Holiday Upgrades Review
Seasons greetings from Unique Rigs
The holiday season is upon us. And you might be itching to get your holiday shopping started. This will be our first holiday buyer’s guide here at Unique Rigs. We will showcase a few products that maybe some PC enthusiast you know might want under the tree this year. We would like to thank all of our readers for their support the past year. It's you guys who keep us going. We also would like to thank our generous sponsors for lending their help in order for us to provide our readers with unique reviews.
Crucial Ballistix Tracers PC2-6400 4GB-Kit
Does your rig require a performance boost? Well, a memory upgrade is a way to do it. With games and operating systems requiring more and more RAM, a RAM upgrade is now a must. Crucial's Ballistix Tracer line of memory is nothing short of amazing. Our friends from Crucial provided us with their Ballistix Tracer 4GB kit, and we were very pleased with its performance. These kits come in two different coloured heatsinks, the original blacks and the new reds. The DDR2 PC2-6400 modules we tested had very good timings of 4-4-4-12, great for over clocking. We used our Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 to benchmark these bad boys, and we were able to attain a very stable 3.6GHz. As with all of Crucial's Tracer line, these puppies come with activity LEDs. As soon as we popped in our 4GB kit, we immediately noticed the faster boot-up on our system. Do refer to our charts below to see how well these modules did on our benchmarks. So if you're looking to kick start your rig, go and try these modules. The performance benefit of a RAM upgrade is very, crucial...No pun intended.
Click the image to see it full view...
Trendnet TS-S402 NAS Enclosure
So, you have all these media files that you want to share over your network. But you don't want to use one of your workstations as the file server. Then maybe you should look at a NAS solution. Trendnet has made very reliable networking products, now they've added NAS to their product lineup. Trendnet was kind enough to send us a sample of their TS-S402 NAS. The TS-S402 is a two bay SATA I/II network attached storage enclosure. This box was very easy to configure with the provided software as well as the browser setup. For its connections, it utilizes a Gigabit port. Its performance is very solid. We streamed a video file over three computers and a laptop all at the same time and there were no hick-ups at any time on any computer. It also lets you setup a RAID 1 for reliability or RAID 0 for extra performance. You can also setup scheduled data backups via FTP and HTTP servers. The Trendnet TS-S402 is a very solid NAS solution. We would highly recommend one for any media centre setup that you may be planning.
Click the image to see it full view...
Thermaltake Vi-On eSATA/USB Enclosure
External storage is a great way to store your data outside of your rig. Thermaltake has a very good external enclosure they've provided us, the Vion. This enclosure is very sleek looking. Its design is very unique from other enclosures we've seen in stores as well. The outer shell is made of entirely plastic casing. The sample we received has both USB 2.0 and eSATA connections. It also sports an internal fan, which keeps the hard drive cooled while it's on operation. And because it supports eSATA, you can be sure that your file transfers won't slow you down. So if you know anyone who is looking for an enclosure to carry their hard drive around, give this guy a look as well as other enclosure solutions from Thermaltake.
Click the image to see it full view...
NZXT Whisper & Sentry LX
NZXT has treated us with one of their full tower chassis offering, the NZXT Whisper. As the name suggests, this case was meant to be extremely quiet. NZXT used 10mm noise dampening foams on both the side panels as well as the top panel to further reduce noise coming inside the case. Because it's a full tower, this case has very roomy interiors. It also provides you with nine hard drive bays as well as six 5.25" bays. The 5.25" and 3.5" drive bays are all tool less design, making drive installs fast and easy. NZXT also placed the PSU chamber at the bottom of the case, isolating the heat emanating from the PSU to the rest of the case. There are also pre-drilled holes for your water cooling hoses. The front ports are located on top of the case, via a pop-up chamber, which is very neat. The outer shell of the case is made up of entirely of steel and the front panel is made up of a combination of aluminum and plastic. The Whisper supports any standard motherboard as well as E-ATX, though it still lacks a removable motherboard tray. The Whisper also sports two 120mm fans as well as two 80mm fans for cooling. NZXT also included a PSU dampener, to reduce the vibration from the PSU. Overall, the NZXT Whisper is a very sweet case. The outer design is very sleek and the interior is great for any type of gaming rig. With the use of very good noise dampening materials, this case is perfect if you want peace and silence in your desktop. NZXT also provided us with their new Sentry LX. The Sentry LX is an aluminum dual bay fan controller. It sports five temperature probes to monitor different areas inside your computer. The Sentry LX also allows you to connect up to five fans. You can also automatically adjust the fan speeds to match to a specific temperature or you can manually adjust it if you want maximum cooling. It also has an alarm feature, notifying you if the temperature goes beyond a certain point. The LCD is also very easy to navigate and setup. The display is also very clear and bright. It really makes your case stand out, once you put one of these bad boys in. This is a must if you want total control of your interior fans.
Click the image to see it full view...
