Interview: CEO and Co-Founder of ORIGIN2 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 June 30, 2011
We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Wasielewski, CEO and one of the three co-founders of ORIGIN. We got to ask him a few questions (some serious and some not so serious) to help us better understand and get to know the business side, and the fun side of an industry insider. In the article you will find out what makes one of ORIGIN’s founders tick, and how down to earth Kevin really is… or is he?
A little about ORIGIN:
“ORIGIN delivers the best gaming experienc...
[Review] Silverstone Precision Series PS062 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 June 29, 2011
To improve their Precision thermal design, SilverStone implemented the 180mm Air Penetrator fan (AP181) into the PS06 tower chassis. With the AP181 and an included silent 120mm fan, the PS06 should be capable of cooling all your hardware with ease. Two additional 120mm fan slots let users further improve cooling performance if necessary. To help keep the dust out, all intake fan slots are also equipped with removable fan filters to work effectively with the default positive pressure airflow sche...
[Review] k|ngp|n Cooling Liquid Nitrogen Containers – Pushing to the Limits3 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 June 28, 2011
Introduction
If extreme overclocking had a name, it’d be k|ngp|n. Vince Lucido (a/k/a “k|ngp|n”) is arguably the man who got such things started in the United States. Back when most people were still gawking at the extreme ventures of a few folks pushing overclocking to new heights with water cooling, this guy started to bring the truly extreme methods of employing liquid nitrogen (LN2) to achieve even more outrageous performance. While Vince was not the first person to use ...
[Review] OCZ Agility 3 240GB SSD4 Comments By NeuromancercloseAuthor: NeuromancerName: Rich Smith Email: rsmith@nettronic.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (27) on June 24, 2011
OCZ technology has made some great strides in the SSD space since they jumped into it. A dazzling array of options and formats brings more choices to the consumer, allowing buyers to find products to fit their specific needs (and budgets). Support for the end user is a continuing process at OCZ, since anyone can check out their forums for firmware updates, SSD care tips, and the latest news.
On the bench today is OCZ’s latest SATA3 offering, the mid-ranged OCZ Agility 3 240GB. OCZ produce...
[Review] Sentey SS2-28073 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 June 23, 2011
Sentey has sent us one of their Slim Series cases, the Sentey SS2-2807. This case is aimed at people who need a good case with some expandability, and most likely will need to fit in a tight space. The SS2-2807 could do very well in the HTPC market as well with the high gloss black paint job and the slim design. It has three 3.5″, and one 5.25″ drive bay to help give the user a decent amount of choices for storage space. It does come equipped with a standard ATX PSII 250w PSU to help...
[Review] Thermaltake Armor A905 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 June 22, 2011
Thermaltake’s Armor A90 case aims to combine high-end features with a mid-range price to deliver the ability to grow your system over time. This mid-tower case supports both ATX and MicroATX motherboards, and has seven expansion card slots. There are three external 5.25″ drives and six 3.5″ internal drives, all of which are equipped with tool-free installation mechanisms for convenience. The A90 also has one “hidden” 2.5″ bay at the bottom of the case.
A 120m...
[Review] Thermaltake Element Q Mini-ITX Case2 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 June 21, 2011
The Thermaltake Element Q mini-ITX case was made for space-limited conditions, such as HTPC installations. This small form factor case offers a compact, stylish and convenient solution for housing a mini-ITX system with features arranged to do the job neatly and efficiently. The cooling system utilizes a fanless design to save energy and keep your operating environment quiet. Perforations in the panel vent hot air to keep heat from building up inside your system. The concealed front I/O panel gi...
[Review] Steelseries Shift Gaming Keyboard1 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 June 20, 2011
The Steelseries Shift gaming keyboard is designed to change and adapt to real-time strategy (RTS), and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games through interchangeable keysets. Powered by the Steelseries Engine software, the Shift provides gamers with predefined game mods and an intuitive layout of the most common commands and actions for specific game genres and titles. With the functionality to customize every key on the keyset, on-the-fly macro recording, and the anti-ghosting of up to 7 simu...
[Review] Corsair SP2500 2.1 Speaker System5 Comments By GSG-9closeAuthor: GSG-9Name: Levi Tomes Email: gsg-9@mediocrocy.com Site:http://StypticDesign.com About:See Authors Posts (13) on June 16, 2011
Recently, our good friends at Corsair sent us their newest premium speaker set, the SP2500 2.1. It’s no secret that, as gaming enthusiasts, we want to get the best performance out of our rigs as possible. We’ll overclock our CPUs and massage our video settings to get every last FPS and graphical effect; it stands to reason that, to complete the immersive gaming experience, we shouldn’t neglect the audio landscape. Corsair took this same approach with their flagship 2.1 audio sy...
[Review] Thermaltake Element V – Black Edition2 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 June 15, 2011
Today we have the Thermaltake Element V to toss on our review table and explore. This full tower case from Thermaltake can accommodate Micro ATX, ATX, and Extended ATX motherboards. You’ll also have plenty of storage with six 3.5-inch drive bays. The included 2.5-inch drive bay is an added bonus for those who have already adopted the 2.5″ lifestyle.
The side panel houses a 230mm intake fan to drive cool air over your expansion cards and the CPU. A 200mm Colorshift fan helps exhaust t...
[Review] OWC 240GB Extreme Pro 6G3 Comments By NeuromancercloseAuthor: NeuromancerName: Rich Smith Email: rsmith@nettronic.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (27) on June 14, 2011
With the SATA 3 specification being only 2 years old, and the wide availability of SSDs only 2 years more advanced than that, solid state drives have managed to push SATA2 to its limits very quickly. With SATA3 seeing near-universal availability on new motherboards, it is no surprise companies are trying to push the SATA3 interface to its limits.
OWC has just released the Extreme Pro 6Gbps SSD. At 240GB, and sporting some of the most cutting-edge I/O circuitry, it is capable of pushing the SATA3...
[Blog]|Liquid Heaven| – |1090T X6 Under Liquid Nitrogen| – |6.6GHz+|3 Comments By SlappacloseAuthor: SlappaName: Matthew Sembinelli Email: matthew.sembinelli@gmail.com Site:http://slappablog.wordpress.com About: Hardware Enthusiast, and OverclockerSee Authors Posts (17) on June 11, 2011
As a benchmarker, the biggest milestone you will come across is your first plunge below -100C. Liquid Nitrogen is -196C by nature, and to utilize this exotic cooling material, you need a fantastic evaporator, or more commonly known as a pot. Much like dry ice, cooling the processor down this cold will decrease impedance that opposes electron flow. This allows for a more efficient circuit, promoting greater stability and overclocking headroom.
After 2 years of research, waiting, gather...
[Review] Xigmatek AEGIR2 Comments By BoTcloseAuthor: BoTName: Edward Reese Email: bot@codisha.com Site:http://www.codisha.com About:See Authors Posts (15) on June 11, 2011
Introduction
The next review sample in our Xigmatek lineup is the AEGIR SD128264. Xigmatek has been around for a little over 5 years, and has established itself well and rather quickly in the air cooling arena. They have impressed many consumers with good quality products and performance at an affordable price level. Xigmatek’s “ICE” philosophy is well-illustrated in the company and its products.
“ICE” = Impressive / Creative / Essential
The AEGIR is a 120mm vertic...
[Review] Enermax AURORA Micro Wireless Keyboard1 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 June 7, 2011
The AURORA Micro Wireless, from Enermax, is a wireless compact keyboard featuring total media functionality. With integrated trackball, left-right buttons, and a scroll-wheel, this wireless compact keyboard is looking to be one of the best solutions for using media center and home theater software. This product won the prestigious “red dot design award: product design 2009″ against 11,000 submissions from 61 countries in 14 categories. With the sleek brushed aluminum look of the ...
[Review] Patriot Memory Viper Xtreme DDR3 2000MHz5 Comments By TrembledustcloseAuthor: TrembledustName: Patrick Innocent Email: patrick@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (11) on June 6, 2011
Introduction:
The second generation of i7 processors have taken the PC world by storm, with many users switching over to the current P67 chipsets, and even more (yours truly included) anxiously awaiting the upcoming Z77, and Z78 chipsets.
A majority of PC enthusiasts feel the X58 platform is dead, and that it is time to move on. It’s hard to argue against that thinking, as Sandy Bridge has proven to be a faster and better-overclocking chip then its older brothers. Some companies, however,Â...
[Review] Water Cooling The Silverstone Temjin Series TJ1110 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 June 3, 2011
In 2005, SilverStone created the Temjin TJ07, a tower chassis with unprecedented unibody construction and compartmentalized layout for an almost limitless liquid cooling configuration. Then in 2006, the Temjin TJ09 was released with classic styling and a see-through air duct designed for cooling. In 2008, they created the first retail computer chassis to implement 90 degree motherboard mounting with the RAVEN RV01, a new design which tried to balance air cooling performance and quietness.
Silve...
We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Wasielewski, CEO and one of the three co-founders of ORIGIN. We got to ask him a few questions (some serious and some not so serious) to help us better understand and get to know the business side, and the fun side of an industry insider. In the article you will find out what makes one of ORIGIN’s founders tick, and how down to earth Kevin really is… or is he?
A little about ORIGIN:
“ORIGIN delivers the best gaming experienc... 
To improve their Precision thermal design, SilverStone implemented the 180mm Air Penetrator fan (AP181) into the PS06 tower chassis. With the AP181 and an included silent 120mm fan, the PS06 should be capable of cooling all your hardware with ease. Two additional 120mm fan slots let users further improve cooling performance if necessary. To help keep the dust out, all intake fan slots are also equipped with removable fan filters to work effectively with the default positive pressure airflow sche... 
Introduction
If extreme overclocking had a name, it’d be k|ngp|n. Vince Lucido (a/k/a “k|ngp|n”) is arguably the man who got such things started in the United States. Back when most people were still gawking at the extreme ventures of a few folks pushing overclocking to new heights with water cooling, this guy started to bring the truly extreme methods of employing liquid nitrogen (LN2) to achieve even more outrageous performance. While Vince was not the first person to use ... 
OCZ technology has made some great strides in the SSD space since they jumped into it. A dazzling array of options and formats brings more choices to the consumer, allowing buyers to find products to fit their specific needs (and budgets). Support for the end user is a continuing process at OCZ, since anyone can check out their forums for firmware updates, SSD care tips, and the latest news.
On the bench today is OCZ’s latest SATA3 offering, the mid-ranged OCZ Agility 3 240GB. OCZ produce... 
Sentey has sent us one of their Slim Series cases, the Sentey SS2-2807. This case is aimed at people who need a good case with some expandability, and most likely will need to fit in a tight space. The SS2-2807 could do very well in the HTPC market as well with the high gloss black paint job and the slim design. It has three 3.5″, and one 5.25″ drive bay to help give the user a decent amount of choices for storage space. It does come equipped with a standard ATX PSII 250w PSU to help... 
Thermaltake’s Armor A90 case aims to combine high-end features with a mid-range price to deliver the ability to grow your system over time. This mid-tower case supports both ATX and MicroATX motherboards, and has seven expansion card slots. There are three external 5.25″ drives and six 3.5″ internal drives, all of which are equipped with tool-free installation mechanisms for convenience. The A90 also has one “hidden” 2.5″ bay at the bottom of the case.
A 120m... 
The Thermaltake Element Q mini-ITX case was made for space-limited conditions, such as HTPC installations. This small form factor case offers a compact, stylish and convenient solution for housing a mini-ITX system with features arranged to do the job neatly and efficiently. The cooling system utilizes a fanless design to save energy and keep your operating environment quiet. Perforations in the panel vent hot air to keep heat from building up inside your system. The concealed front I/O panel gi... 
The Steelseries Shift gaming keyboard is designed to change and adapt to real-time strategy (RTS), and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games through interchangeable keysets. Powered by the Steelseries Engine software, the Shift provides gamers with predefined game mods and an intuitive layout of the most common commands and actions for specific game genres and titles. With the functionality to customize every key on the keyset, on-the-fly macro recording, and the anti-ghosting of up to 7 simu... 
Recently, our good friends at Corsair sent us their newest premium speaker set, the SP2500 2.1. It’s no secret that, as gaming enthusiasts, we want to get the best performance out of our rigs as possible. We’ll overclock our CPUs and massage our video settings to get every last FPS and graphical effect; it stands to reason that, to complete the immersive gaming experience, we shouldn’t neglect the audio landscape. Corsair took this same approach with their flagship 2.1 audio sy... 
Today we have the Thermaltake Element V to toss on our review table and explore. This full tower case from Thermaltake can accommodate Micro ATX, ATX, and Extended ATX motherboards. You’ll also have plenty of storage with six 3.5-inch drive bays. The included 2.5-inch drive bay is an added bonus for those who have already adopted the 2.5″ lifestyle.
The side panel houses a 230mm intake fan to drive cool air over your expansion cards and the CPU. A 200mm Colorshift fan helps exhaust t... 
With the SATA 3 specification being only 2 years old, and the wide availability of SSDs only 2 years more advanced than that, solid state drives have managed to push SATA2 to its limits very quickly. With SATA3 seeing near-universal availability on new motherboards, it is no surprise companies are trying to push the SATA3 interface to its limits.
OWC has just released the Extreme Pro 6Gbps SSD. At 240GB, and sporting some of the most cutting-edge I/O circuitry, it is capable of pushing the SATA3... 
As a benchmarker, the biggest milestone you will come across is your first plunge below -100C. Liquid Nitrogen is -196C by nature, and to utilize this exotic cooling material, you need a fantastic evaporator, or more commonly known as a pot. Much like dry ice, cooling the processor down this cold will decrease impedance that opposes electron flow. This allows for a more efficient circuit, promoting greater stability and overclocking headroom.
After 2 years of research, waiting, gather... 
Introduction
The next review sample in our Xigmatek lineup is the AEGIR SD128264. Xigmatek has been around for a little over 5 years, and has established itself well and rather quickly in the air cooling arena. They have impressed many consumers with good quality products and performance at an affordable price level. Xigmatek’s “ICE” philosophy is well-illustrated in the company and its products.
“ICE” = Impressive / Creative / Essential
The AEGIR is a 120mm vertic... 
The AURORA Micro Wireless, from Enermax, is a wireless compact keyboard featuring total media functionality. With integrated trackball, left-right buttons, and a scroll-wheel, this wireless compact keyboard is looking to be one of the best solutions for using media center and home theater software. This product won the prestigious “red dot design award: product design 2009″ against 11,000 submissions from 61 countries in 14 categories. With the sleek brushed aluminum look of the ... 
Introduction:
The second generation of i7 processors have taken the PC world by storm, with many users switching over to the current P67 chipsets, and even more (yours truly included) anxiously awaiting the upcoming Z77, and Z78 chipsets.
A majority of PC enthusiasts feel the X58 platform is dead, and that it is time to move on. It’s hard to argue against that thinking, as Sandy Bridge has proven to be a faster and better-overclocking chip then its older brothers. Some companies, however,Â... 
In 2005, SilverStone created the Temjin TJ07, a tower chassis with unprecedented unibody construction and compartmentalized layout for an almost limitless liquid cooling configuration. Then in 2006, the Temjin TJ09 was released with classic styling and a see-through air duct designed for cooling. In 2008, they created the first retail computer chassis to implement 90 degree motherboard mounting with the RAVEN RV01, a new design which tried to balance air cooling performance and quietness.
Silve... 
News Headlines
Categories
Tags
Links
Archives
