april 30 2010

ninjalane reviewed the Noctua NH-D14

The Noctua NH-D14 is a dual tower heatsink/air-cooler with 6 heatpipes, and it has a perfect balance between performance and noise control. Removing the fans is very easy. The six heatpipes are evenly spaced in a pattern that spreads the heat across the pipes.

Size:

The NH-D14 is so large that it extends above the top of the motherboard. By rotating this cooler 90 degrees you can gain some space.

Benchmarks:

The E-LEET tuning utility was used to obtain and record system temperature data. The temperature at stock was 39 degrees Celsius and overclocked 50 degrees.....More

april 27 2010

bjorn3d reviewed the PNY GTX-470

Conclusion:

Every modern DX11 game was playable, except Metro 2033. Heavily tessellated games with Ray Tracing were no problem. The reviewers liked the performance and the comparative value it offers. The price/performance ratio is better than the GTX 480.

Overclocking:

The GPU Core was OCed @691 MHz, entirely stable. The memory could only be incresed with 22MHz. ....More

april 26 2010

hitechlegion reviewed the Zaward Vapor 120

The Zaward Vapor 120 CPU cooler is a great choice to keep your CPU cool. It suppots the latest CPU sockets and has a massive 120mm blue LED golf fan. New features are breathable fins, next to that there's direct heat pipe contact, and a dual fan install option.

The package has a red and black, glossy, cardboard box. The front shows the heatsink with the Zaward fan for the Vapor 120. The back has the specs and features for this cooler. Both sides list the icons of the features and the new breathing technology and a comparison graph of noise and cooling levels.

Benchmark Tests Setup:

Three different processors, chipsets and TDPs were tested. A Core 2 duo 6750, Core i5 661 and a Core i7 920, representing the P43, H55 and X58 chipsets, with a TDP of 65w, 87w and 130w respectivly. In all cases the Thermal Paste was the Noctua NT-H1.....More

april 23 2010

ultimatehardware reviewed the Zotac GeForce GTX 480

The Zotac GeForce GTX 480 uses the GTX 480 GPU running at 700Mhz with 1536MB Gddr5 Memory at 3696Mhz with 480 Shader Processors with DirectX11.

ATI has the Radeon HD 5970 wich is app. 15% dearer, has a 5% higher GPU Core Clock, 8% higher Memory Clock, 30% more Memory, and has 666% more shader processors!!

Compared to: The MSI Radeon HD 5970.

Conclusion: Since the 5970 is about 15% more expensive, you would expect the difference in results being about the same. In Left for Dead 2, Metro 2033 and Just Cause 2, the distance between the two cards was more than 15%, and in some cases even more than 30%.....More

april 22 2010

tbreak reviewed the Toshiba NB305-N410

This netbook has (only) 1GB of RAM, the reviewer thought that 2GB would have been better, but Microsoft has strict rules regarding the Windows 7 Starter price tag and the amount of memory. Windows 7 seems to be a bit demanding especially if Mcafee and other bloatware slow down everyday usage.

The Design is more shiny with a Mocha top and a silver keyboard. The keys on the keyboard feel a bit smaller than the older model, the trackpad remains the same .

This netbook was compared to the HP mini 210 and the NB205.

Battery life:

A long life of over eight hours can be considered above average for netbooks. The NB 305 got hot at the bottom and sometimes felt a bit uncomfortable.....More

april 21 2010

reviewed the ASUS GeForce GTX 470 ENGTX470-2DI-1280MD5

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 and 480 are based on NVIDIA's new Fermi GPU core with DX 11 support. The 470 has a reduced shader count and less memory bus width, a few polymorph engines are disabled when compared to the 480. The 40nm GeForce 100 GPU with 3.2 billion transistors, is Manufactured at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited.

Overclocking:

Without raising the GPU voltage an overclock result of 743 MHz was reached for the GPU core and 940 MHz for the Memory, after raising the voltage to the max of 1.087V, a GPU clock of 797 MHz was reached.

Conclusion:

This card has a great overclocking potential, and reaches high results in DX11. ....More

april 20 2010

digitaltrends reviewed the HP EliteBook 8440p

Features:

This notebook comes with an Intel Core i5 and even some i7 processors, has a weight of app. 2 kilograms and a 14-inch screen, the IGP is an Nvidia’s NVS 3100 or Intel GMA.

Specs of the tested laptop: -- processor: 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 -- IGP: GMA HD, 2GB of RAM -- HDD 250GB 5400RPM -- Webcam: 2MP -- fingerprint reader.

Design:

A simple but elegant and solid, built around a lightweight metal skeleton for stability and durability, it should survive drops from 30 inches. It can handle heat up to 160 degrees of heat and it survives up to 150 kilos of weight on the lid. There's also protection against humidity and dust.

Keyboard:

A drain in the bottom protects it from liquids. The keys react to pressing with an audible tick. There's a LED overhead lamp to illuminate the keyboard at night. ....More

april 19 2010

overclockersclub reviewed the Diamond Radeon HD5770 XOC

Diamond Radeon HD5770 XOC

The HD 5770 has an almost perfect price to performance ratio. For app. US $160, you get a card with high FPS results in most modern games and DirectX11 support, Eyefinity and Stream. This graphics card comes with Colin McRae's Dirt 2.

The XOC, eXtreme OverClocked, version of this model has a GPU core @930MHz and the memory is clocked @1300MHz, which is an 9.4% increase for the core and 8.3% increase for the memory, when compared to the reference card.

Conclusion:

This grahics card has allready been factory overclocked, which resulted in app. 5% of overclocking headroom, this card performed better than the other mid-range and entry level products, including other HD5770 cards. You'll get great performance, at at a fair price, the cooler could have been better though. This is one of the fastest 5770 cards available.

Overclocking:

Catalyst Control Center Overclocking: With the ATI Overdrive panel you'll be able to overclock the GPU core, memory and adjust the fan speed. After unlocking the overclocking options, you can adjust the frequencies. Auto-Tune options are there for people who are new to overclocking, the Catalyst Control Center had the core clock capped at 960MHz and the memory at 1445MHz. With the AMD GPU Tool the results were 975MHz on the core and 1450MHz for the memory, as you can see there's Low additional overclocking headroom. These results were stress tested with Furmark. The GPU temperature was app. 80 degrees Celsius mark. The Fan is loud when over 60% rotation speed. ....More

april 16 2010

OC3D reviewed the MSI HD5870 Lightning

The Lightning has a Twin Frozr cooler and pre-overclocked GPU, 900MHz instead of 850Mhz.

The F22 Raptor on the retail box symbolizes the lightning speed. The card itself, a solid piece of engineering, has Hi-C capacitators, "buzz free" ferrit chokes and a shiny heatsink with 4 enormous heatpipes and 2 fans. This card's printed circuit board is somewhat bigger than the normal size, this could be a problem with a small case or mainboard parts 'getting in the way'.

Conclusion:

Firstly the performance is very good but not as good as as the XFX 5870 XT. Thanks to the 50MHz extra core speed, the Lightning is unquestionably better than a stock reference card. A problem however is the price, round and about 10% higher than the XFX 5870 xxx.

Overclocking:

The reviewers had high expectations because of the 2x 8-pin power connectors, Pure Iron Core chokes and Aluminum Core Solid Capacitors. After raising the GPU voltage a bit they got a very stable Core Clock @1034MHz, and the memory reached 1351MHz. The MSI Afterburner was used for the voltage and clock speeds.....More

april 14 2010

guru3d reviewed the MSI R5830 Twin Frozr II

The 5830 is more or less a 'crippled' 5850/5870, it has the same GPU, but has three out of the ten clusters of shader processors disabled.

The older Radeon HD 4850/4870/4890 had 800 shader processors while the new 58xx lineup has up to 1600 shader processors (AKA stream processors). Here's an overview of the 58xx line-up:

• Radeon HD 5830 has 7x 160 Shader clusters = 1120 Shader processors
• Radeon HD 5850 has 9x 160 Shader clusters = 1440 Shader processors
• Radeon HD 5870 has 10x 160 Shader clusters = 1600 Shader processors

What does the Twin Frozr II edition bring us when compared to the reference 5830? ....More

april 13 2010

anandtech reviewed the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13

The ThinkPad Edge 13 (1366x768 WXGA -- 16 : 9) is ultraportable and has a long battery life for a small price, with an AMD Athlon Neo X2 CPU, Radeon HD 3200 GPU and 2 gigs of RAM or you can choose for a Core 2 Duo SU7300 paired with the GMA 4500MHD IGP.

The tested version has 4GB of 1066MHz DDR3 ram, a HDD of 320 Gigabyte @7200RPM, Bluetooth 2.1, a LED-backlit 13.3 inch 1366x768 display, and a 6-cell Li-ion battery rated that will last for app. 8 hours, the OS is Windows 7 Professional x64.

The reviewer points out that the ASUS 13" (UL30Vt) offer with a bigger HDD, Nvidia G210M mobile video and an overclockable CPU has a price tag of app $ 750.-, which is $ 50.- less than the Lenovo offer with lesser components.....More

april 12 2010

alienbabeltech reviewed the Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600MHz 4GB

Compared To: This memory kit was not compared to other kits, instead it was compared to its own over- and underclocked settings.

Underclocking: The idea was to get the timings as tight as possible. @1066 MHz the timings could be set to 6-6-5-15. @stock speed timings of 8-8-7-21 were possible which is less than the 'stock timing' of 9-9-9-27.

Overclocking: The reviewer reached a max overclock @1720 MHz (increase of 20%), which cannot be considered very high, but could be OK for the CPU overclock. The voltage was @1.7V, the ECS A785GM-AD3 is not a good overclocker and the reviewer wasn't able to raise the voltage above 1.92V.....More

april 12 2010

hothardware reviewed the ATI FirePro V8800 2GB

The V8800 is the workstation equivalent to the Radeon HD 5870 with 1600 shader and a GPUclock of 1150MHz.

Compared To: ATI FirePro V8750 2GB and ATI Radeon HD 5970

Conclusion: Being the market-leader with DX11 cards with the Radeon HD 5000 line-up, ATI/AMD probably gets this position the professional arena as well. the FirePro launches months before a competitive Nvidia Quadro card is even announced. In short: Cool and Quiet with a low power consumption with DX11 and Eyefinity, but with a price tag of US $ 1,500.- not a very cheap card. ....More

april 10 2010

legitreviews reviewed the Kingston HyperX 4GB 2400MHz DDR3

Model No: KHX2400C9D3T1FK2/4GX -- 4GB (Kit of 2) 2400MHz DDR3 Non-ECC -- Latency: CL9 9-11-9-27 -- Voltage: 1.65V

The new 2400MHz Kingston memory seems to be the fastest Intel-certified memory in the world. Intel has certified this memory for their P55 motherboards, in this case Intel guarantees that the Core i7 860 and 870 will work with these dimms on the LGA 1156 socket @2400MHz.

The Kit that has been tested by the reviewers is a pre-release, since the memory is not yet on the market. The Package come with a heatsink/heatspreader with two fans and covers the two dimms.....More

april 10 2010

tweaktown reviewed the HIS HD 5850 iCooler V Turbo 1GB GDDR5

This review has a new benchmark line-up, and to give you an idea haw this graphics card competes against the latest technology, the HIS 585 OCed is compared to the GTX 470.

As mentioned above this model is an overclocked version the GPU is clocked 9.5% higher than the stock speed and the GDR5 memory even 12.5%.

The test-setup for the benchmarks was an Intel Core i7-980X @4.2 GHz with a Noctua-NH-U12P with a single fan, the mainboard was an ASRock X58 Extreme-3, the memory was 6GB of 1800MHz DDR3 PC16000, PSU Thermaltake 1500w and W7 Ultimate x64. ....More

april 8 2010

digitaltrends reviewed the Toshiba Satellite U505-S2010

Touch screens are fashionable nowadays, the U505 S2010 is equipped with a fuzzy-looking touch screen that provides minimal convenience and lowers screen quality.

This notebook is a midrange 13.3-inch (1280 x 800 + Webcam) machine with four gigs of DDR3 RAM and a 2.26GHz Core i5 CPU. Furthermore it has a 500GB HDD and a keyboard with LED backlighting.

Weight: The weight of 4.5+ LBS is somewhat higher than the average laptop and is availabel in three colors: Brown, Red and Pink. ....More

april 3 2010

neoseeker reviewed the PowerColor Go! Green HD5750 1GB GDDR5

This is no ordinary 5750 because it consumes a lot less power then the average 5750, without loosing performance because of the "Efficient Energy Transforming Technology". This video card is the first of the 'unplugged line-up'. In other words the HD 5750 should be able to get its power from the PCIe slot.

Conclusion: The reviewers gave it an innovation award because it uses 21% less power then the reference 5750 video card, no extra cables are required from the PSU, and above all it still performs very well and is dead silent because of its passive cooler. Overclocking took a lot longer than usual, but after som tweaking it had a very good performance. The framerates that were achieved in the benchmarks can be considered playable. It's recommended for anyone looking for a ....More

april 2 2010

legitreviews reviewed the ASUS UL50Vf

ASUS UL50Vf and NVIDIA Optimus.

The UL50Vf is equipped with the NVIDIA's Optimus, a technology that can switch between the the IGP and the discrete GeForce G210M video card. This new AI technology effectively switches cards automatically, the user doesn't have to take any action. The discrete card is used whenever the performance is needed.

This laptop has a Core 2 Duo SU7300 @1.3 GHz and Intel GS45 Chipset, the connectivity is provided by a LAN connector, 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless and Bluetooth 2.1.

The UL50Vf is similar to the UL50Vt except of course for the new Optimus technology, with the UL50Vt the user has to decide manually by pressing a button to activate the G210M. This new feature is used to save battery life. ....More

april 1 2010

hexus.net reviewed the Sapphire TOXIC HD5870 2GB

Compared to: EVGA GeForce GTX 275, HIS Radeon 5970 2GB, Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 and 5870 1GB, Inno3D Geforce GTX295, BFG GeForce GTX 285 and 295.

Conclusion: The Radeon HD 5870 Toxic 2GB is cloced very high @925MHz GPU core with an excellent Vapor-X air cooler. Taking the 2GB buffer and the very good and quiet air-cooling into account and being the Fastest single-GPU graphics card (on april 1 2010) the price/performance ratio is OK. This graphics card does not support ....More

        

Archive march 2010