TastyPC.TV is one of my favourite hardware channels on YouTube run by a reviewer called Lauren. Recently she produced a time lapse video of her creating a watercooled build backed by music from Spaze. I really enjoyed this video so I’m sharing it with you in the hope that you too will enjoy it. She did leave the GPU out of the loop but that’s because this build was just to review the case after which it would be dismantled. The video did so well that it even made it onto Asus’s gaming site, Republic of Gamers, so well done Lauren! Enjoy.

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The all-in-one cpu liquid cooler wars are on with numerous hardware vendors now manufacturing products in this category including Corsair, NZXT, Coolermaster and Enermax! Recently NZXT released the Kraken X40 and X60 based on the 140mm fan form factor and standardised on 15mm spacing between fans. These proved to be very popular and outperformed Corsair’s flagship coolers – H100 and H100i.

Corsair, competitively, now also has adopted the 140mm form factor in their new releases – the H90 and H110 (press release). I personally am very glad to see Corsair upgrade to 140mm and I think the H110 will be my preferred CPU cooler from now on though I am very disappointed that manufacturers have not been able to standardise on fan spacing lengths. Most manufacturers support 15mm which is why NZXT also recently standardised on it but Corsair appear to have opted to remain with their original choice of 20mm fan spacing.

I think this may be because their cases to date support 20mm and they want maximum compatibility. However NZXT also had this problem and they instead chose to resupply panels for existing cases with the new spacing as well as do new case releases for existing models to support the new spacing. This split support for fan spacing will unfortunately mean that you can’t just buy a 140mm or 280mm cooler and expect to fit it into just any case with 140mm fan mounts. You have to check the fan spacing. And this is sad but there are so many examples within consumer hardware of such proprietary divergence in standards. Nevertheless it is very good to see 140mm being supported. The larger radiator size will have a greater surface area and provide better cooling and the larger 140mm fans will push more air with less noise than 120mm fans. So all in all – a win.

Note that the H90 and H110 are not ‘i’ versions and will not have the additional Corsair Link software integration that the ‘i’ series offers. This isn’t a bad thing for me as I feel that the additional features are extraneous and keeping the coolers simple also makes them cheaper and less prone to problems.

Corsair H110

Corsair H110 all-in-one 280mm CPU liquid cooler

Corsair H90

Corsair H90 all-in-one 140mm CPU liquid cooler

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Asus ROG RAIDR Express PCI-E SSD

Asus have announced the Asus ROG RAIDR Express PCI-E SSD at CES 2013. This is significant for a number of reasons. Recent sata SSDs have broken the 550MB/s sequential transfer rate barrier and saturated the 0.6GB/s bandwidth available through SATA3. The next SATA standard – Sata Express – has gone into ratification phase and promises 1GB/s. In the mean time a number of manufacturers including the very prominent OCZ have had PCI-E SSDs available but I get the feeling that they are still perceived as being for niche use or enterprise use.

Asus has released the Raidr Express as an ROG product thereby categorising it as a high end gaming related product. It bears the classic black and red ROG theme, is bootable and is rumored to have some form of raid on it already. This, I think, will bring PCI-E SSD into the mainstream at least for gamers and perhaps non-gamers too. It’s been in development and testing for 11 months to ensure maximum interoperability with all of Asus’s motherboards and various other motherboards too. I can’t wait to make this my primary boot drive as a disk i/op upgrade is the best investment one can make for greater performance and responsiveness.

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OCUK – Asus HD 7990 ARES 2 6144MB GDDR5

The Asus Ares II announced at CES is now available for preorder in UK at OCUK apparently exclusively for £1200. So if you want one you should preorder right away to avoid disappointment. Only 1000 units are being made worldwide so chances of getting one are slim. I’m thinking about getting one but I doubt I actually will. I don’t have any use for one at the moment and by the time I do these will no longer be available which is a shame.

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I feel like it’s a late Christmas. First Corsair release the Obsidian 900D – a perfect case for dual psu multi gpu watercooling rig. And now Asus have released something I would have appreciated greatly a few months ago when I built Project Rogue – an all in one liquid cooled dual slot 7970 GHz edition card! Even though I don’t need this card anymore, given that I own four 7970 gpus now, I still feel like I want one!

Limited Edition ROG ARES II with New Hybrid Thermal Design

Limited Edition ROG ARES II with New Hybrid Thermal Design

Just think about that for a second. This is a astonishing feat of engineering. It is special for a number of reasons.

1. It is a dual 7970 GHz edition so in essence a 7990. Admittedly it is the fifth 7990 on the market after PowerColor, HIS, Club3D and OCUK so although that’s nothing new it is the most powerful AMD card currently.
2. It is dual slot – this is a first that I’ve seen. 7990 cards are power hungry and hot beasts – they do not come in less than a triple slot form factor generally with huge and very noisy cooling apparatus attached.
3. Onto the most impressive feature – this is the first all in one liquid cooled GPU I’ve seen and I’m thoroughly impressed. Due to the additional surface area on the radiator the card retains a dual slot form factor and stays far cooler and quieter than an air cooled equivalent and for that reason this card can be pushed further in terms of performance and easily becomes the most powerful GPU in the world.
4. Last but not least – in true Asus ROG style – it is a thing of beauty with red LED lighting and a black backplate which makes it an object of desire for anyone who cares about aesthetics and especially anyone wanting a black and red themed rig like me. :)

Well done Asus. Truly well done. Now all I have to do is somehow fight the urge to get one when it’s released. Given that Asus has released this at such a late stage I’m guessing that the 8970 and 8990 are delayed then. Asus must know something we don’t.

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Today, on the first day of CES 2013, Corsair finally officially announced the huge, the imposing and the beautiful Obsidian 900D! This case is not only a thing of desire and beauty as per the Corsair rulebook of aesthetics but it also natively fits a lot of radiators and supports dual PSUs! Perfect for 8 GPU dual psu watercooled opencl workstation builds!

CES 2013 – Corsair Obsidian 900D

CES 2013 – Corsair Obsidian 900D

CES 2013 – Corsair Obsidian 900D

CES 2013 – Corsair Obsidian 900D

Corsair have also launched the long promised and long awaited Dominator Platinum light bar kits (HardwareCanucks)! The Dominator Platinum is the best looking memory in the world of which my very own Project Rogue has four sticks! Other updates from Corsair include new gaming peripherals as well as releasing a new mobile hub device which I haven’t look into too closely. My current obsession lies only with cases and what lie inside. :)

CES 2013 – Corsair Obsidian 900D

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OCUK have released a budget AMD Radeon HD 7990 card which is a dual 7970 card. It looks identical to the PowerColor Devil 13 including the red booster button at the back which makes me wonder who is actually manufacturing this card. At £720 though it is definitely a good deal giving you each single GPU for £360 – cheaper than many single 7970 cards. That makes a total of four 7990 cards on the market – PowerColor Devil 13, HIS X2, Club3D and now OCUK. The 7990 is really taking off despite it being this late in the product lifecycle which is surprising.

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Impressive and cool. A cluster of 64 Rasberry Pi boards with networking and graphics capability. See the article below for what so many other people have done with this budget small factor board.

Source: ArsTechnica

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CES 2013 will be held between Jan 8-11 and will see numerous new hardware announcements from a number of manufacturers. We’ve already witnessed the unofficial photo unveiling of the Corsair Obsidian 900D as well as Fractal Design’s announcement ahead of time of the Define XL R2 both of which are very exciting products indeed but it’s what hasn’t been announced that excites me even more.

We have been told on the 900D thread than the 900D case will have “family” which could mean further members in the Obsidian range. That would make me one happy man as a midi/atx case release from Corsair is exactly what I’m waiting for. Other than that who knows!

I’ll be watching out for announcements from Intel, AMD, Corsair, Fractal Design, Asus and more! Somehow I doubt Haswell, AMD Radeon HD 8000 series or NVidia GTX700 series will make an appearance this soon but we could see a sneak peek I suppose. I’m also looking forward to new enterprise CPUs, GPUs and motherboards. All in all – I can’t wait.

Update: CorsairGeorge has revealed that light bars for Corsair Dominator Platinum memory will be announced in CES! I’ve been waiting for this for a long time too! If you don’t know what I’m talking about have a look at the official page.

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In August 2012 an information leak revealed that Corsair was working on the much anticipated Obsidian 900D – the successor to the 800D. Not long after, CorsairGeorge, a product manager at Corsair validated this finding and confirmed that they were indeed working on such a case whilst at the same time pointing out the presence of inaccuracies in the original leak.

Over time CorsairGeorge has incrementally shared a lot of information with readers on this thread not only about this particular product but in general about Corsair’s engineering practices and roadmap as well as answering innumerable reader questions posed on the forum and this uncharacteristic openness has been received with much respect and admiration by its readers.

As a Christmas treat CorsairGeorge revealed that the 900D will be announced at CES 2013 on January 8th preceded by a press release on January 7th and shared the first full picture of the 900D as below. Although I’m not yet one for large cases a new release from Corsair is always worthy of publicity. :) Scan the full thread for messages from CorairGeorge for further detail.

Corsair Obsidian 900D

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