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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Wednesday, 04 July 2007 |
To all of our US readers, happy 4th! On with the news...
Although this is a modular power supply, it's not 100% modular. You have a few cables hard-wired to the unit itself and can not be removed. Those cables are the main ATX 20/24 pin cable, a 4pin/8pin CPU power cable and a single PCI-e cable (an addition PCI-e cable is included in the modular cables should you run SLI or Crossfire).
When we get the unit opened we see that it's based on a Topower build and a low end one at that. The filtering on the AC side is minimal at best with nothing more than a pair of 1000uF caps. No chokes at all aside from one very small transformer towards the rear of the unit. This could bode ill for the performance of the unit as any noise on the primary side can find it's way over the the secondary side in the form of ripple or AC noise on the DC outputs.
nPowertek have taken steps to build an efficient heatsink here, but we're a bit puzzled why the heatpipes that rise up from the base do not wrap all the way around the outside of the heatsink's copper fins? Were they a bit longer there is clearly enough of a groove to accommodate the heatpipes, but instead nPowertek engineers only extended the pipes about half-way around.
Winchip has placed a holographic sticker on each module. This way you will know that this is an actual Winchip product. If you look closely the text "Quality Memory" can be seen. Each memory DIMM also has a white sticker with all the needed information on the heatspreader. As you can see this memory is rated for 1200 MHz CL5-5-5-15 at 2.4V (+/-0.1V). Removing this sticker will also void the warranty as the serial number of the memory sticks is also on this sticker.
Of the many features integrated into the Toughpower W0133RU, the most unique are the new 8-pin PCI-E connectors and 87% efficiency. Although the need for 8-pin PCI-E connections into next-generation video cards has not yet been realized, it will be a short matter of time before the twin 6-pin connections familiar to the GeForce 8800 Ultra and GTX will soon be replaced with this interface thanks to new PCI-SIG specifications. Additionally, a power supply offering 87% efficiency is extraordinary, and although very much a rarity it should become more common as the technology gets better.
Whether mouse mats improve gaming or not is a bit of a debate that I am sure won't be ending any time soon. However, most will agree that some mats can improve comfort while using the mouse, but what if the mat is so big that it covers not only the mousing area, but the keyboard area too? Today I am taking a look into a large cloth mat from Boogie Bug called the Aim BPad XL; let's see how it does.
Moving up from the value segment we have the HD2600 GPU’s in the performance segment. There will be 2 main versions of this GPU; the HD2600 Pro and the HD2600XT with a third ugly stepbrother available from a few companies: the HD2600 Gemini. All I know of the Gemini cards are that they will feature 2 HD2600XT GPU’s on one card. AMD is confident that they will succeed better than NVIDIA when they put two high-end GPU’s on the GX2 cards.
Like many notebooks of this price the keyboard on the N200 is best described as sufficient. The keys are a decent size and are quite responsive giving you just enough feedback to enable rapid touch typing. Overall it doesn’t compare to the legendary keyboards found on the more expensive ThinkPad models but it's not a complete dog either. The one real stinker that Lenovo has trodden in is the old problem of the left Ctrl key being displaced by the Fn key, in the bottom left corner. This detracts from an otherwise perfect layout which is rather a shame.
Interesting case mod at Bit-tech:
Over time, the idea evolved. I wanted to be able to fit loads of HDDs into one case, so I thought of something resembling one of those big fileserver cubes. I had already decided that I wanted to continue along the road of dark red acrylic, and brushed aluminium. Now I only needed a more specific theme, which I found in the excellent anime series GunGrave.
The Full Metal Jacket 11mm speaker Ear Buds arrived in outstanding condition in Skullcandy packaging that we are a big fan of. The whole of the packaging is totally see through allowing you to view the product up close and personal, emphasizing on the shape of the Ear Buds taking in every inch of the device before you purchase, fantastic for retail.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 July 2007 )
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