[Review] ASUS GeForce GTX 580 Voltage Tweak9 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 (171) on November 30, 2010
Earlier this month, NVIDIA released their new powerhouse card, the GeForce GTX 580. ASUS has sent us their GTX 580 to put through our strenuous suite of testing. The reference design used by ASUS was somewhat surprising as they will typically use their own custom PCB. The GTX 580 is supposed to bring improvements in power consumption and temperatures using the new GF110 architecture. We will be sure to test to see just how these improvements add up in the real world. Read on…
Packag...
[Blog] Corsair Graphite Series™ 600T – all internal dual loop9 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on November 28, 2010
One of my co-workers is a hardcore gamer and power user. Since we’ve met, he’s become more and more interested in the hardware aspect of computing, and recently asked me to help build him a new system.
He previously had a Phenom II X4 940 based system with 4GB of memory and dual GTX 260 graphics cards. Everything was run at stock speeds as he preferred to spend his time gaming as opposed to tweaking. Although his system was no slouch, as any hardcore gamer knows; “the fas...
[Review] Thermaltake Armor A602 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 (171) on November 24, 2010
The Thermaltake Armor A60 comes with several great features, including some dust filtration features and USB 3.0. The A60 is the first case in the world to have a SideClick EasySwap hard drive feature, as Thermaltake calls it. They have even gone so far as sleeving their pre-installed fans wires. The front I/O ports include one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 connection. It also includes an eSATA connector along with a mic and speaker plug-in. The sleek, refreshing, and different look of the A60 is alwa...
[Review] Cooler Master Storm SF-19 Strike Force1 Comment 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 (171) on November 24, 2010
Extreme gamers continue to seek high performing gaming notebooks to keep up with the more demanding requirements of new games. However, notebooks tend to have cooling that is almost insufficient for the high-end hardware that they contain. Even performance notebooks from well known companies can overheat, which can lead to unfavorable game lag and can possibly cause permanent hardware damage. The Storm SF-19 notebook cooler is Cooler Master’s solution to this problem. In order to protect a...
[Review] Choiix – Power Fort 5.5 WHR0 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 (171) on November 18, 2010
Using all of the portable devices we have in today’s marketplace is fun and exciting until we run out of power, then we find out just how dependent we are on such items. The Choiix Power Fort 5.5 Whr offers you an excellent emergency charging solution that will keep your portable devices ready to go anytime and anywhere. In this era of mobile devices, people have several portable electronics ranging from smart phones to GPS devices. The Choiix Power Fort 5.5 Whr comes with a fast 1A chargi...
[Review] Zalman – Dual HDD Docking Station MH200 U30 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 (171) on November 18, 2010
Zalman has sent us their take on a Dual HDD Docking Station using the relatively new USB 3.0 interface. The MH200 U3 supports up to 2 SATA HDDS simultaneously with 2.5” & 3.5” SATA I/II (up to 3TB) and Port-Multiplier functionality. The Dual HDD Docking Station also comes with Hot Swap and Plug & Play, plus a blue LED indicator for HDD access. The rapid USB 3.0 interface supports DUAL, JBOD, RAID 0 and RAID 1 modes. The sleek appearance of the black brushed aluminum on the MH200 U3...
MSI GTX 480 Lightning Picture Preview2 Comments By PlanetcloseAuthor: PlanetName: Jake C Email: jake@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (8) on November 17, 2010
Be sure to check back for the full review and extreme overclocking results from the card
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Gallery of ASUS Sandy Bridge motherboards1 Comment By PlanetcloseAuthor: PlanetName: Jake C Email: jake@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (8) on November 17, 2010
Check out the new ASUS boards based on the next generation Intel chipset
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[Review] AMD Radeon HD 68501 Comment 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 (171) on November 16, 2010
With the massive success of the 5 series launch back in September of last year, AMD is looking to continue their momentum with the brand new 6 series line of graphics cards. The codename “Northern Islands” is the second generation of DirectX 11 architecture from AMD. The refined card boasts more performance per mm², new and improved image quality features, enhanced multimedia acceleration and next-generation display technology with HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2. It should also be p...
|LN2Cooling.com Evaporator Under Dry Ice| – |Phenom II X6 1090T Overclocking|1 Comment By SlappacloseAuthor: SlappaName: Matthew Sembinelli Email: matthew.sembinelli@gmail.com Site:http://slappablog.wordpress.com About: Hardware Enthusiast, and OverclockerSee Authors Posts (17) on November 16, 2010
In part one, I showed the unboxing of the pot I received for testing. This is a very large, and well-designed evaporator mainly used for LN2 and LHe. I decided I’d just recreate the thread with part one and two so you guys can see it all in one place:
I know some of you saw my recent dry ice runs on my Phenom II rig. In a few threads I discussed that for my next run I will have a different pot to play around with — and I assure you that promise was kept.
The video is up! Click...
[BLOG] TechREACTION CPU cooler testing methodology5 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on November 14, 2010
In an effort to better serve the enthusiast community. TechREACTION is working on defining a long term methodology for testing various products. Our desire is to be consistent, accurate, and transparent with out methodologies.
We have spent a couple of months deriving out first complete testing methodology, and I’m sharing it here for “peer review” as-it-were. From this point forward, all CPU cooling devices formally tested by TechREACTION will adhere to this methodology....
[Review] ASUS Rampage III Formula – Less Bling, Same Sting4 Comments By NeuromancercloseAuthor: NeuromancerName: Rich Smith Email: rsmith@nettronic.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (27) on November 5, 2010
Not just another pretty face?
ASUSTeK is the most prolific motherboard manufacturer in the world. They command 40% of the motherboard market for PCs today. Their motherboards are in all manner of PCs from ASUS designed and sold PCs, as well as larger builders like HP and Dell, to the enthusiast user who purchases components individually looking for the best overall system that they can build. ASUS designs motherboards for everyone running desktop computers. Budget PC builders to enthusiast overc...
[Blog] ASUS P6X58D Premium – An End-User Experience12 Comments By LawrencendlwcloseAuthor: LawrencendlwName: Nathan D Lawrence Email: Lawrencendlw@aol.com Site: About: I grew up in Las Vegas and Joined the U.S. Navy in October of 2000. I was stationed on board of the Nuclear Aircraft Carrier the U.S.S. John C. Stennis (CVN-74) out of San Diego, CA. I went on 2 deployments to the Persian Gulf including being the second ship to arrive there after 9/11. I met my wife while in the Navy and got out in 2004 to take care of our soon to be born daughter (Lilianna now age 5). I went to school soon after for Computers and Electronic Engineering and shortly after had our second child, my son Nicholas now 2. We moved up here to Bremerton, WA back in January (of 2010) because my wife (whom is still in the Navy) is now stationed up here and ironically enough on board of my old ship. We will be up here in Washington for a total of 5 years (so for the next 4 years or so). I recently built my current "Gaming/Folding" computer back in July and I am in the current stage of trying to get all of the parts to work as advertised through RMA's.See Authors Posts (1) on November 4, 2010
I bought a Asus P6X58D Premium back in July of this year and It seems as if it would be a great little board if it would work like it is supposed to work. It has all the features that people are looking for these days including (but not limited to) SATA III, USB 3.0, 3 X PCI-E 2.0 X16 lanes, and is 32nm next gen processor compatible. All of that is great on paper but if it doesn’t work then it all becomes a colossal failure.
I called Asus prior to purchasing this motherboard to ask if ...
[Review] Silverstone FP55 – Drive Bay Converter1 Comment 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 (171) on November 4, 2010
Looking for a new addition to your case to help consolidate space and clean up your hard drive area? The FP55 could possibly be your solution. With the capability of holding 3 hard drives, two 2.5″ and one 3.5″ hard drive, this could be a great addition to any HTPC. The stylish, high quality brushed aluminum will look good in almost any case. Let’s move on and see how easy the installation is, as well as what type of setups the FP55 will allow.
Packaging:
Specifications:...
[Review] BitFenix Survivor – Enter The Mainstream1 Comment 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 (171) on November 1, 2010
With BitFenix releasing their second chassis named Survivor, we are hoping it brings the same quality to the table as the Colossus did. This time BitFenix is making in-roads into the mid tower market with their Survivor chassis. It boasts of two 200mm fans on the front and top of the case for intake and exhaust purposes, as well as two USB 3.0 ports. It also comes with seven tool-free installation PCI slots, which is a great addition to any case. But enough of the small talk, let’s find ou...
Earlier this month, NVIDIA released their new powerhouse card, the GeForce GTX 580. ASUS has sent us their GTX 580 to put through our strenuous suite of testing. The reference design used by ASUS was somewhat surprising as they will typically use their own custom PCB. The GTX 580 is supposed to bring improvements in power consumption and temperatures using the new GF110 architecture. We will be sure to test to see just how these improvements add up in the real world. Read on…
Packag... 
One of my co-workers is a hardcore gamer and power user. Since we’ve met, he’s become more and more interested in the hardware aspect of computing, and recently asked me to help build him a new system.
He previously had a Phenom II X4 940 based system with 4GB of memory and dual GTX 260 graphics cards. Everything was run at stock speeds as he preferred to spend his time gaming as opposed to tweaking. Although his system was no slouch, as any hardcore gamer knows; “the fas... 
The Thermaltake Armor A60 comes with several great features, including some dust filtration features and USB 3.0. The A60 is the first case in the world to have a SideClick EasySwap hard drive feature, as Thermaltake calls it. They have even gone so far as sleeving their pre-installed fans wires. The front I/O ports include one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 connection. It also includes an eSATA connector along with a mic and speaker plug-in. The sleek, refreshing, and different look of the A60 is alwa... 
Extreme gamers continue to seek high performing gaming notebooks to keep up with the more demanding requirements of new games. However, notebooks tend to have cooling that is almost insufficient for the high-end hardware that they contain. Even performance notebooks from well known companies can overheat, which can lead to unfavorable game lag and can possibly cause permanent hardware damage. The Storm SF-19 notebook cooler is Cooler Master’s solution to this problem. In order to protect a... 
Using all of the portable devices we have in today’s marketplace is fun and exciting until we run out of power, then we find out just how dependent we are on such items. The Choiix Power Fort 5.5 Whr offers you an excellent emergency charging solution that will keep your portable devices ready to go anytime and anywhere. In this era of mobile devices, people have several portable electronics ranging from smart phones to GPS devices. The Choiix Power Fort 5.5 Whr comes with a fast 1A chargi... 
Zalman has sent us their take on a Dual HDD Docking Station using the relatively new USB 3.0 interface. The MH200 U3 supports up to 2 SATA HDDS simultaneously with 2.5” & 3.5” SATA I/II (up to 3TB) and Port-Multiplier functionality. The Dual HDD Docking Station also comes with Hot Swap and Plug & Play, plus a blue LED indicator for HDD access. The rapid USB 3.0 interface supports DUAL, JBOD, RAID 0 and RAID 1 modes. The sleek appearance of the black brushed aluminum on the MH200 U3... 
Be sure to check back for the full review and extreme overclocking results from the card
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Check out the new ASUS boards based on the next generation Intel chipset
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... 
With the massive success of the 5 series launch back in September of last year, AMD is looking to continue their momentum with the brand new 6 series line of graphics cards. The codename “Northern Islands” is the second generation of DirectX 11 architecture from AMD. The refined card boasts more performance per mm², new and improved image quality features, enhanced multimedia acceleration and next-generation display technology with HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2. It should also be p... 
In part one, I showed the unboxing of the pot I received for testing. This is a very large, and well-designed evaporator mainly used for LN2 and LHe. I decided I’d just recreate the thread with part one and two so you guys can see it all in one place:
I know some of you saw my recent dry ice runs on my Phenom II rig. In a few threads I discussed that for my next run I will have a different pot to play around with — and I assure you that promise was kept.
The video is up! Click... 
Not just another pretty face?
ASUSTeK is the most prolific motherboard manufacturer in the world. They command 40% of the motherboard market for PCs today. Their motherboards are in all manner of PCs from ASUS designed and sold PCs, as well as larger builders like HP and Dell, to the enthusiast user who purchases components individually looking for the best overall system that they can build. ASUS designs motherboards for everyone running desktop computers. Budget PC builders to enthusiast overc... 
Looking for a new addition to your case to help consolidate space and clean up your hard drive area? The FP55 could possibly be your solution. With the capability of holding 3 hard drives, two 2.5″ and one 3.5″ hard drive, this could be a great addition to any HTPC. The stylish, high quality brushed aluminum will look good in almost any case. Let’s move on and see how easy the installation is, as well as what type of setups the FP55 will allow.
Packaging:
Specifications:... 
With BitFenix releasing their second chassis named Survivor, we are hoping it brings the same quality to the table as the Colossus did. This time BitFenix is making in-roads into the mid tower market with their Survivor chassis. It boasts of two 200mm fans on the front and top of the case for intake and exhaust purposes, as well as two USB 3.0 ports. It also comes with seven tool-free installation PCI slots, which is a great addition to any case. But enough of the small talk, let’s find ou... 
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