Akasa Mirage-62

Manufacturer:Akasa
UK Price (as reviewed):£99.86 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): N/A

I must admit to being a little intimidated by being handed such a high profile case as the Mirage for my first review here at bit-tech. Its predecessor, the Akasa Eclipse, has a reputation among system builders and modders as a solid, customisable case, with unassuming looks and rock solid build quality. As a result, I immediately had high hopes for the Mirage.

Asus P5Q Deluxe: Intel P45 has arrived

Manufacturer:Asus
UK Price (as reviewed):£122.20 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): TBC

Putting the current climate of political shenanigans aside for a while, let's look at the first P45 board on our bench with a mature BIOS. It seems everyone in Taiwan is busily tweaking and improving their boards on a daily basis but Asus was first out the hat for us with a complete product that worked as expected.

Asus Xonar DX

Manufacturer:Asus
UK Price (as reviewed):£54.00 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$89.99 (ex. Tax)

I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that sound cards have started getting interesting again after years of a boring one horse race. It wasn’t too long ago when we looked at the Asus Xonar D2X – the PCI-Express x1 version of the original D2. Both of which were great cards with tons of features, but they were pretty expensive and excessively so for many. They were also lacking the key gaming feature—Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX)—which prevented some of our readers from swapping their Creative X-Fi out for a Xonar. It became a case that it was X-Fi for gaming, Xonar for music and movies.

First Look: Acer Aspire Predator Gaming PCs

Manufacturer:Acer

At an event in Germany earlier this week, Acer launched a new series of gaming PCs branded the Aspire Predator range. We were there to check out the new machine and see how it measures up against what else is on the market.

Interestingly, the company said that it is banking on the anti-Internet angle and it is instead targeting a different market. It’s targeting those that want to get into gaming, but don’t want to wait weeks for an online purchase and then find you can’t take it straight back to the shop if something goes wrong.

BenQ X2200W 22" widescreen LCD monitor

Manufacturer:BenQ
UK Price (as reviewed):£263.49 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$351.60 (ex. Tax)


Peruse the LCD panel selection at your favourite online retailer and odds are you'll find an army of 22-inch widescreen models to choose from. They're great value currently, too. With prices kicking off at well under £150, 22 inches is surely where it's currently at when it comes to bang for buck.

Jetway JNC62K (GeForce 8200 on mini-ITX)

Manufacturer:Jetway
UK Price (as reviewed):£88.13 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$146.25 (ex. Tax)

Introducing Nvidia’s GeForce 8200 Chipset

Nvidia has announced a lot of new products in the last few months, but it’s taken some longer than expected to make it out of the door. The one we’ve been looking forward to the most, and the one that we were promised before CeBIT, has been constantly eluding our grasp. Nvidia’s GeForce 8200 mGPU (or IGP) is that chipset and its potential got us excited when it was first announced by the company at CES.

Lian Li PC V1110

Manufacturer:Lian Li
UK Price (as reviewed):£193.99 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$321.99 (ex. Tax)

Lian Li is a company with a great reputation when it comes to designing computer chassis and yet that reputation has been a bit tarnished lately by cases that are unjustifiably expensive and utterly excessive.

Is it that obvious we’re talking about the Armoursuit PC P80?

Anyway, that reputation has been a little bit scuffed lately, though the company is still far beyond other manufacturers in almost every regard, and the Taiwanese case designer is eager to get back on track.

D-Tek FuZion v2.0 Waterblock

Manufacturer:D-Tek Customs
UK Price (as reviewed):£34.50 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$69.99 (ex. Tax)

Very few people can argue that the D-Tek FuZion waterblock is one of the best blocks around for many people's needs. It's stood as the proverbial king of the high-flow hill in testing pretty much Internet-wide. Of course, it takes that title not only for its terrific performance (where it sits tied in the pack with the great Danger Den TDX) but for its side benefit – pressure management.

First Look: Asus P5Q3 & Maximus II Formula

Manufacturer:Asus

As the Intel P45 Express chipset launch marches ever closer, Asus hooked us up with one of its premium P45 motherboards for a quick sneaky look. We’ve looked at a couple of P35 Asus boards this last year, some of which turned out very well, and others kind of crazy.

The new P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi-AP @n more closely reflects the X38 P5E3 Dexlue WiFi-AP @n we looked at late last year in terms of features – it has 802.11n WiFi integrated into the board—something no other manufacturer features—and, what’s more,

BFG Tech GeForce 9800 GTX OCX 512MB

Manufacturer:BFG Tech
UK Price (as reviewed):£258.49 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$354.99 (ex. Tax)

Core Clock: 755MHz
Shader Clock: 1,890MHz
Memory Clock: 2,300MHz
Warranty: Ten years in Europe (Lifetime in North America)

Nvidia’s GeForce 9800 GTX launched somewhat ironically on April Fool’s Day – the reason for the irony was that we argued it wasn’t enough of a jump in performance to be regarded as a replacement for the old dog that is the GeForce 8800 GTX. In isolation, the card wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t much faster than Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GTS 512 and it definitely didn’t warrant the price premium.

CoolIT Freezone Elite

Manufacturer:CoolIT Systems
UK Price (as reviewed):£246.80 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$449.95 (ex. Tax)

Introduction

Watercooling is a kind of hit-or-miss thing for us computer geeks. It's either something you look at as so awesome that you barely want to live without it, or you view it as just not worth the hassle.

However you look at it, there's one very sure thing – watercooling is tremendously effective at keeping your temperatures down. That is, if you build it right...and usually if you spend a lot of money...and the more you hook up, the more chance there is for a problem...and...and the list goes on.

DFI LANParty LT X48-T2R

Manufacturer:DFI
UK Price (as reviewed):£158.88 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$279.99 (ex. Tax)

It’s been a while since we last looked at a DFI board, but we’ve always been plagued by relatively poor availability of the products in the UK. However, we’ve recently seen the channel distribution grow in the UK – something that’s partly due to a few new people joining DFI in Taiwan.

And despite remaining on a relatively small scale in the consumer channel, the company goes from strength to strength – releasing great board after great board. Unfortunately, we missed the company’s P35 range in Q3 last year but we'll be sure to jump on the P45 boards as soon as they are available.

Silverstone MS05 2.5" Enclosure

Manufacturer:Silverstone
UK Price (as reviewed):£22.33 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$45.99 (excl. Tax)

Just the other week, we looked at Silverstone’s Treasure TS01B enclosure, which sports RFID tagging to protect your data. Today, we’re going from that extreme to another as we look at Silverstone’s MS05 enclosure, which is targeted more at the no-nonsense end of the market. This is an enclosure for people who don’t care about looks that much, they just want something that works – an enclosure that reeks of functionality, with style as an afterthought.

Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB

Manufacturer:Asus
UK Price (as reviewed):£242.33 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$399.99 (ex. Tax)

Core Clock: 825MHz
Memory Clock: 1,800MHz
Warranty: Three years parts and labour


Nvidia has been pretty dominant at the top of the graphics card market ever since the GeForce 8800 GTX launched back in November 2006 and it's fair to say that AMD has struggled a little in recent times. R600 wasn't fast enough, while RV670 offered a great balance of features and performance per watt, but it was never going to win any performance medals at the high-end.

Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6

Manufacturer:Gigabyte
UK Price (as reviewed):£176.24 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$310.25 (ex. Tax)

We’re quite familiar with Gigabyte’s premium DQ6 boards and the GA-X48T-DQ6 fits the bill perfectly as it features the final revision of Intel’s X48 chipset. A lot has changed since our first look at the X48 chipset – talking to Intel at CeBIT, we found out that the entire 4-series went through a respin to 65nm, and the X48 chipset has been heavily tweaked for performance and DDR3. This is part of the reason why we’re looking at the “T” version of Gigabyte’s latest flagship Intel motherboard today.

Corsair VX550W PSU

Manufacturer:Corsair
UK Price (as reviewed):£49.00 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$79.99 (ex. Tax)

Without a doubt, Corsair’s PSUs are certainly popular – the modular HX range is particularly so in our community and they’re regularly at the top of the recommended list. Corsair seems to understand the right balance between quality and value that continually makes its units appealing.

Its value VX range has been given less attention though – in 450W and 550W flavours it will certainly suffice for a single graphics card, a few hard drives and even a quad-core CPU to boot. The VX550W we're looking at today is made by the same manufacturer that built the TX750W (which walked away with an excellence award), and with the same Corsair engineering eye overseeing things are we in for the same excellent result? Or by cutting its higher-end units down to under £50, has Corsair cut a few too many corners to get there? We find out.

Matrix Orbital GX Typhoon Display

Manufacturer:Matrix Orbital
UK Price (as reviewed):£65.00 (inc. VAT) (without remote) / £75.00 (inc. VAT) (with remote)
US Price (as reviewed):
$99.95 (ex. Tax) (without remote) / $114.95 (ex. Tax) (with remote)

Introduction

If you look through the annals of modding history, the tried and true LCD display is one of the quintessential additions to a case. Whether it is mounted in a drive bay, on a side panel or on the top of the case, the handy digital readout is always a welcome sight.

NEC AccuSync LCD24WMCX 24" widescreen

Manufacturer:NEC Display Solutions
UK Price (as reviewed):£298.05 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$439.99 (ex. Tax)


Many gamers and enthusiasts believe that a 24-inch diagonal is the optimum display size because it delivers a good combination of high native resolution and physical size. Indeed, the introduction of TN+Film panels in 24-inch widescreen monitors has enabled what was once a premium display size to drop quite considerably in price over the past twelve months.

Lancool Metal Boned K7

Manufacturer:Lancool PC
UK Price (as reviewed): TBA
US Price (as reviewed): TBA

I’ve been known to take the mick out of case designers before, often edging towards what some might consider "unprofessionalism" with my teasing over what I think are stupidly named cases like the Apevia X-Telstar Junior.

Now though, with this case, I get the feeling that the case designers are teasing me. Why else would you call your carefully designed hardware house a Metal Boned K7?

Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard

Manufacturer:Razer
UK Price (as reviewed):£49.99 (inc. Delivery)
US Price (as reviewed):$78.99 (inc. Delivery)

Something embarrassing happened to me when I first got hold of the Razer Lycosa gaming keyboard. I had just finished setting up my desk in our new offices when the package landed on my desk. I opened it up, looked at it and asked myself a question which, on reflection is actually quite a sad indictment of how shallow I am.

Unboxing the Asus Eee PC 900

Manufacturer:Asus

While the original Eee PC was extremely popular for being extremely inexpensive and having a diminutive 7” screen size, many complained that the 800x480 screen was too small and the 8GB of hard drive space just too limiting.

Available from May 1st in the UK, Asus will release the first major redesign of the original Eee; the Eee PC 900. It features a larger 8.9” LED backlit screen with a 1024x600 resolution. There’s also the same underclocked Intel Celeron-M ULV 353 CPU (630MHz) and a G945 mobile chipset that features Intel GMA 900 graphics.

Emprex NSD-100 P2P Download Engine

Manufacturer:Emprex
UK Price (as reviewed):£40.07 (inc. VAT)

Sometimes we're alerted to things that happen to fall just out of our radar and the Emprex P2P Download Engine is a classic example of this. We were alerted to this little gadget by a friend at one of the PR agencies we work with, as they thought it might be applicable to our readers. "A download what? Engine?..." The conversation was quite confusing at first when he described it over the phone.

rock Xtreme 770 X9000-8800

Manufacturer:rock
UK Price (as reviewed):This model from £2199.00 (inc. VAT)

Gaming laptops are weird monsters, in my opinion. On the one hand, I think they are all entirely useless – if I want to do some PC gaming I have a desktop, and if I want to game on the go then a DS or PSP is easier to carry around then a 17-inch ‘portable’ PC.

And yet, they are pretty cool things and, despite all my grumpy scepticism and useless prattling, even I have to admit that I’d love to have a decent gaming laptop for when I’m on holiday or at a LAN party. And it’s that desire that pushed us to look at the new rock Xtreme 770 in all its pimped out glory.