Windows 7 is upon us, and with the launch of Microsoft’s self-proclaimed “best operating system” comes a slew of new desktop machines, notebooks, and net books looking to take advantage of its added stability and features. One of the companies that are looking to serve up a number of new Win7-based rigs is Asus, and without a doubt they have assembled an interesting and compelling offering in their G51J-A1 notebook. Hitting the sweet spot between the average-sized 15″ machine and the full-on desktop replacement, the refreshedG51 maintains the 15″ form factor yet packs enough horsepower to plow through even the latest game titles.
If you’ll recall, we reviewed the prior G51 back in August, a machine that went by the name of G51VX-RX05. The G51J-A1 (which we’re looking at today) is exactly, spec-for-spec, the same machine except for three huge differences: the processor, chipset, and operating system. At the heart of the G51J-A1 is the brand spankin’ new Intel Core i7-720QM CPU, which is clocked at 1.60GHz with a 2.8GHz Turbo Boost function, pared to the mobile PM55 chipset. And of course, Windows Vista has been replaced by Windows 7 Home Premium, an OS that feels more solid and less resource intensive from top to bottom.
What you’re left with is a really capable gaming machine with plenty of power to handle day-to-day duties, multimedia playback and pretty much anything else you’d expect from a portable machine. All within a case that’s just marginally thicker than “standard” 15″ machines. It’s a nice package for those desiring high-end performance normally found only within 17″+ desktop replacements, but in an enclosure that won’t break your back when lugging it around. So, the only question now is how well does it really perform. Follow us through the pages to come to find out.
How cold can you get your PC? It seems like enthusiasts and overclockers constantly find new and creative ways to cool down the heat producing parts of their computer. We’ve already brought you coverage of liquid helium and liquid nitrogen being used to achieve sub-zero temperatures in order to achieve huge overclocking results. But using these methods doesn’t provide a 24/7 solution that people can use without having to fill a pot every few minutes. Phase change, thermoelectric cooling, and watercooling attract a larger audience since they require little maintenance after initial setup, but they carry a hefty price tag. Still, exotic cooling enthusiasts want more variety with new designs and better performance in order to keep up with the constant flux of new technology.
If there’s a demand, you better believe that companies will find a way to supply consumers with highly sought after products. And as the PC enthusiast sector grows, we see more parts being released that focus on cooling high end components. While it seems like every company makes a RAM cooling fan these days, Corsair has decided to take it up a notch. The Ice T30 sub-ambient cooling system is the first of its kind and made specifically for Corsair’s enthusiast grade memory. Is it all just hype or does cooling your memory provide measurable benefits? Read on to find out what this cooler has to offer.
Installing Corsair’s Ice T30 is a tedious process that requires time, patience, and attentiveness. As is the case with most watercooled components, installation is much more involved than their air cooler counterparts. Within the manual, there are 15 pages worth of instructions and diagrams to help explain the procedure. Rather than go through each step, we will just give notice that this is not a plug and play solution.
This product is made for enthusiasts already familiar with liquid cooling who can integrate the cooler to an existing loop. During installation, we realized the hose barbs located on top of the cooler were not removeable and did not allow us to replace them with different barbs. This becomes an issue if the cooler is being added to a loop that uses a tubing size with an inner diameter other than 3/8″, like 1/4″ or 1/2″ for example.
Currently, the Corsair Ice T30 is the most expensive memory cooling system on the market. Memory fan kits can be found for less than $20 and a handful of memory waterblocks are being sold for about $100. But considering the components used and the relative complexity of the device, it is not a surprise that the T30 demands a high price tag. At $200 though, you should definitely weigh the benefits of adding this product to your system. If you have a 1333MHz or 1600MHz memory kit that doesn’t overclock as well as you’d like, it may be advisable to purchase a faster kit instead of relying on better cooling to gain additional performance. On the other hand, Dominator GT owners with 1866MHz or 2000MHz kits could make use of the T30’s capabilities to hit high speeds that air cooling simply can’t support.
ASUS by some respects is one of the many major computer manufacturers in most day to day operations or just a few bucks extra to get all of the premiums and satisfaction of a stable system to hit those scores or a descent frame rates in most dx10 games. Well the AMD branding in 2009 is a little dated in some stages, first of all, being left behind in the performance via CPU in most threading and calculation benchmarks over Intel with their new and improved Intel corei7 and the new generation LGA 1156 systems. Well there is a little room for improvement for Intel for prosing margins against the AMD variants, but still is the only available public market CPU that does a number in most server pack systems.
While the usability ratings of AMD is not well known in the CPU sector, while the ATI is in full swing with their own HD-5000 series and with the DX11 support and considered the fastest core available in the market, it is no biggy if they stuff up in one of their product, it can just be bailed out by one of their other more successful ones. In one of the respects on the new dragon series of AMD and their new range of Phenom II processors and also a refurbished chipset motherboard series the 790FX series and the much newer south bridge 750, comparing form the previous series of south bridges like the 680 which lacked in external ports and even a onboard Ethernet connection.
Well the physical forms of the ATX motherboard complete with heat sink coloured aluminium and pipe transfer is standard. With other distinct features placed into the top down version of the T-series of the new 790FX chipset, is the support of the AM3 processor pins that are new to the computer market, but not as big introduction as the Intel variants, which had an amount of praise in the public. Well first impressions is the support of DDR3 memory in any AMD system but fell short with the ASUS M4A79 chipset, which has a only native support of DDR2 memory but having an overclocking potential in a bandwidth speed of 1300MHz a first in any DDR2 memory in a AMD system with a onboard memory chipset. While other features like the turbo-v, anti-surge protection; normally fall upon the copy of Gigabytes ultra durable 3 series, there so called dubbed, Xtreme phase form ASUS.
In the testing of the ASUS motherboard form the rest of its counter parts, the P45 (well it is unfair for the Phenom to compete with the new corei7 and the core i5’s) and with AMD’s 790GX onboard graphics series. In the first part of completion, AMD still show some struggle in pure calculation processes and also multi-threading even against some of the mid-end processors like the Q9550, but the Phenom II X4 965, is considered the fastest CPU via its clock core of 3.4GHz, but fast enough in gaming or in multi-threading applications. Even the Overlocking potential of the DDR2 1300 is good news but only in small proportions, it struggle to even keep to the bare minimum of that core running 24-7. Even with the help of high voltage tweaks cannot keep it in check.
In careful evaluation of the M4A79 deluxe series of ASUS, even a bit of a good side of ASUS Xtreme series, it still has some flaws with the Phenom II and in there chipsets, well comparing it to the Intel’s offers of speed, you can be swayed to buy those instead, but in the matters of cost per performance, Intel is a premium, and AMD is a great bargain with processors coming at $96 apiece.
Well we say in the remake of the company a while ago in the planning’s on a intro of their SSD drives to the market as all of the memory producers a looking and taking at. But never in the sake of aluminium is fun with cases or in the gaming sector that. In 1994 Corsair emerged as a Performance Memory Manufacturer forging their way with innovative performance products making Corsair the brand we know and trust today. In the last few years Corsair have broadened their horizons venturing in to making power supplies as well. The team at OC3D are all in agreement that at the time of writing the best PSU’s available today are made by Corsair see the HX850w review here. Still not happy Corsair have made budget all in one water cooling unit the H50 which trades punches both in performance and price with the T.R.U.E and has split opinions down the middle.
Well the naming of the product Obsidian 800D is a little out of the picture of the demographics of naming a case, we might have some disagreements of the naming but if it hits the spot for users around the place to find something interesting, that definitely did it right. The first thing that hit me was the size of the box that arrived, it is much taller and deeper than I was expecting. I nearly got a hernia trying to pick it up its that heavy, I did think for a second or two there was a pre-built PC inside! So straight away the weight of the ABS steel chassis is having an effect.
Theres quite a lot to get through, so Ill start at the top. The top 5.25″ bay houses the power switch and activity light. It also has a drop down panel to expose the reset switch, headphone and microphone connections, Firewire and 4x USB ports. The drop down panel has a very slow quality action to it, I think I must have played with this in a daze for about 10 minutes before I realised how much of a nerd Ive turn into when front panels become so fascinating.
You can not deny that this is a good looking well built case, it may be steel but that just adds to the tough sturdy quality feel. The attention to detail is also the best Ive seen in any case on the market, even simple things like the front I/O bay kept me amused for ages playing with the pop down door. The case is also much bigger than I’d have ever expected, and this made installing even a full high end system easy with plenty of room to move around and fit the parts with out having to be some kind of Japanese contortionist.
When it came to testing it became apparent very quickly that the case was suffocating, there just wasn’t enough cool air getting into the case to cool the parts. GPU’s rely on cool air blowing over them to help keep the volcano of heat inside cool. The only intake was from the bottom blowing up wards, which in the Silverstone Raven with the GPU mounted vertically this works very well, but in the Corsair the cool air (what there is of it) completely misses the GPU’s all together and the temperatures reflect this. Ill admit I’m no F1 aerodynamics expert, but surely if its so obvious to me what the problem is how did this case get this far, its a bit late to be changing things now. After a simple fan change and a slight rethink of the airflow pattern to get more air into the case the temperatures plummeted, there definitely wasn’t enough air getting into the case but I think that its 50% design flaw and 50% that the fans provided were designed to be quiet rather than actually move much air. Once the changes were made the case performed much better against the ‘High Air Flow’ 922.
Looking at the Radeon HD 5800-series, AMD and its partners have been able to keep prices high for the simple reason that NVIDIA does not have a range of DX11 GPUs in the market place. Rather, we will need to wait until the Fermi architecture is made available in Q1 2010.Whilst AMD has a commanding time-to-market lead for DX11 hardware, stock of Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 has been patchy, to say the least.In an interesting move, Sapphire is launching a pre-overclocked version of the hard-to-find HD 5870. Dubbed Vapor-X, it’s a path that AMD’s largest AIB has trodden many times before.
Is it worth forgetting about the reference card and opting for a Sapphire-cooled model? Read on to find out. Sapphire’s Vapor-X model, looking somewhat different to the reference design, still uses the same PCB. Overall, including cooler, it’s very slightly shorter than and not quite as tall as the stock card. Interestingly, the cooling looks more substantial, but the Vapor-X weighs in at 728g, compared to the 958g for the AMD-supplied card. Whilst the Radeon HD 5870 isn’t a particularly power-thirsty card, better-than-reference cooling will help in stabilising higher frequencies. To this end, the Vapor-X - part of the aftermarket range alongside the TOXIC - clocks in at 870MHz core and 5,000MHz memory, up from the default 850MHz/4,800MHz.
Looking quite funky in a perforated black housing, the card is quieter than the reference when idling in 2D, barely noticeable above the background noise, but is a touch louder when playing games. CrossFire fingers enable hook-up to another card for higher performance, although the soon-to-arrive Radeon HD 5970, a dual-GPU card, may well corner the very high-end GPU market. Harnessing the Eyefinity feature-set, the card boasts three distinct digital outputs: DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort. All three can be used simultaneously, although DisplayPort needs to be one of the three outputs.
The AMD Radeon HD 5870 is, arguably, the best consumer graphics card that money can buy right now, but we temper this statement with the knowledge that, over a month on from release, supply remains in considerable constraint. Undeterred by the lack of availability, or perhaps playing on this very fact, Sapphire’s using AMD’s underlying PCB and bolting a better-performing cooler on top for the Vapor-X offering.
Sapphire plays the game safe with these clocks, because our sample scaled up to 962MHz core and 5,224MHz memory with a little bit of tinkering, so, based on a sample of one, there appears to be intrinsic merit in the Vapor-X SKU.Augmented by a slightly better-than-reference bundle, we reckon the package is just about worth the extra outlay if you have your heart set on a Radeon HD 5870 1,024MB card - especially if Sapphire can get stock into the channel this week.
Natural progression finally saw HEC move into the PSU market in 1997 where the company focused mainly on supplying devices to OEM customers rather than direct to consumers. One such example of this was our recent review of the MESH Matrix II PC System which contained a HEC 550w PSU. But times are changing, and with the release of the “Cougar” range which we will be looking at today, it would seem that HEC have their sights firmly set on entering the retail sector.
Although we’ll take a proper look at the rail distribution in a minute, HEC have decided to split the +12v rail power over a total of six rails. Interestingly they attribute this decision as being in the best interests of gamers, but the last time I checked most other manufacturers were switching to a single +12v rail design for the very same reason. 87% efficiency is also on the cards, but with no mention of what mains voltage or load level(s) this is achievable at, this figure doesn’t really mean too much. Additionally it would seem that the Cougar 1000CM has only been certified 80PLUS (Standard) rather than any of the newer Bronze/Silver/Gold ratings. This could possibly indicate that the efficiency of the unit drops as low as 80% at certain loads, or maybe that HEC just haven’t got round to getting the unit properly certified.
No matter which side of the box you look at HEC have printed something there for you to read. At one end of the box you will find yet another specifications list, only this time with several images to represent each of the main features, while at the other end of the box HEC have printed rail distribution charts for both the Cougar 1000CM and 1200CM models.
They say that first impressions count and HEC certainly seem to have taken this to heart with an extremely striking metallic orange paintjob contrasted with a black fan grill and screws. Although the paint job certainly isn’t up to automotive standards when it comes to glossiness and shine, viewing the PSU from different angles gives an almost colour-shift effect from dark orange, to light orange, to gold. Anybody building a PC based on an orange and black theme is going to absolutely love the look of this unit. The only down-side of course is that it’s not quite as robust as a powder-coat finish and will scratch/chip if mishandled.
A total of eight modular plugs protrude from the front of the unit, with four dedicated to graphics card power (Red) and the remaining four (black) for use with the SATA/Molex modular cables. Interestingly HEC have used 8-Pin PCI-E style connectors for all of the plugs which could potentially lead to cables being inserted into the wrong connectors. Of course, all plugs on the cables are colour coded, but as I can attest to myself, when inserting new cables into a PSU that is already installed in a chassis it can be hard to see exactly what goes where.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to recommend the Cougar 1000CM due to the ripple issues. If HEC can get this fixed or prove that this was simply a faulty batch then the outcome would certainly be different. The Cougar is one very smartly dressed PSU that would go down a treat inside any PC with an orange theme, but unfortunately looks count for very little when it comes to powering high-end PC systems.
If you’re unfortunate enough to have read our previous AMD related reviews, you must surely know by now that one of the major advantages of opting for an AMD Athlon II/Phenom II based machine is it’s attractive ownership costs. This of course is a selling point that is slowly being compromised by Intel’s new “Lynnfield” Core i5/i7 LGA1156 processors, which are currently nipping at AMD’s top end and soon enough there will be official responses to the value for money AMD Athlon II X2 and Phenom II X2 variants as well.
Regardless of this however, the main reason as to how AMD carries this advantage is down to the price of motherboards. Yes, it is also possible to spend as much as £150 on a Socket AM3 motherboard but what we’re trying to imply is that for most situations, even a more modest solution would suffice. “Really?”, You might be enquiring. After all, cheaper motherboards are likely to have weaker power regulation components, will lack important features and more importantly might not overclock as well. While often true, one could not blindly apply this to every circumstance and I can bet and tell you that such an attitude may offer no gains and a wallet that’s a little lighter than it could’ve been. Today we intend on showing you all a motherboard that may just offer the best of both worlds, the Gigabyte MA770T UD3P.
The Gigabyte MA770T UD3P itself sports a fairly conventional motherboard layout, albeit with the narrower ATX style of PCB. As you would expect this motherboard has been built to a lower budget and so features which are arguably unnecessary such as heatpipe coolers, more (physical) PCI-E 16x slots, stacked SATA ports are evidently non existant. On paper however, the cost cutting compromises does not seem to have found it’s way into the build quality department of the motherboard. With an array of exclusively solid capacitors, dual hardware BIOS, 2 ounces of Copper in it’s PCB and an 8+2 Phase power design allowing for full 140W TDP support, technically this motherboard should not be any less able than it’s bigger and more expensive siblings when even operating the range topping Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. This is all quite hypothetical though so please take a gander at the rest of the review as we put Gigabyte’s budget AM3 solution through it’s paces!
So it goes without saying that the Gigabyte MA770T UD3P ticks all of the boxes that it’s meant to and at a rather palatable pricetag. Until recently the AMD Phenom II held the midrange crown as a midrange platform that could sit somewhere between the Intel Core 2 Quad and the Core i7 in terms of Performance/£ and it’s added perks such as future upgradability prospects combined with lower ownership costs. The introduction of Intel Core i5 has changed the game by offering performance around that of the Phenom II X4 900 series processors and the Intel Core i7 LGA1366 processors but without the excessive motherboard costs. This does not bode well for AMD as it’s Phenom II X4 955 and 965 processors now have much stiffer competition in their price brackets.
So is this motherboard worth considering? Yes, most certainly. As far as Socket AM3 motherboards are concerned, this is arguably the sweetspot in terms of features relative to price. It’s debateable as to whether the Intel Core i5 750 and a base spec Intel P55 motherboard is worth it’s slightly higher ownership costs.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the best consumer power-supply unit (PSU) of them all? That’s a question that Enermax believes it can answer with its aptly-named REVOLUTION 85+ unit.
Chock-full of features and released in 850W, 950W, 1,050W, and 1,250W models, Enermax challenged us to find a better consumer PSU. With such a boast, it was only fair that we took a look at one - the 850W model - to see if it would find a way into the no-holds-barred system.
Enermax, too, believes the 850W PSU offers decent value for money once users appreciate the underpinnings. That’s some sentiment when it comes in at nearly $260. Let’s find out just how good it is in our review.
Just like its recently launched Pro and Modu series, the Revolution sports its claimed efficiency as a medal on its chest and is rated to deliver at least 85+ percent on the outside at least, in reality though, for the model we tested on a 230V supply (it will be lower if you live in a 115V country) it was closer to 90 percent in some circumstances. As such it’s 80 Plus Silver rated and we don’t honestly expect these results to drop that much between now and retail, but we will be sure to re-test to find out.
Dropping the Galaxy brand is a controversial decision - why lose a very popular and established name for something new? Well Enermax is in fact not so much dropping it but shifting it aside for something new. The new Galaxy will be the EVO brand will be relaunched in a similar glossy black design to the current Galaxy DXX, but will have a higher efficiency range of (quoted by Enermax) 85-89 percent compared to 81-85 on the current Galaxy at 230V.
The Revolution on the other hand will have the same gun-mental design as the Pro/Modu 82+, but will feature a slightly lower noise 13.5cm fan on all but the 1,250W model. This is because the Revolution has a higher quoted efficiency of a massive 87-91 percent, which means it wastes less power as heat, so less needs to be removed.
Neither features the second 80mm fan that the original Galaxy DXX has, meaning it’s significantly quieter too. In fact, during testing we found it’s probably one of the quietest kilowatt PSUs we’ve heard to date and even at full load the 1,050W model wasn’t gasping for air like so many others. It certainly wasn’t silent, in fact it was still audible but much less intrusive than we’re used to from a very high powered PSU.
If you’re after something a little more inexpensive, the EVO will be more competitively priced, however we’ve yet to see whether it can keep up with the Corsair HX1000W’s 87 percent efficiency at under $224. In our opinion, the Galaxy name may carry it in Germany but not in the UK any more where people are more concerned with value rather than being brand loyal. Does three percent more efficiency warrant a bolt load more cash? What about a UK RMA base or a much quieter PSU - do these things swing it for you? The value is certainly a varied argument and we still contest how many people really need a full kilowatt in their systems in the first place.
Well DFI LanParty is very well known for their good prize to performance ratio when considering a powerful and a potential over-clocker, mostly seen in the Intel sector with their extreme series of motherboard chipsets, like the example of the X38 and the X48 chipsets in the previous core 2. Well we are going to see a media centre range chipset from Intel , well going to be unusual but they are able to capitalise that user gross market they can hit the jackpot for cheap media centre components for the silent HD user in around the house of their theatre centres.
Today we have the opportunity to take a look at another board in the LanParty series from DFI. The LanParty series has always been a favorite of mine because of the tweaking options and the overclocking ability that they have. The board we get to look at today, though, was one that most would not think would belong in that series of boards. It is a micro board, uses the older LGA775 socket coupled with DDR3 memory, and has the G41 chipset that sports the GMA X4500 on-board graphics chip. Does that sound like a board in the LanParty series? We plan to put it through our testing to see if it is a board that you should be looking at for your next upgrade.
The first look at the board really shows us just how compact things are. However, as you use the board, you will see that compact does not mean crowded. The layout of the board was really good, and gave us no issues at all as we set the board up. We were very pleased with the layout. The top right of the board is the location of our 24 pin power connector, which is on the edge of the board where it should be. Just underneath that, and also on the edge of the board, is the IDE connector. The DFI BI G41-T33 only has two DDR3 slots, which should be enough for what this board will be used for. The board supports up to 4GB of DDR3 memory at up to DDR3 1066Mhz. Right in the middle you have a heatsink that covers the G41 chipset. We did have heat issues with this board when raising the vcore. There is an alarm that goes off and is VERY annoying, but it certainly does get your attention! We added a fan to see if it helped with the heat issues that we were having, and it did not help at all. We checked the setup of our water cooler to make sure all was good, and it was. The contact between the heatsink and the chipset also seemed to be just fine, so the board just seems to run hot. It should be mentioned that as long as we did not increase the vcore we were fine.
Finally the verdict in most media motherboards like the one’s in DFI, one of the downright flaws of media mini-ATX boards is the usability of small components inside the motherboards and some cutting in performance and over-clocking potential the limitations of chokes and PMW’s around the core can severely limit performance ratios to more usable apps. But nonetheless, with some rarity in the use of DDR3 memory, this works best not being tampered with.
Well, this is the first time we saw a case that is officially called as beta, not being a demonstration of the case this is the real thing for most low to prize cases for most gamers who would like a cheap alternative to cases but still keeping the usability in a modern case. As you’d imagine for the price though, there aren’t too many luxuries on offer with the NZXT Beta. The case is made predominantly of black painted steel, with a stylised plastic front fascia to the front which doubles as intake ventilation for the solitary 120mm intake fan. The looks certainly stray towards the featureless black box side of design, but the front fascia does add a bit of interest, with the power and reset buttons neatly integrated just below the four 5.25in drive bays and the front panel located in the roof of the case.
While the right hand side panel is bare, the left panel has mounts and venting for two 120mm fans situated directly above where your core hardware will sit, with a third fan mount to the rear of the case accommodating either an 80mm or a 120mm fan. The case itself only ships with one 120mm fan though, fitted into the front of the case as an intake, which in comparison to the 120mm rear exhaust fan and 1x 140mm roof fan (wuth room for two more 120mm fans at the front) in the similarly priced Antec Three Hundred, seems mighty stingy and will doubtless result in some less than stellar thermal performance.
Considering the NZXT Beta ships with a solitary 120mm front mounted intake, which subsequently has to blow through the case’s perpendicularly mounted hard drive cage, it’s no surprise to find that it’s one of the hottest cases we’ve ever tested, finishing dead last under idle and CPU load and sitting just above the bottom of the table under GPU load conditions.
When idle there’s obviously very little air movement inside the case, and while the large ventilated area around the core hardware undoubtedly helps, passive airflow is no substitute for correctly directed cooling. A CPU temperature of 13°C might not seem too different, but remember this is when the system is entirely idle doing effectively nothing and is 5°C hotter than the best cases.
With decidedly flimsy build quality and sub standard out of the box cooling, there’s not too much to like here, but the Beta does have some redeeming features. It is at least straightforward to build a system into, and the painted finish of the interior is a bonus that we’re not used to seeing at this price.
It’s impossible to ignore the Beta’s faults though, especially in comparison to the ever present Antec Three Hundred which so heavily dominates this budget market. It not only offers vastly superior cooling to the Beta thanks to four speed adjustable fans, but its overall build quality is far superior (if lacking the Beta’s swish interior). At this price point you need to at least get the basics right and the Beta has focused too much on looking the part rather than actually being the part.