Reviews 51923 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews:

- Lenovo IdeaCentre H320-40411DU Review
- Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Tested, Burned-in
- TRENDnet TEW-687GA 450Mbps Wireless Gaming Adapter Review
- Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review
- Cooler Master Storm Spawn Gaming Mouse Review
- Asus RT-N56U Gigabit Router Review
- Evercool Buffalo CPU Cooler Review
- Plextor M2 Series 128GB SATA 6Gbps Marvell SSD Review
- Apevia Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK Power Supply Review
- Icy Box IB-MP3011 Mediaplayer Review
- Beginner's Guide to HTPC Software
- TeamViewer 6 Review
- BitFenix Survivor Case Review
- Asus N52JT-XT1R Review
- Sapphire Radeon HD 6990 4GB Technical Run Down



Lenovo IdeaCentre H320-40411DU Review
TechReviewSource.com posted a review on the Lenovo IdeaCentre H320-40411DU

The Lenovo IdeaCentre H320 40411DU, while having an unusually long name, does have a strong set of entertainment and performance features, including an Intel Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive for storing all the media you want. This allows you to use this computer in a home entertainment setting because of its broad range of features without spending a whole lot.
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Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Tested, Burned-in
HotHardware.com posted a review on the Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition

Intel recently launched a speed bump of their flagship Extreme Edition Core i7 processor, known as the Core i7 990X. It's unlocked and clocked at 3.45GHz stock speed with a Turbo Boost top-end speed of 3.73GHz. Intel claims its the fastest desktop chip on the planet; like geek tiger blood for your PC. The new Core i7-990X is also based on the 32nm Gulftown core and the performance metrics show it's easily the fastest 6-core chip for the desktop currently but of course it'll cost you as well.

What do you do when you're the fastest thing around? You just keep on WINNING. It's as if there was tiger blood coursing through your veins. You're so good, you're bi-winning. Heck, with a six core processor at your disposal, you'd be hexa-winning. Ol' Charlie needs one of these things to go with his rock-star life style...
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TRENDnet TEW-687GA 450Mbps Wireless Gaming Adapter Review
TechwareLabs takes a look at the TRENDnet TEW-687GA 450Mbps wireless gaming adapter

TRENDnet has released the adapter to pair up with the new 450Mbps Wireless nN standard, come see if its worth upgrading your equipment.
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Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review
ThinkComputers.org posted a review on the Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive

Portable storage has always been very popular, it is nice having a hard drive that you can easily take with you anywhere on the go. Western Digital is no stranger to portable storage solutions, they have been marking portable solutions for a while now. With technology advancing and USB 3.0 becoming very popular Western Digital has released versions of its My Passport drives that support USB 3.0. Today we will be looking at the 1TB USB 3.0 My Passport Essential SE drive.
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Cooler Master Storm Spawn Gaming Mouse Review
Ninjalane has posted their review of the new gaming mouse from Cooler Master called the Spawn

The Spawn gaming mouse is the latest edition in the Cooler Master CM storm series of gaming peripherals. With a MSRP of just $49.99 the Spawn bridges the gap between a box store mouse and Cooler Masters own pro line of gaming mice.
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Asus RT-N56U Gigabit Router Review
Tweaknews posted a review on the Asus RT-N56U Gigabit Router

Asus' RT-N56U router has unique, elegant styling with an impressive feature set to go along with it. The slim, antenna-free design allows the unit to be tucked away just about anywhere, while the simultaneous dual-band connectivity is ready for the most demanding of home networks.
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Evercool Buffalo CPU Cooler Review
TestFreaks posted a review on the Evercool Buffalo CPU Cooler

We haven’t done many CPU cooler reviews here on TestFreaks, but I hope to change that, at least add some more from time to time. Evercool sent me two for review recently and that first I’ve got for you is the Buffalo that’s compatible with LGA1156 and LGA1136 platforms. The Buffalo is a rather small aluminum and heatpipe style cooler with a bright red fan on it, and for its size it performs admirably well.
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Plextor M2 Series 128GB SATA 6Gbps Marvell SSD Review
Legit Reviews posted a review on the Plextor M2 Series 128GB SATA 6Gbps Marvell SSD

Plextor is probably best known for their optical drives so it may come as a surprise to some that they also offer SSDs in their product line. Their most recent line is the M2 series which features a Marvell controller and a 6Gbps interface. We've got our hands on the 128GB version and we'll see how it stacks up against the newest SandForce based drives.

Plextor is probably best known for their optical drives so it may come as a surprise to some that they also offer SSDs in their product line. Their most recent line is the M2 series which features a Marvell controller and a 6Gbps interface. We've got our hands on the 128GB version and we'll see how it stacks up against the other drives we have tested. At first blush, the specifications for read and write, 420 MB/s and 210 MB/s respectively, don't seem all that amazing compared to the newest SandForce drives emerging that hit above 500 MB/s on both fronts. However, as we have seen with SandForce controllers, they rely on data compression to boost speed so depending on the type of data being transferred, the data rate may vary dramatically. The benchmarks will paint this picture a little better...
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Apevia Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK Power Supply Review
Hardware Secrets posted a review on the Apevia Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK Power Supply

An in-depth analysis of this cheap 450 W power supply with fake wattage that is being sold in the USA.

Today we are getting this USD 20 power supply called "Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK" that is offered by Apevia and is available at Newegg.com to see if it is a good option for users on budget. Let's check it out.
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Icy Box IB-MP3011 Mediaplayer Review
Rbmods posted a review on the Icy Box IB-MP3011 Mediaplayer

Mediaplayers, HTPC computers, etc… they’re finding their way to more and more livingrooms throughout the world. Which one of them is of good quality, and should I spend more than 150$ on a unit?

Those are good questons, and today we are taking a look at a mediaplayer from Icy Box. They sent us their IB-MP3011 model that we are now going to take a closer look at.
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Beginner's Guide to HTPC Software
MissingRemote.com posted a Beginner's Guide to HTPC Software

Each one of these has their pros and cons. If you are using Mac OSX, you don't have many choices beyond Front Row and Plex (below). If you're using Linux, honestly you're probably not reading this guide due to limited options as well--MythTV (below as well). So that leaves Windows users . This is at least 90% of you out there, and most likely what everyone reading this is interested in. Let's take a look at some HTPC software programs and cover some of their pros and cons. By no means is this full in-depth, but should be a good starting point.
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TeamViewer 6 Review
Business Computing World published a review of TeamViewer 6

TeamViewer faces stiff competition from other service-based remote control products, such as LogMeIn and GoToMyPC. In terms of functionality there's little to choose between them, but TeamViewer does have an edge in when it comes to flexibility. It's also a very complete solution that can be put to lots of uses without having to fork out for extra licences or install extra modules.
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BitFenix Survivor Case Review
eTeknix.com posted BitFenix Survivor Case Review

BitFenix are relatively new in the market but that's not a bad thing as it seems they offer up some of the latest and greatest designs whilst giving features and functions galore. The Survivor lives up to this and gives a very unique style whilst giving the latest USB 3.0 functionality, the ability to chop and change certain aspects of the case and keeping quality to its highest form. Some parts of the case are screw-less which is always a bonus in our books but certain parts (mainly the side panels) seem very tight and shows that maybe BitFenix have tried a bit too hard but the idea is there, and maybe just needs a little bit more work to get things perfect.
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Asus N52JT-XT1R Review
TechReviewSource.com posted a review on the Asus N52JT-XT1R

The K52JT-XT1R 15.6-inch laptop from Asus offers a quad-core CPU, a huge hard drive and dedicated AMD graphics that results in solid performance. The laptop has a 720p high-definition display and an HDMI-out connection, which means it's a great contender for multimedia use.
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Sapphire Radeon HD 6990 4GB Technical Run Down
TweakTown posted a review on the Sapphire Radeon HD 6990 4GB

We've got all our slide decks from AMD and some images from Sapphire. We'll tell you all the stuff we normally would in a video card review outside of the performance of course. Because there's so much to cover as well, it means we can get the performance article to you even faster while making sure we can cover as much information about the new dual GPU beast from AMD.

Looking at the package, there's nothing really all that different to what we've seen before. Of course, the brand and model are very noticeable; so is the fact that Sapphire has chosen to let us know that it's a "Dual GPU Graphics Card". Also on the front we can see a lot of the features like 4GB of GDDR5, DirectX 11, AMD HD3D, Display Port, High Speed HDMI, 7.1 HD Surround Sound and more. We can also see the new "Vision" labeling that AMD is going to start to push. The HD 6990 4GB falls within the "Black Vision" series which seems to be at the top of the tree.
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