PC Perspective Hardware Workshop 2012 @ Quakecon 2012 in Dallas, TX

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Motherboards, Cases and Cooling, Processors, Memory, Systems, Storage, Mobile, Shows and Expos | August 9, 2012 - 10:30 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, workshop, streaming, quakecon, prizes, live, giveaways

It is that time of year again: another installment of the PC Perspective Hardware Workshop!  Once again we will be presenting on the main stage at Quakecon 2012 being held in Dallas, TX August 2-5th.  

Main Stage - Quakecon 2012

Saturday, August 4th, 2pm CT

Our thanks go out to the organizers of Quakecon for allowing us and our partners to put together a show that we are proud of every year.  We love giving back to the community of enthusiasts and gamers that drive us to do what we do!  Get ready for 2 hours of prizes, games and raffles and the chances are pretty good that you'll take something out with you - really, they are pretty good!

Our thanks for this year's workshop logo goes to John Pastor!!

Our primary partners at the event are those that threw in for our ability to host the workshop at Quakecon and for the hundreds of shirts we have ready to toss out!  Our thanks to NVIDIA, MSI Computer and Corsair!!

Live Streaming

If you can't make it to the workshop - don't worry!  You can still watch the workshop live on our page right here as we stream it over one of several online services.  Just remember this URL: http://pcper.com/workshop and you will find your way!

Case Mod Competition

Along with the Hardware Workshop, PC Perspective is working with Modders Inc on the annual case mod contest!  There are two categories for the competition: "Scratch Built" and "In the Box" that will allow those that build their computer enclosures from the ground up to compete separately from those that heavily modify their existing cases and systems.

For more details, be sure to check out the on going thread at the Modders Inc Forums!

Prize List (will continue to grow!)

Continue reading to see the list of prizes for the workshop!!!

Corsair's Obsidian 550D is great for fans

Subject: Cases and Cooling | August 9, 2012 - 04:11 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: corsair, Obsidian 550D

Corsair's new mid-sized Obsidian 550D is a good home for any mATX or ATX build and is deep enough to use enthusiast heatsinks and long enough to fit almost any graphics card.  A pair of 200mm fans and a single 120mm provide good airflow without creating an excessive amount of noise. [H]ard|OCP really liked this case even though they encountered difficulties installing either of Corsair's self-contained watercoolers.  For those looking for a decent aircooled case this is a good deal; watercooler users and modders might want to look elsewhere.

"Corsair was once synonymous with only quality RAM. Today we find Corsair’s diversification of its product line tremendously successful. Its focus and execution with the desktop PC enthusiast has lead to a great PSUs, SSDs, and cases to house all your high end equipment. Its Obsidian 550D case is another great product."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

• Thermaltake Armor Revo Snow Edition Case Review @ Ninjalane
• Aerocool Xpredator Evil Black Edition Full-Tower Gaming Chassis Review @ eTeknix
• Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case @ Legit Reviews
• Xigmatek Gigas mATX Case Review @ OCC
• Xilence Interceptor Pro Case @ Kitguru
• NZXT Fan Roundup @ Rbmods
• Xclio Touch 767 Full-Tower PC Chassis Review @ eTeknix
• Corsair Obsidian 550D Case Review @ Neoseeker
• BitFenix Prodigy Arctic White Mini-ITX Chassis @ Tweaktown
• MSI Barricade Mid Tower PC Case Review @ Legit Reviews
• Cooler Master Storm Stryker Gaming Case @ Pro-Clockers
• Cooler Master 690 II Advanced Black & White Edition USB 3.0 Case Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• BitFenix Recon Internet-Connected Fan Controller @ Pro-Clockers
• Corsair AF and SP Series Fan Review @ Neoseeker
• Prolimatech PK-2 & PK-3 TIM Review @ OCC
• Tuniq TX-2 Extreme Thermal Compound @ Pro-Clockers
• ENERMAX ETS-T40 Heatsink Review @ OCC
• Arctic Alpine 11 PLUS CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets

The pensive supply unit decides if it will give you power ... and tells you about it

Subject: Cases and Cooling | August 7, 2012 - 07:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: corsair, Professional Series AX1200i, PSU, modular psu, kilowatt

The reason that Corsair's new Professional Series AX1200i is called a digital power supply is due to the presence of a digital signal processor inside the PSU.  The advantages are likely to due with the reduced complexity of the internal design than due to the DSP being a miracle, however there is more to it than just smooth voltages.  With the USB Corsair Link interface you can use the bundled software to monitor the three main voltage rails, the 24-pin connector's 12V line, the AC voltage at the wall socket and there are current trackers for all of the PCIe power connectors as well.  If you obsess over power management and happen to need more than a kilowatt of power, check out Corsair's latest offering at The Tech Report.

"Corsair's new Professional Series AX1200i uses digital circuitry to convert AC to DC power. We take a quick look at the PSU and the software enabled by its DSP."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

• Enermax MaxRevo 1500W @ [H]ard|OCP
• be quiet Dark Power Pro 10 550W Power Supply Review @ Ninjalane
• Corsair AX1200i 1200 W @ techPowerUp
• Corsair Professional Series AX1200i @ Kitguru
• Corsair AX1200i 1200W review: a new benchmark in high-end PSUs @ hardware.info
• Corsair AX1200i @ VR-Zone
• Corsair AX1200i Digital ATX 1200-watt @ Tweaktown
• Thortech Thunderbolt 1200 Watt PSU Preview @ Madshrimps
• BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 10 1200W @ Kitguru
• AZZA Platinum 750 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Lepa G-Series 1600W @ Hardware.info
• Midrange Power Supply Units Roundup: 520-650 W @ X-bit Labs
• Corsair HX850 Gold Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
• OCZ Fatal1ty 1000W review: efficient PSU by gamer for gamers? @ Hardware.info
• Seasonic Platinum 1000W Power Supply Review @ Legit Reviews
• Corsair HX850 V2 850 W @ techPowerUp
• Corsair HX850 Gold Professional Series @ Kitguru
• XFX PRO 650 W XXX Edition Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W Power Supply Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• FSP Aurum Xilenser 500W Fanless PSU @ Kitguru

Gigabyte Unveils GA-H77N-WIFI Mini-ITX Motherboard

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards, Motherboards, Cases and Cooling, Processors, Chipsets, Memory, Displays | August 7, 2012 - 10:07 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: Z77, motherboard, mini-itx, Intel, gigabyte, ga-h77n-wifi

During a European roadshow, Gigabyte showed off a new Mini-ITX form factor motherboard for the first time. Called the GA-H77N-WIFI, the motherboard is well suited for home theater and home server tasks. Based on the H77 chipset, it is compatible with the latest Intel Core i3 (coming soon), i5, and i7 "Ivy Bridge" processors. The board goes for an all-black PCB with minimal heatsinks on the VRMs, and the form factor is the same size as the motherboard that Ryan recently used in his Mini-ITX HTPC build.

The GA-H77N-WIFI features a LGA 1155 processor socket, two DDR3 DIMM slots, PCI Express slot, two SATA 3Gbps ports, two SATA 6Gbps ports, and an internal USB 3.0 header. There are also two Realtek Ethernet controller chips and a Realtek audio chip.

• 1 PS/2 port
• 2 USB 3.0 ports
• 2 HDMI ports
• 1 DVI port
• 2 Antenna connectors (WIFI)
• 4 USB 2.0 ports
• 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports
• 1 Optical S/PDIF port
• 5 Analog audio jacks

The dual Gigabit Ethernet ports are interesting. It could easily be loaded with open source routing software and turned into router/firewall/Wi-Fi access point. To really take advantage of the Ivy Bridge support, you could put together a nice media server and HTPC recording/streaming box (using something like SiliconDust's HDHomeRun networked tuners or Ceton's USB tuner since this board is very scarce in the way of PCI-E slots). What would you do with this Mini-ITX Gigabyte board?

Unfortunately, there is no word yet on pricing or availability, but the motherboard is likely coming soon. You can find more information on the motherboard over at tonymacx86, who managed to snag get some photos of the board.

In this case XION's pricing might be a bit high

Subject: Cases and Cooling | August 1, 2012 - 01:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: XION, XON-980

On the face of it, the XION XON-90 looks like a good case, featuring mesh on much of its exterior for airflow, audio, USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports on the front panel, a protected top mount fan and what seems to be a fan controller.  Once they started using it, Overclockers Club were less than impressed with the features.  The fan controller has two settings, one with the fans powered the other completely shuts down all fans connected to the controller so it is not recommended you put the CPU fan on the controller.  There were also other components which OCC felt to be of cheap design, which made them recommend you to avoid this case at its current price, but would recommend it if it was sold in the $50-$60 range.

"To be perfectly honest for the asking price this case leaves a lot to be desired. There's nothing to really redeem the faults I encountered when examining this case. The cooling fans, for the noise they make, should keep things cooler especially in a smaller mid-tower case. The fan controller, if you can really call it that, is one of the most useless things I've ever seen included on a case and it's downright dangerous to have something like this without even a mention of it shutting fans completely off in the installation guide. If this case was coming to market at the $59.99 level or below I could understand the kind of manufacturing shortcuts that produce a case of this caliber, but at the $89.99 price point it just doesn't even have a horse in the race. If you're looking to build a new machine please look elsewhere unless you want to be disappointed like I was."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

• Sentey Extreme Division GS-6000 II Optimus @ Benchmark Reviews
• Corsair Obsidian 550D Case Review @ Hardware Canucks
• Sharkoon T28 @ Hardware.info
• Cooler Master HAF XM mid-tower Case Review @ Madshrimps
• NZXT Switch 810 Special Edition Review @ Hardware Canucks
• Corsair Obsidian 550D vs Cooler Master Silencio 650 @ Hardware.info
• Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Case Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Prolimatech PK-2 and PK-3 Thermal Paste @ Pro-Clockers
• Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro CPU Cooler Review @ Legit Reviews
• Thermaltake WATER2.0 Performer CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Thermaltake Frio Advanced CPU Cooler Review @ Neoseeker
• CM Storm Stryker Full Tower Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• Cooler Master TPC-812 CPU Cooler Review @ Neoseeker

Scythe Unveils ACB-TYPE3 Open-Air Acrylic ATX Chassis

Subject: Cases and Cooling | July 31, 2012 - 05:29 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: scythe, open bench, open air case, atx case, acyrilic case

Scythe, a PC enthusiast hardware company popular for its line of fans and processor heatsinks will soon be launching a new open air case. The ACB-TYPE3 is a clear acrylic case that forgoes side panels for an open bench design.

The case weighs in at under 6 pounds, the case is constructed of 5mm acrylic and can accommodate ATX, Micro-ATX, and Mini-ITX motherboards. Additionally, it features three 5.25” drive bays, three 3.5” hard drive bays, and two 2.5” drive bays suitable for storing SSDs (solid state drives).
Another cool feature is that the open air case can hold tower coolers up to 190mm, which is not quite big enough for the 100W passive TwinBlock cooler but will be good enough for most any other high-end air cooler.

According to FanlessTech, the Scythe acrylic case will be available for purchase soon, and will cost around $85. It certainly seems like a neat option for benchmarking test beds and enthusiast’s that like to show off their computer hardware (nothing wrong with that!). You can find more photos over at the Fanless Tech website.

Silentmaxx TwinBlock HSF Passively Cools 100W CPUs

Subject: Cases and Cooling | July 24, 2012 - 09:58 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: silentmaxx, passive cooling, hsf, cpu cooling, cooler

Having a silent system without fans is a noble goal, but CPUs generally need at least one. A new heatsink from Silentmaxx called the TwinBlock is designed to passively cool processors up to approximately 100W. Supporting sockets 774, 775, 1155, 1156, 1366 on the Intel side and 939, 940, and AMD 2/3 for AMD processors, it is compatible with just about any processor. The TwinBlock is, in a word, massive. Weighting in a just over 3 pounds, the heatsink measures 210mm (B) x 135mm (D) x 160mm (H) mm. It features a copper base with 10 heatpipes that connect to two aluminum fin arrays.

Interestingly, FanlessTech pointed us to a new computer build – the Fanless I-850 Gamer – that the company is planning to use the passive heatsink with to create a silent gaming PC. The PC can be equipped with up to an Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E processor and up to either an AMD 7970 or NVIDIA GTX 670 graphics card. The processor is cooled using the TwinBlock cooler while the GPUs are using custom coolers that should only kick on the fans over long gaming sessions or folding. The Fanless I-850 starts at 1279,00€ for the base configuration.

It is possible to buy just the heatsink, however. The Silentmaxx TwinBlock cooler can be yours for about $120 USD (€ 99.90 inc. VAT). More photos of the cooler are available below, and you can read more about the cooler on the SilentMaxx website.