Today we are taking a look at two new Vantec products, the EZ Swap EX and NexStar SX. The NexStar SX is primarily a fresh coat of paint on a product we already use, but it's a mighty-fine coat. The EZ Swap EX is completely different though. Hot-swap bays for computers is nothing new, but hot-swap bays that use 2.5" are not as common.
The ECS P35T-A supports up to 8GB of RAM in dual channel operation. The slots are color coded, and you'd install pairs of memory in either both orange or both purple slots for dual channel mode. Native speed tops out at DDR2-800, which isn't unreasonable for a budget priced motherboard, but I'd still like to see DDR2-1066 support as well.
Taking a look at the underside of the assembled block we can see that there is a large, approximately 4mm thick plate for cooling the backside RAM chips. The plate is not just strips of metal, but is corrugated and looks pretty stylish as well as offering complete coverage for the memory. Also of note is the cardboard insert between the two pieces of the waterblock, which so happens to be of equal thickness to the PCB. This protects the copper contact surfaces from any marks or scratches after the block is manufactured. Simple but effective.
Opening the package, we find a rather large syringe filled with the thermal compound. The syringe comes with 4g of compound, which will be plenty for a large number of applications. I suspect that this syringe would last me for at least a year of very frequent use, as I use a lot of thermal paste for reviewing various cooling products. A large cap keeps the thermal compound in the syringe.
How does a USB drive with 200x transfer speeds (or 30MB/s) sound to you? Of course that's the top read speed but that's definitely very impressive and much better than earlier generations of USB drives. Super Talent's DH series of USB drives come in capacity sizes ranging from 512MB-8GB and we were lucky enough to snag three models, the 1GB, 2GB and 4GB versions. The best part though is that these drives are a real bargain! The 1GB Super Talent drive goes for $10US, the 2GB $17US and the 4GB $32US!
Intel P35 succeeds Intel P965 chipset, being targeted to mainstream motherboards. The difference between these two chipsets is the support for DDR3 memories and the new 1,333 MHz bus on P35. Please note that DDR3 support does not mean that all motherboards based on P35 accept DDR3 memories: since DDR2 and DDR3 sockets are different, is up to the manufacturer to decide which kind of memories the motherboard will accept. GA-P35C-DS3R accepts both DDR2 and DDR3 memories, as it have sockets for these two technologies.
The Gigabyte GV-NX85T256H videocard is based on nVIDIA's GeForce 8500GT core and is backed up by 256MB of GDDR2 memory. This PCI Express videocard is SLI compatible, and employs a unique passive heatsink to keep it cool, without generating a single decibel of noise. That's right, no fans to add to the noise level of your computer. Of course, good system airflow is a foregone requirement.
Of course, you only really need one connector, the other one is a spare one. The motherboard is based on the powerful nForce 680i chipset and possesses an entire three PCI-E slots (plus the x1 ones, of course). Black slots are operating in x16 mode, and the single blue slot in x8. The layout is perfect and we have nothing to add here. The motherboard itself was dominated by the passive heatpipe cooling system which did its job more than satisfactorily, as the 680i is a chipset that can be rather hot both on nominal values and when overclocked. By mounting a simple 80 mm fan on top of the NorthBridge, any potential heating problems are void.
I mean, just check out their explanation of how a product called the "Transmutation Plaque" works: "The Plaque will change an oscillation or negative energy pattern to a positive or bipolar energy by joining with the positive energy of the oscillations, pushing the negative energy off center, and forcing the stray electron that is causing the oscillations to spin out into an outer shell and disappear. You can transmute food, beverages, jewelry, vitamins, plastic glasses, watches, drugs, cosmetics, etc."
This is a nice touch and very useful when you are using a PC which you have limited-access rights to. With limited access, you generally cannot install any application and that includes even small applications like Taskbar Shuffle. I like using Taskbar Shuffle with such PCs because it allows me to set all my must-have programs like Maxthon, Firefox, Outlook, etc. at the beginning of the taskbar for easier access. It beats hunting for them when you need quick access.
