Featured Tech Reviews

The second quarter of this year was a disaster for electronics retain darling, DSG (Dixons Stores group). The press reported losses of around £224M, but the DSG board was quick to rally. What got blamed last time, what do we expect to be the issue this time and what will …

Intel is in the business of not only making the impossible, possible – it also spends billions in productising its inventions and bringing them to market. Right now, the chip-giant is preparing for the launch of Sandy Bridge E for X79. From the brainstorming drawing board, to sitting in a …

Back in 2008, NZXT released the Avatar gaming mouse featuring an ambidextrous design. As with all of NZXT’s PC accessories, ‘Avatar' was designed to provide gamers with an advantage over their competitors. Move forward to summer of 2011 and NZXT has released the Avatar S, the successor to the original …

We have reviewed several Bigfoot networking products in the past and have found them to be a big step up for enthusiast users when compared against the native onboard solutions. Today we are looking at the new Killer Wireless N 1102 which is geared from the ground up for streaming …

Xigmatek have been earning a solid reputation among the enthusiast community for their high quality range of products. Today we are looking at the gargantuan Elysium case, which on paper looks to be possibly one of the best value and most capable cases on the market. The Xigmatek Elysium is …

Hauppauge have been creating a plethora of TV oriented products now for many years and today we are looking at their Colossus video recording card which can capture real time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. Is this ideal for capturing video console footage? Hauppauge currently make several …

Thermaltake have had great success with their range of TT eSPORTS gaming keyboards, with the MEKA G1 earning many awards worldwide. It is a tasty product on paper, incorporating a beautiful finish with fast response time, USB 2.0 inputs and high grade mechanical keys. Today we are looking at the …

It has been a really strong year for Arctic Cooling as they have continued to expand upon their product portfolio, even diversing into a range of rather interesting remote control toys, for land and sea. Today we are reviewing their latest Entertainment Center, a sleek HTPC with an ATOM processor, …

Many months after the initial launch there are a wide variety of HD6970's available on the market, some with custom coolers and others with enhanced PCB designs. Today we are looking at the new HD6970 board from HIS, which features both. The HIS HD6970 IceQ Mix is the latest high …

When Dirt 3 was released the developers pointed out that their advanced code took advantage of extra physical processing cores.  Putting this to the test, we decided to investigate this further, by comparing an AMD quad-core and hex-core processor, on the basis of an upgrade. DiRT 3 was only released …

There has been a lot of rumour on the web about XBox 360 disc (disk?) scratching over the years, but it seemed to come to a head last Christmas with the launch of the Kinect. KitGuru chased Microsoft hard after we first went live with a series of XDisc stories …

Many readers might not have heard of Cougar, but they are a retail subset from parent company HEC, who also produce computer cases in Europe. They manufacture a full range of power supplies, including 600, 700, 800 and 900 Watt models, and today we are looking at their highest rated …

ASrock have been active in the last 12 months, releasing a high quality range of motherboards and small form factor computers. Today we are looking at their latest range of media centers – the Core HT HTPC, which is based around the Intel Sandybridge platform. The Home Theater computer we …

A short while ago we reviewed the G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB DDR3-2133mhz kit which was retailing for an incredibly low £50 inc vat. Today we are looking at the latest G.Skill 1600mhz RipjawsX bundle which is an 8GB kit retailing for £59.15 inc vat. Is this an ideal upgrade for your …

A couple of weeks back, AMD released the notebook portion of their Llano platform, dubbed ‘Sabine', which we explained in detail over here.  This left many people wondering when the desktop variant of Llano would be released, and how it would perform compared to the latest offerings from Intel. Today …

If you enjoyed our review of the new Sapphire Mini ITX H67 motherboard, then today's review product will be just as appealing. We are looking at the latest Micro ATX Asus Maximum IV Gene-Z motherboard which brings the Z68 chipset to the HTPC audience. The Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z motherboard …

Over the past year or so, we've seen a number of PC gaming peripheral manufacturers like SteelSeries and Sharkoon adding Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 headsets to their lineups, building on the products they have in their PC ranges.  Despite not having had a range of PC gaming headsets on …

If you read Kitguru regularly, there is no chance you will have missed us singing the praises of the Noctua NH D14 cooler which we have affectionately dubbed ‘The Austrian Sandwich'. Even all this time after the initial release, competitors are still using it as the yardstick to judge cooling …

Well, it's official, Tobias Brinkmann is back within the OCZ fold as Director of Caching and Hybrid Drives. So what is this new role all about and why was OCZ so keen to get their business development guru back on board? KitGuru peaks at satellite footage from San Jose and …

Recently we looked at the Spectrum 5XB, SteelSeries' first attempt at an Xbox 360 gaming headset …. essentially their 5H headset with a clever adapter which allowed you to plug it into an Xbox controller for Xbox Live chat.  Not to rest on their laurels, the SteelSeries' boffins have been …

One of AMD's most active partners in recent months has been PowerColor. They have been releasing a wide selection of quality HD6000 series cards with custom PCB and proprietary cooler designs. Today we are looking at an affordable CrossfireX configuration which will work perfectly inside a chassis with limited physical …

Cooler Master have been releasing power supplies now for many years and today we are looking at an upgrade to their long standing 650w non modular unit. It receives 80 Plus Certification and a range of internal design changes, with a new Enhance implementation. Cooler Master are also aiming for …

If you are in the market for a new keyboard then there are literally thousands available today which use membrane technology – but this won't be the first choice for the discerning enthusiast user as they can often feel ‘spongy' when typing.  Where we really see a step up in …

While all of the world's top chassis designers fight it out in the mid-range to entry-level, only a select few have consistently battled for the accolade of the finest chassis ever produced. KitGuru was lucky enough to be allowed inside Silverstone's Taiwan headquarters for a 1-on-1 with Chassis guru and …

Roll the clock back 10 years and there was no BeQuiet. At Computex 2011, the company began to flex its muscles.By Computex 2012, the company will have a completely different profile. KitGuru pieces together the info and looks ahead. Germans are a meticulous bunch, by and large. So when a …

When Crucial released the C300 series of Solid State Drives last year they outperformed anything else available at the time. With read speeds around 340MB/s the Sandforce drives had a serious performance disadvantage, only offering around 280MB/s. The market today is in a very different state and the new SATA …

Today AMD are launching their new 990FX chipset motherboards and we are looking at the Asus Sabertooth model which is a board loaded with a plethora of features. The Ultimate Force (TUF) Sabertooth 990FX has a 10 phase Digi+ VRM and it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots which …

KitGuru readers love modified, custom graphics cards and today we are looking at one of the most eye catching designs yet, the new HIS HD6970 ICEQ Turbo Edition –  a preoverclocked card with a dramatically designed custom cooler. The HIS HD6970 IceQ Turbo Edition is supplied with a modest overclock …

Enthusiast users with a constrained budget often have to make compromises in regards to quality, building a PC around a chassis that emits a lot of fan noise due to thin panel design and the inclusion of low quality fans. Enter Cooler Master with their new Silencio 550, a case …

Kitguru has been using PowerDVD now for a year in many of our reviews. It is without question a great real world test for processors, and with hardware acceleration enabled it can give a good indication of how a new graphics card can help with high definition media playback. Today …