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Written by Maxit
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 Watercooling systems are one of the best solutions for modern processors. Improved cooling with quiet sounds levels make a convincing argument for any PC enthusiast.
SilverStone is best known for their exceptional,
elegant and functional case products. The craftsmanship can now be found in the
SilverStone Tundra TD01 external water cooling system. The styling fits very
well with audio components and therefore would be an excellent option for a
HTPC setup. It's performs very well, looks great, and is completely silent.
3dGameMan has a full review in video. Check out the bloopers at the end.
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Written by Maxit
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Just when you thought Quad core was the must have processor, Apple has unveiled a big upgrade for the Apple MacPro series. The new order options give the MacPro that ability to run two Quad-Core Intel Xeon Clovertown processors running at whopping 3.0GHz! The price has been upgraded too but at $4000 for the basic 8-core setup we reckon it's pretty good value.
Now that Mac are using Intel processors, they really ought to consider the Vista OS and the path to the dark side will be complete. Muhahaha. |
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Written by Maxit
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 NZXT Steel Sweetness Things have changed over the last ten years. Personal computers have not only gotten more powerful, but the ability to have them fill holes within our lives has grown. One such niche market appeared with the advent of the HTPC. While maintaining a smaller footprint, this type of modern PC still manages to keep all of the computing power of its bigger brother.
As with any new market segment, products have come about to fill this new need, hence the production of HTPC enclosures such as the one we're looking at today. The NZXT Duet is one of the more inexpensive HTPC enclosures on the market, so we want to see if it has the features we want as well as the appearance to set off our home theater/media center.
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If you are looking for a Home Theater PC (HTPC) for your living room, check out this beauty. The Trinion L7 HTPC is the latest from the Korean outfit featuring an integrated touchscreen LCD.
The Trinion L7 is a well packed Home Theater PC with a nifty 800 x 480 resolution touch-screen LCD monitor that can be controlled by an IR remote. It features a bulit-in UI which provides access to easy playback of DVDs, photos, TV episodes etc and can even launch games and office applications.
This unit is based on the Intel T5500 Dual Core CPU running at 1.66GHz and houses a 250GB hard drive and 1GB of DDR II RAM. Other specs include: 8-channel onboard audio, gigabit Ethernet, a slot loading DVD combo drive. The L7 runs Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE).
The sexy L7 also features a flash card reader, USB, FireWire connectors, and Audio in/out ports. No release details are available and also its not known whether this will make its way to the West.
Full Specifications
- Silver Chassis
- 1.66GHz Intel T5500 Core 2 Duo Mobile processor
- 1GB of DDR II RAM
- 250GB hard drive
- 8-channel onboard audio
- Gigabit Ethernet
- DVD Combo drive
- Windows XP Media Center Edition
- Front-panel flash card reader
- USB / FireWire connectors
- Audio in / out ports
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Vigor Gaming is a California, USA based gaming rig builder with some very good reputation. They have built some ultra high performance gaming rigs in the past and now, they are offering one of the first AMD QuadFX based computers - The Force Recon QX4.
The Force Recon QX4 is based on the AMD Quad FX platform with Dual Socket Direct Connect (DSDC) Architecture which is supposed to compete seriously with Intel's Quad Core offerings. The rig is build on the Asus L1N64-SLI WS motherboard featuring the nForce 680a chipset and is powered by a 1100W PSU from Tagan.
Customers can choose between 2GB and 4GB of Corsair 1066MHz memory, and also between a host of graphic card offerings including the 8800GTX XXX Edition. Users can even opt for SLI configuration if they wish. Other specs include 500GB SATA-II harddrive (upgradeable), DVD burner, floppy drive with card reader and other usual stuff.
There are a lot of sound cards, keyboards, mice, monitors to choose from to add to the ultimate rig configuration. The rig comes loaded with Windows XP SP2 with a free upgrade to Vista Business Edition. The Force Recon QX4 costs US$3149 with all the default options but a fully loaded Quadfather can cost you anything upto $9200.
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In a radical shift in how personal computers are conceived and positioned, Hewlett Packard has given its latest PC the sense of touch and reduced important operations to fingering the screen or clicking a remote.
At a stroke, the TouchSmart PC, unveiled in Seoul last week, has transformed a boring - for many families, challenging - technology to something as easy as operating a TV set or jotting notes on a pad.
The new PC is built around a BrightView 19" LCD flat screen and doubles as a TV monitor, thanks to a built-in tuner. The system runs on Windows Vista and the TouchSmart lets the users touch various options displayed on the screen.
This machine is powered by an AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core TL-52 processor and has 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM memory, a 320GB hard drive, and 256MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics card. Not really powerful but it does its job.
The IQ770’s touchscreen monitor includes HP’s SmartCalendar application that serves as a bulletin board for family members: Users can write on virtual Post-its and paste them into a calendar
along with pictures. Users also can update the calendar with voice, scribbled, or typed messages.
HP’s TouchSmart IQ770 has a DVD drive/burner, decent speakers, a 1.3MP Web cam, Bluetooth, and 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi connectivity.
Overall, the HP TouchSmart IQ770 is simple, convenient, and flexible enough to broaden PC usage and move it into a central spot in mainstream family life. The TouchSmart PC will be available globally in the second quarter of 2007 at a suggested price of US$1799.
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Sony unveiled their latest Desktop PC build around the Core 2 Quad processor from Intel. The Vaio R Master split-tower desktop PC features the Core 2 Quad 6600 processor. Other specs include 3GB DDRII-667 MHz RAM, 3TB of storage (SATA).
Graphics on this beast are powered by the nVidia Quadro FX 1500. The Vaio R Master includes a BluRay disc drive and a 24" Monitor at a resolution of 1900x1200. This killer machine is set to hit stores in Japan on 10 February and will cost around $8,300! Any takers for this one?!!
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Now that Dell has Alienware under its belt, its XPS line of gaming PCs will probably be taken more seriously. At the CES, Dell introduced a new H2C version of its XPS 710 gaming computer, with a couple of added features and an increased price (but that's pretty much what you have to expect these days).
The H2C model has a new two-stage cooling system. First, a liquid-to-air heat exchanger moves heat away from the processor, and then a fluid chiller uses ceramic modules like those on a space shuttle to move heat to the cooler areas of the case. This extreme cooling system allows Dell to include a Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor overclocked to 3.2GHz. In addition to that, the base system includes 4GB of memory, two 160GB (10,000 RPM) hard drives, two GeForce 8800GTX cards, and a 20" widescreen monitor.
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We may have forgotten as a result of AMD's 4x4 platform marketing, but Intel is reminding us that a two-processor system is not something brand new. At CES in Las Vegas, Intel demonstrated an 8-core desktop PC with two quad-core Xeon processors. While Xeon processors are typically reserved for workstations rather than mainstream use, there's nothing wrong with putting a Xeon processor in your desktop PC, and there are plenty of current solutions allowing two workstation processors in the same computer.
Intel also pointed out that, while AMD's 4x4 is built from the ground up to be an enthusiast platform, such an Intel alternative could cost you a lot less than purchasing an extremely expensive motherboard and two FX processors. It's also more power-efficient: all of the FX processors compatible with 4x4 fit the most power-hungry envelope AMD has, while Xeon processors can take as low as around 50% of the power of their FX equivalents. Nevertheless, Intel is not going to market this as a 4x4 competitor; they merely want to point out that 4x4 isn't anything special.
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With their new budget AMD laptop just out of the oven, Dell's turned to quad-core processors and new PCs that will incorporate them. They have announced that they will soon offer workstations and desktop PCs with quad-core CPUs.
Supposedly, the new PCs will give you up to a 63% performance boost. Granted, these numbers are usually way higher than what you'll actually see yourself, but that's still pretty impressive. They also claim a 40% increase in performance-per-watt, which makes sense, given that quad-core CPUs don't take twice the power of their dual-core equivalents.
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