Daily Reviews Summary 05/22/10

With Team SandForce on top, the only question remaining is which manufacturer and drive should we choose to purchase. There are a few variables here and most are personal choices. You might be looking for all out speed, the fastest drive on the market or maybe warranty length weighs more in your purchasing decision. Some consumers may just simply be loyal to a company’s products due to past experiences with customer service, warranty issues or forum activity.

Today we are looking at the OCZ Vertex 2 100GB Solid State Drive. The Vertex 2 uses the SandForce SF-1200 consumer controller, but things are not as they seem from the outside looking in. OCZ was given the exclusive rights to a special firmware that enabled some of the features normally found in the SF-1500 enterprise controller. The main benefit to the exclusive firmware rests in the 4K performance and the Vertex 2 is able to achieve around 10K more IOPS at 4K than most, if not all SF-1200 controlled drives on the market. How much faster the Vertex 2 is when compared to other SF-1200 controlled drives is just one area that we will be looking at today. Pricing, availability, competition and other factors will also be examined.

With a new fan design featuring Noctua's Vortex-Control Notches and included Ultra Low Noise Adapters, the D14 is not only an awesomely effective cooler, but also extremely quiet at the same time. For those seeking a quality cooling solution without yielding up quite so much real estate, Noctua offers a revamped version of their popular NH-C12P, now designated the SE14. Included is the same NF-P14 140mm cooling fan found on the D14, coupled with what Noctua refers to as their "C-shaped" cooler, featuring six heatpipes connecting the copper base to a large array of aluminum fins oriented parallel to the motherboard."

How good can a USD 40 power supply be? Let’s take an in-depth look on this 460 W model from Cooler Master, a.k.a. RS-460-PSAR-J3.

We also like to review low-end products from time to time so people with a serious budget restriction can have an idea whether it is worthwhile to buy cheap products or not. Today we are going to take an in-depth look on Elite Power 460 W (RS-460-PSAR-J3) from Cooler Master. Can it really deliver its rated power? Is it worthwhile giving it a shot if you don't have a lot of money to spend on a power supply? Let's see.

OCZ's Enyo external USB 3.0 SSD has been seen in renderings and previews since before CES in January but we now have the final shipping model in-house and have spent the last days testing it and putting it through the paces. It easily becomes the fastest external drive we have ever tested but does it validate the move to USB 3.0?

The OCZ Enyo portable SSD is an incredibly fast external storage solution that easily rivals the performance of internal SSDs but in a much more convenient package. The drive has some style to it as well with a slick anodized aluminum finish and clean lines enveloping its svelte dimensions. As our performance numbers above indicate the Enyo is faster than the Super Talent SuperCrypt USB 3.0 thumb drive we first tested last month and should appease even the most demanding mobile user.

Certain power supply series from Huntkey (like V-Power and Green Star) are labeled with their peak wattage instead of their continuous wattage. So far in our reviews only Titan 650 W (sold in the US as the first version of Best Buy's Rocketfish 700 W) and Jumper 550 didn't explode during our tests. We've already reviewed the 450 W version from Balance King series, which also exploded in a very unusual way. Let's see if the 500 W model will survive our tests.