As long as I’ve been following, using, or writing about computers, NEC has been a leader in displays. From the early MultiSync monitors to their current line of LCDs, they have been focused more on pushing performance than on dropping price, which has kept many of us from owning one of their displays. Of course, there is a large swath of users that always want to have the best, and are willing to pay for it.

Back with a CRT, this was pretty easy to do. We didn’t have to worry about lag, we could run multiple resolutions on a display without worrying about a native resolution, and higher resolutions, faster refresh rates, and better sharpness, were likely going to work for most power users. Now the field is a little different, as you have to worry about the native resolution of your panel, the response time, viewing angles, color quality, and more. All of this has led to a marketplace with different solutions for different needs than before.

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The last time we reviewed one of SilverStone's Grandia enclosures, it was the GD04, and it was a review that launched the first major revamp of how we test cases. Since then SilverStone has kept the Grandia series relatively staid, but at CES they were showing off the new GD07 and GD08, and today we have the GD07 in house.

SilverStone has turned the GD07 into an enclosure designed to cram as much computer into as small a space as possible within reason, and the horizontal orientation seems to make it ideal for use as a media center enclosure. However, inside it also has a tremendous amount of storage capacity that suggests it could also be used as a media server. The GD04 was a fine case once you tweaked it and added a fan controller; is the GD07 ideal on the first go ?

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">Today we will review a Codegen PSU. This product is not available in the US as they sell it in some European countries only, but it's still a nice representative of the low-end product range. In fact the P-Case 460W is a part of the <span id="intelliTxt">Q3335-A2 bundle. They sell it with a good looking case for office use. With less than 30 EUR (about 40 USD; 04-27-2012)</span> it appears to be a good offer, but we will see if they meet one's expectations.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Codegen is a well known brand for inexpensive power supplies. The P-Case 460W has passive PFC (no universal AC input) and no finish since most customers simply don't care how a PSU like this looks like. In addition there is no sleeving for the cables. The delivery contents of the bundle include a power cord and all necessary screws. You'll note that there's no 80 Plus certification on this one, which isn't too surprising considering the target market. Read on to find out if this PSU is still recommendable.</span></p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5791/codegen-pcase-460w-low-price-poor-quality"><span style="font-size: small;">Read more...</span></a></p>

Is it possible to cool a contemporary GPU working at 1 GHz frequency with just a passive heatsink? Arctic says “yes” and our today’s review will tell you how to accomplish it.

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FSP is one of the largest manufacturers for OEM power supplies and adapters. Now they're launching a new fanless series, the "Aurum Xilenser", for users that want absolute silence. We have the AU-500FL on our test bench today. Like the previous Aurum offerings, the new generation is 80 Plus Gold certified. As for the fanless part, you'll want to be careful if you try for a complete silent (i.e. fanless) PC—it's one thing to have a fanless PSU when there are case and CPU fans to compensate, but entirely fanless systems will need some big heatsinks and an open chassis if you want reasonable performance.

Thermalright decided to take back the leadership in the air-cooler market by designing and releasing a cooler for the fastest and hottest six-core Intel processors.

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<p><span style="font-size: small;">Products of the Swedish Fractal Design Company appear on our web-site for the first time. Let&rsquo;s find out how good these system cases really are. We will check out four models: Core 3000, Arc, Define R3 and Define XL.<br /> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cases/display/fractal-design.html">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

<p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; "><span style="font-size: small; ">There was a time when Western Digital's Raptor (and later, the VelociRaptor) was a staple of any high-end desktop build. Rotational media could only deliver better performance by increasing aereal density or spindle speed. In a world dominated by hard drives that focused on the former, WD decided to address both. By shipping the only mainstream 3.5&quot; hard drive with a 10,000 RPM spindle speed, WD guaranteed that if you needed performance, the Raptor line was the way to go.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; "><span style="font-size: small; ">Two years ago we met the most recent update to the VelociRaptor line: the VR200M. While it raised the bar for the VelociRaptor, WD saw its flagship competing in a new world. SSDs were now more affordable, resulting in even more desktop builds including an SSD. Although the high dollar-per-GB cost associated with SSDs demanded that desktop users adopt a two-drive model (SSD + HDD), for storage of large media files a standard 5400RPM or 7200RPM drive was just fine. After all, moving large files is mostly a sequential operation which plays to the strengths of most consumer drives to begin with.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; "><span style="font-size: small; ">There are still users who need more storage than an SSD can affordably provide, and who demand speed as well. Although photo and video editing is great on an SSD, a big enough project would have difficulty sharing a 128GB SSD with an OS, applications and other data. For those users who still need high performance storage that's more affordable than an SSD, the VelociRaptor is still worthy of consideration. There's just one problem: Moore's Law is driving the cost of SSDs down, and their capacities up. The shift to solid state storage is inevitable for most, but to remain relevant in the interim the VelociRaptor needed an update.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; "><span style="font-size: small; ">Today Western Digital is doing just that. This is the new VelociRaptor, available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; "><span style="font-size: small; "><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5729/western-digital-velociraptor-1tb-wd1000dhtz-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: small;"> Extreme budget enclosures are interesting creatures. While the best balancing acts usually show up around the $100 price point, and going north of $150 will generally get you the best of everything, hanging out at $60 or lower means having to make a lot of sacrifices and lose a lot of niceties. For some users that's not a big deal; they just want a box to put their computer in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> Fractal Design has been making a lot of waves with their lineup of minimalistic but effective enclosures, but most of those kits have been $80 or more. Today we have their Core 1000, a fascinating-looking case that retails for just $39.99. Does it bring the same magic to this end of the market that Fractal Design has brought with their other efforts, or has too much been left on the cutting room floor ?</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> The Core 1000 has been out for a little while, but I first had a chance to lay eyes and hands on it back at CES 2012 and I definitely came away feeling curious about it. Top-mounted power supplies may have gone out of fashion for the most part, but designs like this one that feature a single substantial intake fan in the front and blow straight through the components and out the back (such as SilverStone's Temjin TJ08-E) are capable of producing a tremendous amount of thermal and acoustic efficiency.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> There's also the fact that the Core 1000 is, frankly, way smaller than it loooks in photos. This is a Micro-ATX enclosure to be sure, and you're going to see in a moment just how &quot;micro&quot; that really is. We'll begin as usual with the specifications overview.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">When you're dealing with such a low price point, a lot of the trimmings have to go by the wayside. For the Core 1000, that primarily means sacrificing USB 3.0 connectivity. Where Fractal Design went a different route with the Core 1000 than most other budget enclosures was by including removable expansion slot brackets instead of just having them twist and snap out of the case, making allowances for mounting 3.5&quot; kit in a 5.25&quot; bay, and including silicone grommets to dampen mechanical drive noise. There were sacrifices made in the process, though, and I'm not entirely sure they were worth it.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/5736/fractal-design-core-1000-how-little-is-too-little">Read more...</a><br /> </span></p>

Today we are going to talk about a new Xigmatek cooler and compare it against three very similar but at the same time quite different products from Thermalright.

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