Daily Reviews Summary 10/27/07

With the recent onslaught of 1000-watt and higher power supplies from various manufacturers, it is nice to see that many still take the time to cater to the PC enthusiasts that demand quality power, maybe just not so much of it. Sure, a 1000+ watt power supply may power just about anything a power-user can throw at it, many times this amount of power is just plain over-kill. If you aren't running top-of-the-line video cards in a linked configuration, quad-core processors and terabytes of hard drive space, a power supply of 600-watt proportions may be more up your alley. If that is the case, then the 600-watt version from the Ultra Products X3 line may be just what you are looking for.

Today HardwareLogic takes a look at a unique product from Thermalright: The HR-11 VGA Backside Cooler. Wait, backside VGA cooler you say?? Exactly! While we spent the better part of an evening trying to understand the value of the HR-11, we came away with an idea, even if
we weren't overwhelmed by its performance.

Simply put, I am extremely pleased by both of these power supplies since they performed admirably in our every single one of our performance tests. Antec and Silverstone have a lot to be proud of since they have produced some of the highest quality power supplies I have seen in a long time. Yet, particular credit needs to go to the team over at Antec whose Quattro 850W stole our hearts with its bold styling while besting the more expensive Silverstone in nearly all of the tests (although it was an extremely narrow win in the voltage regulation category).

Our friends at USBGeek have sent over a USB Portable Paper Shredder that is obviously portable but works great, and it can be powered via USB or with standard 'AA' batteries. It's great for shredding that unwanted junk mail, and of course that stray private document that you might not want anyone else seeing...

We've seen some Kingston and OCZ DDR3 before, but what if we want something even /faster/? Way outside the stratosphere of the official JEDEC rating of 1,600MHz, we have Corsair making Dominator modules at 1,800MHz and some Super Talent at 1,866MHz. That's over /one Gigahertz/ faster than current DDR2 800MHz.

There is absolutely no doubt that these are blazing fast DIMMs using cutting edge technology - 1,800MHz equates to PC3-14400, while 1,866MHz is PC3-14900. However, the speed does come with a price and it's not even worth considering these absolutely premium modules unless you're the type of person who will buy the latest and fastest kit as soon as it arrives, regardless of cost. It does provide some future-proofing to a certain extent, because 1,800+MHz will still be faster than any motherboard can officially handle for quite a while yet - even the X48 chipset due out in January will only increase the official memory capability to 1,600MHz.

We've seen some Kingston and OCZ DDR3 before, but what if we want something even /faster/? Way outside the stratosphere of the official JEDEC rating of 1,600MHz, we have Corsair making Dominator modules at 1,800MHz and some Super Talent at 1,866MHz. That's over /one Gigahertz/ faster than current DDR2 800MHz.

There is absolutely no doubt that these are blazing fast DIMMs using cutting edge technology - 1,800MHz equates to PC3-14400, while 1,866MHz is PC3-14900. However, the speed does come with a price and it's not even worth considering these absolutely premium modules unless you're the type of person who will buy the latest and fastest kit as soon as it arrives, regardless of cost. It does provide some future-proofing to a certain extent, because 1,800+MHz will still be faster than any motherboard can officially handle for quite a while yet - even the X48 chipset due out in January will only increase the official memory capability to 1,600MHz.

Whether you want a sub $100 budget card or a sub $200 mid-range card, either one of these will be a good choice. Both cards performed well and with the new PCMark Vantage benchmark tests, you can see the Frames Per Second in the gaming GPU test. The XD2600XT doubled the FPS over the XD2400XT in gaming, but in the video playback and transcoding, results are almost identical. Each card comes with a DVI to HDMI adapter and this makes either card ideal for a home entertainment setup.

High definition is the motto of todays electronics. Everything has got to be high def: from your home theaters TV to the LCD monitor hooked to your PC to who knew? the mouse youre using right now. The newest gaming mouse from Logitech, the G9 model, reaches an impressive resolution of 3,200 dpi, breaking the 2,000 dpi barrier of his G5 precursor and similar models in the market. It also incorporates the highly praised scroll wheel from Logitechs VX Revolution line. With two different interchangeable grips the mouse is just as useful for gaming as for regular desktop use.

If you have not heard of Thermalright they make some of the most unique and powerful CPU coolers on the market today. They really specialize in heatsink design, a lot of their coolers perform great without fans. Most of them don't even ship with fans. Their latest offering is the IFX-14 (Inferno Fire eXtinguisher), which features an extremely large surface area (140mm x 120mm), 4 large 8mm heatpipes, and a very unique back-side dual heatpipe heatsink.