Reviews 51923 Published by

Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

- Toshiba Mini NB505 Review
- Patriot G2 Series PC3-12800 8GB Kit Review
- Nexus Prominent 5 Silent Case Review
- Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1 2G Review
- ECS P67H2-A LGA 1155 ATX Motherboard Review
- Mionix Propus 380 Gaming Mouse pad Review
- Deepcool V6000 VGA Cooler Review
- Wesena ITX7 Mini-ITX HTPC Chassis Review
- XFX Radeon HD 6850 Black Edition Video Card Review
- Boxee Box HD Media Player, Updated and Netflix Ready
- ECS H67H2-M Black Motherboard Review
- Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1866 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit Review
- PowerColor AX6950 PCS++ Video Card Review
- ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II Top Review
- SteelSeries Xai Laser Gaming Mouse Review
- Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler Review
- Motorola Atrix 4G Smartphone Performance Benchmarks
- OCZ ZX Series 850 W Power Supply Review
- Gainward GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Phantom Graphics Card Review
- Corsair Performance 3 Series 256GB Solid State Drive Review
- Build an Intel Sandy Bridge budget system
- Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1866 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit Review



Toshiba Mini NB505 Review
TechReviewSource.com posted a review on the Toshiba Mini NB505

This 10.1-inch netbook from Toshiba comes in a variety of stylish colors and has long battery life, comfortable keyboard and some really loud speakers. The Toshiba Mini NB505 has an Intel Atom CPU with 1GB of RAM and is definitely one portable computer.
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Patriot G2 Series PC3-12800 8GB Kit Review
TweakTown posted a review on the Patriot G2 Series PC3-12800 8GB Kit

We've had a look at a fair few kits of memory over the last few weeks, but we've got more now, and today we're checking out another kit from Patriot. This one's a little different to the other kits we've looked at, as it carries with it the lowest clock we've tested to date on the P67 platform.

Don't confuse low speed with bad memory, though, as it's extremely obvious that not everyone out there wants to buy 2133MHz DDR kits. Dropping the speed down also helps drop the price down, and when you're looking at 8GB of memory that's not always a bad thing. The RAM itself is part of the G2 (or Gamer) series, and from the moment you look at the kit it's obvious it doesn't have the same flair as the Viper Series which I personally think has one of, if not the best quality heatsink on the market.
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Nexus Prominent 5 Silent Case Review
DreamWare Computers posted a review on the Nexus Prominent 5 Silent Case

Not too long ago, Nexus unveiled two great looking new cases; the Prominent 5 and Prominent 9. Both are what Nexus classifies as being your 'best choice for a premium silent chassis'. These new cases are simple and sleek looking from the outside, and packed inside with a tool-less installation system, silent fans, and a well designed noise absorption system.
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Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1 2G Review
XSReviews have reviewed the Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1 2G audio card

Auzentech have been around for a few years now and that's a good thing; as well as being impressive. They entered the sound card game when it was all about Creative and they did so by simply taking a popular chip, the X-Fi, and throwing it on a board of their own with some nice tweaks. A winning formula. Now though, they're branching away from these roots with the re-tooled X-Meridian 7.1, named the 2g. Packing a C-Media CMI8788 audio processor with support for plenty of connectors, a daughter board and replacable OpAmps; audiophiles look like they're in for a treat. Let's see if the rumours are true.
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ECS P67H2-A LGA 1155 ATX Motherboard Review
PC Perspective posted a review on the ECS P67H2-A LGA 1155 ATX Motherboard

ECS has put together an extremely unique LGA 1155 motherboard that hardcore gamers need to pay attention to in the P67H2-A. While it has all the high-end features available in other P67 offerings, the P67H2-A went a step further and incorporated Lucid Hydra technology that allows gamers to use different GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD in one system. Now gamers can use their legacy cards in tandem with newer graphics cards to boost gaming performance!
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Mionix Propus 380 Gaming Mouse pad Review
TestFreaks posted a review on the Mionix Propus 380 Gaming Mouse pad

Mionix who are known for their gaming accessories have released a high performance gaming mousepad named the Propus 380. This oversized mousepad is designed to provide an ice like surface for a smooth glide while still maintaining the ability to have precise movements.
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Deepcool V6000 VGA Cooler Review
Hardware Secrets posted a review on the Deepcool V6000 VGA Cooler

This time we are testing the Deepcool V6000 VGA cooler, which has a big heatsink with six heatpipes and two 92 mm fans. Check it out!
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Wesena ITX7 Mini-ITX HTPC Chassis Review
MissingRemote takes a look at the Wesena ITX7 Mini-ITX HTPC Chassis

Historically one of the hardest parts about going DYI (do it yourself) with a small form factor (SFF) home theater PC (HTPC) has been finding a nice mini-ITX case that actually looks like it belongs in the A/V stack. Until recently enthusiasts have had to choose between “the cube” and killing the pig for a benchmark chassis like the OrigenAE M10; fortunately Wesena is set to alter this dichotomy with their all aluminum ITX7 enclosure. Offering a sleek look, space for a slot loading optical drive and a built in infrared receiver we have the opportunity to take a look at the first revision of an interesting new entrant in this space.
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XFX Radeon HD 6850 Black Edition Video Card Review
Legit Reviews posted a review on the XFX Radeon HD 6850 Black Edition Video Card

There are a lot of video cards on the market today to choose from, but when one shows up on the market with killer performance at the $159 price point and a double lifetime warranty it is worth a closer look. The XFX Radeon HD 6850 Black Edition costs $20 more than the standard version, but it comes factory overclocked and to some that is worth it. Read on to see how this card performs against a Radeon HD 5770 in both single and CrossFire situations.

I played a ton of games on the XFX Radeon HD 6850 and loved every minute of it, even though I am used to a cross fire setup, unless I was looking at the FPS meter in game I couldn't visibly tell the difference between the two setups. At a price of $179.99 with a double lifetime warranty it was well within the same price range of the other cards at this performance point. When it came down to it this card was an overclocking monster, a 23% stable overclock is nothing to scoff at, and i think it had more room to work with. If you are less chicken than me go for it and see how far you can take this card. Compared to the 5770's the XFX Radeon HD 6850 was way more agreeable to overclocking as the 5770's I could only get to around 960MHz before I was afraid to go any further. So to break the 1Ghz mark with this card was killer to me...
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Boxee Box HD Media Player, Updated and Netflix Ready
HotHardware checked out the Boxee Box HD Media Player

Free flowing bandwidth; it's an enabler. There was a time when no one had cable modems or DSL lines. Remember that? Alright, fair enough, neither do we. Regardless, having a 10Mb+ data connection to your domicile is a thing of beauty, because there's obviously so much you can do with it. The question becomes not so much what the cable or telecom companies tell you, or sell to you, with respect to what you can do with it, but rather what a little imagination, and some optimized hardware and software can do with it. And that's exactly the premise by which service platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Google TV and Boxee were born, though Boxee was a bit of a pioneer in the space with the introduction of their cross-platform software in early 2010. Boxee touted their software as the first "Social Media Center," with the ability to rate content and share it with your friends across multiple portals like Facebook and Twitter...
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ECS H67H2-M Black Motherboard Review
Madshrimps posted a review on the ECS H67H2-M Black Motherboard

The H67H2-M Black motherboard from ECS is the most equipped from their H67 chipset series and incorporates technologies like USB 3.0, EZ Charger and Dual Gigabit LAN with teaming support. The board supports only Intel HD Graphics overclocking, the CPU overclocking by multiplier is locked and the memory frequency is limited at 1333MHz.
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Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1866 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit Review
ThinkComputers.org posted a review on the Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1866 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit

A little while ago we took a look at a 4GB dual channel Ballistix kit from Crucial. Today Crucial has sent us a 6GB triple channel kit of Ballistix and we are very eager to see how it performs. This 6GB kit runs at 1866MHz with timings of 9-9-9-24 at 1.65V. Just like the other kit we took a look at this kit features XMP profiles, Crucial’s new Ballisitx heatspreaders and on-board temperature sensors and monitoring software. Let’s check them out!
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PowerColor AX6950 PCS++ Video Card Review
Benchmark Reviews posted a review on the PowerColor AX6950 PCS++ Video Card

AMD's new Radeon HD 6900 series occupies the top position in their single-GPU product hierarchy. The two models, the HD 6950 and HD 6970 are very much like the HD 5850 and HD 5870 that they replace. The xx50 cards generally run at a lower clock rate and have a few sections of the GPU disabled, presumably because the vendor is trying to reclaim chips that have a small, isolated manufacturing defect. But what happens when your manufacturing process is so good that you're not producing enough "defective" chips to meet the market demand? When is a 6950 not a 6950? Well, quite often, as it turns out. In the case of the PowerColor PCS++ Radeon HD 6950 video card, it just depends on which way you flip the switch. Push it one way and you have a standard Radeon HD 6950, with 1408 shaders running at 800 MHz. Push it the other way and you have 1536 shaders running at 880 MHz, which is the exact configuration of the HD 6970. The only difference is that PowerColor kept the 1250 MHz memory chips in the PCS++, instead of springing for the 1500 MHz memory, like a real HD 6970 has. Join Benchmark Reviews as we investigate this unique product from PowerColor, that's sure to cause some excitement in the marketplace.
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ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II Top Review
ocaholic posted a review on the ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II Top

With its GTX 560 Ti Direcet CU II Top, ASUS shows a factory overclocked version of the NVIDIAs latest mid-range GPU. Additionally this card got ASUS' powerful DirectCU II cooler as well as an attractive design. Theoretically this card even has the potential to outperform a Radeon HD 6950. Amongst other thigs this is what we'll show in the following review.
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SteelSeries Xai Laser Gaming Mouse Review
Hardware Canucks posted a review of the new SteelSeries Xai Laser Gaming Mouse

Gaming mice are usually known as feature rich yet slightly tacky looking peripherals which sometimes cost a small fortune. SteelSeries’ attitude towards this niche is slightly different since they offer the same features as their competitors’ products but do so without resorting to designs that stick out like a sore thumb. Their newest Xai laser mouse takes a wonderfully understated approach but can it be successful in such a competitive market?
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Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler Review
Neoseeker checked out the Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler

Dual fan cooler configurations often use tower heatsinks, but the Noctua NH-C14 we're reviewing today sees the fans installed in the "classic" top-flow orientation. You could have a heatsink sandwich sitting on top of your CPU if you have enough clearance for your installed memory modules, but let's see if that sandwich is any good at keeping the CPU cool.
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Motorola Atrix 4G Smartphone Performance Benchmarks
Legit Reviews posted Motorola Atrix 4G Smartphone Performance Benchmarks

This morning AT&T began selling the Motorola ATRIX and since they are marketing it as the world's most powerful smartphone we had to buy one and take a look at the performance of the phone compared to several other popular Android devices. How will the Motorola ATRIX do against the Droid X, Epic 4G and Droid Incredible on benchmarks like Linpack, Quadrant and Nenamark? Read on to find out!

As you can see from the Quadrant benchmark result chart, the Motorola Atrix 4G dominated the other 1GHz devices that were all running Android 2.2 or 2.2.1! The Motorola Atrix was nearly 2.5x faster than the HTC Droid Incredible and the Samsung Epic 4G. The Motorola Droid X did a little better than the other single-core phones, but can you really call half the speed better? The Motorola Atrix 4G with the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor was the only Android powered smartphone tested that was running a dual-core CPU and that certainly helped...
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OCZ ZX Series 850 W Power Supply Review
Hardware Secrets posted a review on the OCZ ZX Series 850 W Power Supply

The new OCZ ZX Series comes to replace the Z Series from the same manufacturer. Three models are being offered so far: 850 W, 1,000 W and 1,250 W, all with a full modular cabling system, 80 Plus Gold certification, single +12 V rail, and synchronous design with DC-DC conversion. Let's see if the 850 W model is a good buy.
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Gainward GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Phantom Graphics Card Review
iXBT Labs posted a review on the Gainward GeForce GTX 570 1280MB 'Phantom' Graphics Card

After a recent a review of Gainward GeForce GTX 570 1280MB "Golden Sample" Goes Like Hell we again return to the same brand and even the same GPU. It's just that we've got another interesting product from the company: Gainward GeForce GTX 570 1280MB "Phantom" with a custom cooler. Let's see how it performs.
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Corsair Performance 3 Series 256GB Solid State Drive Review
TweakTown posted a review on the Corsair Performance 3 Series 256GB Solid State Drive

They are finally here, a moment I've anticipated since June 2010. Back in June we shut down a booth at Computex to take a sneak peak at a prototype Marvell 88SS9174 SSD controller. At the time we didn't fully realize just how special this new controller was, since we were blinded by record setting sequential data transfer rates. Those of you that read this site often already know that the Marvell 88SS9174 is the same controller in the Crucial RealSSD C300, but we have to go a little deeper to differentiate the old from the new. The C300 uses the 88SS9174-BJP2, a first generation SATA 6G controller that is known for its high sequential and IOPS performance, but has less than average garbage collection capability. The new 88SS9174-BKK2 is the new second generation SATA 6G controller used in the Corsair Performance 3 Series.

The new 88SS9174-BKK2 is a different animal, one that was built out of necessity. It is hard to imagine that in 2011 we are still talking about TRIM support, or more specifically the lack of TRIM support. This far in the game TRIM shouldn't even be a checkbox or considered a feature. TRIM is as essential to the solid state experience as the gas pedal or head lights are to your car. The reality is that a long string of failures, miscalculations and ignorance has led to us still talking about TRIM and companies like Corsair looking for ways to keep performance high when TRIM is not available. A SSD controller's ability to cleanse itself of deleted data is called garbage collection. If you are driving your car down an alley full of half empty boxes you need to slow down to move the boxes out of your way. If that alley was already cleared and the boxes were removed, you can put your foot on the floor and go as fast as you needed. Both TRIM and garbage collection remove the half empty boxes, stack them neatly on the sides, compress them into a flat pile and allow you to move freely.
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Build an Intel Sandy Bridge budget system
Vortez posted a guide about building an Intel Sandy Bridge budget system

Today we will be doing something a little different from the typical review/article. With many moving over to the Sandy Bridge platform due to the excellent price : performance ratio, those wanting to upgrade at the current time will be surely considering Sandy Bridge. But not everyone has the cash to spend on a high-end system, and as our Sandy Bridge reviews have revealed - mainstream boards are now at a much more affordable cost when compared to any other platform to launch. Mainstream performance comes at budget pricing.
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Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1866 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit Review
ThinkComputers.org posted a review on the Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1866 6GB Triple Channel Memory Kit

A little while ago we took a look at a 4GB dual channel Ballistix kit from Crucial. Today Crucial has sent us a 6GB triple channel kit of Ballistix and we are very eager to see how it performs. This 6GB kit runs at 1866MHz with timings of 9-9-9-24 at 1.65V. Just like the other kit we took a look at this kit features XMP profiles, Crucial’s new Ballisitx heatspreaders and on-board temperature sensors and monitoring software. Let’s check them out!
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