HTPC - barebones, Chassis and components
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Cooler Master HAF 922 review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
11/13/2009
The HAF 922 with it's near identical name and setup resembles a lot to it's bigger brother the HAF 932. The 922 however is a mid-tower while the 932 is a full tower. Don't expect the 922 to be a "dried up" version of the 932 though; it actually offers some improvements, especially when it comes to cable management. The HAF 922 is a good blend of a nice design, yet comes with pretty wicked yet silent cooling and then all the little extra's like decent cable management, removable drive trays for your HDDs, tool less insertion of say a DVD-RW drive and what we like to see very much, something as simple as an opening in the motherboard back tray so you can swap out a CPU cooer backplate without the need of an invasive procedure to remove the entire motherboard. It's what Cooler Master does well, the HAF meets the requirements in ease of use and design at an affordable price.
Corsair Obsidian 800D review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
11/6/2009
Corsair has a reputation to deliver products in the somewhat more high-end region, they set the bar really high when it comes to enthusiast hardware and tend to really think things through. As such, when the first ideas started to float in the coffee room in a building about a Corsair Chassis, the R&D team put together some great minds and did not at all look at building a chassis, no, they very likely reversed roles; what would you guys like to see or need when building your dream chassis? Their first ever PC chassis is called the Obsidian 800D, and it is without any shame I dare to state that this is among the best ever PC cases I personally have ever tested. Yes, this chassis is marvelous.
Cooler Master LAB test bench v1.0 review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
10/26/2009
Cooler Master designed the Cooler Master LAB Test Bench v1.0. It's what has been missing here at the lab alright, a nice looking, easy to use chassis where we can pop on and off hardware components, it makes motherboard, cooler and RAM testing really easy. And as simple as this product is, we really like it. And rest assured we'll be using it with pretty much any future motherboard review. It's not a suitable product for everybody, but if it applies to you we can wholeheartedly recommend it.
NZXT Whisper chassis review | test
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
3/20/2009
Here we test the NZXT Whisper chassis. A nice design chassis that is big in size (full-tower) yet with a focus on decent airflow in that chassis, and the room for everything you can think of. Are the looks fooling us or is this a really worthy chassis concept ?
HIS Radeon HD 4650 512MB iSilence4 review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
3/5/2009
In this article we test the Radeon HD 4650 512MB iSilence4 from HIS. HIS calls it their Radeon HD 4650 512MB iSilence4, and it comes completely passively cooled thanks to a Zalman cooler.
Ikonik Ra X10 Liquid review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
3/2/2009
Here we test the Ikonik Ra X10 Liquid. An all aluminium high design chassis with built in liquid cooling and software controllable fans and pump. The RA X10 series is next to being a efficient and aesthetically pleasing chassis also very hip in terms of innovation. See, the X10 series has what Ikonik calls a SIM module. The "SIM" version offers the System Intelligent Management PCB and functionality along with a full compliment of case fans. The stuff that makes your toes curls really.
Accelerate x.264 1080p movies over the GPU Guide
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
2/11/2009
In this article we'll explain you how you can accelerate and enhance (post-process) x.264 MKV 1080p movies with the help of your Radeon or GeForce graphics card.
NVIDIA ION platform review | preview
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
2/3/2009
A preview on NVIDIA ION. What NVIDIA has done with the ION is to create a platform that combines a GeForce 9400M chipset with an Intel Atom processor, all placed on a Pico-ITX PCB. The advantage here is by using such a chipset the environment (PC) will instantly gain modern features and the sheer influence of a GeForce graphics processor meaning you can playback 1080P movies on for example a Netbook or mini-PC.
Smooth Creations Customized Volkswagen Bus PC review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
10/10/2008
Today something unique, a Smooth Creations Customized Volkswagen Bus PC test. You can purchase pre-build customized PCs, or of you have won the lottery, pick out your own PC and have it custom tailored. The sky is the limit here, you pick you components from low-end to high end, regular cooling, water-cooling, single GPU or 3-way SLI/CrossfireX you name it and they make it. Ours was a Crossfire model, airbrushed in a pretty unique design.
Hiper Media Center HTPC HMC-2K53A-A3 review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn
4/21/2008
Hiper recently released a new model of their slim-line HTPC barebone chassis, with VFD (display) fully integrated mainboard and PSU. Pretty much you drop a HD, a slice of memory and a processor in this system and you are good to go since the mainboard even has support for multi-channel audio, VGA & HDMI output as it's based on the reputable AMD 690G chipset (mainboard with integrated graphics card). And next to all that, it even comes with a pretty decent remote control.
Zalman HD160XT Plus HTPC Chassis review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn 2/19/2008
NZXT Rogue SSF chassis review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn 1/27/2008
Zalman Reserator 2 review
by Hilbert Hagedoorn 9/22/2006
ThermalTake Mozart With Media Lab
by Hilbert Hagedoorn 2/27/2006
Zalman Reserator 1 Plus
by Hilbert Hagedoorn 10/26/2005
MX610 USB PC PLED Bay insert
by Hilbert Hagedoorn 4/29/2005
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