Daily Reviews Summary 11/27/09

With the PC-P50 Lian Li presents an aluminium midi tower which comes with practical features as well as a slightly revised design. Wether the final product is able to convince or not, that's what you can find out if you read on.

The HyperX line-up of memory hasn’t always been the first choice by enthusiasts; not to say that the memory is poor in anyway, it’s just that the likes of Corsair, OCZ and G.Skill usually push their memory modules faster and work on a lower quantity at the high-end by vigorously hand picking each memory chip that is put onto a memory module. These memory makers strive for the absolute bleeding edge of memory technology, while Kingston’s HyperX brand sticks to a more moderate level, but they are relatively still fairly high at the top end.

Kingston is no slouch here today, though; no, not at all. In our hands we have a Kingston HyperX DDR3-2000 triple-channel 6GB memory kit with a cache latency rating of 8-8-8-24 at 1.65 volts and it also comes with Intel XMP support to allow for easier overclocking on Intel X58 Express based motherboards that are teamed up with a Core i7 processor.

This is where Ergotron a company known for their monitor stands, mounts and work stations that focus on ergonomics comes to the rescue. The Neo-Flex Dual LCD Lift Stand is designed to hold up to two 22" monitors side by side from one sturdy base. It is capable of holding 14-34 pounds and uses the VESA mounting standard; so most modern LCDs will fit without a hitch. The Neo-Flex Dual LCD Lift Stand allows either landscape or portrait mode positioning of the screens.

Anyone who has used a laptop for any length of time will be all too familiar with the temperatures they can put out, including burning some people as plenty of articles have claimed. High temperatures for long periods help to shorten the life of any electrical device, so cooling is something that most people will be concerned about.

With laptops this is much harder to deal with when compared to desktop computers due to their limited size, and inaccessible parts. Choiix hope to solve this conundrum with their Mini Air-Through cooling device, a laptop stand with integrated fan and 4 port USB hub. Read on to see how it performed.

Thermal conductivity is another way to say heat transfer, and good thermal conductivity to your heatsink means lower temps for your processor. Thermal interface material is an important part of the thermal interface between your heatsink and processor. It fills the microscopic pits and valleys that can form between two pieces of metal. Since the thermal interface material has better thermal conductivity than air, more heat can flow from the heat source (processor) to the heat dissipation device.

In this review I will test and describe the latest fans from Noctua, named NF-P14 FLX, which follow in the footsteps of the already successful NF-P12; the NF-P14 are highly optimized, premium quality 140mm fans with technologies like Vortex-Control Notches, Metal Reinforcements, SCD2 technology and SSO Bearing and offer exceptional airflow, while producing little to no noise.

Just as we are moving toward convergence in the mobile phone world, the same can be said about notebook coolers. One of the most versatile offerings in this realm is the Choiix Air Through Stash Notebook Cooling Pad, a product also known by its less memorable C-HL04 model name. Its core feature may be its cooling, but it does so much more than keep the temperature down.

What my "Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs" ultimately resulted in was having a grand total of six GT 240s in my possession. While we made sure one review was ready for the NDA lift, it didn't really solve the issue of covering the remaining five. So what we've done today is get the rest of them together, take some photos, look at some specifications and benchmark them to see if Palit, Galaxy, GIGABYTE, AXLE and TwinTech can offer us something a bit more exciting.

Being a round up, we won't be going into huge details on the cards themselves. We'll have a quick look at the package before doing a quick once over on the card itself. From there we'll have a quick look at the specifications and move onto the next card. Our benchmarking procedure has also slightly changed, but we'll cover that under the Test System Setup.

S-ATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 devices may seem non-existent right now, but the add-in cards and motherboards to power them are certainly not. We're taking a look at one of Gigabyte's first "333" motherboards that supports both technologies, the feature-packed P55A-UD4P. At $180, it's priced-right given its feature-set, and overclocks like a dream, too.

The MicroNet MaxNAS NAS server is a good way for businesses and enterprise workgroups to take advantage of a centralized data repository. The unit features a full range of RAID modes that includes RAID 0/1/5/6/10/5 + hot spare and advanced features like RAID level expansion and migration. MicroNet has further positioned this unit into the enterprise with its emphasis on iSCSI target volume support that allows you to use the device as part of a Storage Area Network. The RAID failover featured in several modes all successfully recovered from drive failures.

We got a chance to look at the AeroCool Touch 2000 Dual Bay LCD Panel back in August, but today we have the opportunity to look at the single bay version, the Touch 1000, panel which still displays four temperatures and controllers up to four fans. The AeroCool Touch 1000 offers an easy to use, colored touch panel LCD for quick adjustments and fast displays. Read on further to see how well it compares with the Touch 2000.

In testing the Lynnfield platform, we've have had to stick to fairly moderate memory speeds to ensure uniformity with the other Benchmark Reviews test platforms. Even at these speeds, though, Lynnfield has already proven an excellent performer in terms of memory bandwidth. In this review, we'll push our system even further with the help of a 2000MHz DDR3 kit from Patriot. As part the of the Viper II Sector 5 Series, the PVV34G2000LLKB kit we're testing was designed specifically for the P55 platform and should provide some insight into how Lynnfield handles high performance memory.

Evercool seems to have hit upon a good cooling design with the HPK-10025EA. Finally a small, low profile cooler has arrived that can really perform better than the OEM unit without breaking the bank.