With the introduction of Intel's X79 Express chipset, enthusiasts must now consider quad-channel memory kits, and vendors like Kingston are rushing to assert themselves in this new market. This 1600MHz, 16GB kit runs fairly relaxed timings of 9-9-9-27 and at under $100 represents the lower end of Kingston's "HyperX" line of enthusiast memory. Benchmark Reviews tests it against lower-latency 1600MHz kits as well as Kingston's own ultra-high performance 2133MHz kit in this review.

Of all the superheroes, Batman is one of the few who does not possess any super-human power. Perhaps that is why so many people cheer for The Great Detective, and why so many gamers seek to wear his utility belt. Although the upcoming movie The Dark Knight Rises depicts the same character played in the Batman: Arkham City video game, both also share 3D special effects that offer a glimpse from behind Batman's cowl. Super-villain Joker always gets the last laugh, and uses dozens of other arch enemies to help make his punch line. In this article, Benchmark Reviews guides you through the criminal masterminds that inhabit Batman: Arkham City in this NVIDIA 3D Vision game review.

Desktop comptuters are seen by some pundits as a dying breed, and perhaps they are. Laptop and even tablet computers are now capable of fulfilling most people's needs, and even those who want or need a desktop machine could probably be satisfied with a micro-ATX motherboard in a small form factor case. Then there are those for whom even a full tower case is not enough: they need to accomodate a dozen hard drives, or an elaborate water cooling system, or perhaps an HPTX motherboard. For those select few, Rosewill offers the Blackhawk Ultra computer case, the largest case Benchmark Reviews has ever tested.

Benchmark Reviews has previously tested the Patriot Pyro SE, a second-generation SandForce SF-2281 solid state drive, which is considered their standard-IOPS enthusiast storage solution. Now we return to test the Patriot Pyro SE, which pushes the throttle on synchronous NAND flash for the best operational performance possible. Patriot rates the Pyro SE to deliver SATA 6Gb/s read speeds up to 550 MB/s with 4K aligned operations reaching 85,000 IOPS. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the Patriot Pyro SE SSD, 240GB model PPSE240GS25SSDR, against the leading competitors to find out just how much speed and performance this new solid state drive really offers.

The official category for the QNAP TS-419P II Turbo NAS is "Network Attached Storage", but in today's environment, think of it as "Connected Storage". By consolidating and providing direct access to your data via cloud services or on your mobile device, it's more about connectedness than the ability to serve up files over 1000BASE-T in your home or workspace. The TS-419P II is the next logical step up from a two-bay device and allows you to implement RAID 5 or 6; a four-bay device is really the bare minimum for a high availability NAS appliance. It's equipped with a faster Marvell CPU running at 2.0 GHz, a 25% increase in clock speed from previous models. Benchmark Reviews has tested several NAS units recently, let's take at look at how this latest unit compares.

Designed to support second-generation Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors for the LGA2011 socket, Intel's Sandy Bridge Extreme X79 Express motherboards raise the standard for performance computers. ASUSTek, the largest of Intel's partners, is using this occasion to debut some impressive technology of their own: the ASUS P9X79 Deluxe motherboard. Standard are features such as SuperSpeed USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, Bluetooth 3.0, and PCI-Express 3.0 compatibility. Complete with quad-channel DDR3 2200MHz system memory support, ASUS enables SSD caching and RAM-disk opportunities for high-demand tasks. A fresh new UEFI BIOS allows risk-free USB flashback, while digital power regulators now control every voltage on the system. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the ASUS P9X79 Deluxe motherboard with Intel's Core i7-3960X CPU.

Intel's "Extreme Edition" CPUs have always represented the company's top consumer offerings. Typically priced in the $1,000 range, they have unlocked multipliers, lots of cache, and lots of cores. But until now, Intel's top Extreme Edition offering, the Core i7-990X CPU, was based on the older Gulftown architecture, and the performance gap between this CPU and the newer Sandy Bridge architecture Core i7-2600K and 2700K is pretty damn narrow, especially considering that the latter costs less than a third the price of the former. But now Intel's made a Sandy Bridge Extreme Edition, with six physical cores and a staggering 15 megabytes of cache. Benchmark Reviews takes the new Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition CPU around the benchmark course, testing it against the best CPUs Intel and AMD have to offer.