Month: January 2008

blog image

Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 Pro: The Alpine 7 Revisited

Arctic Cooling has updated their quiet, budget socket 775 cooler with a new “Pro” version that simplifies installation by using Intel’s stock pushpins. The heatsink block has also been changed to accommodate the new mounting hardware. Is that all that has changed or has Arctic Cooling messed too much with a good thing?

Read More
blog image

Quiet Mice from Quiet Mouse

A mouse isn’t a loud component, but they do make noise, and that noise can be irritating, especially for those who aren’t actually using them. There have been a few quiet mouse released before, but these two mice from Quiet Mouse are the first to reach the shores of North America. Are they quiet? Yes.

Read More
blog image

The Terabyte Landmark: Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 was the first terabyte drive to market, and it remains one of the fastest drives money can buy, competitive with the legendary WD Raptor. Historically, Hitachi drives have been on the noisy side, but the 7K1000 brings incremental improvements and a low RPM idle mode that no other drives in the

Read More
blog image

Arctic Cooling Accelero S2 VGA Cooler + Turbo Module

A slightly smaller, slightly cheaper version of the AC Accelero S1 performs a bit worse. Is there really a market for this inexpensive, admittedly brilliant performing VGA cooler when the slightly bigger S1 (Rev 2) fits the same video cards, and performs better for only $3 more?

Read More
blog image

CES 2008, Days 2 & 3: Zalman, Coolermaster, eCoupled, and Seagate

In our second two days at CES, we found a few interesting products from some names that are familiar to SPCR readers, as well as a couple of new and emerging technological players.

Read More
blog image

CES 2008, Day 1: Antec, Arctic Cooling, and CoolIT

We’re trying something new with our Consumer Electronics Show coverage this year. Instead of a single big wrap-up article that tries to compress everything into one tidy package, we’re going to be bringing you daily show updates. With 2,700 booths and exhibits spread over 1.7 million square feet and jammed by 140,000 attendees and 4500

Read More
blog image

Hiper Media Center PC HMC-2K53A-A3

If the headline sound familiar, it’s because we reviewed a Hiper Media Center PC with the same name and nearly identical model designation a couple months ago. The new model ends with A3, the old with H2. It features the same sleek, small chassis with a newer AMD A690G chipset motherboard and comes with a

Read More
blog image

Seasonic Goes Green: The Eco Power 300

Green has quickly become a veritable marketing cliche. What does it mean in the context of electronics? Most manufacturers say efficiency, RoHS compliance, and recycling friendliness. Seasonic’s Eco Power 300 adds green packaging and sensible power sizing while retaining the brand’s traditional strengths in efficiency and acoustics in a very small package.

Read More