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PC: Cool Components

The best of PC components and peripheral products.

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Potent Components A look at some of the best computer cases, cooling units, sound cards, storage drives and even a few peripherals that we've seen released so far in 2009.

Case In Point Lian Li wowed the crowds at CES in January with its nicely designed PC-B70 Full Tower computer case, a solid and very quiet enclosure with Extended ATX, ATX and Micro-ATX compatibility -- for an equally attractive price tag of US$280. Custom system builders report that component installation is quick and easy, pointing to the removable motherboard tray as a particular benefit.

Gamer's Delight NZXT just slips into our list with its M59 gaming chassis -- it's in the hands of custom system builders today but not officially released until August. At just US$60, this case is super-affordable, and you're getting five fans with an option for two, plus the muscular design and window into your PC's innards that enthusiasts demand.

Step Into Liquid Liquid cooling systems are a must for gamers and overclockers -- one of the best, inexpensive liquid cooling options the CRN Test Centre saw in the first half of 2009 was the Domino A.L.C. (Advanced Liquid Cooling) setup from CoolIT Systems. Priced at just US$79, this early-year release comes assembled as a single, all-in-one sealed unit that's compatible with Intel's LGA 775 and LGA 1366 systems, as well as AMD's AM2 and AM2+ sockets.

Taking Control Here's another new product from NZXT -- a US$30 full system fan controller with a touch-screen interface called the Sentry 2. Built for installation in one of your enclosure's 5.25-inch bays, the unit is compatible with any fan that uses voltage control and provides both manual and automated control of up to five fans in your PC.

Going To Extremes Sure, Western Digital built its two-terabyte RE4-GP Enterprise Hard Disk for NAS servers and the like, but hard-core hardware geeks are already jamming these ridiculously fast and furious storage units into their souped-up PC rigs. You'll pay a pretty penny at US$310 for your 2-TB Raid Edition monster, but you're getting up to 25 percent better performance over Western Digital's previous generation of RE-GP drives, plus power-conserving features like IntelliSeek, IntelliPark and IntelliPower.

Ship Of Solid State Mention the words 'solid state' to a custom system builder and you'll likely see a wince at the mere thought of the extreme price premiums associated with SSDs. But G.Skill's latest high-speed Falcon SSD delivers 128 GB of storage space, 64 MB of cache, and read-write speeds of 230 MBps and 190 MBps -- for the relatively low price of about US$310 to US$320. The trick that G.Skill seems to have mastered is to get reasonable speeds out of MLC NAND flash -- which is cheaper than the SLC variety but until very recently has also been considerably slower.

Memory That Won't Break The Bank Here's another product from G.Skill -- a Taiwanese vendor of extreme-performance storage and memory products that's made quite a name for itself so far this year. The company's 6-GB Trident PC3-16000 DDR3 Memory Kit, priced at US$150, is built for Intel Core i7 systems and is winning rave reviews in the hardware enthusiast community. A big reason for all the Trident love -- memory that clocks at 2.0GHz for a price that few can beat.

The Sound And The Fury In January, Asus put out what's probably been the best-reviewed sound card of the first half of 2009 -- the Xonar Essence STX. The price is nice at US$85 and what really has audiophiles excited is the unit's improved signal-to-noise ratio over earlier Xonar cards, thanks to Burr-Brown digital-to-analog converters, as well as the quality materials used to make the Essence STX, ensuring rich bass and a crystal-clear high end.

Mighty Mouse Give it to NZXT for really spicing up the first part of the year with a host of well-received hardware products -- including a highly adjustable gaming mouse released at the beginning of the year, the company's first such product. Priced at US$55, the NZXT Avatar supports four levels of DPI, adjustable from 600, 1200, 1800 and 2600, and its clever design allows for use by a wide range of hand sizes.

Rich Reward It's incredibly impractical and nobody seems to know the price yet, but we couldn't let our hardware roundup expire without mentioning this limited-edition leather-and-gem-encased optical "Crystal Mouse" by Gigabyte and Swarovski. The list of excessive features on this highly unnecessary objet d'art is long -- from the four Swarovski crystals and 18K gold plating to the little gauche carrying case for the Crystal Mouse. But outside of the Steampunk DIYers, there's nothing much like this on the market, so it gets on the list.

Potent Components A look at some of the best computer cases, cooling units, sound cards, storage drives and even a few peripherals that we've seen released so far in 2009.

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PC: Cool Components

The best of PC components and peripheral products.

Most popular tech stories

NBN Co weaves AI and automation into its operational "fabric"

OVIC sets limits on GenAI tool use in external meetings

Guzman y Gomez continues to deploy Workday as core people platform

Bunnings pilots AI for its 55,000-strong workforce

CBA AI 'voice bot' deployment linked to review of 45 roles

Bendigo Bank acting CIO announces departure

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OpenAI launches GPT-5 to 700m ChatGPT users

ANZ 'redefines' institutional data service with Gemini AI

ParKam's smart parking project at Curtin University will be a world-first

Blackberry celebrates "giant step forward"

Govt launches consumer tech label program for smart devices

Photos: Australian industry explores data for net zero

How Jemena uses IoT to push the boundaries of customer innovation in the gas sector

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