Asus Xonar Essence STX reviewed

A THROW-BACK to the days of add-in audio, TweakTown is testing the Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card. James was very impressed.

George at Hillbilly Hardware is reviewing some OCZ DDR3-1600. It's a good enough RAM that you can even use on a Core i7 if you relax the latencies a bit.

Hardware Canucks are also looking at that $79 CoolIT Domino ACS, liquid cooling system. Don't think liquid has ever been so cheap.

Nox isn't a well-known brand outside Europe, but XS Reviews is putting it out there by testing the Nox Coolbay HX tower PC case.

Xbit Labs dissects the evolution of ATI's Catalyst driver performance in current games. Benchmarks include 8.7, 8.10, 8.11 and 8.12.

Fusionmods pubbed an article on the Jetway IPC barebones PC. This is a mini-ITX targeted solution, which goes well with the company's own Atom motherboard.

Tbreak has a review on Zotac GTX 285 AMP!. This is a GTX 285 with a slight overclock (+54MHz/+108MHz/+36MHz), but performance is about the same as a GTX 280, according to the site.

Tweak PC in Germany is reviewing a Thecus N5200 Pro NAS (Googlenglish). This is an enterprise, Celeron-driven, solution with an integrated 4-port Gigabit switch...

TechARP has updated its softmod guide to turning your GeForce into a Quadro. Maybe you can unlock those Quadro features in Photoshop CS4, eh?

Benchmark Reviews has a look at a prototype Antec P1000 computer case. LCS-ready and fan speed control dial for the enthusiast.

PC Shop Talk is reviewing the Glacialtech UFO V51 CPU cooler. It feature dual PWM fans that are pretty much silent. Puts some strain on the mobo, though.

Elite Bastards got hold of Sapphire's HD 4870 X2 Atomic liquid cooled graphics card. The single-slot performer is still DAAMIT's strongest card.

Fudo and the Fud Squad are looking Gigabyte's HD 4870 1GB card. This card features a Zalman VF830 cooler, which brings down temps 30ºC lower than the reference cooler. µ