2011 August | TechREACTION

[Review] Silverstone EC03 Internal USB 3.0 PCIE card 2 Comments By Neuromancer on August 31, 2011 Silverstone is a company that is known for providing high quality merchandise to support your computing needs. From cases and power supplies to peripherals and NAS solutions, Silverstone makes products to increase performance and expand storage. Despite being less than a decade old, Silverstone has made a mark for itself, especially in the high end case and power markets. Today, we look one of their peripheral offerings – a PCI Express expansion card that provides a internal 19 pin USB 3.0...
[Review] CM Storm Sirus True 5.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset 2 Comments By Trembledust on August 29, 2011 Cooler Master has been synonymous with top PC related products for many years ranging from CPU coolers, fans, and of course cases. In 2008, Cooler Master seemed to have “declared war” on inferior gaming peripherals by introducing a new division, called CM Storm. Co-developed by what Cooler Master stated were the world’s most prolific enthusiasts and e-Sport prodigies, CM Storm promises to deliver truly ground-breaking, military grade hardware for the gaming revolution. Their mo...
[Review] Bitfenix Alchemy Cables 4 Comments By The Duke on August 26, 2011 We all know by now that Bitfenix has been on the warpath ever since entering the chassis market with a bang, debuting with their Colossus. Since that time, they have added three more models and dived into other avenues of customization. Today, with computer customization exploding in popularity, we will be looking at one of the latest crazes to hit the average user. For the longest time, sleeving PSU cables was the sole province of the pro-modding community, but now with all the tools and choice...
[Review] Evercool HPL-815 2 Comments By GSG-9 on August 24, 2011 Introduction Recently, Evercool sent us their latest ultra low profile product, the HPL-815 Low Profile cooler. After taking the HPL-815 out of its box I felt like a giant. It is possible to hold the fan and heatsink in the palm of your hand while your fingers and thumb touch opposite sides of the contact area. Evercool claims this feisty cooler can tame the most brutal processors on the market. Today we will put the Evercool HPL-815 to the test. Here is an overview of the impressively dim...
[Review] Thermaltake Chaser MK-I 6 Comments By The Duke on August 22, 2011 The new Thermaltake chassis to hit the market is the Chaser MK-I, which we will be tossing on our review bench and sending it through its paces today. The Chaser sports USB 3.0 and a HDD docking station with easy access. We are happy to see Thermaltake preparing for the future with these additions. Thermaltake also boasts that the Chaser can support any graphics card up to 33cm in length, which we will be happy to put to the test later on in the review. With an easily removable top panel, the ...
[Review] Cooler Master GeminII S524 2 Comments By GSG-9 on August 18, 2011 Introduction For review today we have the GeminII S524 cooler by CoolerMaster. This 5 heatpipe cooler features aluminum fins designed to maximize surface area while allowing all RAM slots to be occupied for AM3 and Socket 1155/1156/1366 computers. The GeminII S524 Manufacturer’s Description & Specifications: Specifications CPU Socket Intel Socket:LGA 1366 / 1156 / 1155 / 775 * AMD Socket:FM1 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 CPU Support Intel:Core™ i7 Extreme / Core&t...
[Review] Sapphire Pure Platinum H67 2 Comments By Archer on August 17, 2011 Introduction Sapphire Technology is well known for their line of AMD/ATi video cards but they are also making motherboards. What can a video card company bring to the table? Name recognition that has been earned over the years by producing quality products. Packaging Sapphire has an all business approach with the packaging by pointing out the features. Other than the “Pure Platinum” badge it is a no frills look. Product Shots The Mosfets need no cooling and the Bluetooth does n...
[REVIEW] Crucial M4 SATA 6G 256GB SSD 4 Comments By Neuromancer on August 17, 2011 Many people know of Crucial as the consumer arm of the memory giant Micron Technology. Crucial itself has been marketing Micron-designed products for a decade and a half. It should thus be no surprise that Crucial brings the big name of Micron to the consumer level in the M4 STATA 6G series of SSD. Crucial.com. The Memory Experts. At Crucial.com, we know memory. We research it. Test it. Stock it. And we’ll even replace it. We’re among the first ones to get a new platform, OS, mothe...
[Review] Lamptron FC9 Fan Controller 3 Comments By The Duke on August 15, 2011 The FC9 is Lamptron’s newest 4 channel fan controller design, featuring a CNC milled front panel. A unique multiple-color (White, Blue, Green, Cyan, Red, Purple, and Yellow) channel system enhances the look of this 50-watt, 4 channel controller. With all the color options, you should be able to find something there to suit your style needs whenever necessary. Each channel color is easily customized through a three-jumper system via the back of the PCB (we will cover the specifics, no worri...
[Review] Nexus LOW-7000 R2 3 Comments By GSG-9 on August 12, 2011 Recently, Nexus sent us their newest product in their war on noise; the Low-7000 Revision 2 Low Profile cooler. Silent Low Profile CPU Cooler Balanced performance Ideal for HTPCs The Low-7000 R2 The heatsink itself comes with mounting hardware for the following configurations: Socket: LGA1366 LGA 1156 LGA 1155 LGA 775 AMD AM3 AMD AM2 Nexus Low-7000 Fan 02 Manufacturer’s Description & Specifications: The Nexus LOW-7000 cooler combines some of...
[Review] Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim 1 Comment By The Duke on August 10, 2011 Cooler Master’s NotePal X-Slim is a lightweight and simple laptop cooling pad from the NotePal X family. X-Slim was made to support 7″ to 17″ laptops, and thus has the ability to help cool pretty much any size netbook or laptop on the market today. The ultra slim and lightweight design is made for easy carrying and storage. With two height settings for ergonomic operation, a fully meshed surface plus a 160mm fan, it should provide excellent cooling performance. How well did it ...
[Review] iBuyPower Gamer Power BTS11 Gaming PC 3 Comments By Trembledust on August 8, 2011 Many in the PC community know the name iBuyPower for offering quality PC desktops, and laptops in use for gaming, workstations, and media. The California-based company has been around for ten years, and in that time they have accumulated many awards from sites like Maximum PC, AnandTech , PC World, and Gamepro just to name a few. Today we get a chance to get our hands on iBuyPower’s latest custom gaming PC desktop dubbed the Gamer Power BTS 11. This rig is part of iBuyPower’s back...
Genuis SP-i400 Magnetic Portable Music Player Speaker 2 Comments By Trembledust on August 3, 2011 Genuis is a Taiwanese company created in 1983 specializing in PC peripherals. These peripherals include mice, keyboards, tablets, gaming headsets, and speakers. Today we will be looking at one of Genuis’s latest audio products designed for use with portable devices, the SP-i400 Magnetic Portable Music Player Speaker. The speaker itself is a third party audio output option for items ranging from laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players etc. What’s interesting about this speaker is it can ...
[Review] OCZ Vertex 3 240GB MAX IOPS 2 Comments By Neuromancer on August 1, 2011 OCZ Technology has made enormous strides in the SSD technology field since throwing the company whole-heartedly into NAND flash storage solutions. Their latest SATA 6Gb iteration is the Vertex 3 MAX IOPS edition. We have on the test bench the 240GB model, featuring the super-fast SandForce 2200 storage controller and 256GB of 32nm Toshiba Toggle Mode Double DATA Rate NAND Flash. The specifications on the drive are very beefy. Sporting a 550 MBps max read speed, as do many of the other OCZ SATA 6...

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