Posted 11/20/09 at 11:30:24 AM by Nathan Edwards

They just keep getting bigger and bigger. Now that CPU air-cooling manufacturers have seemingly settled on the skyscraper school of heatsink design, there seems to be a competition over who can cram the most cooling fins into the largest area. Scythe’s Mugen 2 air cooler, the follow-up to its popular Mugen series, is one of the largest coolers of this type that we’ve ever tested. But can it match the cooling power of its slightly smaller cousins, such as Thermalright’s U-120 eXtreme?

The Mugen 2 is a hefty hunk of a cooler, at 5.1 inches wide, 5 inches deep (with the included 12cm fan), and 6.2 inches high; it weighs nearly two pounds. It’s not the heaviest cooler we’ve ever tested, nor the most unwieldy, but its girth could certainly prevent you from installing it in all orientations on all motherboards. We had trouble fitting it in some orientations on our EVGA 680i SLI board—our usual preference being to install the cooler fan parallel with the rear exhaust fan. On our board, though, there wasn’t room; we resorted to attaching the cooler fan perpendicular to the rear exhaust fan. Thankfully, this didn’t seem to impact performance, as the Mugen 2 performed slightly better in our tests than the Thermalright U120-eXtreme—about 2.25 C cooler at both idle and full CPU burn.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 11/19/09 at 12:00:58 PM by Paul Lilly

NZXT has been on a roll churning out affordable cases that, at least on paper, appear to belie their low price tag with features typically reserved for more expensive enclosures. The same can be said for NZXT's newest chassis, the Tempest EVO.

Constructed of all black steel, the EVO edition expands on the original Tempest's design with better cooling potential and more attention to cable management schemes. Cooling duties are provided by four 120mm fans (dual intake, one side, and one rear). NZXT said it even redesigned the fan blades to push more air at lower noise levels.

The mid tower Tempest EVO targets enthusiasts looking for server-level performance. The E-ATX form factor is now supported, and there are slots for up to 8 hard drives.

"The original Tempest is one of our most successful designs due to its optimal airflow capabilities," said Johnny Hou, Chief Designer at NZXT. "With the additional improvements the Tempest EVO brings to the equation, it's destined to be a top performer in its class."

The Tempest EVO is available now for with an MSRP set to $100.

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Posted 11/18/09 at 02:50:40 PM by Paul Lilly

Perhaps looking to steal a bit of thunder from AMD's awesome HD 5970 videocard, Nvidia PR guy Brian Burke today posted a picture of the green team's upcoming Fermi-based graphics card. Isn't marketing fun?

On his Twitter account, Burke referred to the Fermi card as a GeForce 100, which he said is the first GeForce GPU based on the new architecture. A screenshot in the background shows the videocard running the Unigine Heaven DirectX 11 benchmark.

That's all that was said (and shown), but the bigger message is the unspoken one that says, "Hey, we're still here, and we're poised to kick AMD's tail." No one from Nvidia actually said that, mind you, but they might as well have if they're going to post a pic of their upcoming graphics card when the talk of the town is centered around AMD's flagship GPU.

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Posted 11/18/09 at 01:00:12 PM by Paul Lilly

There's no way around it - if SSDs are to eventually replace mechanical hard drives, manufacturers have to find a way to increase capacity at a reasonable cost. So far, every SSD vendor has failed on both accounts, which is why we're excited to see OCZ release a 1TB SSD.

Also available in the more traditional 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities, the new Colossus 3.5-inch SSD series brings no-holds barred performance to the scene, at least on paper. According to OCZ, each drive is capable of up to 260MB/s reads and writes, up to 220MB/s sustained writes, and up to 14,000 IOPS. That puts the Colossus right up there with the fastest spec'd drives on the market.

"The new Colossus Series is designed to boost desktop and workstation performance and is for high power users tht put a premium on speed, reliability, and maximum storage capacity," said Eugene Chang, VP of Product Management at OCZ. "The Colossus core-architecture is also available to enterprise clients with locked BOMs (build of materials) and customized firmware to match their unique applications."

A 1TB drive certainly makes headway on the capacity front, but the question is, how much will it cost? OCZ didn't say, though previous reports had the then-upcoming drive pegged at $2,500. Ouch.

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Posted 11/18/09 at 11:00:00 AM by Loyd Case & Gordon Mah Ung

You can forgive AMD for stealing a line from Nvidia’s playbook. From the name and marketing materials, it’s not obvious that this card is a dual GPU card. One AMD chart even refers to the card as the “ATI Radeon HD 5970 GPU,” much like Nvidia’s 295 GTX is a dual GPU card that’s sold as if it were a normal graphics card.

We first take a quick look at the speeds and feeds of the new card, and then discuss additional features. We’ll compare them to the Radeon HD 5870 single GPU card; there are differences in core and memory clock speeds. Then, we jump into the benchmarks, comparing the Radeon HD 5970 to four other videocards in high-resolution gaming. 

And if those numbers don't impress you, wait until you see how this beast performs in Crossfire for a total of four GPUs. 

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Posted 11/18/09 at 08:00:13 AM by Paul Lilly

There's not much time left to get on Santa's 'Nice' list, and if your'e hoping to score some RAM this holiday shopping season, that's a place you'll want to be. Why? Because memory makers are forecasting a DRAM price drop in December.

In addition to the usual seasonal demand, DRAM vendors say it's likely chip makers who have already turned a profit will decide to flex their cost competitiveness muscle and slash prices to drive up shipments.

The latest rumblings run counter to previously reports which suggested that major DRAM producers would try to push chip prices upward, but that no longer appears likely. The opposite has already begun, with the average spot price for branded 1Gb DDR2 chips trending down 0.76 percent to close at $2.60 on Tuesday, according to data from DRAMeXchange.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 04:08:12 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Intel has drawn a lot of flak from various quarters for delaying the adoption of USB 3.0 and SATA-III. But lesser known players seem far more eager to make the leap to these new standards. CyberPower has decided to include USB 3.0 and SATA-III in all the upcoming models in its Gamer Xtreme range of desktops. 

“CyberPower customers can configure and order a Gamer Xtreme system with the super speed USB 3.0/SATA III interface today. With Intel's latest i5/i7 processors and P55/X58 chipsets, you'll enjoy maximum performance today and be ready for tomorrow. Both USB 3.0 and SATA III are backward compatible to assure users their current peripherals will not become obsolete,” the company said in a laconic press release. The Gamer Xtreme range starts at $749.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 11:36:20 AM by Paul Lilly

Talk about déjà vu. it's been a rough year-plus for DRAM manufacturers, who have had to contend with an oversupply of chips, falling prices, and a global recession on top of it all. At least one vendor said the DRAM market was the worst he'd seen it in 15 years. So it's a little bit curious that after finally showing signs of a rebound, memory makers appear stoked about an expected reduction in production costs in 2010.

It would make sense, provided the savings aren't passed on to the consumer, but that's usually not the way it works. Nevertheless, as memory makers compete with each other in a race to shrink dies, production costs are set to go down pretty significantly, DigiTimes reports.

Samsung has already adopted a 56nm process for over half of its DRAM output and has been churning out DDR3 chips using 40nm technology in small volume since the fourth quarter. By the second half of 2010, Samsung is expected to be heavily focused on 40nm.

Eplida and Nanya are also flirting with shrunken dies. And according to a recent iSuppli report, the worldwide DRAM industry has the manufacturing capacity to last through 2012.

It all sounds positive, until you consider the current condition of the memory market. But hey, from a consumer side, this is gravy. Bring on the faster, less expensive DDR3 modules.

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