OCIA.net has posted a review of the Aspire Concord 500 Watt PSU. Below is a direct quote from the review:

Check out the heatsink on the fanbus. Aspire thought of everything. I know, I know, some of you are thinking that they should have put it in a bay instead of PCI slot. Well, what size should they have included? What color should it have been? What if the case has a stealth cover that a knob wouldn't fit under? No, they did the best thing by putting it in an empty PCI slot.

MHW has a review of the PolarFLO TT waterblock, which they ended up testing off label with a Socket A board it wasn't originally designed for.

One very important note - I tested the PolarFLO TT on a socket A / 462 board (not officially supported by PolarFLO) - so I had to drill 4 new mounting screw holes in the mounting plate to mount the block on the motherboard (Editors note; This can also be accomplished by a custom clip mechanism). So basically, we are going to be looking at the performance of this block on a different platform than the block was designed for. Needless to say, PolarFLO gave us their blessing and wanted us to publish this article (maybe for this exact reason). Of course, I would not urge others to do this experiment - use the block for the intended platforms!

One of the cool new features available now for some printers is the ability to connect to your wireless network. On top of freeing yourself from wires, sharing the printer with all the computers on your network, you also can place your printer where it's most convenient.

What if you already got a printer and don't want to buy a new wireless model? Well you're still in luck if you get yourself a wireless print adapter. To day we take a look at a new model from X-Micro called the Combo Bluetooth Print Adapter. Not only does it work with bluetooth, it also is capable of connecting to a printer port or a USB port if you got a USB Printer.

OCIA.net has posted a review of the MGE XG Sidewinder Case. Below is a direct quote from the review:

Turning the case around we see the acrylic window and the two 80mm fans mounted to the side facing inward. I like the idea of two 80mm fans mounted like this, it should make for good airflow throughout the case. The acrylic window is secured with 8 screws, and it does not rattle one bit. I've had a couple of windows rattle around in previous cases just when taking the side off or moving the tower, and it just makes them feel cheap.

Phoronix.com has posted a review of the XGI Volari V3XT, a low end card designed for mini-PC and HTPC:

If we had to choose between XGI's Volari V3XT and Power Color's ATI Radeon 9250 for a general-purpose graphics card, not solely based on the performance, we would go with XGI. We feel as the Reactor driver's progress current XGI solutions will become slightly more powerful, as ATI had done with CATALYST. In addition, the core speed is slightly faster (250MHz), HDTV, overclocking ability, and other unique XGI technologies, were found in this card that the ATI 9250 couldn't offer. XGI's V3XT has found its way into one of our HTPC/ general purpose test machines, and have no regrets using the card, except for demanding 3D applications.

DataFuse.net just finished reviewing OCZ PC3200 2*512MB EL Platinum Rev. 2! Here's a snip.

OCZ presented me with one of their Platinum versions of their Memory modules.
These modules are manufactured to run at the highest possible timings, so how in the world could I refuse?

When it comes to silently cooling "ultra" high end video cards these days, the option list isn?t long and one main company that comes to mind is Arctic Cooling. Today HTPCnews takes a look at the Arctic Cooling NV5 Cooler, which is made solely for cooling the Nvidia 6800 series cards. They test its noise performance along with it?s overall cooling performance in comparison to the stock cooler on a NV6800 card.

Soltek has once again provided a superior budget solution for the Athlon64 platform with this motherboard. The implementation of working AGP/PCI locks is a major key to the success of this board and why it should be considered by the overclockers. Early BIOS or board revisions have shown maximum VCore for this board to be 1.55V. Our sample had VCore up to 1.7V which is another essential for overclocking. CPU multiplier adjustment options are also a plus to bump up the bus speed of the motherboard while keeping the CPU at a manageable/stable core speed. All these things make this a great board both for the overclocker and the budget minded consumer looking to make a break into the Athlon64 platform.

As a Child, I loved to play Archon, the chess-like action/strategy game for 8-bit computers. I played often on my Atari 800, and once, I tried playing over at a friend's house on his Commodore 64. He popped the disk into the drive, booted up the computer, and started loading the game. We waited.

Now that the NDA's have been lifted off AMD's Athlon 64 4000+ and AMD's Athlon 64 FX-55 CPU! Our bro's over at OverclockersClub.com have put togather a list of reviews - Updated as more come in.

Hardware Pacers has posted a review on the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2005. Here is a snippet:

"The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2005 is a phenomenal program that can give users access to a wealth of information. With more than 63,000 articles, 20,000 images, 200 videos and animations, 2000 sound and audio clips, and 36,000 map locations, Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe can provide information for virtually any subject. With many features and functions such as the Encarta Search Bar, dynamic timeline, 2D virtual tours, games and much much more, the Microsoft Encyclopedia Deluxe 2005 program will give users access to as much information as they need for almost any topic they can think of."

Etymotic Research Inc., while not as well known as some of the other manufacturers such as Bose and Ultrasone, have been catering to the needs of audiophiles for a long time. Headphones and earphones are the latest trend in the audio world and thankfully manufacturers are able to keep up with the standards that many users are now used to.

OCIA.net has posted a review of the Steelpad S&S Mousepad.

I could immediately tell the difference the mousepad made. Small movements were so much more accurate it was incredible. I made several kills that I probably wouldn't have made using my previous setup (no mousepad), as the mousepad made me much faster on the draw. Don't get me wrong, I still got my butt kicked, but I was amazed at how many more butts I kicked in the meantime.

We all know that almost every week new Forceware drivers get leaked or released, but is it really necessary to update your Windows with the latest driver?
Most of us push the maximum out of the graphics card to get the highest framerates possible, most of the time new drivers will improve the gameplay and/or fixing any other issue. Last couple of months a lot more Forceware drivers came available on the net then years before but does everyone upgrade all the time to the latest driver releases? Why should you! We've benchmarked three DirectX games and three OpenGL games, old and new included. We also turned on the Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering to compare the differences between all five drivers.

Is Google going to revolutionize the way we search for files on our computers? Read Flexbeta's take on Google's new tool here.

Quote:
"Recently Google announced a desktop search tool for your computer and knowing Google’s reputation as far as a web search engine, there can be no doubt that this new tool was going to out perform the built in search feature in Windows. The desktop search tool uses your default internet browser as the interface; which is a pretty smart move by the creators of this dandy tool because it doesn’t require learning anything new, if you have used Google to search before than you will find this to be identical."

With the amount of computer virus's, trojans, and spyware around now a days, it becomes even more important to backup your data. There are many software solutions to back up data available and now even hardware solutions. One of these hardware solutions is from Coolmax with their Xtreme Files F1-B. This external hard drive is capable of backing up files or your entire Operating System with a push of a button.

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OCIA.net has posted a review of the mCubed T-Balancer Temperature and Noise Balancer. Below is a direct quote from the review:

Face it, geeks are gadget freaks. We love neat "stuff", especially those cool little gadgets designed for our computers. Many of us are also very concerned with fan noise. If you have read my earlier reviews, you have found that I have become somewhat anal about having a quiet rig. Well, I have discovered the mother of all "silent PC" gadgets, the mCubed T-Balancer.

It seems that gamers are always looking for that special something to give them an edge while playing. Steelpad, a company well known for their gaming products has come out with the Steel grip. Simply put, the steel grip is 5 pieces of precut foam with adhesive backing made to stick on your mouse in strategic positions.

Anyone doing any hardware upgrades, or perhaps pc repair, usually comes across hard drives. An extra hard drive is a good thing, but what if you want to use it externally. Or perhaps you aren't too PC savvy, and have an extra hard drive laying around? Vantec has just an enclosure for that, the NexStar. This particular unit supports Firewire and USB, so hooking it up between PC's, and any reasonably newer PC should be a breeze. Let's take a closer look shall we?

GameConnect has 2 new reviews online. Myst IV: Revelation and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna ***. They are both very interesting games. We made a lot of in-game screenshots for both games and again added some nice girls from Larry.
Read more for the deeplinks to the reviews...