september 28 2010

pureoverclock reviewed the PNY GeForce GTS 450 1024MB PCIe VCGGTS4501XPB

Conclusion:

This graphics card has some great features, is a good performer, and overclocks very well, remaining cool and quiet available for a modest budget.

Benchmarks:

3DMark Vantage, Alien vs Predator, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Colin McRae: Dirt 2, Crysis Warhead, FRAPS, FurMark, GPU-Z , Lost Planet 2, Metro 2033, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat. ....More

september 23 2010

anandtech reviewed the AMD Phenom II X4 970

The Phenom II X4 970 BE, a 3.5GHz Quad-Core, ships with all cache enabled, being 6MB L3 and 2MB total L2. This is still a Deneb so you get no turbo boost support, but you do get a great value.

Conclusion:

This processor can be pretty close to the Intel Core i5 760. The Intel CPU is faster in games and a few applications , while AMD was competitive in our encoding test and Cinebench. ....More

september 15 2010

hardwarecanucks reviewed the ASUS GeForce GTS450 ENGTS 450 DirectCU TOP-DI-1GD5

This card has an improved power distribution layout to get higher clock speeds.

Conclusion:

This video card stands out from the crowd, it has been factory overclocked and has a huge heatsink, making it the coolest card in the test. This card's performance puts it above the ATI Redeon HD5770 and it is a lot faster than the standard model, this card is near-perfect. The only downside perhaps was a somewhat higher power draw.

Overclocking:

Without changing the voltage, the GPU Core was OCed @ 959Mhz and The GDDR5 RAM @ 4240Mhz. After tweaking the voltage the result for the GPU Core was 981Mhz. The manufacturer also includes SmartDoctor overclocking software in the bundle. ....More

september 15 2010

funkykit reviewed the OCZ RevoDrive 50GB OCZSSDPX-1RVD0050 PCIe SSD

Conclusion:

It outperformed every single SSD, the Everest disk bench showed an average read speed of 497.7 Mb/sec, more than double the performance of a single SSD. Write speed was also excellent.

This drive is basically 2 x 25Gb(23GB usable) SSDs on a PCB configured in RAID0, this will give you a massive boost in performance. There's no doubt that this SSD card is one of the fastest SSD devices available. OCZ did not include a driver CD or DVD. You'll have to download these drivers from the OCZ website.

Compared To:

• ADATA S596 Turbo 128GB
• OCZ Vertex 120GB
• Patriot TorqX 128GB

....More

september 14 2010

anandtech reviewed the ASUS N82Jv

Conclusion:

The overall build quality is good, and ASUS is ahead with USB 3.0 and NVIDIA's Optimus Technology. On the other hand there's a predominantly plastic chassis and the LCD is a huge blemish on an otherwise good design.

Compared To:

• Alienware M11x R2
• ASUS N61Jv
• ASUS U30Jc
• Dell Studio 14
• Dell Studio 17
• Toshiba A660D

Battery Life

For HD video playback the battery lasted only for two hours and up to four hours if you shut down all apps. ....More

september 13 2010

hardwarecanucks reviewed the Gigabyte GV-N450-1G GTS 450

Gigabyte GV-N450-1G NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450

Conclusion:

This video card isn't a perfectly good performer, it needs a slight speed increase to differentiate itself from the ATi Radeon HD 5750. This card won't 'feel' faster than a reference version but you are getting a slight speed increase without paying a penny more.

The GF106 is a relatively cool running GPU, which is custom cooled, it has a Respectable performance, is very quiet, is not more expensive than the standard card and is Highly overclockable.

Overclocking:

Without raising the default voltage the GPU was OCed @ 951Mhz and the GDDR5 RAM @ 1045Mhz. ....More

september 11 2010

tweaktown reviewed the ECS GeForce GTX 460 1024B Black Series NBGTX460-1GPI-F

The people of ECS have chosen to bump the core from 675MHz to 765MHz and the memory from 3600MHz QDR to 3700MHz QDR, quite a 'large' factory overclock.

Conclusion:

Great cooling, a high out of the box overclock and an interesting price make this card an ideal cadidate for gamers and overclockers. The massive cooler of this card is a cut above the crowd when it comes to performance. The factory overclock, is higher than most other cards on the market and the passive cooler really helps achieve a high overclock while keeping the card cool, overclockers will like this feature. The SLI connector is an extra long one, so despite the massive cooler you'll still be able to have an SLI or CrossFire setup. The cooler is so big that it takes three slots, so while SLI is still an option, this card is ultimately for the person who just wants to run a single card unless you have a big case and a full size motherboard. ....More

september 9 2010

madshrimps reviewed the G.SKILL Flare DDR3 2000MHz FLS F3-16000CL7D-4GBFLS 2Gx2

Conclusion:

The reviewer had no big hopes to stabilize any ram kit over 2000mhz on the AMD platform, but This G.Skill Flare kit made it pretty easy.

For the hardcore gamer this is a very cheap alternative. The kit only works on the Asus boards, mentioned on the packaging of this kit. Testing the G.Skill on a few other mainboards had lots of issues. Not even Gigabyte's latest Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD7 was able to boot at 1600mhz Cas 6. Cas 7 had no problems.

In case you are building an Asus AMD motherboard based setup, this G.Skill 4gb kit is a perfect match. Even though it might be a bit overkill as the 2000mhz tests have shown to be not so efficient as the lower clock speeds. A 'normal' user won't benefit much from these sticks and you are probably better off with the lower clocked Flare kits.

Test Setup:

• Mothberboard : Asus Crosshair IV
• Power Supply : OCZ ModStream 700W
• Processor : AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
• Water Cooler : Corsair H50

....More

september 8 2010

overclockersclub reviewed the Mushkin deluxe 60GB Solid State Drive MKNSSDCL60GB-DX

Conclusion:

This drive had a great performance across the test suite. It excels is in writing small files compared with other SSDs. When compared against 'normal' hard drives, the increase in performance is staggering. Startup time is reduced by 100%, while shutdown time drops to app. four seconds.

This drive is rated for a 60 GB capacity, only 55.8 GB however is available for use. When using 2 of these drive in a Raid-0 configuration the price is lower than a single 120GB SSD and the speed is going through the roof. With this drive You'll get great performance for a competitive price.

Compared To:

• Corsair SSD Force Series 100GB
• Kingston SSD NOW V Series 128GB
• Mushkin Io Series 128GB
• Seagate 1TB 7200.11 SATA
• Seagate 2TB SATA

....More

september 4 2010

guru3d reviewed the OCZ RevoDrive 120GB OCZSSDPX-1RVD0120 PCIe SSD

Conclusion: At certain benchmarks the RevoDrive simply is a real winner, but in other benches the overall performance is as good as a regular SSD. Some tests reached well over 400 and even 500 MB./sec on this drive. Two Vertex 2 60GB drives will cost less than the 120GB RevoDrive. In RAID 0 configuration the Vertex 2 setup will be faster.

Benchmarks:

• ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.4
• HDTach 3.0.4.0
• HDTune Pro
• IOMeter
• PCMark Vantage HDD test
• SiSoft Sandra Storage Benchmark

Compared To:

• WD1500HLFS VelociRaptor
• Corsair X128 (MLC) Indilinx
• OCZ Vertex 2 100GB (MLC) SandForce SF1200

....More

september 1 2010

techreviewsource reviewed the Lenovo IdeaCentre A300 40181NU

The A300 has a white, flat base that holds the very thin 21.5-inch LCD screen. The white and chrome design makes it look sleek and slim. The screen has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080, which qualifies it as a full HD display, but this screen has no touch input. It's also available in black and chrome, and the A700 model has a 23 inch display.

Conclusion:

This all in one desktop is a good choice for a multimedia system that can also be used as a HDTV. HP's All-in-One 200 competes with this model and has roughly the same price. If you want a stylish, wireless machine that can be placed anywhere than the Lenovo A300 might be your choice. This machine has no optical drive, which limits it as a multimedia device.

Compared To:

HP All-in-One 200 ....More

        

Archive august 2010