Here a roundup of the latest reviews, including OCZ Vector 256GB SSD Review, SilverStone PS08 mATX Case, Noctua NM-I3 Mounting Kit Review, Why Is Your Power Supply Important?, and Samsung shows us a peak into the future



OCZ Vector 256GB SSD Review @ Techgage

It was nearing the end of 2008; Intel had just released its widely-successful X25-M SSDs into the market. At the time, these SSD delivered the best performance, the best reliability, and the best sustained performance without any of the prominent shortcomings of the JMicron controller-based SSDs that followed rapidly on its heels. Even six months later, no drives were anything close to competitive with the X25-M. That is, until the OCZ Vertex came along.

The Vertex was the first competitive consumer SSD to compete on similar performance at a lower price point, and inside was the controller from a relatively unknown South Korean startup called Indilinx. Initially, performance still left something to be desired, but after months of firmware updates the resulting Barefoot controller was not only stable, but saw significant performance increases in random IOPS. That made it a real competitor to the then-$595 80GB Intel SSD.

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SilverStone PS08 mATX Case @ DreamWare Computers

Although there's plenty of high end cases on the market, and those are usually the cases that computer enthusiasts gravitate towards, it's actually the entry level case segment that sometimes gets me the most excited. Over the last few years I've noticed a big shift in the quality of budget priced computer cases (think cases that sit around the $40 price point). We used to associate these cases with cheap looking and feeling designs, void of many features and built with flimsy side panels around a fairly flimsy chassis. However, a lot of well known computer case manufacturers have been starting to release some impressive entry level cases in this price segment that go against what we've come to expect from a "cheap" case. Over the last year I've had a fair number of these cases pass through my hands and the latest, the SilverStone PS08, is here with me today.

The PS08 will only cost you $35 CDN, which gives even the cheapest store brand cases a good run for their money. For under $40 you're getting a case who's design might fool you into thinking it's a more expensive SilverStone case with a roomy inside (big enough for a dual GPU system) and even USB 3.0 front I/O ports.

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Noctua NM-I3 Mounting Kit Review @ DragonSteelMods

Noctua makes great coolers, but as time goes on the older ones just won’t work with the new sockets that keep coming out. The coolers Noctua makes are excellent quality and perform well and they do come at a price, a higher price than most other out there, but they’re well worth it as you know if you’ve ever owned any. I have several of them and I recently decided to upgrade one of my kids computers with my old Core i5 setup and wanted to use a good cooler with it, and that meant I grabbed one of the unused Noctua ones that I had sitting around but I found it wouldn’t work with the socket 1156. Noctua has a solution for this though, the NM-I3 Mounting Kit that works with any of the new and old Noctua coolers so you can use them with newer sockets. The kit essentially makes them never become obsolete so that Noctua cooler you bought three years ago can still be used with the latest CPUs of today. The kit can be obtained free of charge actually from Noctua if you provide proof of purchase or it can be bought for only $10, which is well worth it I think to be able to use the older cooler with the newer platforms. So read on for a quick review of the NM-I3 kit….

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Why Is Your Power Supply Important? @ TechwareLabs.com

TechwareLabs brings you the reason why your power supply is critical to your machine. We had the opportunity to sit down with some of the expertsbehind the NZXT line of power supplies and discuss the impact that a bad power supply can have. Protect your investment and watch this short video BEFORE you buy.

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CES 2013: Seagate, Antec, Intel, A-Data, Digital Storm, Sapphire & More @ Legit Reviews

There was more content at CES than we could capture even though there wasn't a lot of new and groundbreaking stuff. We managed to capture a number of things that might pique your interest so have a look at our impressions as well as some images of things we saw while we were there, outside of products you can buy.

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Ozone Rage ST Review @ Vortez

Headsets are very much a norm today as they can offer relatively high quality audio and the ability to communicate with others for competitive play or social excursions, while retaining privacy and reducing peace disruption. Being a tool of communication and escapism, the headset has become vital to the gaming arsenal. When you consider the hundreds, if-not Thousands of headsets that fall into the £15-50 region, it can soon become clear how competitive the market is and why marketing becomes very important.

Of course, this is basic stuff to anyone who understands the industry and given their track record, Ozone Gaming Gear relish being in the heart of the furnace. Dedicated to evolution and delivering products at a reasonable price, Ozone release the Rage ST into the war zone. Interestingly, in the name of variety and choice, the Rage ST is their first headset that allows the buyer to shy away from the angsty red on black chic (that isn't a limited edition), that is adorned so brazen by Ozones product line up and gives customers the choice of five colours. Black, White, Red, Yellow and Blue.

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Plantronics GameCom 780 7.1 Surround Sound PC Gaming Headset @ VelocityReviews.com

This headset integrates a noise-cancelling microphone, which allows your voice to be heard clearly during multiplayer games (by cancelling out any background noise). This can make a big difference to your teammates if you do a lot of online gaming. The other major feature is the virtual surround sound (courtesy of Dolby technology). You'll need to install the GameCom software to utilise this feature, but it aims to create a directional listening experience, rather than standard stereo audio.

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Tt eSports Level 10 M Mouse Review @ Hardware Secrets

There's a slogan printed on the Level 10 M's box: "born to be seen." That's true; the gaming-grade peripheral from Thermaltake's gaming division, Tt eSports, is really eye-catching. The design, created by German car manufacturer BMW, looks like a concept car from an auto show. The mouse has a see-through aluminum chassis to stimulate air flow with 11 configurable buttons and reaches 8,200 dpi of resolution. We'll first describe these impressive features, and then see how well the mouse performed in action.

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CES 2013: OWC @ ThinkComputers.org

OWC, a.k.a. Otherworld Computing, showed off primarily three new products: the Accelsior, the Viper, and the KR. The Accelsior is a storage system using PCI-Express to serve up SSD blades. Configured in RAID 0, the drives were capable of more than 1300 MBps read and a very impressive write speed. The Viper is a new SSD that OWC claims will saturate a SATA III 6 Gbps connection at its 600 MBps maximum. Lastly, OWC shows a ridiculously awesome 200 ft drop test on its KR series of iPhone 4/S and iPhone 5 cases. These cases are built to withstand some serious punishment. Check out the video for more on OWCs CES 2013 lineup.

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OCZ Vector 256GB Review @ Vortez

Back in 2009 OCZ introduced the first-generation Vertex and Agility SSDs which were based on the Indilinx Barefoot Controller. Since then OCZ have brought to market various drives using SandForce and Marvell Controllers but for their new Vector Series they have returned with the Indilinx Barefoot 3 Controller. Having acquired Indilinx in 2011 the company has been hard at work developing their 3rd generation Barefoot Controller and the fruits of this labour are now shown forth in our review sample today.

In the spotlight today is OCZ’s new Vector Series SSD. Available in three sizes; 128GB, 256GB and 512GB – we will be taking a look at the 256GB model which boasts 550MB/s read and 530MB/s write transfer rates. Vector seeks to deliver a ground-breaking all-round performance at affordable pricing and with an impressive 5 years warranty.

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VTX3D HD 7870 Black Edition 2 GB @ techPowerUp

The VTX3D HD 7870 Black is based on AMD's recent Tahiti LE GPU. It comes with 1536 shaders and very decent clock speeds. As a result the card is 8% faster than HD 7870, almost as fast as HD 7950, which costs significantly more.

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Noctua NH-L9i Low Profile CPU Cooler Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

For all that big tower coolers and closed loop liquid coolers have their uses, there is also a significant market out there for compact, low noise models. Noctua are looking to fill that gap with the NH-L9i which aims to be a replacement for the stock Intel model, or an ideal product for SFF and HTPC use.

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Vizio's AMD Z60 Hondo-based Windows 8 Tablet PC at CES 2013 @ Anandtech

Even with the comprehensive overhaul of their notebook lineup, the big news out of Vizios CES booth was definitely their new Windows 8 tablet. The Vizio Tablet PC is the first system weve come across with AMDs Z60 APU inside. Its a 1GHz dual-core part, with a pair of Bobcat cores and an HD 6250 GPU onboard. The low clock speed allows it to hit a TDP of roughly 4.5W, easily the lowest of AMDs APUs, but likely means that compute performance will likely be similar to or slightly worse than Clover Trail. This isnt unexpected, since we saw the same situation play out with Ontario last year - basically a faster microarchitecture clocked significantly lower such that it performed roughly on par with Atom, except with significantly better GPU performance.

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ASUS RT-N66U N900 Router Review @ t-break

The ASUS RT-N66U is the company’s flagship broadband router designed to cater to the many demands of today’s users. No longer are people satisfied with just high transfer speeds (something which the majority still cannot use due to high charges from ISPs) but also need a myriad of extra features that makes wireless data transmission more integrated into daily devices.

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Final Coverage of CES 2013 @ OCC

Last in line was Mushkin's Atlas series mSata drives. While an mSATA drive may not seem all that impressive, and for the most part have been limited to 256GB in capacity, Mushkin put together a way to break that barrier and pack up to 480GB into the form factor. By using a dual-PCB approach, the NAND is essentially contained on two boards that feature three interconnects for the data and power to pass through. An innovative solution to the capacity problem in the mSATA form factor to be sure. I have seen this in use with PCIe SSDs in the past, but not when used in this form factor. This small drive uses an unthrottled Sandforce SF-2281, controlling high speed MLC NAND to deliver performance up to 540MB/s Read, 425MB/s Write, and 78,000 IOPS (4K ran read), with an Access Time