Component

To the uninitiated, seeing people talk seriously about Chinese chips might make you think the speaker has gone prawn crackers, but there is a threat and the threat is real. nVidia spends time and resource worrying about this – so maybe you should too. KitGuru dives into the noodle soup …

We received an email today from an industry source who claimed that the Gigabyte Z77X-US5H had V-Core problems. The claims were made that this would hinder overclocking and perhaps even potentially reduce reliability long term. We had no problems getting the board to 4.8ghz with a £20 cooler when we …

One of the most popular choices among enthusiasts is Silverstone. For a relatively small company, they have – over the years – released a number of surprising/amazing/desirable chassis. For 2012, they have decided to pack the goodness and style of the FT03 into a much smaller package. KitGuru shouts “I …

We received an interesting news email today from G.Skill which highlighted the fact that they are topping the ranking list on overclocking site HWBOT. They are the most popular DDR3 memory brand since Q4 2011, showing their growth in the enthusiast sector. According to the information, G.Skill have 1/3 of …

We have reviewed memory from Kingston, G.Skill and Topower in recent weeks and today we are looking at a kit from Patriot, called the Viper Xtreme Division 2 which runs at 2,133mhz. We will test it on Intel's latest Z77 platform, courtesy of the Gigabyte Z77-UD5H motherboard. Patriot have a …

Looking back over the past 6 months, there have been a lot of stories about product availability – for both nVidia and AMD. Most of it centres on the lack of production capacity available at TSMC for the latest processes. KitGuru ponders just how hard it is to buy the …

Today we are looking at two of the latest graphics cards from HIS, the confusingly named HD7870 IceQ Turbo and the IceQ X Turbo X. Both of these cards feature custom cooling solutions and are supplied in a pre-overclocked state. We have been impressed with the IceQ coolers in the …

If you are in the hunt for NVIDIA's latest and greatest Gefore GTX 680, chances are you either managed to grab one out of pure luck or have given up completely. As of writing, Newegg does not have a single GTX 680 in stock. Even one of the largest PC stores down …

The battle for the high end cooling throne has reached fever pitch this year. The Noctua NH D14 ruled supreme for a long time, although it recently had to make way for a new king, the Phanteks PH-TC14PE. Today we are looking at the latest flagship cooler from Thermaltake, The …

Today we are taking a look at the Titan Fenrir Siberia Edition CPU cooler which has both horizontal and vertical heatsinks. As such there is clearly plenty of potential for extracting heat from the CPU, just like having two radiators in one room of your house it will greatly improve …

Visit any major city on the planet, roll through its development over the past 100 years and you’ll notice something about the height of the skyline. When you need to pack more people into a fixed area, X and Y are not enough. You MUST build upwards. KitGuru casts an …

Cooler Master are a highly respected brand within enthusiast circles, having amassed a huge following over the years. A portion of their success is due to their innovative cooling solutions ranging from CPU coolers to High Air Flow (HAF) cases as well as stand alone fans. Today we are looking …

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today introduced release candidate firmware v1.4RC, which dramatically improves the performance of its Vertex 4 SATA 3.0 Series SSDs. Most notably, v1.4RC nearly doubles sequential write performance for lower capacity models, significantly boosts …

Back in the day, everything was all about DOS or CPM on Z-80. That was replaced by an era of Windows on Intel, but on 28th May the new world order prepares to feel smug and enjoy the new noodles in Hong Kong. KitGuru prepares to check into the Gold …

There are several things that affect the overall performance of a processor-based device. You can look for bottlenecks in the data transfer and try to improve them or get the internals of the chip itself to do more work per clock cycle. While balance is important, almost nothing can beat …

Visiontek have been an AMD partner now for many years, releasing video cards for the American audience. They have been enhancing their product portfolio in recent years and today we are reviewing their latest 800W power supply, a modular design with 80 Plus Bronze Certification. The Visiontek 800W Modular power …

Today we are looking at the latest graphics card from MSI which uses the excellent 3rd generation Twin Frozr cooler. MSI are supplying their R7950 card with a core clock boost and it is said to run much quieter and cooler than the AMD reference card. We will test these …

Arctic Cooling are releasing a new liquid and air cooler for high end graphics cards. To improve performance and to lower noise levels. Graphics Card Cooler for Enthusiasts Unmatched cooling performance Active Cooling Unit and thermal adhesive for lower RAM and VR temperatures Maintenance-free closed-loop liquid system Lightest high-end graphics …

The Z77 platform has been in full flow now for almost a month and Intel partners have been releasing a variety of motherboards for the 3rd generation of Intel Core processors. Recently we reviewed a prototype of the latest Kingston HyperX Genesis 2666mhz memory and today we are looking at …

Today we are taking a look at the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H, the latest Z77 motherboard targeting the mainstream enthusiast audience. This board is built for overclocking and stability using the 3D power system with Auto Voltage Compensation. Is this an ideal board to shortlist for your next system build? Over the …

Since their release of the Dark Rock series of CPU coolers, Be Quiet! has made quite an impact on the high end CPU cooler market.  Their products have a reputation for combining fantastic appearance with great performance.  We have looked at a number of their products in the past, all …

No matter what the underlying technology, all of us spend at least part of the day thinking about electricity. Even if it's just “Where the hell did I leave my phone charger?”, it's always there because we know that a lack of juice will cut us off from the world …

The Biostar brand doesn't have a massive presence in the UK, at least not in the enthusiast segment of the market.  We consider Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte to be the top three enthusiast brands on the market at the moment but this is something Biostar are looking to change with …

Nvidia announced their upcoming GTX690 at the weekend, which they are saying is the fastest video card to be released to the consumer market. Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang announced this at the Nvidia Game Festival in Shanghai. The design looks rather impressive and we can imagine that companies such …

Few memory companies have been pushing the boundaries as hard as G.Skill over the past 2 years. Following the launch of its latest TridentX modules, G.Skill has decided to celebrate with an easy to enter competition. KitGuru goes to a high street jewellers to play with some clocks. If you've …

As the new Intel processors sweep through the publications and channel, we find ourselves in that twilight world where the new king is putting on its crown, while there's still a few heatbeats left in the old one. KitGuru does a quick scan of the on line retail offers and …

While the rest of the world plus dog looks to nVidia's schedule for delivering a pair of GTX670 chips on a single card under the name ‘690', it seems that Jen Hsun will actually be salivating over something slightly different in Taiwan this year. KitGuru engages thrusters to maintain a …

At the top end, AMD graphic cards can cost up to £380 for the XFX Black Edition 7970, but eBuyer's latest offer is for a complete Fusion system, with 8GB of memory, for 40% less money. KitGuru opens an online account to investigate. It's in the topsy-turvy nature of the …

Kitguru has reviewed a handful of Z77 motherboards in previous weeks, and today we take a look at the new Pure Platinum Z77K from Sapphire. They face stiff competition in this sector from the likes of Asus, ASRock and MSI. But is the Pure Platinum Z77K worth a purchase? Over …

We always get a little bit excited when a large SilverStone box arrives in our offices.  Over the past few years they have released very impressive cases and it is clear that their design team are on a mission to be innovative, creating products like the Fortress FT03 and Raven …