Here the first reviews roundup of today with 13 new articles, including Strontium Matrix Series 120GB Solid State Drive Review, AMD A6-3650 Llano 2.6GHz Quad Core APU Review, and GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 AMD 990FX Review.



Strontium Matrix Series 120GB Solid State Drive Review
TweakTown posted a review on the Strontium Matrix Series 120GB Solid State Drive

Frequent followers of our SSD reviews have already been introduced to Strontium, a SSD manufacturer from Singapore. Our first review of the company's product was the Gamma Series 115GB published last week. The Gamma Series is Strontium's entry level SSD that uses a SandForce SF-1200 controller and pairs it with 25nm IMFT flash. The Matrix Series drive that we are looking at today is based on a Marvell controller and for the most part is a rebadged Micron C400 SATA III SSD."

As you may know, Micron has their hands in many jars and is the M in the IMFT joint flash production partnership with Intel. Micron also manufactures and OEMs SSDs for other companies with Strontium being just one of them. The largest partner receiving Micron C400 drives is Crucial, a division of Micron and reseller of the Crucial m4 products that we've already reviewed in the past.

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BitFenix Shinobi Window review
The Guru of 3D posted BitFenix Shinobi Window Review

BitFenix recently released an extension to the original model, the Shinobi "Window" edition chassis. An affordable yet elegant chassis solution. Tagged with a 69 USD price tag this chassis is locked and loaded as mid-tower case with its crosshair aimed at gamers.

While the regular Shinobi has a solid steel side panel and one 120mm fan, the Shinobi Window is a little more advanced and offers a tinted side window as well as an extra 120mm fan and tool-free drive locking mechanisms.

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NZXT H2 Silent Mid Tower Case Review
ThinkComputers.org posted a review on the NZXT H2 Silent Mid Tower Case

NZXT isn’t typically known for their silent gaming cases, but when they do come out with a new one, it’s certainly something to check out. Today, we will be looking at the NZXT H2 Silent Midtower Chassis which features not many sound dampening attributes, but also 25mm of cable management space behind the motherboard. Read on further to see what else this silent case has in store.

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SilverStone Raven RV03 Review
PureOverclock has published a review of the SilverStone Raven RV03 mid-tower case.

One of SilverStone's newer chassis is the Raven 3 which is derived from the original Raven case. The Raven 3 is smaller in stature compared to the original but still packs an aesthetically pleasing punch. The Raven 3 has been engineered for innovative heat dissipation, the fact that heat rises SilverStone has turned the motherboard 90°, and stacked all of the gear vertically rather than horizontally like what we typically see in other cases.

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AMD A6-3650 Llano 2.6GHz Quad Core APU Review
Hi Tech Legion posted a review on the AMD A6-3650 Llano 2.6GHz Quad Core APU

The AMD A6-3650 Llano 2.6GHz Quad Core APU seems to fit that economical need that average users may have. The A6-3650 boasts a 2.6GHz quad core processor and a Radeon 6530D GPU. The APU was manufactured with the 32nm process and comes with 4MB of L2 cache. The Radeon 6530D has a 443MHz core clock and 320 Radeon cores. This next generation of AMD chip also has a support of up to 1866 DDR3 memory. Codenamed "Llano" this APU has a TDP of 100W. Feature support includes AMD Dual Graphics, DX 11, and AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing Technology.

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OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture 2.0
Benchmark Reviews posted an OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture 2.0 overview

Not long ago Benchmark Reviews tested the OCZ RevoDrive and OCZ RevoDrive X2 PCI-Express solid state drive storage devices, both of which are based on SandForce SF-1200 SSD controllers and Silicon Image SiI3124 RAID chip. When SandForce launched their second-generation chip, featured in the OCZ RevoDrive3 X2, the four integrated SandForce SF-2200 SSD controllers used an undocumented OCZ SuperScale Storage Controller. In this article, Benchmark Reviews presents an OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture 2.0 overview. Using information provided by OCZ, we offer a deeper understanding of OCZ VCA 2.0 technology and the SuperScale controller.

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Cubitek XL Tank Review
OCC has published a review on the Cubitek XL Tank

Upgrade ability also isn't an issue on the XL-Tank, with support for graphics cards up to 310mm and heatsinks 190mm in height, you should never run into a situation where the case will not work with your hardware. With the ability to house XL-ATX this case supports just about anything that is big. It also includes other neat features such as a removable hard disk drive bay and even offers support for up to six hard disk drives. Wire management with the XL-Tank is exceptional, given the mind numbing amount of holes in the motherboard tray to fish wires through.

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Cooler Master CM Storm Sirus 5.1 Channel Gaming Headset Video Review
Futurelooks published a video review on the Cooler Master CM Storm Sirus 5.1 Channel Gaming Headset

The CM Storm Sirus is Cooler Master’s first foray into the gaming audio market. And while the market is fairly crowded, offering many options for gamers, this headset seems to find its way with a specific gaming focus. As we found out in our video review above, this headset is definitely tuned to do well at games. From the audio, to the design of the headset, I definitely felt like I was in command when wearing this attractive looking head gear. But along the way, we found out a few more things about them.

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Antikeylogger01-USB from Eksitdata
Rbmods takes a look at the Antikeylogger01-USB from Eksitdata

Today people do a lot of various tasks on the computer and unfortunately there are people who try and get your passwords and usernames in every possible way they can. Keyloggers are a big issue these days as they log the keys you push and send the data to the owner of the script. To combat this there’s now a antikeylogger on the market to use for prevention. Eksitdata is most likely one of the very few resellers at this point and longtime sponsors of Rbmods. Today we are taking a look at the antikeylogger that they claim to work very well to protect your data.

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Gelid Tranquillo Rev.2 CPU Cooler Review
DreamWare Computers posted a review on the Gelid Tranquillo Rev.2 CPU Cooler

Today I have the privilege of looking at the second revision of the Gelid Tranquillo CPU cooler. According to the Gelid website, the changes in the REV. 2 are "The heat pipe constellation was optimized to prevent any conflict from the components on latest mainboards in the market. Additionally the shape of the small heat sink was optimized for a better heat transfer.

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Sonos Play:3 Review
Review the Tech posted a review on the Sonos Play:3 speaker system

Since I started covering Sonos products in 2007 their product selection and features have grown exponentially while becoming more affordable. For those people who have been hesitant about adopting a Sonos system now is the time to reconsider that stance. Late in July Sonos released their PLAY:3 speaker system which is a portable stereo system priced at $299 which is less than some high-end iPod speaker system.

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GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 AMD 990FX Review
Vortez published a review on the GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 AMD 990FX AM3+ motherboard

I mentioned that this motherboard was special. That's because it's GIGABYTE's highest performance and most feature-rich AM3+ model. A flagship, if you will. A board that is designed to be better than the competition's finest offerings, and show consumers what can be done with the ATX format in preparation for the arrival of the FX CPUs.

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Silverstone Fortress FT03 Case Review
Techspot posted a review on the Silverstone Fortress FT03 Case

Although much of the enthusiast community's attention has been focused on the Raven cases, Silverstone offers a vast array of enclosures that rank favorably among system builders. The company's Fortress series is one such example, comprised of a very diverse range of mid-sized high-end cases that are constructed from a thick aluminum body to create a light yet durable chassis.

The new Fortress FT03 that we're reviewing today is unlike anything we've seen from the series before. Unlike its predecessors, this latest iteration is not a mid-tower ATX case, but rather utilizes its own unique design to take the form of a compact microATX case.

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