of Core i7 Mobile "Clarksfield" technology and of the future generation products like Intel's upcoming Arrandale processor with integrated graphics. Historically the focus on mobile computing has always been to reduce power consumption, increase battery life and processor speed as well as capitalize on the obvious thin-is-in trend. However, moving forward Dadi suggested that new Intel technologies will afford us new usage models and applications, like real-time language translation, for example...

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Asus P7P55D Deluxe Review @ XSReviews

"The introduction of the new LGA1156 platform and Lynnfield CPUs inevitably brought with them a wave of new motherboards; this time it�s the P55 PCH (Platform Controller Hub) that the boards are built around with the P57 to come. ASUS are always on the ball when it comes to new releases and this is no exception with the P7P55D range including a number of different boards from the basic layout right up to the more expensive Premium and Pro editions. The Deluxe board, which we are looking at specifically today, can be considered a fairly typical ASUS motherboard with a Deluxe version in most series including the P45 and P6T ranges. Typically, this board has a good reputation besides a few poor product releases in the past and so we are hopeful of yet another good offering here from the giant PC Company. Let�s see what it's got to offer."

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Zalman CNPS9700 NT CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Today we are going to review another CPU cooler from Zalman, CNPS9700 NT. Its design is very different from the ones we are used to see, with three 8-shaped heatpipes, nickel-plated looks and a 110-mm fan. Let's check if its performance beats coolers based on the "tower" design."

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Origen AE M10 @ techPowerUp

Origen AE has taken their legendary construction quality down to a mini ITX platform with their newest HTPC chassis - the M10. It is made of two thick pieces of aluminum and features an external, passive 150W power brick - two aspects you won't get anywhere else. But is this enough to justify the 400 Euro price tag?

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News From Our Affiliates

Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance Mouse @ PureOverclock

"With Cooler Master's first foray into the highly competitive mouse market, the Sentinel Advance looks extremely attractive, and Cooler Master appears to have hit all the right notes with this rodent. The features on the Sentinel also look to include just about everything but the kitchen sink. Aesthetics may help sell a mouse, but the comfort, ergonomics, and drivers are what often make or break the deal for most diehard gamers. We'll take a very close look today at each of these factors to see if Cooler Master can run with the big dogs or is left on the porch."

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Place a Fully Functional Recycle Bin on your Windows 7 Taskbar @ TechSpot.com

I'm not exactly sure when it became cool to abandon the use of your operating system's desktop, but a growing number of people these days prefer the "clean" look. Recent releases of Microsoft Windows seem to encourage this. By default, Windows Vista and 7 strip the desktop of all icons but the Recycle Bin. Try as you may, ignoring this lone icon is impossible. Sure, you can hide it in just a few seconds, but at the cost of losing quick access to deleted files. You could also drag the Recycle Bin icon to the taskbar, but then it will appear pinned under Windows Explorer -- requiring an extra click to open and offering half the functionality. Today we will show you one method of bringing a fully functional Recycle Bin to your Windows 7 Taskbar, so you can clear off your desktop once and for all with little to no compromise.

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In Win Ammo 2.5-inch RFID External Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Most external hard drive enclosures that you see these days are made to look sleek and stylish sitting on your desk or tower. While this is good it is nice to see a company do something a little different. In Win has designed a 2.5-inch external hard drive enclosure that is military themed. It actually looks like a clip for a M4 rifle! Made of 0.8mm of cold steel the Ammo enclosure sure offers a lot of protection and for security measures it offers RFID protection. Let's take a look..."

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Intel's P55 Express Lynnfield Chipset Overview @ TweakTown

"The extra cost hurt Intel with the mainstream community especially given the economic problems that happened in conjunction with the Core i7 original launch. AMD for their part saw an opportunity and acted. They priced their Phenom II X4 and chipsets to undercut Intel. They knew they could not compete with the Core i7 in a clock for clock war, so they hit the market where it counted; in the wallet. However, Intel was not lying down they already had Lynnfield on the block and were working on providing a CPU to the mainstream that could offer the same advantages that the 1366 Core i7 could, but at a lower price. This CPU launched recently and it seems to be everything that Intel needed. It competes and even outperforms more expensive and higher clocked AMD CPUs while maintaining a lower price and power consumption."

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Cooler Master Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse @ OCIA.net

"Input devices are arguably the most important pieces of hardware you buy for your PC. A $5,000 computer is only as good as its peripherals, and by the same token, a good keyboard and mouse can make a budget rig feel like a million bucks. I have recently become a collector and connoisseur of the finer input devices such as mechanical keyboards. When asked to review a new mouse from Cooler Master, I jumped at the chance to put this device through the paces."

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Cooler Master Storm Scout Case @ TechwareLabs

In recent years, a number of PC hardware manufacturers have latched onto the eSports phenomenon. Whether it comes from a desire to connect with the gamer crowd, or the simple economic imperative of "give the customer what he wants," many companies are embracing the hardcore PC gamer, and Cooler Master is no exception. Under the CM Storm imprint, Cooler Master has been putting out a variety of products aimed specifically at the hardcore gamer, including mouse pads, case fans, and of course, cases.

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OtterBox Impact Series Sleeve For The iPhone 3GS @ Legit Reviews

"So, you just got your new iPhone 3GS and you need something to cover and protect it. What do you do? That is where Otterbox comes in with a protective skin for the Apple iPhone 3G/3GS. Much like the others in the Otterbox Impact Series this protective case comes well equipped to handle all of the bumps and scrapes that happen on a typical day. With its rubberized texture it insures a solid grip on the phone without losing the iPhone's functionality. A new addition to the package is a protective film to cover the screen. This protective case comes in two colors, white or black, the latter of which we are looking at today..."

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Roccat Apuri Review @ XSReviews

"Continuing our Roccat review rollout we have another product from the company, the Apuri. It might be another peripheral but it's definitely different from anything we've reviewed before. This one is designed to improve the layout of your desktop, and I mean the top of your desk, by managing your mouse's cable and running all your USB devices in a simple and intuitive manner; or so the Roccat press says. Lets see how it really pans out."

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Windows Xp vs Vista vs 7 @ TestFreaks

" Windows is without a doubt the most popular operating system out there today. With the release of Windows 7 just around the corner I thought why not compare all three operating systems to each other. I�ve taken all three operating systems and put them through their paces in a rather large series of tests comparing everything from video rendering to CPU and memory performance. I�ve got some rather interesting results for you, not quite what I expected, and I�m sure not what most people expected either. Continue on to learn how these operating systems stack up to one another�"

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Gigabyte HD 4850 Silent Cell 1GB graphics card @ TestSeek.com

This Gigabyte card is one of the more spectacular ones we have tested. I am of course referring to the passive cooling solution which is very different from the reference cooler. In my opinion this Gigabyte card offers a good performance/price ratio and has extra potential with its overclocking abilities. But what it really comes down to is that it offers us gamers a really good performance and still, we don't have to listen to an annoying fan struggling to cool the card. The Ultra Durable VGA system from Gigabyte wasn't really anything I noticed, but it feels safe that this technology should prolong the life of the card...

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SilverStone SUGO SG05 Mini-ITX Case Reviewed @ Metku

"Unlike most small SFF-cases which have been designed with mini-ITX motherboards in mind, the SG05 has a relatively large powersupply, 300 W, and it even supports dual-slot graphic cards. This makes it a perfect candidate for someone that wants to build a small setup, which will run most games at decent settings. Another interesting things about this case is that it supports the mini-DTX sized motherboards, from AMDs elusive DTX-formfactor."

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Lenovo ThinkPad T400s Multi-Touch Notebook Review @ HotHardware.com

In case you haven't noticed, Lenovo has a thing for re-introducing machines with a tweak here or there and maybe a dash of new functionality. The IdeaPad S10-2 is a great example of that, as is the partially-new, multi-touch ThinkPad T400s. Frankly, the ThinkPad T400s that emerged in June wasn't all that different than the original ThinkPad T400. The T400s offered a slimmer profile, a tweaked keyboard, a few new internal hardware upgrades and optional WAN connectivity. The new T400s, which is equipped with Windows 7 and a multi-touch display, adds one major feature: touch. But really, is adding touch input to an already decent notebook enough to make you think twice about buying a Lenovo? Or better yet, could it convince existing T400 and T400s owners to upgrade? In the pages to come, we'll take a look at how think machine performs with a new operating system. Unlike the original T400s that we reviewed earlier in the summer, our multi-touch T400s shipped with Windows 7 Professional, whereas the earlier T400s shipped with a variety of Vista options...

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RaidSonic Icy Box IB-MP305A-B Network Multimedia HD Player Video Review @ TweakTown

"It is actually a very similar device to the Astone Media Gear AP-100 1080p Media Player that we video reviewed in August as well as the ASUS O!Play HDP-R1 1080p HD Media Player that we also video reviewed last week. All three systems provide video, image and audio playback by means of using the popular Realtek RTD1073 media chipset. You would think that using the same chipset would make each device very similar. If you did think that, you would be partly correct, as some things are quite similar. However, what�s different between each of the media players is the type of output connections you have as well as menu interface and other software based features. This is where the Icy Box jumps out ahead of the pack, in our opinion."

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Thermaltake ISGC-300 CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

"We had already reviewed two coolers from Thermaltake's ISGC series: ISGC-100 and ISGC-200, both with 92-mm fans. This time we tested ISGC-300, which uses a tower design with four U-shaped heatpipes and a 120-mm fan. Will it perform better than the other models from this series? "

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Arctic Cooling ARCTIC MX-3 Thermal Compound @ DragonSteelMods

" Today for review I've got Arctic Cooling Arctic MX-3 thermal compound. The MX-2 version performed very well and received many awards. Let's find out how the new version performs, I've put it up against four other compounds for comparison..."

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Topower Tiger 1200 Watt @ Rbmods

Topower sent us their flagship power supply model, the Tiger 1200 Watt, for review today. Topower says it was designed to handle Nvidia's GTX 295 in quad configuration and AMD's most powerful graphics cards. With a pice tag of under $200US, this sounds like a promising unit.

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Biostar TA785GE 128 M Motherboard Review @ Hardware Secrets

"Biostar TA785GE 128 M is a micro ATX socket AM2+ motherboard with on-board video based on the new AMD 785G chipset, which uses a new DirectX 10.1 graphics engine (Radeon HD 4200, codenamed RV620) featuring dedicated 128 MB video memory on the motherboard (feature called "Side Port" by AMD) to increase performance. In this review we will compare the performance of AMD 785G to AMD 790GX and AMD 780G and we will also analyze Hybrid CrossFire performance. Check it out."

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GELID Solutions GC-2 and GC-Extreme Thermal Compound Reviewed @ Futurelooks

When we last looked at GELID Solutions, they were a just formed company with a strong focus on cooling products. Their GC-1 Thermal Compound was a hit with us, and their cooler was a decently quiet offering. We even looked at one of their 120mm case fans, and I liked it so much that I used five of them to replace the fans in my new production rig.

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Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000 @ DreamWare Computers

"The last year has seen several big releases from Microsoft's hardware department. Alongside a handful of webcams, they have also started releasing several new keyboards, mice and desktop sets focused around their new BlueTrack optical mouse tracking technology. Although the name "Wireless Desktop 3000" seems strikingly similar to a past desktop set from Microsoft, this latest version features not only a BlueTrack mouse but some modern styling too."

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AMD Athlon II X4 Processors Debut: Enter The $99 Quad-Core @ HotHardware.com

AMD has been attacking the mainstream PC segment lately with a slew of modestly priced processors and chipsets. The attack started with the new Athlon II X2 value processors back in June, which were a much needed replacement for the out-dated Athlon X2 series. Then a few weeks later, AMD released their new mainstream chipset, the 785G, which we found to be an excellent complement to the new Athlon II's. Today AMD is adding the final piece to their new mainstream desktop platform with the release of a line-up of value-priced quad-cores; the Athlon II X4 series. At first the announcement of Athlon II X4s doesn't seem too interesting. Especially since they have been rumored for some time and it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine that AMD would get around to releasing quad-core Athlon II processors eventually. Not to mention the Athlon IIs are in many ways just Phenom IIs with the L3 cache removed, so there isn't a ton of brand new tech under the hood to ogle at. However, things get a lot more interesting when you hear the list price...

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AMD Athlon II X4 620 Processor Review - Quad-Core for Mainstream @ TweakTown

"Moving ahead today though, Phenom II is one of the most versatile processors, due to its dual mode memory controller. You can easily put a Phenom II processor into any AM2+ motherboard and use it with DDR2 memory or AM3 based motherboard and run it on DDR3 memory and this is one thing AMD definitely got right. AMD's own marketing strategy for Phenom II is for high-end market, and it leaves a gap for the mainstream segment, but not anymore we see. Today AMD has its newest addition to the K10 family out using the Athlon naming, which gave them such a good hit all those years ago. Introducing the first quad-core mainstream CPU from AMD, which is dubbed the Athlon II X4. We have the 620 model with us here today - how well does it perform? What does it offer? Let's find out!"

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Rosewill Xtreme 850W @ PureOverclock

" Today we're looking at the Rosewill Xtreme 850W power supply, a unit that comes with enough horsepower for a hungry SLI/Crossfire setup, but with a price tag that won't break the bank. It's got some flash with a pair of blue LED fans, and it promises good performance at a good price. Sounds like a plan to us. Let's take a look and see if the Rosewill Xtreme 850W can live up to those claims."

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Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�Cooler Master's Storm brand has really made some headway in the gaming sector over the past few months. Since the Storm brand was announced they have launched 2 very successful cases and quite a few mouse surfaces, but to be a true gaming brand you need a mouse. Today Cooler Master releases the Sentinel Advanced professional gaming mouse and we have the review for you! This mouse took Cooler Master 2 years to develop and it is unlike any other gaming mouse that we have seen. If you are a gamer you are definitely going to want to check out this review!"

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Athlon II X4 620 and Athlon II X4 630 @ TechwareLabs

Built with the same great architecture as the Phenom II X4, Athlon II X4 represents real value at $99 for the 2.6GHz X4 620 model and $122 for the 2.8GHz 630. When an Athlon II X4 processor is combined with a sub-$100 motherboard featuring our 785G chipset, you have a perfect example of AMD's new mainstream desktop platform for Windows 7.

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Intel i5-750 Socket 1156 Lynnfield Processor Review @ Tweaknews

"Intel knows that most people will spring for the cheaper Lynnfield in most cases and enjoy a big upgrade for little money. It's hard to really point out anything wrong with this processor. It's cheap, its performance for the dollar is unrivaled in the industry and at last allows the consumer to upgrade above a socket 775 system without having to re-mortgage the house."

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AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core Processor @ OCC

"I have to say, I am very impressed with the new Athlon II X4 series processor. This baby performed very well despite having a low L2 cache, no L3 cache and a low clock speed of 2.6GHz. While it was no match for the Intel i7 series, it did come close when put up against the Intel i5 series in the gaming benchmarks and some of the scientific ones as well. When put up against the Phenom II X4 it came even closer, especially in benchmarks where the system as a whole was benchmarked and not just the CPU by itself. When it comes to overclocking, while it will not break any speed records, it did very well considering the multiplier is locked at 13x."

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Quad-Core on the Cheap: AMD Athlon II X4 620 Reviewed @ TechSpot.com

AMD is launching a new series of affordable quad-core processors today under the Athlon II brand name. Based on the 'Propus' architecture and built using a 45nm design process, the new series is intended to help AMD secure the low-end portion of the market, as Intel's Core i5 750 and LGA1156 platform have clearly made life difficult for them on the mainstream front. This is essentially the same Deneb architecture that is used by the Phenom II X4 series, except for the L3 cache which has been removed from the Athlon II X4 parts. With models ranging from 2.20GHz through to 2.9GHz on the horizon, AMD has decided to unleash the Athlon II X4 620 first, clocked at 2.6GHz and expected to retail for just $100. The amazingly low price tag puts this chip in a category of its own, as there are currently no quad-core parts competing here. In our review, we will put AMD's budget quad-core processor to the test next to comparable offerings like the Phenom II X2 550, X4 945 and the older (yet still well-regarded) Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

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Luxa2 LM100-Mini Home Theater PC Chassis with 200W PSU @ TweakTown

"The Luxa2 line is a step above the average Thermaltake chassis, and you will soon see why. Of course they are HTPC chassis, but the Luxa2 branding, as the name suggests, is a bit more luxurious. The features and design of the chassis I�m about to show you has very nice looks and one of the most solid constructions I have seen to date. Luxa2 has released a few HTPC chassis in the new lineup, and today we are getting a look at the LM100 Mini. This is a very small, mATX compatible chassis with a built-in 200 watt power supply already installed. Keeping that power supply in mind, this HTPC chassis is more for the low power consuming components. As the review continues, I think you might be pleasantly surprised to see just what I was able to stuff in this chassis and run for quite some time with no issues."

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Cooler Master CM Storm Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse @ Bigbruin.com

The Cooler Master CM Storm Sentinel Advance is by far the most feature rich gaming mouse I have seen to date. I would also go as far as saying that any gamer would benefit from the versatility and comfort provided by this mouse. Every aspect of the mouse is at your control to be adjusted and tweaked to fit each game's unique style of use.

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OCZ Vertex TURBO 120GB Solid State Drive @ Overclock3D

Have OCZ improved the phenomenally fast Vertex SSD to reclaim the performance crown? Take a look at our latest review...

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AMD Athlon II X4 620 and Athlon II X4 630 Processor Review @ Legit Reviews

"The AMD Athlon II X4 620 and Athlon II X4 630 processors offer nothing new or inspiring on the performance front, but they have a price point that will make you smile. For just $99 the AMD Athlon II X4 620 packs a mean punch and is the ideal processor to pair with an AMD 785G based motherboard. The AMD Athlon II X4 630 is a more interesting part to us as it has a higher multiplier and costs just $122. It was also able to reach over 3.8GHz, which is a fairly massive overclock for just air cooling. Getting more than 1GHz overclocks out of $99 and $122 processor is always fun because they really turn into 'budget beaters' and are able to out perform processors that usually cost significantly more than they do..."

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Coolermaster CM Storm Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse @ Pro-Clockers

Coolermaster is one of the leaders in power supply and case manufacturing. But today we will see if they can hit a high note with their new venture the Sentinel Advance dual laser mouse. With the recession the way it is today even large companies have to create a new hustle in order to stay above water. And the new Sentinel maybe the right hustle for Coolermaster as it is large and in charge. The features are one thing but before we even plugged it into the USB port we feel in love with the size of the mouse. My narrow long finger felt right at home on the Sentinel. It was like it was an natural extension of my hand. I think this is what Coolermaster was aiming for with the Sentinel.

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News From Our Affiliates

GMC R-4 Bulldozer @ OCC

"This case is not for any one who considers themselves to be of the enthusiast level. I'd like to recommend this case to budget users, but cheaper and better cases can also be found. The lack of HDD and ODD bays will stop many mid-range users from purchasing this case. This puts the Bulldozer in a relatively awkward position. In the end, I'm not really sure if I can recommend it to anyone. If you're throwing together a secondary computer out of spare parts and want an inexpensive case that looks cool, then you might want to consider the Bulldozer."

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ATI Catalyst 9.9 Vista Driver Analysis @ TweakTown

"The 9.10s should be a fairly exciting driver with it being the first official driver for the new HD 5800 video cards that are due out later this month, for now though we're still with our beloved HD 4800 cards and we'll find out just what's happening with the 9.9 drivers. Normally we would get stuck into making note of what performance improvements are seen, but with nothing in the release notes this month, we'll get stuck straight into the benchmarking side of things and see if there's any surprises."

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ASUS Xonar D2X @ PureOverclock

"Although typically known for their motherboards and graphics cards, ASUS also has produced a line of sound cards as well. Today, we will be looking at one of their high end offerings, the ASUS Xonar D2X to find out whether ASUS has been able bring the quality their name is known for to the sound card market as well."

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Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme i7 Ready CPU Cooler Review @ ThinkComputers.org

�So it isn't often that we run across a radical departure from the radiator norm. Our friends at Sunbeamtech, in their Tuniq division, has done just that, created a 120mm tower cooler that looks like nothing we've seen, the Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme. Besides a unique radiator design, the five core-contact heatpipes have a different twist too. Even the fan is in an odd place for a square tower cooler. Will it cool the i7? Read on to see!"

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Lost Planet 2 Preview @ [OC]ModShop

Capcom was on hand at PAX09, and one of their hottest previews was definitely Lost Planet 2. We had a chance to play one of the co-op missions with one of the Capcom employees, who gave us a walkthrough of the mission. Like the previous game , Lost Planet 2 is a science fiction third-person shooter with some RPG elements. Lost Planet 2 will be running on the MT-Framework 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in several Capcom-developed games. In the previous game (Lost Planet: Extreme Condition), the world was completely covered with snow and ice, which required the use of Thermal Energy to survive. Lost Planet 2 takes place 10 years after the previous installment. The planet has been terraformed, and is now green and has flowing rivers and streams.

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ASUS MARS/2DI/4GD3 Dual GeForce GTX 285 4096 MB @ techPowerUp

If any graphics card has been hyped in the past months it's the ASUS MARS Dual GTX 285. It is the first and only graphics card featuring two GTX 285 GPUs with 4 GB VRAM. The card is set out to dominate every other card on the market delivering amazing performance - at a breathtaking price of USD 1200 per card.

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The Beatles RockBand Review @ TweakTown

"Ever since Activision had its acrimonious split with Harmonix, RockBand and Guitar Hero games have gone head to head almost yearly to win the gamers dollar. To say that Europe has been treated poorly with RockBand is to say the least. In fact in this crazy situation, The Beatles specific game is being released before the actual second game (at least in Asia Pacific regions). However with that said, EA have certainly chosen the right game to release in the region with The Beatles RockBand not only turning out to be the best RockBand game yet, but possibly the best rhythm game around, and not just because it has the Fab Four. As you would expect, The Beatles RockBand follows the Fab Fours life from their early days in the cave nightclub through to the heady heights of packed to the rafter stadiums. All the way through the story Harmonix has hit the mark perfectly with some of the best animations seen in a rhythm game and they have also captured the essence of each venue and song well. About half way through the game, things moves to the Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles recorded many of their biggest songs and the animation moves to 'dreamscapes' - an interpretation of the song�s lyrics into often crazy worlds and colors. This becomes more and more apparent as you move through the story."

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Spire Blackmoon XP 600 Watt Power Supply @ Pro-Clockers

Spire is known for making the some of the most elegant cases and some very good CPU coolers. Today we will be taking a new at a new line of power supplies from Spire. This new line is called the Blackmonn XP. What sets the new model from some of their other models is the Bronze efficiency, modular cabling and high quality capacitors. Is this enough to make us recommend the Blackmoon XP to our readers? We will see.

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Win an ioSafe Solo 500GB Rugged USB External Hard Drive @ Bigbruin.com

ioSafe is offering up a 500GB Solo to the person that can come up with the most interesting new way to test the disaster protection provided. Between the various reviews conducted around the world, and tests that ioSafe has conducted in-house, the fire and water protection have been challenged rather extensively. But, this doesn't mean that there aren't tons of new ways for the device's disaster protection to be proven. Come up with an interesting new way to test the ioSafe Solo and not only will you win one of your own, but ioSafe just might use your idea to demonstrate the capabilities of the device at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.

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Kingston HyperX DDR3 4GB 2133MHz Memory Review @ Legit Reviews

"if you are into overclocking, the Kingston 2133MHz HyperX T1 memory kit (KHX2133C8D3T1K2/4GX) has got you covered. We were able to reach 2200MHz by just upping the base clock of the system. Reaching 2300MHz was as easy as setting primary timings to 9-9-9. With very little tweaking and minor voltage adjustments, we hit 2400MHz! Getting big numbers from this memory was extremely easy. This is by far, the fastest memory I've had the pleasure of testing. Sure, you can get higher bandwidth numbers on a Triple Channel X58 system, but in terms of raw MHz I haven't had anything else that can touch it!"

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NZXT-Beta Computer Case @ TechwareLabs

Join my tech team and I in our reviewing of NZXT's Beta case as with most budget cases we are going to be looking at this case in full body armor to prevent the possible loss of arm associated with sharp edges left by cutting corners and cutting costs.

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Roccat Valo Review @ XSReviews

"Well here it is folks, the review that many have been waiting for; not because I'm some ungodly talented reviewer, but because this product has been so tantalizingly close to release for so long now, it's become the hardware version of vaporware. When Roccat stepped onto the gaming peripheral scene a few years ago, they were given as much attention as any other new company, not that much. However, after a few product releases, including the Kone mouse and the Kave headset, people began to take notice. One product in their line up that drew a lot of attention however, that was promised over two years ago at this point, had yet to be released, the incredibly sexy looking Valo keyboard. Now however I am pleased to say it has finally been unleashed upon the masses, and I've managed to get hold of one; granted a few days after release, but still we have one, and we're taking a look at it. Lets see how it holds up to our stringent testing."

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CID The Dummy � Nintendo Wii @ TestFreaks

"Up on the review block today I�ve got the disaster that�s called Cid the Dummy for the Nintendo Wii. This game started out with a good deal of potential, but then fell flat because of bad graphics, bad controls, horrible acting and just a plain lack of much of anything good. So read on or not� "

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Windows 7 on a Netbook 1 gig vs 2gig @ iGadget Life

"A couple weeks ago I compared Windows Xp that comes on the Acer Aspire One D250 to the new Windows 7 to basically find out how they compared to each other in terms of performance. The D250 I have comes with 1gig of ram, so As sort of a part two to that article I thought I�d toss in 2 gigs of ram and re-run all of my tests to see what, if any difference there might be between running 1 gig or 2 gigs. The results of the testing very much surprised me in that 2gigs doesn�t seem to be better at all really, and I�m not sure why that is. Maybe someone else can shed some light on this for me�"

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Dell Studio XPS 16 Review @ HotHardware.com

We had the chance to review Dell's Studio XPS 13 back in early May and found the machine to be sleek and stylish, and a good value. In an effort to provide that same sleek styling and great performance to those looking for a somewhat larger machine, Dell has now issued an updated Studio XPS 16 that seems to up the ante in a number of key areas. The 16" notebook realm is a bit less crowded these days than say the netbook sector and the full-on 17" desktop replacement arena, giving Dell the perfect opportunity to stand out and make a play for those dead-set on a 16" rig. The Studio XPS 13 set itself apart from prior Dell notebooks by adding a touch of flair that was somewhat unheard of for the company previously. The all-black, low-profile keyboard coupled with the edge-to-edge LCD and subtle leather strip on the lid gave the Studio line a motif that even fashionistas could love, and all that's still firmly in place on the Studio XPS 16. Essentially, the machine we're testing today is just an oversized variant of the Studio XPS 13, but the extra room inside enabled Dell to beef up the specifications...

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Zalman CNPS9900 LED Intel I7 CPU Cooler Review @ Tweaknews

"The Zalman CNPS9900 LED cooler can be summed up rather easily. If you in the market for a good looking and extremely quiet cooler and won't be overclocking and moving you computer around much, then this cooler should be considered."

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