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On December 9th, I received my long-awaited Level 10 computer case! This case was originally announced way back in March of 2009, with an anticipated street date in mid October. As the initial ship date of October passed, I grew skeptical that such a unique case would ever actually ship. I’m glad to say, I was wrong. This case rocks! Let me repeat that again, this case rocks! I’ve spent the last 48 hours pouring over this case; top to bottom, inside and out. Clearly, this case was very well thought-out and bears the markings of a serious industrial design firm. Rather than a standard aluminum and plastic case, the Thermaltake Level 10 utilizes a central pillar, with individual compartments hanging from it for the power supply, motherboard, optical drives, and hard drives.
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Despite the success and popularity of Intel’s new P55 platform and i5 and i7 processors, buyers continue to keep a keen eye on the green team. Let’s face it – not everyone needs all of the processing horsepower that the i7 has on tap and even fewer are willing to pay for it. Although many of our enthusiast readers may scoff at that statement, it can’t be denied that the overwhelming majority of PC users fall into the “budget” bucket. As the struggling economy continues to drag it’s feet, buyers are more and more weary of what they are spending their hard earned loonies on - and AMD has certainly taken notice. It is no secret that the Phenom II can’t really compete with Intel’s high end offerings, but AMD has recently taken quite a handle on budget market. Instead of competing in the performance department, they have instead focused their attention on value. With their very low priced Athlon II series processors, affordable quad-cores have never been more within reach to the average consumer. At around the $100 mark, they may not be as quick as Phenom II clock-for-clock, but they still bring a fair bit of multi-threaded power to the table and provide a solid computing experience. As great as $100 quad core processors are, they need to have a fitting platform to match. What good is a $100 processor if it has to be stuck in a $200 motherboard? AMD has undoubtedly invested a great deal in their integrated platforms, and no one can dispute the success of the 790GX/SB750. Although the 790GX was an integrated platform – a great one too - it was still more of a mid-range platform with quite a few PCI-Express lanes and a slightly higher price tag to go along. AMD has trimmed down and updated the platform to further increase it’s value proposition and make the platform a perfect mate for their new Athlon II series. Enter AMD’s new 785G/SB710 chipset with integrated Radeon 4200 series graphics – AMD’s latest integrated socket AM3 chipset platform. Today we’ll be taking a look at a pair of new boards from ASUS based on the 785G/SB710 chipset combination dubbed the “M4A785TD-V EVO” and the “M4A785TD-M EVO”. Both boards are outfitted very similarly, but the “V” model is a full-ATX form factor, while the “M” is a more compact mATX model. Both are priced very competitively given their rather generous suite of features in the $100 range. How about a $100 board to match with a $100 quad? It makes a lot of sense to us! Without further ado, let’s see just how much bang the EVO “V” and EVO “M” bring to the table.
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Today we are going to look at another new comer to HWC: Titan Technology Ltd. While Titan Tech is not exactly a well known company they do have over 20 years of manufacturing experience under their belts. Way back in 1989, a small Taipei based company called “Sogic Computer Co.” was founded and out of this small seed grew Titan Technology Ltd since back in 1992 the Sogic name was changed to Titan and the rest as they say is history. Titan is now a multinational company offering not only CPU cooling solutions but also a myriad of other cooling related items such as fans and GPU coolers. They even have their own factories to build their designs (located in China) which ensures higher quality standards are met throughout the production process. In this review, we will be looking at a pair of Titans: the Fenrir and the Skalli. The Fenrir really needs no introduction as it has been making the rounds as one of the premier (if not THE premier) H.D.T cooler out there and we are really looking forward to putting this beastly product through the wringer. The Skalli on the other hand is another matter all together, and is aimed at a completely different market niche. While the Fenrir is aimed at high overclocking enthusiasts (or the silent PC enthusiast), the Skalli caters to those with smaller case environments or who will delve into moderate overclocking which requires a low noise, budget friendly cooling solution. This philosophy is accentuated by it’s used of “only” two 8mm heatpipes in its HDT base and a smaller, slower 100mm case-less fan. Even though both products represent totally different target markets, they will surely provide an excellent comparison to one another and show exactly what both budget minded and enthusiast consumers can expect. We should also note that we just recently introduced our new and improved testing methodology in the all-encompassing “7 Cooler Roundup”. However while we felt that this methodology did make for “apples to apples” comparison we also acknowledge that improvements can always be made and have done just that. As with most enthusiasts we spend a lot of time, effort and money actively looking for the coolest running CPU we can find. This may be will and fine for a end user it does make reviewing air coolers more difficult and can skew the potential of a given after market cooling solution. To this end we have found an older, hotter running “C0” stepping 920 which will really weed out the pretenders from the pack.
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In the last few years there has been a revolution of sorts in motherboard manufacturer attitudes and products. As recent as three years ago manufacturers did not want users overclocking their hardware and would not comment about overclocking whatsoever to the point where the response you would get was the usual “overclocking voids your warranty”. Back then enthusiasts and overclockers had to use their soldering skills to modify boards to overclock to their liking (yes, some of us actually miss those times). Today, nearly every motherboard manufacturer –including EVGA- has made a huge push to cater to an expanding enthusiast market. Now boards are made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. You don’t have to volt mod to get the voltages you need, you don’t need a degree in electrical engineering to figure out where to probe with your multi-meter and PWMs are more powerful and durable than ever. Indeed, EVGA’s latest series of boards are what enthusiasts have been waiting for and it seems EVGA did a great job in adding everything that has been missing from boards for the last few years. This review will be of a recent release by EVGA: the P55 FTW. If you are a geek like us (and you probably are) then you know that FTW is geek speak for “for the win” and is quite an amusing moniker for describing a product. Unlike many other more budget-friendly P55 boards, this one caters to a high end user or extreme enthusiast who not only overclocks, but overclocks to extreme levels in sub zero conditions. The FTW features 12 Phase PWM, 2x8pin CPU connectors that can provide up to 600w of power for the CPU and high quality LICC capacitors in the CPU cavity. Mess up a BIOS flash or corrupt a BIOS? No problem, there are three accessible BIOSes on the FTW which are all accessible by the simple flick of a switch. There are even voltage measure points and jumpers on the board for sub-zero conditions. Even though all of the extreme features are a huge bonus for discerning enthusiasts, the EVGA P55 FTW will also suit the needs of a gamer or builder who does not plan to overclock at all. Using LGA 1156 i5 and i7 processors, the P55 chipset provides up to 8-threads of performance to handle massive throughput and Hyper-Threading Technology to optimize performance on highly-threaded applications. This means even at their stock speeds, these processors can pile on the performance. Meanwhile, the FTW can run both CrossFire and SLI and dual channel DDR3 memory which not only offers higher bandwidth than DDR2 but its lower voltages means increased efficiency as well. Also unlike some first generation i7 boards (socket 1366), P55 boards are actually affordable. We should also mention that EVGA’s warranty for motherboards is among the top in the industry at 3 years if you register the product online. But that’s enough talk already, let’s take a closer look at the P55 FTW and see if it lives up to its reputation!
To view the complete review click here
