Cases, Cooling & PSU News - Page 54

BitFenix has come out with two new fan coolers that you are sure to want. One, the Recon, allows remote management and monitoring through the internet. Whether you are on a tablet, laptop, or smartphone, you can be sure that your computer is always running cool. The Hydra Pro provides 30W per channel power and simple LED control when combined with Spectre and Spectre Pro LED fans.

The Recon is a pretty advanced piece of hardware and sports two microprocessors that constantly interacts with your motherboard to provide up-to-date information. It also is internet connected and controllable through any internet connected device with a web browser. Since it is managed through a web browser, nearly any device can manage it.

The Hydra Pro is designed to be a powerful fan and LED controller. It features 5 different thermal channels that each provide 30W. The fans are controlled by low profile sliders to make it compatible with nearly every case. The Hydra Pro really shows its worth when you combine it with Spectre and Spectre Pro LED fans as the LEDs are controllable with the touch of a button.

On May 29, Arctic Cooling will release a new product that the market has never seen. This product combines air cooling and liquid cooling for graphics cards in a self-contained system. The idea here is to lower the heat and noise that is often produced by a high-performance graphics card.

Arctic Cooling is billing the new product as a graphics card cooler for enthusiasts. Arctic Cooling says the following:

The graphics cooler supports almost every graphics card going all the way back to the NVIDIA GTX 4XX series and the AMD HD 4XXX series. However, for some reason, it seems to miss supporting the HD 7970 and 7950 for some reason. Why someone would leave that out of support is beyond me, as it is the high performance GPUs that need cooling.

So, you might have just saw our video hands-on demonstration of the brilliant ASUS Wi-Fi GO! which is part of most new ASUS Z77 based motherboard that only just came onto the market with the Ivy bridge launch last month. Next up and right here we give you similar treatment, but this time we're looking at ASUS Fan Xpert 2 - a big improvement over previous versions of Fan Xpert.

One of the biggest single features of Fan Xpert 2 is the ability to auto tune the cooling fans inside your case. This software has the ability to check and report back to the Fan Xpert 2 software rather impressive information regarding those fans installed inside your chassis. After you click the "Fan Auto Tuning" button it will run a fan tests that lasts between two and five minutes. While running, this tests measures the maximum and lowest RPM of all of the fans inside your case that are connected to one of the fan headers (3-pin or 4-pin) on your ASUS Z77 motherboard. Once complete, Fan Xpert 2 now has an intimate knowledge of all of your cooling fans and it knows how to dynamically control them based on the CPU temperature as well as let you manually control them to a rather extreme level.

Once the auto tune test is complete, you reach the next screen that allows you to create a name for each fan as well as select their position in your case. For most companies that would have been where things ended, but ASUS perfect the software one step further by implementing a "search" function that allows you to more easily identify the location of the fan. Once you start the search function, the fan in question spins up to 100% RPM, hence making it easier to find. Once you've done that you can enter the Smart Mode area which allows you to change the curve of the fan performance and what RPM level it spins at depending on the system temperature. Not only that, ASUS is claiming they have a world first here that allows you to adjust each individual fan by its RPM in 50 rotations per minute levels.

AMD Radeon HD 7970 owner? Lover of overclocking? Been waiting for a waterblock? Well, Swiftech may just have the product for you. Swiftech have released the Komodo HD7970 waterblock for AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GPU.

The waterblock covers the full-length of the card to protect its fragile components, and features an enhanced thermal design, illuminated bridge, and a comprehensive packaging including a single-slot PCI bracket and back-plate, which makes the Komodo HD7970 the most sophisticated full-cover waterblock offered by Swiftech to date.

It doesn't stop there though, there are also companion accessories on offer, where you can grab optional CrossFireX bridges and adjustable connectors for multiple card configurations. Gabrian Rouchon, Swiftech's Chairman & CTA says:

Sapphire's Vapor-X coolers are somewhat of a huge deal in the GPU community, reviewers and users love them, because of their great performance, and noise levels. It seems Sapphire want to see CPU coolers sporting the Vapor-X technology, and have now shown off a new cooler at CeBIT, which should hit mass production in the near future.

The Vapor-X cooler, at first glance, does not look different from many other big CPU coolers we see from Cooler Master or Thermaltake. It features four heatpipes running from the base of the cooler to the fins on the heatsinks, as well as sporting two 120mm fans and various bits of plastic shrouding to make the cooler look, well, cool.

So far, this is no different to most other coolers, except the vapor chamber. Rather than use a standard metal plat for the base of the cooler itself, Sapphire have chosen to use a vapor chamber, to which the heatpipes are attached. Again, this itself isn't unique, as Asetek have been here before a few years ago, but in their case, the vapor chamber was directly connected to the heatpipes, and thus, too sensitive to how to the cooler was installed.

We hunted high and low for hardware at the Taipei Game Show earlier today when we were there, but being a game show, it was obviously dominated with a strong gaming focus. Along side the Razer Blade eyes-on video we just posted, one of the other really hot bits of hardware was the Thermaltake Level 10 GT case mod by Brian Carter.

Brian named it the "COD" and it follows a really kick-ass Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 theme with a motorized and spinning gun at the front of the case, a rocket launcher at the top and on the side panel you'll find the medic kit for your war wounds as well as an ammo pack to keep on killing.

Back in the day we would just had some neon lights to our cases and call it a day when it came to case modding, nowadays they are doing crazy good stuff like this. I love it!

CES 2012 - During my meeting with Tony at SilverStone I saw a few cases around the room that looked very familiar, yet not exactly what we have seen to date. For instance we have the chassis seen here. At first glance you are thinking this is the FT-03, and it is, but in m-ITX form factor this time! Various changes were made to the cooling system shrinking in fan diameter, as well as the entire chassis getting much smaller, offering this new solution, the FT-03 Mini.

With three of the four side panels removed you can get a look at the interior design of the FT-03 Mini, and can also now see that this chassis will use a SFX power supply to aide in keeping the overall size of this chassis to bare minimum. I was told these should be arriving sometime in March, but pricing was not discussed at this time.

I also took a look at the GD06 and reviewed it not too long ago, but I guess there were some requests that came from users in what might improve the user's experience. For instance the GD07 pictured here, near the power button is a power LED that now has a dimmer switch on it, and also has a power button lock out mechanism to disable any accidental power downs from curious children's fingers. There are also some interior changes that have been made, and I was told to expect mine soon, so that I can show you in more detail what is new there.

CES 2012 - I found ARCTIC on the floor at CES and found a few coolers on display. Here we have the i30 in this image. There is an a30 model for AMD mounting which is exactly the same as this i30 model sans the mounting hardware, of course that has to be different. This four pipe cooler was in full operational speed, and both were dead silent. I just spoke with Daniel while I was in Las Vegas, and was told this cooler is in transit right now, so expect this review very soon!

On the wall behind the CPU cooler display were the new series of GPU coolers. This is a redesign of the original Twin Turbo Cooler. The Twin Turbo II has a changed heat pipe arrangement under it, but since they were mounted to the display I couldn't get a great image of it. You can tell from the top that the fan spacing has been changed, the black shroud has been increased in size, and this cooler still connects to most of the older cards, as well as a few that the original did not.

Next to the Twin Turbo II was mounted next to this new design as well. Here we have the Accelero Xtreme which is just like the one I reviewed previously, but this time is specifically designed to work with the AMD HD 7970. The main change to the cooler for this card is the addition of a few millimeters of extra copper to the base of the cooler to allow contact with the die height of these new cards.

CES 2012 - From the front of this mid tower version of the HAF X, Cooler Master wanted to offer all of the things that made the HAF X a success, but wanted to offer mid-tower buyers a similar offering. The front the HAF XM keeps a lot of the styling cues that the HAF X offered such as the full mesh front, three optical drive bays, and two hot swap drive bays just below it.

The HAF XM will ship with a trio of 200mm fans, one in the front and two in the top. The top two can be removed to allow for a slim triple 120mm radiator, but does offer more room in the top cover for those who don't mind a little modding for the fittings to pass through the top of this chassis if a thicker radiator is a must. You also will find removable hard drive bays which can hold an addition six storage drives, and the back, under the 120mm exhaust fan, offers eight expansion slots for those Quad-Fire or Quad-SLI users.

One feature that users raved about in the original HAF X was the PSU wiring cover to keep a clean look on the inside as the mass of PSU wiring gets routed into the back side of the motherboard tray. That handy little cover is also going to be in the HAF XM to offer users the same cleanliness that the HAF X owners already enjoy having.

CES 2012 - As I started my tour through the CM suite during my meeting with them Cameron led me to the air coolers and started introductions. Down along the front are a trio of the X6 soon to be on the market. This cooler has an unusual fin shape and orientation once installed onto a board. This cooler is twisted on a slight angle, so once installed it will actually blow warmed air from the cooler toward the back of the chassis still, but it will also be angled to blow out the top of the chassis as well. This four pipe cooler will also come with an option of either the red fan or the traditional black fan that we have seen on many of their coolers to date.

The X6 also uses a very unusual fin design to add as much surface area to this cooler to attain the best performance possible from this design. Here Cooler Master uses a honey comb arrangement to maximize the amount of aluminum that the fan on the front can cool. The X6 will be hitting the market very soon, and I will be putting it through its paces for you as soon as possible.

Placed behind the X6 on a taller platform, almost denoting its dominance I had the new TPC-812 cooler explained to me. Looking at the top of the cooler tips you off to the use of something I have not seen in CPU cooling. CM is using dual vertical vapor chambers that are specified to handle 120W each. On top of the 240W of vapor chamber cooling, these heave gauge fins also sport six heat pipes in the cooler for a rating of 300W+ in total cooling power in this cooler.