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Review: Rosewill RX81-MP Hard Drive Enclosure

Even extreme hardware benchers need effective data storage and Rosewill has managed to pull a winner with the RX81-MP. In a market saturated with products it is very hard to standout but this particular enclosure does well by adopting what I’d consider to be a classy exterior with a performance interior. The enclosure itself is [...]

Review: Sapphire HD3850 512MB RV670

On the bench today I have a set of Sapphire HD3850 512MB video cards. These cards are the 55nm versions of the hot and heavy HD2900XT. Considering how the 80nm 2900XT was such a power hungry card, moving to 55nm cut down on power consumption tremendously and enabled AMD to spec these cards with a [...]

Review: Intel E8400 Wolfdale

I’ve got an addiction, a Hafnium addiction to be precise. Just under two weeks ago I purchased a QX9650 and earlier today while returning an item to Fry’s, I decided it’d be a good idea to pick up an E8400. For $201 with tax, I couldn’t resist the temptation. The 3.0GHz E8400 is Intel’s highest [...]

Review: EVGA 8400GS 256MB

Today I have in my hands a rather unusual card. I don’t believe I have laid hands on such an underwhelming card but I figured it’d be a hoot to play with and potentially become my new benching card, for CPU benching that is. This 8400GS comes equipped with a G86 GPU core complete with [...]

Review: MSI P35 Neo2-FR Under Cascade

Yesterday I had the chance to test this motherboard under some sub-ambient cooling and I was blown away. I’ve got a high-end board arriving later this week so I figured I’d go out in the garage and check up on the cascade and tune it for the Q6600. After a slight delay in which I [...]

Comparison: Windows XP Service Pack 1, 2, and 3

Microsoft releases security patches and bandaids for Windows on a nearly daily basis but rarely do they roll out an entire Service Pack. Typically when I am benching I try to stick with a minimalistic installation in hopes that the fewer background processes will help create a more efficient platform. Last month I was informed [...]