Monday News

Chances are (unless you've been won over by the newer generation of LCD monitors) you're still using a CRT monitor. Have you ever noticed how hot your monitor gets? Just set your hand on top of your monitor after it's been on for a while! You may be surprised to find the heat radiating off is anywhere between 45-65°C..

Thermalright has been one of the three top players in the high performance cooling arena for quite a long time. I recently reviewed their AX-478 and I was impressed by the fact that it could perform as well as two other, much more expensive options. Today I have the brand new SLK 900 to check out. Please note that originally, the SLK900 was dubbed the “SLK 900U” (U for Universal). However, after adding support for 92mm fans, Thermalright found that the cooler would not fit on all Socket A boards. However, it is possible to slightly bend the capacitors to give the needed room.

Silent computing is something that I have been striving for. In fact, I have tried several products to help lower the noise levels of my computer. The first step to lowering computer noise in my Lian Li PC 6099 was to use a rheobus on my Vantec Stealth fans. I eventually moved to Innovatek water cooling, but I’m still not entirely happy with my computers noise levels. Currently, the loudest thing in my computer is my Albatron Ti4800SE. Today I have a GPU cooler from Zalman that doesn’t just reduce noise, it eliminates it! The ZM80A-HP Heat Pipe Cooler is entirely fanless! Let’s see how it does.

I loved this little device. It’s a simple product that works effectively. It's a product that no one I have seen has thought about making. All the problems with mouse cords have gone away when using the Mouse Bungee. The cord swivels nicely without being caught around the table. It feels like I went wireless! Now I can successfully frag people without any hesitations. I have no hesitations on recommending the Mouse Bungee. Best of all, they come in a variety of colors and custom logos to choose from.

The XP4 marks the first Small Form Factor PC entry by IWILL. It's refreshing to see new vendors come into this space and recognizing that there's money to be made in small footprints. Of course I'd love to see new and fresh designs for PC cases but the cube shape still stands as a popular design for most players in this industry. At around (or under) $200.00, the XP4 is a great deal for those who want to get their feet wet in the SFF arena and still get decent system performance. On the plus side, the XP4 is affordable, small, easy to build, and a decent performer. On the minus side, it is noisy, limited in expandability, limited in memory options and has no video out or FireWire ports. Despite some of the minuses, the XP4 is still a solid first product from IWILL and should be considered by anyone looking to build a SFF system.