Daily Reviews Summary 09/26/11

I actually had to go back to SilverStone's own pages to find the history of the original design concept of this case. I knew it existed as I had seen it many times looking around at their site over the past three years, but I never really took a deep look at the chassis. That is until now! No offense intended to SilverStone with this, but even with the chassis being originally released in 2006, the case is quite boring and standard by today's "must have's" in cases. The basic effort then was to deliver a Micro-ATX chassis that offered four expansion slots, a removable motherboard tray, a couple of fans; but aside from that, you only got a face covering of aluminum on the bezel and an unfinished steel interior.

Aesthetically the chassis hasn't changed that much on the outside; by this I mean that even the new version is made of steel with an aluminum facing that has a large mesh panel to allow the chassis to breathe. A similar configuration is found in the latest sample, but even here, things have been arranged with more attention paid to what is almost in an order of importance for use. Inside is where things really get rearranged! SilverStone packs quite a few tricks of the trade into this small chassis and offers something very innovative, and is something I have seen nowhere else on the market, yet. I'm sure this idea will be the "inspiration" for others to follow suit with this really ingenious solution.

Recently, I had the opportunity to look at two NAS devices from two different manufacturers, QNAP and Drobo. Both devices received high praise and Thecus thinks that their N4200PRO can steal the thunder. NAS storage is nothing new and it is becoming harder and harder for manufacturers to differentiate themselves from one another. Thecus thinks they can not only outperform the competition, but do things they haven't thought of yet.

The Z68 lineup from ASUS is something that you should think twice about getting your feet into, as all three of the boards that were tested in this roundup were able to perform quite well. When you are looking at the overclocking alone on the three boards, the ASUS P8Z68 DELUXE was able to get a little higher of an overclock, however all three of the boards were able to keep the i7 2600K above 4700MHz. A lot of this has to do with the DIGI +VRM that ASUS has implemented on its boards, which helped increase stability of the chips with a steady and consistent vCore.

A few years ago network attached storage (NAS) devices were only targeted to businesses and enthusiasts, but in the age of digitized music, photos, and movies, most people find themselves wanting a centralized way to manage all of their digital content. SilverStone has come up with the DC01 network attached storage device to fill this niche. With powerful features and simple management, SilverStone has designed a product to please both enthusiasts as well as non-tech savvy consumers.

Corsair has yet to release a liquid CPU cooler we haven't been impressed by, and the H100 doesn't become an exception. Building on what made the H80 such an impressive performer, the H100 doubles the radiator length, enabling support for up to 4 fans. One thing it proves? Bigger can indeed be better.

With two S-Flow 120mm PWM Viper Yellow fans in push and pull configuration, six all-copper 6mm heatpipes and H.D.T technology the latest Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler by Akasa is a definite improvement over the original Venom.

Apart from the improved cooler (and as the name suggests), the Power Edition of the MSI GTX570 features an improved 6+1 Phase PWM design which should translate to increased stability under maximum load thereby improving the overclocks possible. Couple this with the improved cooling design, multiple voltage tweaks courtesy of MSI's own fantastic Afterburner GPU overclocking utility and the MSI GTX570 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC graphics card should turn it into an overclocking beast. Indeed MSI claim these improvements furnish the graphics card with up to a 22% overclock on a reference GTX570. Something we will be putting to the test later in the review.

Today our review will be about a soundsystem, Antec sent us their latest 2.1 soundkit for review which is named the Rockus. We are going to compare it vs a couple of other 2.1 systems we have looked at in the past. The question is what type of performance can we expect from this 199.99$ sound system?

Dubbed "Extreme Performance", Corsair have gone all-out to bring the best performance possible at a more favourable pricing compared to custom kits. The H100 bundles two high RPM 120mm fans that can have their speeds adjusted and the 120.2 radiator means that two further fans can be installed for even better performance. Unlike the H80 or H70, the radiator is a thin one but the sheer size is enough to promise good performance. The question is whether it can dethrone our top air coolers.

A few years ago the NHL suffered a lockout which caused the sport to lose an entire season of play and put the playing futures of many players in jeopardy. Much like the NFL and NBA lockouts of 2011, the NHL lockout put the focus firmly on the gaming side of things with the only way able to gain hockey action that year was to play a game.

Once the NHL returned to the rink, it was widely reported that the NHL found the continuing relationship with EA invaluable as it kept the NHL in fans minds during that lockout and since that day, NHL has been getting better and better with EA producing what is (and what will most likely continue to be) the leading hockey sim around.

ADATA added no less than four new SATA 3 (SATA 3 6Gs) SSDs in their S511 series lineup, in 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and even 480MB capacities, all SATA 3 of course.

The SSD drives come with that already prominent SandForce SF-2281 controller to deliver up to 550 MBps read and 500 MBps write speeds (when peaking). We take a look at the 60GB model.