Friday 31 August 2012

Mechanical Hard Drives


Getting the best from the second hand parts market: Part 3

Mechanical Hard Drives
Those looking to buy a hard disk over the last year have faced a tricky proposition. On the one hand SSDs still hover around the £1 per GB mark, and are therefore unsuitable for those with large amounts of data to store. On the flipside, mechanical hard drive prices have as much as doubled, making them a tough pill to swallow for those who've watched the prices climb. Happily though, as Western Digital and Seagate slowly rebuild their infrastructure the cost per GB is beginning to return to normal. This, though, means you should think twice about buying second hand drives. Unlike many other components, hard drives contain moving parts in the form of their spinning platters, and this may be part of the reason why they are arguably more susceptible to fault than other components. In addition, should the drive fail, it is likely that all the vital data you have on there will be lost. With second hand 1TB drives selling for upwards of £55, and given the critical nature of their use, you must ask yourself whether coughing up the extra £20 for a new drive would be money well spent. So which one? Due to fixed deals on bulk pricing, a strange quirk has emerged, whereby external hard drives are now appearing cheaper than their internal counterparts. Easily dissassembled 2TB external drives can be bought brand new for ~£80, while a 2TB internal drive will cost you over £100. What is the catch? You can't always tell who the drive manufacturer is, and the speed it runs at, though a little research can give you a good idea. One way around this it to buy a Western Digital or Hitachi external enclosure which at least gives you the guarantee of a quality drive.
Best buy: A Western Digital or Hitachi external drive running at 7200rpm at around £80

Monday 20 August 2012

Enermax Ostrog Review


Enermax Ostrog Review

Today we are taking a first look at the Ostrog a newly released budget case from Enermax.

It may surprise UK readers that Enermax, best known for their highly regarded PSUs, have in fact eight cases listed on their website. Not heavily marketed in Europe in comparison to some of their rivals, today we find out if their budget friendly 'Ostrog' is worth the meagre £35 asking price.





Technical Details

Ostrog
ModelECA3250-BECA3250-BW
Colourblackblack / white
Interiorblack coated
TypeATX Midi Tower
Dimensions (D x W x H)480mm x 200mm x 460mm
MaterialSGCC/SECC
Drive bays 5,25"4
Drive Bays 3,5"1x external / 5x internal
M/BATX, mATX
I/O on top1x USB 3.0, 3x USB 2.0, HD/AC'97 Audio
Air Cooling - Frontoptional: 1x 12cm fan
Air Cooling - Sideoptional: 2x 12/14cm fans
Air Cooling - Topoptional: 2x 12/14cm fans
Air Cooling - Bottomoptional: 1x 12cm fan
Air Cooling - Rearpre-installed: 1x 12cm fan
Max. Length Graphics Cards413 mm (286 mm with HDD cage)
Max. CPU Cooler Height174 mm (150 mm with side fans)
Expansion Slots7x
Liquid Cooling Holes2x

First up, let’s also look at the competition in this price segment. Hmmm. Well, we have few older Coolermaster cases such as the 330/342. We have tested several setups using these cases and found, they offer average at best build quality, little flexibility for your cooling setup and ‘retro’ (read: out of date) styling. We also have the Fractal 1000 series, slightly less financial outlay, but anyone who has used this case will know that it really is just a ‘box for your hardware’, with very few premium features, and a rather loud stock 120mm fan. Any more for any more? No? 

So, onto the Ostrog, and let’s start by get the negatives out of the way, and yes, there are some. First of all panel construction and overall thickness isn’t great. The side panels in particular are very thin and flexible and as such, sometimes require a bit of 'jiggery pokery' to refit once removed. The case also has a lot of fan mounts which has its advantages (read on), but also means they provide very little in the way of sound dampening. There are a total of 6 fan mounts in and about the motherboard area - where of course, most of the system noise is emitted from and as such if you have the case either below or to the the right hand side of you, you'll hear all the hums and whirs your rig creates. The case ships with only one 120mm fan, located in the rear mount, and as such creates a negative vacuum in the case which may lead to dust buildup, as well as a lack of fresh air for any hot running components – GTX 480 and SLI/CFX owners, take note! Cable routing/storage is also an issue here, and space behind the motherbaord tray is limited to about 1cm width. Not too much of a problem, as the HD bays in front of the PSU allow for a decent amount of cable storage if left empty, but could be annoying if you have a particularly thick PSU cable that you want to route around the back. Expansion slot protectors are the ‘bend off and throw away’ kind. Which is fine really, and to be expected, given the price bracket.



It’s important to remember here that this is only a £35 case, so truth be told, we could arguably call these ‘compromises’ rather than true negatives as none of them are deal breakers, just things you want to be aware of when purchasing, and wouldn’t expect in more premium cases.

Now, onto the positives, and by this I mean, things that make this case stand out head and shoulders above the rest of the cases in this price bracket.
The first thing you’ll notice is the cases good looks – admittedly totally subjective, but the Ostrog straddles the line between the clean stylings of the Fractal cases and more NZXT style Gamer cases reasonable well. It has a largely flat and plain façade with a small and unobstrusive Ostrog Logo near the bottom. This is outlined with either a white or black frame, depending on the model you choose. Nearer the top of the case, on a raised section, you can find the usual 3.5mm jacks for mic and speaker, as well as as three USB2.0 ports and a single USB3.0 port. The matte finished plastic here and on the front of the case feels very solid and there are four easy access external 5.25” drive bays and a 3.5” bay too. The bottom two would make a nice spot for a dual 5.25” Reservoir as this would place it squarely in the middle of the case for easy tubing access to the CPU and GPU. Its worth noting though that this case is not ideally suited to CPU/GPU watercooling because the double 120mm mount at the top of the case is placed very close to the motherboard. That said any of the all in one 120mm CPU Coolers from Antec or Corsair would fit just fine on the rear 120mm mount.



Internally the Ostrog steps up to the plate featuring fully painted black interior, as well as easy to use quick release hard drive bays. We’ve used lots of these in the past, and these are the best. Just slide in and twist. Once in place they feel very solid indeed, and I'd have no worries about my hard drives falling about if I were lugging this case to a LAN party. It’s also worth noting that as well as room for more 3.5" drives than it should be legal to own in this day and age (6), we also have a built in 2.5” mount for SSDs or laptop drives. Interestingly, the designers at Enermax have also decided to include a side mounted triple 3.5” bay for those that prioritise easy access to the rear drives over less visibility. Taking its design cues from Antecs P180 this bay can be slid out and replaced with a 120mm intake fan to cool the GPU. This also allows GPUs of up to 413mm to be used – 6990 anyone?




In fact, for such a budget case, the Ostrog has a lot of fan mounts and cooling combinations. More often than not, cases ship with at least one front mounted intake fan and then either a back or top fan mount. The Ostrog eschews this default setup, with the 3.5” in place, and six free mounting points around the motherboard but nothing pre-installed at the front. Cue ringing alarm bells. Except we can’t hear any. In actual fact, we need to ask the question why do you need to draw air in from the front of the case? To cool the hard drives? Most sensible setups these days consist of cool running SSD boot drive and a single, large Media/Steam drive none of which needs significant airflow to stay within operating temperatures. What about GPU cooling? Well, that is taken care of by two 120/140mm fan mounts on the side panel and a 120mm fan mount on the floor of the case. The Ostrog also provides another 120mm mount at the rear and a final two up top (which also take 140mm fans). That’s a total of 6 mounts, all focused around where the hottest running components are located. 

Cases at the bottom end of the market often ship with fans that are either loud or ineffective at pushing air, or both. The stock fan on the Ostrog slips more towards the latter, but isn’t so bad to be considered unusable. Most users will want to supplement it with another one or two depending on their choice of components and aesthetics. We would recommend at the very least mounting a fan on the side panel to feed fresh air directly to the GPU and CPU. That said, with the sheer amount of fan mounts, passive airflow into the case is considerable. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the bottom mounted PSU comes complete with an easily removable dust cover, which is a pleasant surprise for such a budget offering. 




The evolution of gaming hardware is very easily observed by looking at the case market. It wasn’t so long ago that a black exterior would have cost you extra, and now we have 180mm 'air penetrator' fans, vertically mounted GPUs and water cooling compatible ITX cases. All these military grade marvels eventually trickle down to the lower price tiers and whilst there is always compromise to be made, it’s really very heartwarming to find such a fully featured case in this price bracket. You already know by now that we would thoroughly recommend the Ostrog to those users on a budget. Yes, panel construction could be better, but overall build quality is solid, and at £35 you’d be hard pressed to do better.

Overall Score: 9/10

Sunday 19 August 2012


Motherboards

Buying a second hand motherboard can be a riskier process. Even when buying new, with every technical specification in front of you, their naming conventions can perplex the experts. What is more, there are numerous things to look out for when searching for a used bargain. Potential buyers should be careful when it comes to refurbished boards, as often these come without accessories, such as the I/O shield. Bent CPU socket pins are another common fault on motherboards, and not easy to see from a blurry picture. If in doubt, ask the seller! At least that way you have some recourse if the board turns up with the pins looking like an old toothbrush. 

That said, anything stated as in fully working order, made by Gigabyte, Asus or MSI can usually be relied upon to be adequate for most users needs. Nowadays, even the most basic of boards offer 5.1 channel sound and moderate overclocking abilities. Used AM3 boards are in plentiful supply and can be had for as little as £30. For those looking to future proof themselves, the P67 platform is a clever buy. Intel initially released the 1155 platform in two flavours, P67 and H67. Z68 later amalgamated the features of the two, but many of the features enthusiasts will be using such as overclocking can be found on the P67 line of boards. If you can find a P67 board at good price, don’t feel like you’ll be missing out by not owning Z68.

Best buy: AM3 or P67 Boards from Gigabyte, Asus or MSI



For a recent build we picked up this Bit Tech certified Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT - UD2H for £35.

Thursday 16 August 2012

Released into the wild - The 660ti


There’s a new kid on the block. Nvidia’s newest offering is priced to go head to head with the 7950, and performance wise is more or less equal with team red. This is yet another case of choosing your card based on the games you play.

According to Anandtech, if you’re a Crysis, Batman or Dirt 3 fan look out for a 7950, but if you play BF3, Shogun or Skyrim then a 660ti should be on your shopping list.

Both cards can be found starting at £239.99. Head to Overclockers for a custom cooled  HiS IceQ 7950 or Scan for a stock PNY 660Ti which ships with a pre order of Borderlands 2 


Monday 13 August 2012


Getting The Best From The Second Hand Parts Market

Part 1: CPUs

Why doesn't everyone own a gaming PC? After all, the benefits in control and graphical fidelity are obvious. Two of most often cited barriers to entry are usually the difficulty of figuring out what to buy, and cost. Those of you who have been travelling, or away with work for just a few months will return to find an astonishing array of new models, product names and numbers staring blankly back at you from the virtual shelves of your favourite online store (not helped by the baffling suffixes some of those crafty folks in marketing add to the names of their latest GPU). By doing our best to keep you up to date with all the latest hardware, this part of problem we can help you with. The second part of the problem is harder, but while we can't help you earn the money to pay for your parts, we can most definitely help you save some money, and maximise your bang for buck. 

Luckily for the thrifty amongst you computer hardware becomes outdated almost as soon as you buy it, and as such the used parts market is absolutely thriving. A quick look on ebay under the heading 'components' returns nearly a quarter of a million individual items. For those that don't know exactly what they are looking for, it can sometimes be a confusing and potentially costly experience, but for those that do, there are most definitely bargains to be had. Over the next few weeks we are going to guide the budget conscious system builder through buying all the major components within a PC on the second hand parts market.
CPUs
CPU's continue to march to the drumbeat set by Moore's law in 1965. The power currently on offer from the latest chips has arguably outpaced the power required by even hardcore gamers, let alone everybody else. This, combined with the fact that CPUs contain no moving parts, and unless heavily overclocked, very rarely go wrong, mean that they should be a prime target for those looking to play the latest games without breaking the bank. For the exceptionally budget conscious a quad core Athlon X4 can be had for between £40 and £50 and will provide decent gaming performance at 1080p. In this case and others it’s important to remember that at the bottom end of the market, the law of diminishing returns works in reverse, and sometimes a little extra investment can net a large gain in performance.  With this in mind, the pick of the bunch here is the Phenom II 955 Black Edition which changes hands for around £70. Its unlocked multiplier means it will happily overclock to 3.8Ghz or more with adequate cooling. Given that upon its release this chip cost over £200 and is still powerful enough to rarely be a bottleneck, savvy buyers should keep their eyes peeled. The intel equivalent, the i5 750 is arguably faster, but P55 motherboards with which to pair the chip are considerably rarer than their AM3 counterparts. This makes the i5 harder to recommend and thus the Phenom II 955 Black Edition is our best buy.

Best buy: Phenom II 955 Black Edition at around £70