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"He's an 82-year-old "redneck hillbilly from west North Carolina" who's been scratching an itch to go fast his whole life. Finally, after decades of racing high-performance speed boats and winning world-class endurance car competitions, Preston Henn got his hands on the fastest executive jet on the planet: the G650. CNN caught up with Henn by cell phone between practice laps at Daytona International Speedway. "As long as the cars here don't crank up, we can talk!" he said. From then on, Henn -- Florida's flea market kingpin -- sounded like a giddy schoolboy as he told his story about how he put down a $1 million deposit in April 2012 to become the first person to buy a Gulfstream G650 -- "the hottest airplane out there" --- with its distinctive, sweeping, curving wings and its roomy, swanky interior." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Sunday, February 10, 2013 @ 00:22:59 PST (24 reads)
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| Think Computers Two For One |
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SilverStone Precision Series PS07 Case
"Small form factor systems are getting increasingly popular. With the amount of power in and features in new micro ATX and smaller motherboards means many people are opting for them over the traditional ATX motherboards. They not only cost less but allow you to build a system that is not a pain in the you know what to take to LAN parties. With the popularity of these motherboards there is a large demand for cases made specifically them. Today we are taking a look at one such case, the Precision Series PS07 from SilverStone. This case features a sleek tower design, removable motherboard tray, dual 120mm silent fans, USB 3.0 support and of course the quality you expect from SilverStone. Looking for a case for that Micro ATX motherboard?"
Razer Kraken Pro Headset
"The Kraken Pro Analog Gaming Headset was a product that I received after competing in the annual Tiger Direct PC Race. Only after the event was over and all the hoopla from CES calmed down did we decide that the Kraken Pro was one of the products we received that we legitimately wanted to review. Razer has a history of making wild claims regarding PC products, i.e. The Razer Blade: The World’s First Gaming Laptop or the Razer Edge Pro: The World’s First Gaming Tablet but with the Kraken Pro they are making a claim based on one of the most subjective topics in product reviews…comfort. The Kraken Pro has a lot to live up to, especially when you make a claim like that, so let’s see how it holds up." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Saturday, February 09, 2013 @ 18:40:32 PST (17 reads)
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Lian Li PC-B12 Case
"As far as the exterior look of the retail packaging is concerned, it is nothing out of the ordinary; it gets the job done right, and that is exactly what I am looking for. Actually, this it is the same deal as the company's entire product lineup for the last few years, so this is definitely what we have been expecting. With Lian Li's branding and chassis model number prominently displayed across the top, profile view of the PC-B12 in the middle, and an array of feature highlights along the right, everything is as straightforward as it can get. Further information such as the color and specifications of the case can be found on various sides of the box. There is no question that you will know exactly what to expect if you ever see this at your favorite local retail computer store."
Thermaltake Tt eSports Keyboard
"Our review unit of the Tt eSPORTS Knucker came in a relatively large, brown corrugated cardboard box from the company's American headquarters in California, USA. It looks like it took some beating along the way, but this is probably because most of the interior is empty. With the rest of the room filled up by mainly packing peanuts, our keyboard in its retail packaging arrived in perfect condition for our evaluation. As always, UPS Standard has done a great job in ensuring everything arrives safely to us here in Calgary from California in about a week." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Saturday, February 09, 2013 @ 17:59:33 PST (22 reads)
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Chimaera 5.1 Headset
"If you are in the market for a good headset there are only so many companies available, one of them is Razer which is well known for their high end gaming accessories. They sent us their Chimaera 5,1 headset that we are going to review today. This headset works for both a PC and on a Xbox 360 but the price tag is quite steep since even Newegg sells them for around 180$ so expectations are obviously high."
Zowie AM Mouse
"We have not reviewed so much from Zowie but today we take a look at the Zowie AM gaming mouse. This reminds me of the Steelseries Sensei and can be used by both left and right handed people since it has no special shapes at all. Enough talk, lets get on with this review!" |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Saturday, February 09, 2013 @ 17:52:55 PST (17 reads)
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RAMDisks Maximizing High-Capacity RAM
"Larger RAM capacities have always been a point of contention amongst discussions within enthusiasts users and on forums alike. 64-bit operating systems and programs are now allowing us to break past the previous barrier of approximately 4GB system memory. With this barrier now vaulted many users struggle to find what memory size is best for what they do. First off most users do not need in excess of 8GB system memory as they will see it is simply not used. However being enthusiasts we always like bigger, better and faster."
OCZ Vector 256GB SSD
"The latest Vector from OCZ uses the Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller paired with OCZ’s own branded NAND and the firmware. This marked the first drive from OCZ with all in-house construction. How does the drive fare against other SSDs on the market? We take the 256GB version out for a spin." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Saturday, February 09, 2013 @ 17:47:21 PST (19 reads)
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Gigabyte Force M7 Thor
"Deciding on a mouse can be an overwhelming process with literally hundreds to choose from as far as gaming mice alone. Seeing as how the mouse and keyboard are the only two things you interact with while on the computer, having the right mouse is very important. Selecting the right mouse for you can be a daunting task, but knowing where to start is even harder. There are still quite a few entry level mice on the market, and Gigabyte has kindly send over their version, the Force M7 Thor. Let’s take a look at this affordable piece of hardware and see how it holds up."
Gunblitz PC
"I will admit that when Wes first told me I would be reviewing Gunblitz I was nervous. This is because I don’t consider 2D shooters to be one of my favorite genres. This is because I tend to get frustrated and rage at games very easily. I cannot tell you how many controllers I destroyed trying to beat a high score on Geometry Wars Evolved! I am excited to do this review though, because not only is it a game developed by Rapture Studios, a place we recently toured and reviewed here but also because it will be a nice relaxing way to get back into the genre. Let us take a look at Gunblitz, and hope that I don’t break any keyboards in the process." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, February 07, 2013 @ 18:12:19 PST (18 reads)
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Evercool Silent Shark CPU Cooler
"Now in 2013 our second CPU cooler review will be for Evercool’s newest high performance cooler, the HPO-12025 aka Silent Shark. The dual tower-style cooler is designed with a little extra when it comes to its second fan. Just what is that ‘extra’? well, not only can it be used to configure a push-pull cooling setup for also blow cool air over some of the other important components in your rig."
OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD
"Today, we have one of their latest drives on hand which is the Agility 4. The Agility is the second edition of an Indilinx controller after being purchased by OCZ. The controller is now called Everest or Everest 2 in case of the Agility 4. This is an attempt to bring reliable speed and performance to the masses but at a fair price." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, February 07, 2013 @ 16:10:07 PST (11 reads)
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| Hardware Secrets Two For One |
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PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 750W PS
"The PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III power supply series has models ranging from 400 W to 1,200 W. Models from 400 W to 600 W have the 80 Plus Bronze certification, while the 750 W and 850 W models have the 80 Plus Gold certification, and the 1,200 W model has the 80 Plus Platinum certification."
In Win Commander III 700W PS
"The Commander III power supply series from In Win, also known as "Desert Fox," has 600 W, 700 W, and 800 W models, all with the 80 Plus Gold certification and a modular cabling system. Let's take an in-depth look at the 700 W version." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, February 07, 2013 @ 16:03:45 PST (17 reads)
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Inno3D GeForce GTX 670 iChill
"Inno3D GeForce GTX 660 Ti copies the reference design, which is similar to that of GTX 670: a small PCB and 8 memory chip seats on the front side. However, there are only 4 memory seats on the back, not 8, like in GTX 670. The reason is that memory bus has been cut down to 192-bit from 256-bit. InnoVision could have filled all the dozen slots with different chips, but preferred placing the identical 8 x 2 GB chips instead to save money."
AMD & Intel CPU Comparison
"For today's tests we have prepared two groups of processors. The first includes Phenom II old-timers AMD has repeatedly cut prices on. The second is composed of the newer, budget Intel Ivy Bridge processors. Let's see what is preferable these days. Phenom II X4 955 is the most competitive AMD CPU for its price, if you build a PC with a discrete video (otherwise you should consider A6-3670K). For the same money Intel offers only dual-thread Pentiums, which isn't enough for thread-hungry tasks." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, February 07, 2013 @ 09:40:38 PST (10 reads)
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ASRock Z77 OC Formula Motherboard
"The Z77 OC Formula is one of the high performance motherboards from ASRock, was built in cooperation with the well-known overclocker Nick Shih and features a 12 + 4 VRM design covered by a massive waterblock/heatsink, an 8-layer PCB, measuring points, plenty of thermal sensors and more. What we also like about this board is the fact that they have removed the legacy components like Floppy/IDE interfaces along with the PCI slots, in order to have a clean motherboard PCB design in the end."
Corsair Hydro 90 & H110 Units
To our big surprise, two brand new Hydro units arrived on our doorstep. The Hydro 90 and 110, both being optimized for extreme cooling performances. Weirdly enough these brand new coolers are not based on the latest Hydro I series, but seem at first glance a revamp of the older Hydro 70 design, manufactured by ASETEK for CORSAIR. Biggest innovation is the usage of a 140mm radiator and ditto fan, instead of the 120mm version we are so accustomed too. More radiator surface should enhance the cooling capacity. Let's find out how these two Hydro units perform..." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Tuesday, February 05, 2013 @ 10:04:26 PST (14 reads)
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| Oracle Releases Another Patch |
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"Oracle has been under increasing pressure in recent months to finally fix the myriad of security flaws that have plagued Java. In an unexpected emergency out-of-band patch released Friday afternoon, Oracle has responded definitively to critics with a massive security patch fixing at least 50 different issues. The February 2013 Critical Patch Update for Java SE was originally scheduled for February 19th, but given that at least one of the vulnerabilities is being actively exploited, Oracle decided to expedite the patch update. Of the 50 fixes, 40 of them are specific to Java usage in web browsers, which has been the primary attack vector against Java." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Sunday, February 03, 2013 @ 19:10:04 PST (17 reads)
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| Hardware Secrets Two For One |
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Restore Old Computers To Original Color
"Plastic parts of older computers become yellow or brown over time, so you end up with a computer that looks yellow or brown instead of white or gray. In this tutorial, we will show you how to restore old plastic parts to their original color by using a homemade peroxide-based solution called Retr0bright."
SteelSeries Flux Headset
"With the cellphone being more and more a platform for digital entertainment (games and multimedia), it's just natural that the user would want a headset that is fit for gaming in a classic desktop/laptop configuration and also good for listening to music and making calls on a mobile device. Flux, the portable model from SteelSeries, is an answer to all those needs. It also features heavy rubber cables that don't tangle up, plus literally over a thousand choices of customization." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, January 31, 2013 @ 19:19:42 PST (10 reads)
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"There aren’t many people who begin their working lives with a burning desire to become a professional odour judge or a diver for golf balls. Some might not even believe that job titles such as dinosaur duster or dog food tester have ever graced a CV. But an American photographer has endeavoured to bring some of the world’s most unusual professions to our attention." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, January 31, 2013 @ 16:23:17 PST (13 reads)
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ZOTAC ZBOX ID83 Plus Mini-PC
"Sapphire recently released the AMD A8 based Edge VS8 mini-PC and now we get a chance to see what ZOTAC's latest generation of system can offer in comparison. The ZBOX ID83 Plus takes us into Ivy Bridge in a system which is comparable in size to a decent router, let's find out how it performs..."
Mad Catz Glide 7 Mousepad
"Mad Catz have long been producing gaming peripherals and accessories but more often than not they are under various sub brands. Tritton and of course Cyborg are two that many will be familiar with but recently products under the latter began transitioning to the main Mad Catz brand. For some items such as the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard that we reviewed recently this means a simple rebrand, in other cases we will see completely new products and for other items it is a mix. One item which gets a significant refresh in Mad Catz move away from the Cyborg sub brand to the main is the G.L.I.D.E. 7 gaming surface. Today we have the refreshed product and will find out what it is all about." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 @ 19:37:19 PST (15 reads)
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MSI Z77 MPower Motherboard
"They could boast such unique distinguishing features as the ability to support graphics cards from different makers or a large number of PCI Express slots, but when the MSI Z77 MPOWER mainboard joined this family, it seemed somewhat strange in the beginning. It seemed like a common mainboard that didn’t really stand out among others. It was also manufactured using high-quality “Military Class III” components, which reliability and stability were documented in an accompanying certificate, just like for other regular mainboards. The difference was that this mainboard underwent an additional test after all the quality controls have been successfully passed. This wasn’t just a common power-on test, but an intense 24-hour stress test of an overclocked system in the famous Prime95 utility, which generates heavy complex loads. This stress-test doesn’t just target the operation, but also confirms the board’s overclocking potential and allows marking it as “OC Certified”."
ECS Z77H2-A2X Motherboard
"If you decided to find an Elitegroup mainboard that would best fit your needs, this might be a pretty challenging task. It is fairly easy to visit one of the company web-sites and get to a page with all mainboard models listed, but how do you find the right one? The choice is even trickier because of the complicated model naming approach used for ECS mainboards. Yes, you can single out certain rules, for example, the first three positions in the model name indicate that Z77H2-A4 is based on an Intel Z77 Express chipset, while H77H2-M3 – on Intel H77 Express chipset. Moreover, you may notice that the first letter in the second part of the model name usually stands for the form-factor: “A” – for ATX, “M” – for microATX, “I” – for mini-ITX. Sometimes, you may see a letter “D”, which stands for the pretty rare DTX form-factor. Unfortunately, all the other symbols in the model name are hard to decipher. Moreover, the logical naming approach we have just proposed falls completely apart once you realize that there is no way to tell the chipset for the X77H2-A3 mainboard, or the form-factor for the H61H-G11." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Monday, January 28, 2013 @ 16:54:21 PST (15 reads)
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| Cooler Master Eisberg Prestige 240L Water Cooler |
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Our friends at OC Inside have a review of a Cooler Master Eisberg Prestige 240L Water Cooler, they also have some MP3 of the included fan sounds.
"We have already tested some liquid coolers and some pre-filled PC water cooling devices at ocinside.de and today it is time to publish the new Cooler Master Eisberg Prestige 240L review. A few months ago we had already the pleasure to take a look at the first preview versions of it and today is the official launch of the new improved Cooler Master Iceberg 240 version. The Cooler Master Eisberg 240L AIO water cooler is based on a copper dual radiator with two 120mm fans and a CPU heatsink with integrated pump and reservoir. The system is already filled but is nevertheless still upgradable - this is very important for overclockers and enthusiasts. In this review we will check if the system can keep up with our previously tested top coolers and how it sounds, as always at ocinside.de with several online cooler sound samples." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Sunday, January 27, 2013 @ 12:51:58 PST (17 reads)
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Corsair Neutron SATA III SSD
"Corsair tends to be somewhat measured in their approach to certain markets and only enters them with products that are clearly differentiated from the competition. That’s true for their cases, peripherals, power supplies, and many other product lines. Corsair, however, has been relatively adventurous in regard to Solid State Drives. Over the last few years, Corsair has offered SSDs built around controllers from virtually all of the major players, including Marvell, SandForce, Indilinx, and Samsung, among others."
Affordable Midtower Cases
"That's great news if you're tired of seeing full towers get all the high-end love from case manufacturers, but it makes the prospect of picking a single enclosure a bit daunting. We've rounded up options from Antec, Corsair, Fractal, and Rosewill, the Antec P280, Corsair C70, Fractal Design R4, and Rosewill R5 and have the full scoop for you here:" |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, January 24, 2013 @ 08:38:05 PST (20 reads)
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"Chipmaker AMD suffered yet another brutal knock to its financials as it came crashing to the end of the 2012 fiscal year with yet another poor quarter. The chipmaker reported a fourth quarter net loss of $473 million, or 63 cents a share, on revenue of $1.16 billion, down by 32 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 14 cents a share. Wall Street expected AMD to report a fourth quarter loss of 20 cents a share on revenue on $1.15 billion. For the year ending December 29, AMD reported a net loss of $1.18 billion on revenue of $5.42 billion. Full-year non-GAAP earnings per share stood at 16 cents." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, January 24, 2013 @ 07:18:04 PST (22 reads)
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| Benchmark Reviews Two For One |
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Oblanc NC2-1 UFO Headphones
"Finding a good quality set of headphones with a microphone that are compatible across multiple platforms is difficult. Either you get good sound, with no headset features, or you get a headset with less than stellar audio quality for music. The Oblanc NC2-1 UFO headphones aim to fill that slot. Us here at Benchmark Reviews have had the opportunity to put these headphones through their paces. With a padded headband, massive 50 mm driver, in line microphone with call control, and a 4-pole connector with adapter to work across smartphones, tablets, mobile phones, and computers; the NC2-1 headphones are packed with features, and we're going to test them out..."
Mad Catz Tritton Pro+ 5.1 Headset
"Before current generation consoles were even conceived, PC gamers and enthusiasts have been able to enjoy the benefits that headsets offer. In recent years XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 users are now also able to enjoy those same benefits. Today Benchmark Reviews will be taking a look at the TRITTON Pro+ True 5.1 Surround Sound Headset from Mad Catz. The TRITTON Pro+ is compatible with PlayStation 3, XBOX 360 and PC (Europe) via an optional cable. The TRITTON Pro+ boasts true Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound via eight individual drivers - four in each earcup (Front, Center, Surround, Subwoofer) - each with independent volume control. Visually speaking there isn't much that separates the Pro+ from the rest of the TRITTON range of headsets; it's all about what's inside, so let's find out more..." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 @ 15:37:38 PST (14 reads)
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Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme CPU Cooler
"Thermaltake are relative newcomers to the all in one liquid CPU cooler market, but like many other companies they have jumped straight onto the Asetek bandwagon to help get themselves established in this competitive market. The product we have here today, the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme, is Thermaltake’s top-of-the-line water cooling loop. It features a 240mm radiator that is 38mm thick versus the standard 27mm thick we normally see on 240mm-rad AIO loops. A thicker radiator in theory means better cooling performance – although the pump, tubing and fans all have to be able to take advantage of this extra potential."
SilverStone NT06 Pro CPU Cooler
"SilverStone are a renowned manufacturer of computer cases and we have reviewed a lot of their cases before. However, we've never really delved into any SilverStone CPU coolers despite the fact SilverStone have been making these for a very long time and they produce some of the best CPU coolers in the industry. SilverStone are very well known for their HTPC cases, such as the Grandia series, and as a result they also make low profile CPU coolers that can be used with these cases." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 @ 15:20:27 PST (18 reads)
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WD RE 4TB Enterprise HD
"There’s a relative lack of 4TB hard drive options on the market at the moment, but those looking for enthusiast or enterprise models are well taken care of. We’ve already taken a look at WD’s enthusiast part, the Black 4TB, so now it’s time to shift our attention to the feature-packed and enterprise-focused RE."
Fractal Design Define R4 Case
"Where desktops are concerned, some may consider bigger to be better, but sometimes, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a simple, classy-looking PC that you can barely hear. Helping to make that scenario a reality is Fractal Design, with its sound-dampened mid-tower Define R4." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 @ 14:39:15 PST (19 reads)
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"Holy cow, Batman! The original Batmobile was auctioned Saturday for $4.62 million, including commission, at the Barrett-Jackson car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz. The crime-fighting vehicle was built by George Barris, who transformed a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car he bought for $1 into one of the most recognizable vehicles in entertainment history." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Monday, January 21, 2013 @ 19:07:04 PST (21 reads)
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HIS Radeon HD 7970 3GB IceQ X2
"We continue to not really hear anything about the HD 8000 serious, though, when it comes to desktop parts and the latest we're hearing from companies is the second half of 2013 for launch. For anyone interested in grabbing a new video card the good news is that while the HD 7000 series might be a year old now, they're going to be around for at least another six months - at least that's what we're hearing."
Noctua NH-L9i Low-Profile CPU Cooler
"Since that time Noctua may no longer be the only silent offering out there, but they have kept their heads in the game and are always looking for new or better ways to innovate coolers. Whether we are discussing the D-14 behemoth, or even some of the C-Style coolers, Noctua has been delivering top-end performance even when the coolers had to be limited in size. On that note, Noctua has now developed one of the smallest coolers I have ever tested, and that includes low profile Intel stockers, and that SilverStone cooler that was essentially the same thing." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Monday, January 21, 2013 @ 08:48:16 PST (19 reads)
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Why Is Your Power Supply Important?
"TechwareLabs brings you the reason why your power supply is critical to your machine. We had the opportunity to sit down with some of the experts behind the NZXT line of power supplies and discuss the impact that a bad power supply can have. Protect your investment and watch this short video BEFORE you buy."
Western Digital RE 4TB Hard Drive
"While SSDs are by now the unquestioned performance kings when it comes to storage, their capacities are still too low and cost-per-gigabyte still too high for them to displace hard drives completely. While SSDs continue to improve at a meteoric rate, hard drive manufacturers aren't sitting still. Today, we'll be taking a look at Western Digital's latest attempt at pushing back the superparamagnetic limit, the WD RE SATA 4TB drive. Whether it's meant for large-capacity storage on a workstation, or as a way to expand the capacity of a high-load NAS device, this drive is WD's current cream of the crop for SATA drives. Let's take a look and see how it measures up." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Friday, January 18, 2013 @ 01:28:38 PST (22 reads)
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Seasonic G-360 & G-550 Power Supplies
"So far we have only come across Seasonic power supply units certified according to the highest standards in the upper price segment. However, the new G series units with 80 PLUS Gold certification belong to a much more affordable mainstream range."
Thermalright Archon SB-E Cooler
"In an attempt to improve the legendary Archon cooler even more, Thermalright made a few minor modifications to their heatsink, provided a new fan and slightly changed the retention mechanism. Let’s find out how good it turned out." |
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Posted by JimAdkins on Thursday, January 17, 2013 @ 17:54:26 PST (29 reads)
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