Wed Reviews

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When Intel released their Core i7 CPU and the platform that enabled its use, it brought about a few new technologies that haven't been seen on the Intel side of things. One of them is the QPI or Quick Path Interconnect. Intel, being the king of "not invented here" syndrome, couldn't accept AMD's Hypertransport point to point high speed data bus. QPI is basically the same thing as Hypertransport and Intel has finally moved the memory controller onto the CPU die. No longer is there a FSB (sort of) that communicates with different components and the CPU. Along the same line, Intel moved to include triple channel memory support in its latest chipset, the X58. Do we really need triple channel and the added expense? This article hopes to shed some light on how triple channel interleaved memory compares with the same setup in single channel.

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When people think about ITX, there are a few stigmas that come to mind. The first is that there is limited choice. The second is that performance is lacking. While these two points may have been true in the past, no longer is ITX relegated to the specific niche crowd. Intel has been releasing ITX boards for a long time and their latest releases have come a long way. The DG45FC is an ITX board that accepts 45nm CPUs. Pairing this board with a Core 2 will give you performance of a full sized desktop in a tiny package.

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Western Digital makes some excellent products and relatively recently, it pushed very hard into the external storage market. When I asked about if they are worried about the impending SSD emerging market, there was really no big worry, yet. Even so, hard drives are their bread and butter and solutions exists for nearly every segment of the market. I always say how important it is to have a backup solution and the My Book Studio Edition II aims to fit that bill with ease.

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Kingston Technology makes all kinds of memory products. While most enthusiasts know of their high end RAM, there is another facet of products that Kingston has a bring presences in. Flash is a huge consumer market and Kingston hopes to capture all segments of the market including the tiny form factor type drives. The 4GB Data Traveler Mini Slim drive comes in to sweep up this "size matters" crowd.

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Quote: The Baram CPU cooler made a strong first impression for ThermoLab and what they are capable of... I hope to see more products from them in the future. The cooler performed quite well during testing, and for those interested in running their system in near silence, the Baram will cooperate with temperatures that may be better than on some more popular (and louder) coolers.

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Quote: The CNPS9900 LED CPU cooler features the familiar look of a Zalman product, with a variety of innovations and refinements that make it stand out over models from previous generations in the CNPS (Computer Noise Prevention System) product line. A 120mm fan is located in between two rings of thin copper fins that dissipate the processor's heat thanks to three heatpipe loops.

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The GTX285 is basically a GTX280 with the same number of Shaders and the same memory interface that has been moved from 65nm to 55nm manufacturing process with clock speeds increased on the memory, Shaders and core- something many manufacturers have already done with their GTX280 GPU powered cards (except for the die-shrink, of course).

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Quote: We actually, went outside to test the range of the Callpod Dragon V2 Bluetooth Headset to see just how far we could get away from the mobile device. While on the phone, I sat my Blackberry Bold on the mailbox in front of the house and started walking up the street. Well, I'm not sure I got 100 meters away, but the Dragon V2 didn't seem to care about distance as it kept the connection with no static. I went a bit further up the road, but started to get concerned since I couldn't really see my cell phone anymore (see red arrow in above picture)...

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One of the least thought about components, but most important, when building a computer system is the power supply. A quality power supply can make all the difference between a nice stable system and one that is constantly giving you random errors that are next to impossible to track down. In a worst case situation, a low quality power supply can actually damage your components or completely kill your entire dream system.

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Thecus took a great NAS and made it even better with the N3200 Pro. It's difficult to tell it apart from the original N3200 just by looking at it, because underneath the hood is where all the upgrades have taken place. During testing, RAID 5 build time was impressive and transferring files with the Pro model is faster when compared to its predecessor.

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During CES 2009 Lian-Li introduced a concept case, PC-888, shaped like a billowing sail - making it to look like the famous Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai -, made of blue anodized aluminum and costing a fortune - according to the manufacturer since this case is a limited handcraft edition, it should not reach the market for less than USD 500. Let's take a look on this very different case.

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Good business notebook should be lightweight, reliable, fast and with long autonomy and good quality. Toshiba built Tecra R10 for business users that travel a lot and we will see if Toshiba fulfilled its goal. At first sight Toshiba Tecra R10-10S doesn't look tough. This impression is consequence mostly because of slim and flexible cover. Surprisingly, even under severe bending of cover, there was no picture distortion. After thorough inspection we concluded that toughness and quality of Tecra R10 aren't that bad. Although if you expected casing that can withstand extreme punches you will be slightly disappointed.

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When a device tries to be all things to all people, it usually winds up satisfying no one. Most all-in-one printers, for example, are good for lightweight office tasks, but they make lousy photo printers. Epson's Artisan 800 is much better than that: It's a fabulous photo printer and a pretty good light-duty office machine. We expect a multi-function printer with a $300 price tag to include a long list of features and deliver impeccable performance, and the Artisan 800 doesn't disappoint on either count. Let's take a look at features, first, available by clicking to go to the next page.

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Quote: The Pico-ITX form factor specifications call for the board to be 10 x 7.2 cm (3.9 x 2.8 in) and that is exactly what size the NVIDIA Ion board is. To get an idea of just how small the Pico-ITX form factor is you really need to place it next to an ATX motherboard, which is 305 mm wide by 244 mm deep (12 x 9.6). The NVIDIA Ion platform is dwarfed by today's standard desktop motherboards, but at the same time still offers true-fidelity 7.1 HD audio and HDMI outputs that can do resolutions as high as 2560 x 1600...

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When building or upgrading a new PC there are always several options to consider regarding every component. One of the most confusing, for many users at least, is memory. I have friends(as I'm sure most of us do)that have trouble distinguishing between memory and hard disk space, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about all the different options out there. DDR2 had several different categories as the specifications aged and evolved. When DDR3 came about we were faced with an array of choices since the day the first product hit the shelves. Memory rated for different bus speeds, timings, voltages, and of course, prices.

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When it comes to your computer case, the choices seem to be endless, however when you boil it down most of them are an enclosed rectangle box. Antec has taken a different approach with their latest case, the Skeleton. They have broken out of the 'box' in more ways than one with this latest case.

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Most netbooks currently on the market offer 512MB or 1GB of system memory and only a single DDR2 SO-DIMM slot. However, with most of the netbooks a 2GB memory module could be easily installed, but what performance benefits does that yield for an Intel Atom powered device? In this article we have a few benchmarks comparing the 1GB versus 2GB memory performance on the Atom-powered Samsung NC10.

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This article was exciting to do for two reasons; the first was of course the fact that we were going to just see how powerful two of the fastest graphics cards on the market would perform when put together. This in total gave us four GPUs to play with across two cards and what this results in is a bucket load of power. The second reason was that I would finally get a chance to take SLI for a spin on the newly built testbed. It's really been ages since I've had the ability to test SLI on my main testbed. It was great that the X58 closed that gap where we no longer need one motherboard for Crossfire and another for SLI.

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One month ago we have tested XFX GTX260 Black Edition graphics card based on GTX260+ version of nVIDIA GPU, and we concluded that ATI HD 4870 offered better price/performance ratio. In last month nVIDIA and ATI have dropped prices for both products and made choice for your next graphics card much interesting and harder. This time we compared performances of GTX260+ with very interesting model of HD 4870 signed by Palit. Let the match begin.

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You've purchased a beautiful big-screen HDTV, and now you want a tuneful home theater audio system to go with it. Shopping for a surround-sound system, however, can be mind-boggling. Not only is the difference in quality across the spectrum of available speakers vast, there are several different types of systems that you can purchase - from floor-standing models, to bookshelf speakers, to all-in-one designs. Adding to shopper confusion, speakers are notoriously hard to buy because their sound depends, in large part, on the nature of your room. Finally, there are really inexpensive choices that sound terrible, but there are also some bargain systems from respected manufacturers that sound incredible (the same is true for more expensive models). Here, we'll focus on budget solutions that offer a high-quality audio experience for a relatively low price. For home theater, you really need surround sound, so for our purposes we have limited our audio selection to systems providing true or virtual surround sound.

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(or even care), or that there's a difference between NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas data. You just want to avoid being late. To that end, the TeleNav Shotgun accomplishes the goal as an in-car navigation device, even if it can't quite measure up to the more powerful features found on competing Navigon and TomTom products. Unfortunately, the device does falls short though when it comes to some simple pathfinding activities.

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During CES 2009 ASUS presented a prototype for their Eee Keyboard, a complete computer - including a 5 touch-screen display - housed inside a keyboard running Windows XP. So don't be fooled by its name: Eee Keyboard is a complete functional computer that you can use to write texts, surf the web, check e-mails, use Skype, etc. The idea is to connect it to a video monitor or HDTV wirelessly. We took a look on this innovative product.

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It's that magical time of year again when CES is just hours away and new products to excite and tempt the computer enthusiast are popping up all over the place. One of the most exciting products out there is the Nvidia GTX-295, reported to be the fastest single GPU (Single PCI-E slot connection, dual slot cooler, Dual GPU) out there. We've chosen the Asus GTX-295 for our lead out article. Asus has been a major player in the computer industry for a long time and viewed as one of the premium brands. They were kind enough to ship us their Asus GTX-295 (ENGTX-295) to run against our battery of tests and considerable selection of GPU's. We'll run our usual battery of tests against this graphics behemoth, and step outside the box and throw in some additional testing to see if it is indeed the fastest single GPU on the planet.