Monday Reviews

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Thermaltake is a company that is very well know to the enthusiast computer builder community. They provide many great products including a line of heavy (as in weight) power supplies, modding, cooling, and cases. ThermalTake was founded in 1999 and has really grown every since. They have always put out good looking products and the SopranoRS 101 is no different. Let's take a closer look.

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The SD2/8GB is an 8GB Class 2 SDHC memory card. Class 2 means that the card writes at (a minimum) of 2MB/s. This is the lowest speed class you can get in SDHC. Don't let that stand in your way; this is an 8GB card after all. Kingston offers a lifetime warranty on all its memory products. You don't have to worry about it breaking, but if it does, you are covered.

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*Just as there are two basic types of people, the enthusiast peripheral market is made up of leaders and followers. Not content to mingle among the latter, Asus often leads the pack with innovative designs, and this week we're focusing exclusively on three very different CPU coolers from Asus. Today we get medieval with the Silent Knight II. Will the Silent Knight II prove but deadly against two modern day foes (heat and noise), or simply be found wanting? Pull up a spectator's chair as we get set to joust from within HL's cooling lab.

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Quote: Noctua derived its name from the Greek mythology. The little owl, Athene Noctua, is the symbol of the Greek goddess Athene, who represents wisdom, science and strategy. She has a marked preference for the most clever among the Greek heroes, like Odysseus, who endure their adventures by the use of savvy consideration instead of mere force. It is the owl's silent flight that Noctua keeps in mind with their fan design...

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CPU coolers keep growing in size, this monster from Thermalright is proof of that. The Inferno Fire eXtinguisher is a heatsink large enough to accommodate up to three 140mm fans! Furthermore it comes with a separate smaller heatsink which sole purpose is to keep the backside of the CPU socket cool. Will this powerhouse CPU cooler grab first spot in our performance charts? Time to find out!

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Over the last few months, NVIDIA has been enjoying the high-end graphic card market with their current 8800 series. AMD was unable to compete with NVIDIA with their HD 2900 series but the situation is getting better with the introduction of the HD 3800 series. Although AMD is still not able to take the performance crown away from NVIDIA, its latest HD 3850 is performing fairly close and their upcoming card may very well steal the crown away from NVIDIA.

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This free utility is a good starting point for troubleshooting a slow system or one that is suspected of being infected with a virus or spyware. A quick scan results in a well organized list of all processes running and their associated security threat level. Knowledge is power, and being aware of malicious processes is the first step in preventing future infections and keeping a PC running smoothly.

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While the design isn't unique, it does follow a pattern set forth by some very efficient CPU Coolers. From a distance it would be difficult to tell the 212 from our current performance leader and award winner, the Noctua NH-12P; the designs are so close. Cooler Master does have a vast distribution system and getting your hands on a Hyper 212 is going to be a lot easier than finding the Rosewill Z5. A big plus for consumers is that they can walk into many retail locations and pull a Cooler Master product right off of the shelf.

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If you know what a motherboard is, chances are pretty good that you have heard of Asus. Between their enthusiast and OEM motherboards, they have built a significant number of the motherboards in PCs throughout the world. They also build nearly every other component found in a PC...video cards, sound cards, power supplies, LAN and WLAN products, chassis, optical drives, and whatever else. The Maximus Formula is among the latest Asus Intel X38 boards utilizing DDR2 memory. Will it prove to be the excellent board that Asus' P35 boards are? Stay tuned to see!

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There's no shortage of the good things the OnAir GT can provide for you. For what's packaged in the box and what you are paying for, my viewing pleasures with the OnAir GT have been extremely positive. The picture, simply stated, is HDTV quality. Every channel you get is crystal clear. As well, the analog channels are at your fingertips should they be of watchable quality. The simplicity of the OnAir GT, from software to hardware, makes it a very viable solution for any family.

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Overclocking the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz (Socket 775) CPU. See how far Rodney pushed this processor! Share your own finding on this product and please remember to post your overclocking results.

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Here at Overclockers Online, we have taken a look at numerous power supplies, many of which capable of powering some of the most can power some of the most high end systems, and then some, and of course, costing quite a pretty penny too. Every so often, we come across power supply that is more likely to be found in the typical enthusiasts' computer system, and this is one of them. While we of course love playing with bleeding edge hardware, power supplies like the NeoPower 650W Blue are far more relevant to most enthusiasts offering solid performance at an incredibly generous cost.

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I've checked out quite a few card readers in my time, but never one quite like this. Companies are always trying to make gadgets blend in more with our everyday objects, but I think this is the first 'girly' type product I've reviewed. Sure it's a gadget, it's a card reader and writer after all but they've taken that and basically stuck it into a cosmetic case so it would look right at home in a womans purse. I'm guessing this is an attempt to attract female consumers, but since I'm a guy I can only tell you the 'manly' stuff about it, like its read/writes speeds etc... So continue on to check out this most interesting product...

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I'm sure a lot of you have never head of Palit before. Before we were approached by them we had never heard of them either. Palit is not a new company, but they have done business almost entirely overseas. Now they are offering their products here in the United States. They offer both AMD ATI video cards as well as Nvidia-based cards. They were nice enough to send us over their GeForce 8600GT Super+1GB PCI-Express card, let's take a look...