The Skeleton is Out of the Closet
Well it’s been a month since I last posted anything. Did anyone one of the five people who read this blog miss me? Well the wait may be well worth it, if just for this one post. I just received what is one of the more hotly anticipated cases to come out in a while. Futurelooks.com originally previewed this case this past summer at Computex 2008, and now it’s finally made it into our hands. That’s right, I have in my possession an Antec Skeleton, and I’m going to show you the unboxing right here.
I literally just received the case today, so I haven’t had a chance to set it up where I normally take my review photos. That means that for now everything is going to be spread out on my living floor, and some pictures will use the flash. Anyhow, due to the shape of the Antec Skeleton, the box is much more cubic then the average computer case box. It’s also fairly boring to look at, compared to what is inside.
Upon opening the box, I got my first look at the 250mm fan that adorns the top of the Antec Skeleton above the motherboard area. Now I’ve seen some big fans in my day. I have a couple of pictures in my archive of John Chow holding up a 170mm case fan, with that evil glint in his eye. But that is nothing compared to the size of this fan. Hopefully it should do what I would expect such a fan to do, and that is remain quiet while moving a great deal of air.
Secrets Are Meant to be Shared
A company I currently can’t name (and can’t link to since their site isn’t ready for prime time) has asked me to take a look at a new thermal compound they are releasing. Since I’m horrible at keeping secrets, I decided I’d post about it here. Eventually a full review will be up on Futurelooks.com.
Now taking pot-shots are the throne occupied by the likes of Arctic Silver is nothing new, but I can’t help but help out the underdog. Preliminary testing looks very promising. I’m just waiting for the Arctic Silver 5 I just applied to set up, and I’ll finally have a conclusive comparison. Basically I’ll know whether this stuff is top dog, or just second best.
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Lots of Hardware Goodness
With my having completed the review of the Razer Lycosa review, and slowly plodding away on a review of a nVidia 9600 GT based video card from Foxconn, I thought I’d give you a preview of what else I have coming down the pipe over at Futurelooks.com.
Now as cool as waffle makers that glowed blue would be, this isn’t such a creature. It’s definitely a creature though, if at least in name. From the company known as Wolfking comes the Warrior Xxtreme Gamepad. Stephen Fung sent me the info on this when he was culling together his review list, and it looked intriguing. A little silly, but definitely intriguing. The guiding principle Wolfking has placed behind the Warrior Xxtreme as being the "world’s first 2-in-1 PC gamepad and keyboard." A cursory glance through the instruction manual shows this device seems to be aimed at MMO players and CS junkies. Since I play neither (Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 are my FPS games of choice), this ought to be interesting.
Shiny New Computer
Fresh off the FedEx truck is Alienware’s latest update to their Area-51 7500 series of performance systems. I’ve been waiting for this system since CES 2007. Unfortunately Alienware didn’t want to ship it out due to some driver immaturity and a squable between the parties responsible. Those issues have yet to be cleared up, but Alienware still decided to send the system. This rig is now sitting on my test bench, just waiting to be poked and prodded in the most interesting ways.
This latest iteration comes bundled with you choice of Windows Vista flavour, DX10 compatible video card, top of the line CPU, and a host of customizations you expect from a boutique OEM like Alienware. The system shipped out to me was spec’ed out with the following.
- Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6700 2.66GHz 8MB Cache 1066MHz FSB – Overclocked to 3.2GHz
- Windows® Vista Ultimate
- Alienware® P2 Chassis – Space Black
- AlienFX™ System Lighting – Astral Blue
- EVGA NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
- 2GB Low Latency DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz – 2 x 1024MB
- Western Digital Raptor 150GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 10,000 RPM Hard Drive (x2 in RAID0)
- NEC 18X Dual Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Burner w/ Nero Software
- EVGA NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX 768MB PCIe Video Card
- Alienware® 700W Power Suppl
- Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer High Definition 7.1 Audio
- Logitech® G15 Gaming Keyboard
- Logitech® G5 Laser Gaming Mouse
- Free Alienware® T-Shirt – White
If you’re wondering why I’ve shown such a liberal use of “trademark” and “registered” symbols, well it wasn’t my fault. I stole these specs straight off the Alienware site when I priced out what I received using their online quote system.
If you’re wondering, the whole package you see above comes to $5,119.00 USD. Converted into loonies and toonies (the Canadian dollar for those not familiar with the local vernacular), that comes out to about $5,710 CDN depending on what day of the week it is (also known as the exchange rate).
Needless to say this system is sitting on my bench running as we speak…er….type. Once I clear up a few reviews for The Tech Zone, we’ll get down to some benchmarks. I’m also going to do some comparison screenshots to see how DX10 games look on DX10 hardware, verus my old DX9 SLI rig. Stay tuned.