Featured Reviews
Kingston SSDNow V Series 128GB SSD Review
Adding an SSD to a desktop or notebook that uses a traditional hard disk drive is a smart and efficient way to upgrade your PC. The Kingston SSDNow V Series is an entry level SSD that comes with all the software needed to clone your old HDD over to the new SSD. Read on to see if this drive goes down stuttering or if it stands fast and survives our testing.
Avantalk BTSP-200 Bluetooth Stereo Speakerphone
The Avantalk BTSP200 is a Bluetooth portable speaker that features a full duplex speakerphone, excellent battery life, long wireless range and even a remote control. It can connect with any Bluetooth device, which makes it great gift item or something you can purchase for yourself.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR4 Video Card Review
The Radeon HD 4670 is the mid-range offering from ATI, with lower performance than the Radeon HD 4770 & 4800 series but more performance than the Radeon HD 4300 and 4500 series. With so many new cards out there, the Radeon HD 4670 fits in nicely to the sub $75 market. Let's see how well it performs against its main competitor from the NVIDIA camp, the GeForce 9600GSO 384MB.
MSI 790FX-GD70 Socket AM3 Motherboard Review
MSI brings an AM3 socket motherboard to the table that is supposed to be their flagship. Will it be a board that will rival other makers in performance and overclocking? That is what we intend to find out as we look at the MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard!
The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive
The history of science is all around us, if you know where to look. With this unique traveler's guide, you'll learn about 128 destinations around the world where discoveries in science, mathematics, or technology occurred or is happening now. Read on to see if this book is worth picking up!
Koolance CPU-LN2 Liquid Nitrogen Evaporator
The Koolance CPU-LN2 is a "DIY" processor evaporator pot for liquid nitrogen or dry ice cooling. It features a nickel-plated solid copper cold plate that has been combined with a black acetal upper container. Read on to see how this extreme cooler does with DICE and LN2!
Sparkle GeForce GTX 275 Video Card Review
Sparkle may not be the first manufacturer that comes to mind if you're considering a new video card from Team Green, but the company is hoping its GeForce GTX 275 series can score it some mindshare in the sub-$250 segment. It's been a few months since the first wave of GTX 275 and ATI 4890 cards hit the market, and more mature drivers may shed a different light on relative performance.
Legit News
July 9 News from Around the Web
Enermax Aeolus CP001 Notebook Cooler @ OCModShop and other reviews from around the web can be found by visiting our forums!
Notebook computers tend to get hot. Some are even considered to be "desktop replacements" because of all the advanced hardware thrown into such a small space. With desktop systems, we have the luxury of adding large and advanced heatsinks with fancy LED fans, but laptops pretty much have to rely on the OEM cooling that the manufactuer has decided is "good enough". Enermax says "nay" to this philosophy and introduces the Aeolus CP001 notebook cooler, which is made from all aluminum, and has a large 250mm fan to blow a lot of air to the underside of your notebook and remain silent while doing it. The fan is also equipped with blue LEDs to produce a nice glow in your man-cave. Aeolus is the god of the winds, in Greek Mythology, so Enermax apparently thinks highly of this product.
Posted by | Thu, Jul 09, 2009 - 07:53 AM
Patriot Doubles their Cache for SSDs and Extends The Warranty To 10 Years
Patriot Memory announced yesterday the release of their Torqx M28 SSD Series with capacities in 128GB and 256GB, backed by a new industry leading 10 year warranty for all Torqx SSD products. The Torqx M28 SSD has been specifically designed with cutting-edge technology by increasing the DRAM cache from 64MB to 128MB of cache in conjunction with its current NAND flash technology. The ultimate result is an SSD that allows faster transfer rates between the controller and the host device.
"The Torqx series SSDs takes the technology of SSD to the next level," says Meng J Choo, Patriot's Flash Product Manager. "Competitor non-cache drives suffered from what consumers described as 'stuttering affect' which inhibited the drive performance. Torqx Series addresses this issue with a DRAM cache that acts as a buffer for data transfer bottlenecks and increases the random and sequential read and write transfer rates." Patriot continues to be a leader in the industry by improving the Torqx series warranty from 2 years to industry leading 10 year warranty. Patriot will take their new warranty one step further and retroactive their new warranty to all consumer purchases prior to this announcement.
Posted by | Thu, Jul 09, 2009 - 06:47 AM
NVIDIA 40nm desktop OEM video cards show up on NVIDIA.com
It looks like the rumors about future 40nm desktop GPUs from NVIDIA coming out later this month was dead on. As of today, you can actually find a couple OEM video cards on NVIDIA's website. The two cards listed are the GeForce GT 220 and the GeForce G210. These are lower-end video cards that are not even likely to find their way into retail distribution since they are OEM graphics cards, but at least it shows signs of 40nm life over at NVIDIA.
If you want to enhance photos, edit videos, watch movies, play games, or if you simply desire a Premium Windows 7 Experience, the NVIDIA GeForce G210 graphics card brings impressive graphics processing power to your PC at an incredible value. Get all the video processing power that your digital lifestyle requires. Enhance photos, clean up home videos and post them to Facebook up to 50% faster with the GeForce G210. Convert your video and put it on your iPod in minutes instead of hours or make your DVDs look like HD. Does your PC have a CPU powerful enough to playback high definition Blu-Ray Movies? It doesn’t matter, the GeForce G210 can playback any Blu Ray Movie with any modern CPU.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 08:13 PM
Kingston Responds To Our Question on Elpida 'Hyper' ICs
We contacted Kingston Technology for a statement today about their kits that use Elipda 'Hyper' memory ICs. They didn't have much to say on it because it's such a non-issue to them. Kingston backs all their modules with a lifetime warranty and if their memory kits fail for any reason under the warranty they will cover it. This is very different than how Corsair is handling the situation, as they basically recalled their entire DOMINATOR GT series like we reported last night.
The enthusiast DRAM problems some customers are encountering are nothing more than a typical issue that Kingston encounters from time to time and resolves through its normal customer service process. As such, this matter doesn't merit any special attention or consideration.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 07:27 PM
ARCTIC COOLING Announces ARCTIC F Pro TC Case Fans
The Swiss low noise cooling solution provider ARCTIC COOLING today unveiled the new ARCTIC F Pro TC case fan series in 80mm, 92mm and 120mm. The intelligent programmed temperature controller and accurate temperature detection make them the best TC fans in the market.
Unlike other generic temperature controlled case fans, the ARCTIC F Pro TC fan provides cooling according to not only the temperature, but also the overall necessity for cooling. The revolutionary programmed temperature controller plays a key role. As shown in the chart, when case ambient air temperature is at safe level 0°C to 32°C, the ARCTIC F Pro TC fan speed remains at its lowest (500 rpm). This is to offer adequate ventilation at the lowest noise level possible. The ARCTIC F Pro TC is therefore completely inaudible (0.05 sone) at low temperatures – a much quieter level than generic TC fans.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 09:39 AM
July 8 News from Around the Web
ASRock NetTop ION 330 AMCP7A-ION HTPC @ Benchmark Reviews and other reviews from around the web can be found by visiting our forum!
NVIDIA Recently unveiled their ION platform, which combines a GeForce 9400m GPU to the Intel Atom mobile processor. The synergistic effect of GeForce and Atom processors have combined to deliver true high-definition performance beyond any mobile platform before it, allowing more range from 'NetBook' and 'NetTop' products. A dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom N330 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M GPU are packaged onto a Mini-ITX DDR2 AMCP7A-ION motherboard to create the ASRock ION, and ultra-efficient NetTop system. Delivering an compact HTPC or desktop computer alternative with native HDMI high-definition playback capability and powerful computing power isn't easy, and Benchmark Reviews discovers how well the ASRock NetTop ION 330 performs against mobile competitors using the Windows 7 Operating System.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 08:25 AM
A-Data and Transcend see June revenues up double-digits
A-Data Technology and Transcend Information enjoyed on-month revenue growth of 24.5% and 25.6%, respectively, in June 2009. Both memory module makers have seen growing sales contributions from NAND flash products.
A-Data's June revenues reached NT$2.054 billion (US$63 million), with the on-year drop narrowing to 13.5%. The company saw May revenues drop 29.5% on month and 37.1% on year. The company said it intends to focus its efforts on NAND flash devices, which grew 44.1% sequentially in sales last month. As for DRAM modules, sales generated from the segment increased 3.6% on month in June. A-Data posted unaudited revenues of NT$6.05 billion for second-quarter 2009, up 4.0% sequentially but down 22.8% from NT$7.83 billion a year ago. NAND flash products accounted for about 56.9% of second-quarter sales, whereas the remaining 43.1% was contributed by DRAM modules.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 06:17 AM
Google Plans to Launch Operating System for PCs
Google Inc. is preparing to launch an operating system for personal computers, a direct assault on the turf of software giant Microsoft Corp., which has long dominated the market for software that runs PC applications. The Silicon Valley Internet giant announced the new move in a blog post late Tuesday night.
It said the software, which will initially target low-end portable PCs called netbooks, would be based on its Chrome Web browser and available to consumers in the second-half of 2010. The was made by Google's Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, its engineering director.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 06:15 AM
Cyber attack knocks out government Web sites
A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime. Suspected cyber assaults also paralyzed Web sites of major South Korean government agencies, banks and Internet sites in a barrage that appeared linked to the attacks in the U.S., South Korean officials said Wednesday.
The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, according to officials inside and outside the government. Some of the sites were still experiencing problems Tuesday evening. U.S. officials refused to publicly discuss details of the cyber attack. But Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said the agency's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued a notice to federal departments and other partner organizations about the problems and "advised them of steps to take to help mitigate against such attacks."
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 06:13 AM
Google OS lives (and it's coming to a netbook near you)
Ars has learned that Google is preparing to deliver a Chrome-focused operating system that targets netbooks.
Two separate sources—one inside the company and one outside it—have confirmed to Ars tonight that Google plans to launch an operating system built in some fashion around its new web browser, Chrome. One source says that the new OS will be launched soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow. Tentatively called "Google Chrome OS," the project appears targeted at netbooks, the tiny portable computers typically used only for such light tasks as web browsing and e-mail. Chrome, of course, isn't an operating system, but a quick-booting OS built around a single application like Chrome would be a natural fit for a netbook. With such an OS, Google could obviously make it extra easy for users to access the full range of Google cloud applications through the browser—Google Docs, Gmail, Google Maps, etc.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 08, 2009 - 04:14 AM
OCZ Announces Vertex Turbo SSD with 180MHz SDR DRAM Cache
OCZ Technology today released the latest addition to their premium Vertex solid state drive series, the Vertex Turbo Edition. The tried-and-true architecture and performance of the original Vertex has been upgraded to meet the demands of enthusiasts and other performance-seeking users who benefit from SSD technology. The Vertex Turbo Series maximizes the potential for ultimate productivity and state-of-the-art computing experience, by increasing both the host clock-speed and the SDR DRAM Cache to 180MHz versus 166MHz on the original series.
OCZ Vertex Turbo Series provides a cutting-edge design for enthusiasts looking to transform their desktops or laptops. Enabled by a proprietary firmware and 64MB of 180MHz DRAM cache, the Vertex Turbo Edition ramps up performance levels to new heights, while providing the snappy computing, longer battery life, and shorter boot-ups users have enjoyed from the original. The Vertex Turbo delivers best-in-class read and write speeds clocking in at up to 270MB/s read and 210MB/s write along with the lower power consumption and superior durability compared to conventional hard drives.
Posted by | Tue, Jul 07, 2009 - 08:50 PM
Corsair Drops Elpida Hyper ICs in Dominator GT Line
Corsair, in a fantastic move for the community, has stood up and announced that they will stop selling memory modules based upon Elpida Hyper ICs. These Hyper ICs are the chips responsible for the DDR3-2000 CAS 7 revolution that has occurred in the industry. Corsair will continue to support modules already on the market, but until the Hyper IC death issue is solved, they will no longer sell new sticks.
We have seen a number of reports across various forums about failures of modules (from Corsair as well as from other memory manufacturers) built with Elpida “Hyper” RAMs. Through lab testing, we have now been able to reproduce similar failures. We are continuing to test to determine the cause of these failures. Note that although a relatively small percentage of “Hyper” ICs appear to be affected, the rate of failure is not acceptable to Corsair or to our customers. Due to these failures, we will no longer sell Hyper-based modules until the issue can be resolved. We have also have asked our retailers to return any modules they currently have on their shelves. Products impacted include TW3X4G1600C6GTF, TR3X6G1866C7GTF, TR3X6G2000C8GTF, TR3X3G2000C7GTF, and TR3X6G2000C7GTF. We are working on enhancing our manufacturing and testing process to be able to offer these parts again as soon as possible. We continue to stand behind these modules 100% with our standard warranty, which can be found at http://www.corsair.com/warranty/default.aspx.
Posted by | Tue, Jul 07, 2009 - 08:11 PM
Razer Announces The Moray+ Mobile Gaming Communicator
Razer announced the release of the Razer Moray+, an in-ear noise isolating earphone equipped with an inline omnidirectional microphone that provides a smart, portable solution for gamers on the go this morning. The Razer Moray+ will cost $59.99 here in the US and €54.9 in Europe.
The Razer Moray+ is designed for gamers on the go who appreciate the compact design and the ability to support multiple gaming devices with one unique headset. The Razer Moray+ provides an inline microphone engineered with an omni-directinonal pickup pattern which captures sound input from any direction with exceptional voice clarity for VOIP applications like Skype, Ventrilo, and TeamSpeak. The in-ear noise isolating earphones deliver powerful bass-driven stereo and mid/high range clarity for your entertainment experience without interference from ambient noise.
Posted by | Tue, Jul 07, 2009 - 11:12 AM
Buy an NVIDIA Video Card and Get a Chance To Win a Trip to Blizzcon 2009
NVIDIA just announced an interesting promotion this morning. If you buy any qualifying NVIDIA GeForce graphics card (Qualifying GPUs in US/Canada are: GeForce 9600 GT, GeForce 9800 GT, GeForce 9800 GTX+ and GeForce GTS 250) between July 1, 2009 and August 1, 2009 you will receive an entry code for a chance to win an all expenses paid trip to Blizzcon 2009 for you and a guest. For complete contest details, rules and regulations, and additional information on how to enter without a qualifying product purchase, please visit: www.nzone.com/WoW. The entire trip is valued up to $2400 USD!
Participating e-tailers in US/Canada are: Amazon.com, MWave.com, NCIX.com, Newegg.com, TigerDirect.com, and ZipZoomFly.com. Contest is open to all legal residents of the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Norway and India (excluding the state of Tamil Nadu) who have attained the age of majority under the laws of the country or state of residence as of the start of this promotion.
Posted by | Tue, Jul 07, 2009 - 11:03 AM
Nvidia to launch 40nm GPU at the end of September
Nvidia expects to launch its new 40nm GeForce GT220 (GT216) and GeForce G210 (GT218) GPUs at the end of September 2009, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report citing sources from graphics card makers.
Low yields on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) 40nm process caused Nvidia to postpone the launch of its 40nm GPU, but recently TSMC's yield rate has started to improve prompting Nvidia to launch the GPUs in time for the year-end holiday sales, added the paper.
Posted by | Tue, Jul 07, 2009 - 09:28 AM
Microsoft Admits Security Flaw in Video ActiveX Control
Microsoft is investigating a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Video ActiveX Control. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. When using Internet Explorer, code execution is remote and may not require any user intervention. You can read more about the workaround here.
Our investigation has shown that there are no by-design uses for this ActiveX Control in Internet Explorer which includes all of the Class Identifiers within the msvidctl.dll that hosts this ActiveX Control. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 customers, Microsoft is recommending removing support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using all the Class Identifiers listed in the Workaround section. Though unaffected by this vulnerability, Microsoft is recommending that Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 customers remove support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using the same Class Identifiers as a defense-in-depth measure.
Posted by | Tue, Jul 07, 2009 - 09:27 AM
SAPPHIRE Announces Environmentally Friendly Packaging
SAPPHIRE Technology, the leading manufacturer and world-wide supplier of AMD/ATI based graphics products is aware of the increasing awareness of the impact of excess packaging on the environment, and has an ongoing program to play its part in conservation. In another industry first for SAPPHIRE, the company is now introducing paper pulp trays as the inner packaging for graphics cards. This is a great idea and we can only hope that many more video card companies follow suit.
Outer boxes for SAPPHIRE products already use environmentally friendly inks and are completely recyclable. Now SAPPHIRE is introducing a new type of inner packaging for many of its mainstream models and looking to roll it out across the range. In another industry first for SAPPHIRE, the company is introducing paper pulp trays. These are made from recycled paper materials and are further recyclable. Most of SAPPHIRE’s graphics cards have previously shipped with an inner cardboard box - which in some cases have multiple folds and cut-outs to retain the cards and accessories. Now many of these can be replaced with the pulp tray which is molded to hold the components safely during shipping. Work is ongoing to further develop this method and apply it to even the heavier models which currently ship in plastic carriers or foam packaging.
Posted by | Mon, Jul 06, 2009 - 11:11 PM
Super Talent Introduces Pico Mini USB Drives
Super Talent today introduced their new line of colorful and trendy Pico Mini USB drives, available this week in capacities from 2GB to 16GB. Like their siblings, the Pico drives, Pico Mini drives are built using COB technology which enables squeezing impressive Flash capacities into extremely small packages. At 32 x 15 x 3 mm (1.3 x 0.6 x 0.1 inches), Pico Mini drives are surprisingly tiny. Even more impressive, they tip the scales at merely 1.5 grams. Pricing ranges from $9.99 for the 2GB version to $39.99 for the 16GB USB key.
"We designed these drives to build on the success of our popular Pico family. They share a lot of the same features, but while Pico drives have a shiny chrome finish, Pico Mini drives are colorful and trendy to appeal to a different demographic", explained Super Talent Director of Marketing, Joe James. Pico Mini drives will begin shipping this week to online retailers worldwide.
Posted by | Mon, Jul 06, 2009 - 11:04 PM
Don't Miss Out On Your Chance To Win an AMD TWKR CPU!
AMD created a small number of limited edition “TWKR” processors expressly for the extreme overclocking community in appreciation for their record performance feats with Dragon platform technology and AMD Phenom II processors. These processors are designed to reach the utmost performance barriers of the AMD Phenom II processor and operate beyond the specifications of typical production level processors. As speculated, it’s a high current chip that can take the extreme stresses of Liquid Nitrogen overclocking. Our testing of the TWKR procesor showed that we could reach ~6.6GHz on Liquid Nitrogen. It would be a shame if only the top overclockers and media would be able to use these, so we have teamed up with AMD to give away one of these overclocking monsters.
The contest will be held sometime on July 7th, 2009. We will be tweeting one question. The first person to answer the question correctly via a reply will win. If for some a number of people answer at exactly the same time and we cannot determine from Twitter who actually answered first, the name will be randomly chosen from those who tie for first place. To be able to win the processor you MUST be 1) following us on Twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/legitreviews, and 2) RT (retweet) our contest status update for the contest. You must do this BEFORE July 7th to be eligible for the drawing.
Posted by | Mon, Jul 06, 2009 - 08:30 AM
Albatron Launches K3780E Motherboard - System Board and I/O Board Hybrid Design
Albatron Technology has spent much of their time recently developing different products for IPC clients. During Computex Taipei 2009, Albatron unveiled a new product, Albatron K3780E, which combined with System Board and I/O Board. According to ALbatron their customers' demanded a board that has an adjustable I/O interface to where system integrators. The result of this demand is the Albatron K3780E mainboard, which can be used in their systems with more flexibilities.
Albatron K3780E is two-level design, System Board and I/O Board. The system board is for CPU and North and South Bridges; the I/O board is for I/O connectors. AMD ASB1 BGA processor is embedded on K3780E which supports single and dual core CPU. K3780E is adopted with AMD 780E North Bridge and built-in ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics engine to support advanced DirectX 10 and provide best software compatibility. With ATI AVIVO Technology, K3780E can process hardware decoding, such as H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-4, and operate multi-functions simultaneously and maintain stable performance. The South Bridge is AMD SB710, supporting 4 sets of SATA II 3Gb/s channel and 1 set of ATA 100 channel.
Posted by | Mon, Jul 06, 2009 - 08:04 AM
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