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The new cooler from Raijintek seems to have everything it takes to be one of the best: a huge dual-section heatsink, two 140 mm fans, thick heat pipes, and a reliable multi-platform retention mechanism.
Corsair has been releasing one case after another lately, expanding their already large ranks with an even greater variety of products. It has been less than three months since the release of the Obsidian 250D, a cubic Mini-ITX case, and only two days since another member of the Obsidian series, the Midi-ATX Obsidian 450D, has been announced. Today, Corsair announced the release of yet another case, the Graphite 730T/760T.
Unlike the Obsidian 450D, which was released in order to fill a specific gap into the already heavily populated Obsidian series, the release Graphite 730T/760T does not appear to have such a purpose. There are only two Graphite cases currently available, the 230T and the 600T and, considering the MSRP of the Graphite 730T/760T versions and that its aesthetic design is similar to that of the 230T, it seems more likely that it has been released as a replacement for the 600T rather than having products that will coexist. As such, the primary changes will be a modified aesthetic and improved performance.
We should clarify that the 730T and the 760T are essentially the same case; the major difference is that the former has an opaque left panel and the latter an acrylic window. The Graphite 760T also has a basic 2-speed fan controller installed and will become available in both Black and Arctic White colors. It is the Arctic White version of the Graphite 760T that we will be reviewing today. Corsair informed us that the new Graphite cases will become available through North American retailers in late April.
<div><span style="font-size: small;">Liquid-cooling is nothing new in the world of computers; enthusiasts first started creating custom water cooling setups back in the 80486 era, and even prior to that some mainframes used liquid-cooling. Due to their cost and complexity however, such cooling solutions often do not appeal to a large portion of users. With the advent of of closed loop, ready-to-run liquid-cooling kits from Asetek and CoolIT a few years back, however, liquid-cooling is now significantly less costly and complex. Today, the cooling solutions of both these two OEMs are being marketed by several brands and are becoming increasingly popular among all classes of users.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">Despite the low cost and ease of installation however, these closed loop systems entirely lack the one thing that a custom liquid-cooling solution has: versatility. All of the closed loop liquid-cooling kits currently available in the market are designed be installed on a single CPU, without the possibility of any expansion, whereas custom setups could potentially cool all of the critical components in a system. Until recently, those who purchased any closed loop liquid-cooling kit were limited to cooling their CPU only, leaving their high-end graphics cards running on air. NZXT came up with a very simple and effective solution to this problem: a metallic bracket called the Kraken G10 that allows the installation of any Asetek-based liquid-cooling kit on most modern graphics cards. </span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://anandtech.com/show/7719/nzxt-kraken-g10-review-liquid-cooling-for-your-gpu" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></div>
It has been 16 months since our last power supply review, but the long wait is finally over. We have a new PSU and cases editor, and this is the first of many new PSU reviews to come. The first PSU to hit our new testing lab is the S12G 650W from Seasonic. Seasonic is a company that hardly requires any introduction; they are one of the oldest and most reputable computer PSU designers, manufacturers and retailers. Today, their products are held in very high regard by experts and enthusiasts. The company has their own retail range but they also serve as an ODM for many other well-known brands.
The target groups of the S12G series are advanced users, enthusiasts, and generally those who are not afraid to pay a bit more for advanced performance. It has impressive specifications and features, including an 80 Plus Gold efficiency certification and a "Smart and Silent Fan Control", as well as a five-year manufacturer's warranty. Despite that, it does not really break the bank, as the 650W version that we will be testing today retails for $89.99 plus shipping, a price that appears quite reasonable for such a product.
A year or two ago, you would have had a hard time trying to find a high quality 80 Plus Gold certified unit for that kind of price; however, today Seasonic's retail range has tight competition from several other manufacturers, such as Antec, EVGA, Rosewill, and others. As the Seasonic S12G is not a modular unit and doesn't really include any special features, the company clearly relies on quality and performance above all else; middling quality and average performance cannot be tolerated when several other manufacturers are breathing down your neck. Let us see if the 650W version of the S12G can live up to Seasonic's reputation.
Nanoxia is a German manufacturer of high performance PC cases, and they're already well known amongst enthusiasts despite the fact that the company isn't even two years old. Since our review of their first product a year ago, the Deep Silence 1, the company has come a long way. They've released six cases and are slowly taking steps towards diversifying into other market segments. Nanoxia has also released multiple case accessories and four different cooling fans series. Unfortunately, the availability of their products in the US market remains sketchy at best, but that will hopefully be changing as we reported at CES -- and it can hardly be any worse than last year where the only option as to import their products.
Today we are looking at their latest and grandest creation, the Deep Silence 6. As the name implies, this is the sixth case that Nanoxia has designed and it's targeted towards a very specific segment of the market, namely hardcore enthusiasts and advanced users that want a very large case. The specifications of the case can be seen in the following table and certainly are impressive, particularly the dimensions and weight of the case. If you're like me and may be a bit lacking in upper body strength, you might need a friend or two to cope with moving the DS6.
Remember the time when liquid cooling a computer chip was considered to be an extreme approach, one performed by hardcore enthusiasts and overclockers alone? Everything had to be personally designed and or procured by the user, as there were no specialized commercial products available at the time. Radiators were modified heater cores extracted from cars, CPU blocks were rare and occasionally machined at local workshops using a copper block and a lathe, while high-performance tubing came from shops with medical supplies.
As demand grew, aided by the ever-increasing noise of small CPU heatsinks, companies specializing on liquid cooling solutions began turning up -- a little too fast perhaps, as tens of companies were founded within a few months' time and very few of them actually survived for more than a couple of years. Enthusiasts could then buy specialized liquid cooling equipment and even whole kits from just one seller and only had to assemble the setup into their system. That of course is no simple process for an amateur and a nightmare for a system builder, who cannot ship a system with a topped off water cooling tank or assume that the user has the skills required to maintain such a system, therefore the potential market remained limited to advanced users only.
This all changed in 2012, when Asetek came up with an inexpensive closed loop solution, a liquid cooling device that was leak-free and required no maintenance at all. The radiators of the first few solutions were small and their overall performance hardly better than that of air coolers; however, aided by the modernization of computer cases, the mounting of larger, thicker radiators inside a PC soon was not a problem. In many cases the kits were now no harder to install than any CPU cooler and required no maintenance at all, opening the market to virtually every computer user seeking a performance cooling solution. This spurred massive interest amongst OEMs and manufacturers, who all strive for a slice of the pie.
There have been tens of AIO (All-in-One) closed loop liquid coolers released just in 2013; today, we are having a roundup with 14 of them, coming from five different manufacturers.
While 21:9 displays have never caught on for TVs, they seem to have found a niche with computers. Now most vendors have at least one 21:9 display, and at CES this year we saw larger, higher resolution 21:9 panels introduced. All of these panels are aimed at consumers so far, with an emphasis on integrated audio, multiple video inputs, MHL, and other consumer features. Because of this it isn't a surprise that the 21:9 display from NEC is also consumer focused, but let's see how it performs.
The EA293WMi is a 21:9 monitor with 2560x1080 resolution. As with all the 21:9 displays so far, the backlight is an edge-lit white LED that provides the sRGB color gamut but not AdobeRGB. I asked NEC what their target audience is with the 21:9 aspect ratio, as figuring that out has been somewhat challenging.
As I expected, their main target is people that want a display that multitasks between computer and movies or games. For people that watch a lot of films that are shot in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio (which is around half of the movies released each year), the 21:9 aspect ratio allows you to watch those films without black bars at the top. As someone that has a 2.40:1 projection system at home, I understand the desire to watch films without any letterboxing.
Another target that I was unaware of is medical imaging. For lots of medical imaging, people are still using a pair of 19", 4:3 displays to view content. A 29" 21:9 monitors provides a near direct drop-in replacement for those two displays as you can't really purchase them anymore. The NEC contains a DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) mode, specifically targeting this use case. This is not a use that I, or most people, would likely be aware of but it does help to explain where 21:9 displays will fit in.
Most of the 21:9 monitors on the market have been more concerned with looks over usability. They have nice, thin profiles but lack height adjustments or VESA mounting holes on the back. They look stylish but if you want them at any other height you'll need to place them on top of something. Additionally if you want to use them in portrait mode, where their extra height can be a useful feature, you are going to need to come up with a complex system of mounting it to something. This lack of adjustments is a pet peeve of mine, so I'm happy to report that NEC doesn't restrict their display in this way.
<div><span style="font-size: small;">One of the drawbacks of buying a barebones PC like Intel’s NUC—at least if you’re a Windows user—is that it comes with no operating system. The big PC OEMs get Windows at a steep discount compared to end users, and you’ll have to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 for a full OEM Windows license (and more if you want a retail version with tech support).</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">The other side of that coin is that barebones PCs can be good for people who aren’t planning on paying for an OS. You can use your favorite Linux distribution on a barebones PC without paying the added cost for some Windows license you have no intention of using.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">As a follow-up to our original review, we’ve installed four different Linux distributions to the Haswell NUC to get an idea of what open source enthusiasts can expect to experience when they load up Linux on the hardware. We tried Ubuntu 13.10, Linux Mint 16, and Fedora 20 because of their popularity, and then we loaded up SteamOS to test out its recently acquired Intel graphics support.</span></div>
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<div><a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/linux-on-the-nuc-using-ubuntu-mint-fedora-and-the-steamos-beta/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Read more...</span></a></div>
<div><span style="font-size: small;">Corsair is a very well-known manufacturer among technology enthusiasts, and the company has been a supplier of premium memory modules for decades. During the past several years however, the company has successfully diversified into many segments of the market and today offers numerous products: computer cases, power supply units, air and liquid CPU coolers, solid-state drives, and gaming peripherals can all be found in Corsair's product ranks.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">With the recent announcement of the Obsidian 250D, the company chose to start 2014 by joining the Mini ITX case fever, something most other large case designers and manufacturers have done recently. The Obsidian 250D however has not been designed with minimum proportions in mind; despite the Mini ITX format, it can still house very powerful gaming systems and advanced cooling solutions.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7710/corsair-obsidian-250d-case-review" target="_top">Read more...</a></span></div>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font face="Arimo, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 21px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Intel's high-end Crystal Well, the Core i7-4770R, has remained out of reach for consumers despite being introduced back in June 2013. While Apple's notebooks use the mobile Crystal Well parts, the 2013 iMac restricts itself to the Core i5-4570R. Users wanting to stay out of the Apple ecosystem have been left in the cold. Gigabyte is coming to the rescue with the launch of the BRIX Pro in the NUC form factor</span></font></span></span></p>
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<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font face="Arimo, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7648/gigabyte-brix-pro" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Read more...</span></a></span></font></span></p>