Hardware

We aren’t strangers when it comes to ASRock products. For many years ASRock has represented high quality lower cost computer products that refuse to skimp on quality or performance. In our experience with ASRock you pick up one of their higher end boards and get looking at all the features …

Hard drives have been a big bottleneck in computers since the inception of computing.  While platter drives offer a lot of storage for an affordable price, they have always been handicapped by relatively slow speeds, unless you bought one of the high-priced 10k RPM drives or put them in a …

The Raven RV01 was originally introduced in 2008 as an extreme enthusiast chassis and it’s revolutionary 90 degree motherboard position and it’s sleek styling made it the envy of many enthusiasts. Appearing on the market when computer cases were being pushed on the market so fast and in so many styles …

Pre-built all-in-one water coolers for today’s hot running CPU’s are all the rage offering good cooling with none of the hassle of custom loop water cooling. Days gone by about all that was to be had been single radiator 120mm single fan that were little better than mid range air cooling …

When you’re looking at the 2011v3 Haswell E CPU family, nothing about it is inexpensive. The entry-level CPU is about $390 and it doesn’t even feature 40 full PCI-E lanes. The lowest tier CPU has 28 PCI-E lanes and you have to go to the second tray CPU, the Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E 6-Core …

With the plethora of different storage devices out in the market today to choose from for us to connect from one electronic device to another electronic device makes trying to choose one that fits the bill for us quiet difficult, as well as confusing. Especially, when we start adding the …

Laptops have for quite some time offered a lot of extra advantages over a stationary computer as they offer good performance while still being mobile. The docking station we are looking at today is a universal USB3.0 dock that offers both a bunch of extra USB3-ports, a gigabit ethernet port and …

Today we are looking at the Zotac GTX GeForce 980 AMP! Omega Edition video card. As the name implies this is one of Zotac’s top cards which comes with a lot of extra bells and whistles compared to a regular GTX980. Not only is the card overclocked from start, you …

The Asus X99 Deluxe is a popular choice among 2011v3 users, it falls between top end enthusiast boards and budget boards leaning toward top end more than budget. The board itself is a dark brown color with white accents and quite striking to the eye.  Heatsinks and rear panel I/O are …

Modern custom-built computers require a clean reliable power supply and as component prices for enthusiast machine rise the importance of a good solid power supply increases. If you’ve shopped power supplies lately they are getting more affordable and solid power supplies capable of running an enthusiast system with a nice …

Face it not all of us can afford a couple of GTX 980’s. most of us would balk at buying a single 980. More likely we would indulge ourselves with a GTX 970 but then the reality of bills, keeping the fridge full, gas money, those thoughts kick in. Nvidia …

The need to have more storage space on our mobile devices is becoming a necessity. We require more storage space so that we can take longer video’s, hold more of our pictures and are able to store and play our movies and songs on our portable devices; Phones and Tablets. …

The good folks over at Kingston were kind enough to send over a Kingston M.2. SM2280S3 120GB M.2. Solid State Drive, whats the noise about you might ask. The noise is about the blazing speed one of these innocuous little drives can produce. As a little spoiler, to grab your …

The SilverStone Silver Strider 750 Watt PSU is the smallest full modular ATX power supply on the market. From the back of your chassis to the front of the Silver Strider 750 it’s a mere 140mm making it the mightiest Mini sized PSU available. Struggling with a smaller chassis but need killer voltage …

Kingston has been branching out with a few select high quality products like the The HyperX Cloud II headset we reviewed this last month. During our normal back and forth with Kingston they mentioned they has a new HyperX Fury Pro Mouse Pad and since we are all about gaming we …

In an age where we no longer use floppy discs and many systems no longer even have an optical drive the USB-memory sticks have become invaluable for carrying around data, use as Live-“CD” for Linux-distros or even as install-media for Windows and other OS’s. While USB 2.0 was pretty slow …

Razers legendary gaming peripherals have launched Razer onto bigger things, now they handle custom designed cases, gaming tablets, ultra thin laptops and more. Despite their branching into new products Razer is now and always will be a gaming company at heart. Everything they produce is for gamers by gamers and their …

To some, the “guts” of a computer are the components that make up the entire computer itself. You have your core components like the CPU, motherboard and RAM that make up the vital organs. But they all have to live inside a body; the case. Sentey has provided us a …

Want the speed of an internal Hard drive in a pocket portable size? The VisionTek USB Pocket SSD (120GB) might be what you’re looking for.  Rated at speeds up to 455MB/s Read and 440MB/s write the VisionTek USB pocket SSD should not only meet your speed needs but also your …

Founded in 1985, Patriot designs, manufactures and markets high performance, enthusiast memory modules, flash memory, and mobile accessory products with the objective of offering a perfect blend of quality and value for consumers. Happy 30th Patriot! Patriots long tradition of enthusiast ram modules is continued in their Viper 4 Series, …

While the name Sentey may not ring a bell to many folks, they have been providing PC enthusiasts with components since 2001. One area that Sentey has a decent spread of products is mice. Sentey currently lists 7 mice on their website, all with varying features and complexities. Everything from …

The HyperX brand has a long history for Kingston. Introduced in 2002, the HyperX branded memory modules delivers excellent performance with high overclocking potential. It quickly caught on among the enthusiasts as the premium memory module of the choice when comes to performance, reliability, and overclocking. Over the years, Kingston …

Kingston’s hit a home run with their HyperX Fury DDR4 32GB 2400MHz kit! Running in 4 colors, Black, Red, Blue and White you can color coordinate the screaming speed and dependability Kingston offers. In the past we’ve tested and proven more RAM is better and people will argue 32GB is …

MSi’s GTX 960 Gaming 2G with Twin Frozr V and Torx fan is on the bench warmed up and ready to go. we suggest you fasten your seat belts, wear head protection and if the mood strikes an impact label on your shirt to measure GeForces. The MSI GTX 960 …

MobileLite G2MobilLite G2 Bundle The Kingston MobileLite Wireless G2 is a small media reader that broadcasts a WiFi signal that just about any WiFi enabled device can receive. You can plug-in various storage media and have your files easily accessible to most WiFi capable devices. The MobileLite G2 will also …

Data security is an ever increasing concern yet many people consider a thumb drive “secure enough”, at least until it’s lost.  Kingston’s DataTraveler Locker+ G3 offers Password protection, 256-bit AES encryption and requires a re-format on the drive after 10 failed password attempts. Need that crucial data safe but easily accessible …

The HyperX Cloud II headset has landed and landed chock full of a quality you can’t expect in a sub $100 Pro-gaming headset. From the powder coated brushed aluminum to the memory foam ear cups you’ll be hard pressed to find one thing on the Cloud II not geared toward …

Introduction PC Gaming may be strong and growing but so are consoles and that is due to the simplicity of plug and play. A console you plug it in, maybe wait for a few updates and you are off to the races. PCs require installing of games, updates navigating windows and …

With the Maxwell-based GTX970 and GTX980 Nvidia undoubtedly have hit a homerun. These two card have rocked the GPU-world and basically made both the older GTX-GPU’s but also AMD’s offerings almost obsolete in one swoop. The only problem though has been the price. Don’t get us wrong, The GTX970 offers a …

Introduction – Pivos XIOS XS Media Player Pivos Technology Group is someone we heard from awhile back with the Xios DS media player. Overall it was a pretty nice setup but as time went on it aged and like most android based devices the upgrades to the newer OS and features began …

ASUS ROG GTX 980 Matrix Platinum I love looking at new cards and most are minor upgrades to the reference model while others are a bit better with custom PCBs and some minor trickery to help performance. Some are simply balls to the walls complete ground up builds made specifically …

Introduction Kingston has probably one of the longest standing and most diverse histories in memory with its KVR line being a staple in many business and OEM systems along with its performance “HyperX” Line branching off in many areas for OC and gaming. Today we are looking at the newest …

Introduction – ASUS X99-E WS ASUS has many models of X99 shipping and one particular model that always interests me is the WS series of boards as they are tested to be enterprise class and then some with max capacity and normally extended connectivity along with component MTBF ratings that …

Even though it is popular to use a network attached storage sometimes it is nice to have storage closer to the computer, for example for Timemachine backup on a Mac or just as a way to add more storage space on a laptop with a small SSD. The Startech enclosure …

Introduction The NH-D15 was built in the image of its now famous predecessor the NH-D14. Noctua set out to improve on their previous model by making what they refer to as the “ultimate quiet cooling performance” fan. Let’s see how it stacks up against its younger sibling. The two changes …

Introduction The Samsung 840 EVO is one of the best consumer SSDs on the market. The drive delivers good performance for its price. Earlier this year, Samsung launched the 850 Pro that uses the 3D V-NAND that boosts the performance, capacity and reduces power consumption for the SSDs over the …

Nvidia G-SYNC Technology Nvidia has been very proud of many of their advances over the last few years, offering special ways to improve the gaming experience using GeForce products. That being said we have seen many instances where gaming immersion has been enhanced or at least changed the way you play from …

Zotac is a company with lots of experience when it comes to small PC’s. We have reviewed some of them before and always come away impressed.The little PC we are testing today, and it really is little, is their smallest yet as it quite literally fits in your pocket. Even …

Introduction – ASUS RAMPAGE V EXTREME X99 has been around a bit now and the next board to hit our bench is what we have here today and it is no joke as it is the Rampage V Extreme or what many hold as the benchmark for every other board in …

Introduction As expected, with OCZ now owned by Toshiba, OCZ would be using the in-house brew Toshiba NAND for their SSDs as oppose to Intel/Micron. OCZ has transitioned their mainstream Vertex SSDs to the Toshiba NAND already. And the latest budget line of SSD, the ARC 100, continues the trend of …