Month: May 2006

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10: Desktop Drives go Perpendicular

Perpendicular recording technology has trickled down to a desktop drive… and what a difference it makes. Seagate’s new 7200.10 boasts 750 GB of space — 50% more than any other drive currently on the market. The drive has already begun collecting accolades for its performance, but how does it do for noise and power? Find

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Enermax Noisetaker II (Rev. 2.2): A New Rev of an Old Fave

Once upon a time, the Enermax NoiseTaker earned a recommendation from SPCR for being one of the quietest, most efficient power supplies ever. Then the NoiseTaker II was released, which got a less enthusiastic review about a year ago. Now, a new revision of the NoiseTaker II has been released. Can it reclaim the glory

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SPCR’s first WinHEC: Seattle, May ’06

My first attendance at WinHEC came earlier this week with a 2.5 hour drive starting at daybreak from Vancouver, across the Canada / US border to Seattle, the seat of the Microsoft empire. It wasn’t perfectly clear to me then what software developers mean by “hardware”; this is supposed to be the Windows Hardware Engineering

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Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe w/ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 Chipset

The last time we looked at a mainboard with support for two full bandwidth 16x PCI Express slots, the cost was high power consumption. The ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe, probably the last of the high end 939 boards now that AM2 is just about here, also features high PCIe bandwidth, but it uses ATI’s single chip

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Zalman HD160 Home Theater PC Enclosure

The HD160 is Zalman’s first more-or-less conventional PC case, designed for a quiet, high performance HTPC. All-aluminum construction, front panel VFD display with MCE remote control, a prominent front panel volume control knob, and a fat price tag to match it all identifies the HD160’s high end aspirations. How high does it reach?

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SilverStone Temjin TJ-07

SilverStone’s new all-aluminum flagship case is a huge, ambitious model that features a unique, amazingly heavy uni-body construction and split thermal chambers. The power supply and hard drives are in a separate chamber at the bottom, and all components are fed with fresh air. Obviously, it’s a case for extreme cooling performance. How about for

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Tiny, Silent and Efficient: The picoPSU

The tiny picoPSU is the most unconventional ATX12V power supply we’ve seen. By paying attention to how power supplies are actually used, not how they’re specified, the creative guys at Mini-box have come up with an amazing tool for custom builders, silent PC enthusiasts, and SFF modders. It’s not for everyone, but the picoPSU is

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Remote Storage with the Newisys NA-1400 NAS Appliance

Ever thought about getting rid of your hard drive entirely? We did. Read about our effort to run Windows with the Newisys NA-1400 NAS appliance. Whether or not Network Attached Storage can run your OS, it’s a good remote storage solution that can put the noise where you are not. The Newisys NA-1400 comes in

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