Reviews 51949 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including NVIDIA GeForce Chips Comparison Table, In Win GT1 Mid Tower Case Review, Western Digital Se 4TB Review, OCZ Vector 256GB, and Thermaltake NiC C5 Review



NVIDIA GeForce Chips Comparison Table @ Hardware Secrets
If you don't follow the video card market almost daily, it is really complicated to understand the differences between the several different NVIDIA graphics chips available on the market today. To facilitate knowing and understanding the differences among these chips, we have compiled the following table:

Read more: NVIDIA GeForce Chips Comparison Table @ Hardware Secrets

In Win GT1 Mid Tower Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org
Over the years In Win has always been able to create very attractive cases that we have really enjoyed. The thing about the cases is that they would always seem to be able to keep the price down. This is again the case with the GT1. A mid tower case that has great looks, support for long video cards, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard drives, a hard drive dock and USB 3.0. All of those features come at a price of $64.99, which seems like a steal. Read on and see if it really is a steal of if this case turns out to be a disappointment.

Read more: In Win GT1 Mid Tower Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Western Digital Se 4TB Review @ TechwareLabs.com
Western Digital is continually trying to identify gaps in the market and tailor a solution that fills those gaps by providing drives that deliver the performance and features that are attractive to that market segment. With the recent release of their new Se series of drives, Western digital is bridging the gap between their enterprise Re series and their NAS WD Red series. Essentially, the new Se series is a low end Enterprise drive that provides similar performance of an Re drive with a lower cost per gigabyte (due to it's lower workload rating). On paper, this is a perfect solution SOHO/SMB that are looking for higher reliability and performance over desktop drives, but without the enterprise cost that generally comes with the jump from desktop to enterprise class drives.

Read more: Western Digital Se 4TB Review @ TechwareLabs.com

Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 @ techPowerUp
The Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 is the second generation of the water-cooling friendly Arc series, and it brings many more or less obvious improvements along for the ride. Will these be enough to make an even better impression than the original?

Read more: Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 @ techPowerUp

Digital Storm VIRTUE: Intel Haswell-Powered Gaming PC Review @ HotHardware.com
The Intel Haswell-based gaming rigs keep coming. Digital Storm sent us a mid tower gaming machine dubbed the Digital Storm VIRTUE Level 3, which boasts some hot, next-gen components wrapped inside a stoic, unadorned chassis--rather like the CyberPowerPC Xtreme Gamer 5200 we just looked at.

Digital Storm says that the VIRTUE was an effort to create a mid tower-sized option that evinced the same care and attention typically devoted to the bigger, showier gaming rigs we're used to seeing...

The Digital Storm VIRTUE is powered by a factory-overclocked Intel Core i7-4770K processor and is paired to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (3GB) GPU. There's also 16GB of DDR3-1600MHz memory in the system, plus a 120GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSD and a 1TB WD Caviar Black (7200 RPM) storage drive, along with an ASUS Blu-ray player/DVD writer.

In addition to the factory CPU overclock, Digital Storm says that each system undergoes 72 hours of stress testing and benchmarking before it ships. Customers get a 3-year limited warranty, as well as lifetime tech support.

Let's take a closer look...

Read more: Digital Storm VIRTUE: Intel Haswell-Powered Gaming PC Review @ HotHardware.com

Cooler Master Storm Havoc Gaming Mouse Review @ Techgage
Almost exactly one year ago, Techgage’s overlord, Rob, reviewed Cooler Master’s Storm Sentinel Advance II gaming mouse. It didn’t quite win Rob over completely, though. Too many niggling issues deprived it the honor of earning our Editor’s Choice award.

Could it be that Cooler Master, through its Storm gaming brand, took notice?

After a rather short year on the market, CM Storm has thought it necessary to kill the Sentinel Advance, designating it EOL (End of Life). Taking its place in CM Storm’s laser sensor-equipped gaming mouse lineup is the new Havoc.

Read more: Cooler Master Storm Havoc Gaming Mouse Review @ Techgage

OCZ Vector 256GB @ LanOC Reviews
With the Agility and Vertex product lines from OCZ in their fourth generations it was exciting to see OCZ change things up and introduce a new model late last year. With a unique design and an Indilinx controller inside it looks like it could really shake things up. I’m excited to see how it will perform, especially compared to the Agility 4 and Vertex 4 that we have recently taken a look at. OCZ gave it the Vector name and in some cases that means “a force or influence”, let’s find out if the OCZ Vector will be a force or influence in the SSD market.

Read more: OCZ Vector 256GB @ LanOC Reviews

Vizio CT15T-B0 Review @ TechReviewSource.com
Vizio, while typically known for their HDTVs, has continued their reach into the laptop market with the new CT15T-B0. It has an extremely thin design, good battery life and an absolutely beautiful 1080p HD display. But it is quite expensive, has a limited solid-state drive and limited ports.

Read more: Vizio CT15T-B0 Review @ TechReviewSource.com

Genius EasyPen F610E Slim Pen Tablet Review @ TestFreaks
Up for review today I’ve got a graphics tablet, or the Genius EasyPen F610E Slim Pen Tablet which has plenty of features like those you’d find in one that costs much more. At the present time this tablet sells for about $85 depending where you look and for that money you’re getting a great tablet, one that’s well made and is just full of features even the most advanced users can appreciate. The F610E has a resolution of 4,000LPI and features 2048 pressure levels so you’ll be able to really make some nice and finely detailed drawings, but the tablet itself has a working area of 6.25” x 10” which is pretty big really. The tablet is nicely made and just looks great, it’s very thin and lightweight and comes bundled with quite a bit of great software. So read on to learn more…

Read more: Genius EasyPen F610E Slim Pen Tablet Review @ TestFreaks

Sandisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I 64GB Memory Card Review @ Legit Reviews
The SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I memory card series are said to be the perfect companion for your smartphone, tablet and cameras. With read speeds of up to 80MB/s and write speeds of up to 50 MB/s the 64GB card also just happens to be the fastest 64GB microSDXC card available. Read on to see how this memory card performs when we test it out on a PC with a USB 3.0 card reader and on our Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone!

Read more: Sandisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I 64GB Memory Card Review @ Legit Reviews

Home Monitor Indoor Security Camera Review @ XSReviews
While smartphone apps and mobile connectivity are often touted for lots of things, be it fitness, media viewing, navigation or a whole host of other facilities, security isn’t one that’s touched on quite as much. Hoping to turn that trend around is Home Monitor, a home security camera system that hooks right up to your home network and gives you a chance to check in from wherever you are.

While I’m afraid this review won’t feature any of the usual overclocking or synthetic benchmarks, let’s take this camera for a spin and see if it can make us feel a bit safer.

Read more: Home Monitor Indoor Security Camera Review @ XSReviews

Corsair Carbide AIR 450 Computer Case Review @ Madshrimps
During COMPUTEX 2013 CORSAIR introduced a few new enclosures, the Carbide 330R and the 450 AIR version. While the first is more a refinement of exiting designs, the new 450 AIR sports a revolutionary design for mass production cases. The concept behind this case is that the case is divided in two halves. One side houses the mainboard, graphic card and cooling devices; in the second compartment installation of the SSD and optical drives and power supply is foreseen, thus the airflow is maximized for the hotter running components of your favourite hardware. The big custom made cube cases, in particular the UFO series from Mountain Mods are the foundation for these particular multi-compartment designs. However CORSAIR seems to have pulled it off to bring this design to the masses at a fraction of the cost.

Read more: Corsair Carbide AIR 450 Computer Case Review @ Madshrimps

MSI Z87 XPower motherboard review @ Guru3D
A week or so ago the flagship Z87 from MSI arrived here in the office. With a smile on my face I started inspecting this what seems to be incredible motherboard. Really, it has it all, it has style, the features the extra's and the tweakability that the modern gamer that craves a need for a high end PC, wants.

Now I have tested a lot of Z87 motherboards already, but to date very few have been as impressive as what you are about to see. So let us review, test and benchmark the MSI Z87 XPower motherboard. The Z87 flaghship mainboard is intended for Intel's latest 22nm Haswell processors that are seated into Socket LGA1150. The XPower comes LOADED with features and overclock potential, it has the latest Killer E2205 chip, 'AudioBoost' audio with Creative labs SoundBlaster player complemented by 30μg gold plated audio connectors, WIFI, WIDI, maximum multi-GPU options up-to 4-way assisted by a PLX chip and well the list goes on and on really.

Read more: MSI Z87 XPower motherboard review @ Guru3D

Gigabyte GTX 770 WindForce 3X OC Review @ Hardware Canucks
The GTX 770 may be thins generation’s most popular graphics card. At $399 it slots perfectly into a price point which will appeal to anyone who doesn’t want to invest the $649 needed for entry into GTX 780 territory yet wants more performance than a GTX 760 can offer. More importantly, it acts as a perfect upgrade path for anyone still using a GTX 570 or GTX 580 by outperforming a GTX 680 when in stock form.

Gigbayte is seeking to capitalize on this burgeoning popularity by taking a road they’ve frequently travelled. By equipping a GTX 770 with their iconic WindForce 3X heatsink a custom PCB and higher clock speeds, they hope to redirect some attention towards the newly created offering. For anyone who has read our GTX 780 WindForce OC review, much of this will be déjà vu but there is one key difference: while the GTX 780 version tacked on a $30 premium to NVIDIA’s reference SRP, the GTX 770 WindForce OC doesn’t cost a penny more than a stock card. In a segment which is increasingly populated with gamers looking for great value, this could be a well-positioned broadside against the competition.

Read more: Gigabyte GTX 770 WindForce 3X OC Review @ Hardware Canucks

MSI GTX 770 N770 TF 2GD5/OC Review @ Neoseeker
Today I will be looking at MSI's GTX 770 Gaming card, featuring 2GB of GDDR5 memory and the Twin Frozr cooling solution. The GTX 770 follows closely behind the extremely successful launch of NVIDIA's GTX 780. MSI currently offers two versions of the GTX 770; the particular model I will be examining is the N770 TF 2GD5/OC version which has a MSRP of $409.99. The other is the N770 Lightning, in case you were curious.

The GK104 GPU has proven to be extremely versatile piece of silicon, as evident through its continued use in the manufacturing of recent graphics cards. MSI's GTX 770 (N770 TF 2GD5/OC) is built around the 28nm GK104 GPU featuring a total transistor count of 3.54 billion, 8 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMX Units), 128 Texture units and 32 ROP units. MSI's GTX 770 comes with a standard factory overclock of 1098MHz and a rated boost clock of 1150, while the 2GB GDDR5 memory is clocked at 7010MHz.

Read more: MSI GTX 770 N770 TF 2GD5/OC Review @ Neoseeker

ASUS GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU II OC Graphics Card Review @ Bjorn3D
The GTX 770 has already proven to be a awesome performer and now with the ASUS version we get a custom cooler and PCB. Lets see what this has to offer over the already impressive reference model.

Read more: ASUS GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU II OC Graphics Card Review @ Bjorn3D

Thermaltake NiC C5 Review @ Vortez
The push for bigger and better CPU coolers and the pursuit for faster memory kits have both worked against each other in recent times since all of these wants cause one major problem – clearance. Big CPU coolers have typically dominated memory slots on the motherboard causing certain, taller memory kits to be unusable. This particular aspect of system building is a concern for many enthusiasts, component compatibility is of utmost importance – especially with no prior knowledge/experience of certain hardware. Today we look to a product which hopes to solve this problem but will a compromise on size drastically affect performance?

Today we will be taking a close look at Thermaltake’s new NiC C5 CPU cooler which is a large CPU cooler avoiding the problems caused by tall memory interference. Covered in an eye-catching shroud, the C5 also comes with a handy fan speed controller knob to help manage noise and performance in a bid to give the end user the choice between better thermals or lower noise.

Read more: Thermaltake NiC C5 Review @ Vortez

Leawo iTransfer Software Review @ Benchmark Reviews
The Leawo iTransfer program is designed to allow files on a portable device to be moved back on to a PC. Once the files have been transferred to the PC, it is a simple matter to re-import them into iTunes. In this review, Benchmark Reviews will take a quick look at the Leawo iTransfer and find out if it's worth the relatively modest price.

Read more: Leawo iTransfer Software Review @ Benchmark Reviews