HWC has published several analyses that deserve to be revisited. Although they are not from today—or even yesterday—we still consider them useful in practice. How can cooling performance be affected by the use of heatsinks in a space where there would otherwise be a fan? What is the difference between a punched and a wire grille (in PC cases)? Did you know that airflow in some situations also depends on the shape of the fan frame? Read more “Selection of Older but Still Relevant Tests (Part 6)”
16,500 rpm is extreme. A tiny fan in the unique SSD cooler by Adata can run at such a speed. We expected that it will be possible to regulate it and choose a reasonable setting, but there is no compromise in this design, and frankly, so many imperfections make it very difficult to see something positive about this product, which is a shame because the “core“ is pretty effective. Read more “Adata XPG Storm: good looking but not efficient”
Engineers from Impactics might not be creating product every week, but when they come up with something, it’s usually an extraordinary construction. This also applies to their new chassis – DMono with a prosaic attribute. Its design is remarkable and with the emphasis on fully passive configurations. It can do more than just absorb the heat from CPU. Read more “Impactics DMono 1, already on the market”
We’re gathering 120mm fans to make a big comparative test for you. We will have all categories represented: cheap, expensive, slow, fast, with various bearings types, optimized for system cooling, optimized for heatsinks, and so on. We already have the idea about the test procedures, but we don’t want to omit your tips, feel free to leave some in comments. Read more “We are preparing a big test of fans. Do you have some tips?”
The Ninja cooler series is very unique. It has been twelve years since the introduction of the first model. Even after such a long time, the Japanese company constantly enhances its original design and increases its efficiency. After four successful generations, they are releasing the fifth Ninja. Modestly, without fanfare and any drama, the way they always do. All the more appealing surprise. Read more “The 5th generation of the legendary Ninja is here!”
We talked about ASRock Mini-STX boards recently, and here we have another interesting product. They’ve released a new version of DeskMini barebone with Mini-STX. However, this time it’s a real change. DeskMini GTX or RX is no longer dependant on integrated graphics but has its own GPU. Read more “New barebones from ASRock: Mini-STX with GPU”
There are not many cheap high-quality computers out there, so the design of XPC X50 is quite a pleasant surprise. It offers a lot of attractive features: display, robust mobile body, dust and liquid resistance, passive function, and the economical Kaby Lake. Shuttle managed to elegantly combine all of it into one handy device. Read more “Shuttle XPC X50V6: silent AIO barebone for less than 400 eur”
We like small computers, so we are delighted with the Mini-STX format which represents boards that are even smaller than Mini-ITX but still with “full-fledged“ processors. Mini-STX does not allow the use of external graphics cards, making AMD processors with their relatively strong iGPU an interesting choice. Mini-STX boards have not been produced for them yet, but it looks like ASRock is about to change that. Read more “ASRock Mini-STX boards for AMD processors?”
HDPLEX cases have a pretty good reputation among supporters of completely silent passive PCs. For several years, this company has been producing various solid aluminum cases in which cooling is based on the heat transfer from CPU or GPU to the outer casing that disperses it around. Now HDPLEX has released an interesting piece: H3 V2 for Mini-ITX configurations. Read more “HDPLEX H3 V3: a small Mini-ITX case that can cool 80 W passively”
The golden era of HDDs is already gone, and we still haven’t seen any real solution for one of their basic problems. A mounting system that would absorbs undesirable vibrations. The difference in noise levels can be significant. We’ve created just the thing to find out whether it’s even possible to get rid of those vibrations completely. Read more “A homemade solution for undesirable HDD noise”
AMD has released the first Ryzen desktop processors with iGPU this week. APU Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G could be attractive for compact computers because it’s easier to cool a single heat source than to cool both CPU and GPU, and the integrated graphics cards of these processors should have performance equal to GeForce GT 1030. However, it also means that the old enemy has returned, thermal compounds. Read more “Ryzen iGPU and the return of thermal compounds”
What disk is best for an office work, photos, videos, operating systems, games, and for demanding servers? And is the Red really well designed for network storage? You can find out in this practical comparison of the performance, consumption, and noise levels of each model from WD. The differences are significant and the results surprising. Green, blue, red, purple, black, or gold? Read more “Test of six HDDs from WD: which colour is for you?”
Basically everything in your computer can be now cooled not only by air but also by a liquid – there are blocks for CPU, graphics cards, memory modules, and even SSD. Only power supplies stood out for a long time as components which must have a fan. Times are about to change. The company FSP is releasing a power supply that can be cooled trough a liquid cooling circuit. Read more “FSP power supply with a liquid cooling: fanless up to 700 W”
We have added the third major manufacturer to our tests of X370 boards – MSI. The X370 Pro Carbon is about thirty euros cheaper than its opponents from Gigabyte and Asus, so it will be interesting to watch how these savings are reflected in overall quality and design. We don’t want to give away too much, but we can say that it is definitely worth checking. Read more “MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon: A convenient choice for Ryzen 7”
One of the things that make testing of CPU coolers interesting is that you can never know how will a particular cooler perform. There are too many variables that affect the results. Such as the pressure on the processor, for example. We‘ve tried to find out what a weaker assembly system can cause, but also whether it pays off to cross the safe threshold. Read more “How can a pressure of a cooler affect its cooling performance?”
What are the best settings for Fuma? This is a question that belongs to our complementary review where we traditionally test heatsinks with reference fans. This time in two configurations, with one and with two fans. We went from really noisy settings to completely silent mode. The temperature behaviour is captured minute by minute. Let’s take a look at how this twin-tower handles passive cooling compared to top-notch coolers. Read more “Scythe Fuma rev. B: From a hurricane to the fanless mode”
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