Lian Li: Quality Cases, but a Wallet Breaker
Hey guys, Icarus here. I thought of a new idea: reviewing computer component companies as an overall company for its products, and review them from a computer hardware reviewer looking at new computer components from different perspectives. Today I will talk about Lian Li.
When I hear the word Lian Li, a few words come to mind: classic, excellent quality, and a long tradition for building only the best cases with the best construction, structure, and material. If you have never seen a Lian Li Case, you are missing out; just one look at its classic look and the interior design will put you all in awe.
Lian Li has been around for a very very long time now, and they have always been known as an excellent company of cases. They’re known for their own “Lian Li classic look” that they have created on their own, and I respect them for that. They have stayed in the “normal” computer case type for a pretty long time until a few months ago when they released their first new gaming computer case. The new gaming cases still had the feel and similarity of a classic Lian Li, but the classic look was utilized with the modern gaming impression. This case is also great.
However, Lian Li has one large concern: the price of the case. Although it is understandable to raise the prices of cases because they are made of the top material and with the top structure, many Lian Li cases are still over $250. This is somewhat outrageous for a case; a computer builder on a somewhat tight budget, who is among the abundant mid-budget computer builders, cannot slap down three hundred dollar bills on a single component of a computer, especially the case. The importance of the case is to safely shelter and create a pathway for the components to cool down, but unless the components are also very good, the case will not be worth it.
Many Lian Li cases are also large, with too many hard drive cages and optical drive cages to fill. This makes it hard to fully utilize the case itself, making the case have a bad price-to-performance ratio.
So, from the perspective of a computer builder, Lian Li is an excellent company for cases. However, from a budget point of view, Lian Li will not be on the list for many computer builders.
Icarus
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The NVidia 9800GX2 Revisited
Hey guys, Icarus here again with more hardware review. Since I’ve been talking a lot about GPU’s lately, I thought I’d revisit some of the older GPU’s for once.
The NVidia 9800GX2 has been out for a month or so, and the prices haven’t quite budged- still at a high average price of $539.99, the 9800GX2 is still quite expensive, as I’ve said a few words ago. The 9800GX2 was to be the new “king of the hill” GPU, surpassing the Ultra but still stay at a relatively low price for the performance it provides. One criteria was met, but the other wasn’t: it’s almost as expensive as some low-end NVidia 8800 Ultra’s.
The 9800GX2 outperforms the 8800 Ultra’s, but came with a price tag too large to make it favorable for many aspiring computer builders. Since many new aspiring computer builders often have a low- to mid-range budget, most of us will not have the money to spend 600 dollars on a single component of the computer. If NVidia intended to push away ATi by releasing the 9800GX2 and become more favorable than ATi, NVidia has failed to do so. My first impression upon the release of the 9800GX2 was: “Wow, very nice. You beat your own 8800 Ultra. So what?”. To achive our votes, NVidia should have released the 9800GTX first, which was a better but still somewhat disappointing GPU. The 9800GTX is at a pretty good price right now at the average price of $309.99, and also performs almost as well as the 8800 Ultras.
So, the bottom point: The 9800GX2’s are still not even remotely close to being worth its rediculously high price tag. NVidia should have released the 9800GTX first, then the 9800GX2. Then maybe NVidia would’ve had much more success in the GPU market.
That’s all for tonight, enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Icarus
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The Case Review: The Antec Three Hundred
Ok, well, I got the motivation to write another article tonight. This time, I’m going to review the new Antec Three Hundred Case.
Hmm… well, one look at this case, and the first thing that occurred to my mind was how similar this case was to the Antec 900. Although it seems as though Antec is going through another evolution of the Antec 900, the real evolution is the Antec Twelve Hundred case, just so that there is no misunderstanding.
The Antec Three Hundred has similar internal structures as the Antec 900, with enough room for 6 hard drives, an NVidia 8800 series GPU, and one 120mm fan with another one 140mm fan. This case also includes fan filters, which is a large plus because there will be minimal dust in your case to have potentially harmful damages to your internal components.
The one con in this case is the look. Although this case was created to be a more affordable gaming case than the Antec 900, the gaming look that Antec created is not quite there. It would be unfair to compare this case to the Antec 900, but there are just too many similarities to completely ignore the influences of the Antec 900 case.
So, overall, this case is very nice; just not my example of a gaming case.
Icarus
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The New Enthusiast Motherboard: EVGA 790i Ultra Motherboard
All right, today, I was looking around the Internet for new hardware, and I saw the EVGA 790i SLI motherboard, so I will talk about that today.
I’m basing this review solely on what information is provided out there because I’ve never actually used this motherboard. However, I would love to get my hands on one because reviews out there are saying awesome things about this motherboard.
However, the reviews out there do not put money into play. This motherboard right now is selling for a minimum of $300, and $319.99 at TigetDirect. That’s VERY EXPENSIVE. I mean, we all know that this motherboard is only for enthusiasts, but $300 for a single component in our computers is, frankly, absurd.
The 790i, from the structural view, is just a 780i SLI motherboard with a different Northbridge Fan, heatsinks around the CPU area, and DDR3 RAM instead of DDR2 RAM. For now, I would avoid this motherboard if you don’t have the money to; with 3 PCIe 2.0 slots, 4 DDR3 RAM slots, and massive potential for massive overclocking, this motherboard is ONLY for those hardcore computer enthusiasts who have the money and the knowledge to push this motherboard to its very edge.
You’d also need at least 2 videocards to utilize the minimum SLI, and at least 1 stick of quality DDR3 RAM. Now there goes about $700 minimum, if you use 2 8800GT’s and 2GB of DDR3 1333 memory. That’s enough to build a quality mid-range computer.
So, now you ask, right now, is this motherboard really worth the cost? Yes, if you have the money. Definitely no if you don’t. When I say “have the money”, I mean over $1500 for your budget, plus knowledge in overclocking. That’s a LOT of things in hand for one single component.
Well, that’s all for tonight. Have a great night everyone!
Icarus
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The nVidia Rumors: 9900GTX and 9900GX2
Hey guys, I’m back! Sacramento trip wasn’t that exciting, but I guess it was ok.
Anyways, today I’m going to talk about the new GPU’s that’re going to get released in mid-July, according to rumors: the 9900GTX and 9900GX2.
Now, nVidia just released the 9800GX2 and 9800GTX GPUs a few weeks before… so… why would they keep releasing more and more new ones? Well, nVidia is releasing the 9900 series to replace the 9800 series. The 9900GTX will replace the 9800GTX, and the 9900GX2 will replace the 9800GX2. But again, why would they do this?
Frankly, I don’t really know what the heck they’re thinking. Doesn’t that sound familiar though? That’s the same thing they did for the 9800GTX; it was released to replace the former 8800GTX. So, why would they do the same thing twice? Well, a rather simple idea is that nVidia is stalling for more time. More time for what? To develop new chips of course!
Have you noticed that ever since the debut of the G92 chip in the 8800GT that they’ve been kind of stalled in development. Here, look at their GPU’s: the 8800GT, the 8800GTS G92, the 9600GT(G94, which is a close sibling of the G92), the 9800GX2(just two G92 chips put together on a single card) and the 9800GTX(again, the G92 chip). They’ve been using the same chip for many months now. IMO, now would be the time for something new, something just so original that it just beats every other GPU.
You know, if they keep this up, they may give ATi enough time to catch up on them in market shares, and maybe beat nVidia! Then no more part-monopoly!! Well, that’s all for tonight. Good night!
Icarus
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