Hmm.. sub-zero cooling, yes I want one..

Digital Storm, the predominant name in computer system integration and engineering, proudly debuts the industry’s most vastly superior vertically cooled gaming PC – Black|OPS Assassin.

The Assassin is Digital Storm’s latest system under the Black|OPS brand, notorious for benchmark busting performance. Each Assassin system contains an innovatively designed chassis that naturally promotes vertical heat dissipation by taking advantage of heat’s naturally tendency to rise. With three enormous 180mm fans positioned at the bottom of the chassis, cold air is pumped into the machine & warm air is forced out through the top of the chassis. Next, Assassin receives Digital Storm’s Sub-Zero Liquid Cooling System treatment which not only removes performance inhibiting heat from the processor, but also from the motherboard’s chipset and voltage regulators. The combination of these processes results in outrageous overclocking potential, with recorded overclocks of 4.4GHz and higher.

For hardcore gamers and enthusiasts who want the most astonishing graphics performance imaginable, Assassin is able to efficiently cool a three-way SLI configuration of NVIDIA’s GTX 480s with minimal graphic card fan noise. Digital Storm has also rotated Assassin’s motherboard 90 degrees clockwise, allowing for neat peripheral cable organization. The sleek, modern looking chassis is made entirely from aluminium and features a large side window that cleanly displays the world’s best hardware within.

“Assassin is the system that performance enthusiasts have been waiting for. The pairing of exceptional components, patented processes and bleeding-edge design enables components to be pushed far beyond what any other gaming PC on the market today can promise,” remarked Rajeev Kuruppu, Digital Storm’s Director of Product Development. “The ability to effectively remove component damaging and performance inhibiting heat is phenomenal, but I’m astonished by how quietly we were able to accomplish this.  The phrase whisper quiet is an understatement.”

Digital Storm’s Black|OPS Assassin gaming PCs are backed by the company’s Standard 3 Year Premium Parts and Labor Warranty are available for purchase at www.DigitalStormOnline.com. The base configuration for the Performance configuration has a starting price of $2,387.

Supposedly the United States is this great big super power, but yet we can’t seem to get any of the good tech first.. it comes to us months after the UK and Asia and Europe usually,  it drive me nuts really… There’s so many press releases that I see about these cool new product being announced overseas with delivery dates here being months later, or some never even making it here.. Anyway, if you want a black Wii then you’ll finally be able to get one in the U.S. on May 9th. What’s nice is that it comes with Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort and Wii MotionPlus..

A great value in video games is about to get even better. Starting May 9, Nintendo will add new elements to the baseline Wii^™ system package offered at retailers throughout the Americas. In addition to the intuitive, motion-sensing Wii Remote^™ controller, Nunchuk^™ controller and popular Wii Sports^™ game that currently comes standard with each system purchase, every new unit will now also come packaged with Wii Sports Resort^™ and the control-enhancing Wii MotionPlus^™ accessory. In addition, consumers will be able to choose between two color schemes for the Wii console and included controllers: original white, or a new black option. The U.S. suggested retail price of the new system package will remain at $199.99. Pricing outside the United States will be established by the local markets, but offer similar consumer value.

www.nintendo.com

The USB connection is often an afterthought on computers. It is not the fastest way to transfer data as that distinction could go to Firewire or the newer eSATA connections. However USB ports are ubiquitous since they are the most common way external devices connect to a computer. Cell phones, PDAs, iPods, and external hard drives all use this venerable port.

To help the USB keep pace in terms of speed the USB-IF created the USB 3.0 which is destined to phase out USB 2.0 over the coming years. This new USB interface is designed around a “SuperSpeed” bus which can transfer data at up to 4.8 Gbps. This protocol is backwards compatible with earlier USB connections the same way USB 2.0 was with USB 1.0. A good overview of the new standard can be found here.

Seagate is one of the first external hard drive manufacturers to take advantage of the new USB spec and have just released the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit. This kit allows laptops with ExpressCard slots to take advantage of the faster interface speeds by using the included PC Card that houses a USB 3.0 port. This version of the BlackArmor’s looks like its USB 2.0 predecessor with just on slight difference the mini-USB 3.0 connector on the back.

Today at Bona Fide Reviews we will take a closer look at this drive and see how much faster it really gets.

Specifications:

BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit

The fast and secure portable hard drive with USB 3.0 performance

• Delivers transfer speeds up to 3x faster than USB 2.0 drives
• Includes software that backs up your entire system including OS, programs and settings
• Protects backed up files with AES 256-bit encryption
• Includes everything you need to upgrade your laptop to USB 3.0

Specifications Model Number ST905003BPA1ES-RK Interface USB 3.0 Capacity 500GB PHYSICAL Height 12.5mm (0.49 in) Width 80mm (3.15 in) Length 130mm (5.12 in) Weight (typical) 178g (.39 lb) Shipping Weight .36kg (0.794 lb) PERFORMANCE Spindle Speed 7200 RPM

Looking for a fast portable drive with plenty of storage?
Then look no further. The Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 portable drive USB 3.0 kit makes quick work of even the biggest files, so you can transfer or back up your videos and other critical files without waiting forever. In fact, you can transfer a 25GB HD movie in just 4.2 minutes, compared to 13.9 minutes with a USB 2.0 drive.

• Transfers files fast thanks to a 7200 RPM BlackArmor PS 110 portable drive and USB 3.0 connectivity
• Lets you carry and transfer your biggest files and back up your PC on the go because of its slim form factor
• Includes a complete USB 3.0 laptop upgrade kit with a PC card adapter and all the cables you need*
• Ensures reverse compatibility with USB 2.0

Securely back up and restore your digital files with ease
The BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 lets you automatically back up your files. And don’t worry if you accidently delete or lose a file due to a computer crash, because restoring any file is easy, too.

• Automatically backs up your entire system including files, programs, operating system and settings
• Protects backed up files with AES 256-bit encryption
• Restores your files—even your entire system—to a previous point in time with included SafetyDrill+™ recovery software (Bare Metal Restore)
• Features a “Try & Decide” tool that lets you try out new programs and different system settings before making them live—without affecting your system, or endangering your files

Unboxing:

Seagate ships the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit in a recyclable cardboard package. Inside the box we find the BlackArmor drive, a USB 3.0 PC Card (an ExpressCard adapter), a USB 3.0 cable, a USB 2.0 power connector cable and an instruction booklet.

The BlackArmor PS 110 is predominantly black and has a blue Seagate logo with a blue LED activity light on the top of the drive enclosure. The rear interface has the mini-USB 3.0 connection in lieu of the mini-USB 2.0 connector found on other Seagate portable drives. It is 12.5 mm in height and 12.5 x 7.5 cm in depth and width. Inside the enclosure is a 7200 RPM 2.5” hard drive.

Appearance wise the BlackArmor PS 110 looks like most recent Seagate FreeAgent Go drives and is externally indistinguishable from its USB 2.0 BlackArmor PS110 version save the USB connector. It is currently designed to work at USB 3.0 speeds only with PCs and provides drivers for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. As of the writing of this review you can only use the drive as a USB 2.0 device on both Linux and Macs without the USB 3.0 speed benefits.

At one end the USB cable looks familiar with a standard USB plug at and the alien looking USB 3.0 connector on the opposite end. This new connector is notched has what appears to be a micro-USB connector with an additional rectangular component adjacent to it. The cable is rather stiff and measures 19 inches in length.

Seagate includes an Expresscard/34 card (34mm wide version) to allow older laptops and netbooks to take advantage of USB 3.0 speeds. This card includes a USB 2.0 power cable, which is used to provide additional power to the USB 3.0 connected drive. This cable measures 29 inches providing enough room to reach any USB port on most laptops.

Besides the speedy portable drive Seagate also includes Black Armor Backup that is a suite of software based built on Acronis’ backup and restore software. From this suite you are able to automatically backup your entire system, restore files, schedule tasks, create restore points and even a sandbox called “Try and Decide” for testing out new programs and system settings before implementing them on your system.

Installation, Performance, Comparison

Setting up the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 kit involves connecting the drive to a free USB port on your PC and installing the USB 3.0 drivers. Installation of the drivers should start automatically; if it doesn’t you may need to navigate to the BlackArmor PS 110 driver location and run it from there. Once the driver is install you can disconnect the BlackArmor from the standard USB port or if you wish to use the Black Armor Backup software you can install it off the drive.

Now insert the USB 3.0 PC Card Adapter into the ExpressCard slot on your laptop. The PC should now recognize the card; there is no need to reboot after the driver installation, which is always nice. If you install the BlackArmor backup software then you will need to reboot the machine.

The indicator on the card will be red if the additional USB 2.0 power cable is not connected to it so make sure that is hooked up before plugging in the BlackArmor to the USB 3.0 port. When this cable is connected to the PC card then the indicator light will turn green.

Now connect the BlackArmor PS 110 drive to the USB 3.0 port on the PC Card. Once again the PC will look for the proper drivers and should recognize the drive after a few seconds. Now you are ready for speedy USB 3.0 action!

For testing I used a MacBook Pro, an HP Pavilion Laptop and an Intel Core i7 Desktop with a PCI-E USB 3.0 card. To benchmark the drive – DriveBench, HD Tune Pro 4.01 and ATTO Disk Benchmark were used. The BlackArmor was tested using both USB 2.0 and 3.0 connections.

For the first set of tests I used the PC Card on a MacBook Pro running BootCamp with Windows 7 64 Bit Home Edition.

With ATTO Disk Benchmark I obtained these two results. The BlackArmor connected to a USB 2.0 port ran at the expected 30-35 MB/s performance, but strangely on the USB 3.0 connected test the numbers were better than the USB 2.0 bench but not as impressive as expected.

After researching this issue I discovered that there are two types of Expresscard/34 Standards each with different speeds. The newer ExpressCard 2.0 Standard operates at a raw bandwidth of 5 Gbit/s (transfer speed 500 MB/s) while the original version has half that throughput.

Apparently the MacBook Pro I used for testing was using the ExpressCard 1.0 standard. This was the speed bottleneck on these benchmarks. To test the optimum capability of the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit I borrowed an HP Pavilion that used the newer ExpressCard 2.0 standard. Here are the Pavilion and Desktop PC with USB 3.0 results using ATTO.

Much better and in line with what Seagate was advertising.

Next I tested the BlackArmor using HD Tune Pro 4.01. Once again the ExpressCard 1.0 standard slowed the speedy performance of the BlackArmor but still provides almost double the speed of USB 2.0 connections.

For the final test I ran DriveBench on the Core i7 using a 1.2 GB file.

So what did we learn from all these benches? The BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit is fast, very fast. Speeds are dependent on the type of USB 3.0 connection and interface. Since the PCI-E USB 3.0 ports are powered off a molex inside the PC these connections seem like they will provide more consistent power to the drive than the USB ports powering the included PC Card. This seems to show with faster performance on the desktop over the laptops.

The BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit does tie up a USB 2.0 port on the laptop but it evens out with the USB 3.0 port gained with the PC card. The kit does require additional power to run the BlackArmor at USB 3.0 speeds which may affect battery life on the laptop or netbook which is another thing to be aware of before making the commitment to using the PC card full time. It may be more beneficial to hook up the drive when you need fast transfer and then disconnect the PC card.

Using the BlackArmor with a PCI-E card makes the PC card kit superfluous so if you don’t need to use the drive at USB 3.0 speed with a laptop then you may just want to pick up the drive by itself and forgo the PC card kit.

Conclusion:

The BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit is a great way to enter the world of USB 3.0 devices. Soon USB 3.0 will become the defacto standard but many older laptops may be left out in the cold. This kit allows machines sporting ExpressCard/34 slots to be retrofitted with USB 3.0 compatibility. In addition the drive and USB 3.0 port are backward compatible meaning USB 1.0 and 2.0 can be used with the drive or the kit.

Seagate upgraded the drive from the 5400RPM version found in their FreeAgent Go and the original BlackArmor PS 110 to a speedier 7200 RPM model to take advantage of the USB 3.0 interface. Basically this drive flies with speeds 2 ½ times the speed of USB 2.0. After using a USB 3.0 drive you will not want to go back to the turtle like transfer speeds of USB 2.0.

The drive is backward compatible so even if you can only take advantage of USB 3.0 speeds on your laptop you still can use the drive with standard USB 2.0 ports. If you are looking for one of the fastest portable drives in the market look no further than the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit.

Pros:
+Fast, fast, fast
+Sleek looking drive
+Black Armor Software
+Solid construction
+7200 RPM hard drive
+Acronis based backup software suite

Cons:
-Only operates USB 3.0 speeds on Windows PCs
-Stiff USB 3.0 cable
-Express card requires USB 2.0 port power
-Runs slower on ExpressCard 1.0 standard

Ratings
Overall: 4.5 out of 5
Performance: 4.5 out of 5
Aesthetic: 5 out of 5
Build Quality:5  out of 5

(Disclosure Policy)

Today for review I’ve got another product from NZXT, another chassis called the Lexa S that is nicely made and designed.  It features four fans pre-installed and even a fan controller built into the case to control those fans. Overall the case is nicely designed and manufacture red, but it’s not without its faults…

Specifications:

LEXA S Crafted Series

Black Steel Mid Tower Chassis
As with all of NZXT’s cases, Lexa S is designed for enhanced airflow with capability for 5 fans including 120mm fans on the front, side, and exhaust with a 140 mm fan on top. NZXT includes the side, rear, top, and front fans along with a fan controller that controls dual intakes and exhausts independently and effectively optimizes your computers performance based on your preference for pure power or whisper quiet operation.

Lexa S offers gamers sleek aesthetics with a smoked clear window and all black interior along with a 5.25″ stealth bay, turned HDD cage, and punched holes in the motherboard which makes for a cleaner look and gives enthusiasts a solution for superior cable management. Additional features include a bracket for two Solid State Drives.

Features
* Immense Performance: 4 of 5 fans included ( Front 120mm fan, Top 140mm fan, Side 120MM LED fan, rear 120mm exhaust included ), fans rated at 43CFM, 23dB(A)
* Fan control: Determine noise and airflow based on your needs, dual intakes and dual exhausts are controlled independently
* Black on Black: Smoked clear window and a black interior gives the best combination of black on black.
* Meshed front panel allows for more airflow
* NZXT Solid State bracket allows for two SSD drives to be installed
* Wire Routing: Motherboard punched holes allows for quick CPU bracket removable and optimal wire routing.
* Turned HDD also helps with providing a cleaner look.
* Pre-drilled water cooling holes on the back plate
* High end graphics card support, extra space is especially designed to fit longer 10.5″ cards
* Side mounted USB, Audio, and E-SATA ports
* Mounting holes for dual radiator at the top
* Removable filter at the bottom PSU
* Rubber Grommet for wire routing gives a even sleeker look to the system

Specs:
MODEL: Lexa S SERIES
CASE TYPE: MID TOWER Black interior chassis
FRONT PANEL MATERIAL: Steel
DIMENSIONS (W x H x D): 196 X 480 X 528 mm

COOLING SYSTEM:
FRONT, 1 x 120mm , 23db/42CFM (included)
SIDE, 1 x 120mm LED fan@1200RPM, 23db/42CFM (included)
TOP, 2 x 140/120mm ( 1 140mm included)
REAR, 1 x 120mm, 23db/42CFM (included)

DRIVE BAYS:
11 DRIVE BAYS
4 EXTERNAL 5.25″ DRIVE BAYS
7 INTERNAL 3.5″ DRIVE BAYS

MATERIAL(S):Steel Construction
EXPANSION SLOTS: 7
WEIGHT: 7 KGS (W/O Power)
MOTHERBOARD SUPPORT: MOTHERBOARDS: ATX, MICRO-ATX, BABY AT

Unboxing:
The Lexa S comes in an attractive looking box and the case inside is well packed for protection. There’s even a protective plastic covering on the bezel and side window as well to insure it makes it to you without a scratch.

The front bezel is sort of a sharp wedge shaped design and the side view is very distinctive with the bezel being higher than the rest of the case.

Opening the front door reveals four 5.25” drive bays and one 3.5” bay, you’ll also see the power and reset buttons along with the fan controller knobs. There are two knobs, but each knob controls two fans.

On the left side of the bezel is where you’ll find the USB, eSATA and audio ports.

On the top you’ll find one fan pre-installed with space for another for added cooling abilities.

The right side panel is just plain, there is an indentation to help you remove the panel though.

The left side is a smoke colored window with a fan pre-installed.

Moving to the back of the case we find the usual things, exhaust fan, PCI slots, space for PSU, I/O plate and we find two rubberized holes for optional liquid cooling near the top.

On the bottom of the Lexa S we find rubber feet and a removable air filter for the power supply.

Both side panels are held on by thumbscrews which makes life easier when you’re installing the system.  Once you have the left side panel off you can get a closer view of the fan as well.

The inside of Lexa S is painted black. Here’s several views of the inside.

The motherboard features rubberized long holes for routing your cables.

Installed in the hard drive bay is the SSD adapter, with it you can install two 2.5” SSDs or regular hard drives if you wish.

All of the fans have both Molex and 3 pin power connections. The wires for the Lexa S include the normal things along with a Molex connection for the fan controller. The fan controller also has two dual 3pin connections as well.

The small brown box has the user manual, HDD drive rail and screws in it for installation. There are thumbscrews for installing the 5.25” bay devices.

Removing the right panel we can really see how the motherboard has a large cut out where the CPU would be installed, this make life much easier when swapping CPU coolers as you won’t have to remove the motherboard from the case.

The front bezel pops off to reveal the front 120mm fan with included fan filter. Here you can get a better look at all of the wiring as well.

Installation, Performance, Comparison
There’s plenty of room to install a system in the Lexa S, for my installation I used an older system, a P4 based one. My friend had some parts lying around and asked me to build a system for his young daughter. It’s just for doing homework and browsing the internet so nothing powerful is really needed, this little P4 system will do the job just fine.

The system was originally in a Compaq case that was beat up and dirty really, the entire system was full of dust and just downright nasty really. So I pulled the CPU and chipest heatsink off and replaced the thermal compound for him with some Coolink Chilleramic, it’s much better than the gunk that Compaq used when building the system. Even though it was a proprietary case everything fit just fine in the Lexs S.

I really like the fact that thumbscrews are used for the optical drives, it makes life easier and the installation that much quicker.

I utilized the holes in the board to pass the ribbon cables though as well for the hard drive, and I zip tied everything that I could to make things look a bit nicer.

Here’s the back side view of the case so you can see how the spot with the CPU is mounted:

The side window is smoked in color but still transparent enough to see the system inside.

Once powered on the front bezel lights up with a few different blue LEDs and the side fan also has blue LEDs in it.

The included fan controller works very well. I have it hooked up so that I can control the front and side fan with one knob and the top and rear exhaust with the other knob. Intake and exhaust can be easily controlled now with just the twist of the knob. There’s enough fans already in the case to keep things nice and cool, even at low speeds the temperature inside are cool. On low speed the fans are virtually silent but when you turn them up to full speed they are audible and for me personally a bit too loud. For a basic system you won’t need to turn the fan up to high as they do a decent job at providing good airflow even on low speeds.

There’s plenty of room inside of the Lexa S for most any system, you should be able to get large sized video cards in there without a problem.

The addition of the wire management holes do make things a lot easier and of course it keeps things neat and tidy. I like how they are rubberized, they not only protect the wires but they hold them in place as well since the rubber is cut to hold the wires tight.

I did run across one problem with the Lexa S though. There are holes in the motherboard for wire management as we know, but there’s one near the top that should be used for the extra power connector for the motherboard. many motherboards have the 4pin power connection near the top, and the hole there makes it so you can route the wire behind the motherboard. The problem is two-fold really though. The hole seems a bit too small to get the connector through it, it fit but not without a fight. The second problem is that there’s almost no room between the hole opening and the top mounted fan. It took quite a bit of struggling to get that power connection though there and connected to the motherboard. You could of course move the one fan to the front spot, but then if you wanted to have two fans installed you’d end up with the same problem again. The only fix I could see would be to modify the design of the case to make it a little bit taller, if the case was a half inch to inch taller it would be fine, and you’d have enough room to work.

Another work around would be to install the CPU after you get the wires hooked to the motherboard, then you’d have a little bit more room to work, but then you’d run across the space issue while installing the CPU.

Conclusion:
The NZT Lexa S is a very nice case overall in both quality and design. The addition of the fan controller is very much appreciated and it makes controlling the temperature and noise level of your case easy.

The fact that the motherboard is cut out to allow you to easily swap CPUs is a great feature that I think should be on every motherboard tray. I personally hate to take the entire motherboard out just to install a CPU cooler.

The additional little features like the thumbscrews for the 5.25” bays and the rubberized wire management holes are a nice touch as well.

The one issue I mentioned about being very cramped near the top fan is one that I don’t like at all really, it’s easy to get your system in the case up to that point and once you’re at that point you can get frustrated. The design at that point stopped being good really, someone just wasn’t thinking clearly when they made that are so tight to work in.

Pros:
+Lots of room
+Looks great
+Cools well

Cons:
-Very cramped near top fan

Ratings
Overall: 4 out of 5
Performance: 5  out of 5
Aesthetic: 4 out of 5
Build Quality: 4 out of 5

I would like to thank NZXT for the opportunity to review the Lexa S and for their support of Bona Fide Reviews.