computer-reviews.net

How to make a custom test bench

Monday, March 6th, 2006 | Modding, News | No Comments

With the world of computer reviews and testing being well covered with a lot of choices out there, often it is hard to find something truly unique.

The design of a test workbend at boxgods provides really simple, easy to follow instructions on how to set up your own test bench providing easy accessibility to all the parts that get changed out so often.

It’s a fully featured package, offering all of the details you could need to start testing parts yourself at home. Hmm, something I might like to put together, come to think of it.

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Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler

Monday, March 6th, 2006 | Cooling, News | No Comments

The Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler was pitted against a Thermaltake K450 at bjorn3d recently. Cooling is a major consideration for people nowadays. With the heat of some processors rising to newer higher levels and game enthusiasts pushing the envelope, overclocking their processors, the need is certainly there.

This cooler has a massive size and was much bigger than the authors original Thermaltake. The problem can occur is you use very high memory. In testing the RAM had to be moved to the B slots to accomodate the massive cooler. For those with usual RAM that has perhaps just a heat spreader, things should be fine, just not with Corsair RAM with the LEDs on top.

Performance for the fan was excellent and was actually able to keep the CPU cool without its fan turned on for over 2 hours and that was under load. Bearing in mind that his computer had great fans providing airflow they certainly made a difference. However, by itself it will keep almost any configuration you have in mind cool.

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XG Viper 2 Red Gaming Case

Monday, March 6th, 2006 | Computer Case Reviews, News | No Comments

The Viper 2 red gaming case might not be to everybody’s taste, but it does do a fairly good job at what it claims to do. Have a newer style of more aggressive styling it will certainly make those who like more traditional cases take a second look.

In a review at bjorn3d they have a closer look at the case and how it competes in the market it is aimed at, the gaming market.

It takes quite a lot to make it into the gaming sector as they are quite choosy about the parts they put into their computer. And with the slightly higher budgets, or just more willingless to spend it has become a cometitive market. The aggressive red front of the case is just a matter of taste and doesn’t effect the overall effectiveness of the case itself.

Internally there are many tool free solutions so that you need the minimum of effort install and take things out. The included 80mm fans and the small slots for them are a little disappointing with discrepencies between what is featured on their website and the final product. It ran hotter than their reference Antec case, which is a little disappointing, attributed mostly to the 80mm as opposed to 120mm fans.

A cool case with aggressive styling. If you are in the market for this kind of case give it a look, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised.

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GeCube Radeon X1800XT 512MB

Saturday, March 4th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | No Comments

The GeCube Radeon X1800 XT gets the full treatment at bit-tech. The card is reviewed using their newer playable settings testing method whereby they find the best setting that still allow for good gameplay and try to give a more real life review of how the card does.

The GeCube Radeon X1800 XT is in an unfortunate spot, with the release of the X1900 which pretty much outdoes it in all aspects of gaming, and does it without costing that much more. For most consumers, this small amount of extra will definitely be worth it to make that small jump to a much better and newer card.

The card itself does not differ much from the rest of the X1800 crowd as all of the cards are about the same. It might still be a viable option for some, but just barely.

The new All-In-Wonder X1900 will certainly be a great card and will allow all the great features of the current All-In-Wonder X1800, but with the gaming performance of the newer cards.

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Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe with ATI’s RD580 crossfire

Saturday, March 4th, 2006 | Motherboard Reviews, News | No Comments

This motherboard from Asus comes ready for ATI’s crossfire. As a board in general ASUS has done a fantastic job at making a board that is very overclockable with very little adjustment of voltages and other settings. Attention to quality is clear in the ability to overclock easily and making it ready to do so.

As reported at bit-tech, this board has a pretty good layout and performs well in most of the tests performed on it. Although 3DMark05 dropped to the desktop after about 17 hours or so, the 1380MHz hypertransport speed attained is the highest ever seen by the guys over at bit-tech.

One of the only niggles they had was that the headers for the Silicon Image 3132 SATA controller were located at the back of the board by the I/O panel.

Overall, whatever options you may be looking for in a motherboard, for example whether to go for SLI or Crossfire or which kind of chipset you should go for, this board takes the cake for overclocking.

If overclocking is your game then this board is a vital part of your arsenal.

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2GB of RAM for gaming, is it really necessary?

Saturday, March 4th, 2006 | News, RAM Memory Reviews | No Comments

The new claim from the makers of computer memory is that 2GB is now the standard for gaming. As stated in the articles at bit-tech, the manufacturers would like you to take the plunge to get your business, so it’s not completely clear whether upgrading is really worth it at this stage.

There is also the issue of whether it makes a difference to your computing experience, or mnore specifically, gaming experience. They take a look at a few options for upgrading to 2GB from a system that already has 2×512GB installed.

The options are just adding 2 more sticks or changing them for 1GB modules. In the end there was a performance difference in having 4×512GB as compared to 2×1024GB as the 4 have to operate at 2T timings while the 2 can operate at the faster 1T.

In conclusion they actually recommend the addition of 2 more 512GB sticks. The larger modules operate better, but because of how easy it is to get 512GB modules still, and that you would have to forgo your current 2 in an upgrade the addition of two is better unless you can afford the alternative. It’s a good read, with a balance of gaming and just general user common sense.

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Thermaltake Rhythm Home Theater External Liquid Cooling System

Friday, March 3rd, 2006 | Cooling, News | No Comments

Home theater computers have certain needs that normal PCs don’t really need, or at least don’t need as badly. Super low noise levels are required, although a quiet everyday computer is great the buzz of the office has become quite normal, but a noisy living room is not as great. They also need good looks if they are going to take a part of a system that is out there for everyone to see, unlike the computer tucked away in the corner or under a table.

The Thermaltake Rhythm makes a good counterpart to the Mozart home theater PC case. The cooling solution not only looks good, but performs it’s function well. In their review at bigbruin they managed to get a drop of 14 degrees with the cooling system situated inside the cabinet with the home theater computer.

It’s looks are well suited to a home theater and its two 120mm fans and large radiator inside do a good job of keeping things cool.

A capable and good looking thermal solution for your home theater computer.

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PowerColor 128MB Radeon X800 GTO PCIe Graphics Card

Friday, March 3rd, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | No Comments

Powercolor has been around for a few years and this new Radeon based card does a pretty good job at delivering, in terms of graphics performance. There is usually not much between the different cards as they are all based on the same GPU, for example there are a few companies with an X800 model like this as they are all based on the same processor.

This model comes in colorful red packaging and includes a few extra cables that could be needed as well as the usual driver CD for getting things going on your computer. It comes with the standard ATI driver CD, giving you the standard options with no extras to tickle your fancy.

With a large amount of noise coming from the fan it might disrupt your quiet working environment. This is a little bit of problem, but that depends on your needs for your computer. It’s length runs longer than older graphics cards so it might come quite close to your memory slots.

The pricing is right and is clearly outperforms an X600 model from Gigabyte, but which comes at a similar price. In test performed at bigbruin it doubles the results of the X600 mentioned before.

The card needs to be overclocked by other software as none is included with the package. In the end it comes out as a strong performer and recommended.

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Ultra Products X2 550W Modular Power Supply

Friday, March 3rd, 2006 | News, Power Supply Reviews | 1 Comment

The original concept of the modular power supply, which Ultra was the pioneer of, was a really cool way to minimize the clutter in your computer and just make things that much more manageable. Combined with good looks these power supplies made a good buy at a not too high price.

The X2 550W Modular Power Supply with titanium finish takes off where its predecessor left off. It comes with a large, very quiet fan, installed at the top under a grill. The most notable improvement is the changing of the cables. Although the modular idea was cool, the thick rounded cables from before offered a lot of challenge as they were not very flexible and tight corners sometimes made them unusable.

Ultra have addressed this problem by changing the cable into flat style cables. This makes them a lot easier to bend and move around but they still maintain their ability to be taken off when not in use. The cables are UV reactive which is cool for those that like things to glow.

However the same old negatives remain, and although the power supply does well in looks and installation, it doesn’t do so well in efficiency. This makes the most difference for high power users, but is indicative of an area where they could be improved.

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Cooling an Intel Prescott with a 226W Peltier

Friday, March 3rd, 2006 | Cooling, News | No Comments

Ben over at Benscustomcases has done a cool thing, by using a Peltier to try and cool his Intel Pentium Prescott. He has limited success at it, but has a lot of fun along the way.

Using peltiers to cool computers has pretty much died out but its cool to see someone just try it out again, perhaps for old times sake.

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