Thursday Reviews

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External hard drive storage is the technology that people are using to keep their data backed up in multiple locations in the current era of technology. There are good products and bad ones just the same but not all enclosures promise the same thing. The Thermaltake BlacX was probably the first unit to take a hard drive and turn it into the removable storage. Now you can easily keep multiple physical backups with ease using this product. Pretty interesting.

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ATP Electronics is a 17 year-old company best known for their EarthDrive recyclable USB flash drive, which is not only made of recycled materials but also has part of the proceeds go towards rainforest protection. They also make memory products for both enterprise and home applications in addition to various types of removable storage. Today, ASE Labs has the ATP ToughDrive 4GB Camo edition.

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This is the second product from Icy Dock to pass by the Labs of ASE. In the previous review, we saw that Icy Dock knows how to make an excellent product. Will the trend continue with the internal version of the screwless hard drive enclosure? The Icy Dock 3.5" Screwless SATA Internal Enclosure (MB672SKGF) hopes to earn a valuable 5.25" slot in computer and it did on mine.

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It seemed like some time ago that external storage was the oddball for people. Times have certainly changed now that internal hard drives are so large that backing up to optical media is really an impossibility. More and more external drive enclosures are coming out to provide the need, but they aren't created equal. Icy Dock's 3.5" External Screwless Hard Drive Enclosure (MB664US-1S) aims to fit the external storage needs of everyone in a convenient to use package. I believe they have achieved that.

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Overall, the OCZ Elixir is a solid keyboard at a very good price. ($30 retail) The minor layout issues we had were just that - minor nitpicks. We're very picky about our keyboards. Compared with most keyboards, $30 is about average - though the Elixir is anything but average, with the plethora of additional functionality provided. True, it may not have the same level of features as the Logitech G15, but it's also far cheaper. For those that don't feel like paying too much for a keyboard, the OCZ Elixir is a solid buy.

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With DDR3 slow in gaining acceptance and the lackluster price to performance ratio more people are turning to less expensive Extreme Performance Enhanced Latency DDR 2 memory. Recently DDR2 memory has attained speeds thought impossible just a short time ago. With DDR2 speeds increasing and prices remaining reasonable it's becoming an attractive option to stick with DDR2 running at speeds of up to 1200 Mhz (PC-9600) and Latencies in the Cas 5 range.

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* NZXT has been on a roll as of late, designing some of the best enthusiast-level enclosures on the market today. This is evidenced by the new Kaos full tower chassis, as well as the NZXT Rogue, a SFF mATX enclosure made entirely of aluminum. Today, however, it is all about the NZXT Tempest, the newest addition to NZXT's Crafted Series lineup of enclosure solutions. Boasting a design that is similar to the Antec Nine Hundred, the Tempest offers a few twists to keep things fresh. Can the NZXT Tempest be able to compete directly with the Antec Nine Hundred? Will it claim the throne as the mid-ATX enclosure champion? HardwareLogic is going to find out!

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* The Apevia X-Sniper G-Type case is quite a powerful case for those looking for a reasonable price. With the aspects of a LCD temperature display and fan speed controllers the X-Sniper has the features of high-end cases for a much cheaper price. This Mid Tower ATX may seem small for its class, but it sure packs a punch on how everything is laid out. Take a further look into the review to see what we're talking about.

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This is the ATI counter-point to the 9800 GTX+: Sapphire's Toxic HD 4850. It may be alone, and it may not be more power-friendly, but it's, ahem, wickedly fast. The icing is that it doesn't really cost more than other HD 4850s--sure, it's on the high side, but it's still cheaper than a 4850 and a Zalman heatsink. The astounding thing is how closely the Toxic keeps up with an HD 4870, cards that cost close to a hundred dollars more.

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Last year ASUS had christened the Eee PC as a cost-effective but well built sub-notebook that ended up being extremely popular with more people than just computer enthusiasts. The original Eee PC 700 series had shipped with Intel Celeron hardware, a solid-state drive, and a Xandros-based Linux distribution. These units have been selling extremely well but back in June ASUS had unveiled the Eee 901 as well as the Eee 1000 series. These newer models now use Intel Diamondville-based Atom CPUs, which we have been quite fond of for their technological advances. In this article we are providing our first look at the Eee PC 901 along with a few bits of information and sharing some of our plans for the Eee Linux testing in the near future.

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The idea of building an inexpensive PC on a full-size integrated motherboard with a digital monitor output is getting increasingly popular. ECS is well aware of requirements of budget PC buyers. At least, judging by the abundance of motherboards with this very market positioning. Let's see what the company has to offer this time.

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QUOTE: With the Radeon HD4800-series videocards only having been released a few short months ago, Sapphire has already released a factory-overclocked version of the HD4850. Under Sapphire's Toxic branding, the new card promises better performance with cooler temperatures with a quieter Zalman cooling solution.

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When we looked at the 9800 GTX+ for the first time the other week, the ASUS TOP version did impress us to a degree. As mentioned in our review, the 9800 GTX+ is pretty much an overclocked 9800 GTX, while an overclocked 9800 GTX+ is just an extremely overclocked 9800 GTX. While XFX has overclocked the card, there doesn't seem to be any extra naming for the card like we've seen in the past. For example, the 9800 GTX+ XXX Edition or something similar. Today we'll check out what XFX has done with the card and see if it can stand out from the pack like the ASUS one we looked at just the other week. But before we get into the performance side of things, let's take the time to have a quick look at the box and what's inside.

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* Today it is much more practical for my checking out watercooling, and our friends at Thermaltake have sent their latest complete watercooling setup, the Bigwater 780e ESA watercooling system. With a 120mm radiator, 530cc reservoir, and 500 L/hr pump, all fitting in three 5 1/4 drive bays, this is Thermaltake's nicest self-contained watercooling system yet. With this being my first attempt at watercooling, it will definitely be interesting. Read on to see whether I succeed, or whether I make one hell of a mess, trashing my motherboard in the process!

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* *Today we will be looking at one of AMD's latest weapon in winning back the faithful who had lost their way and have been debating stepping into Intel's camp. The weapon that we are referring to is the bug fixed X4; or to be more precise the 2.4ghz 9750 X4 in its B3 revision. In this review we are going to put the X4 through its paces, both in Windows XP and Vista to see what this new processor is made of and compare it against the venerable Q6600. *

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Until now, these two worlds have gone surprisingly separate ways with their cases and peripherals; the flashy-type modders had their bright, intense LCD screen fan controllers, while the classier of builders had the plain vanilla, brushed aluminum rheobus. Today, however, we have for review NZXT's Sentry LX fan controller, which hopes to break that divide. Inset in a classy, brushed aluminum faceplate is a bright, detailed screen. This has potential to be the best of both worlds.

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Recently purchased by computer peripherals giant Logitech, Ultimate Ears has been at the forefront of the in-ear headphone revolution for years, especially with their forays in to earbuds with 2, 3, and 4 microspeakers per bud. The super.fi 5 -- not to be confused with the super.fi 5 Pro or EB models -- fills a gap in UE's lineup between the super.fi 4 and the 5 Pro, hitting the $170 price point. For an extra $20, you can get the super.fi 5vi, which has an inline module that sends/ends calls and controls music and video on some cell phones, including the iPhone.

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Nehalem is the codename of the new Intel CPU with integrated memory controller that will reach the market next month and that will be called Core i7; this architecture will also be used on CPUs targeted to servers (Xeon) and, a few years from now, it will also be used on entry-level CPUs. CPUs based on this architecture will have an embedded memory controller supporting three DDR3 channels, three cache levels, the return of HyperThreading technology, a new external bus called QuickPath and more. In this tutorial we will explain what's new on this architecture.

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Quote: Bernard believes that 3D technology will change the way products are created and used a demo of shopping software that allows you to see products on the store shelves without being there. He actually went as far as saying that everything we do online should be in 3D! He spoke about doing online 3D searches, which is something very interesting...

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Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig, Germany is the biggest tradeshow for the Gaming Industry. So it is just normal to see loads of pretty German girls around, showcasing the latest console and gaming products. We took 240 photos of the sweetest girls on site. Full-res images are available in case you want to see your favorite babe every day, as desktop wallpaper.

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Continuing on with reviews that bring you news regarding the new digital television standard ATSC, today we take a look at the AverMedia AVerTV Bravo Hybrid PCI-Express Card that claims to be the best TV mate for your home theatre PC. Being able to receive ATSC, NTSC signals and digital cable signals through its Clear QAM support, we'll see if this ATSC tuner card should be the one on your shortlist.

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The XtracPads Hammer is another new mouse pad from the XtracPads series. It's a harder surface and it offers the hexagonal pattern for increased sensitivity for better mouse tracking. It also offers a much bigger surface than any hard surface from Xtracpads before and it's much thinner as well. Making it almost a part of your desk.