ESA on the prowl

NVIDIA IS PUSHING ESA (Enthusiast System Architecture) with power supply manufacturers, case builders and mobo-makers. ESA is, in essence, a way of joining compliant hardware and controlling/monitoring several parts of your system, putting you in the driver’s seat of an overclocker’s platform. You can find a very thorough walkthrough of the technology’s applications, interface, software and potential at Anandtech. Real enthusiast stuff.

As we’ve mentioned before, Gigabyte has been stepping up their game. Now they’ve taken to GPU cooling with the Cyclops – at XS Reviews. The cooling kit is composed almost entirely of fins on a copper base and – that’ll fit an AGP or PCIe card. The test was done on an old 6600GT and Whoopty found it quite silent. The price might be a bit of a pickle - £22. Keep your eye on this one.

Ars Technica has a detailed analysis of the fruity loop Mac Pro – the story picks up from the G5-birth of the Pro and carries on into 2008 with the 2x4 core Harpertown beast. OS is not a limitation, in case you’re wondering. Top notch upgradability, too. But you wouldn’t expect less when you’re doling out $3,600. Satisfy your Mac addiction here.

While most companies are chasing their tails with NAS, Norco has come up with a Network Storage Appliance, dubbed the DS-520G. It’ll let you stuff hard drives at home with photos, movies, songs and games, and serve them up easily on your network. It runs a 1GHz ULV Celeron with dual-Gigabit Ethernet ports and Extremetech took the time to do a Windows Home Server with it. It’s a more complete solution than your standard NAS, but it’s pricier too. Read the review here.

A couple of weeks ago, Sapphire was chatting up hacks with their new Atomic brand. Now they’ve allowed Fudo a test drive with an Atomic water-cooled 3870X2 card. The results aren’t up yet, but in the meantime you can look at the pretty pictures here. The tubing looks way too short though, we wonder where they’ll hook up the radiator-end of business? Stay tuned.

If you’re thinking on upgrading your display soon, you might be interested in looking at this article here. Lés Numériques has a roundup of 32(!) 23- through 27-inch LCDs. You can find panels as cheap as €320 (£242) all the way up to a gut-wrenching €1727 for Apple’s 24-incher. Belinea and Dell have winners on their hands, we thinks.

Silverstone isn’t known for its “budget” products, but they do have them. Hardware Logic has a 400W PSU – the ST40EF – a cheap ($60) kit that offers basic features and registers an 80+ efficiency without making much noise. If you are building a system without high power requirements, or replacing a legacy unit, this is it.

Altec-Lansing has, in recent years, made a name for itself by religiously following the Order of the Apple – creating unique audio solutions for your iThingie. As it was expected, they’ve churned out another one, this time targeted at the iPhone. Laptop Mag has one on display. It’s called a T612. It’s got almost everything you’d want to support the iPhone, but Apple didn’t let AL make it into a real speakerphone. Read the Mag here.

We can honestly say Bgears isn’t a tier one PSU manufacturer, but according to Modders Inc. they’re getting there. A 650W b-Tarantula landed at the lads’ office and was immediately fed some juice and measured up. It’s fully modular and carries a reasonable price tag: $130… Read it here.