Displaying items by tag: Cooling

Water cooling for high-performance cooling has been around for a very long time. It started (as many things do) with super computers and the need to maintain a specific temperature envelope. From there advanced cooling broke into the consumer market (over the course of a few years), in the form of heatsinks with larger fans and even TEC (Thermoelectric coolers) cooling. However, for the most part water was still avoided due to the potential for leakage and damage to components. However all of that changed very quickly once the 1GHz barrier was broken. Companies seemed to come out of the woodwork with pieces and parts for water cooling. Radiators, water blocks, tubing fans, pumps, you name it you could but it. Now that we are well into the 3-4GHz range for stock CPUs the water cooling industry is very strong with components in multiple places in the market. The concept of the self-contained cooling system has also caught on with products produced by multiple companies. Today we will be taking a look at one from Thermaltake called the Water 2.0 Performer. This $63 cooling system is supposed to be able to keep things cool for both AMD and Intel CPUs including the LGA 2011 Core i7. Let’s see how it does.

Cooler Master is celebrating 20 years of life (we got to celebrate with them at CES 2012), but it has only been in the last five or so that we have really watched them take off. With the launch of the HAF line and their push into the enthusiast level of hardware (and the CM Storm line) Cooler Master has simply bloomed. Over the years we have tested many products from Cooler Master and still have more to go through. Today we are finally able to show you their newest edition to the HAF line up; the HAF XM. The HAF XM is a mid-tower case that has plenty of room for your three-way SLI or Crossfire plus all of the hard drives you could want. You get all of this for around $130 so let’s take a look and see if the HAF XM is worth the price of admission.

Ever since the release of the “New” iPad we have been trying to get through the marketing hype, the incorrect bench marks and some downright incorrect conclusions on what is and is not going on with the latest tablet from Apple. After the launch of the iPad 2 we began to notice something about the way Apple was moving. When they released the iPhone and the later the iPad they appeared to be very much on top of things and also ahead of many manufacturers. However, what we saw back then (and was brought even more to light with this launch) is that Apple cannot keep up this pace. It is true that Apple has name recognition and a very broad following, but if you take a look around their marketing has slipped as has some of their reputation. Yesterday we heard about one more issue that we foresaw once we had more information on the hardware under the iPad’s hood.

In the world of boutique computer builders Maingear is a name that really does stand out.  Their Shift line of custom-built, high-performance systems are some of the best you can get on the market. The reason for this is that they are not content with using the stock hardware that you get in many other “custom” builds. Yes, there are going to be parts that are the same as Maingear does not make its own CPUs, Motherboards or Video cards… yet.  However many of the other components that are taken for granted have been customized not only to provide a better look, but also to improve the overall performance of the system.

ThermalTake has launched some bold designs (and some rather gaudy ones too). Some of these have been successful while others have received ridicule from the online community and gamers (even coining the phrase “Friends don’t let Friends use ThermalTake” at one point. However, over the last few years they have moved forward with their products and are now putting out some solid work. One of the products that I have been very interested in is the Level 10 series. This new case line-up is less like a PC enclosure and more like a piece of art. Of course the original Level 10 enclosure will also set you back around $750. This price tag puts it out of the reach of most gamers and also off of our RADAR for now. Instead we are going to take a look at the much more reasonably priced Level 10 GT. This uniquely designed PC case comes in two colors (black and white) and will run you $255 and $290 respectively. As we have grown bored of shooting cases in our lab we also decided to move our initial coverage to a different location. With that said, let’s take a look at the Thermaltake Level 10 GT (VN10006W2N) Snow Edition shot on location in Bahia Honda State Park, Florida. Snow at the beach anyone?

Cooler Master at Quakecon & PAX Prime 2011


Chino, California – August 2nd, 2011 - Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer will be showcasing its new line-up of professional gaming grade hardware and peripherals at Quakecon, a free annual computer gaming convention, held from August 4th to August 7th in Dallas, Texas. Cooler Master will also be in attendance at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) Prime, an annual festival for tabletop, console videogames, and PC gamers, held from August 26th to August 28th.


Those in attendance, at either event, will be able to experience our highly-rated CM Storm Sirus True 5.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset, our much anticipated CM Storm Spawn Claw-Grip Gaming Mouse and many other award-winning chassis, power supplies, and peripherals. In addition, Cooler Master will be partnering at one or both events with NVIDIA®, ZOTAC®, and Bigfoot Networks™ for expanded giveaways and exciting interactive events.

We invite you to visit booth 243 at Quakecon and booth 131 and 135 at PAX Prime to learn more.

About Cooler Master
Cooler Master was founded to provide the best thermal solutions to our customers worldwide. Since its establishment a decade ago, we continue to invest in product development in order to provide leading-edge innovations to people and businesses. Cooler Master’s enclosure technology line-up includes heat sinks and fans, chassis, power supplies, function panels and accessories. Cooler Master has its headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, with global branch offices located in Europe, America and APAC, so that we can offer to our customers the best service in time. For more information on Cooler Master, please visit www.coolermaster-usa.com.

AMD is a company that not too long ago was on top. They had done something that no one thought possible; they were able to outperform Intel clock for clock.  But they had a problem; they had a winning CPU but had to rely on others for a solid platform to run on. This prompted AMD to buy ATi (one of the companies that had a good chipset for AMD) which gave them a GPU business and a chipset business. The problem has been paying the bill on that particular purchase. This has prevented them from putting a lot of money into R&D and has also led to some, well unimpressive products (on the CPU side not the GPU). We have worked through several CPUs and chipsets; each one improving a little over the other but never really catching up to what Intel has on the market.  Now things could be different; nVidia has allowed SLI on an AMD chipset and AMD is making good strides in terms of what their chipsets can do (with limitations from the CPU and IMC). We have their latest chipset in the form of the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5. This is a Three-Way SLI AMD motherboard with lots to offer. We are going to look at the design, layout, and cover some design philosophy and features along the way.

Overclocking is a big deal these days. I can remember when it was just a bunch of crazed guys with too much money and free time on their hands. We used to do things like solder new resistors onto CPUs (the Slot A Athlons), swap out caps and resistors on motherboards to get more voltage through the boards and to the CPU.  I vividly remember building water cooling kits with pool pumps and tubing bought from Home Depot. Once I even pulled a radiator from a Coke vending machine (old and broken) for a rig I was building. Well thankfully those days are over (but it would still be fun to do some of this). Motherboard makers are now designing and building motherboards with top of the line components voltage regulation systems and tracing that is laid out for business. Many have world class overclockers that work for them to get the most performance out of each and every motherboard. Every now and then they get to build something special from the ground up. We are taking a look at one of these boards that has been built for speed. The one we have in-house was designed by HiCookie; the resident overclocker at Gigabyte. This is the X58A-OC (the OC is for Overclocking as if you could not guess).

With all the hoopla over the GTX 460 going on we are taking the time to look at a GPU that is not really new, but is still worthy of some headlines. Although the AMD Radeon HD5870 is fast approaching its first birthday it is no surprise that it is still a big seller. But we wondered if it is the reference GPUs that are making the 5870 fly off the shelves or if it is products like the Asus EAH5870 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat edition (which we will just call Stalker COP moving forward) This is Asus’ V2 HD5870 with a voltage tweak option for great overclocking potential. As you might have guessed the box also contains the Stalker COP game as part of the bundle. So let’s try out this bundle and see if it is worth the $500 or so you will shell out for it.

Summer is upon us and many things become scarce during this season. Among them are rain, clothes, and school days. Fortunately new products are not in short supply at Cooler Master. We are always hard at work bringing you thrilling new ways to show off to friends. So in the spirit of summer fun we have brought you a quick and easy way to score some amazing swag. Products such as our tank inspired HAF X, the exceptionally efficient Silent Pro Gold power supply, the powerful V6 GT CPU cooler, and even mystery prizes sponsored by Patriot Memory.