How much power can components suck?

EXTREME OUTER VISION decided to answer the question how much power can your computer consume and assembled a very good power supply calculator - the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator, here.

It cannot give you a 100% correct calculation, but this web-site has been optimised from a database of ton of systems and components.

But judging by the power calculator, it seems that Tagan 580W and Corsair 620W have worked for over a couple of months at maximum load, and beyond it. Tagan is powering my dual dual-core Opteron 280 based workstation, with 8GB of memory, Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS 640MB and ton of hard drives. Corsair 620W is powering overclocked Pentium EE955@4.26 GHz, ton of memory, 7950GX2 overclocked to 575/1280, several Raptors.

The guys from MetkuMods pulled a very nice mod indeed. Antti took Logitech Z-5500 speakers and created LogiWood project - wooden boxes for them, improving the looks, but the quality of sound as well. Hmmm, I wish my Z-5500 get a similar treatment.

RBmods tested Geeks digital photo frame. Overall, we think that digital frames will take off and conquer mainstream market sooner or later, it is only the question of time. From the more PC side of things, guys also reviewed CoolIT PCI Cooling Booster. Even though you might think that graphics cards are getting hotter and hotter, nothing made this hack think more than a temperature reading on several TV Tuner cards, which had chips running well over 70degC.

Bjorn3D tested Mushkin's 4GB kit (2x2GB) in PC2-6400 form (DDR2-800). We have to say that latencies are really ultra-low for a 4GB kit - CAS4-3-3-10-2T.

PureOverclock tested a cooler from manufacturer that found themselves in centre of controversy, Artic Cooling. We will have an article about the situation in Artic Cooling coming very soon, but for now you can check the review of Freezer 7 Pro.

Bootdaily tested an HDTV tuner from Hauppauge - WinTV-HVR-950. With HDTV taking more and more places on the market, assemblying a home theatre PC makes more and more sense, given the greater capabilities of the device. Plus, I always considered that is neat to have a silent, good looking gaming box with 42" or more screen, something that marketing people do not consider as the ideal gaming machine.

Benchzone got into case reviewing action with the latest Antec Nine Hundred, a case that features interesting cooling concepts. You can check the review here.

PC Perspective checked out Thermaltake's Kandalf full-tower case, now with integrated water-cooling. Gandalf, pardon Kandalf has watercooling radiator located in a very interesting position, even though I will keep my reserves about water-cooling systems from Thermaltake. In seven years of testing cooling products, every H2O-kit I got from them did not managed to exceed performance of Zalman CNPS-7700 air-cooler, yet alone other water kits.

Barry's Rigs'n'Reviews is always up for some NAS (Network Attached Storage) loving action, so the review of ReadyNAS NV+ was no different. Sometimes, I can't stop thinking that in 5-10 yrs from now, we will all have thin clients all around and a home server with ton of storage available via home network. For that, having a right NAS is a ticket to ride.

Phoronix continued with its series of articles that look back at the way how different Linux distros developed through time. This time, guys took a look at the visual history of Fedora.

For the end, we would advise you to relax a bit by taking a look at two games that were released last year, but still give ton of fun. Gaming site from the friends at Futuremark, YouGamers tested GTR2 - FIA GT Racing Game from SimBin/10tacle Studios and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion from Bethseda Softworks. GTR2 will make you cringe with the unprecented amount of realism inside a game, so better grab that steering wheel. Oblivion just became available for the PlayStation 3 console, making this hit available for all key markets - PC, Xbox 360 and PS2. With the fact that Wii is nothing else but a re-spin of Gamecube with better prices, Wii's graphics and CPU cannot cope with next-gen graphics offered by Oblivion.

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