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A few months ago, we had a look at many all-in-one liquid cooling solutions, ranging from low cost solutions to enthusiast-grade products. However, regardless of their size and capabilities, all of those kits were quite similar to each other. Today we have something that truly stands out from the crowd, Zalman's latest liquid-cooling solution, the Reserator 3 Max Dual.
Zalman's engineers are no amateurs when it comes to liquid cooling; they actually are one of the first companies that shipped liquid cooling solutions as complete retail products, so they have extensive experience in that particular field. The Reserator 3 Max Dual is being advertised as the "Ultimate Liquid CPU Cooler" and it currently retails for $140 including shipping, making it one of the most expensive all-in-one solutions available. It's clearly aimed at overclockers and enthusiasts, but is Zalman's newest creation worthy of such a heavy title and premium price? We will find out in this review.
<p><span style="font-size: small;">It is natural for any growing company to look for diversification. For EVGA, a company known for their high quality GPU cards and gaming motherboards, growth has led them to seek further attention from gamers. The company already released several high performance PSUs and a few cases when their first gaming peripheral, the Torq X10 gaming mouse, arrived at our labs. We will be taking a quick look at it and see what it can offer to gamers and advanced users in today's capsule review.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/8393/evga-torq-x10-gaming-mouse-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
<div><span style="font-size: small;">Corsair is a company originally known for their quality RAM modules, but they have expanded into many other areas of the PC market. Today, Corsair is one of the most important players in the computer hardware market, with the company offering dozens of products, designed to cater to as wide an array of people as possible. Looking just at their computer cases, Corsair offers five series with an ever-expanding number of products, ranging from super-large cases for enthusiasts to low-cost products for budget-driven users. In this review, we will look at one of their latest case designs, the Carbide Air 240.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">Compact cases and small form factors are all the rage nowadays. Some companies, such as Silverstone, have focused many of their R&D resources on the development of such designs. The first compact case that we reviewed from Corsair was the Obsidian 250D, a cubic Mini-ITX case of not so compact proportions; instead, it was designed to fit fairly powerful combinations of hardware. This is also true of the Carbide Air 240 that we will be reviewing today. Although it is designed to fit up to Micro-ATX motherboards, the Carbide Air 240 can accommodate very powerful hardware, including two top-tier GPUs and dual liquid cooling radiators. We will look at its design, features, strengths, and weaknesses in this review.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/8383/corsair-carbide-240-air" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: small;">be quiet! is a German company that is slowly making their way into the North American market. As you might guess from the name, be quiet! specializes in low-noise computer PSUs and coolers. (And yes, if you're wondering, the exclamation point is part of the company name, and it's supposed to be all lowercase as well.) Although they currently have a large number of interesting products, we've only had a chance to review a few of their products. It's been some time since we last looked at any of their PSUs, but be quiet! has sent us their Power Zone 850W CM, one of their most popular products right now.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">The Power Zone is be quiet!'s "Gaming" series, meaning that they are not meant to be top performers but balanced between high performance, aesthetics, and value. As the name of our sample suggests, it has a maximum output of 850 Watts at 50 °C and is a modular (CM = cable management) unit. It is also 80 Plus Bronze certified and covered by a 5-year manufacturer's warranty, which is good for a middle-range product. be quiet! has a very long and impressive list of features for this unit, which we will examine in this review. However, the most surprising part about the Power Zone 850W CM PSU is not its list of features but the retail price. At $159.99 plus shipping, it is one of the most expensive 850W units available, regardless of specifications. Does it really worth such a steep price tag?</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/8252/be-quiet-power-zone-850w-cm-power-supply-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></div>
A couple of weeks back, Western Digital updated their NAS-specific drive lineup with 5 and 6 TB Red drives. In addition, 7200 RPM Red Pro models with 2 - 4 TB capacities were also introduced. We have already looked at the performance of the WD Red, and it now time for us to take the WD Red Pro for a spin. In our 4 TB NAS drive roundup from last year, we also indicated that efforts would be taken to add more drives to the mix along with an updated benchmarking scheme involving RAID-5 volumes. The Red Pro gives us an opportunity to present results from the evaluation of various drives that have arrived in our labs since then.
The NEC EA244UHD is the first UltraHD (UHD) monitor from NEC. While it's not from their professional line, it has many of the features we've come to expect in their monitors: uniformity compensation, a wider color gamut but also sRGB and AdobeRGB support, and many user configurable settings. It also has a few things NEC has never done before including SpectraView calibration support on an EA-series model and full USB 3.0.
The EA244UHD is also loaded when it comes to connectivity. There are dual DisplayPort 1.2 inputs, HDMI, HDMI with MHL, and dual DVI (but these are only single link). I wish there was a Mini DisplayPort input like Dell has on their UHD displays, but there are still enough inputs here for anyone. With so many inputs, the NEC can display a single input at once, two side-by-side (with auto-expansion), three at once, or even four where each gets a FullHD 1920x1080 area. The Auto-Expansion mode allows you to customize the width of one half of the display and the other half automatically adjusts. There is also a USB 3.0 hub with three USB 3.0 ports, and as a sign that someone is listening to comments, the headphone jack is on the side of the display instead of the bottom or rear, where it is easy to access. Hooray for small victories!
Are you tired of reading reviews of high output power supply units? It's true that 99% of personal computers out there do not require something capable of outputting more than 500-550 Watts, and even that may be overkill for quite a few people. Even though high output units are often the most interesting in terms of the technologies being used and their potential audience is very demanding, we understand that the bulk of any company's revenue comes from the low-budget and mainstream units.
Today we have something different for you, as we are going to look at the Silverstone Nightjar 520W power supply, a PSU with a moderate power output but a very distinct feature: it's completely fanless. Fanless PSUs are not a new idea, with models appearing as early as the 90's, but the early models still had to rely on massive heatsinks, usually in conjunction with heatpipes -- sometimes even using their entire body as a heatsink as well. This obviously gave them a fair share of disadvantages and increased their cost significantly. The Silverstone Nightjar 520W retails for about $139.99 including shipping (after rebate), a steep price for a 520W unit, even for an 80Plus Platinum certified model. The price is obviously due in large part to its fanless nature. Does it perform well enough to justify such a price? We will find out in this review.
<div><span style="font-size: small;">21:9 monitors have done a good job of filling a couple niche positions in the marketplace. For someone that wants a single display to watch movies and use with the PC, the aspect ratio can work well. With many games, the wider field-of-view enhances games with more information on screen at once and a more immersive experience. Where they have fallen short is with their vertical resolution of 1080 pixels. Running two applications side-by-side makes everything feel cramped. For regular office work a 27” display for the same price has provided a better user experience.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">Now we have the first 21:9 aspect ratio monitor with 1440 pixels of vertical resolution, the LG 34UM95. That provides the same vertical area as a 27” display but 3440 horizontal pixels instead of 2560. The larger size makes running two programs side-by-side equivalent to dual 20” displays at 1720x1440, or a 6:5 aspect ratio. Furthermore, the additional real estate makes it much easier to use for non-gaming or movie use. From spreadsheets to word processing, image editors to web browsers, the additional vertical space makes a large difference.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/8057/lg-34um95-monitor-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></div>
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Mechanical keyboards are far from a new technology; they are decades old and some of the first mass produced personal computers came with mechanical keyboards back in the 1980's. However, due to their high production cost, they were soon replaced by keyboards other types of electronic switches that were considerably less expensive. Over the years however, the production cost of the mechanical key switches also came down, making them more and more affordable by the day. Today, PC users can find a good selection of mechanical keyboards from numerous manufacturers available at (generally) reasonable prices.
Today we will be having a look at the Vengeance K70 from Corsair, a full size keyboard designed for gaming. It is an upgrade of the popular Vengeance K60 and it is remains strikingly similar visually; however, aside from the various upgrades that we will discuss in this review, Corsair also offers the K70 in various color and switch combinations. In this review we will be looking at the black US layout version of the Vengeance K70, which features red backlighting and comes in three switch types (red, blue or brown), as well as in various layouts. Corsair recently launched the RGB LED backlit model at Computex, but that was not available when we started this review.
Austrian Noctua fans were a long waiting of update to flagship NH-D14 cooler. Finally the successor has arrived. Does the new Noctua NH-D15 fully answer to expectations?