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Xigmatek Displays 80 Plus Platinum 1450W Goliath PSU

An 80 Plus Platinum-compliant 1450W PSU? No, we're sober. Xigmatek is flexing its engineering muscle in the PSU department with a semi-modular PSU that has both high-power and high-efficiency. The Goliath GP-1451 from Xigmatek gives you all the connectors you'll ever need, and with 1450W, enough power for 4-way SLI, 4-way CrossFireX, dual-socket systems. What's to not like? The Goliath uses an asymmetric double 12V rail design, the first rail is can deliver 55A, and the second 75A. Apart from 24-pin ATX and EPS connectors, most connectors are detachable to improve cable management. The beast is cooled by a 130 mm fan. 


 

Cougar Shows off 92% Platinum Efficiency Modular PSUs

If 80 Plus Gold was the order of the best PSUs shown at Computex 2010, this year, the trend is with even higher efficiency ratings, such as 80 Plus Platinum. For any PSU to be certified 80 Plus, it has to go though independent testing, a bad thing if you're rushing in new products. At the same time, having buyers discover that your 80 Plus certifications are fake would be a disaster for your brand. To tide over this dilemma, PSU major Cougar came out with an efficiency rating badge of its own for use on new models, 92% Platinum, denoting that the PSU offers efficiency on-par/close to 80 Plus Platinum. It's probable that these PSUs will get the actual 80 Plus Platinum rating later. Up on display at Cougar's booth were beautiful-looking Cougar PTX 500W and Cougar GX 500W two semi-modular high-efficiency boxes.


 

Be Quiet! Displays Dark Rock Pro 850W Modular PSU

Leading the pack of Be Quiet! PSUs at Computex is the Dark Power Pro 850W, an almost completely modular 80 Plus Platinum-compliant PSU. The Dark Power Pro has a classy product-like feel to it, not coming across as a "component". Internally, the Dark Power Pro 850W uses a quad 12V rail design. The 24-pin ATX is the only fixed connector, leaving eight PCI-E power connectors in four sets, five sets of drive cabled (SATA/Molex), 8-pin EPS and 4-pin ATX, and four 2-pin voltage-controlled fan power outputs. The unit is cooled by a 140 mm fan, covered by a cool-looking grille with just parallel metal rods.


   

PowerColor to Challenge ASUS MARS II with Monstrous Dual-HD 6970 Graphics Card

While between the GeForce GTX 580 and Radeon HD 6970, the former is clearly the faster graphics card, the two share a disputed lead over each other in their dual-GPU avatars, GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 6990, attributed to the HD 6990 sustaining clock speeds closer to those on its single-GPU implementation, and a better electrical design. While NVIDIA is fixing the electricals on a revised PCB design scheduled for release in the weeks to come, companies like ASUS are wasting no time in designing their own PCBs that can let the two NVIDIA GF110 GPUs sustain clock speeds identical to those on the single-GPU GTX 580. This would pose serious competition to the HD 6990. To ward that off, PowerColor is working on a new Radeon HD 6970 X2 graphics card, which has two AMD Cayman GPUs clocked on par with single-GPU HD 6970, and having the same overclocking headroom.

The new card from PowerColor is not just an overclocked HD 6990, but also has the overclocking headroom of the HD 6970. Further, unlike the HD 6990, it uses Lucid Hydra technology. The PLX-made, AMD-branded PCI-Express bridge chip is replaced by a LucidLogix-made bridge chip that gives each GPU PCI-Express 2.0 x16 bandwidth. Users can run the two GPUs in either AMD CrossFire (with Hydra features disabled), or enable Lucid Hydra Engine features, and let the two GPUs work in tandem with any other graphics card installed in the system, that uses GPUs of any make and generation. 


   


The card draws power from three 8-pin PCI-E power connectors, power is conditioned by two sets of 6+2 phase VRM. Each GPU has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface. The GPUs are said to have clock speeds equal to, or higher than those of the HD 6790, that's 880 MHz core, 5.50 GHz memory. The beast is cooled by a humongous triple-slot cooler that uses a 120 mm and a 140 mm fan, to cool dense aluminum fin array heatsinks. Display outputs are the same as HD 6970, that's two DVI, two mini-DP, and a HDMI.

PowerColor Also Shows Off Dual-Radeon HD 6870 Graphics Card

The PowerColor HD 6970 X2 isn't the only new dual-GPU graphics card on display at PowerColor, there's also the HD 6870 X2. We're not entirely sure why one would come up with such an SKU in an already crowded performance market segment, but perhaps PowerColor is trying to squeeze in between performance levels of HD 6970 and HD 6990. While not a bad idea, it comes with the usual challenges and limitations of a dual-GPU graphics card: application support for CrossFire, and usually high power draw.

Like on the HD 6970 X2, PowerColor used Lucid Hydra technology, with a Hydra Engine chip that provides each of the two AMD Barts GPU with a PCI-E 2.0 x16 link. Users can choose between AMD CrossFire or Lucid Hydra multi-GPU technologies. With Hydra enabled, you will be able to get this card to work in tandem with any other card in the system. Each Barts GPU has 1120 stream processors, 32 ROPs, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across 256-bit wide memory interfaces.

   


Display connectivity includes two DVI, two mini-DP, and a HDMI 1.4a. The card draws power from two 8-pin power connectors. On the PCB, power is conditioned by two sets of 4+2 phase VRM. The card is cooled by a large dual-fan heatsink.

G.Skill showcases its latest SATA 3 SSD, Phoenix II Pro, DDR3 Memory Kits

G.Skill International Co. Ltd., manufacturer of extreme performance memory and high performance solid-state storage, has released its latest SATA 3 6gbps SSD, Phoenix II Pro, based on the latest SandForce SF-2200 controller with the whopping random write speed up to 60K IOPS, and numerous ultra high performance memory series designed for the latest released platforms at Computex 2011.


   


The fastest 16GB kit for Intel Z68/P67 platform - DDR3 2,300MHz CL9-11-9-28 16GB (4GBx4) 1.65V RipjawsX kit
No compromise. The G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 2,300MHz 16GB(4GBx4) kit provides the fastest speed and the maximum capacity on the latest Intel P67/Z68 platforms. It once again proves that G.Skill RipjawsX series is the best memory solution for PC enthusiasts and extreme overclockers to reach the best performance of their 2nd generation Intel Core processors.

The highest performance on AMD 990FX platform - DDR3 2,133MHz 16GB!
G.Skill Flare series DDR3 memory has been well known as the top performance kit among AMD enthusiasts, since it’s the world’s only one DDR3 2000MHz kit guaranteed at AMD platform. G.Skill has been consistently working closely with our partners to develop faster memory for the latest AMD 990FX platform. After the significant effort, G.Skill is glad to finally bring the ultimate memory with ultra high speed of 2133MHz CL9 and maximum capacity available of 16GB to its Flare family. 

The biggest memory monster - 48GB(4GBx12) 2000MHz CL8
It is the first time G.Skill demonstrates the legendary super big size 48GB (4GBx12) memory package in public events since it launched in July 2010. During Computex 2011, G.Skill displays this memory monster running at faster speed of 2000MHz CL8 on the luxury EVGA Super Record 2 (SR-2) motherboard with two Intel Xeon LGA1366 CPU. This dream machine is definitely the ultimate super computer available in the market. 

Ultra fast triple channel memory kit for Intel X58 platform–DDR3 2200MHz CL9-11-9-28 12GB (4GBx3) Trident kit
G.Skill has released the extreme performance 2200MHz triple channel memory with ultra high capacity of 12GB. It provides overclocking enthusiasts and extreme gamers the best memory solution for breaking overclocking records with the Intel Core i7 extreme edition processors.

The latest innovation of SATA 3 SSD - Phoenix II Pro SSD based on ultra high performance Sandforce SF-2281 controller with incredible random write speed up to 60,000 IOPS
By partnership with SandForce, G.Skill has released its new SATA 3 SSD, Phoenix II Pro. Different from its previous generation Phoenix II, the new Phoenix II Pro drive has a great improvement on random write speed with enhanced IOPS up to 60,000. The new Phoenix II pro drive will be available at 120GB and 240GB with ultra fast sequential read/write speed up up to 550/510 MB/s.

HP reveals a handful of new laptops


HP's latest Envy 14 laptop.

(Credit: HP)

As sure as the sun rises in the East, every few months you're going to see some new laptops from leading PC maker HP. That time is here again, and the latest additions include new versions of the high-end Envy, the Netbook-size Mini, and even a few professional-level ProBooks and Elitebooks. Here are some of the highlights:

HP Envy 14
The Envy 14, part of HP's premium Envy line, gets a refresh with Intel's 2011 Sandy Bridge CPUs, which offer better performance and battery life than the 2010 models. While it looks the same as previous Envy models, HP promises that the large clickpad is more responsive (multitouch gestures were a little wonky on the current versions), and USB 3.0 gets thrown in as well.

We've generally been big fans of this line, as it's one of the few high-design, gamer-friendly series of laptops from a major brand. You won't be able to get one of these new 14-inch models until June, and they start at $999.




HP Mini 210
It turns out Netbooks aren't totally dead after all (just mostly dead). The new Mini 210 is pretty much the same as last year's, with a dual-core Intel Atom CPU, and this is one of only a handful of new Netbooks we've heard about so far for 2011 (by this time last year, we were flooded with 2010 models).

But the new Mini 210 does add some new lid colors (including sweet purple, charcoal, crimson red, luminous rose, and ocean drive). Despite still being only about 1 inch thick, it works in a streamlined six-cell battery, and, surprisingly, the Mini 210 includes a Netbook version of the same Beats Audio technology found in the high-end Envy laptops, which is something of a bold move.

Also available in June, these will run $300-$330, which is still the standard for basic Netbooks.



HP Pavilion dv4
Other than a few vibrant new colors, the most notable thing about the Pavilion dv4 is the new version of HP's Cool Sense technology it includes. This is basically a user control panel for the cooling fans, but now it actually includes some recommended user settings, instead of leaving it all for you to figure out.

The Pavilion dv4 is coming May 18, starting at $599.

Corporate and business users shouldn't feel left out; there are a handful of new ProBook and EliteBook models as well. The $799 ProBook 5330m is a slim 13-inch with Intel's newest Sandy Bridge CPUs and a backlit keyboard, as well as TPM and Intel vPro technology (which are important for corporate IT departments).