HIS HD 4850 IceQ4 1 GB Review
Bjorn3D takes a look at the HIS HD 4850 IceQ4 1 GB

We have come a long way from the major change of high end graphics RAM size that took place near the end of the Nvidia 7 and ATI X1900 series like spans. This change is happening again, only this time it's not 256 MB to 512 MB, it's 512 MB to 1 GB. One gigabyte cards are quickly becoming the norm for higher end cards. Even some of the lower end cards are getting the 1 GB treatment. It is one thing for a company to slap an extra 512 MB of RAM on a card and call it a new card, it's another for the card to actually perform significantly better than the 512 MB version. While the higher RAM size certainly helps in higher resolutions, by how much does it help?

That is the question posed today with the HIS HD 4850 IceQ4, the latest in HIS's long standing IceQ series. The IceQ series has long been considered one of the best cooled cards that comes from the factory. Generally, when you think of exceptional cooling, you think of major overclocking. Though the HD 4850 has not had much success hitting 700 MHz core, maybe the IceQ 4 will change that. With the look of this cooler, I would not doubt it would at least run cool at the highest overclock. There's only one way to find out!

HIS HD 4850 IceQ4 1 GB Review

Hiper M300 300W Media Center PSU Review
JonnyGURU.com posted a review on the Hiper M300 300W Media Center PSU

I'm looking at the strange and unusual once more today in the Hiper M300, a tiny little 300 watt power supply intended to be used in Hiper's Media Center cases. This unit promises plentiful power at better than 80% efficiency, all while being crammed into a box barely larger than a couple of stacked 3.5" hard drives.

Hiper M300 300W Media Center PSU Review



HDD Upgrade Time: Acard ANS-9010 vs Gigabyte I-RAM vs SSD
Madshrimps compared the Acard ANS-9010 against hard drives, SSD, and other ram disks

As an alternative to the slow platter-based hard drives there already a few ram disk-based solutions on the market. Acard recently designed their ram disk product, which allows users to use DDR2 memory as storage method. Today, we have a look at the performance of the Acard ANS-9010 and compare it with normal hard disk drives, SSD technology and other ram disks.

HDD Upgrade Time: Acard ANS-9010 vs Gigabyte I-RAM vs SSD

Thermaltake BigTyp 14 Pro CPU Cooler Review
Bigbruin.com has posted a review on the Thermaltake BigTyp 14 Pro CPU Cooler

The Thermaltake promotional material claims the BigTyp 14 Pro is "completely silent", which just isn't true at any speed with the included fan. Despite this, I was quite pleased with the performance and noise level at the lowest speed setting. When I switched the stock fan out for a 92mm fan mounted under the cooling fins (blowing upward) things got even better.

Thermaltake BigTyp 14 Pro CPU Cooler Review

MSI 790GX-G65 ATX Motherboard Review
Legit Reviews posted a review on the MSI 790GX-G65 ATX Motherboard

The MSI 790GX-G65 supports up to 16GB of RAM, has two PCI-E x16 slots for ATI CrossFireX and 7.1 Blu-ray ready high-definition audio. The board also features built-in Radeon HD 3300 graphics with DVI, HDMI and D-Sub outputs. It also has 1GB DDR3 1333MHz SidePort memory on the motherboard, so the integrated GPU can be set up in Hybrid CrossFire with select discrete ATI graphics cards.

MSI 790GX-G65 ATX Motherboard Review

Asus W90Vp 18.4" Gaming Notebook Review
HotHardware.com posted a review on the Asus W90Vp 18.4" Gaming Notebook

As of late, much of the spotlight on Asus products has focused on the company's diminutive Eee PC netbook line. With a near constant stream of new models to fit nearly any possible set of requirements, it's easy to see why the Eee brand has become Asus' most recognizable. That said, the company's mobile product offerings are definitely about more than just 8- to 10-inch machines, and that's clearly evidenced by the Asus-branded rig that we're looking at today, the W90Vp.

The W90Vp pulls no punches, makes no excuses, apologies or attempts whatsoever to be something it's not. We've always heard that judging a book by its cover (or a notebook by its lid) was a bad idea, but we can tell you right now -- the W90Vp is exactly what you think it is. Big, beastly, brawny and not for the weak of heart. Come on by and check it out...

Asus W90Vp 18.4" Gaming Notebook Review

Hitachi 2.5-inch 500GB 5K500.B Hard Drive Review
I4U News published a review of the Hitachi 2.5-inch 500GB 5K500.B Hard Drive.

Today we are going to look at the Hitachi 5K500.B 2.5-inch HDD for notebook computers. The drive is only 9.5mm thick and needs only 1.4W during read/write operations. One of the most common upgrades that power users perform on their notebooks is adding a larger hard drive. The hard drive is high in capacity with 500GB of storage space, but offers some of the lowest power requirements in the industry.

Hitachi 2.5-inch 500GB 5K500.B Hard Drive Review

Gigabyte EP45-UD3L Motherboard Review
Hardware Secrets takes a look at the Gigabyte EP45-UD3L Motherboard

Let’s take an overall look on this Gigabyte's mainstream motherboard for Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors based on Intel P45 chipset, with Ultra Durable 3 technology.

Gigabyte EP45-UD3L Motherboard Review

AMD's RADEON 4890 Review
LostCircuits posted a review on the ATI Radeon 4890

The longer I am in the review business, the more the evolution of personal computer performance strikes me as nothing short of breathtaking. Aside from the raw CPU performance, the main improvements are in the world of computer graphics. Needless to say that neither one of the two big survivors in today's graphic scene was even around when we played the first computer games on Amiga and Atari ST machines. Today we have AMD formerly known as ATI and nVidia battling it out over and again. Missing in action are Hercules, Tseng Labs, ALi, SiS, Kyro and Trident. Everybody else, including Intel, Via and Matrox, is just playing a wallflower role with the only realistic chance to break into the duo-poly coming from Intel's mystery architecture called Larrabee.

For the time being, the market is ruled by the red and the green teams pursuing somewhat different strategies with respect to clock speed vs. parallelism. At this point we are not too concerned with nVidia, PhysX or Cuda - courtesy of their PR department - instead we are focusing on AMD's latest and greatest product available as RADEON 4890 and/or RADEON 4890 OC with the moniker designating higher clock speed for core and memory. Most importantly, the RADEON 4890 will also be the last high end GPU released by AMD that is manufactured on a 55 nm process before the 4700 series based on a 40 nm design kicks in.

AMD's RADEON 4890 Review

GlacialPower GP-AL650AA 650 W Power Supply Review
Hardware Secrets posted GlacialPower GP-AL650AA 650 W Power Supply Review

GlacialPower is not one of the biggest players in the power supply market, and so we have one big question: do they manufacture decent products or are they just another manufacturer you should avoid? Today we are going to make a complete test on their latest 650 W model, GP-AL650AA, to see if it can really deliver 650 W, the quality of its outputs and its efficiency. Check it out.

GlacialPower GP-AL650AA 650 W Power Supply Review

Hiyatek HY-CF-6288-1 Laptop cooler and stand
Rbmods posted a review on the Hiyatek HY-CF-6288-1 Laptop cooler and stand

Laptops are used in many places. Some of us use laptops as their desktop replacements. Those laptops can get quite hot every now and then when using programs which use a lot CPU- and GPU-time. Hiyatek has provided us the solution for this. Hiyatek HY-CF-6288-1 2 in 1 laptop cooling pad & stand is meant to be used as a stand for your laptop and to cool your laptop. Let's have a look at it.

Hiyatek HY-CF-6288-1 Laptop cooler and stand

Asus ENGTS 250 Review
OCC has published a new review on the Asus ENGTS 250

If you're looking for a good value card, but aren't interested in this one for its performance, overclockability, or lower energy requirements, then get it for CUDA and PhsyX. Programs such as vReveal, which are very processor intensive, can perform much better with a GPU that utilizes CUDA technology. If you're into video editing, this card is definitely something you might want to investigate. At present, there aren't a whole lot of games that utilize PhsyX, but that's not to say there won't be soon. For this reason, owning a PhsyX card might be a good idea just to keep the physics calculations away from your CPU. All things considered, I'd say this card performs great, and would I happily recommend it to anyone on a tight budget, who must have a decent gaming system.

Asus ENGTS 250 Review

AMD Phenom II Efficiency and Cooler Selection Review
iXBT Labs has posted a review on the AMD Phenom II Efficiency and Cooler Selection

As we have already found out, Phenom II has relatively low requirements to a motherboard and a PSU, so moderate overclocking requires no extra expenses. However, it will be good to find out how many Watts this "moderate" implies for real applications. And also what cooler is sufficient for low-noise cooling.

AMD Phenom II Efficiency and Cooler Selection Review

Air Live WN-300R Wireless 11N Broadband Router Review
TweakTown posted a review on the Air Live WN-300R Wireless 11N Broadband Router

Small businesses and homes are moving more and more from hardwired connections to wireless. It is easier and less expensive (in many cases) to simply do without the wires for most systems. This is great, but what happens when you have a vendor or sales person over? Do you want them connecting to your network? The same thing can be said for the newest game consoles. Many of them (like the Wii) have wireless capability; but with this new connectivity come security risks.

Today we take a look at the Air Live WN-300R 11N Wireless Broadband Router; in its debut on the internet. The WN-300R sports dual SSIDs at full N Speed connections and the ability to isolate them from each other and the LAN for security. Now, dual SSIDs and isolation is nothing exactly new, but it is also not a common feature on a consumer product.

Air Live WN-300R Wireless 11N Broadband Router Review

QNAP TS-439 Pro Intel Atom Powered Four Bay NAS Review
Tweaknews posted a review on the QNAP TS-439 Pro Intel Atom Powered Four Bay NAS

Once again, this is an excellent showing from QNAP. Their NAS units have always exceeded my expectations by offering an impressive feature set and quality construction that consistently goes above and beyond the competition. The TS-439 Pro NAS continues that trend and utilizes the power of the Intel Atom processor, making for a robust yet efficient way to centralize not just storage but many other network operations as well.

QNAP TS-439 Pro Intel Atom Powered Four Bay NAS Review

IOGEAR (GCS1204) 4 Port Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch Review
Futurelooks checks a KVM switch for you multi-OS users out there

In order to get all the horsepower out of an OS, you need to have the dedicated hardware, but what you don’t need to have is a set of dedicated monitors, mice and keyboards for each box. That’s where IOGEAR comes in with their line of KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) switches that allow you to run multiple systems from a single set of peripherals. Today we’ll be looking at one of IOGEAR’s products called the IOGEAR GSC1204 4 Port Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch: The perfect solution to a multi-OS environment.

IOGEAR (GCS1204) 4 Port Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch Review

Intel Core i7 920 and 940 CPU Review
Elite Bastards posted a review on the Intel Core i7 920 and 940 CPUs

Away from the actual CPU cores is where much of the real interest lies, in what Intel prefers to call the "uncore" - Basically everything that isn't the CPU cores themselves. The most notable change within this "uncore" is probably the addition of a memory controller on the CPU die, moving it from the motherboard's northbridge as per AMD's designs since the Athlon 64. This memory controller supports DDR3 at speeds of up to 1066MHz in standard Core i7 parts, and up to 2000MHz on Extreme Edition CPUs, while all Core i7s have a triple-channel memory controller - A step up from the dual-channel controller that has been commonplace ever since the introduction of DDR memory, which gives the CPU more bandwidth to play with (25.6 GB/second with 1066MHz memory) as long as the system's memory is fitted in banks of three modules. As per AMD's on-board memory controller, Intel's use of a similar design removes an extra "hop" for the CPU when accessing system memory, which reduces latency quite considerably.

Intel Core i7 920 and 940 CPU Review