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XSPC AX Radiator Desk Stand Review
One of the biggest limiting factors in what you can do with watercooling is how much room you have in your case. With so much equipment to pack in for watercooling alone, space ends up being one of the chief concerns for builders and modders. And the single biggest limiting factor: how much radiator one can fit. Radiators are large, bulky, and inflexible in how they need to be installed. This can easily lead to the builder having to sacrifice cooling surface for space. There is a solution to this problem though; external radiator stands. And if you have chosen to use XSPC’s AX series of radiators, then you’re in luck. Today we will be looking at the AX Radiator Desk Stand from XSPC.
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/xspc-ax-radiator-desk-stand-review/
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Win a NZXT Phantom 630 Case!
It is summer time and it is the perfect time to give you, our readers some free hardware! We have teamed up with our friends at NZXT to give away a brand new NZXT Phantom 630 Case! This Ultra Tower not only looks good it has room for quite a lot inside like long graphics cards, XL-ATX Motherboards, 8 hard drives and a lot of watercooling! Like many of our contests we will be running this one on Facebook and it is extremely easy to enter!
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/win-a-nzxt-phantom-630-case/
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Case Mod Friday: ReactorMod
Welcome to another Case Mod Friday showcase! This week we have a builders ReactorMod build. Here is what he had to say about it: It's a modded Chieftec BX-03 case. I wanted to make it look like it's quite old and kinda shabby. I was thinking about this build for quite a long time, so I managed to collect some cool stuff that I've found on a nearby scrap yard (e.g. switch or steel sheet that I used to make the radiator cover). I also used some spare parts that I had lying around.
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/case-mod-friday-reactormod/
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Enermax Triathlor FC 550W Power Supply Review
Enermax is a brand whose strong product is their power supplies, especially when it comes to the high-end spectrum. Their Platimax and MAXREVO units are some of the best out there. But these units are not cheap in terms of cost. Enermax knows not everyone has a ton of cash to throw at a new power supply so they have created the Triathlor series of power supplies. There are actually the Triathlor and Triathlor FC units. The Triathlor units are lower wattage and non-modular and the Triathlor FC units are higher wattage and are modular. Today we are checking out the Triathlor FC 550W unit which is 80PLUS Bronze certified and offers quiet operation.
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/enermax-triathlor-fc-550w-power-supply-review/
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SilverStone ARM22SC ARM Two Dual LCD Monitor Mount Review
We mainly know SilverStone for their cases and for good reason, they are high quality and look great. What if SilverStone took that same quality and put it into a LCD monitor mount? Then you would have what we are reviewing today which is the ARM Two ARM22SC dual LCD Monitor Mount from SilverStone. LCD arms are a great addition to any computer setup, especially if you are using a multi-monitor system. The ARM22SC is constructed with robust aluminum alloy and steel so this is a heavy duty piece of hardware. It will support two displays with VESA mounts. Read on as we get this installed and see how it transforms our desk.
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/silverstone-arm22sc-arm-two-dual-lcd-monitor-mount-review/
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Win a Pivos XIOS DS Media Player!
Pivos is a company we have been working with lately and they make some pretty cool little media players. We have already reviewed their XIOS DS media player and it is a very unique device. Pivos was nice enough to give us one to give away to our readers! Just like all of our contests this one is very easy to enter and we will be running it on Facebook? So what are you doing get out there and get your entry in!
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/win-a-pivos-xios-ds-media-player/
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Case Mod Friday: Black and White
Welcome to another Case Mod Friday showcase! This week we have Christian Black and White build. Here is what he had to say about it: Well this is the first time I do something like this, and it really is interesting the world of case modding the project is BLACK AND WHITE and really was a design chosen because I began to paint the cabinet only and one thing leads to another as in all cases and was thinking of some ideas for covers.
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/case-mod-friday-black-and-white/
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The History Of The Hard Drive
In 1953, engineers in IBM's California-based laboratory invented the very first hard drive. Since that first disk drive, technological advances have been made at an astonishing rate, with data capacity increasing and size and price decreasing exponentially, year on year. 60 years on, the hard drives of today are unrecognizable from the first models, which took up an entire room. Hard drives today are measured in terms of gigabytes and terabytes, rather than megabytes-an amount of data that would have been almost unimaginable in the early history of computers. Here we take a look back at the evolution of the hard drive as it grew from 5MB to 4TB.
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/the-history-of-the-hard-drive/
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Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 Review
Lenovo has been making headlines with their IdeaPad Yoga. It is a tablet convertible that can be used as a laptop as well. There are 11-inch and 13-inch models. While the larger 13-inch model has the choice of Intel Core processors, the 11-inch does not and is rather powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 3 platform. Today we will be taking a look at that unit which does offer a very sleek and slim design, responsive 11.6-inch touchscreen, Lenovo’s patent-pending hinge design that allows the screen to flip completely over and it is running Windows RT. Let’s check it out!
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/lenovo-ideapad-yoga-11-review/
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Case Mod Friday: ViRoiD
Welcome to another Case Mod Friday showcase! This week we have Ben's ViRoiD build. Here is what he had to say about it: Pictures speak louder than words. Getting a 690 to fit in a prodigy is not a big deal until you start thinking about watercooling it, and a cpu, and ram. I wanted a color that matched the p8z77-i, and blue was the ticket. The orange case was chosen because of its location opposite of blue on the color wheel. Modding the front of the case to fit the 200mm rad was fun, plus it gave me some extra materials to make some psu covers with.
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/case-mod-friday-viroid/

Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System Review

The BIOS
Before we get into testing the system let’s check out the BIOS. This Shuttle uses the ever popular Phoenix AwardBIOS. The first thing you are going to want to do is go into the Advanced BIOS features. Here you can set your hard disk boot priority and set the boot device order. Also you will see a CPU feature section. If you plan on doing any overclocking you are going to want to set the C1E Function to disable.

Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System

The Integrated Peripherals has what you would expect, settings for the SATA, Onboard devices, and the USB settings. You can also go into the PC Health status and check your CPU temperature. One thing to note here you can change the fan control mode from PWM to manual if you want to. Then you can crank it up all the way.


Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System

The Frequency / Voltage control is where you will find all of the CPU and memory settings. You can choose a 6x or 8x multiplier and the FSB starts at 266 and can go all the way up to 600. As far as memory settings it is all there. One interesting thing is that you can dynamically overclock the CPU. The CPU DOC Set can go all the way up to 20%. So you can overclock the CPU without even knowing how!

Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System

Temperatures & Overclocking
As I said the cooler on this Shuttle system is much like the one from 5 years ago, so it must be good or they would have changed it. Using Core Temp and Prime95 we tested the CPU cooler and were quite impressed. At idle the temperature is right around 38 degrees. When we put the load on the system the temperature jumped up to 54 degrees. Now that is a 16 degree difference, but considering how small the cooler is and that it is in such a small case that is pretty impressive.

Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System

I also did some simple overclocking on the E6400. It was very easy to do as well, just go into the BIOS, into the Frequency / Voltage section. Then turn the spread spectrum off and start bumping up the FSB. My max stable overclock was 951.9MHz over the stock speed of the E6400, bringing it up to 3.08Ghz. If I would have tweaked the settings even more I could have got an even better overclock. While the system was overclocked the temperature was still nice and low at 40 degrees.

Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System

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