Cases & Cooling

It has been a few months since I last visited with a GlacialTech offering and when they asked me to take a look at the Siberia Cooler, I was hopeful.  Hopeful that they would be able to win on all fronts this time.  The Siberia aims at a different target than the Alaska did, the Siberia is designed for quiet …

I have always considered Thermaltake to be one of the premier manufacturers of cases and cooling products; even though I haven’t always been a fan of all of their products.  With the loud design of many products entering the market today, it seems that there has been a lack of balance between the design and the function, whereas the function …

Some people like quiet computing, others like the wind tunnel experience.  Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle.  The winding hum of fans whisking air through my rig is calming for me; much like vacuums to a baby.  However, I am not the norm, oddly.  Many of today’s users seem to look towards a peaceful experience in front of the …

For a long time, I was a cooling enthusiast; it was water or nothing.  However, as improvements have been made over the last few years, the idea of air cooling has become an attractive option.  The days of drilling holes in my case for mounting radiators and clumsy water pump configurations have gone out the window.  Although nothing looks as …

If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times... it takes a lot to impress me. Computer cases have made a wicked transformation over the years and there seems to be a few staples for me when it comes to my top picks. My main rig runs out of my Zalman Z-Machine GT1000 and my server makes its home inside the simple yet industrial Lian Li PC-75B (one of my all time favorite cases). As computer cases come and go here in the lab I hear the same song and dance; "This will be the best one you have reviewed yet" and for some reason a lot of them just fall short. BitFenix thinks they can break the current losing streak cases have had here with a design that is tough like Ray Lewis yet soft like Cinemax late night movies. Enter the Colossus.

Until recently, I have never really been a huge fan of laptops.  I am given one for my company, but until I decided to get married I had no reason to be in the living room.  Now that my time can’t be dedicated to being in my office on my desktop PC, a laptop has become a necessity.  Although they …

Having been a longstanding fan and avid user of the Lian Li line of computer chassis; I find that it is difficult to be absolutely wow'ed by another manufacturer's attempt to overthrow the chassis king. Zalman is not new to the game, having been in business since 1999; they have manufactured products in a slew of different genres starting with quiet computing and traveling into the ridiculously priced. The GT1000 is not a bargain basement chassis but is it worth the $380.00 Price tag?

There are times in a computer’s life when air cooling will no longer fit the bill. Unfortunately, most main stream computer users are sometimes afraid to experiment. This should no longer be the case because water and electronics were meant for each other. If you have been following computing, things have been changing, duh. As things get faster, they require …

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. …

Having been around the block a few times, and having been burned a few times; I have my preferences in chassis'. I have purchased and used a ton of cases and always seem to go back to my Lian Li PC-70 series chassis. There has been little innovation in this sector and it seems like manufacturers are trying to woo us with fancy designs and forgetting about the simple features that we should have to begin with. There are cases out there that look like malformed bubbles, cases that look like transformers, cases with bubbled water, and my personal favorite the cases that look like "Hello Kitty" (sarcasm). It is refreshing when some case manufacturers get back to the basics and give us usable features and practical designs. Antec claims they can give me hope once again. Enter the Antec Performance Series P180B.