COOLING TOASTY CPUS with big fans and heatsinks may not look like a big challenge, Real Men(R) cool QX9650s with compact coolers like the ones on display at Xbit Labs. Sergey has picked three different models, from three different brands and applied some overclocked QX9650 heat to them. Despite the smallish size, they do stand up to the challenge, although some better than others – sound- and heat-wise. Read Sergey verdict here.

Noiseblocker Coolscraper is the opposite of the above products – it’s a big hunk of heatsink and 120mm fan that promise to cool your CPUs. XSReviews took it for a spin. They were hard pressed to hear any noise coming from the fan, and the cooling itself was actually very good, compared to some industry heavyweights. It seems that the only really bad thing about the cooler is its price, about 59 €urobucks, or about £49. Expensive, but efficient. Catch it here.

DDR3 memory is still pushing the envelope when it comes to speed ratings – even though JEDEC seems to be lagging waaaay behind. TweakTown nabbed some sticks of Patriot’s Viper DDR3-1866 2x1GB DIMMs. Cameron does make an interesting point – if we’re talking DDR3, we’re generally talking about Intel CPUs – and it’s been a while since we’ve read a review not performed on an Intel platform... anyway, this memory has an XMP profile, allowing you to overclock without blowing your warranty. Good scores all round but pricey too. Click away.

This is a sort of review we haven’t heard of (pun intended) in ages – a speaker roundup. Speakers have evolved quite a bit since the 5.1 frenzy some years back. They now carry unique DSPs targeted at creating greater depth and realism, rather than just bombarding you with crap sound from 5 different directions and boxing your ears with a massive bass. Extremetech/PCMag have it. You’re likely to notice two things: insane pricing and a new name in the game. Check them out, here.

Future Looks gives us a present day look at the GeForce 9600, courtesy of Foxconn. The card itself has similar specs to the OC’d versions that are beginning to populate etailer’s “shelves”, but sports a standard cooling system, à la 8800GT. That has an advantage, it’s still a single slot design, and will be appreciated by those with space constraints. The benchmarketing looks good... read it here.

OCC did a review on Bgears’ b-Envi MicroATX case review. This is essentially a sort of cube PC that is full of little features and custom touch sensitive buttons for power, reset, etc... It has an inbuilt 58-in-1 card reader and will hold (obviously) MicroATX and Baby-AT mobos. Now, apart from the side window, which lets you gaze into your PC’s entrails, the case has a sliding mobo tray, which makes life oh-so-easy for assembly and maintenance. It’s got a black mirror finish on the front bezel, and it looks pretty cool. Look at the nice piccies here. µ