"The year 2007 probably will be viewed as the year that people really got their eye up on the whole environmental issue, regardless if you believe in our impending doom or not. No one can deny that wasting energy is not exactly a good thing and if you, like me, live in a country where electricity comes at quite a high price you would want to keep the power usage down. Unfortunately it still seems that the price to pay for being at the technological bloody edge is that you consume electricity at the same rate as a small third-world nation.

When AMD released their HD2900XT’s it was noted that you not only had to use 2 PCI-E connectors on it but even had to use a new 8-pin PCI-E connector if you wanted to overclock it. Combine one or two of these (or for that matter a couple of GeForce 8800 Ultra) with a Quad-Core CPU and a bunch of hard drives and your local power company will be able to afford yet another luxurious Christmas party this year.

Of course the PSU-makers have followed suit and are now offering even more powerful PSU’s just to satisfy our need for power. Today I am testing the High Power 1000W PSU from Sirtec with the goal to find out whether it is any good and also if this kind of power is actually needed even on a high-end system."

"The Cooler Master CM 690 is a nice looking case, there’s no doubt in my mind about that, and the fact that its available for around fifty quid in the UK only sweetens the deal. On top of that, the cooling performance is pretty admirable.

Does the case have problems? Sure it does, but nothing is perfect. The plentiful ventilation grilles mean that the case can get pretty noisy, especially if you have it on your desk right next to you monitor. That’s only going to get worse the more fans you put in the case too, though it can also be solved pretty easily by putting the case in a desk alcove.

The main problem with the case though is the apparent flimsiness of the material and the fact that the build quality is occasionally a little suspect. The front of the case doesn’t meet the side panels or the top of the case all that well, even on the side that I didn’t damage.

Regardless, the Cooler Master CM 690 is still a very worthy addition to the catalogue and the cheap price means that pretty much anyone can
justify the expense. It may not be the most flash case we’ve ever seen, but it does what it says on the tin and it does it well at that. There’s
not much more you can reasonably ask for."

"If you are constantly frustrated with adding USB devices to the back of your PC, or plugging and unplugging headphones and digital cameras then a front expansion port bay may come in extremely handy. Vizo has created the Master Panel II which will extend the functionality of your computer and add several capabilities. We took the Master Panel II for a test drive and show you everything from its built in fan controller and media card reader to eSATA and USB ports."

"Now on to the bread and butter, the actual Ultra Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler. The cooler has a nice blue hue to it and has many fins along the top plate of the cooler. Also, the heatpipes that go across the cooler are on both sides, allowing for thermal transfer between the two sides themselves. Finally, if you look closely at the screws holding the top plate down, you can see small springs. These springs are there to ensure that the top plate of the cooler makes firm contact with the top of the drive once it is installed."

"What makes the Vendetta unique, is the fact it uses three copper heat pipes that each make direct contact with the processor to ensure the most rapid heat transfer. The 'V' shaped stacked aluminum cooling fins feature dimples that are supposed to add turbulences, thereby reducing the skin effect of laminar air flow. Basically, this CPU cooler was built to tackle heat-induced performance degradation and to solve the cooling challenges of today’s enthusiast system builds..."

"This card would make a great video card for a PC that needs extra graphics muscle for running the cool new features of Windows Vista. The onboard sound card also makes this a great choice for a budget home theater system."

"There is nothing worse than expecting frosty, bubbly, sugary goodness and being met with flat, lukewarm backwash. Immediately your reflexes kick in and you spew the concoction all over your monitor, which splashes onto your monitor, keyboard and computer. The liquid immediately shorts out your motherboard, the sugar gums up your keyboard, and the acid removes the film from your LCD monitor. Oh, and you get brain cancer.

Thousands of dollars could have been saved if you only had some way of keeping your beverage of choice frosty-cold while you go about saving the world. CoolIT has the solution in a USB-powered Beverage Chiller. They do it because they feel morally obligated to protect the accident-prone gaming community from disasters such as this, thus preserving our communities and life as we know it."

"The RD600N-2DC-SL-SLV Stallion Series 600W unit is just one of a handful of Rosewill power supplies presently on the market. With a highly polished finish, a pair of blue LED fans, and well finished cables, it is obviously an attention grabber. This review will take a look beyond the flashy exterior to see if this stallion is a work horse that your system can rely on."

"In this review PCSTATS is testing out the 19" Samsung Syncmaster 971P LCD display, a sleek glossy black free standing display with great technical specs. The Syncmaster 971P has a bright 250nits luminosity rating, and killer black contrast ratio. Gamers should be happy with its 6ms G-to-G pixel response time, that's certainly quick enough for first person shooters."

"Some time ago, ASUS announced their plans to enter the sound card market, with models targeting primarily gamers. This information was received with a solid amount of skepticism, as we could seldom see anyone who thought that a fresh sound card could beat Creative X-Fi models. In order to accomplish this task, the product itself has to be up to par, and read on to see whether it is."

"The ATP Petito is small, light, and fast, making the Petito one of the best in the market. It surprised me that ATP produced a drive that is able to deliver faster speeds than the competition as well as keep size down to a minimum. This certainly shoots down the phrase "size matters" because the Petito really sets another standard for the performance versus size ratio."

"Here at ThinkComputers we have not checked out a video card in some time. Our previous 5 vide card reviews have been ATI cards so it's nice to check out something based on an NVIDIA chip. Today we will be taking a look at the Leadtek WinFast PX8600 GTS Video Card. Let's see how it will perform against some of those ATI cards we have previously reviewed. Geeks.com was nice enough to send it over and is a great place to find inexpensive video cards."

"The Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 case comes with four 120mm fans pre-installed inside of the case. Two of these fans are mounted on the top of the case, which will blow the hot air that rises to the top of the case out of the case quickly. There is also a 120mm fan mounted on the rear of the case, above the I/O panel, that also blows more of the hot air out of the case. The placement of these fans seems like a great spot due to the fact that the CPU heatsink will be placed nearby. There is also a fourth fan that is located on the bottom of the case and is sucking cool fresh air into the case, but has its own special housing. The best feature of these fans is the fact that they are silent, operating at an advertised 17 dBA, while still running at 1,200 RPM."

"Sonata Plus 550 is a mainstream high-quality mid-tower case from Antec, coming with a very well-known 550 W power supply (Antec Neo HE 550), a three-speed 120-mm fan on the rear and a very beautiful black finishing. Let's take a full look on this case from Antec."

"With the latest designs, many motherboard manufacturers have started producing boards with chipset/mosfet heatsinks onboard, linked together with heatpipes. The HR-09 mosfet cooler was designed for those users with motherboards that either have an ineffective stock chipset/mosfet cooling system, or that don't have one at all."

"Even though some of the functions of this software are already built into Windows, it's convenient to have them all available to use from one simple interface. I can see this being especially useful to those users who might not be very computer savvy yet still want to keep their machine running smoothly."

"Back in September, 2007 we reviewed the ABS-Tagan TG1300-U33 ITZ 1300 Watt power supply and found it to be one of the best of the new generation of high-output power supplies. Our only functional concern with the ITZ 1300 was that it did not use a modular design. Modularity in power supplies has become extremely important to computer enthusiasts as it allows them to only use the wiring necessary to facilitate their system's operation. As one might expect, modular cabling further aids in the efficient management of your cables as it can vastly decrease that mass of extra wires that you have to deal with in the top/bottom of your case.

After our review was published we took the liberty of relating this consensus to Tagan's representative. As it turns out ABS-Tagan was a step ahead and he assured us that in the near future they would fill this void in their product line. We've heard this type of answer before from other product manufacturers about various recommendations we've made, only to be disappointed, so we didn't hold our breath. Approximately two weeks ago we were contacted by a representative of ABS Laboratories, a well know company in the gaming world, who both collaborated and certified the ABS-Tagan TG1300-U33 ITZ 1300 Watt power supply for extreme gaming. The ABS Labs marketing rep asked if we'd be interested in reviewing ABS-Tagan's newest product. We had two questions: 1) Is it modular? and 2) Did you certify this PSU as well? After receiving affirmation to both questions all we could say is, 'How quickly can you get it to us?'.

Today we have the distinct pleasure to review the newest addition to ABS-Tagan's power supply line of products, the TG800-U88 BZ. Does this unit live up to the quality and performance that we've found in previous ABS-Tagan products? Join us as we begin our quest to find out."

"AMD's ATI Radeon HD 3870 is a great product for the money, but its price point is incredibly important to its long term success. I say this because unfortunately for AMD, there's a certain G92-based graphics card from Nvidia which delivers, in some cases, quite a bit more performance for not much more financial outlay. With that said though, if you're an AMD/ATI fan or are on a budget, the Radeon HD 3870 is by no means a dud -- this and the Radeon HD 2900 XT are like night and day.

It's a great time to be in the market for a new graphics card, because there are treats on both sides of the fence. If it wasn't for the GeForce 8800 GT, the Radeon HD 3870 would be one of the few graphics card worth serious consideration if you want value for money and, as a result of this, it earns a solid recommendation from us."

"We've all fired up RivaTuner, ATITool, and nTune to squeeze out a little more performance out of our videocards, but is there an easier way? Asus thinks so, and they've made overclocking their EN8600GT as easy as turning a dial. Join HardwareLogic as we take 'er for a spin...literally."

"Most computer users find the stock heatsink/fan combo to be a poor performer and usually loud. Glacial Tech has a replacement cooler for your stock HSF which is supposed to provide better cooling which being as silent as possible. We take a look at the Igloo 5710 and compare it against several coolers including the stock HSF to find out if the 5710 lives up to its name."

"Antec has come up with a possible solution for those wishing to quiet their noisy PC down to an acceptable level. Introducing the P190 +1200 Advanced Super Mid Tower from Antecs Performance One series. This case boasts not only superior cooling performance but they say it can do this while remaining reasonably quiet."