By David Ponce

Jeffrey Stephenson got a Mini-ITX case recently, and decided to put a lot of pretty things around it. Made from mahogany with aluminum accents, the Aerodyne has an Intel i3 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB solid state drive. Jeffrey decided that he’d make 5 to 10 of these and sell them, only on order. So you can contact him at jeffrey at slipperyskip.com and get some details. We’re too afraid to ask the price, but we did have fun wondering if we’d ever be able to make one ourselves (the truth? Heck no!). See, Jeffrey has made available over 150 photographs of the build; this is one intricate job.

[ Project Page ] AND [ Worklog ] VIA [ BoingBoing ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Are you looking for a way to immerse yourself into your video games a bit more? We’re still a long way from virtual reality, but there are small things you can do to feel like a part of the game. One thing is to have the proper audio setup. Switching from stereo to a 5.1 surround sound setup can make a huge difference. Soon, you’ll even be able to add mood lighting to your PC games. That’s right, mood lighting.

Mad Catz has announced their new amBX devices, which provide ambient light in conjunction with whatever game you are playing. They can actually take lighting cues from the PC games that you’re playing, and give off the same colors that are being seen in the game. This takes the image from just being on the screen in front of you, and makes it a part of the entire room. Will this be the next big thing in gaming? We’ll see when the lights hit later this year.

[ Mad Catz ]

This post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net

When it comes to your gaming PC, getting the most bang for your buck(explosion out of your dollar) is of the utmost importance. For many, this means overclocking components such as the CPU and video card, to milk every last bit of performance from the hardware without paying anything extra. The downside to this is of course the additional heat generated from pushing your hardware to its limits.

So how do you keep your rig running cool without breaking the bank? Obviously upgrading your stock cooling system is going to be your first line of defense against heat. Now do you go with air cooling, or a liquid cooling setup? These days, I’m all for the latter. For a minimal increase in cost, you can greatly reduce not only the temperature of your components, but the noise as well.

Overview

Today we’re looking at another liquid cooling system from CoolIT. This time around is their Vantage A.L.C. It is a step-up from the ECO, which we reviewed earlier this year. The main difference between the two is the inclusion of a “brain” into the cooling unit.

The “brain” allows you to control the functions of the cooling unit, and to get a readout on the current temperature of the liquid. Rather than letting the motherboard dictate how fast or slow the fan spins (and thus how loud it is and how effective the cooling is), you can program the unit manually. It has three different settings: Extreme, Performance, and Quiet. Other things can be programmed as well, such as the color of the LCD, the orientation of the screen and other little things. The ability to change the fan speeds is what really makes this one interesting.

Installation

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the installation, as it’s essentially the same as the ECO.  That’s certainly not a bad thing, as the ECO was a breeze to install. Once again you have different brackets for the various types of CPUs on the market. Simply select the right one, attach the back plate, screw down the cooler, and put four screws into the fan. Plug in the cable to the fan, and one to the motherboard and you’re all set. Again, the whole process takes around 10-15 minutes, which is quite impressive for the improvement it makes.

Testing

Since there are three different modes for the cooler, we’ve gone ahead and broken the tests down to reflect the results of each mode both while the system is idling, and under full load for 10 minutes. All components are running at stock speeds. Here is a rundown of our test system:

CPU: Intel i7 950
Motherboard: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
RAM: 6GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Platinum
GPU: MSI Radeon 4890 OC Edition
HDD: OCZ Summit 64GB SSD
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Chasis: Thermaltake Element V

You can see that under load, it makes a huge difference, up to 20-degrees on the most aggressive setting. There is still a noticable change on idle temperatures, but that is not terribly surprising, as the CPU just isn’t heating up that much to begin with.

With only the small differences in temperature between the different settings, I just ended up setting it on ‘Quiet’ and leaving it there. If you start getting into overclocking, that is likely the only time you’ll want to kick on the ‘Extreme’ mode.

Conclusion

CoolIT has already shown their worth with their previous liquid cooling products. The Vantage A.L.C. takes an already great cooling solution and adds a level of control that will appeal to a variety of people. Anyone from the user looking for a quieter PC to the overclocker that depends on the extra cooling power to keep their system running stable. With a price tag of around $115, it’s a good choice for those that want more control over their cooling solution. If you’re the kind of person that’s just going to leave it on the standard ‘Performance’ mode, you might want to stick with the ECO A.L.C. as you’ll really see the same benefits at a cheaper price.

[ CoolIT ] VIA [ GamerFront ]

By Chris Scott Barr

If you’ve got a pretty beefy gaming PC that’s packed with hardware, chances are that you need to keep an eye on your cooling. After all, you don’t want to damage anything by inadvertently letting it overheat. Of course at the same time, if you’ve chosen to go with a strictly air-cooled solution, that can get pretty loud. What you need is a good way to tweak your fans to maintain the proper temperature, without simply cranking them all on high and forgetting about it.

NZXT has released several cases and stand-alone products that keep this in mind, however, their latest offering may very well be their best. The new Sentry LXE is a touchscreen LCD  that shows information about your system’s temperature, and allows you to control your fans. While this isn’t something new exactly, this one sets itself apart by not being integrated into the computer case itself.

The screen can be situated on your desk, where it can be easily seen and used. A cable runs down into a PCI card, which is what all of the internal components are connected to. You’ll have complete control of 5 fans,  which can be individually adjusted. Or if you prefer, they can be set to automatically adapt to the temperatures of each component.  Other information such as the date and time are also shown, to make it an even more functional device on your desk.

The Sentry LXE will be available soon for the price of $60. Casual gamers may not see the appeal to spending this kind of cash,  but if you love to tweak every little setting, you’ll love it. Besides, this thing will also just look awesome sitting next to your monitor.

[ NZXT ]

By Chris Scott Barr

It’s no surprise that liquid cooling is growing in popularity, as your computer can realize greater potential while generally running much quieter than with traditional air cooling. We’ve seen a number of offerings from CoolIT, who have really shaken things up with their simple all-in-one CPU cooling systems. These have been great because not only are they simple to setup, but they tend to be compatible with most CPU platforms that are still in use today. Unfortunately if you want to apply the same great cooling solutions to your graphics card, you’ll be forced to buy an entire solution aimed at your specific card. When you go to upgrade, you’ll need to buy a brand new cooler as well. This is something that CoolIT has finally addressed with their OMNI A.L.C. system.

The system is comprised of three parts. First you have the universal OMNI water block, which essentially does all of the work. Second you have a universal liquid plate, which keeps the cooling liquid flowing over the interposer plate. This third piece is what attaches directly to your graphics card. Since they have made the interposer plate separate from the actual liquid plate, you can simply switch this piece out when you decide to upgrade your graphics card.

While talking with them back at CES, CoolIT assured me that they would be offering a wide variety of interposer plates for current GPUs and new ones as they come out. Unfortunately we’re still waiting to hear how much the setup will cost. They stressed that the individual interposer plates would be priced reasonably, so that your investment will quickly pay off as you upgrade your video cards.

[ CoolIT ]

By Evan Ackerman

This is a PC. There’s no good reason why it’s a PC, but it’s a PC. Or if there IS a good reason why it’s a PC, there’s no good reason why it looks like this. From Artopz (“Technology In Design,” which is as literal a motto as I’ve ever seen) comes this series of three designer weird-ass desktop computers, each one of which is also a lamp.

A lamp!

As far as I can tell (and I can’t really tell), all of the PC bits are stuffed into the aluminum base, with the designer weird-ass lamp on top. The lamp is somehow connected to the PC in that it changes color depending on what the computer is doing, although it can also be controlled independently. The PC itself is decidedly lower midrange, with an Atom processor, 4 gigs of RAM, a DVD burner, and over 600 gigs of SSD storage. It comes with Windows 7 and no monitor, and you can buy one (after a seven week wait) starting at about $2500.

[ Artopz ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By David Ponce

You think you got the biggest, fastest rig in town, don’t ya? Well lemme tell you, it ain’t got squat on the FASTRA II from the Vision Lab of the University of Antwerp. That’s because this baby packs a whopping 13GPUs, from “six NVIDIA GTX295 dual-GPU cards, and one GTX275 single-GPU card, resulting in a massive 12TFLOPS of computing power.” Since the fine people at the University are using the machine for projects that are quite a bit more noble than gaming (think “3D imaging of bone tissue in mice, which is commonly required in medicine research for osteoporosis “), a massive CPU cluster is not required. So there’s a single Core i7 chip along with

an ASUS P6T7 WS mainboard to accommodate all seven video cards; one 1,500W power supply and three 450W supplies keep the extreme power demands in check. A 1TB Samsung hard drive, 12GB of DDR3 memory, and [a] Lian-Li case. The only modifications are a custom cage to suspend the GeForce boards and a custom kernel for the CentOS Linux build that runs the design.

Building one yourself would set you back 6,000 euros.

For a fascinating video tour of the machine, keep reading.

[ FASTRA II ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Whenever you purchase a new PC, one tends to notice all of the extra software that comes with it. If you ask the manufacturer, they’ll tell you that they’ve done you a favor by providing lots of “useful” trial applications for you. Of course any tech-savvy person with half a brain immediately goes through and systematically removes every bit of it. Well if you want a computer without all of these “extras”, apparently you’ll be able to get one at the Microsoft Store.

That’s right, Microsoft’s new retail stores are going to carry computers without any additional 3rd-party software. That’s of course nothing to say for first-party software, as they will be installing all of the optional Microsoft software that you would otherwise have to download. This includes Windows Live Essentials, Bing 3D Maps, Security Essentials and the Zune client. Sure, it’s not a completely crapware-free computer, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

[ Method of Failed ] VIA [ Electronista ]

By David Ponce

It’ll never cease to amaze us how crafty some people are at separating others from their money. In this particular case, Gaiser High End PCs seems to make a line of computers that don’t do much more than cover themselves up in precious or semi precious materials to better justify your spending obscene amounts of money. While adorning themselves in anything from 24 carat gold leaf to what looks like Swarovski crystals, these PCs can fetch up to $32,300. At that price, those crystals very well may be actual diamonds… though one has to ask how necessary it really is to put diamonds on a PC case. Our understanding is these items exist for the sole purpose of showing to your other rich friends just how much wealthier than them you are. Then again (and not to get too philosophical), isn’t this the very definition of luxury?

Hit the jump for a gallery and a few links.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Born Rich ]

By Shane McGlaun

I have a couple gaming PCs in my house and none of them can be called green. In fact, my personal gaming PC can double as a heater in the winter and after a few hours use in the summer it makes my office unbearably hot.

Maingear has announced a gaming PC for the eco conscious gamer called the Pulse. According to Maingear, the Pulse is the world’s greenest gaming PC and is the first upgradable NVIDIA Ion PC ever. The machine uses NVIDIA Ion graphics for power savings and can be upgraded with a GeForce 9800 ECO video card.

The 9800 ECO is similar to the 9800 GT but draws 40% less power than the normal 9800 GT. The computer starts at $799 and can be fitted with Intel Core 2 Duo processors or Intel Core 2 Quad parts. The machine can also be stuffed with up to 8GB of RAM and optional Blu-ray.

[ Maingear ]