Content and news by Rob Williams

Overall, we’re giving the Robela a thumbs up as it is a good performer that is also very easy to use. The weight of the unit hurts the score against it, but we still think it is a worthy contender for those looking for an easy-to-use water cooling case.

Check out the full review at Viper Lair!

Overall, this pair is—at average street price—less than $100, which is less than you can pay for some headsets alone. For gamers looking to wirelessly communicate during Day of Defeat: Source, or those who just want to talk safely on the phone while driving, without shelling out tons of cash for a more well-known brand, Bluetake is picking up on a market that may be less of a niche and more of the mainstream.

Check out the full review at XYZ Computing.

This kit truly is an all-inclusive product. It completely takes the guesswork out of water cooling. With a pump, reservoir, radiator, CPU/GPU/Northbridge/Southbridge waterblocks, tubing, and more included it has serious bang for the buck. To make the best of it, all the parts are well constructed and go together securely and easily. This is a product designed for the novice and expert alike! Watch the Video to find out more…

Check out the full video review at 3D Gameman.

Whether your in search of a great OpenGL racing game to play
in your time off, or would rather enjoy supporting open-source gaming
projects, today we have some screenshots of the latest PlanetPenguin
Racer v0.5 ALPHA release. Among various major improvements, the TCL
scripting is replaced by Squirrel and now features experimental
multi-player support. PlanetPenguin Racer, of course, is based upon the
GPL version of the popular TuxRacer game.

This still by no means has kill graphics, but that do have some nice additions if you liked TuxRacer. Check it out at Phoronix.

Included with the Xpert TWINXP1024-3200XL DDR Memory modules are two matching
10-digit alphanumeric displays. Each display consists of a small PCB with
identical 34-pin connectors. The 34-pin connectors simply attach to the top of
each module and allow both displays to sit side-by-side once installed. The
top portion of the displays also include two bars of colour activity LEDs that
show level of memory activity as well as a pair of lighted Corsair logo sails.

Check out the full review over at Mod The Box.

You’ve got the latest and greatest, and you’re damn proud of it as well. But when you stare into your freshly cut case window, you see that UGLY stock processor fan. So like most people on this earth, you’ve stooped to using that lowly piece of garbage. So after being made fun of at the lan party, you decided to shop around for the perfect processor fan. Today we have the Thermaltake Golden Orb II heatsink for review. This dazzling golden circular beauty sure looks great, but looks are not everything are they? Let’s get on with this thing and see how the bricks pile up.

Head over to Extensive Mods for the review!

Are you looking for the ultra-low latency memory without paying a premium price? Then the OCZ PC3500 Gold Gamer GX DDR memory might be what you are after! Boasting a rated clock speed of 433MHz @ 2-2-2-5, these modules make use of Winbond BH-5 UTT memory chips! Check them out!

Check out the full pictorial review at Rojak Pot.

This is an off wall item, it may not interest some but others will be intrigued. With hard drives becoming bigger and faster comes the sound of them screaming at high rpm’s. Some drives are louder than others, that’s where this product comes in. Like with the fans I just reviewed recently, this is made to aid your machine in being silent. I was taken back with the fans being able to perform as well as they did, and still keep my system running cool and now silent. I’m sure there are a good bit of people interested in this, as a lot of people are looking to water cooling for both high performance and lowering the noise from their system.

Check out the full review at Think Computers!

ATI Technologies Inc., (TSX:ATY)(NASDAQ:ATYT), today announced that its
Radeon(R) Xpress 200 platform technology will be an integral part of AMD’s
(NYSE: AMD) Commercial Stable Image Platform (CSIP). The program will
include three CSIP-qualified and ATI-tested systems at launch. Developed to
help simplify commercial PC management, AMD’s new program provides system
stability by ensuring availability of select AMD desktop and mobile
processors, ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipsets, motherboards and stable image
drivers for a 15-month period.

Read: Full Press Release

As we have done such a great job and we are extremely pleased with the stunning cooling of our design using this Swiftech pump we are awarding this our Editors Top Choice for a water cooled heatsink system. For us it is a great balance between cost, size and cooling efficiency.

Check out the full review over at A1 Electronics!

Can you see the vision? Johnny walking down the street with his new Skype[ish]-watch built with a tiny mic and speaker/headphone jack. He just bought Halo 6 and wants to tell his friend Billy all about it. So he dials up Billy and while he’s waiting to connect he hears a short ad for the soon to be released Xbox 720. Of course this ad was targeted due to his personal information stating him as a 17 year old male with an interest in electionics and video games. Once the ad is done he is connected to Billy on Billy’s tiny palm-sized Skype[ish] phone talking freely at will with high quality sound and perfect clarity.

Head over to Bona Fide Reviews for the full look.

The Codegen Group Briza-97 Mid Tower ATX Case isn’t one of the top of the line cases that we have looked at, but it does have alot going for it. At a mere $47.99, it offers a unique appearance, and interesting features like tool-less expansion slots, stylish carrying handles, LED cooling fans, and stealth optical drive covers.

This is a great looking case, I love the color scheme. Check it out at Big Bruin.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve heard numerous rumors
and reports of OCZ Technology venturing into other PC enthusiast areas
such as water cooling and flash memory. With this said, today we have
one of OCZ’s recently released flash drives. Shipping with the 512MB,
1GB, and 2GB ‘Rally’ flash drives is dual channel technology we’ve never
seen previously implemented into flash memory, and this technology does
indeed offer blazing fast read/write speeds.

Head on over to Phoronix for the full look at this killer thumb drive!

So where exactly do we sit with the Plextor PX-740A? The drive
certainly does amazingly well. The speed was a bit jittery but in the end
the Plextor PX-740A got the job done by meeting its specifications and
writing a perfect disc. While the Scan Disc did report the odd problem, it’s
nothing to be concerned about as our LiteOn Error Checks came back negative.
Even with “only” 2MB of buffer, Plextor is a brand you can associate with
coaster free burning. You can be assured that they won’t be cutting corners
on the quality of writing.

Check out the full review at Overclockers Online!

For several years Thermaltake has been making “cool” hardware for the enthusiast. This includes heatsinks, fans, cases and other cooling solutions. Today we take a look at the Thermaltake VB6000SWS, an affordable case for people who still want a good looking computer.

Check out the full look over at techPowerUp!

Our friends from NGO have released a new optimized NVIDIA driver! If you like using cool modified drivers, definitely give these ones a go here.

OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, is excited to announce the release of OCZ DDR PC-4000 Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Edition 1GB modules and 2GB dual channel kits, a series designed to give PC enthusiasts and gamers the ultimate combination of density and speed. Unlike no other 2GB memory solution, this cutting-edge line operates with the extraordinarily fast latency timings of 3-3-2!

Wow, that’s some killer timings! Since it’s the Platinum series, it could likely even be pushed further than that!

Read: Full Press Release

Some four months after first announcing its CrossFire technology, ATI is finally ready to bring multi-GPU Radeon rendering to the masses. Enthusiasts have been anxiously awaiting CrossFire arrival, in part because the particulars of the Radeon X800 series have forced ATI to take a somewhat novel approach to GPU teaming, employing “master” cards and an external composting engine to weave the output of two graphics cards together for a single display. We’ve also been eager to see how CrossFire will stack up against NVIDIA’s SLI technology, which the green team has diligently refined for nearly a year.

If you want to know just how well CrossFire will work, then you will want to check out this very in-depth review at Tech Report. Many popular games were used, and I was impressed with a lot of the results.

Reviews also at: HardOCP, Bit-Tech, Hexus and T-Break.

As the name suggests, the game is a remake of the classic Day of Defeat mod for Half Life, first released back in 2001. Like Counter-Strike: Source before it, DoD: Source promises classic team-based gameplay with vastly improved Direct X 9.0 graphics. Axis & Allied forces have been skilfully remodelled using high polygon characters. Maps have been rebuilt, replacing ugly, square scenery with curved archways, dense foliage and realistic particle effects.

Like many others, I have been waiting since last year for the release of this. Who knew, before the HL2 release that it was going to take this long to get released? Check out some of the screenshots for yourself, and you will see that this is going to be madly played just like CS: Source. Check out the full preview at Bit-Tech.

The Tuniq Tower 120. This heatsink comes from a relatively unknown player in the cooling field, Sunbeam subsidiary Tuniq. Of course, we all know Sunbeam, which means the odds of this product, well, sucking are slim to none. Tuniq is headquartered in China, with a staff that has a decade or more experience in the industry as well as enthusiastic newcomers and designers.

They can only call it tower for a reason! Check out the full review at Think Computers.