Month: November 2014

Quiet ATX Gamer, R5 Version

The new Fractal Design Define R5 arrived in our lab while we were finishing our original Quiet ATX Gaming Build Guide article. Lacking time to do a full case review, we swapped the R5 in place of the R4 to get a practical assessment of the improvements the new case brings. In the process, we

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Samsung M9T 2TB (2.5-inch) & Seagate SSHD 2TB

Two mechanical drives from Seagate: The Samsung SpinPoint M9T 2TB is the only standard 9.5mm thick 2.5″ notebook drive of this capacity; others are thicker. The Seagate Desktop SSHD 2TB is a hybrid desktop model with 8GB of NAND Flash augmenting a 7200 RPM motor and 2x1TB platters.

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SPCR’s Quiet ATX Gaming Build Guide

The first of our quiet gaming build guides is an ATX tower featuring the highly efficient NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980. Join us as we plan, build, and stress test this beast, while trying to keep it quiet enough to satisfy our own high standards. A preview: We managed to keep it under 20 dBA@1m under

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ASUS Z97-PRO LGA1150 Motherboard

The ASUS Z97-PRO socket 1150 ATX board features M.2 and SATA Express support, as well as an expansive UEFI BIOS, and a top-notch fan control system.

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Zotac ZBOX CI540 Nano Fanless Barebones Mini-PC

The Zotac ZBOX CI540 Nano gives up a little CPU/GPU horsepower to deliver a completely fanless, silent and full-featured mini-PC experience.

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NZXT Kraken G10 Graphics Adapter

Despite being tagged in our Cooling and Graphics Cards sections, the G10 is not actually a heatsink, but a metal bracket with a fan that allows any of 27 different models of AIO CPU water coolers to be used with a variety of video cards. This arrangement promises much improved cooling over stock coolers for

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