Posted 10/16/09 at 10:28:18 AM by Paul Lilly

Corsair on Thursday announced its new 64GB Flash Survivor USB drive, which the company claims is the "most rugged high-capacity flash drive on the market." And by the looks of things, they're probably right.

Encased in CNC-milled, aircraft grade aluminum, Corsair says the new drive is pretty much indestructible. Each unit comes molded in a shock-dampening collar and EPDM seal, providing water-resistance up to a depth of 200 meters. Corsair notes that reviewers have dropped, baked, boiled, microwaved, and even run over the Survivor with an SUV in an attempt to show just how durable the drive really is.

"The new 64GB Flash Survivor takes the industry's most popular rugged USB drive and takes it to the next level, with a huge amount of storage space, plus best-in-class performance," said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing for Corsair. "The 64GB Survivor is ideal for storing and transporting your music, videos, pictures, and other important files, safe in the knowledge that your data will be safeguarded inside the Survivor's protective shell."

The drive is available now with a street price around $170. To help justify the cost, Corsair says each drive comes bundled with a USB extension cable and dog tags, and comes backed by a 10-year warranty.

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Posted 10/07/09 at 01:30:30 PM by Paul Lilly

Corsair on Tuesday announced the launch of its new TX950W power supply, which takes its place as the flagship model in Corsair's TX series. The only higher wattage PSU the company offers is the modular HX1000.

The company's PSUs have earned a reputation as being reliable, and Corsair says this newest unit is "built using industrial-grade components to ensure clean and stable voltages." It comes with a dedicated +12V rail rated at a whopping 78A (936W), which the company says equates to 98.5 percent of the PSU's total power output.

Other specs include 80 PLUS Bronze certification (at least 85 percent energy efficient at typical load levels), six 6+2-pin PCI-E cables, active PFC, and a five year warranty.

No word on price or availability, though we'd guess it to be in the ballpark of $225.

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Posted 09/23/09 at 02:30:13 PM by Nathan Edwards

Corsair is best known for its memory and power supplies, but recently the company has taken to rebadging excellent OEM products for retail. First came a rebadged edition of Samsung’s blazing-fast 256GB MLC solid state drive. Now Corsair is continuing the trend by scooping up Asetek’s all-in-one liquid CPU cooler and rebranding it as the Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50. It’s not just a straight-up rebadge. According to Corsair, it worked with Asetek to modify the latter’s OEM-only version, adopting a universal design and reportedly improving performance. We can’t verify how Corsair’s H50 compares to the OEM version, as the OEM version isn’t available for consumer purchase.

We were more interested to see how the H50 did against CoolIt’s similarly priced Domino (reviewed June 2009). Like the Domino, the Corsair H50 consists of a CPU heat exchanger/pump unit that fits atop the CPU and is connected to a radiator, which mounts in place of your case’s rear 12cm fan. The H50 includes its own 12cm fan, which sits between the radiator and the case wall and pulls air through the radiator fins. The pump uses a three-pin power lead, which needs to plug into the CPU fan power port on the motherboard, and the 12cm fan, confusingly, has a four-pin connector, which plugs into any other fan control port. We originally tried running the pump off a direct-power Molex and the fan off the CPU PWM port, but saw miserable performance. Only after reversing the two did we achieve the expected performance.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 09/15/09 at 10:55:00 AM by Paul Lilly

Corsair today added to its Professional Series of power supplies with the release of its HX650W modular PSU. The 650W unit edges out the HX620 and settles behind the HX750W, HX850W, and HX1000W, all of which boast a low profile modular cable set, low noise levels, and high efficiency ratings.

"The Corsair HX650W is ideal for enthusiasts and gamers who are looking for a highly efficient, quiet, modular power supply, but don't need the higher wattage offered by the other PSUs in the Professional Series," said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair. "The HX650W offers the same unmatched quality standard and 7 year warranty, but at a power level more suitable for mid/high-spec PC builds, such as those based on Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 'Lynnfield' processors."

The new PSU serves up 52A through a single +12V rail, which Corsair claims has been tested and guaranteed to operate at 100 percent load at an ambient temperature of 50C. Other specs include an 82 percent efficiency rating (enough to earn the 80 PLUS BRONZE certification), 4 PCI-E connectors, and support for both SLI and CrossFire X setups.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 08/25/09 at 01:00:51 PM by Paul Lilly

We've seen a plethora of new SSDs come to market this past year, some of which have been geared towards upping the performance ante while others have attempted to make the price-per-GB ratio a bit more appealing. Corsair's new Extreme Series X256 focuses solely on the former and turns a blind eye towards the latter.

"The new 256GB Extreme Series X256 is a response to the growing popularity of high-capacity SSDs, and it joins our Performance Series P256 at the top of its range, for enthusiasts who want the fastest speeds and plenty of space available for their pictures, music, and videos."

The new drive combines the Indilinx Barefoot controller with Samsung MLC NAND flash memory and is aimed at "enthusiasts who don't want to compromise on speed or capacity." To that end, the 256GB drive boasts read speeds of up to 240MB/s and write speeds of up to 170MBs, 64MB of cache to help prevent stuttering, and user-upgradeable firmware.

Only those with a healthy bank account need apply, as the 256GB SSD will set you back 700 smackers.

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Posted 08/14/09 at 09:19:27 AM by Paul Lilly

All of a sudden we feel woefully inadequate waving around our 16GB and 32GB thumb drives. That's because Corsair on Thursday launched what it claims is the the world's fastest high capacity USB flash drive, the 128GB Flash Voyager GT.

"High performance is a key requirement for super-high capacity flash drives, such as the 128GB Voyager GT, simply because it is able to store such a large volume of data," said John Beekley, the VP of Applications at Corsair. "The 128GB Voyager GT is nearly twice as fast as other high-capacity flash drives, which means less time waiting for your music, video, or office files to copy to and from the drive."

According to Corsair, the MLC-based drive can hit read speeds of up to 32MB/s and write speeds of up to 25.6MB/s thanks to the Voyager's dual-controller architecture. The company also says you're more likely to run into bottlenecks with your USB 2.0 bus or OS system overhead before the drive loses its pep.

All that speed and capacity doesn't come cheap, however. The 128GB Voyager GT is available now with a street price of around $400.

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Posted 07/30/09 at 03:36:12 PM by Paul Lilly

Showing AMD owners some love, Corsair adds to its Dominator series with the Dominator GT, a line of "ultra-high performance" DDR3 kits the company says have been designed specifically for Phenom II-based platforms using socket AM3 motherboards.

"The new Dominator GT family for platforms with AM3-based AMD Phenom II processors delivers even greater levels of performance, as well as enhanced cooling options, making it the perfect memory for anyone looking for the fastest possible performance from their AM3 AMD Phenom II-based system," said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair.

The new 4GB (2x2GB) Dominator GT kit races along at 1600MHz with 6-6-6-18 latency settings and a 1T command rate. It also supports AMD's Black Edition Memory Profiles (B.E.M.P.), which allows for the aggressive latency settings to be automatically configured in Windows using the AMD OverDrive software utility.

Corsair indicated it would later add to the Dominator GT line by "offering very limited quantities of hand-screen, hand-tuned, extreme performance modules in both lower speed grades and latencies."

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 07/16/09 at 01:47:39 PM by Paul Lilly

It seems as though SSD manufacturers are increasingly taking aim at the performance market, and that's certainly the case with Corsair's new Extreme Series SSDs.

Available in 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities, the Extreme Series X32, X64, and X128 boast read speeds of up to 240MB/s and write speeds of up to 170MB/s. All three drives also incorporate the Indilinx Barefoot controller and Samsung MLC NAND flash memory.

"The combination of the Indilinx Barefoot controller, Samsung flash memory, and 64MB of on-board cache delivers blistering, stutter-free performance, eliminating the bottleneck imposed by traditional mechanical hard disks," said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair.

In addition, Corsair says its Extreme Series also come with user-upgradeable firmware, which will later add features such as the upcoming TRIM command for Windows 7.

Corsair says the drives are available now, though we didn't spot any being sold at the usual online outlets. Suffice to say, no word on price.

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