The market of the budget power supply has never been more competitive than it is right now. Where once the market was dominated by a lot of overrated units with questionable performance, now we have many options able to give us decent power with high efficiency at a great price. Corsair's shown us time and time again that they have what it takes to master the high end power supply realm. But what about the budget crowd? Can Corsair dominate that end of the market as well? There's only one way to find out.
Late last year, we took a peek at one of Thermaltake's latest incarnations of the high end Toughpower Grand series. While a capable unit, it didn't quite stand out among the crowd the way I would have liked. Today, we have an 850 watt Platinum addition to the Grand series of units, so my expectations are once again high.
We haven't seen all that many Lepa units come through here. Aside from the excellent G-1600 and G-1000 units, they've been pretty shy about sending units in my direction. One day, their new Maxbron 1000W unit showed up at the door, a bargain oriented unit that promised decent performance at a low price. Let's see if one of the more value oriented Lepa units can impress us.
FSP, an experienced power supply manufacturer,
today announces the new AURUM PT Series of PC Power Supplies. This high
end modular PSU is designed specifically for gaming enthusiasts and demanding
overclockers. At 80 Plus® Platinum certification, AURUM PT Series
delivers a premium product and is the ideal choice for those seeking
high-performance, reliability and quality.
XPOWER AC is an E-ATX
motherboard which is primarily designed to push the limits of your hardware.
MSI has furnished this motherboard with plenty of innovation which include a
number of performance related features including the possibility to make use of
4-way NVIDIA SLI or AMD CrossfireX. @ Vortez
It is fair to say that the market for modern Radeon GPUs has been a bit crazy over the last year or so. Their ability to perform currency mining tasks well has impacted sales, availability and pricing significantly but now AMD and their partners are getting a hold of the situation. Now with plenty of stock in the channel and prices stabilised and a new free game promotion in the works there may never have been a better time to consider one as an upgrade.
Today we take a look at the XFX Radeon R9 280 Black Edition OC, a custom design factory overclocked version of the R9 280. @ Hardware Heaven
In
the world of keyboards, there is a huge price range depending on what you are
looking to get out of the keyboard and the overall quality. With mechanical
keyboards, Cooler Master has done a great job of bridging the gap between lower
end keyboards and the enthusiast grade keyboards. They have been able to
provide options that are priced well, but still have most of the quality and
features of the most expensive models. One of the glaring holes in their lineup
though has been in the tenkeyless market. Their Quickfire Rapid lineup has been
extremely popular, but they haven’t had a model with backlighting. They have
finally introduced a model to fill that gap and today I have the chance to take
a look at it and see how it performs. Considering the Quickfire Rapid has been
in our LAN bag and on our test bench for years now, I have extremely high
expectations for the Quickfire Rapid-I. @ Lan OC Reviews
Today, we take a look at ECS's LIVA Mini PC Kit, a
small and affordable PC with very low power consumption, a small price, and
lightweight computing capabilities. With a sub-US$200 price tag, expecting top-notch
performance would be ill advised, yet what can you get for $200 that fits in
the palm of your hand? An ECS LIVA Mini PC Kit, of course. @ techPowerUp
It’s
fairly rare these days that a new company jumps into the case market. We have
seen it in recent years from Corsair for example, but for the most part, it is
a rare occurrence. Recently XFX announced that they would be joining the case
market. On top of their video cards, XFX has sold power supplies, a mouse pad,
and even a monitor stand. I’m excited to check out what they put together as
their first case. @ Lan OC Reviews
Corsair are using Computex to launch/announce a
wide range of products from cases through USB drives and even new GPU cooling
products. They also recently launched a new product in their SSD range, the
Force LX. Using a new controller for Corsair and aiming to hit a value price
point today we find out how it performs. @ Hardware Heaven
The SteelSeries Rival is an optical mouse
but could quite easily be mistaken for a laser device for the figures match up
to many laser devices. Couple this with SteelSeries know how when making a
gaming device and the Rival presents us with, on paper at least, a very well
specced peripheral suitable for any gamer from any level. @ Vortez
Computex 2014 takes place this week and one of
the manufacturers launching a new product to coincide with the event is
Crucial. A replacement to the M500 in their SSD range the MX100 uses the latest
16nm NAND Flash and has a slightly different price/performance ratio to their
high end M550. Today we compare all of the above, along with some of the
competition. @ Hardware Heaven
Hide your childrens, hide your wives! A KILLER is
here! ASRock's Fatal1ty Z97X KILLER is on my test bench, after arriving in a
plain white box. The only true Fatal1ty here is hopefully the one in the name,
or this red and black gamer had better go back to training camp! @ techPowerUp
Using the now mature
28nm fabrication we are likely to see an improvement in performance per watt as
well as various improvements in regards to the GPU. The R7 GPU is using AMDs
GCN architecture that has 8 compute cores and a total of 512 shader cores. @ Vortez
If there's something that people value more than
a good mouse that is a good keyboard and although in the past there weren't
that many models to choose from and almost every single one of those used
regular membrane technology keys. To date only 5 keyboards have had the
pleasure of sitting on my desk for long periods of time since the early 90s'
the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard (which i got in 1995), it's successor
the Microsoft Natural Pro Ergonomic Keyboard (year 2000), the Logitech G15
Gaming Keyboard (got it back in 2005 if i recall correctly), the Professional
Model S by Das Keyboard (roughly two years ago) and finally the Mad Catz
S.T.R.I.K.E.7 Adjustable Keyboard (slightly just over a year ago). So as you
can imagine i don't easily trust keyboards especially since i don't primarily
use them for gaming and thus i only use the best for me but specially designed
models like the 87 Francium Pro by Deck (a subsidiary of TG3 Electronics) which
arrived on our doorstep a while back are certainly very good candidates. @ NikKTech
With
the prevalence of Skype and the rise of personal YouTube and TwitchTV channels,
the webcam is becoming as necessary as the keyboard and mouse and much like
other accessories there is a wide array of options for the user to choose.
Today we take a look at the Widecam F100 from Genius which boasts to be the
world’s first full HD 1080p ultra wide angle webcam. Boasting many useful
features for video conferencing as well as personal use, will the F100 prove
itself or simply be just another webcam with just another gimmick? Join me to
find out. @ Lan OC Reviews
The Genius Ergo 8800
Wireless Mouse is well built and incorporates all the features you would expect
to find in your typical mouse. It has a fairly traditional design for universal
(right-handed) comfort and it doesn't do anything extra that would require
special software or setup time. Pretty much a plug and play device that is well
suited for desktop use and perhaps some casual gaming. @ BigBruin
Today we will be taking a look at the Raptor M45
gaming mouse from Corsair. The M45 is a mid-range gaming mouse from their
Raptor range which looks to satisfy the needs of enthusiast gamers, especially
FPS players. @ Hardware Heaven
