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When Intel released their Core i7 CPU and the platform that enabled its use, it brought about a few new technologies that haven't been seen on the Intel side of things. One of them is the QPI or Quick Path Interconnect. Intel, being the king of "not invented here" syndrome, couldn't accept AMD's Hypertransport point to point high speed data bus. QPI is basically the same thing as Hypertransport and Intel has finally moved the memory controller onto the CPU die. No longer is there a FSB (sort of) that communicates with different components and the CPU. Along the same line, Intel moved to include triple channel memory support in its latest chipset, the X58. Do we really need triple channel and the added expense? This article hopes to shed some light on how triple channel interleaved memory compares with the same setup in single channel.

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When people think about ITX, there are a few stigmas that come to mind. The first is that there is limited choice. The second is that performance is lacking. While these two points may have been true in the past, no longer is ITX relegated to the specific niche crowd. Intel has been releasing ITX boards for a long time and their latest releases have come a long way. The DG45FC is an ITX board that accepts 45nm CPUs. Pairing this board with a Core 2 will give you performance of a full sized desktop in a tiny package.

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Western Digital makes some excellent products and relatively recently, it pushed very hard into the external storage market. When I asked about if they are worried about the impending SSD emerging market, there was really no big worry, yet. Even so, hard drives are their bread and butter and solutions exists for nearly every segment of the market. I always say how important it is to have a backup solution and the My Book Studio Edition II aims to fit that bill with ease.

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Kingston Technology makes all kinds of memory products. While most enthusiasts know of their high end RAM, there is another facet of products that Kingston has a bring presences in. Flash is a huge consumer market and Kingston hopes to capture all segments of the market including the tiny form factor type drives. The 4GB Data Traveler Mini Slim drive comes in to sweep up this "size matters" crowd.

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Quote: The Baram CPU cooler made a strong first impression for ThermoLab and what they are capable of... I hope to see more products from them in the future. The cooler performed quite well during testing, and for those interested in running their system in near silence, the Baram will cooperate with temperatures that may be better than on some more popular (and louder) coolers.

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Quote: The CNPS9900 LED CPU cooler features the familiar look of a Zalman product, with a variety of innovations and refinements that make it stand out over models from previous generations in the CNPS (Computer Noise Prevention System) product line. A 120mm fan is located in between two rings of thin copper fins that dissipate the processor's heat thanks to three heatpipe loops.

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The GTX285 is basically a GTX280 with the same number of Shaders and the same memory interface that has been moved from 65nm to 55nm manufacturing process with clock speeds increased on the memory, Shaders and core- something many manufacturers have already done with their GTX280 GPU powered cards (except for the die-shrink, of course).

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Quote: We actually, went outside to test the range of the Callpod Dragon V2 Bluetooth Headset to see just how far we could get away from the mobile device. While on the phone, I sat my Blackberry Bold on the mailbox in front of the house and started walking up the street. Well, I'm not sure I got 100 meters away, but the Dragon V2 didn't seem to care about distance as it kept the connection with no static. I went a bit further up the road, but started to get concerned since I couldn't really see my cell phone anymore (see red arrow in above picture)...

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One of the least thought about components, but most important, when building a computer system is the power supply. A quality power supply can make all the difference between a nice stable system and one that is constantly giving you random errors that are next to impossible to track down. In a worst case situation, a low quality power supply can actually damage your components or completely kill your entire dream system.

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Thecus took a great NAS and made it even better with the N3200 Pro. It's difficult to tell it apart from the original N3200 just by looking at it, because underneath the hood is where all the upgrades have taken place. During testing, RAID 5 build time was impressive and transferring files with the Pro model is faster when compared to its predecessor.

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During CES 2009 Lian-Li introduced a concept case, PC-888, shaped like a billowing sail - making it to look like the famous Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai -, made of blue anodized aluminum and costing a fortune - according to the manufacturer since this case is a limited handcraft edition, it should not reach the market for less than USD 500. Let's take a look on this very different case.

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Good business notebook should be lightweight, reliable, fast and with long autonomy and good quality. Toshiba built Tecra R10 for business users that travel a lot and we will see if Toshiba fulfilled its goal. At first sight Toshiba Tecra R10-10S doesn't look tough. This impression is consequence mostly because of slim and flexible cover. Surprisingly, even under severe bending of cover, there was no picture distortion. After thorough inspection we concluded that toughness and quality of Tecra R10 aren't that bad. Although if you expected casing that can withstand extreme punches you will be slightly disappointed.

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When a device tries to be all things to all people, it usually winds up satisfying no one. Most all-in-one printers, for example, are good for lightweight office tasks, but they make lousy photo printers. Epson's Artisan 800 is much better than that: It's a fabulous photo printer and a pretty good light-duty office machine. We expect a multi-function printer with a $300 price tag to include a long list of features and deliver impeccable performance, and the Artisan 800 doesn't disappoint on either count. Let's take a look at features, first, available by clicking to go to the next page.

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Quote: The Pico-ITX form factor specifications call for the board to be 10 x 7.2 cm (3.9 x 2.8 in) and that is exactly what size the NVIDIA Ion board is. To get an idea of just how small the Pico-ITX form factor is you really need to place it next to an ATX motherboard, which is 305 mm wide by 244 mm deep (12 x 9.6). The NVIDIA Ion platform is dwarfed by today's standard desktop motherboards, but at the same time still offers true-fidelity 7.1 HD audio and HDMI outputs that can do resolutions as high as 2560 x 1600...

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When building or upgrading a new PC there are always several options to consider regarding every component. One of the most confusing, for many users at least, is memory. I have friends(as I'm sure most of us do)that have trouble distinguishing between memory and hard disk space, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about all the different options out there. DDR2 had several different categories as the specifications aged and evolved. When DDR3 came about we were faced with an array of choices since the day the first product hit the shelves. Memory rated for different bus speeds, timings, voltages, and of course, prices.

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When it comes to your computer case, the choices seem to be endless, however when you boil it down most of them are an enclosed rectangle box. Antec has taken a different approach with their latest case, the Skeleton. They have broken out of the 'box' in more ways than one with this latest case.

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Most netbooks currently on the market offer 512MB or 1GB of system memory and only a single DDR2 SO-DIMM slot. However, with most of the netbooks a 2GB memory module could be easily installed, but what performance benefits does that yield for an Intel Atom powered device? In this article we have a few benchmarks comparing the 1GB versus 2GB memory performance on the Atom-powered Samsung NC10.

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This article was exciting to do for two reasons; the first was of course the fact that we were going to just see how powerful two of the fastest graphics cards on the market would perform when put together. This in total gave us four GPUs to play with across two cards and what this results in is a bucket load of power. The second reason was that I would finally get a chance to take SLI for a spin on the newly built testbed. It's really been ages since I've had the ability to test SLI on my main testbed. It was great that the X58 closed that gap where we no longer need one motherboard for Crossfire and another for SLI.

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One month ago we have tested XFX GTX260 Black Edition graphics card based on GTX260+ version of nVIDIA GPU, and we concluded that ATI HD 4870 offered better price/performance ratio. In last month nVIDIA and ATI have dropped prices for both products and made choice for your next graphics card much interesting and harder. This time we compared performances of GTX260+ with very interesting model of HD 4870 signed by Palit. Let the match begin.

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You've purchased a beautiful big-screen HDTV, and now you want a tuneful home theater audio system to go with it. Shopping for a surround-sound system, however, can be mind-boggling. Not only is the difference in quality across the spectrum of available speakers vast, there are several different types of systems that you can purchase - from floor-standing models, to bookshelf speakers, to all-in-one designs. Adding to shopper confusion, speakers are notoriously hard to buy because their sound depends, in large part, on the nature of your room. Finally, there are really inexpensive choices that sound terrible, but there are also some bargain systems from respected manufacturers that sound incredible (the same is true for more expensive models). Here, we'll focus on budget solutions that offer a high-quality audio experience for a relatively low price. For home theater, you really need surround sound, so for our purposes we have limited our audio selection to systems providing true or virtual surround sound.

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(or even care), or that there's a difference between NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas data. You just want to avoid being late. To that end, the TeleNav Shotgun accomplishes the goal as an in-car navigation device, even if it can't quite measure up to the more powerful features found on competing Navigon and TomTom products. Unfortunately, the device does falls short though when it comes to some simple pathfinding activities.

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During CES 2009 ASUS presented a prototype for their Eee Keyboard, a complete computer - including a 5 touch-screen display - housed inside a keyboard running Windows XP. So don't be fooled by its name: Eee Keyboard is a complete functional computer that you can use to write texts, surf the web, check e-mails, use Skype, etc. The idea is to connect it to a video monitor or HDTV wirelessly. We took a look on this innovative product.

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It's that magical time of year again when CES is just hours away and new products to excite and tempt the computer enthusiast are popping up all over the place. One of the most exciting products out there is the Nvidia GTX-295, reported to be the fastest single GPU (Single PCI-E slot connection, dual slot cooler, Dual GPU) out there. We've chosen the Asus GTX-295 for our lead out article. Asus has been a major player in the computer industry for a long time and viewed as one of the premium brands. They were kind enough to ship us their Asus GTX-295 (ENGTX-295) to run against our battery of tests and considerable selection of GPU's. We'll run our usual battery of tests against this graphics behemoth, and step outside the box and throw in some additional testing to see if it is indeed the fastest single GPU on the planet.

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The move to LGPL licensing will provide open source and commercial developers with more permissive licensing than GPL and so increase flexibility for developers. In addition, Qt source code repositories will be made publicly available and will encourage contributions from desktop and embedded developer communities. With these changes, developers will be able to actively drive the evolution of the Qt framework.

Qt 4.5 will also be available under commercial licensing terms, while licensing for previous versions of Qt remains unchanged. In addition, service offerings for Qt will be expanded to ensure that all Qt development projects can have access to the same levels of support, independent of the selected license.

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LAS VEGAS -- CES -- Jan. 6, 2009 -- The G-series line of gaming peripherals from Logitech (SIX: LOGN) (NASDAQ: LOGI) gives gamers what they want: complete control. Today, Logitech unveiled an extension of its award-winning G-series by introducing three new products that deliver precision, high performance and customization: the Logitech G19 keyboard for gaming, the Logitech G35 surround sound headset and the Logitech G9x laser mouse. Delivering everything gamers need for a competitive edge – from programmable buttons to 7.1-channel surround sound and 5000 dpi laser sensors to backlit keys – Logitech’s best-in-class gaming peripherals are engineered to deliver everything you have always wanted.

"The G-series product line is all about seeing how far we can push the envelope, giving gamers extraordinary, engineered-to-win features developed as a result of our deep connection with the gaming community," said Ruben Mookerjee, Logitech’s director of product marketing for gaming. "With each one of these new G-series products, gamers gain exceptional benefits; but most importantly, they can transform their gear to suit their gameplay."

The Logitech G19 Keyboard for Gaming
Giving you an arsenal of advanced gaming technology, the Logitech G19 keyboard for gaming is the first Logitech keyboard to feature a color GamePanel LCD. The tiltable, 320-by-240-pixel display provides valuable in-game information for over sixty games, including World of Warcraft (requires installation of included Logitech GamePanel software). In addition to in-game information, the screen can show VoIP communication data, clock, CPU load, or other non-gaming specific items such as pictures or videos. And you can easily switch among types of information – without ever leaving your game.

Logitech’s newest keyboard for gaming offers 12 fully programmable G-keys with three macros per key, giving you 36 time-saving commands per game. Performing multiple actions simultaneously is also made easier with the keyboard’s multi-key input-functionality, which allows you to engage up to five keys at the same time.

A popular feature with previous Logitech keyboards for gaming, the Game Mode switch can disable the Windows key so you don’t get accidentally locked out of your game. And so you can connect and power devices – such as your G9x mouse or G35 headset – the G19 keyboard features two high-speed USB 2.0 ports.

The G19 keyboard for gaming is compatible with both Windows-based and Mac computers.

The Logitech G35 Surround Sound Headset
For game-changing immersion, the Logitech G35 headset is the first Logitech headset to offer 7.1 surround sound – a perfect complement to the growing number of action games and high-definition movies that support 7.1-channel surround sound. Powered by second-generation Dolby Headphone technology, the G35 headset simulates the complex acoustics of a listening room, creating a detailed, outside-the-head sound field. Plus, with its proprietary ear-enclosing design, the G35 headset greatly reduces ambient noise from interfering with your entertainment, while an adjustable, noise-canceling microphone focuses on your voice and reduces background noise.

If you want to sound like your World of Warcraft character or disguise your voice when gaming, you can install the included software to enjoy six voice-morphing options, including cyborg, giant, mutant, space squirrel, troll and alien. If you use popular chat clients such as Ventrilo or Team Speak, the G35 headset includes three G-keys on the left earpiece for one-touch command over voice morphing. Additional on-ear audio controls provide quick access to volume, microphone mute and surround sound adjustments.

To ensure your headset remains comfortable during long gaming sessions, the G35 headset features three swappable headbands – thin, thick and contoured designs – so you can select the style that fits you best.

To enhance sound files recorded in more traditional formats, including MP3 files, the G35 headset uses Dolby Pro Logic II in conjunction with Dolby Headphone technology to create an expanded stereo sound.

The Logitech G9x Laser Mouse
Providing precision at any hand speed (up to 150 inches per second on most popular gaming-mousepad surfaces), the Logitech G9x laser mouse extends the promise of the award-winning Logitech G9 Laser Mouse with its next-generation laser sensor. Featuring on-the-fly adjustable dpi from 200 to 5000 dpi, the G9x mouse makes it easy to go from pixel-precise targeting to lightning-fast maneuvers without pausing the action.

The G9x mouse includes two interchangeable, snap-on grips that let you choose a fit and feel that’s best for your playing style. With more ways to tune for the way you play, the G9x mouse also features onboard memory – program up to five ready-to-play profiles. The weight-tuning system gives you up to 28 grams of extra weight. And custom-color LEDs let you match your G9x mouse to your personal preference – or the colors you choose for your G19 keyboard or G13 gameboard.

The Logitech G13 advanced gameboard wins Best of Innovations in Electronic Gaming

The new G-series products join the recently announced Logitech G13 advanced gameboard, which was just awarded the CES 2009 Design and Engineering Award: Best of Innovations in Electronic Gaming. The G13 gameboard offers a contoured design that complements the natural shape of your hand and fingers. So you don’t have to take your eyes off the screen, the concave keys along the home row make it easy to locate buttons by touch. And for a tactical advantage, the G13 gameboard includes 87 buttons, so you can set up custom button-profiles for each one of your favorite games, and a 160-by-43-pixel GamePanel LCD that shows live game stats, system info and messages from other players. The Logitech G13 advanced gameboard is available now in the U.S. and Europe in March for a suggested retail price of $79.99 (U.S.).

Pricing and Availability
The Logitech G19 keyboard for gaming is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe in March for a suggested retail price of $199.99 (U.S.). The Logitech G35 surround sound headset is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe in March for a suggested retail price of $129.99 (U.S.). The Logitech G9x laser mouse is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe in April for a suggested retail price of $99.99 (U.S.).

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When people think about ITX, there are a few stigmas that come to mind. The first is that there is limited choice. The second is that performance is lacking. While these two points may have been true in the past, no longer is ITX relegated to the specific niche crowd. Intel has been releasing ITX boards for a long time and their latest releases have come a long way. The DG45FC is an ITX board that accepts 45nm CPUs. Pairing this board with a Core 2 will give you performance of a full sized desktop in a tiny package.

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Western Digital makes some excellent products and relatively recently, it pushed very hard into the external storage market. When I asked about if they are worried about the impending SSD emerging market, there was really no big worry, yet. Even so, hard drives are their bread and butter and solutions exists for nearly every segment of the market. I always say how important it is to have a backup solution and the My Book Studio Edition II aims to fit that bill with ease.

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Kingston Technology makes all kinds of memory products. While most enthusiasts know of their high end RAM, there is another facet of products that Kingston has a bring presences in. Flash is a huge consumer market and Kingston hopes to capture all segments of the market including the tiny form factor type drives. The 4GB Data Traveler Mini Slim drive comes in to sweep up this "size matters" crowd.

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Antec makes superb computer cases for all types of situations. One of the latest markets of custom cases is the entertainment PC. There are specific requirements for a PC that fits with a home theater setup including good cooling and a small A/V form factor. Antec has a new case called the Micro Fusion Remote 350 which targets this exact market.

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Quote: NZXT is teaming up with Bigbruin.com to sponsor a College Football Bowl Game Challenge! Up for grabs are four great items from the NZXT line up, and in order to enter you just need to make your picks for seven of this season's top college football bowl games! The first of the bowl games involved is to be played on January 1st, so there is still time to enter.

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Quote: The ASUS Xonar D1 is a 7.1 channel solution designed to fit into full sized or low profile systems, and offers exceptional audio in 3D games and home theater applications. If you are serious enough about sound to realize that the onboard solution just isn't cutting it, the Xonar D1 is worth considering. It offers great sound, appealing features, and it won't break the bank.

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Quote: The OCZ Technology SLI-Ready 2GB DDR3-2000 dual channel memory kit is almost ahead of its time. The eVGA 790i motherboard does support SLI-Ready memory up to 2000MHz, but it did have some trouble staying stable at that speed. Testing really didn't show much advantage over a 'slower' kit, and if you can run with tighter timings at lower speeds you may be better off.

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Quote: The features, specifications, real world performance, and physical appearance of the Sapphire Atomic Radeon HD4870 X2 2048MB graphics card are all incredible. It is one of the highest performance cards on the market, while also probably being one of the coolest and quietest. This low noise and low heat is even more impressive when you consider that it isn't just the GPU being cooled, but the CPU and the case, too.

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Quote: "The Corsair Dominator 6GB PC3-12800 DDR3 triple channel memory kit was a fun memory kit to review as it features a revised heat spreader and some Samsung ICs that were friendly to overclocking. The memory performance seen on Intel Core i7 platforms never gets old and is just as impressive today as it was when I saw it for the very first time. It was only a matter of time before Intel moved beyond dual channel technology and it seems that the time was right other than the fact that the country is in a recession...."

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Xigmatek is an unfamiliar name for power supplies in these parts. However, the company does have some degree of presence out there in the world of CPU cooling; and we've gotten more than a few requests to see how good their watt boxes are. Today I'm finally taking a look at one of them in the NRP-PC501. This is a 500W value oriented unit boasting a good sized 140mm fan and 80 Plus certification.

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Pinnacle has sent me over their Video Transfer product for review, it allows the user to simply and easily transfer videos from numerous sources and store them on a portable hard drive, flash drive, iPod or even a PSP. It encodes in MPEG-4 format so the end results will be playable on most devices, and you can even select from three different quality settings as well. The great thing about this device is that it does not use your PC, it's a stand alone unit, you plug your source video into on end, your storage device into the other, hit record and walk away, no fuss, very simple and easy to do.

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When the Big Boss Man said that we were getting another Koolance full coverage video card block in for review and it was for an ATi HD 4870, I jumped at the chance. Koolance has been around from the beginning and they are well known for their high quality products. As a matter of fact, my first ever video card water block was from Koolance many years ago. One of the main reasons I stopped using them back then is that they were primarily small tube low flow systems and I had moved on to massive big tube custom built high flow systems. But here in the past year or so, Koolance has developed products that work well with both types of water cooling loops. So I'm really looking forward to seeing just how well their block will stand up to one of the industries' favorites, the Swiftech MCW60, as well as Sapphire's own high-end air cooler, the Vapor-X.

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* Jonathan Wendell, better known by his gaming handle "Fatal1ty," came to fame in the gaming world after winning many well-known video game tournaments. With his success came sponsorships and eventually his own brand of computer parts and gaming supplies. OCZ produces Fatal1ty-brand RAM and has now produced a Fatal1ty-brand, non-modular, 700W power supply unit. ThinkComputers checks it out in this review."

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I have to admit that until the HD 4830 arrived on my door step I really hadn't heard of it; a bit like what happened to NVIDIA a while back when everyone was more interested in seeing what ATI was doing with the new HD 4800 series. Now the tables have turned and everyone is paying more attention to the new NVIDIA cards due out rather than what ATI is doing at the moment. The HD 4830 is the latest card to enter the HD 4800 series line-up and is the lowest of the bunch. The thing is, though, I really do wonder how much lower it is than the HD 4850, which is one of the best valued cards on the market to date.

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From my experience, 2008 has been a very good year for CPU coolers. We've tested the OCZ Vendetta 2 to perform as well or better than coolers twice its price, and we've discovered that the Thermaltake V14 Pro can deliver top cooling performance while looking good. But heading into 2009 we must bid farewell to the LGA775 platform, which has been the home to many of our most popular products, and welcome in the new LGA1366 socket for the Intel Core i7 CPU & X58 platform. This Best CPU Cooler Performance - Q4 2008 article will be the last foreseeable socket T series round-up from Benchmark Reviews, unless something really big changes the landscape.

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The Guardian 921 is an interesting looking chassis, featuring a "shield" as a door and a "head" raised above the rest of the case with a temperature LCD screen. Included with the case are three temperature sensors that can be placed at important locations that need to be monitored.

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These cooling methods have always been more expensive than traditional air coolers. Today, Cooler Master has helped sooth this issue by putting together their Aquagate Max cooling system. This system comes with everything you will need to get your water cooled rig ready to go. There have been many kits such as this that simply don't offer any benefit over air cooling due to their cheap construction. Cooler Master hopes to buck this trend, but can they do it while still maintaining a decent price?

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Our friends at Cable Organizer sent me over the PowerSquid Home Theater Surge Protector for review, yes it's the real thing, from Flexity, the original makers of the Squid surge protectors. There are many other imitations out there, I've got a few myself actually, but only the real PowerSquid from Flexity is the original that offers great features over the imitations like swiveling plug, illuminated outlets, lifetime warranty and warranty protection of up to $500,000 for connected equipment.

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Put simply, the Swiftech H2O-120 kit is a real winner. There are a lot of good things to say about it. It is beautiful in its simplicity with high quality components and top-notch performance. You couldn't find a more compact water cooling system that performs as well as the H2O-120 kit if you tried. We'd like to also give special mention to the incredibly innovative Apogee Drive water pump that is also available on its own. This is a fantastic little pump and waterblock combo that can make any DIY compact water cooling project a joy.

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Quote: "The performance of the Domino A.L.C. simply blew me away like no other cooler has in years. When the performance numbers showed that the Domino A.L.C. was outperforming the Thermaltake BigWater 760is I was floored to say the least. The price tag on the Thermaltake BigWater 760is is $149, which is more than double that of the Domino A.L.C. and it performed worse. This just goes to show that a water cooling kit needs to be a well rounded and polished to get the best performance. CoolIT Systems seems to have the Domino A.L.C. setup with the optimal hardware and water flow to have a winner on their hands..."

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"With the number of netbooks on the market continuing to increase each month and more of these mobile devices switching to solid-state drives for their reliability, extended battery life, and faster performance, SSDs are becoming quite common and finding themselves meeting many Linux hosts. How though does the real-world performance differ between hard disk drives and solid-state drives on Linux? We have run several tests atop Ubuntu on a Samsung netbook with a HDD and SSD. In addition, we have also looked at the encryption performance using both types of drives."

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With video cards not only getting bigger and faster, they are requiring a lot more power to run them. And with them using more volts and having more capabilities, it is only natural for them to run hotter. Video card manufacturers usually only use the bare minimum on cooling solutions for the cards that they sell. For many of us, when we buy a new CPU, we normally purchase an after market cooler for them because we know that the standard cooler just does not cut it when it comes to cooling. With this being said, we can not expect a standard cooler to handle today's video cards. It is also rare to find a GPU cooler that fits both Nvidia's 2xxGTX's and ATI's HD48xx video cards. The folks at SilenX have made a GPU cooler that not only cools well, but fits both Nvidia's 2xxGTX series of cards and ATI's HD4870 GPU's. So, let's take a look at the IXG-80HA2 GPU cooler and the Tri fan IXG-3F2from SilenX.

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Now that the price has dropped on Sony's BDP-S350 to $299, full-featured Blu-ray Disc players are coming into reach for the rest of us. Early generation Blu-ray Disc players were not only more expensive, but bulky, and took a long time to start up (time to run to the kitchen for a snack). Sony addressed these problems in the BDP-S350, a player that launched this past summer. The Quick Start feature shaves minutes off start up time, and the new design is no larger than a slim-line DVD player. But don't let the familiar look and feel fool you: This is full high-definition picture and sound. Add features like 1080p/24 for filmed movie playback, BD-Live and Bonus View for online special features, and you have a player that will give you all you want from a Blu-ray Disc player at a more affordable price.

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The Black Series X58B-A "Nehalem" Motherboard with LGA1366 socket support for Intel's all-new "Core-i7" processors is currently the flagship motherboard for ECS Elitegroup. With the Intel X58 Express chipset handling the North Bridge duties and the Intel Intel ICH10R South Bridge handling the rest of the board you know this will be a sound and stable platform. Read on to see how the ECS X58B-A motherboard does on the benchmarks and to see it overclocks.

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Every once in a while two of the titans in memory manufacturing produce a kit that could almost be twin brothers on paper. When that happens it's that rare time when we can do an SPD shootout. By that we mean we can compare two kits that will run at the same speed with the same timings against one another with a level playing field. In this case a 6 GB kit of Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600 and a kit of Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600. In all fairness to the Corsair Dominator kit the specified timings are 8-8-8-24 @ 1.65v and the Kingston kit is rated to run at 8-8-8-20 1.65v so there is that minor difference in the kits.

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In the review of Nehalem CPU we haven't said anything about gaming performances. Since new X58 chipset has support for nVIDIA SLI and ATi CrossFire, it would be great to see those performances, but that combination would come with hefty price tag at the moment, so we decided to test single graphics card system. We have used Intel DX58SO motherboard in combination with Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe (HD 4870 X2) and Palit GeForce GTX 280. Other configuration was based on ASUS Rampage Formula motherboard as representative of older X48 chipset.

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For those who have the budget and inclination to plunk down the cash for the RiDATA Ultra-S Plus 128GB, it makes a significant and worthwhile upgrade. The rest of us can hope that they come down in price and start appearing as standard features in popular notebook models.

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"This motherboard has a successful classic design -- it can accommodate a graphics card of any dimensions without hampering other devices or blocking three PCI slots. Owners of PCI devices must be pleased, because this board does not have any connectors behind the outermost PCI slot (for brackets with USB, etc)."

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"In the first part of this article, devoted to the new architecture from Intel, we'll try to find out what we can expect from the new processor without tests, proceeding only from its specifications. And the second part of the article, to be published a tad later, will be devoted to verifying our assumptions in practice."

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"ASUS P5Q Deluxe motherboard is a good example of a top model, which does not irritate common users with its exotic features for 'hardcore gamers' and the like. Four LAN ports are twice as cool as two ports, of course, and six PCIEx16 slots are approximately three times as 'powerful' as two standard slots. But this motherboard works out its high price not resorting to quantitative measures."

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The startling admission that Apple and Jobs knew several weeks ago that health concerns had become his number one priority calls into question the company's handling of Jobs' absence from Macworld. There are no hard-and-fast guidelines that dictate how companies are supposed to handle health concerns, the way strict guidelines dictate the handling of material financial information.

But it's clear to anyone with a pulse in the tech industry that a health-related reason for a Jobs-less keynote would be a huge blow to Apple's stock. Apple representatives refused to answer questions about Jobs' health when the news first surfaced in December, insisting that the only reason Jobs would be absent from the keynote was because the company was done with Macworld.

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When people think about ITX, there are a few stigmas that come to mind. The first is that there is limited choice. The second is that performance is lacking. While these two points may have been true in the past, no longer is ITX relegated to the specific niche crowd. Intel has been releasing ITX boards for a long time and their latest releases have come a long way. The DG45FC is an ITX board that accepts 45nm CPUs. Pairing this board with a Core 2 will give you performance of a full sized desktop in a tiny package.

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Western Digital makes some excellent products and relatively recently, it pushed very hard into the external storage market. When I asked about if they are worried about the impending SSD emerging market, there was really no big worry, yet. Even so, hard drives are their bread and butter and solutions exists for nearly every segment of the market. I always say how important it is to have a backup solution and the My Book Studio Edition II aims to fit that bill with ease.

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Kingston Technology makes all kinds of memory products. While most enthusiasts know of their high end RAM, there is another facet of products that Kingston has a bring presences in. Flash is a huge consumer market and Kingston hopes to capture all segments of the market including the tiny form factor type drives. The 4GB Data Traveler Mini Slim drive comes in to sweep up this "size matters" crowd.

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Antec makes superb computer cases for all types of situations. One of the latest markets of custom cases is the entertainment PC. There are specific requirements for a PC that fits with a home theater setup including good cooling and a small A/V form factor. Antec has a new case called the Micro Fusion Remote 350 which targets this exact market.

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While we haven't been disappointed with the CyberPower machines we've reviewed in the past, we've yet to have our socks knocked off. CyberPower's new Gamer Xtreme XT has the potential to do just that, utilizing Intel's freshly minted Core i7 platform, a smokin' fast HIS Radeon HD 4870 X2 videocard, and a Blu-ray burner all wrapped up in a affordable package. Keep reading to find out if this newest addition to CyberPower's gaming lineup dazzles or disappoints.

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We're all familiar with Silverstone's exquisitely crafted enclosures, but how many of us realize that Silverstone also caters to the laptop crowd? Entering the fray is Silverstone's debut into the notebook cooler arena, the Silverstone Noble Breeze NB01B. Utilizing three 92mm cooling fans and all aluminum construction, this cooler looks to usurp our long standing favorite, the NZXT Cryo LX. Will the NB01B manage to oust its competition? Has Silverstone crafted a notebook cooling masterpiece, their first ever in this hotly contested market?

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NZXT is teaming up with Bigbruin.com to sponsor a College Football Bowl Game Challenge! Up for grabs are four great items from the NZXT line up, and in order to enter you just need to make your picks for seven of this season's top college football bowl games!

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The bottom line is that the entire series of ASUS EEE PC netbooks are pretty cool, fun, and easy to use; and the refurbished EEE PC 4G 701 netbook is no different. If you are looking for a low cost, light weight device to keep you connected when you are away from your main computer, this is a great option to consider.

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This may be NZXT's first foray into gaming mice, but they have produced a solid initial offering. The Avatar seems to mix elements from other popular gaming mice with a bit of NZXT's own innovation to create a recommendable product. The comfort and performance of the mouse are key selling points, but the high level of customization is obviously important, too.

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While I have been familiar with and impressed by cases from Lian Li for years, I did not know exactly what to expect from one of their power supplies. I assumed that the same high standards and attention to detail would be applied, and the 750W Maxima Force Series power supply confirmed that. It is a well made unit designed to serve in a variety of system configurations.

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The Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe graphics card is a one off Radeon HD 4870 X2 that features dual GPUs with a pre-overclocked core and memory speed, and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. With 2.4 teraFLOPS of graphics horsepower and 1,600 stream processors the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe might just be the most powerful graphics weapon for gamers on the planet today. Read on to see what makes this card different and to see if it should be in your next gaming system.

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Buying an awesome tricked out computer case is the nerdy equivalent to buying a suped up hot rod of a car. The case is the outward manifestation of awesomeness inside. AeroCool does its best to combine car and computer with its AeroRacer Pro case. Unfortunately AeroRacer won't get you as much attention with the ladies as a real car, but it terms of nerd street cred, it works rather nicely. Also unlike a car, this case won't break the bank with its cost. So does the AeroCool AeroRacer Pro have what it takes to leave others behind in the dust? Lets take a look and find out.

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This is TestFreaks, and we like to test stuff! Today for review I've got what claims to be a tough and rugged USB drive, is it? Well it's the ATP ToughDrive Camo 8gb USB drive and I've put it to the test, I've run it over with a car, I've washed it with my laundry and I even turned it into an ice pop complete with stick! USB Popsicle anyone? Read on to learn more about it, check out the video of the adventure and some still pictures as well.

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Amongst aftermarket coolers there are the usual economical, performance, and no-holds-barred categories, and the cooler in this review most definitely is targeted at the no-holds-barred enthusiast that wants the best performance regardless of price. Of course, those simply wishing to own one of a very limited edition, high-performing, and flashy cooler to proudly display in their windowed PC during LAN parties might also crave a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Copper and be willing to spring for it.

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Performance wise, the NH-C12P is one of the best downdraft coolers available, and compares favorably with the better coolers on the market irrespective of design. In my book, the board cooling benefits of a downdraft cooler are well worth the minimal performance hit incurred. Opinions will vary on this point, and it will be up to the user to decide what's most desirable for a particular platform.

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Possessing the largest LCD of any digital photo frame in its class, the widescreen Samsung SPF-105F Photo Frame is truly a gorgeous gadget for shutterbugs or photo buffs. From the high contrast, high resolution screen with bezel mounted touch controls to the extremely long feature set including USB monitor functionality and 1GB of built-in memory, this beast packs a ton of tech into its sleek and stylish case. Read on to find out if the Samsung photo frame can live up to its promises.

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Laptops are more and more becoming desktop replacements for most people. You can get laptops that are just as powerful as desktop machines and even better you can take them with you. Since they are using the laptop as a desktop replacement often time's people use full-sized computer keyboards and definitely a mouse. Logitech has come up with the perfect thing for these people, the Alto. The Alto is a notebook stand matched with a full-sized keyboard. Read on to learn more about the Alto Cordless!

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When it comes to water cooling, Swiftech is one of the most popular brands out there, known for their high performance and high quality water blocks among liquid cooling enthusiasts everywhere. We look at their new MCW-NBMAX, a Northbridge chipset block for the ASUS Maximus II Formula and Rampage Extreme boards for today's review.

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MSI offered to all gamers with limited budget G-Series of notebooks (G is for gaming). While most of other manufacturers classified gaming notebooks as higher range notebooks emphasizing more than just performances, MSI was led by a different logic. Driven by desire to cover as much as possible of the market, MSI turned the page and offered models that definitely move boundaries in quality sense comparing to previous notebook models from the same manufacturer. Models GX720 and GT735 have almost identical chassis and we will first tell something about mutual elements and then we'll look at their distinctiveness.

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The Diamond HD 4870 1GB can take today's latest games and blitz right through them, providing buttery smooth gaming enjoyment. At a price under $300, high end gaming never looked so good and cost so little. In the driver department I have had no problems with ATI's 8.12's. The inclusion of the AVIVO video converter for FREE is a welcome sight. I like that I don't need to install third party applications or a second utility aside from the driver to do basic temperature monitoring, basic overclocking, and tweaking the fan speed...

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So you're looking to build a new computer or are upgrading your current system. The last thing on your list is probably the case. It really shouldn't be. If it is, you're usually left with a flimsy, cramp and ugly heap of metal which is supposedly a PC enclosure. You're kidding right? Well no, it's true and most of us can put our hands up and admit we've done this on more than the odd occasion. So how about a case which actually has an affect on your internal components and is a joy to work with? Will that step up a mark on your wish list of parts for a new rig? Well after reading this review on a case which offers silence, an aluminium chassis and modernity, you may just think twice. Introducing the NZXT Whisper...

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It was obvious from the second we started benchmarking that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB graphics card that the CATALYST 8.12 drivers have not been optimized for Cryostasis. Cryostasis is part of NVIDIA's 'The Way It's Meant to be Played' program and the game isn't due out for a couple months, so the ATI results don't mean much right now. The NVIDIA performance numbers, on the other hand, should be pretty close to what you'll see when the game hits store shelves and the numbers are solid. Adding a dedicated PhysX card to the system did improve the average frame rate, which is interesting to see considering we were using a GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 graphics card...

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Today for review I've got a case that is huge, it's a full tower style case from our friends over at Xclio, but it's much more than that, it's got quite a few other features as well. The Xclio 1000 PC case features nine 120mm fans built in that can be changed to one of several different colors, along with the ability to control their speeds as well. The front has got three doors covering the drive bays, each door has its own fan along with individual controls for each one. Inside you'll find room enough for any system with room to spare for expansion, and there's a plethora of hard drive bays so you'll have room for terabytes of storage as well.

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PC-7F is an all-aluminum mid-tower case from Lian-Li coming in two color options, black or silver, and two side panel options, solid or with a transparent side window (this version is also known as PC-7FW). It comes with a very attractive price tag (USD 130 - USD 140 in the US) and features that will certainly please the average user. Is this a good product? Let's see.

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Both the AMD Athlon X2 5050e and the Athlon X2 7750 processors serve a place in today's market, but the roles for the two processors are clear as night and day. The AMD Athlon X2 5050e is perfect for those wanting to build a system that uses low power and has a quiet cooling solution. The thermal properties on the Athlon X2 5050e were amazing and the fact that the processor runs at just 41C under load on the factory heat sink was most impressive...

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ASRock approached with maximum creativity and decided to squeeze everything possible not only from the Southbridge, but also from the Northbridge: they installed the 2nd graphics port and added nominal CrossFire support (8x + 8x), although only 790X and higher-end chipsets officially possess this feature.

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Storage demands are not getting any lower by the day and hard drive manufacturers keep increasing the capacities to cope up with all our digital data usage such as pictures, movies and audio files. We take a look at two drives today- the Western Digital Caviar Black with 1000GB of unformatted space and the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 which has the largest capacity for a single drive at the moment- 1500GB of unformatted space.

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It has been awhile since the first designer cases showed up on the market, but the battle for the best continues. Manufacturers have always tried to make a design that looks very attractive, while having unsurpassed performance. Today, Tagan has supplied us with the El Diablo A+ case, which hopes to exceed in both fields. This case combines some cool elements, like LED lights, with unsurpassed cooling. If its 360mm fan isn't big enough for you, then I am afraid your thinking way too big. That is not the only thing that is big in this case, just about every other part of this case is simply huge.

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The Sentry LX is a high-end, well constructed thermal monitoring unit, which gives you constant access to five thermal sensors and five case fans at once. It also includes a date & time display, so you can enjoy those longer gaming sessions without losing track of time.

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If you're looking for a cooling solution that is difficult to install, has mediocre cooling performance and is annoyingly loud, the Vantec AeroFlow FX 120 is the ideal product for you. On the other hand, if you're like most PC enthusiasts, you'll want to avoid this product like the plague. The installation process has more PITA than the Greek restaurant my wife and I visited last night. Furthermore, the cooling performance is lackluster at best and the fan whines like a harpy in a Greek tragedy.

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Overall I have mixed feelings about the Antec Skeleton. The geek in me loves it; the dad in me is scared of it. As a father of two under the age of 10 there is more then one occasion that something will go flying across the room. Even in my office I was leery of people around the system that were holding drinks and leaning over the case. Those that have pets at home might also want to think twice as a cat on catnip might find the 250mm disco fan a little too interesting...

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After first wave of cheap netbooks, luxurious variants are starting to appear on the market. As it was the case with first netbooks, ASUS again made a first move in that direction and as result we got one crossbred luxurious netbook in our test lab. Even though ASUS N10J, technical sample that we got in our test lab, looks like classic representative of netbook product (with slightly bigger dimensions), it's not that simple to determine its product category. If we would try to define netbook product category in general, we would say that they have: small dimensions, low power consumption CPU, integrated graphics and no optical device. ASUS N10J is all that and something more.

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Left 4 Dead, a revival of the FPS Horror Genre, was released on November 18th 2008, published by Valve and much to our surprise, was a DX9 game. The single player game consists of four levels where you're trying to reach a destination and get rescued. Each of the four levels has its own rescue point. While making your way to the rescue points you'll encounter hordes of Zombies, the occasional Boomer, solitary Hunters, occasional Zombie Witches, choking Smokers, and the dreaded Tank. Each has its own strategy, and their AI allows them to attack in different ways. While Zombie AI is what you'd expect from the recently dead returned to life, Boomers and Hunters have a more refined AI that allows for some strategy.

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A month ago NVIDIA had introduced the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) that brought PureVideo-like features to Linux. Our initial benchmarks of this video decoding API within NVIDIA's binary driver were quite favorable as it was able to dramatically cut down on the CPU usage when playing H.264 video files. To see how well NVIDIA's VDPAU really is though, we have carried out some more thorough testing now and our hardware consists of a CPU we purchased for $20 USD and a NVIDIA GeForce graphics card that retails for just $30. Can this very low-end hardware manage to play high definition videos under Linux?

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The new Cooler Master ATCS 840 is an all-aluminum full-tower case supporting two power supplies, coming with four fans (one 230-mm fan on the front panel, two 230-mm fans on the top and one 120-mm fan on the rear), removable motherboard tray, several other features we will talk about and a very conservative looks. Let's take an in-depth look on this latest release by Cooler Master.

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For years, IT has struggled with how best to maintain the flow of data across heterogeneous environments without incurring data loss. Monoculture or no, customers often want to save documents in a variety of formats. This has not always worked to Microsoft's advantage. In fact, last year, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency filed a complaint with the European Commission in which it alleged that Office 2007 would impede educational initiatives because it failed to natively support open standards, in particular, ODF.

Doug Mahugh, a project manager at Microsoft who deals with interoperability issues connected with the Office software suite, described the steps taken today within the broader context of disclosure, transparency, and format support. "To get there, we found that it was not just sufficient to conform to a standard. We needed transparency about all the design decisions involved in getting to that standard...it was a way of pulling together lot of the things we were doing in interoperability." Rightly or not, the perception was that Microsoft Office did not treat ODF as first class citizen. "That kind of feedback is why we built ODF support into SP 2," Mahugh said.

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Sixty five percent of adults feel they cannot live without Internet access, and even more - 71 percent - responded that it is important or very important to have Internet-enabled devices that can provide them with real-time updates on important issues including the state of the economy.

When asked to rate certain discretionary items on a scale of 1 (completely expendable) to 5 (cannot live without it), having Internet access ranks highest among the items listed, with 65 percent of U.S. adults reporting they cannot live without it. The following items and activities were ranked below Internet access in importance: cable television subscriptions (39 percent); dining out (20 percent); shopping for clothes (18 percent); and, gym membership (10 percent).

This confirmed what I personally believed to be true - that the Internet is essential, maybe even indispensible, especially during the current economic situation we're facing. But what really surprised me here was just how essential the Internet has become. More than half ranked the Internet as completely expendable over things like cable TV, dining out and even gym memberships! If asked, I suppose I'd also make the same choices.

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Western Digital makes some excellent products and relatively recently, it pushed very hard into the external storage market. When I asked about if they are worried about the impending SSD emerging market, there was really no big worry, yet. Even so, hard drives are their bread and butter and solutions exists for nearly every segment of the market. I always say how important it is to have a backup solution and the My Book Studio Edition II aims to fit that bill with ease.

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Kingston Technology makes all kinds of memory products. While most enthusiasts know of their high end RAM, there is another facet of products that Kingston has a bring presences in. Flash is a huge consumer market and Kingston hopes to capture all segments of the market including the tiny form factor type drives. The 4GB Data Traveler Mini Slim drive comes in to sweep up this "size matters" crowd.

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Antec makes superb computer cases for all types of situations. One of the latest markets of custom cases is the entertainment PC. There are specific requirements for a PC that fits with a home theater setup including good cooling and a small A/V form factor. Antec has a new case called the Micro Fusion Remote 350 which targets this exact market.

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While Logitech is a company that graces ASE Labs' test bench often, it is not often that we get to see a highly targeted type of keyboard combo. The Logitech Wave Pro Desktop is targeted to the consumer market unlike their G series products. Don't let that fool you. This combo has some good (and not so good) features that set it apart from its gaming brethren.

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Quote: The G.Skill 4GB DDR2-800 Pi Black Series dual channel memory kit is an interesting new offering in the aging PC2-6400 DDR2 memory market. The kit was able to run at 800MHz with extremely tight timings of 4-4-4-12, while using a rather economical 1.8V. While the kit is rated for 1.9V, I found that much voltage wasn't necessary at stock speed, and was adequate for running the modules all the way up to 1000MHz.

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Quote: I am not exactly sure how I expected the Sapphire Radeon HD4830 512MB graphics card to fare during testing, but it wound up looking more like an enthusiast grade card than an entry level offering. It should be able to handle just about any game without having to sacrifice too much in terms of frame rates or settings, making it a great option for the gamer on a budget.

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Quote: The aesthetics of the unit are a little bit different from the norm, but everything is well done. In use, the Toughpower QFan 650W power supply is very impressive; providing excellent voltage regulation and near silent operation. Most high quality power supplies these days aim to be quiet, but Thermaltake takes a few extra steps to guarantee it on this unit.

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Quote: The Thermaltake BlacX SE hard drive dock provides a convenient way to access 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch SATA drives without installing them in a computer, or in an external drive enclosure. You can swap out drives quickly and easily, and while the speed isn't what you might want for frequent, large transfers, it is quite good for USB 2.0.

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Quote: I am definitely impressed with this Lian Li PC-A77B full tower chassis. Being a fan of simplistic yet useful design, this case has it all. The top mounted I/O ports are in a great location to access while using the computer. Lian Li has designed this case to allow you to install your components in many different configurations, which makes customizing your setup very convenient.

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Quote: If you are looking for an extremely compact and stylish portable hard drive, the new Seagate Free Agent Go series is definitely worth checking out. While the aesthetics are a strong selling point, Seagate didn't sacrifice the performance in order to produce a pretty product. It may not offer the high speed transfers available with an eSATA drive, but the USB 2.0 interface performed quite respectably during testing.

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Quote: The bottom line on the Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB DDR3-1333 memory kit is that it offers great performance right out of the box, and for those looking for more, they will gladly oblige. While they may not have the highest stock speed rating, even a novice overclocker should be able to get a few hundred extra MHz out of this kit.

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Quote: Sapphire is back again with another specialty graphics card based on a high end ATI Radeon GPU. The newly released Sapphire Radeon HD4850 X2 2048MB graphics card incorporates a pair of Radeon HD4850 graphics processors and 2048MB of GDDR3 memory on a custom PCB to create one serious looking piece of equipment.

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Quote: This review is going to take a look at the 22 inch HP debranded DVI widescreen LCD monitor. What we have is an LCD monitor originally manufactured by HP that was rather highly regarded as a new product, and it has basically been refurbished by a third party and made available for $189.99 at Geeks.com minus the HP badging.

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Quote: This review will be taking a look at a provocatively named new mouse from OCZ Technology that includes features like on-the-fly resolution management, adjustable mouse weights, and an ergonomic design. Just this short list of items makes the Dominatrix laser gaming mouse sound promising; just don't expect this dominatrix to bend you over a table and give you a spanking!

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shtick - has been well executed and very entertaining, it's also had an uneXPected side-effect as well. In short, it's lit a huge fire under the thousand or so people developing Microsoft's next operating system, Windows 7, and for the first time in over a decade, they're properly focused on slapping Apple upside the head. Much like Apple did with UNIX when the life of the company was on the line for OSX, Microsoft has taken Vista and made massive changes in the user eXPerience from how easy it is to use to how reliable it is and how well it integrates with the Web, including non-Microsoft sites and utilities (like iTunes). Of course, one disadvantage Microsoft has is that it's talking about most of this during the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week, and clearly Apple will see what was done and will have a little time to respond.

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Asus' G50Vt rolls an impressive array of hardware into a bulky-but-inexpensive package, with a heavy-handed dose of flair smeared on top. While the style might not be for everyone, and battery life makes its wall adapter an essential umbilical cord for use, it offers a very reasonably priced and playable system for those who want to game on the go without dropping thousands on pricy boutique systems.

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QUOTE: The thing is, there's something cool about having a 30 monitor powered by this tiny machine. Most of the things I find myself buying these days are because I want them, not need them. A Micro-ATX system would sit nicely in that category. The problem is that for so long there has never really been the components out there to really build a system that could power such a large monitor. But this has changed a few months ago thanks to two companies; the first was Lian Li who brought out a Micro-ATX case that was small, but not too small. What it allowed you to do was have a small footprint whilst still holding the goods.

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We got so excited in participating in the Folding@Home project that we built as many high performance systems we could running both the SMP and GPU clients. We were very happy with the results until we received our first electricity bill: our energy consumption more than doubled - and we haven't even had our systems running 24/7 for 30 days! Since we still wanted to contribute as much as we can to Folding@Home, we decided to go in a quest to find out if there is a way to score lots of points at Folding@Home and, at the same time, not going bankrupt. We got all video cards we had available here in our lab to see which one provided the best performance/consumption ratio. Check it out.

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With HTPC's gaining more and more in popularity, various input devices and peripherals for them are becoming a more integral part of the market. With many options to choose from for keyboards, mice and the combination of both, it's hard to come to a conclusion on what suits the HTPC best. Vidabox may have an answer with their Vidabox Premium Wireless Keybaord w/ laser trackball as an all in one solution.

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Wireless really is one of the buzz-words in the business at the moment. It seems like anything wireless is cool nowadays. Sure wireless hardware will cut down on the cable-clutter that we often find on our desks, but will this come without a cost?

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* One of PaulG's team chronicles her time spent playing Animal Crossing and it's surprising addictiveness that is often only spoken of when discussing WoW players. Discovering that it's surprising depth appealed more to her than her children which the title was originally intended for, it makes for an interesting read.

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*Zalman recently sent us the new CNPS9300 AT that they tout as an ultra quiet cooler. We were glad to slap it on our test bench to see how it performs. Not only are we going to check on the acoustics, but we want to see if this still offers the same chill to our CPU that most Zalman products offer. Stick with us to find out.

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The JayBird JB-200 is said to be the stay-put, out-of-the-way Bluetooth stereo headset for those that have active lifestyles. The headset is water and sweat resistant design that comes backed by a LIFETIME warranty against sweat. If you like to work out and don't want to worry about killing your Bluetooth stereo headset the JayBird JB-200 might be what you need.

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A little while ago I took a look at an excellent all-in-one printer from Epson, the Workforce 600, today for review I've got another, this one is from Brother, it's the MFC-790CW. It's almost as feature packed as the Epson, but the Brother has a phone built in, LCD touchscreen and voice messaging center as well, something the Epson did not have.

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In early September we shared that UVD2 and XvMC is coming to Linux and that two new library files had begun shipping with the ATI Catalyst driver: AMDXvBA and XvBAW. Earlier this month the Unified Video Decoding 2 (UVD2) support was then enabled by default in the Catalyst 8.10 driver. These video acceleration improvements to the ATI Linux driver aren't exactly end-user friendly yet, but today we have information on how those interested can begin using the X-Video Motion Compensation extension with their ATI hardware along with what the XvBA extension will provide users in regards to advanced video acceleration that is very similar to Microsoft's DirectX Video Acceleration.

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The mid-range video card segment has been booming lately compared to just a few years ago when the HD 2600 and GeForce 8600 series were launched by ATI and Nvidia respectively. There was a huge gap then between the mid-range cards and the much more expensive high-end cards. This hole is being filled currently with the ATI HD 3670 and HD 3650 along with the 8800 GS, 9600 GT, and 9600 GSO from Nvidia. Now, ATI has engineered more cards to fill this gap with the HD 4650 and the HD 4670. Today we have the HD 4670 by MSI. This card hopes to keep money in your pocket while giving you great gaming performance.

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AeroCool's AeroRacer Pro turned out to be a mixed bag. I like the exterior finish treatment and the overall look of the case. The cooling performance was very good although I think a few minor tweaks could enhance the airflow while reducing audible noise. I even like the large power button with its chrome bezel and blue backlighting, but the ENGINE START business seems a bit gratuitous to me.

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As the market for affordable mobile computing devices such as mini-notes and netbooks continues to grow at a pace that confounds even the most cynical of industry analysts, it should come as no surprise that more and more companies are looking to enter this fast growing new segment. This is particularly the case in China, where a growing number of manufacturers who have cut their teeth producing all manner of components, mobile phones, and consumer electronics devices are moving into this new area and are developing products for sale in both domestic and global markets. Providing these manufacturers with the right ecosystem for delivering high quality yet affordable mobile computing devices to market is the key objective of the VIA Global Mobility Bazaar Program, which was announced at an event in Shenzhen yesterday.

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Just a few weeks ago Crucial released some new DDR3 modules under the Tracer line. The modules came rated at a mere 1333MHz but at a industry low 6-6-6-20 timings. One may look upon this as great when it comes to such low timings but not so great when it comes to the low speed rating. Well this is a kit from Crucial and you can beat it has plenty in the tank to give some very respectable numbers in the overclocking department. Read along to see just how high we got with this new kit.

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Not too long ago BFG Tech thought that it was time to kick it up a notch and expand upon the popular OC line it already had. Expanding that line, two new OC variants were created; the OC2 which helped knock up clock speeds a bit more than the standard OC models and the OCX which was designed to offer a significant boost over stock clocks. We didn't want to look at the card that was just a bit overclocked, nor the card that was overclocked a little bit more. We wanted to look at the big daddy of the GTX 260 line from BFG, the OCX variant. So with that said, let's check out the package then from there we will have a look at the card itself and a closer look at the clockspeeds on tap before we get stuck into the benchmarking side of things.

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SanDisk's slotMusic Initiative attempts to resuscitate physical media by substituting microSD cards preloaded with music for conventional CDs. While the distribution network might be shaky, the $20 slotMusic MP3 player designed to work with it actually functions as an admirably simple microSD MP3 player, whether you buy your music from SanDisk or not. On the bang-for-the-buck scale, it's hard to contest a solid player cheaper than dinner or a night on the town, but more advanced users eying the player on price alone might be better off looking elsewhere.

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Quote: In the time I've had to spend with this card, I haven't really found much to dislike about it. The card has performed well in Folding@Home and in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Of course, I didn't try to push the card to ridiculous resolutions, as gamers that own 24 or 30 monitors probably aren't looking at sub-$120 video card to run them. Even with Crysis Warhead, where I thought the card could stumble and fall, as many higher priced cards did with the original Crysis, the 9800GT from MSI was able to play the game fairly smoothly at 1280x1024.

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Silverstone is known for excellent quality products, especially their PC cases, but they've decided to venture into the gaming mouse market. Their first entry is the Raven Gaming Mouse, it features an OLED display to let you know the DPI settings of your mouse, a laser sensor up to 3200DPI, Macros and a very unique feature called a Flip 3D Thumb Scroll.

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As CPU thermal output is on the increase, heatsink companies are continually seeking new and improved thermal solutions. This time, Thermalright has sent us a TRUE Black 120. The TRUE Black 120 certainly doesn't disappoint in the looks department; with its shiny black finish and admirable towering posture, it doesn't cease to amaze. But no matter how good it looks, we certainly can't forget the most important aspect of an HSF: cooling performance. So does the performance hold up to the looks? Stick around as we find out.

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Next time you're out shopping for a gaming mouse, definitely take the Trooper MVP into consideration. It has enough buttons and DPI levels to keep many different types of gamers satisfied, but the main advantage I found over comparable mice was comfort. The ergonomics of the mouse are exceptional which prevents cramping and other issues over long periods of use.

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Nonetheless, last summer Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), a law that gives the U.S. attorney general the power to immunize telecom companies from lawsuits that accuse them of conducting unlawful spying at the bequest of the U.S. government.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Carl Nichols told Walker that the proper decision was to toss out the lawsuits and not second guess the Bush administration.

Nonsense, said Cindy Cohn, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for the rights of Internet users. EFF has brought a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on behalf of customers and accuses AT&T of turning over communication records to the National Security Agency. On Tuesday, Cohn and the EFF asked Walker to throw out the federal statute and to tell Congress to start over.

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Gamers, VoIP and video conference users beware. The leading BitTorrent software authors have declared war on you - and any users wanting to wring high performance out of their networks. A key design change in the P2P application promises to make the headaches faced by ISPs so far look like a party game. So what's happened, and why does it matter?

Upset about Bell Canada’s system for allocating bandwidth fairly among internet users, the developers of the uTorrent P2P application have decided to make the UDP protocol the default transport protocol for file transfers. BitTorrent implementations have long used UDP to exchange tracker information – the addresses of the computers where files could be found – but the new release uses it in preference to TCP for the actual transfer of files. The implications of this change are enormous.

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Speaking exclusively to MCV, the company confessed that its new marketing campaign encourages consumers to buy iPod purely “to play our games” – and even marked the device out as a real threat to Nintendo and Sony’s handheld efforts.

Greg Joswiak, head of iPod and iPhone marketing told us: “It’s not just the screens that are superior to DS – it’s the graphics capability, the computing power and the App Store distribution model.

“I had an analyst tell me in September – and he was right – that the DS is the past of gaming devices, and iPod Touch is the future of gaming devices. It certainly has our competitors scrambling in what they’re going to do in reaction to this. This product is capable of so much more, and there’s a tremendous synergy we have with the iPod Touch and game developers.”

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RIM didn't want to lose this feeling, so the company made sure that users still have to push down on the touch screen as if they were actually hitting a button. As an Apple iPhone user, I have to admit, it took me a little while to get used to the Storm's "push" touch screen. But in some ways I think it's an improvement over the iPhone touch screen. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally called someone or sent a text message before I was ready to hit send, because my finger brushed across that area on the iPhone touch screen.

Another improvement over the iPhone is the fact that the Storm has 1 gigabyte of internal storage and can use a standard microSD storage card to support up to an additional 16 GB of data storage. And because they are standard storage cards, they can be swapped out and replaced. By contrast, the iPhone 3G comes in two versions, an 8GB model and a 16GB model. The storage can't be removed or swapped.

Also, the Storm has a removable battery. Again, this appeals to me, because the iPhone's battery can't be removed, which means if it dies, so does my iPhone.

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Yang patted himself on the back for moving the company in a new direction during his recent CEO tenure. His full statement:

From founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is indispensible to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise. When the board asked me to become CEO and lead the transformation of the company, I did so because it was important to re-envision the business for a different era to drive more effective growth. Having set Yahoo on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader. I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation.

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Among the initial devices, external solid-state (flash) drives and hard drives are expected to be popular. "The first SuperSpeed USB devices will likely include data storage devices such as flash (solid-state drives), external hard drives, digital music players, and digitial cameras," the group said. Products aren't coming until 2010, however. "It is anticipated that initial SuperSpeed USB discrete controllers will appear in the second half of 2009 and consumer products will appear in 2010," according to the group. "The USB 3.0 Promoter Group is now accepting adopters of the USB 3.0 specification, which as been finalized at the 1.0 level," the group added.

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Toyota Claims Ownership of Fan Wallpapers
Toyota, one of the biggest car companies in the world, is often a name synonymous with quality. There is even a philosophy of doing business, called “The Toyota Way", which emphasizes that the right result will come from the right process, and that solving the root problems brings the organization the greatest benefit.

This ‘Way’ is probably not communicated to its lawyers in great detail, which is why Desktopnexus, a site that provides desktop backgrounds, has been contacted by them. In perhaps one of the most wildly arrogant demands in DMCA history, Toyota’s lawyers are demanding the withdrawal of all wallpapers that feature a Toyota, Scion, or Lexus. The site’s owner, Harry Maugans contacted Toyota to clarify. He was told that all images featuring Toyota vehicles should be removed, even images with copyright belonging to others.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, Maugans said: "Their lawyer, Garrett Biggs, told us that if we wanted them to specifically identify their images, we would have to pay for them to do so." Maugans also said he was afraid it would come to a lawsuit, fearing the attrition effect that is so common now in copyright disputes. Toyota, with cash assets of over $23Billion can surely afford to spin out the legal costs in an attempt to bankrupt the site, the same strategy that is often used to ‘encourage‘ a settlement in RIAA cases.

Said By videogaming247

Epic boss Mike Capps has told GI that secondhand game sales are a "huge" issue in the US, and he believes the American development industry will start making moves to combat it.
"I think DLC will be increasing in scope just because in the US we really need to make strides against the second-hand market," he said.
Capps said that models involving restricting content to those who bought the retail product new are being mooted.
"The secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by… if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code," he said.
"I've talked to some developers who are saying 'If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free'. We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."
More through there.