Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including Gigabyte X58A-OC Intel X58 Motherboard Review, LEPA W500-SA 500W Power Supply Review, and Guru3D Rig of the Month - September 2011



ModMyMachine SlamePad Review
Madshrimps posted a review on the ModMyMachine SlamePad

The new SlamePad mouse pad from ModMyMachine is made from high quality materials, durable, and is designed for speed, by featuring a smooth top surface, which can be found in one of the 10 available colors.

Read more

Magellan RoadMate 5175T-LM Traveler GPS Review
TechwareLabs posted a review on the Magellan RoadMate 5175T-LM Traveler GPS

Magellan is a company with a long history in GPS navigation; they first opened their doors in 1989 with the launch of the first Block II GPS satellites. Since then, they've been providing a wide range of GPS receivers, both for vehicle navigation and for pedestrian travel, on road and off. Today we'll be taking a look at the RoadMate 5175T-LM, a vehicle navigation unit that promises to add a few new twists to the usual formula.

Read more

ASUS F1A75-V Pro Motherboard Review
Legit Reviews posted a review on the ASUS F1A75-V Pro Motherboard

ASUS has a reputation for making quality products. Whether it's a graphics card, motherboard or laptop, if it's from ASUS it has to be good, right? Today we have the chance to look at the ASUS F1A75-V Pro. The ASUS F1A75-V Pro is one of eight AMD A75 FCH motherboards from ASUS. Will the ASUS F1A75-V Pro live up to the ASUS name? Read on to find out!

Read more

Patriot Wildfire 120 GB SSD Review
techPowerUp posted a review on the Patriot Wildfire 120 GB SSD

Patriot's new Wildfire SSD is based on the popular Sandforce SF-2281 controller, but is advertised as "enterprise" model by Patriot. In our real-world testing we are amazed by the drive's performance, which makes it the fastest Sandforce SSD we tested so far, even the mighty Intel 510 SSD is only 1% ahead.[/quote6
Read more

Synology DS-411 Slim Four-Bay NAS Review
Tweaknews posted Synology DS-411 Slim Four-Bay NAS Review

If you're looking for a NAS that is compact enough to fit anywhere yet still as powerful as many full-size units, look no further than Synology's DS411 Slim. This tiny box supports up to 4TB of storage while serving up files and providing network services with impressive levels of performance.

Read more

Intel Core i3 2120 Review
OCC has published a review on the Intel Core i3 2120

As we all know with the Sandybridge lineup, there is only so much bclock headroom, with most CPUs coming in around the 103 to 106MHz mark - a really nice one may scale a little further, with some even reaching 110MHz. Those samples are difficult to find and are almost as common as chicken's teeth. What I found with this Core i3 2120 from Intel is that it scaled up to 105.3MHz, to drive the CPU clock speed close to 3.5GHz, or 3476MHz to be correct. Very little was tweaked to reach this speed other than a small tweak to the I/O and system agent voltages. Very typical Sandybridge, no fuss overclocking. Graphics overclocking fared a little better, with the HD 2000 GPU core clock reaching 1300MHz, driving performance higher in some 3DMark Vantage testing.

Read more

NZXT Tempest 210 Mid Tower Case Review
Tweaktown posted a review on the NZXT Tempest 210 Mid Tower Case

Digging into my NZXT file to grab the template I write with for NZXT, I realized it has been almost four months since I wrote anything for NZXT as far as cases go. This might explain the sudden explosion of submission to me for testing as of late. This review will be the first of four coming up from NZXT in the next month or so, as they go live on TweakTown. I figured I would go about this quartet of cases with a diplomatic approach and since all of these new releases are based off of a number system in their names, I figured I would start with the smallest and work my way up the chain. I figure this is not only fair, but will give me a really good opportunity to see what each case has to offer as the series progresses and I assume pricing increases.

The chassis we are looking at today comes from the Crafted Series of cases which is already known for its Phantom, Hades, Guardian, and now numerous Tempest variations. To take you back a bit on NZXT case tech, NZXT had an attractive looking original concept of the outside with its protruding lines on the bezel, a large window on the side panel and a flood of blue LED lighting once the chassis was powered. The interior, though, was a simple case design with one long rail for all the drive bays and a SECC finish on the inside (primed steel finish). In other words, the interior really needs some help by today's standards. Next came the Tempest EVO, which kept a similar style outside, but the inside got a paint job and some hard drive cages while keeping the large window on the side.

Read more

Gigabyte X58A-OC Intel X58 Motherboard Review
ThinkComputers.org posted a review on the Gigabyte X58A-OC Intel X58 Motherboard

People have been overclocking computer hardware for quite some time. Overclocking is not that hard at all, but to really get the highest achievable overclocks you need a motherboard that can take the punishment. Over the past 2 years we have seen efforts from many different manufacturers, but these efforts were targeted at 2 different demographics, overclockers and gamers. So you had all of these boards that had all the features that gamers and overclockers wanted, but what if you just wanted the overclocking features? Today we are taking a look at motherboard that gives you all of those overclocking features and cuts out all the extra “fat” that is not needed. This board has been designed from the ground up to be best overclocking motherboard for the X58 platform. The motherboard I am talking about is the X58A-OC from Gigabyte, let’s see how far we can push this board.

Read more

Are sound cards still relevant?
The Tech Report is questioning: Are sound cards still relevant?

In his latest blog post, TR's David Morgan upgrades his integrated motherboard audio and wonders whether discrete sound cards are still relevant.

Read more

ASUS F1A75-M PRO Review
PureOverclock has published a review of the ASUS F1A75-V PRO motherboard.

ASUS, a full line motherboard manufacturer, has been busy with both AMD socket AM 3+ and now socket FM1 motherboards. Let's dive in a see what the F1A75-V PRO brings to the table with these APUs from AMD coupled with groundbreaking on-die graphics processor 6550D.

Read more

Migrating Your EA Games from Steam or Retail to Origin
Techgage posted an article that talks about registering games you already own to EA's Origin gaming platform, along with a table of the titles we did or didn't have success with.

A little known fact about EA's Origin is that many games you've purchased elsewhere, either at retail or on Steam, can be registered and used through it. The problem: EA doesn't have a list of titles that support this. Until that happens, we've started our own, and welcome submissions to see it grow.

Read more

Computing on Demand: Review: Arctic Sound E461-BM Earphones
Computing on Demand has posted a new article, 'Arctic Sound E461-BM Earphones'

The more I travel, the more I realize that my head was not designed for earphones.  I can't find a comfortable pair of earphones anywhere, and I will not relegate myself to wearing a bulky set of 1980's headphones.  I might as well strap a sub-woofer to my face, throw some parachute pants on, and bob my head up and down hoping to understand what I am listening to. Arctic Sound thinks they can cure my bean head condition by introducing the E461-BM Earphones.

Read more

Corsair Hydro Series H80 Liquid CPU Cooler Review
Hardware Canucks posted a review of the new Corsair Hydro Series H80 liquid CPU cooler.

For many, water cooling has always been reserved for enthusiasts who take the time and effort to install expensive custom loop setups but Corsair has been trying hard to bring its enhanced performance to the masses. By teaming up with the company formerly known as CoolIT, their new Hydro Series H80 is one of the first products to offer high performance liquid cooling in an easy to install, inexpensive closed loop design.

Read more

ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ Motherboard Review
Neoseeker posted a review on the ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ Motherboard

The Crosshair V Formula is the cream-of-the-crop AM3/AM3+ motherboard with so many features, most users will probably not even use half of them. AMD recently broke world records using this very motherboard thanks to some seriously heavy duty cooling. We don't got liquid helium, but we still got to put this bad boy to the test. See how much it can squeeze out of the Phenom II in our latest motherboard review!

Read more

LEPA W500-SA 500W Power Supply Review
Real World Labs posted a review on the LEPA W500-SA 500W Power Supply

The latest W500-SA power supply unit by LEPA may not be winning any premium performance contests anytime soon but it does provide very good rail stability, 80Plus certification, ErP Lot 6 Support, 500W of continuous power and all that at a very attractive price point.

Read more

Patriot Pyro 120GB Solid State Drive Review
eTeknix.com posted a review on the Patriot Pyro 120GB Solid State Drive

Patriot have been a big contender in the memory market for quite some time and are regarded by consumers to have some of the best memory kits on the market, and with this in mind, it was only right that they would branch out into other market areas and see what the water was like. With the knowledge of memory based products behind them, Solid State Drives would seem to be the next logical step in their plan.

With a market that has so much choice in terms of speed, capacity or a mixture of both, it's a very tough market to crack but Patriot believe they can do it by offering a drive to rival the rest, with one key factor in mind; the price.

Patriot have released a few drives onto their portfolio of products including the Inferno, Torqx 2 and PS-100, though with speed being everything in this day and age, the SATA II interface wasn't strong enough, and this is where the drawing board came back out to develop the next generation of drives, which includes the Wildfire and Pyro. While both drives are based around the SandForce SF-2200 series controller and some of the latest MLC NAND flash memory on the market, some distinct differences can be noticed between the two product ranges. We're not talking about the speed as the difference in that area is very minor, but instead the Pyro is marketed at what's important to the mass market, and that simply comes down to the price.

Finding a drive that can offer a healthy balance of performance and value is always hard to find, and that's the same with any type of product in today's day and age, but Patriot believe the Pyro can keep up with the big boys and do it for a fraction of the cost, so of course, we were keen to get our grubby little mitts on this particular SSD to see if it really can do what it's set out to do.

Read more

Corsair Carbide 400R Computer Case Review
Benchmark Reviews posted a review on the Corsair Carbide 400R Computer Case

It's easy to build a great computer case if it's going to retail for $250 or more. Actually, I take that back: judging by some of the cases I've seen, maybe it's not that easy! While a high retail price is no guarantee of quality or usability, it's certainly more of a challenge to come out with a really great case at the $100 price level... but that's not going to stop Corsair from trying. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Corsair Carbide 400R computer case.

Read more

Guru3D Rig of the Month - September 2011
The Guru of 3D posted their Rig of the Month for September 2011

The Rig of the Month September 2011 is straightforward, uncomplicated but downright nicely done.

Tannus Cassius who transformed one PC into something very shiny and glossy looking with very little modding actually.

Read more

Antec Basiq VP550P 550 W Review
techPowerUp posted a review on the Antec Basiq VP550P 550 W PSU

Antec's new Basiq series offers affordable power supplies that are engineered for 230VAC only, to maximize price/performance. While we don't see fancy colors, sleeved cables, modular connectors or LED lighting, the VP550P features great performance characteristics and good component selection like japanese capacitors.

Read more