Daily Reviews Summary 04/20/11

The Dragon Rider glides into a market filled with enthusiast, full tower cases. Components have been getting bigger, badder and hotter over the past year. It is only fitting that the enclosures adapt as well! For those running a "fire breathing" machine with lots of components, does In Win's new offering saddle up the performance? Or does it leave you gasping in a puff of smoke? Read on, intrepid adventurer!

AMD have been in the limelight a lot as of late, especially in regards to the Radeon 6990 dual GPU monster that we looked at a little while ago. If it wasn't for the 6950 and 6970 there wouldn't have been anything to base the beast off of, therefore we thought we'd pay homage to the Radeon 6950 by taking a look at the 1GB version.
We took a look at the fully fledged HIS Radeon 6950 2GB card from HIS a little while ago which gave outstanding results, but AMD wanting to appeal to a mass market, decided to venture into the 1Gb territory with this Radeon 6950 1GB graphics card.
With a slight performance hit, will the extra added value be something that people are looking for in a graphics card or is the 2Gb flavour still the one to go for?

It's been a good two-and-a-half years since we've taken a look at a Zalman chassis, so with the announcement of the ~$69 Z9 Plus, we were eager to get one in and see how it compared to the current fleet of sub-$100 offerings on the market. With that, let's see what the Z9 Plus gives us aside from its good looks and focus on efficient airflow.

As you probably noticed, yes that is a USB 3.0 cable protruding from out of the top panel. The back of the case also features seven expansion slots and water cooling capabilities via the two rubber grommets. The top panel sports a 120mm fan and there are a total of three fans included with this case, which is plus. Also on the top panel is our lone USB 3.0 port and its accompanying tray that allows you to sit a hard drive dock on top of the case.

Rules change and we need to be at the top of the technology to understand how new architectures work with our new components. Overclocking is a "sport" which has passed lots of different generations (people and platforms) and from time to time, the way you do it changes a lot. At Benchmark Reviews we put all our effort to bring you reviews and articles covering most of the new products as they arrive to the market, but we also focus a lot on enthusiasts who want to get the best out of their hardware without paying extra money; obviously by overclocking their PC components. With the launch of the new Sandy Bridge processors we feel the necessity to prepare an Overclocking analysis mainly because Intel completely changed the rules. Overclocking is now 99% limited to unlocked processors, and to mid-high platforms, while low-mid platforms and non-unlocked processors can't simply be overclocked more than some extra MHz. Follow us while we put into test both the Core i5 2500K and the Core i7 2600K paired with the P67 Express platform and discover how they work against voltage, heat and power consumption.

Solid state drives are all the rage right now. The most common form factor for solid state drives is the 2.5-inch form factor. Many new cases have support for 2.5-inch drives, but many cases, even newer ones do not. No one wants to go out and buy a brand new case, just for a hard drive. Vantec knows this and has a whole line of hard drive racks that support 2.5-inch drives. Today we will be taking a look at the NexStar SE Dual 2.5-inch hard drive rack, which is a 5.25-inch bay device that supports two 2.5-inch drives. Let’s take a look…

ASUS has a wide range of monitors which run the gamut from ultra high end professional products to more reasonably priced units. While the ML248H lies closer to the bottom of their product stack in terms of overall price, it definitely doesn't skimp on features and is supposed to offer some reasonable image quality as well. But can this sub-$225 24" monitor overcome the limitations of its TN panel?

In the middle of 2010 I received some concept art from the Xigmatek Rep and was asked to keep the images and information confidential. This information has been very hard to keep quiet, but somehow I managed to achieve the task. If you have purchased a large PC case in the last 12 months, it's time to look for the receipt and try to return it. Your case is weak and you will no longer want it after seeing the Xigmatek Elysium.

The Elysium is that rare product that has a value that far outperforms its price. With a 200 USD MSRP, this review could be published with the price, a specifications / features list and a handful of pictures and no one would complain (other than the competition). It's going to be fairly difficult to keep this article on the Elysium's features and not dedicate eight pages to the price point that is insanely low for what you are getting. While doing my final check in with Xigmatek, I asked them to raise the price to 300 USD and send me the extra 100 Dollars, because I know you would spend that kind of money on what I have to show you today.

Like the Thermaltake Level 10 but couldn't justify its astronomical pricing for a case? Thermaltake hopes to address that with the Level 10 GT, which is actually within reach of enthusiast rig builders. Hit our review to see if Thermaltake still managed to keep a good thing going with the Level 10 GT despite its relatively lower $269 pricing.

The Antec HCG-750 Power Supply is but one in the new line of High Current Gamer Series PSUs. The HCG-750 advertises a delivery of 750 Watts of continuous power. The HCG-750 comes with many features, the first being four high current +12V rails. These rails have a high over current protection set point for high end GPU compatibility. The HCG-750 is constructed of all Japanese-brand capacitors for excellent reliability. There is a 135mm double ball bearing fan for quiet operation and high air flow. The 750 is 80 Plus Bronze certified and boasts up to 88% efficiency. There are 4 gold plated 8-pin (6+2) PCI-E connectors and gold-plated High Current terminals.

In my first Sentey power supply review, I have the SDP650-SS 650W power supply here today. The SDP650-SS is an entry level 650W model. For around $80USD, the SDP650-SS gets you a non-modular, 80PLUS certified supply with a quiet 140mm fan and a 5 year warranty!

If you're even half the nerd that I am you might eventually have wondered what's inside your notebook, where the irritating noise of a fan suddenly came from when watching Youtube vids, and very maybe you might have wondered why your notebook sometimes gets so hot! I'm a bit being sarcastic here as I perfectly know most of our readers indeed do understand what's going on inside the metal or plastic housing, yet still what's there to do when temps keep on rising? Notebook coolers to the rescue! Todays we'll be having a look at one of the more performant notebook coolers you'll stumble against upon your search for the perfect solution, or did we just find it four you? Read on!

Time to throw another case into the mix. Today we are introducing an evolution of one of coolermasters biggest sellers of the last years. The Coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced. By listening to the end users input, the CM engineers have refined the 690 series case. Adding a removable HD bay (to support up to 3GPUs easily), a hot swappable HD docking station, baptised X-docking station, are just a few of the new features or updates as you want. The 690 II advanced is available in a window and non windowed version. Let's see what this beauty has got in store for you.