We test and review the Thermalright HR-02 CPU cooler. Thermalright actually introduces this product as a passive CPU Cooler. The HR-02 is the second revision of the legacy Thermalright HR-01 cooler.

We'll test it passively cooled yet we'll also pair it with Thermalright's TY-140 fan, a 1300 RPM fan that is silent, yet high performing. As stated, the results stunned me, this is really really good stuff.

You can read all about it right here at this Guru3D article.

We test and review the eVGA Classified SR-2 motherboard. The SR-2 is a dual-socket Intel 5520 chipset based server motherboard dressed up for hardware enthusiasts and pro-overclockers. We'll smack two six-core Xeon X5680 processors on there, four GeForce GTX 480 cards, we'll cool them all with Liquid Nitrogen, overclock it... and see if we can break some records.

We'll first cover a technical overview of the board and then hand it out to Beaux aka 'BODAR' Loy, we'll test a setup in three stages:

• Air cooling
• Liquid cooling
• Liquid Nitrogen

In the end the processors are going to be cooled with liquid nitrogen, and for the sake of it we will pop in four GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards as well, these will also be cooled with liquid nitrogen. That's six Liquid Nitrogen pots on one motherboard... consuming 40 to 50 liters of liquid nitrogen with each hour of testing.

An awesome article with some high-def video footage as well, go check it out right here.

Businesses looking to embrace cloud computing will find the new Turbo NAS Pro+ models interesting as they are fully VMware and Citrix ready and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V clusters compliant. QNAP continues its industry-leading iSCSI support on all the new models for fully virtualized server clustering and virtualized environments including support for MC/S, MPIO, SPC-3, and thin provisioning. With built-in iSCSI initiator and target service, network storage can be virtually expanded by simply adding additional QNAP Turbo NAS units to the network and adding virtual volumes, up to 8 per device. Data security is built in, with volume-level AES 256-bit encryption.

"Businesses of all sizes have really come to love their QNAP Business Series Turbo NAS servers," said Laurent Cheng, Product Manager for QNAP Systems, Inc. "No other NAS manufacturer equips their NAS offerings with the performance and business-critical features of QNAP units. The new Turbo NAS Pro+ models continue that tradition of excellence."

The new Turbo NAS Pro+ models feature a host of desirable features including support for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard drives housed in lockable, hot-swappable drive carriers, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 5+ hot spare, and 6+ hot spare (5-drive and higher models) with online RAID capacity expansion, online RAID level migration, and RAID recovery. QNAP Turbo NAS Pro+ models offer a rich suite of business applications including the most comprehensive centralized backup available, website hosting, printer sharing, file server/sharing, and even video surveillance recording using networked cameras. The capabilities of the Turbo NAS Pro+ units can be expanded with exclusive QPKG open-source developed for a variety of business applications including SQL database management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and even ecommerce.

Pricing:

• TS-259 Pro+: $619.00
• TS-459 Pro+: $949.00
• TS-559 Pro+: $1,199.00
• TS-659 Pro+: $1,349.00

Other times, the data surprises. That happened with both how there were differences between the PC and Xbox 360 populations, as well as in regards to importing saves from Mass Effect 1. "We were surprised by how many people imported a game from Mass Effect 1…We put a lot into that feature and we could have gotten data back that said nobody was doing it. But actually more than half of players imported their save game from Mass Effect 1. That to me is quite high."

The average time to play through the game was 33 hours. PC gamers spent about an hour longer, while Xbox 360 players did 10% more loyalty missions on average. "In general, pretty much all of the data for the Xbox 360 version and the PC version are quite similar. One difference was the people who did certain loyalty missions on the Xbox versus the PC, which is kind of surprising. On the PC for example, people did Miranda's loyalty mission quite a bit, which is where she is trying to connect with her sister and it's more of a touchy-feely plot. Not a lot of Xbox 360 players did that one. But the Xbox 360 players did do Grunt's mission a lot more than PC players."

The PC players have the edge in dedication. Hudson claims that a lot of people played Mass Effect 2 more than once and about half of all players -- including those who rented or borrowed it -- who started played all of the way through to the end. Two players in particular on the PC played through 28 times. That's the current record. Four people on Xbox 360 played 23 times. If you're any of these people, please write in to us and tell us how you have so much spare time [via ggmania]

This project is based on the original "Media Player Classic" and was created after Gabest, the original author, stopped working on it. Several new features have been integrated in this player, such as :

• An option to remove Tearing
• Translation in several languages (currently Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian)
• Additional video decoders and in particular H.264 and VC-1 with DXVA support (see specific section for details)
• Better support for Windows Vista, including a release for 64 bits platform
• Support for EVR renderer
• Bugs and vulnerability fixes

MPC-HC decoder only supports the "bitstream mode" at this stage, which means that only the most recent graphic cards are supported :

• nVidia series 8(9)xxx for H.264 only
• ATI Radeon HD series for H.264 and VC-1 decoding

DXVA is quite picky, so if you want to use it you have to respect those rules :

• Windows XP users, select Overlay Mixer, VMR7, VMR9 or VMR9 renderless
• Vista users, select EVR or EVR custom renderer

Here is the version changes log with the player new features, changes and bug fixes through the release versions:

Download 32 and 64-bit (10 MB)

New features :

o Seamless playback support for multi files BRD
o Support for Windows 7 taskbar and thumbnails features
o Added Catalan, Dutch and Japanese translations
o VSFilter x64 is available
o Added internal VP8 Decoder
o MPC-HC can be compiled with MSVC2010 and Intel C++ Compiler
o Support for MCE remote control (values added in AppCommand column in "Options/Player/Keys")
o Support of Broadcom Video decoder for VC1, H.264 and MPEG-2 (hardware acceleration)
o Support for DVB subtitles
o Open files to Recent Documents
o AUTO HDMI MODE 1080p/24 support for fullscreen mode
o Ticket #46, add number to AudioDevice list
o Sync Renderer dialogs
o Real Video decoder in MPCVideoDecoder
o Support interlaced mode in fullscreen resolution list
o Auto change fullscreen resolution for different video content
o Fullscreen Options page
o Video decoder, options for DXVA Compatibility check
o Support for MPEG-2 bitstreaming in the DXVA decoder
o Full screen resolution - support for native 23.976 and 29.97 mode (Vista and above only)
o Auto resolution change for DVD
o Always Exit after playback option
o Support for SRM7500 remote control
o New panel for switching DVB channels, audio and tuner scan accessible through View-->Navigation menu when in Capture mode
o Automatically play next files in a folder
o Implemented 'Quick add favorite' shortcut (default: Shift + Q) will use current settings from 'Add Favorite' dialog
o Select D3D device for render, including DXVA if two or more video adapters are in the system (EVR Custom & VMR9-Renderless only)
o Statistics - added render device
o Ability to select OSD font & size
o Option "Don't use 'search in folder' on commands 'Skip back/forward' when only one item in playlist"
o H.264 L5.1 DXVA support for ATI cards with drivers > v8.14.1.6105 (Catalyst 10.4)
o MPCVideoDecoder, disable DXVA (H.264) for SD video (width < 1280)
o Improved DXVA compatibility check
o Implemented drag and drop folders with sub-folders
o Support for MPEG-1/Layer1 audio stream in the Matroska splitter
o Command to switch video frame mode (key 'P')
o Video frame options like in TV: Zoom 1 and Zoom 2
o Auto saving position every 30 seconds
o Added internal filters context menu (disable/enable)
o Command to reopen file (Ctrl+E)
o Support for PGS in Matroska
o Open root BD movie from command line & shell context menu
o OSD messages added when switching audio stream or subtitles
o OSD on Jump Forward/Backward (keyframe)
o OSD when open DVD/BD
o OSD for jump to chapter in file
o Detect system UI language and set interface language at first run
o Full ICC color management (Little CMS v2.1a library added)
o Full floating point processing (FP16 temporary textures)
o High-quality dithering (color management, full floating point processing, 10-bit -> 8-bit)
o Option to force 10-bit EVR mixer input (probably hackish, but in many cases it seems to work)
o Added MediaInfoLib (v0.7.35) (no need for MediaInfo.dll anymore)
o Added support for MPEG-2_VLD DXVA for Intel G31/33 (and maybe other Intel) chipset

KFA2 GeForce GTX 460 1GB SLI pack

• CUDA CORES :  2x 336
• Graphics Clock :  700 (MHz)
• Processor Clock :  1400 (MHz)
• Memory clock :  1848 (Mhz )
• Memory Amount : 2x 1024MB
• Memory Interface : 2x 256-bit
• Memory Bandwidth :  2x 118.3 (GB/Secs)
• Texture Fill Rate :  2x 39.2 (Billion/Secs)

The KFA2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Green Edition graphics card sets the new standard for energy saving, whilst still gaming in the latest DirectX 11 games. Optimized circuit design with high quality components will minimize power loss and enhance power efficiency with the end result providing up to 10% reduction in power consumption, lower temperatures and noise, needing only a 6-pin power connector.

KFA2 GeForce GTX 460 1GB Green

• CUDA CORES :  336
• Graphics Clock :  675 (MHz)
• Processor Clock :  1350 (MHz)
• Memory clock :  1800 (Mhz )
• Memory Amount : 768MB
• Memory Interface : 192-bit
• Memory Bandwidth :  86.4 (GB/Secs)
• Texture Fill Rate :  37.8 (Billion/Secs)

KFA2 customised the GTX 460 series using top-grade components and solid capacitors to ensure high-performance and quality. Each card is tested in a static-free factory environment by experienced technicians to ensure that only those cards that meet the “KFA2 seal of approval” are released.

Backed by a  2 year warranty, both products will be available at leading online and in-store retailers throughout Europe. More information about KFA2 products can be found here.

• Added software automatic fan control mode allowing end users to define custom temperature to fan speed mapping curve
• Added floating tooltips based help system for advanced EVGA Precision settings window
• Now it is possible to pause hardware monitoring module via "Pause" command in the context menu of hardware monitoring window
• Performance profiler status information is no longer power user oriented, now it is possible to toggle the performance profiler status visibility directly via "Show status" command in the context menu of hardware monitoring window
• Now it is possible to clear hardware monitoring history via "Clear history" command in the context menu of hardware monitoring window
• Now it is possible to get directly into hardware monitoring graph properties by clicking a tray icon associated with it or via "Properties" command in the context menu of hardware monitoring window
• Added multilanguage system and sample Russian localization pack
• Added SDK folder containing reference guide documentation for third party EVGA Precision skin and localization creators
• Now core clock controls are displayed on GeForce 400 series if built-in skins are in use. Please take a note that it is still impossible to adjust core and shader clocks independenty on these cards due to GPU architecture limitations
• Now it is posssible to use both core and shader clock as the primary clock when adjusting the clocks in linked mode
• Removed some outdated options from advanced EVGA Precision settings window
• Framerate monitoring graph limits have been changed to [0,100] FPS
• Fan tachometer monitoring graph limits have been changed to [0,5000] RPM
• Fixed videomemory usage monitoring for non-primary NVIDIA graphics cards
• Added ability to assign a hotkey for toggling the On-Screen Display Server blocking. This hotkey is aimed to provide a simple way for diagnosing the server related compatibility issues
• Now EVGA Precision uses previously undocumented power user oriented DirectInput based hotkey handler. New hotkey handling mechanism drastically reduces hotkey response time in applications heavily loading CPU. Please take a note that new sophisticated hotkeys handling can cause some system security applications (e.g. KIS proactive defense module) to warn you about possible keylogging threat
• Now screen capture events are also indicated by notification messages in the hardware monitoring window
• Added new black skin edition.

Download: click here

The record-setting frequencies of 3078.2 MHz, CL8-11-8-31, 1T, and 3059.4 MHz, CL7-11-8-31, 1T, were achieved by renowned extreme overclocker “Mat”, aka Matthias Zronek, from www.overclockers.at.

“I've worked with the Corsair Dominator GT memory for quite some time now, and can easily say that these are great memory modules, dedicated to world-record overclocking,” stated Matthias Zronek. “What surprised me the most is the potential of the Domintator GT GTX6. Even at 3000MHz and higher frequencies, at CL7, there is still headroom for lots of optimization.”

The hardware used included a Gigabyte P55A-UD7 motherboard, Intel® Core™ i7-870 processor, and a pair of Corsair Dominator GT CMGTX6 modules. Corsair’s innovative modular DHX+™ technology allowed a Besi Memory-Freezer to be directly attached to the memory heat sinks, enabling benchmarking temperatures as low as -90 degrees C using liquid nitrogen.

The VIA EPIA-M850 is targeted at OEM and ODM manufacturers of commercial multimedia embedded devices. Featuring a 64-bit, high performance VIA Nano E-Series processor and the VIA VX900 unified all-in-one media system processor, the VIA EPIA-M850 delivers a highly optimized platform that boasts comprehensive HD video performance, HD audio and HDMI support in a compact, power-efficient package.

VIA EPIA-M850: Mini-ITX with Multimedia Muscle
Measuring 17cm x 17 cm the VIA EPIA-M850 Mini-ITX board features the VIA Nano E-Series processor, available in both 1.6GHz and fanless 1.2GHz SKUs. The VIA Nano E-series is paired for the first time with the VIA VX900 MSP, supporting up to 8GB of DDR3 system memory and featuring the VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor.

The VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine boasts comprehensive hardware acceleration for the latest VC1, H.264, MPEG-2 and WMV9 HD formats at screen resolutions of up to 1080p without affecting CPU load. Display connectivity support includes onboard HDMI and VGA ports with pin headers for dual channel 24-bit LVDS.

The VIA VX900 boasts the VIA Chrome9™ HCM 3D integrated graphics core with full DirectX 9.0 support and a 128-bit 2D engine with hardware rotation capability. The VIA VX900 also features the VIA Vinyl HD audio codec. Storage includes ports for two SATA drives.

Rear panel I/O includes a Gigabit LAN ports, PS/2 support, HDMI port, VGA port, four USB 2.0 ports, a serial port connector and three audio jacks. An on board a PCIe x4 slot is accompanied with pin headers providing dual channel 24-bit LVDS support (including backlight control), an additional three COM ports, a further four USB 2.0 ports and one USB device port, LPC support, Digital I/O, SPDIF out and an SMBus header.

VIA EPIA-M850 Product Highlights:

• High-performance 64-bit VIA Nano-E Series processor
• Hardware acceleration for VC1, H,264 and WMV9 HD video
• On board HDMI and VGA ports, plus dual channel 24-bit LVDS
• Support for up to 8GB of DDR3