Daily Reviews Summary 04/02/10

In Win, as a high end case manufacturer, are the makers of some of the most uniquely visual designs on the market. Previous designs such as the Star Wars styled X-Fighter, stealth bomber-esque B2 and racing car inspired F430 have certainly caught the imagination offering a very different perspective to the full-ATX case.

In Win's products are much more than novelty products though with extensive cooling systems and innovative mounting mechanisms providing a practical dimension to the eye-catching designs. The cooling aspect applies especially to the Maelstrom case to which this review is focused on as the chassis is able to house up to ten 120mm fans creating the potential for a huge cooling system. So how does the Maelstrom go about combining innovation, practicality and typically unique visuals? Let's take a look...

Portable and desktop external hard drives are becoming more and more similar with each release. The new Toshiba 640GB External Hard Drive (HDDR640E04XR) is pocket-sized and comes with decent backup software. It looks like another old external drive that only does its purpose, but it is a sleek, yet powerful device.

Antec has a successor to the mid tower P190 case with their gunmetal gray P193 chassis. Will the upgrades put in place overcome some of the shortcomings of the original design? We build it out with some of the largest components available to see how it fares on a system build that mirrors what any gamer our enthusiast would build if they buy one of these cases!

There are a number of notebooks on the market with underpowered cooling systems. This can cause damage over time and may well reduce the operating life of a notebook. Today we are going to look at four different coolers; The Choiix Mini Air-Through Cooling Pad, Vizo Xena Mini Notebook Cooler, Arctic Cooling Arctic NC and Hiyatek NB Cooling Pad and Stand which all aim to lower temperatures on the current generation of high powered laptops.

With the P55 Classified 200 EVGA presents its flagship out of their P55 chipset series. With a lot of features it especially awaits PC-enthusiasts as well as overclockers who are looking for an exceptionally good motherboard for overclocking.

Noctua is well known for their line of excellent CPU coolers and silent fans. With the ever growing heat levels of modern processors, the company created the new "twin towers" design. Today we see if the NH-D14 can handle the heat while still living up to Noctua's promise of quiet CPU cooling.

Today we are comparing five different 4GB kits specifically tailored for use on the socket 1156 platform. Each of these kits has been supplied by a real retail store rather than from the manufacturer directly, so it should be representative of what you can buy yourself. We are testing kits from Corsair, OCZ, G.Skill and Crucial.

The NZXT Sentry 2 Performance Touch Screen 5.25" Fan Controller is the answer to all your system fan needs. The NZXT Sentry 2 Performance Touch Screen 5.25" Fan Controller is a full system fan controller with a touch of your finger. It can control up to 5 different fans and report 5 different temperatures with the placed sensors.

Overclockers and PC hardware enthusiasts understand that system memory performs best with low latency and fast speeds, but both seldom come in the same package. Kingston offers the exception. Available with two XMP eXtreme Memory Profiles, the Kingston HyperX DDR3 memory kit can deliver either 1867MHz CL7, or 2002MHz at CL8. Sold in dual- and triple-channel kits, Benchmark Reviews tests the KHX2000C8D3T1FK3/6GX set against a wide range of modules in our RAM tests using the six-core Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition processor.

Even with the limited adjustments available within the CCC's Overdrive utility, I was still able to max the GPU's clock speed in a matter of minutes and get the RAM to an excellent overclock rather expediantly as well. Throw in a free copy of Aliens vs. Predator and really, there is not to much to say about this card other than the XFX Radeon HD5830 is without doubt the card to have in its price range!

Hot-swappable hard drive bays have been around for quite a while now. Many people use them because they need to transfer large files between computers or they need to take hard drives with them from location to location. The thing that was a big pain when it came to hot-swappable devices is that you needed to have the same one installed on each system so that the trays would work on both systems. ICY DOCK who has been making devices like this for a long time has now eliminated the tray design so all you have to do is just slide your drive right in. Lets take a look at one of their latest intern al enclosures the MB672.