Reviews

Noctua recently sent us the NF-P12 120 case fan for review. The NF-P12 was developed for applications such as CPU cooling, where higher air flow is necessary. The NF-P12 features many new technologies, such as Vortex-Control notches, the SCD drive system, and Noctua's own SSO-Bearing engine.

In our reviews of the Sapphire 780G Motherboard and Hybrid CrossFire and Sapphire ATI Radeon HD3870 Toxic, I used a 2GB DDR2 PC2-8500 Reaper HPC CrossFire Certified kit (OCZ2RPR1066A2GK) provided by OCZ. Although DDR2 prices are lower than ever, it's still easy to pick out the good brands from the bad. The 2GB DDR2 PC2-8500 Reaper HPC CrossFire Certified kit is no exception.

As an owner of two fresh new 500 Gigabyte HDDs, At the time I was lacking a second SATA cable to hook up the second drive, so I found this a perfect opportunity to try out the ThermalTake BlacX Hard Disk Drive Dock. ThermalTake has been manufacturer of reliable case equipment for years.

Not every PC case fan was designed to be quiet, nor do most LED fans give have a switch used to turn the LEDs off. Enter the Rheobus controller: giving users the ability to control the speed of PC case fans, and the brightness of the LEDs. Sunbeam recently sent BIOS LEVEL the Rheobus Extreme for review, which promises up to 30W per channel, as well as cool LED lighting.

Typically, I try to avoid integrated chipsets. Integrated chipsets are usually meant for mainstream use and don't feature gaming-class graphics options. Fortunately, ATI recently introduced the new 780G chipset with more than just a beefier integrated graphics solution: Hybrid Crossfire.

The two big players in discrete graphics these days are nVida and ATi. nVidia won the performance crown with the release of the 8800-series in late 2006. ATi, now owned by AMD, released the new HD-series of Radeons. Sapphire was nice enough to send us the Radeon HD3870 TOXIC edition for review.

D-Link released their DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router in October 2007 to provide a faster solution for gamers desiring better Quality of Service (QOS) for both wireless and networked connections. The DGL-4500 offers both Wireless N and Gigabit connectivity options, and comes geared with tons of settings for special services including gaming. The DGL-4500 also includes a small LCD unit with buttons for the ability to browse settings and status without using a PC.

SteelSeries has been making professional-grade gaming products for the last several years. They feature several lines of mice, headsets, mouse pads, and more. In November of 2007, they announced their latest professional mouse surface, the SteelSeries SP. The SP features durable construction and a texture optimized for optical and laser mice.

StarTech.com sent us the SATABAY425BK, a Serial ATA (SATA) / Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) backplane that fits in a single 5.25" drive bay and can hold up to four 2.5" hard drives in hot swap trays. The backplane supports both SAS and SATA's 3Gbps transfer rates, and utilizes a pair of 40mm fans in the rear to cool the drives.

StarTech.com is a company specializing in hard-to-find connectivity and technology parts, which it manufactures. StarTech.com recently sent us a WattSmart 750W EPS12V 80 PLUS Power Supply (EPSPOW750PRO) for review, and we were impressed by the quality and features present in this model: quad 12v rails, high energy efficiency, dual ball-bearing fans, and more connectors than we'd ever need.