Archive for November, 2009

AMD vs. NVIDIA – Are they even playing the same game?

In the GPU world there are many flavors, despite the perception that you either get AMD or NVIDIA. There is Matrox, WildCat/3D Labs, S3, VIA and a few more. But in the end what you hear the most about are NVIDIA and AMD. These two companies are compared back and forth in a game of favorites that would make a selfish 4 year old proud. Still, can you really compare them in equal terms? On the surface you can. After all, you are measuring the number of frames per second the GPU (attached to a...
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Sapphire HD 5970 OC Review

It seems like every year we are presented with a brand new graphics card that leaps ahead of the competition and steals the performance crown. This last happened when the Nvidia GTX295 jumped ahead of the 4870X2. Recharged, ATI is finally ready to jump ahead of Nvidia with the 5970. ATI made an interesting choice on the name here. Previously they included an X2 after the name of the card's GPU's. This time ATI decided to just name the series of cards with a flat number, similar to what Nvidia...
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Patriot Viper-II DDR3 Lynnfield Memory Kit

In testing the Lynnfield platform, we've have had to stick to fairly moderate memory speeds to ensure uniformity with the other Benchmark Reviews test platforms. Even at these speeds, though, Lynnfield has already proven an excellent performer in terms of memory bandwidth. In this review, we'll push our system even further with the help of a 2000MHz DDR3 kit from Patriot. As part the of the Viper II Sector 5 Series, the PVV34G2000LLKB kit we're testing was designed specifically for the P55...
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8 Way Thermal Interface Material Roundup

Thermal conductivity is another way to say heat transfer, and good thermal conductivity to your heatsink means lower temps for your processor. Thermal interface material is an important part of the thermal interface between your heatsink and processor. It fills the microscopic pits and valleys that can form between two pieces of metal. Since the thermal interface material has better thermal conductivity than air, more heat can flow from the heat source (processor) to the heat dissipation...
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Choixx Mini Air Review

Anyone who has used a laptop for any length of time will be all too familiar with the temperatures they can put out, including burning some people as plenty of articles have claimed. High temperatures for long periods help to shorten the life of any electrical device, so cooling is something that most people will be concerned about. With laptops this is much harder to deal with when compared to desktop computers due to their limited size, and inaccessible parts. Choiix hope to solve this...
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Trendnet 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router

Today we are taking a look at Trendnet's latest Travel Router named 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router,  we earlier reviewed a USB WIFI adapter from Trendnet whic worked very good so it is going to be interesting to see what performanc we can get from this. Read...
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ASRock G43Twins-FullHD Motherboard Review

These days, with the economy the way it is, budget computers are getting more and more popular. The tradeoff between features and price is always a tough decision. ASRock’s newest mATX motherboard is hoping to gain some of that market. The ASRock G43Twins-FullHD is a small, but feature packed LGA775 motherboard based on the Intel G43 chipset. Read...
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Seagate BlackArmor NAS 110 1TB NAS Box

I’ve taken a look at the Seagate BlackArmor series of external drives and NAS boxes in the past, today for review I’ve got another of the BlackArmor series, the NAS110. This one is a single drive NAS box that’s very easy to setup and offers all of the features of multiple drive NAS boxes. The NAS110 is aimed at those that want network storage but don’t want to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars, it’s a a little over $200 in cost and well worth it I think. I’ve tested it out, and...
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Thermaltake BlacX Duet Review

The Thermaltake BlacX Duet is a handy hard drive dock that makes switching drives fast, simple and convenient.  It makes hot-swapping external drives a snap and provides great performance combined with good looks.  It works with both 2.5" and 3.5" hard drives making it one of the more useful external hard drive devices around.  The addition of a second drive slot expands its usefulness and should satisfy pretty much everyone who needs access to fast external storage. . . Read...
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Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 CPU Cooler Review

Arctic Cooling is one of the more well known manufacturers in the PC hardware industry, especially when it comes to smart cooling solutions. The company also manufactures power supplies and computer cases. The Swiss mark may be most known for the VGA coolers; ”Accelero Xtreme” and “Accelero Twin Turbo” which are available for more or less all the medium to high end graphics cards on the market. Today I will take a closer look at a CPU cooler from Arctic Cooling which has been given...
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ASUS P7H57D-V EVO motherboard: First look in pictures

We might as well start out with an overall look at the motherboard as a whole, where we can see that the P7H57D-V EVO is a full ATX motherboard that certainly isn't prepared to skimp on features and functionality despite its support for value CPUs.  This plan extends all the way through to the motherboard's support for discrete graphics solutions, with this part sporting two PCI Express slots for graphics boards complete with both AMD CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI support, and providing eight lanes...
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Seagate Barracuda 2TB Sata 3 (Sata 6Gb/s) (ST32000641AS CC11)

The long awaited Sata 3 interface is finally here. The new interface promises to offer twice the bandwidth of the older Sata 2 interface. Currently hard drives don't challenge the Sata 2 bandwidth unless your talking Raid arrays. More than likely SSD Raid arrays. Seagate estimates that within 2 - 3 years we will need the additional bandwidth that Sata 3 offers but the fledgling technology is here now. We have the flagship Gigabyte P55A-UD6 with Sata 3 and USB 3.0 and a Seagate Barracuda XT...
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Inno3D GeForce GT220 Graphics card Review

Today we are looking at the Nvidia GT220 1GB graphics card from Inno3D. This is an entry level graphics card from nvidia which supports DX10 and CUDA. Now that Inno3D have been introduced..... Read...
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Lian Li PC-B70 Case Review

A while back I took a look at a case from LanCool called the K58. LanCool is a Lian Li company that gives you Lian Li quality on a budget. Today I have the chance to take a look at Lian Li’s new PC-B70 case. This is my first experience with an all aluminum case; I’m excited to take a closer look. Read...
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NZXT Gamma Gaming Case Review

Whether you just need a computer for surfing the web or if you are on a quest to construct the ultimate gaming machine, it all begins with the case.  NZXT has recently released a mid-tower case for all arenas: the Gamma.  This extraordinarily light case is packed with features normally seen only in high-end (and high-priced) gaming cases, and it brings it all to the table for only $49.99.  Benchmark Reviews will take you on a full-spectrum tour of the GAMA-001BK ATX case.  NZXT has set a...
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