quick looks – StarTech SAT2510BU3 hard drive enclosure
With its lightening fast 5Gb/s transfer rate, 10 x the speed of USB2.0, USB3.0 is set to be the interface of choice for fast data transfers between external drives and PCs and notebooks. As the present time external devices with the interface are pretty thin on the ground so its always good to see another added to the list.
StarTech’s SAT2510BU3 is a slimline external hard drive enclosure for 2.5″ SATA drives. Made from aluminium and plastic it is a doddle to use, just take off the top and bottom of the unit, slide in your drive of choice, secure it with the screws provided and off you go. As USB3.0 is fully backwards compatible with USB2.0 the supplied Y cable has connectors for both.
Quick well done to StarTech, not only do they supply the screws needed but put an extra one of each just in case the carpet monster devours one and very thoughtfully they even supply a tiny screwdriver in the bag.
Manufacturer: StarTech
Price: £41.11 (inc VAT)
Where to buy: StarTech
Lab Report – Asus Crosshair IV Formula
The Crosshair series of motherboards are the AMD based range in Asus’ ROG (Republic Of Gamers) product line, the latest addition to which is the fourth generation Crosshair IV Formula. Each generation is more feature rich than the last and the Crosshair IV Formula certainly upholds the tradition, being crammed to the gills with features; support for the latest AMD X6 six-core processors, support for up to 16GB of DDR3 memory through four DIMM slots, four PCI-E graphics slots supporting CrossFire X technology plus both SATA 6GB/s and USB 3.0 support and all the overclocking aids that you come to expect from a ROG motherboard.[more +]
Wednesday July 21st 2010
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Lab Report – HIS Radeon HD5830 Turbo iCooler V
The Radeon HD5830 iCooler V Turbo 1GB is the flagship model in HIS’s HD5830 family line-up and as with all their cards carrying the Turbo logo, it’s factory overclocked out of the box. As with all the cards in the range it also uses one of HIS’s iCooler V coolers to keep everything nice and cool [more +]
Monday June 7th 2010
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graphic card news – New king of the hill from Sapphire
Sapphire have just launched another version of the dual cored Radeon HD5970, the HD5970 4G Toxic, which as you might have guessed from the name comes with a massive 4GB of GDDR5 memory.
Not only does the new card come with a massive memory buffer, but being from the Toxic family it also has factory overclocked core and memory clocks. The core’s are clocked at 900MHz, 175MHz faster than the standard card, while the memory has been heavily tweaked to run at 1,200MHz (4.8GHz effective), 200MHz (800MHz effective) over the the reference design, making it the fastest card on the planet at time of release.
Keeping this massive beastie ( it measures 12in in length), cool are three 92mm Arctic Cooling dual ball bearing fans.
Look out for benchmark results and lab report coming soon.
Friday April 30th 2010
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graphic card news – Sapphire unleash 2GB Toxic and Vapor-X HD5870
Sapphire have just announced 2GB frame buffer versions of thier Toxic and Vapor-X Radeon HD5870′s. The Toxic features an overclocked core engine, up from the default 850MHz to 950MHz while the GDDR5 memory gets a boost from the standard 1,200MHz (4.8GHz effective) up to 1,225MHz (4.9GHz effective) all sitting under a Vapor-X cooler
The Vapor-X version has the same 2GB frame buffer and Vapor-X cooling but keeps the clock speeds at the default settings
Look out for benchmark results and lab report’s coming soon.
Thursday April 15th 2010
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graphic card news – AMD hit a 6
The latest devolpment of AMD’s mighty 5 series graphics architecture is the ATI Radeon HD5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition graphics card, the first consumer graphics card able to power six, yes six displays, up to a theoretical maximum resolution of 8,192 x 8,192! To put that into some kind of perspective, six 30in (2,560 by 1,600) monitors arranged in a 3 by 2 landscape set up will only give you a resolution of 7,680 by 3,200.
The Eyefinity 6 Edition uses a single HD5870 (Cypress) core clocked at the reference 850MHz but has a 2GB frame buffer, double that of the reference HD5870, which in turn has meant a slight rise in the power requirements of the card (228W peak, 34W idle) and now one of the two 6-pin PCI-E power adaptors of the standard card has been replaced by an eight pin one, with the cooler remaining the same as the reference HD580. The memory speed is also still the same with the GDDR 5 having an effective speed of 4,800MHz.
The major external change is on the backplate where the usual array of ports have been replaced by six Mini DisplayPort connectors but only two of these can be converted to DVI, HDMI (only one) or VGA using the adaptors provided in the box; two mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort adapters, a passive mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI dongle and two passive mini DisplayPort-to-DVI (single-link) dongles.
So far just two companies have released versions of the HD5870 6 Eyefinity Edition, Sapphire (Sapphire HD5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition) and ASUS (EYEFINITY 6/6S/2GD)
Thursday April 1st 2010
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notebook 
accessory news – CoolerMaster NotePal ErgoStand 
Its name might seem a bit of a mouthful for a notebook cooler but CoolerMaster’s just launched NotePal ErgoStand has a few features that makes it standout from the other coolers around.
First of these features is the five way adjustable height settings using the same mechanism as the deckchair on your local beach. Then there is the anti-slip holders that allow a range of notebooks and for that matter netbooks with screen sizes from 9in up to 17in to be used. You also get 4 USB ports and a nice big 140mm silent fan to keep your note/net book cool.
Price will be approx £26.36 ex VAT.
Tuesday March 30th 2010
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hard drive news – Toshiba go big on mobile
Toshiba announced today the world’s first 750GB drive for notebooks. The MK7559GSXP is a two platter design with a 9.5mm profile, a spin speed of 5,400rpm, 8MB cache, an aureal density of 541.4Gbit/in2 and SATA 3Gb/s interface.
Thursday March 25th 2010
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With its lightening fast 5Gb/s transfer rate, 10 x the speed of USB2.0, USB3.0 is set to be the interface of choice for fast data transfers between external drives and PCs and notebooks. As the present time external devices with the interface are pretty thin on the ground so its always good to see another added to the list.
