Daily Reviews Summary 08/17/10

Easy on the pocket, easy on the frames.

Today we see the arrival of our first Ozone gaming accessory - the Ozone TRACE Extra Large Sized Professional Gaming Mousepad.

Alongside the usual well respected and widely known companies it's often difficult for newcomers to appear. They can make their mark through creative thinking and innovative design.

Ozone is one of these companies and whilst they are indeed very new they are making their presence known in the professional gaming circuit.

We have reviewed several Antec products recently and one of our favourites was the Dark Fleet DF 85 chassis. A case which seemed to split opinion with our readers, no one argued it had fantastic airflow properties, but many thought it was rather ugly. The pictures didn’t do it justice, as in the flesh I thought it was sinister, yet sexy.

Today’s product is sure to appeal to a wider demographic, those who don’t like LED lighting … but an audience who still demand a high level of airflow. The Antec P193 is the updated version of the P190, a fantastic EATX chassis which offered a class leading combination of features. The P193 price has been significantly lowered, but more on this later.

Today we are looking at the flagship air cooler from Corsair air series of CPU coolers, the A70. Join us as we put the A70 to the test on our Core i7 test system and up against coolers like the Thermalright Venomous-X and the Noctua NH-D14. The Corsair A70 is compatible with select Intel and AMD CPU socket designs, so don't let the A in the product name fool you to thinking it is for AMD processors only!

Whether you are new to PCs or an enthusiast, when you hear the name Corsair your mind most likely jumps straight to RAM. However, Corsair has been branching out over the last couple of years into more than RAM. Now they have power supplies, USB drives, SSDs, cases, water cooling kits and now, air coolers. The coolers are the A50 and A70, and today we will be looking at the A70. The A70 is a dual 120mm fan Heatpipe Direct Touch (HDT) 4 heat pipe tower cooler. The A70 will mount up to all the Intel LGA sockets and the AMD AM2/AM3 sockets. The A70 is a twin fan cooler and Corsair provides two 120mm fans for a push/pull configuration. Each of the fans is rated at 61.2 CFM at 2000 RPM and run at 31.5 dBA. They can also be restricted with inline power resistors to make them run at 50.35 CFM at 1600 RPM and 26dBA each. So the cooler can be quieted down if needed...

With the release of Lost Planet 2 for PC the popular console game gets a graphic enhancement makeover in the form of DirectX 11. Capable GPU's can take advantage of advanced features like tessellation, displacement mapping, soft body compute shaders and wave height simulation to enhance the gaming experience.

Tthe PC version of the original Lost Planet brought gamers DirectX 10 support, and to follow in its footsteps, Lost Planet 2 will support DirectX 11. Though the game's release date hasn't been announced, Capcom has released a benchmark that allows us to test out both modes, so that's just what we did.

Laptop stands are always a good thing to have around. They making typing and using your laptop much easier but more importantly they place your laptop at an ergonomically-correct angle. I have quite a few laptop stands actually, but the thing that bothers me is that they take up so much space when you are traveling. Today we have a notebook stand that is extremely portable; it folds up for easy storage and traveling! It has quite a large price tag, let’s see if it’s worth it!

As computers become more commonly included in people's home entertainment systems, it is only natural that companies like nMedia try to create custom cases to cater to those consumers' needs. As seen with other cases from nMedia that Benchmark Reviews has tested, such as the 6000B HTPC Case, nMedia is no stranger to multimedia and HTPC case design. nMedia has given Benchmark Review a chance to look at their latest in their HTPC case line, the HTPC 1080p Micro ATX Chassis. Mentioning a low-profile design, dual 80mm silent fans, all-in-one front I/O panel, and an optional LCD Panel would only begin to highlight the features of the HTPC 1080p. Please join Benchmark Reviews and read the full article as we fully explore what nMedia has to offer with the HTPC 1080p.

Triple channel memory kits are the big dogs on the block, running exclusively on the Intel LGA1366 racetrack. They come with performance teeth but also hefty price tags for the most part. But if you want the best, they're the choice. Today we'll be looking at such a set of memory modules, the Patriot Sector 7 6GB DDR3-1800 modules, which are priced arther attractively and sport some very slick heatspreaders. But what about performance? In our world, performance is what counts, so let's find out if these Patriot Sector 7 sticks have what it takes.

While not the top performing heat sink in the performance category, the SilenX Effizio does quite well and certainly offers a decrease on operating temperatures in both stock and overclocked scenarios. When overclocked, it cools a scant 4 °C warmer than the vaunted Thermalright Ultra Extreme and is 5 °C warmer than the Noctua NH-U12P. When compared to the all-in-one liquid cooling solutions, it delivered performance on par with these solutions with a slightly better noise signature. The direct contact heat pipe design helps the Effizio reach these lower temperatures

Lian Li is a name that’s synonymous with high quality. If you know the name then you know that their stuff is not what one would call inexpensive at all. The price though is well worth it when it comes to the top quality in construction, design and functionality you’ll get when you purchase a Lian Li product. Today for review I have one of their new USB 3.0 enclosures, just named the EX-103. It’s not exactly what we think of when you mention enclosure though, it’s not quite portable, it’s meant more to sit on your desk than travel with you. The enclosure is very well made as you might expect from Lian Li, and it has a subtle yet stylish design to it. So read on to learn more..

We have another "Extreme Design" Asus motherboard under the spotlight today, the Asus P6X58D-E socket 1366 motherboard for Intel Core i7 CPUs. It's over $100 USD cheaper than its big brother, the ASUS Rampage 3 Extreme, but does it translate to value? Find out our latest review!

So what exactly does it take for a board to sport the Extreme Design name? Well it could be SATA 6Gb/s or USB 3.0 support. Maybe even the ASUS EPU, MEMOK button, or the ASUS Express gate. It could be improved cooling with a fanless heatpipe design, or the Stack Cool 3 technology. It could also be the ASUS TurboV overclocking utility, or the boards 16 2 Power phase design. However, it's probably a combination of all of these features that make a board designed to the extreme!

The new Odyssey L-1000 is a mid-tower case with several interesting features, like a digital thermometer, a four-step fan speed controller with two channels, a fan attached to one of the expansion slots, a unique hard disk drive suspension mechanism, and much more. Let's take an in-depth look on this latest release by 3R System.

Today we have the XFX Radeon 5830 XXX Edition on our test bench and it will be put through its paces in a selection of real world gaming, multimedia and GPU computing tasks. As always these will feature DirectX 11 titles such as Alien Vs. Predator but we have also updated our test suite to include a first look at Mafia 2, Lost Planet 2 as well as StarCraft 2 and 3D Blu-Ray.