Tuesday, January 21st, 2014

Time	Event
4:00p	Corsair Obsidian 250D Case Review Corsair is a name familiar to any computer enthusiasts, and the company today offers numerous products: computer cases, power supply units, air and liquid CPU coolers, solid-state drives, and gaming peripherals can all be found in Corsair's product ranks. With the recent announcement of the Obsidian 250D, Corsair is starting 2014 by joining the Mini ITX case fever. The Obsidian 250D however has not been designed with minimum proportions in mind; despite the Mini-ITX format, it can still house very powerful gaming systems and advanced cooling solutions. Let's see what the 250D brings to the table and how it performs in our updated case testing suite. (Comment on this)
8:54p	In Win: Tempered Glass Cases, PSUs, and NUC In Win perhaps isn’t one of the most well-known of case manufacturers, but they’ve been around for a while and they have some decent budget cases. They’re looking to take a stab at a higher price/quality market with their latest two cases, the 901 and 904, which feature tempered glass side panels with a relatively thick 2mm/4mm machined aluminum frame. You can already find both of these cases on Newegg, with the mini-ITX 901 priced at $190 and the larger mid-tower 904 priced at $280. That puts them firmly into the high-end case market, with the key draw here being the aesthetics. Similar to the Corsair 250D that we just reviewed, the 901 is a larger mini-ITX case with the ability to accept full-size PSUs up to 200mm in length and with two expansion card openings to support high-end GPUs. There’s a 5.25” external drive mounting location in the bottom-rear of the case, while the cutout at the bottom-front area has an intake fan and filter with the opening working to improve airflow. The 904 is basically the super-sized version, with support for ATX and mATX motherboards. Other products on display at In Win included a limited edition Tou case where the entire exterior is composed of tempered glass – cool looking but perhaps not very practical. There were a couple prototype 707 cases as well, with some interesting aesthetics and perhaps a few elements that need to be tweaked before they’re ready for mass production (the hinged flap on the top didn’t strike me as being particularly useful). In Win also makes power supplies – or at least, they sell PSUs under their brand, which like all PSUs are manufactured according to the specs In Win provides by one of the major PSU ODMs – and they had both a 550W 80 Plus Gold and a 900W Serenity 80 Plus Platinum on display. Wrapping things up for In Win, I don’t have much to say about the smartphone and tablet stands or the headphones, let alone the mouse pads. The K3 Ultra Small Form Factor systems on the other hand might find a use in some businesses. They support Intel NUC motherboards and the core design is similar in most of the K3 devices, but one supports Power Over Ethernet so you can basically get everything you need with one cord (assuming you use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse). The others use power supplies (one with an internal 65W PSU with the other two using external power bricks), and all include VESA compatibility so they can mount on the back of a display. Gallery: In Win: Tempered Glass Cases, PSUs, and NUC (Comment on this)
9:28p	BenQ LCDs and Projectors: RevolutionEyes and Colorific BenQ has been in the display market for many years, and they’re one of the few companies still using VA (Vertical Alignment) panels – as opposed to IPS or AHVA, though they have some of these as well. They’re also known for projectors, and the new MW824ST projector has a bulb that’s rated for up to 10,000 hours (compared to most bulbs that are rated for 2000-5000 hours). That’s enough time that you could use the projector for eight hours a day, every single day, and still not need to replace the bulb for almost 3.5 years. Other projectors run the usual gamut from small and portable devices to high-end projectors with native 1080p support. On the monitor side of things, BenQ had several interesting displays. The RL2455HM is a TN panel that boasts GTG response times of just 1ms; I’m not even sure how important response times are these days, particularly on TN panels, but if you’re annoyed by smearing on LCDs this might be an improvement. Personally, I was more impressed with the G-Sync compatible display, and as I commented to NVIDIA, I think getting G-Sync into laptops and notebooks is going to be far more important (considering the lack of GPU performance, running at 30-60 FPS is far more common on laptops than desktops). If you haven’t seen G-Sync in action, you’re missing out on one of the most impressive visual demonstrations to date. BenQ also showed their BL3200PT professional 32” 2560x1440 display targeting CAD/CAM users, with ZeroFlicker technology and support for portrait mode – and yes, a 32” portrait mode LCD looks awesome, though perhaps not practical for most users. Finally, the PG2401PT 24” display is for professional that need accurate colors. It has a 99% AdobeRGB gamut, 1920x1200 resolution (hooray for 16:10!), brightness uniformity function, and I believe is available with or without an i1 Display Pro colorimeter for color management. One thing that wasn’t really clear is how much attention BenQ will pay towards delivering accurate colors on their displays without the need for an expensive colorimeter or spectrophotometer. While most LCDs can be calibrated with the right tools to deliver good colors, these days we’re at the point where anything more than a budget display ought to ship with an option for accurate colors. Best Buy and other retailers may not use the function, but when you’re sitting at your desk, many of us would like to get reasonably accurate colors rather than blown out and oversaturated colors. Hopefully BenQ (and other display manufacturers) will put more of an emphasis on that area going forward. Gallery: BenQ LCDs and Projectors: RevolutionEyes and Colorific (Comment on this)
10:03p	Crucial Showing DDR4 Modules and Sport VLP DDR3 I’m nearly finished with my CES coverage (thanks to a relapse as well as a household of sick family members), with just a few final visits to discuss. My meeting with Crucial/Micron/Lexar had a couple interesting tidbits, perhaps the most noteworthy being their apparently production ready DDR4 modules for both desktops and laptops. It’s pretty clear now that the transition to DDR4 is going to happen with one of Intel’s upcoming CPU/platform launches, though the exact details of the rollout of DDR4 RAM are still a bit hazy – will we see it first on servers, then desktops, then laptops, or maybe desktops first, or given the potential for power savings, why not laptops first? You can also see the slightly curved insertion edge of the DDR4 desktop DIMMs that’s designed to aid in installation. The other cool thing Crucial had to show is their half-height Ballistix Sport VLP DIMM. These have been available for a little while, but they have several features that make them attractive. For one, instead of the usual gigantic heat spreaders – which can sometimes interfere with the installation of CPU coolers or other items – the Sport VLP has a very low profile (that’s the VLP part of the name) and ends up being about half the height of a standard DIMM. They’re also 1.35V DDR3-1600 modules, so they use less power and generate less heat – never a bad thing in my book. These are literally the polar opposite of some of Crucial’s other Ballistix products, with capacities up to 8GB per DIMM and pricing that’s somewhat higher than standard DDR3 DIMMs. Note that you may need to spend some time in the motherboard BIOS in order to get these DIMMs to work, and raw performance isn’t likely to be as high as some other DDR3 DIMMs, but for mini-ITX builds I could see these being very handy alternatives to regular size DIMMs. Gallery: Crucial Showing DDR4 Modules and Sport VLP DDR3 (Comment on this)

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