If you haven't gone through it already, you just might. I spent a bunch of money on motherboards recently and they all seem to be having the same problem. Is it because they just don't make them like they used to? I am referring to the active cooling on my Northbridge; the fans keep making funny noises then crapping out. It drives me crazy. Usually though, the active cooling on the Northbridge was always sub par any way; just enough to get by. With all the advancements in mobos, the cooling solutions have been getting more and more important. So with two fans going on two different motherboards, what options do we have left? Thermaltake not only has an answer, they claim they have a better solution than was shipped with the motherboard in the first place. Enter the Extreme Spirit II. Read More...

At 4 in the morning, most people are sleeping; not me. I am sitting in front of my test rig testing the cpu cooling solution you are about to read about. Spire has been filling their portfolio with new products on a consistent basis and has decided to throw this one our way. Spire left me hanging with the DiamondCool unit; let's see if they can win me back with the VertiCool II.

The VertiCool II doesn't seem on paper like much of a champion. Sporting a measly 25.88 CFM at 2300 rpms and running out only 19 dBA this thing is quiet and doesn't appear to be much of a contender. This unit measures 95mm long, 65mm wide and 100mm tall. That makes it nearly the size of the AC Freezer 64 Pro. Read More...

So you think you have it all figured out. You bought your AMD 64 and you have your system all rigged up. You are playing your games, checking your email, surfing the net, and doing your "thing" without any consideration for what is in store for you. It's nice and cool out, the heat hasn't really struck yet and keeping your processor cool is the last thing on your mind. These days it seems like people are very interested in companies that think outside the box. Today, we will be looking at a heatsink designed for the box! Spire thinks they have a product here that will steal your stock heatsink's position in your system. Enter the Spire SP741B3-U DiamondCool II.

Heatsinks are a crazy bunch of products... just like any other product in the industry, each item has its genre. Some products are designed for the enthusiast, some are for the overclocker, some for the normal user, and some are designed for the fat wallet. This one will not take a huge chunk of change out of your pocket, but it will make an impression on it. Let's see if it stands up to its $36.00 (estimated) street value. Remember, the stock heatsink is free when you buy your RETAIL processor. Read More...

Every time I sit down with a new piece of hardware, I think how things have changed. When I got my 400 GB hard drive, I thought long and hard about my massive 10 GB Quantum Bigfoot. When I got my DVD Burner, I thought long and hard about my 1x CD Burner. When I got my 3700+ San Diego CPU, I thought long and hard about my 486 DX33. Today, I am thinking long and hard about my Alpha PAL8045 and my Swiftech MCX462+ while I am looking at this Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro. Things have certainly changed.

When I was using those monsters, I never cared about the hissing sound my Delta Screamer made, I never cared about the amount of lift my Vantec Tornado provided. I just wanted a cool processor. Enter the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro. Read More...

I can remember the days when I would have to find the biggest, baddest, most expensive heat sink on the market to cool my overclocked CPU. It's amazing how things change. I went from the guy with the loudest computer, to the guy with the green glowing water cooled computer. My days of obnoxiously loud fans like the Tornados and the Delta screamers were numbered.

I no longer consider myself conventional in the sense of cooling. I have converted from air to water in my main rig, but still keep my server air cooled. Since my server hasn't made the switch yet, and I am enjoying the quiet much more than I used to; practical, inexpensive, and quiet is what I now look for in a cooling solution. Enter the Speeze EE475B13 Copper Snake III. Read More...

To start I would like to thank Xoxide for sending this cooler for review. The first thing I noticed after seeing the flashy packaging was how heavy this thing is. I really wasn't expecting a GPU cooler to be this heavy (490 grams). As you can see from the picture the packaging is very attractive and eye catching. My second impression was that this thing is huge. It has a blower fan along one edge that also makes it very tall. Rather than go into the detailed specifications you can view them here. It has Dual Heatpipes, two cooling fans, copper ramsinks and a fan controller included. The fan controller fits in a PCI slot and is controlled from the rear of the PC. I'm not so sure about how this will work out. I really don't like the idea of having to reach around to the back of my PC every time I need to adjust the fan speed or turn on the blower. The way some people setup their systems this would be a real pain. I'm thinking of modding the switch into an unused 3 .5 inch floppy bay. But that's a project for another day. Read More...