ASUS Shows Maximus V Extreme and ROG CG8580 PC

At an event held in Dubai today, ASUS was showing off some of their latest/greatest components which included the highly anticipated Maximus V Extreme motherboard. This super high-end motherboard is probably on the top of every DIY enthusiast’s wish list. Featuring a Z77 chipset with quad SLI capabilities, ten SATA ports as well as four USB 3.0 ports and a Thunderbolt port on the IO panel, this EATX form factor based motherboard is drool-worthy from every angle. Expect a review soon.

Also on display was the ROG CG8580 PC featuring insane specs such as the Intel Core i7 3770K Ivy Bridge CPU, 16GB RAM, two SSDs in RAID0 for boot up along with two 2TB hard drives and an NVIDIA GTX 680 card as well as the ASUS Xonar sound card.

The top of the chassis has a “speed” switch which not only overclocks your system but changes the front lighting between red and blue depending on the speed on yourPC. Expected price for this bad boy is AED 12,999 or US$3,500

Gigabyte eSport LAN Wrap Up Coverage

Last weekend we attended Gigabyte’s first ever eSports LAN Tournament. This gathering was designed to be a massive PC gaming event that features eight of the world’s best eSports teams going head to head in Riot’s League of Legends and a 24 player StarCraft 2 invitational tournament. The event was held over a three day period on the campus of California Polytechnic University of Pomona and hosted by Gigabyte (of course!) with appearances by some top pro-gamers. The event also hosted the LANFest sponsor the Bring Your Own Case where enthusiasts participated in mini-tournaments with tons of prizes. And when we say ‘tons’, it seemed like they were giving stuff away every hour in both the LANFest pavilion and Tournament area.

Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1963/1/

Antec ISK110 VESA Case Review

Link: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Antec-ISK110-VESA-Case-Review/1581

The Antec ISK110 VESA is a tiny case for Mini-ITX motherboards, which can be installed behind your video monitor. Let’s check it out.

“The Antec ISK110 VESA is a tiny case for Mini-ITX motherboards, targeted to users who want a small computer that won’t take up any space on their desktop. In fact, the ISK110 VESA can be attached to the back of your video monitor, so it won’t take up any space on your workspace and it will also be hidden from view. Let’s check it out.”

Google Maps for Android – Now with Offline Maps

One can now avoid data charges by saving any map for later use in the recent version of Google Maps. The company updated this new feature quite discreetly, thus taking many by surprise, reports Softpedia.

However, with any new update, bugs are a common issue. Android phones, running the Ice Cream Sandwich build, are reporting some negative issues. The general consensus is that the latest version is broken, & needs to be de-bugged. Some users, for instance have complained that they cannot see their friends in Latitude, & that the compass has stopped working. It is worth mentioning that the Compass Mode for Street View lets one to look around places as though he/she was there, using the device’s gyroscope.

Android users running build 2.2 & higher should be able to use the app. The latest version (6.9) can be found in the official Android app store, Play.

Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD Review

“The benchmark results on the Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD came out very much as we expected. Performance nearly mirrors that of the Kingston HyperX 5K drive and places itself amongst the best drives we have tested. The read/write specifications of 555MB/s and 510MB/s respectively are good to start with but we saw the writes exceed that specification in the ATTO benchmark by an additional 24MB/s. Real world scores were very good as well and since we’ve spent several months using the 5K drive in one of our 24/7 systems without incident, we expect to see the same consistent performance from the 3K drive…”

Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1961/1/

SilverStone Crown Series CW02 HTPC Chassis Review

URL: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Cases-and-Cooling/SilverStone-Crown-Series-CW02-HTPC-Chassis-Review

Quote: “The SilverStone Crown Series CW02 is a very impressive HTPC
enclosure with a significant WOW factor that is sure to be a show
piece in any high-end AV equipment stack. The CW02 is a large HTPC
enclosure and is taller than most, which allows installing multiple
high-end graphics adapters, a large power supply, and up to six
internal 3.5″ storage devices. This provides phenomenal storage
capacity for all your favorite music, photos, and movies.”

Rosewill R5 Black Mid Tower Case Review

“Giving the specifications of the Rosewill R5 chassis a quick look through, we start to get an idea of what the R5 chassis has to offer us. One of the main things that I personally like about the Rosewill R5 chassis is that this particular chassis can handle up to six HDDs, and they can be either the 3.5” HDD or the smaller 2.5” HDD/SSD, or a combination of a little bit of both. For cooling, the Rosewill R5 chassis can handle up to ten 120/140mm fans…”

Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1958/1/

Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge Processor and HD 2500 Graphics Review

URL: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Core-i5-3470-Ivy-Bridge-Processor-and-HD-2500-Graphics-Review

Quote: “Realistically, the Intel Core i5-3470 performance is exactly
where I expected it to be with regards to the standard suite of CPU
benchmarks we use here at PC Perspective. Running at close to the same
clock speeds of the first Ivy Bridge processor we tested – though
without HyperThreading and without the full 8MB of L3 cache – the 3470
was found to be anywhere from dead even to as much as 40% slower than
the 3770K depending on the application. Though I feel like a broken
record, it all depends on how well the application in question
implements multi-threading.”

3R System L700 Eclipse Case Review

Link: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/3R-System-L700-Eclipse-Case-Review/1582

The L700 Eclipse is the latest mid-tower case from the South-Korean 3R System. Let’s see if it is a good product.

“The L700 Eclipse is the latest mid-tower case from the South-Korean 3R System, coming with three two-speed fan controllers and an external hard drive/SSD docking bay. Let’s check it out.”

Rosewill CAPSTONE-550MM Power Supply Review

Link: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Rosewill-CAPSTONE-550MM-Power-Supply-Review/1584

Let’s take a look at the 550 W version of the latest power supply series from Rosewill, the CAPSTONE M, which comes with the 80 Plus Gold certification and now with a modular cabling system.

“The CAPSTONE M is the latest power supply series from Rosewill, coming with the 80 Plus Gold certification, Japanese capacitors, and now with a modular cabling system. Also, the manufacturer guarantees operation at 50º C. Available in 450 W, 550 W, 650 W, and 750 W versions, let’s see how the 550 W model fared in our tests.”

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