Reviews 51923 Published by

Here the first roundup of today's hardware reviews: ASUS P6X58D-E , Canon EOS 500D, Razer Imperator Mouse, Palit GeForce GTX 470, Kingston HyperX DDR3-2400, Arctic Cooling ARCTIC C1 Mobile USB Charger, ASUS P7H55-M Pro, Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler, Lenovo ThinkVision L2251P, Seagate Momentus XT, OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 SSD, Icy Dock SATA/USB EZ-DOCK, Beresford TC-7520 DAC amplifier, ASUS Crosshair IV Formula, Patriot Inferno SandForce SSD, Mushkin Callisto 120GB SSD, ASUS Sabertooth 55i Motherboard, Thermalright Spitfire & VRM-R5 VGA Cooler, and Aerocool HorsePower 750 W Power Supply



ASUS P6X58D-E Review
Overclock3D have just published a new article titled: ASUS P6X58D-E Review

ASUS have given us an E version of their excellent P6X58D Premium. Is it a bargain or a cut too far?
Read more

Canon EOS 500D DSLR Review
t-break posted a review on the Canon EOS 500D DSLR

500D isn't a perfect camera but a well built compact DSLR that takes high quality images even in low light conditions.
Read more

Razer Imperator Mouse Review
Hardware Secrets posted a review on the Razer Imperator Mouse

With this model, a new era begins for Razer's famous line of gaming-grade mice. We checked the innovations it presents.
Read more

Palit GeForce GTX 470 Dual Fan Video Card Review
TweakTown posted a review on the Palit GeForce GTX 470 Dual Fan Video Card

With the GTX 460 just around the corner it's great to see that companies are still able to put some time aside to fix some of the earlier issues we have had with the GTX 470 and GTX 480. The good news is that it doesn't seem like companies are going to sleep once they've finished with the GTX 470 with most saying that they're already working on the GTX 480 and while most have said we won't see this model pre-Computex, we've got our fingers crossed that we'll see some early revisions of the models there.

Enough about the GTX 480, though; today we're looking at the GTX 470 from Palit. Let's have a look at the package first before we have a closer look at the card itself and see what the card is carrying in the cooling department. Once that's done we'll have a closer look at the specifications before getting stuck into the performance.
Read more

Kingston HyperX DDR3-2400 & HyperX DDR3-1600 LoVo Review
HardwareHeaven.com posted Kingston HyperX DDR3-2400 & HyperX DDR3-1600 LoVo Review

Today HardwareHeaven have Kingstons HyperX DDR3-2400 which give huge potential memory bandwidth. Kingston dont just do extreme speed though, they also produce a very interesting product further down their catalogue. Their LoVo sticks offer some very competitive performance at settings far below the reference 1.65v.
Read more

Arctic Cooling ARCTIC C1 Mobile USB Charger Review
Vortez.co.uk posted a review on the Arctic Cooling ARCTIC C1 Mobile USB Charger

As you may have noticed in Vortez Harware's recent review on the ARCTIC C2, Arctic Cooling has expanded into power products, such as USB chargers and rechargeable batteries. Given the fact that Arctic Cooling has always been oriented towards computer cooling devices, it is interesting to see the Swiss company expand their product line-up into areas that you would least expect.

On April 1st 2010, Arctic Cooling announced the ARCTIC C1 Mobile, a mobile universal charger with solar panel. Basically, the ARCTIC C1 Mobile is a USB charger with portability in mind. It charges a single USB device at a time with its integrated 4440mWh lithium-ion battery which holds about twice the charge of a typical AA rechargeable battery such as the Sanyo Eneloop. Although the ARCTIC C1 Mobile can be charged through its USB port, the
device stays true to portability by sporting a small 80mA solar panel. In other words, the device can be charged when direct sunlight is shone onto it.
Read more

ASUS P7H55-M Pro Motherboard Review
iXBT Labs posted a review on the ASUS P7H55-M Pro Motherboard

In our days of multi-part cooling systems, original designs and high-speed interfaces, ASUS still has a few spartan products to offer. ASUS P7H55-M Pro is a decent, unpretentious product. While it's not quite up-to-date, you may still put it to good use, if you only need the necessary features the H55 chipset already has.
Read more

Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive SSD Review
Legit Reviews posted Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive SSD Review

Seagate today announced the Momentus XT drive that combines SSD-like performance with the massive capacity and much lower cost of HDDs. The Momentus XT drive also features Adaptive Memory that learns and optimizes the drive’s performance to each user by moving frequently used information into the flash memory for faster access. Read on to see how this drive performs when we put it to the test!

The Seagate Momentus XT is a very interesting product. If you run your standard hard drive tests on it, it will more than likely not perform as you would expect it to since they are mostly low level benchmarks. In order to test and see the performance improvements in a drive like the Seagate Momentus XT you can only use benchmark applications like PCMark Vantage and SYSmark 07. We showed you that in the PCMark Vantage test suite that the Momentus XT Hybrid drive was able to perform more than twice as fast as the Momentus 7200.4 hard drive...
Read more

Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler Review
Futurelooks checked out the Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler

A few months ago, the subject of better CPU cooling came up when discussing processor reviews. While stock coolers have their place, they don't allow very much in the way of overclocking. But after talking to our expert friends over at Acoustic PC, the Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler came highly recommended for taking away the heat and achieving higher frequencies. What we discovered is that, while non-poisonous to humans, it definitely killed some heat. How much? Let's find out!
Read more

Lenovo ThinkVision L2251P Review
TechReviewSource.com posted a review on the Lenovo ThinkVision L2251P

Lenovo's latest 22-inch LED wide screen backlit display is the ThinkVision L2251P, which is also an environmentally friendly display too. This model has a stand that is completely adjustable in all directions, has both VGA & DisplayPort inputs, optional speakers, and very low power consumption.
Read more

Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Hybrid Drive Review
Bigbruin.com has published a review on the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB Hybrid Drive

Most notebook computers include just one bay for a hard drive, so you obviously need your boot drive to also handle your storage needs. This has meant that you either had to compromise on performance or capacity when choosing between an SSD and a traditional hard drive. The Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive is the solution to this problem.
Read more

Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Hard Drive Review
Viperlair takes a look at the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Hard Drive

Is it going to compete with an SSD for performance? No. Even my slower M10 beats it in most read tests (but not writes) but that's not the point. My M10 cost about the same as the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT, and it only has 30GB capacity. And while it may not beat the M10 for speed, it often comes very close. Subjectively, once the Seagate Momentus XT has begun to use the Flash to deliver data, there is a similar experience from both drives. Applications open snappily, desktop gadgets all load at near enough the same time, and the whole system feels faster.
Read more

Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Preview
HotHardware.com posted a preview on the Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid drive

Although there has been some noise over the years about hybrid drives that somewhat bridge the gap between hard drives and solid state drives, short of getting installed in a handful of notebooks, they haven't had a significant impact on the overall market. Hit your favorite on-line retailer and you'll find a slew of SSDs and hard drives available, but nothing in between. If you need massive amounts of storage space, a hard drive is a necessity (unless you've got an unlimited budget). But if it's maximum performance you crave, only an SSD will do. Today, however, Seagate aims to change that with the release of the new Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid.

The Seagate Momentus XT mates 4GB of solid state storage with a traditional 2.5" hard drive in an attempt to bridge the current gap between hard drives and SSDs. Seagate claims the Momentus XT can offer the same kind of enhanced user experience as an SSD, but with the capacity and cost of a traditional hard drive. That's a pretty tall order. Does the Momentus XT deliver? Let's find out...
Read more

OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 Portable Solid State Drive Review
OCIA.net has posted their review of the OCZ Enyo USB 3.0 Portable Solid State Drive

While at CES earlier this year we stopped by OCZ Technology's suite for a look at what they had planned for the coming year. The focus of their display was the emerging solid state drive market with several new and updated lines on display. While there we were also shown a prototype of their upcoming USB 3.0 portable solid state drive which was nameless at the time. Preliminary read / write speeds looked promising and the drive itself was encased in a sleek brushed aluminum enclosure. That prototype would eventually be called Enyo and we have one of the first production samples for review here today.
Read more

Icy Dock SATA/USB EZ-DOCK MB881US-1S-1 Review
techPowerUp posted a review on the Icy Dock SATA/USB EZ-DOCK MB881US-1S-1

The ICY DOCK EZ-DOCK combines the functionality of a traditional hard drive dock with the flexibility of transporting it anywhere with ease. We take it for a test drive to see if it manages to add speed into the mix or leave us eying one of those boring black docks instead.
Read more

Beresford TC-7520 DAC amplifier review
The Guru of 3D posted a review on the Beresford TC-7520 DAC amplifier

From time to time in the Guru3D Audio Lab we will be taking a look at some examples of external equipment for people interested in these areas of PC based audio.

There is an entire market of high end external components that can be used with a PC, devices such as external speaker amps, headphone amps, DACs and high end S/Pdif sources. Today a new package arrived here at the G3D Audio Lab. Inside this package is a brand new Beresford TC-7520 24/96 Digital to Analog Converter unit partnered up with an AudioQuest VDM-Xi S/Pdif cable.
Read more

ASUS Crosshair IV Formula (AMD 890FX) Motherboard Review
TweakTown posted a review on the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula (AMD 890FX) Motherboard

As everyone knows, AMD just recently pushed their hexa-core Phenom II X6 out the door. This new CPU is a $300 six core piece of silicon that promises performance at a low price. The opinions were mixed about how well it managed this feat, but there is no question that AMD has pushed out the top end chipset for this CPU in the form of the 890FX.

The 890FX brings a few extras to the table and offers enthusiast performance and overclocking options. We have the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula in the lab (we used it for our Phenom II X6 review) and found that it has more than a few nice features to offer. With features such as Core Unlocking with the press of a button, Turbo Key II “push button” overclocking. X-Fi audio, and much more, all for about $230 over at Newegg, it makes for a good deal if you either already own an AMD CPU or are thinking of investing in the new Phenom II X6.
Read more

Patriot Inferno SandForce SSD Kit Review
Benchmark Reviews checked out the Patriot Inferno SandForce SSD Kit

SandForce-based SSDs are getting tremendous attention from the industry, and for very good reason. Benchmark Reviews has tested several products based on the SF-1222 controller, and every one of them have demonstrated exceptional operational performance and speed. With so many storage solutions coming to market that are based on the same design, price and warranty determine the best product. Based on the SandForce SF-1200 processor, the Patriot Inferno SSD uses special selected NAND flash component to deliver the best performance possible. In this article Benchmark Reviews tested the 100GB Patriot Inferno SSD, model PI100GS25SSDR, against some of the fastest storage solutions on the market.
Read more

Mushkin Callisto 120GB SSD Review
OCC has published a review on the Mushkin Callisto 120GB SSD

Muskin's decision to use the SandForce SF-1200 controller in its new SSD line has really turned out to be a good call. With this controller, you will not only get a drive that is capable of 285MB/sec read and 275MB/sec write speeds, but one that gives some of the best small write performance available for a consumer-based SSD. This allowed the Callisto drive to stay on par with, or ahead of, the INDILINX Barefoot controller throughout the read performance test, but it also allowed the Callisto to absolutely dominate the other drives when it came to write performance.
Read more

ASUS Sabertooth 55i Motherboard Review
Modders-Inc.com has a new review on the ASUS Sabertooth 55i Motherboard

With the success of the ROG (Republic of Gamers) series of motherboards, Asus has added to their wide range with the TUF (The Ultimate Force) series. Today we are going to take a look at the first of Asus's offerings in the TUF series, the Sabertooth 55i.
Read more

Thermalright Spitfire & VRM-R5 VGA Cooler Review
PureOverclock posted a review on the Thermalright Spitfire & VRM-R5 graphics card cooler

Thermalright is no stranger to overclockers the world over; their Ultra-120 was a legendary CPU cooler. But Thermalright isn't limited to CPU cooling, however, and the Spitfire and VRM-R5 are the latest in their product lineup to focus on top cooling performance for enthusiasts. Let's take a closer look at these coolers and see just how well they perform on a flagship Radeon 5870 graphics card.
Read more

Aerocool HorsePower 750 W Power Supply Review
Hardware Secrets posted a review on the Aerocool HorsePower 750 W Power Supply

Aerocool HorsePower series feature a modular cabling system and standard 80 Plus certification. Let’s see if their 750 W model is a good option.

Aerocool HorsePower series feature a modular cabling system and standard 80 Plus certification, being manufactured by CWT and being based on their PSH platform. HorsePower 750 W is internally identical to Thermaltake Toughpower 750 W (W0116RU) and Corsair TX750W (this model from Corsair doesn't have modular cabling system, though).
Read more