Pittco: Iron Storm 8
Iron Storm 8, Pittco's 9th event, was held on March 15th and 16th of 2008, with approximately 170 gamers in attendance. From a staff member's point of view, this was Pittco's most successful event, despite some pre-LAN crises. More than $2,000 worth of prizes donated by sponsors such as Warrendale-based DVDEmpire.com, ATXPowerSupplies.com, Bawls Guarana, In Win, Razer, Red Bull, Thermaltake, and VisionTek were given as prizes for tournaments in games such as Counter-Strike: Source, Unreal Tournament 2004, Halo 3, Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, and Battlefield 2. For an entrance fee of only $25, the prizes seemed very much worth it.
D-Link DNS-323 NAS Enclosure
D-Link is one of the first companies that comes in to my head when
networking is brought up in conversation. The company has a strong line
of consumer products, but also have several products focused on
businesses. BIOS LEVEL recently received one of its latest networking
products, the DNS-323 Network Attached Storage (NAS) enclosure.
GMC AVC-M1 Noblesse AV Case
A few weeks ago, I looked at GMC's C-50 Slim ATX Case. GMC offers a full range of case sizes and functions, including several home theatre PC (HTPC) cases. GMC calls its HTPC case line "Noblesse AV." From this line, we're going to be looking at the Micro ATX-sized AVC-M1 Noblesse AV Case, which features an iMON display and classy styling.
Vantec NexStar 3 Enclosure
Normally, when I hear the name Vantec, I think of PC thermal solutions. This is because it had one of the fastest 80mm fans on the market several years ago, the Vantec Tornado. Nowadays, however, Vantec maintains a wide range of peripherals offering the best in terms of thermal cooling. Today, we're going to be looking at the NexStar 3, their hybrid eSATA/USB2.0 hard drive enclosure.
Xigmatek HDT-S1283
Xigmatek was founded in 2005, and have released a wide range cooling and power supply products since then. Their company philosophy is the acronym "I.C.E.", or Impressive, Creative, and Essential. Today, we're going to look at their HDT-S1283 Heatsink, featuring direct-touch heat pipes. Will it perform and stand up to their philosophy?
Silverstone ML-02 MoDT Multimedia Case
Silverstone has only been in the PC case business for about 4 years, but they've released some very high-quality innovative cases in that short span of time. In those last four years, one of the smaller trends we've seen is the use of mobile CPUs being used in desktop machines. Today, we're looking at Silverstone's Mobile on DeskTop (MoDT) ML-02 small form factor case.
Soundblaster XtremeAudio PCI-Express
Creative is known for making hardware-accelerated soundcards that rely on a computer's CPU for very little, taking the strain off. Creative launched the X-Fi Series of soundcards in 2005 to replace the Audigy as Creative's Flagship soundcard. Right in time for 2007's Holiday Season, Creative launched their first PCI-Express X-Fi card, the XtremeAudio. It promises better features than the Audigy line while being an entry-level card, and we're going to look at how the two stack up.
Saitek Cyborg 5.1 Headset
Saitek was founded in 1979, and entered the PC gaming controller market in 1993. All these products are designed by gamers for gamers, to help them get the best out of their favorite PC games. A few days ago, we looked at their Obsidian Wireless Mouse, and today we're looking at one of its latest products: the Cyborg 5.1 Headset. The Cyborg range is the latest in their gamer-centric product line, using the slogan "the ultimate man/machine interface".
Saitek Obsidian Wireless Mouse
Saitek was founded in 1979, and entered the PC gaming controller market in 1993. All these products are designed by gamers for gamers, to help them get the best out of their favourite PC games. Today we'll be looking at their Obsidian Wireless Mouse, which they claim is the ultimate rechargeable wireless mouse. The Obsidian has two separate rechargable batteries, and features a touch-sensitive scrolling mechanism.
GMC C-50 Slim ATX Case
The GMC C-50 Case is a slim ATX case. By slim, we mean that the case is thinner than an optical drive is wide (5.25 inches). The CD-ROM bay is positioned vertically, so when the case is layed on it's side it qualifies as a desktop. Thankfully, even with the smaller dimensions, this case still fits a full size ATX powersupply and ATX Motherboard. Read on to get the details of this case that you can't yet get in the United States!