[Blog] Kingston HyperX DDR3 ‘LoVo’ OC Testing0 Comments By wezcloseAuthor: wezName: Robin Lindqvist Email: coccis_wez@hotmail.com Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (4) on May 31, 2010
Kingston HyperX DDR3 ‘LoVo’ OC testing
Just a quick look at a memory kit from Kingston, namely a set from their somewhat new ‘LoVo’ series. Judging by the name its a low voltage kit, so not a kit directly aimed at the enthusiast market. But word has it they might be worth a look after all!
According to their site, Kingston currently offers three versions of their ‘LoVo’ kits, 1333, 1600 and 1866 MHz. But there also seem to be an 1800 MHz kit listed at some shops, possible a replaceme...
[Blog] In-Win’s Maelstrom Full Tower Case – Quick Look0 Comments By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 31, 2010
A few months ago, In-Win decided to hold a promotion where they gave away hundreds of free products; from power supplies to cases, they were extremely generous. I had luckily acquired an In-Win Maelstrom from the frenzy. They were also so kind as to pay the very expensive oversea shipping fees! Yay! Anyways, this will post will briefly talk about some key points of the Maelstrom, so let’s start off with some pictures.
The Maelstrom was shipped in a very large and durable cardboard box. Th...
[Blog] Sony MDR-410LP Headphones0 Comments By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 27, 2010
Normally, a pair of cheap, dollar-store headphones might last you at best a few months. And that’s true. I’ve gone through at least five pairs of cheap, low quality brands of headphones that were less than five dollars a piece. They break, they’re uncomfortable, their sound quality is horrible, and most importantly, they break! You might find that a wire breaks off, or some padding falls off after a few days of use. Or if that doesn’t occur, the sound quality degrades int...
[Blog] NZXT USB Expansion Module (USB 2.0)1 Comment By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 27, 2010
Every once in a while you come across an idea in computer hardware technology that makes you wonder why nobody has thought of it before. Usually they are simple but have very practical applications that make computer assembly much easier for the enthusiast. Modular power cables for example, were introduced by Ultra and currently hold the patent for its use. ASUS with their Q-connectors, etc. Today we look at NZXT’s USB Expansion module, a simple device that does exactly what its name impl...
[Guide] Converting your VHS collection to digital and a little more!0 Comments By ArchercloseAuthor: ArcherName: Kevin Marlin Email: kevinsmarlin@embarqmail.com Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (18) on May 26, 2010
A lot of people have an old VHS collection gathering dust, or content that was purchased on their gaming device that must be kept on that device. What does it really take to get this content on to a DVD? Not much.
Using a hardware video trans-coder, such as the ADS DVD-ExpressDX2 (does not work with Vista or later without software issues), a DVD+/-RW Drive and an external HDD for portability, converting a video collection as fast as you can play them (even direct to DivX) is pretty simple.
So wh...
[Blog] Microkingdom USB Game Controllers2 Comments By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 26, 2010
These Microkingdom USB Game controllers are reminiscent of ye olde PS2 controllers, but specifically designed for some classic gaming on your PC. You can substitute these for pretty much any generic controller, no brand in particular is really necessary. For about $10, you can pick up a pair of randomly named controller brands, which is pretty cheap. Several stores sell them, and these are pretty much identical knockoffs at the bottom of the rung. Let’s look at the actual design difference...
[Blog] Mac Steam: Really still a beta0 Comments By _vicloseAuthor: _viName: Echo Jay Johnson Email: shadow_faith13@live.com.au Site: About:See Authors Posts (1) on May 24, 2010
Steam; it was always the one thing that made me stick to my Windows computer. The online service effectively tied me down to the Windows platform. Before you had to either attempt to run Steam via WINE if Linux or use a virtual machine or proprietary WINE-based Macintosh Windows library programs in order to get your dose of Steam, even then the operation of it was often flawed. Earlier this month we all saw the release of Steam for the Macintosh earlier last week coinciding with the conclusion o...
[Review] OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 Platinum Low Voltage Memory Kit2 Comments By ChewcloseAuthor: ChewName: Brian McLachlan Email: wmdieselmc26@cox.net Site:http:// About:See Authors Posts (8) on May 23, 2010
Introduction
Recently the good folks at OCZ sent us a set of budget ram to review.
Now I know most of you hardcore overclocker’s are saying “pfft…” however, with budget RAM sometimes and often many times there can be found diamond’s in the rough.
With that said, let’s see what you get.
As we can see, the packaging is simple as to be expected with a budget set of memory.
The platform we chose to test these sticks today consists of the following.
Test Setup
GI...
DDR3 @ 2022MHz…pfft. CAS 6? Wow… AMD!?! No way!1 Comment By EnJoYcloseAuthor: EnJoYName: Alex Joy Email: alex@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (53) on May 20, 2010
Chew* does it again! There I am, waiting for my eyes to bleed as I sit in my cubicle, and suddenly my old pal Chew* delivers this little gem. Apparently Brian has been very busy tweaking his Corsair GTX2’s on Asus’s new Crosshair IV Formula. While playing around with timings and ganged mode, Chew* was able to get his Corsair GTX2 2250MHz C8 sticks all the way to 2022MHz at CAS 6 with just 1.725v!
Additional important specs include an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, air cooling on every...
[Blog] Flip a video with the Flip MinoHD Camcorder1 Comment By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 20, 2010
For some of us lucky Canadians, we were a part of the famous Pepsi Flip Your Smile; basically, they were handing out a free Flip Camcorder every hour for a month. Some people went on to win five or more just to resell, but I digress. This was advertised as a portable, hand held camcorder that could be used in pretty much any situation. Well, let’s take a look shall we?
The Flip HD comes in a very efficient looking box. I don’t know how a box looks efficient, it just does. It’s...
Asus M4A89TD PRO – Short Review and Benchmarks3 Comments By mav2000closeAuthor: mav2000Name: Ashish Mehta Email: ashish.dm@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (18) on May 19, 2010
Recently our friends at Asus sent across their new 890FX board, the M4A89TD Pro. With this board, the total number of boards that Asus plans to have with the 890FX chipset are around four. The range topper will be the Crosshair IV Extreme, which is still to be released, followed by the Crosshair IV Formula which we reviewed earlier, the M4A89TD Pro USB3.0 and finally this one. The last two boards have a great ancestor in the M4A790 series and I hope they will live up to the name. They have hardl...
[Blog] Stress-testing the abilities of your mice and rhythm: Osu! Style0 Comments By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 18, 2010
When we decide on what kind of gaming mouse to get, we look at a couple of factors. Namely, design, comfort, and price. Oftentimes, the price and comfort are the only key points of the deciding factor of the chosen mouse, as this is a peripheral you’re going to be using for quite some time. Any ordinary mouse can seem comfortable, but after gripping it for a while, will you feel the same way? Not only can awkward mice handling lead to sore wrists, ailments such as carpal tunnel can develop...
BitFenix Launches First Video Log – Previews Colossus Gaming Chassis!0 Comments By EnJoYcloseAuthor: EnJoYName: Alex Joy Email: alex@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (53) on May 18, 2010
BitFenix, a new company that first made it’s presence known several months ago, is getting closer and closer to releasing some of it’s very first, top secret products! The company has released a video log that gives some more information on who they are, what their goals are as a company, and most importantly…previews their upcoming gaming chassis, the Colossus!
“Today, we have a very special video for you. In the first of many BitFenix Video Logs, David Jarlestedt, Bi...
[Review] MSI Radeon HD 5770 Hawk 1GB3 Comments By The DukecloseAuthor: The DukeName: Drew Briggs Email: drew@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About: Just keeping it real for the average joe overclocker and computer user.See Authors Posts (168) on May 16, 2010
MSI has launched it’s version of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 which boasts an amazing looking Twin Frozr II cooler. Their 5770 Hawk also brings with it some outstanding software and voltage control options to help you with overclocking. We will also be taking a look at their claims of a 13c temperature advantage over reference cooling designs. The 5770 is in the middle of the pack for the new generation of cards, with the 5970 in the lead and the 5450 bringing up the rear. All in all, ATI has to...
[Blog] A Casual Gamer’s 15 Minutes…0 Comments By grajasekarcloseAuthor: grajasekarName: Gaurav R Email: grajasekar@gmail.com Site:http://averageindianguy.blogspot.com About:See Authors Posts (1) on May 16, 2010
The title points to an existence of a rare species. Yes, we still exist. In this day and age of gaming being a pro sport, where DPI is of more importance to gaming mice than printers, where stats play a big role in one’s e-peen, there are those remnants who play games for what they were meant to offer – fun. Playing online versus a ton of folks has always been more fun than pitting your wits against a witless AI opponent. Though the novelty of being ‘head shot central’ (and I mean I...
[Blog] The Larger side of Gaming Mice: OCZ Behemoth6 Comments By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 14, 2010
The OCZ Behemoth is one of the larger mice on the market. It’s large design makes it rather intimidating, but it’s one of the best mice for a certain market niche.
This mouse is specifically designed for right handed users only. That means all you lefties are completely excluded from using this mouse. You’ll either have to deform your hand or attempt to cope with it, but really, just avoid this mouse altogether if you are. As you can see, the packaging is rather big. The conte...
[Guide] Air Cooling 101 – Fans0 Comments By mav2000closeAuthor: mav2000Name: Ashish Mehta Email: ashish.dm@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (18) on May 12, 2010
Fans
Welcome to the next edition of our Air Cooling 101 series of guides. In case you missed part 1 on CPU cooling, you can find it here. We move on to a topic in which there are consistently a lot of discussions around the net.
When we buy fans, we look at three main criteria:
1. CFM – Cubic Feet per Minute, or in simpler words, the amount of air that the fan can push/pull in a minute.
2. Static Pressure – The force with which the fan generates this airflow.
3. dBA – This is...
[Blog] Nokia 5800 XM Firmware v50.0.0050 Comments By KrabcloseAuthor: KrabName: Larry Ngo Email: graveflame@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (9) on May 12, 2010
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a touchscreen phone that is still receiving regular updates despite being two years old. It’s being touted as a music player alternative, and with easy drag-and-drop clicking, along with 8GB internal memory, it serves quite well as a basic MP3 player. Unfortunately, for some people who aren’t blessed with non-branded phones, updates aren’t available with certain RM type models. This is up to the operator who decides to release the update for the sp...
[Guide] Air Cooling 101 – CPU Cooling2 Comments By mav2000closeAuthor: mav2000Name: Ashish Mehta Email: ashish.dm@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (18) on May 7, 2010
Hello and welcome to the first article in my series on Air Cooling.
Over the last year or so, I have reviewed a number of air coolers and also a number of different fans and cooling setups. I thought that sharing my experiences would be useful to a lot of people and this is the reasoning behind the writing of this series. This series will cover a number of topics and to start with we will take a look at CPU cooling, which is by far the most important part of our computers.
So, why do we need to...
Kingston HyperX DDR3 ‘LoVo’ OC testing
Just a quick look at a memory kit from Kingston, namely a set from their somewhat new ‘LoVo’ series. Judging by the name its a low voltage kit, so not a kit directly aimed at the enthusiast market. But word has it they might be worth a look after all!
According to their site, Kingston currently offers three versions of their ‘LoVo’ kits, 1333, 1600 and 1866 MHz. But there also seem to be an 1800 MHz kit listed at some shops, possible a replaceme... 
A few months ago, In-Win decided to hold a promotion where they gave away hundreds of free products; from power supplies to cases, they were extremely generous. I had luckily acquired an In-Win Maelstrom from the frenzy. They were also so kind as to pay the very expensive oversea shipping fees! Yay! Anyways, this will post will briefly talk about some key points of the Maelstrom, so let’s start off with some pictures.
The Maelstrom was shipped in a very large and durable cardboard box. Th... 
Normally, a pair of cheap, dollar-store headphones might last you at best a few months. And that’s true. I’ve gone through at least five pairs of cheap, low quality brands of headphones that were less than five dollars a piece. They break, they’re uncomfortable, their sound quality is horrible, and most importantly, they break! You might find that a wire breaks off, or some padding falls off after a few days of use. Or if that doesn’t occur, the sound quality degrades int... 
Every once in a while you come across an idea in computer hardware technology that makes you wonder why nobody has thought of it before. Usually they are simple but have very practical applications that make computer assembly much easier for the enthusiast. Modular power cables for example, were introduced by Ultra and currently hold the patent for its use. ASUS with their Q-connectors, etc. Today we look at NZXT’s USB Expansion module, a simple device that does exactly what its name impl... 
A lot of people have an old VHS collection gathering dust, or content that was purchased on their gaming device that must be kept on that device. What does it really take to get this content on to a DVD? Not much.
Using a hardware video trans-coder, such as the ADS DVD-ExpressDX2 (does not work with Vista or later without software issues), a DVD+/-RW Drive and an external HDD for portability, converting a video collection as fast as you can play them (even direct to DivX) is pretty simple.
So wh... 
These Microkingdom USB Game controllers are reminiscent of ye olde PS2 controllers, but specifically designed for some classic gaming on your PC. You can substitute these for pretty much any generic controller, no brand in particular is really necessary. For about $10, you can pick up a pair of randomly named controller brands, which is pretty cheap. Several stores sell them, and these are pretty much identical knockoffs at the bottom of the rung. Let’s look at the actual design difference... 
Steam; it was always the one thing that made me stick to my Windows computer. The online service effectively tied me down to the Windows platform. Before you had to either attempt to run Steam via WINE if Linux or use a virtual machine or proprietary WINE-based Macintosh Windows library programs in order to get your dose of Steam, even then the operation of it was often flawed. Earlier this month we all saw the release of Steam for the Macintosh earlier last week coinciding with the conclusion o... 
Introduction
Recently the good folks at OCZ sent us a set of budget ram to review.
Now I know most of you hardcore overclocker’s are saying “pfft…” however, with budget RAM sometimes and often many times there can be found diamond’s in the rough.
With that said, let’s see what you get.
As we can see, the packaging is simple as to be expected with a budget set of memory.
The platform we chose to test these sticks today consists of the following.
Test Setup
GI... 
For some of us lucky Canadians, we were a part of the famous Pepsi Flip Your Smile; basically, they were handing out a free Flip Camcorder every hour for a month. Some people went on to win five or more just to resell, but I digress. This was advertised as a portable, hand held camcorder that could be used in pretty much any situation. Well, let’s take a look shall we?
The Flip HD comes in a very efficient looking box. I don’t know how a box looks efficient, it just does. It’s... 
Recently our friends at Asus sent across their new 890FX board, the M4A89TD Pro. With this board, the total number of boards that Asus plans to have with the 890FX chipset are around four. The range topper will be the Crosshair IV Extreme, which is still to be released, followed by the Crosshair IV Formula which we reviewed earlier, the M4A89TD Pro USB3.0 and finally this one. The last two boards have a great ancestor in the M4A790 series and I hope they will live up to the name. They have hardl... 
When we decide on what kind of gaming mouse to get, we look at a couple of factors. Namely, design, comfort, and price. Oftentimes, the price and comfort are the only key points of the deciding factor of the chosen mouse, as this is a peripheral you’re going to be using for quite some time. Any ordinary mouse can seem comfortable, but after gripping it for a while, will you feel the same way? Not only can awkward mice handling lead to sore wrists, ailments such as carpal tunnel can develop... 
BitFenix, a new company that first made it’s presence known several months ago, is getting closer and closer to releasing some of it’s very first, top secret products! The company has released a video log that gives some more information on who they are, what their goals are as a company, and most importantly…previews their upcoming gaming chassis, the Colossus!
“Today, we have a very special video for you. In the first of many BitFenix Video Logs, David Jarlestedt, Bi... 
MSI has launched it’s version of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 which boasts an amazing looking Twin Frozr II cooler. Their 5770 Hawk also brings with it some outstanding software and voltage control options to help you with overclocking. We will also be taking a look at their claims of a 13c temperature advantage over reference cooling designs. The 5770 is in the middle of the pack for the new generation of cards, with the 5970 in the lead and the 5450 bringing up the rear. All in all, ATI has to... 
The OCZ Behemoth is one of the larger mice on the market. It’s large design makes it rather intimidating, but it’s one of the best mice for a certain market niche.
This mouse is specifically designed for right handed users only. That means all you lefties are completely excluded from using this mouse. You’ll either have to deform your hand or attempt to cope with it, but really, just avoid this mouse altogether if you are. As you can see, the packaging is rather big. The conte... 
Fans
Welcome to the next edition of our Air Cooling 101 series of guides. In case you missed part 1 on CPU cooling, you can find it here. We move on to a topic in which there are consistently a lot of discussions around the net.
When we buy fans, we look at three main criteria:
1. CFM – Cubic Feet per Minute, or in simpler words, the amount of air that the fan can push/pull in a minute.
2. Static Pressure – The force with which the fan generates this airflow.
3. dBA – This is... 
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a touchscreen phone that is still receiving regular updates despite being two years old. It’s being touted as a music player alternative, and with easy drag-and-drop clicking, along with 8GB internal memory, it serves quite well as a basic MP3 player. Unfortunately, for some people who aren’t blessed with non-branded phones, updates aren’t available with certain RM type models. This is up to the operator who decides to release the update for the sp... 
Hello and welcome to the first article in my series on Air Cooling.
Over the last year or so, I have reviewed a number of air coolers and also a number of different fans and cooling setups. I thought that sharing my experiences would be useful to a lot of people and this is the reasoning behind the writing of this series. This series will cover a number of topics and to start with we will take a look at CPU cooling, which is by far the most important part of our computers.
So, why do we need to... 
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