Ikonik’s Azaria A20 leaves an imprint

THIS IS A FIRST: a case that you can kick to turn your PC on. Tech Power Up has the Ikonik Zaria A20, on the bench today and TPU is having the time of its life. The Zaria A20 features SIM (System Intelligent Management) which provides you visual feedback on temps, fan speeds and other nice little details. As a case, it’s pretty solid and features a tool-less setup. HDD? No problem! Slide ‘em on in… Read it here.

If you liked the HD 4870X2 as a graphics performer, then you’ll want to read Elite Bastard’s review of two of these monsters. Yes, Quadfire with the most powerful graphics cards on Earth. It’s 2560x1600 all the way but it seems you can sink the Battleship Quadfire with Crysis set at 2560x1600 and everything pushed up. Naturally you’ll need a small nuclear power plant to power this setup… Get it here.

Lenovo continues to churn out Stinkpads in ol’ IBM tradition. Their latest T500 is being reviewed by the chaps at Inside HW. This is a workhorse with a twist: it sports dual graphics. The IGP is the Intel GMA X4500HD and the second, discrete, is a mobile HD 3650 part with 512MB of DDR3 RAM. If the specs are to be believed, it’s got 1920x1200 on a 15.4-inch panel (blimey!), though we checked the Lenovo site and they state 1680x1050 (that’s more like it). Read the review, here.

Digit Life did an interesting analysis of Intel’s monster QX9770 running different speeds of memory and how it performs in everyday apps. The whole synching issue rears its ugly head again, as synched memory outperforms slightly faster, albeit un-synched RAM. The difference between DDR3-800 and DDR3-1600 is minimal at most, and usually not worth the bother… so consider this when you’re buying DDR3.

We didn’t catch Chile Hardware’s HD 4550 review yesterday, so we’re including it today. Luis got hold of two, so there are numbers for single card and Crossfire X performance. As noted yesterday, this is a very light card with passive cooling and a tiny little price tag. Crossfire does a good showing of the card’s ability, but a couple of these are still slower than a single HD 4670, so the whole Crossfire matter is more of a gimmick than a useful feature. In Spanish, here, or in Googlenglish, here.

We’ve loved DLP projectors from the day they were born. Pricey, but the benefits were too great to ignore. Well, Thrusting Reviews got a Planar PD8130 DLP projector to play around with. Planar caters to a select (demanding) type of customer, and this is no exception – it’s one of the best TR has reviewed, and they can’t wait to get their hands on the next Planar product. Read all about it.

Stuck somewhere between 30-inchers and 24-inchers, Samsung put their 25.5-inch Syncmaster 2693HM. It’s a rather poor excuse for a panel, but Bit-tech felt it was oddly interesting. It also costs less than the 24-incher we bought in February. Not for everyone, as the poor colour fidelity will leave graphic designers frustrated. Check this one ou t. µ