Daily Reviews Summary 08/16/11

The ZS Series is the latest mainstream power supply series from OCZ. Available in 550 W, 650 W, and 750 W versions, these models don't come with a modular cabling system. Let's see if the 650 W version is a good buy.

The Kingwin Stryker 500 W is an amazing little PSU. It is one of the few models that offers 80PLUS Platinum efficiency, which means well over 90%, even at low load. In addition to that the power supply is completely fanless, emitting no noise at all - great for a quiet office PC or media PC system.

Kingston's most recent product release just last week sees their very first SSD launch under the HyperX branding. HyperX being their premium label for enthusiasts, professionals and gamers. That isn't all though, this is the first SSD by Kingston using the SATA3 interface. The HyperX SSD first appeared at CES 2011, at the beginning of the year but was only officially announced back in June - indicating that they were holding back and ensuring that the drive was perfect since Sandforce has had issues with Firmware in the past.

The back-to-school season is upon us, and we've cooked up a new system guide for the occasion. Read on for the details on the Dorm PC, a small-form-factor rig perfect for students, in addition to updates to our usual system configurations.

Today, the newest chipset for Intel processors is the Z68 Express and motherboards like the Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 which are built around it offer up a mainstream suite of capabilities and a kitchen sink full o'features. On the all important videocard front there are two options - integrated graphics via the board's HDMI/Display Port/DVI-D/Analog video outputs, or PCI Express based discrete graphics cards. In terms of videocards, the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard will handle one PCI Express 2.0 x16 videocard in x16 mode or a pair of nVidia Geforce / ATI Radeon videocards in SLI or Crossfire, in x8/x8 mode.

The Cooler Hyper 612 PWM and GeminII S524 are new CPU coolers designed to offer excellent thermal performance without breaking the bank. They're updates of older designs, with the Hyper 612 PWM in particular improving on the the trusty Hyper 212 Plus tower heatsink. We test both heatsinks in our latest cooler review.

The Cooler Master GeminII S524 is equipped with a single 120mm fan but can also use a 140mm fan. The CM GeminII S524 improves upon the RAM module clearance issue of the GeminII S by having 47mm height clearance between the motherboard and the aluminum fins. The Cooler Master GeminII S524 uses the same five 6mm copper heatpipe design employed on the GeminII S but now comes nickel electroplated for improved conductivity and corrosion inhibition. The supplied 120mm PWM fan can operate between 800 to 1800 RPM, designed to perform at a low noise decibel range between 15.1 to 31.6 dBA. In terms of versatility, the Cooler Master GeminII S524 can be mounted in various orientations and is compatible with Intel socket 775 up to 1366 as well as AMD socket AM2 up to the latest FM1 and upcoming AM3+ sockets.

Need a big, bad power supply for your next PC build or upgrade If you answered "yes" to that question, you should read our evaluation of the Thermaltake Toughpower 1350W PSU.

Thermaltake is back on our test benches and back with some very big iron. Thermaltake made some of the "biggest and baddest" computer power supplies years ago and we are about to find out if the company does once again. However this Toughpower is well above a kilowatt and surely will have a limited appeal, but also surely attract a lot of attention.