Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including Crucial m4 512GB Solid State Drive w/ the 0009 Update Review, Asus GeForce Matrix GTX 580 Platinum 1536MB Graphics Card Review, and Nettop Round-Up: Four Tiny PCs



Crucial m4 512GB Solid State Drive w/ the 0009 Update Review
TweakTown posted a review on the Crucial m4 512GB Solid State Drive w/ the 0009 Update

If you own a Crucial m4 solid state drive, we have good news. The company has released a firmware update that is said to increase sequential performance by up to 20%, lower latency and lower system boot up time negotiating with host controllers faster. Compatibility with certain chipsets has also been improved and we suspect some undisclosed fixes were also stuffed in as well. We've updated our entire portfolio of Crucial m4 products with the new 0009 firmware, all the way from the 64GB to the newest 512GB model. The updated benchmark results will be in our performance charts from this point forward.

This article isn't just about the new "free performance" firmware update, though. We have Crucial's largest SSD to date on the test bench and with it a big smile on our faces. We rarely hear about the largest SSD capacity sizes since they are generally beyond what most enthusiasts spend on a single product for their system, but prices have been falling rapidly. On its release the Crucial m4 512GB SSD cost over 1,000 USD and even at that price it was a bargain compared to the 1,700 Dollar Vertex 3 480GB. After a quick search this morning, we found the 512GB m4 available online for less than 600 Dollars.

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OCZ ZS series 650W power supply review
The Guru of 3D posted a review on the OCZ ZS series 650W power supply

OCZ releases the ZS model in a three fold of models, a 550W model priced at 55 EUR, a 650 model priced at 65 EUR and a 750W model priced at 75 EUR (USD conversion is similar at the moment). The big question with it remain reasonably efficient and most of alls stable ? Today we'll grab a couple of other power supplies and see how efficient the PSU is and how well it behaves under load.

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Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive Review
ThinkComputers.org posted a review on the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive

Seagate’s FreeAgent series has been around for quite some time, this is Seagate’s most popular series of external drives. FreeAgent GoFlex drives have a very cool plug and play design that allows you to change interfaces for the fastest speeds possible. They also come with included software that makes encryption and creating backups very easy. Today we are checking out the larger 2TB USB 3.0 Desk version of the drive. Is this the perfect external drive for you? Let’s check it out and see!

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OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 480GB PCI-E SSD Review
Hardware Canucks posted a review of the new OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 480GB PCI-E SSD.

With SSD technology progressing at a breakneck pace, some areas of the market have begun to demand drives which could theoretically outstrip the new SATA 6 Gbps standard. In order to offer the best possible performance without limitations, OCZ has looked to the PCI-E bus for one of their SSDs. The RevoDrive 3 X2 drives are considered the flagships of their current PCI-E SSD lineup and while these drives certainly don't come cheap, they offer some truly jaw dropping performance.

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Battlefield 3 Beta: PC Hardware Tested
Benchmark Reviews posted a review on the Battlefield 3 Beta: PC Hardware

Very recently, EA and Dice released an open beta for Battlefield 3. Preceeding this release was the announcement of minimum and recommended system requirements. Since the beta is now open to the public, Benchmark Reviews uses high-end PC hardware to take a closer look at what gamers should expect to be real-world computer system hardware requirements for their CPU and RAM components.

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Seagate Savvio 10K.5 900GB SAS HDD Review
Real World Labs posted a review on the Seagate Savvio 10K.5 900GB SAS HDD

The latest Seagate Savvio 10K.5 900GB 2.5inch SAS hard disk drive is proof that we have finally reached a spot where the smaller and greener 2.5" HDDs can now match and even surpass the performance levels of their larger 3.5" brothers.

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Asus GeForce Matrix GTX 580 Platinum 1536MB Graphics Card Review
eTeknix.com posted Asus GeForce Matrix GTX 580 Platinum 1536MB Graphics Card Review

The graphics card world is at a certain point that we see every year, where it seems AMD and Nvidia seem to go into hibernation and no new products get released. This is where the partners of each GPU manufacturer start tweaking and generally going crazy themselves to offer something unique to the public. We've seen it from many brands as of late with specialist cards that give the market that sudden jolt back to life and more importantly get people talking and buying.

Now we are primarily quite big fans of AMD based graphics cards here at eTeknix, and our graphics review section shows exactly that, but from time to time we do take a look at what Nvidia have to offer and we will generally go for the top-end cards on the market as we're not big fans of the "run-of-the-mill" type products.

Today is no exception to that rule as Asus has given us the chance to take a look at their Matrix GeForce GTX 580 Platinum 1536MB graphics card. Simply put, a card that is set to break certain boundaries in terms of cooling performance and general styling presence. In terms of styling, it seems that the ROG team have gone all out and have given the card the fast food diet in the hope of bulking it up and giving it some unique features and fancy buttons but is it all as clear cut as that?

Not just looking at how this card compares against AMD based cards, but we will also be pitting it directly against some other similar GTX 580 cards that we've looked at before, but first, why don't we take a look at what the ROG team have done in terms of the packaging.

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Corsair Carbide 400R System Enclosure Reviewed
Metku.net took a closer look at the Corsair Carbide 400R System enclosure.

Bringing the price tag closer to the $100 mark sure makes the case more tempting to the average user, but the big question is whether or not Corsair has managed to still maintain their high standards and all the features that made the earlier cases so great?

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Antec Kuhler 920 Watercooling kit Review
Rbmods takes a look at the Antec Kuhler 920 Watercooling kit

Today we take a look at the more advanced watercooling kit from Antec, the 920 comes with double fans and a bigger radiator for example. How much does the performance differ from the 620 kit that we reviewed earlier? Lets find out.

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SilenX 120mm Effizio LED Fan Review
DreamWare Computers posted a review on the SilenX 120mm Effizio LED Fan

Remember SilenX? Back in the earlier days of DreamWare Computers we tested quite a few of their fans and cooling products. All were aimed specifically at the silent computing market - a market which was much smaller back in those days. For a few years since, SilenX seemed to be keeping rather quiet - there were no new releases in their aging fan lineup, and only a few new coolers and other products trickled out during this time.

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The Intel 710 Series 200GB SSD Review
The SSD Review posted a review on the Intel 710 Series 200GB SSD

The SSD Review has compiled a detailed analysis of the newly released Intel 710 SATA III 200GB SSD, an SSD priced at an unexpected $1299. Contrary to original predictions, the 710 is not intended as a consumer product and we believe that it will meet with a great deal of success in the enterprise sector. Follow along as we try to explain why this SSD is such a special addition to the SSD arena.

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Portal 2 "Peer Review" PC Review
eTeknix.com posted Portal 2 "Peer Review" PC Review

So here we are again. Portal 2.

Firstly, let me apologise for this not being in our usual format. With it not being a full/large game, how much can one say?

When Valve announced Portal 2, people were over the moon. After playing Portal people were left wanting more, as it was only ever designed to show off what they were capable of. When Portal 2 actually came to light it was mentioned that there would be a free downloadable content package arriving around September 2011. This made people, including me very happy. September came and there was no sign, but then light at the end of the tunnel! Less than one weeks notice and here it was!

So, with the recent release of the free DLC on all platforms, Valve have given us some extras levels to test our cunning and wits against. To celebrate the release of the free DLC, Valve also offered Portal 2 at a lowly sum of £9.99 for a couple of days in the midweek madness deal on Steam. Magic for anyone that hadn't yet bought it! After waiting for a couple of days for a partner to come along and play with me, I jumped straight in to the game and promptly threw myself in to some acid. You're a robot that makes hilarious noises. It has to be done...

While Portal 2 had a great single player element, I found the co-op side to be far more entertaining, assumingly Valve recognised this was the case for most players, as the Peer Review DLC focuses mainly on 9 new levels set for co-op with the loveable P-Body and Atlas.

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ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Review
Vortez posted a review on the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX motherboard

ASUS have now brought their military-grade TUF (The Ultimate Force) line of boards to the AMD platform with the SABERTOOTH 990FX. The board is equipped with plenty of features, but with an emphasis on stability, reliability and durability. How will it fare up against the best of the best from the competition? Let's find out

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Adobe MAX 2011: Wrap-Up Coverage
Legit Reviews posted Adobe MAX 2011: Wrap-Up Coverage

Legit Reviews was on hand at the 2011 Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles, California where designers, developers, and business leaders come together to experience first-hand how Adobe is attempting to transform the creative process across mobile devices, PCs and Cloud-based systems. There were thousands of participants gathered at MAX to help gain a competitive edge through training and networking. Read on to find out what was there.

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Nettop Round-Up: Four Tiny PCs, Benchmarked And Reviewed
Toms Hardware published a nettop roundup

We're testing four nettops: Arctic Cooling’s MC001-BD, ASRock’s CoreHT 252B, Giada’s i50, and Zotac’s Zbox AD03BR-PLUS. All of these tiny, quiet systems take a very different approach to compact computing, and we fill you in on what makes them unique.

Intel’s Atom CPU might have been the driving force behind the popularization of the nettop form factor, but manufacturers are squeezing more powerful hardware into these tiny machines. Sometimes, more potent graphics performance is added via a mobile chipset. Sometimes, processing m muscle is emphasized instead with a CPU designed for powerful notebook. And now, APUs belonging to AMD's Fusion initiative are an option, serving up efficient power use and higher-performance graphics on a single processor die.

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Edifier M3300SF 2.1 Speaker Set Review Review
Overclock3D have just published a new article titled: Edifier M3300SF 2.1 Speaker Set Review

Today we take a look at a seriously thin set of speakers as part of the Edifier M3300SF 2.1 package.

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