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ThermalTake BlacX Hard Drive Dock Review |
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Written by Tom
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Tuesday, 07 July 2009 23:43 |
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How often do you upgrade your hard drive? Various reasons lead users to upgrade, either it's lack of space or upgrading to a fast hard drive. But what do you do with your old hard drives? Throw them out? Leave them sitting on the desk collecting dust? How about actually using it? There have been some pretty hokey solutions for converting an internal hard drive to an external one and there have been some good solutions, but not many allow you to swap the hard drive out on the fly.
Enter ThermalTakes BlacX. The BlacX is a hard drive dock that allows you to hot swap either a 2.5" or 3.5" SATA drive and it can function as either eSATA or USB 2.0. Just in the process of writing this review I have found new uses for my old SATA drives. Some are used for storing files that I haven't used in a while but I want to keep around while others are used for media, such as movies or music, and some for pictures. You can use it for what ever you wish. So those users with that extra storage capacity just doing nothing should take a close look. Sounds pretty promising right? Well read on to find out what we thought of the BlacX Hard Drive Dock.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 08 July 2009 00:21 |
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ThermalTake MeOrb Low Profile CPU Cooler Review |
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Written by Tom
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Monday, 06 July 2009 20:06 |
Today's modern processors generate a lot of heat and modern coolers can generally wick away the heat and keep the processor running cool. Industry standard is the tower style cooler. The tower style cooler, just in case you have been living under a rock for the last few years, is designed with a base that comes in contact with the IHS of the processor. The base houses a number of heat-pipes that travel upwards through a finsink and attached to the finsink is a fan of some sort. That's all fine and well in a mid or full tower case and even some desktop cases but what about small form factor cases or mATX and mini-ITX cases such as an HTPC case? Most of these cases take a special cooler as they have a limited height between the CPU and the top of the case. Granted the stock Intel and AMD coolers will fit, but who wants to stay with stock cooling performance? The cooler you can keep the processor, the longer it will last.
Enter ThermalTake and their MeOrb cooler. This miniscule powerhouse stands a meager 47mm from the base to the top of the finsink. It packs a 90mm integrated PWM fan to help with the cooling duties. At 47mm it is bound and determined to fit in all but the smallest of cases and cool quietly and efficiently.
With all the "smallness" that surrounds the MeOrb is its function as good as its form? Read on to find out, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.
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Last Updated on Monday, 06 July 2009 23:06 |
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Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Heat Pipe Direct Touch CPU Cooler |
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Written by Tom
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Sunday, 14 June 2009 16:00 |
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A few weeks ago CoolerMaster introduced their first heat-pipe direct touch cooler; the Hyper TX3 and it performed very well considering the fan size is of the 92mm variety. A 92mm fan is almost considered too small by what other manufactures are shipping in their tower coolers. Being a top tier manufacture, CoolerMaster couldn't just sit idly by and soon released their 120 mm heat pipe direct touch cooler: the Hyper 212 plus.
Cooling your CPU is one of the most important areas to keep in mind when you decide to either upgrade or build a computer. Unfortunately there is a trade off between cooling and noise when selecting a cooler. Most coolers today have hit that "happy medium" when it comes to said trade off and CoolerMaster follows suite here with the Hyper 212 Plus. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 02 July 2009 18:18 |
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CoolerMaster Sileo 500 RC-500-KKN1-GP Computer Case Review |
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Written by Tom
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Sunday, 05 July 2009 00:00 |
There has always been a tradeoff between cooling and fan/case noise. Typically the louder the fans, the better the cooling system does. No one wants a jet engine sitting next to their desks. When modding first came to the main stream there were many braggers boasting how loud their case was, granted the cooling performance of their highly overclocked systems did better than most. While modding is still taking place, the tradeoff between cooling and noise has diminished.
Mainstream manufactures such as Dell and HP have come up with ways to silence the computers they sell. They typically use a duct system to the rear exhaust fan with a large heat sink on the processor. This works pretty well, but other noises still emanate from the innards such as hard drive sounds as well as the occasional noisy fan.
CoolerMaster approaches the noise issue in the Sileo 500 in much of the same way that car/home audio enthusiasts do; by adding sound dampening material to the inside. The material's construction and shape traps the sound waves before they can escape the case, but does the material lead to an increase in temperatures in this mighty mid-tower? Read on to find out.
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Last Updated on Monday, 06 July 2009 14:07 |
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ThermalTake Level 10 Full Tower Case Preview |
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Written by Tom
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Monday, 08 June 2009 16:00 |
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Thanks to our friends at ThermalTake we have some first look photos. Due to events unknown to us, the photos are a little late, but better late than never right? I do not have a whole lot of information on the case. Thermaltake says the case should be going into production in late summer or early fall. I have tried to put the photos in the order that I would have taken them. So here we go.
BMW and Thermaltake put their heads together and came up with an evolutionary case design. While it is pretty radical, I feel that this is the next stage of case design, no one can be sure what the future holds in store for case designs. |
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