Daily Reviews Summary 07/14/08

Today for review I've got the Porter N881 Chipset cooler from Xigmatek and from my testing it is an excellent choice to cool todays hot chipsets. Not only does the Porter perform well passively cooling the chip, but you can add an additional fan to further improve cooling and help your overclock.

The Dell XPS M1730 was easy to overclock and it was able to run the Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000 all the way up to 3.4GHz with full stability. With the system overclocked we were able to break 10,000 3DMarks in 3DMark 2006 and run faster than many of the desktops on the market today. Intel has done a great job with the Core 2 Extreme X9000 as they were able to deliver a fast part that has room for overclocking and efficient enough to drop power consumption levels...

This time MSI made an extra effort to provide fully equipped motherboard for AMD platform that will match performances and OC potential side-by-side with competitive Asus, Gigabyte, Biostar etc. Cooling solution responsible for CPU power supply unit cooling is special Circu-Pipe cooler similar to those that came with ASUS M3N HT-mempipe and Crosshair 2 motherboards. Alongside this MB, MSI delivers K9A2 V2 Platinum, distinguished with absence of back panel eSATA and two SATA ports...

Well enter the aftermarket laptop desk market. It's huge and growing with seemingly new designs coming into the market all the time. Well today I have a new laptop desk, rather tray...err rather a multi-use and multi-functional tray for your viewing pleasure. It's called the LapDawg X4 multi-functional tray. The contacted me for a review and I'm guessing it's because one of the many uses LapDawg claims it's X4 can handle is lapdesk duty. So, let's take a closer look at what this X4 has to offer for its $130.00 USD Price.

So what of a product to compete with the GTX 280? Well that is why we are here today, in the last day or so ATI supplied us with an early sample of the R700 giving us the opportunity to see how it compares to cards which are already on the market. We should however state that ATI have placed some limitations on what we can and cannot say about the R700 at this time and therefore a full outline of the card and performance analysis will be published at a later date.

KVMs don't usually get all the glamorous attention. However, the CS1782 deserves some of its own. With support for all of the latest technologies from dual-link DVI, 7.1 surround sound and USB 2.0, the CS1782 has you covered. Port switching is quick and easy with no lag and clean signals.

In this review we will be looking at the Ineo I-NA307 internal 5.25 bay hard drive enclosure which allows for fast and easy, yet secure, storage of a single SATA drive. On the other hand, we will also be looking at the Ineo I-NA302Ue which is a passively cooled external eSATA + USB enclosure. Both of these devices are available in limited quantities from a few online e-tailers and they go for about $22 US and $25 respectively.

After several attempts to get equal amounts of paste on the CPU, it was clear that two of the white pastes, Thermalright (Type 2) and Arctic Silver Ceramique, sank lower to the surface due to a lower viscosity, almost approaching a liquid state. Arctic Silver 5 and Noctua NT-H1 were both notably thicker, but the Arctic Silver 5 appeared wetter than the Noctua NT-H1. With Noctua's offering being the most viscous paste in this group, I wondered if it would be difficult to spread thinly on the bare dies of chipsets and unlidded CPUs.

When it comes to ATI products Sapphire has always offered the most influential graphics cards available, and the new Radeon HD 4870 is no different. For the first time in this industry, we have a fully-functional product equipped with 900 MHz GDDR5 video frame buffer. The Sapphire 100243L model offers 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) on its 750 MHz 800-core RV770 GPU. Benchmark Reviews tests the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 graphics card against the closest competition, and even compare CrossFireX performance in this performance review.

The AMD Phenom faced a fairly rocky start, but the guys in green are trucking forward and have started releasing new processors into the wild. These new chips are of a different stepping, and feature fixes for many of the identified issues. Today were are looking at such a processor, checking to see if these early problems have been truly been fixed.

AMD has quite a hit on its hands in the Radeon HD 4000 series. Coming up next is a product code-named R700, a high-end graphics card based on two Radeon HD 4870 GPUs paired together. Here's a preliminary look at how the card—to be called the Radeon HD 4870 X2—performs.

I always thought that the little security system signs that people place in their landscaping and on their windows at home looked a bit goofy. I mean, yes, it may deter some of the more novice thieves, but like they say, 'locks only keep the honest people out'. It also seemed like putting up the signs was almost an advertisement that shouted 'Hey! Look at me, I have goodies inside!' These thoughts all came to me before I actually owned my own house, but now that I am in my second house, I see the appeal of a security system. One thing that most security systems do not come with however, is any sort of camera or video recording features, and if they do, they are outrageously expensive. This is where the NVR-1012 Network Surveillance System from QNAP comes into play. The NVR-1012 pairs the NVR-101 Network Video Recorder with two ICS-1013 IP cameras for dual-zone monitoring, with the ability to expand the system if needed. Follow along to see just how the QNAP NVR-1012 can help you get started with monitoring your home or office.