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By Jessie Lawrence, on September 3rd, 2010
Nice of summer to show up finally. We actually have 90-degree weather here in California. We’ve only been waiting three months for this!
Did you see the announcement about the Gaming Audio Series™ HS1 USB gaming headset? What do you think? I’ve been fortunate enough to try it out and let me tell you, it’s incredibly comfortable. Don’t underestimate the power of the memory foam!
You’ll be seeing reviews on the HS1 here soon enough. Until those start rolling in, we’re still getting plenty of press on our new cooling products like this review of the Hydro Series™ H70 CPU cooler at TweakTown.
“Get your money ready and grab the new champion of sealed water cooling; the Hydro series H70 from Corsair!”
 Water cooling not your thing? Well then, have a look-see at this Air Series™ A50 CPU cooler review over at Think Computers. 9/10? We’ll do better next time, I promise!
“I have to say that the Corsair A50 included one of the most pleasant fan installations I have ever experienced. I’ve reviewed many CPU coolers and this is the first CPU cooler to get the fan installation RIGHT.”
 Finally, the Professional Series™ Gold AX850 PSU gets the once over at Jonny Guru and comes away with their Recommended award. All these awards are great for the ego, let me tell you!
“The AX850 really performs well. Voltage regulation was good, efficiency was excellent, albiet not to Gold standards in my unit, the fan produced virtually no noise and, other than some funky waveforms coming from the +5VSB, ripple suppression was fantastic.”
That’s all I have this week. Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy your Labor Day!
By Dylan Rhodes, on September 2nd, 2010
As I write this I’m settling in for a flight to Europe, where I’ll be talking about the new HS1 USB Gaming Headset. But while this is the beginning of a long trip across the Atlantic Ocean, it’s also the end of a journey that has lasted for more than a year.
For me, the journey started when I was talking to some of the folks who work back at the Corsair office, asking them what they use for gaming audio. Everybody has a headset, a nice set of speakers, or both. But what surprised me was that how many of them had also invested in a nice pair of headphones just for listening to music. Now, these are some pretty hardcore gamers, who’ve invested a lot in their gaming gear. But they recognize that even higher-end gaming headsets often aren’t up to the task of reproducing music. Few of them are terrible (the gaming headsets, not my co-workers), but if you’ve been listening to, say, Dark Side of The Moon for 20 years or more, you know how it sounds. When you try to listen to it with a gaming headset that’s been tweaked to push an artificially boomy low end, Pink Floyd’s just going to sound wrong.
So, that was one of the problems we set out to solve: creating a headset that sounds awesome with games, but yet provides faithful, compelling reproduction of high-quality audio recordings.
Early on in the process, we gathered every gaming headset we could and put it on a HATS — a Head and Torso Simulator. It’s a sophisticated piece of equipment that simulates human hearing. Give it an audio source, whether it’s headphones, a headset, or speakers, and you can graph the audio performance as a human hears it, not a microphone.
Continue reading Gaming Audio Series™ HS1: good curves and avoiding the double hump
By Dylan Rhodes, on August 31st, 2010
We have announced the HS1 USB Gaming Headset. It has an MSRP of US $99.99 and will be available at major retail and etail outlets in September.
Our mission was simple: design a gaming headset that delivers high-performance audio not only for games, but for music and movies, as well. And, because we like to play for hours at a time, it absolutely must be comfortable.
High-quality audio is delivered with 50mm drivers, instead of the 40mm drivers found in most gaming headsets. But, it’s not just about the drivers: we took an obsessive approach to earcup design, baffle geometry, and even material selection. Because positional audio is so essential to competitive gaming, we’ve employed Dolby® Headphone multi-channel sound.
The earcups are a circumaural, closed-back design. We’ve taken particular care to make sure that the earcups or the driver baffles don’t touch the ears. The earpads are fabric-covered memory foam. They reduce moisture and provide a comfortable fit without the binding or pinching that other gaming headsets can cause.
Like so many other Corsair products, we’ve designed the HS1 by looking at what’s available on the market, and talking to serious gamers to understand what’s really important… and what’s missing in the products that are available now. Our goal is nothing less than to create a new reference standard in PC gaming headsets. In short, the HS1 represents the Corsair approach to audio.
Over the next several days, I’ll be posting more entries in which we look more closely at the features and performance of the HS1. In the meantime, take a look at the web site for all the specs.
By Jessie Lawrence, on August 27th, 2010
We spent all day yesterday filming a video for a super secret product that’s going to completely knock your socks off. Keep your eyes on this space for more info in the coming weeks!
 Here at Corsair, we take cooling your CPU seriously. For example, we took feedback we received about the Hydro Series™ H50 CPU cooler and made the reservoir bigger, the block smaller and made it easier to install. The result was the Hydro Series H70 CPU cooler. Kit Guru reviewed the H70 and gave it their “Worth Buying” award:
“The Corsair H70 is an evolutionary step taken with the liquid cooled H50 design. It is bigger, heftier, more capable and still as easy to fit. The legendary Corsair build quailty is still a primary selling point and the company are flying high in 2010 with a consistently high quality range of products.”
Not only does the H70 beat other entry level water cooling kits in that review, but they also prefer it over high end air coolers because the footprint is significantly smaller.
Shane, at Legit Reviews, also had a look at the Hydro Series H70 and obviously thinks we are who he thought we were by crowning us “king”:
“Corsair Hydro Series has come a long way and the Hydro Series H70 CWCH70 is the new king of the kit water coolers; and at $103 it’s a little more than high-end air, but nowhere near as bad as a full-on custom water cooling loop.”
Lastly, our German friends at Technic 3D reviewed the Professional Series™ Gold AX850 power supply where we won their equivalent of the triple crown. Here’s the Google translated version of their summary:
“Because of the very good price-performance ratio and built-in Hybrid Fan technology was able to get the smaller brother of the 1200W version of our Gold Award.”
I’ll be on vacation in New York next week and would love to hear any recommendations of must-see places that may be off the beaten path. Food suggestions are also welcome!
See you in September. Have a great weekend!
By Jessie Lawrence, on August 20th, 2010
I got a new phone this week, the Droid Incredible. My previous phone found its way into the washing machine and sadly never recovered. I must say, the Incredible is a very nice piece of hardware but the only thing truly “incredible” about it is the incredibly short battery life. If anyone has any tips on how to extend the battery life, please post in the comments! I’ve got GPS turned off and I hardly use it while at work but the battery usually dead by 1PM after a full night of charging!
 Speaking of incredible, Hardware Canucks reviewed the Hydro Series™ H70 CPU Cooler and gave it their “Dam Good” and “Dam Innovative” awards. Oh, you crazy Canadians, I see what you did there.
“The use of a double-thickness radiator and a highly compact water block / pump combination usually results in high temperatures but that hasn’t happened here. Instead, through engineering excellence Corsair has designed what is currently one of the best (if not THE best) closed loop water cooling systems on the market.”
 Legit Reviews had a look at the Air Series™ A70 CPU Cooler and had some very nice things to say about it after comparing it to some of the best CPU coolers on the market.
“Legit Bottom Line: Corsair’s first step into the air cooling market was a good one and the A70 CPU cooler is a very solid performing CPU cooler!”
 Finally, Funky Kit posted a massive round-up review of fifteen different power supplies, including the Enthusiast Series™ TX950 PSU which came away with the Editor’s Choice, and the Professional Series™ HX750 power supply which came away with their Recommended award in the power user category. Can we get a championship belt too?
“For the highend power supplies, we can see that the Corsair TX950W is an excellent performer. It produced an amazing power efficiency rating of 88%, which is on par with the Coolermaster Silent Pro M1000. However, Corsair TX950W went further, producing a solid 12V reading and capable of handling whopping 98A at full load.”
Well, that’s about it for me this week. Have a great weekend!
By John Beekley, on August 18th, 2010
The Corsair Force Series F40 solid-state drive is best way to bring your system into the 21st century. Utilizing the SandForce® SF-1222 SSD Processor, and with a capacity of 40GB, the Force Series F40 delivers the performance enthusiasts demand without breaking the bank.
Optimizing your Force Series F40 SSD
There are a few simple things you can do to get the most out of any SSD. Most importantly when using a smaller drive, you want to save on disk space wherever possible. Outlined below are the steps we took to achieve maximum results without impacting performance.
Continue reading Configuring the Force Series F40 as a Windows 7 Boot Drive.
By Jessie Lawrence, on August 13th, 2010
Before we get started, you need to know that we just added the AirFlow Pro to the Corsair web store. We have a pretty short supply, so get ‘em while they’re hot! Don’t know about the AirFlow Pro? Click here to see what it’s all about.
When it rains it pours, and we’ve had a virtual downpour of awards and accolades lately. Lets get started!
 Last week, we had the first mentions of our Hydro Series™ H70 CPU cooler. This week a few more H70 reviews came in, starting with this gem at Hexus:
“However, whilst a thicker radiator, an impressively-small pump and an extra fan are obvious enhancements to a winning formula, the end result is indisputable; the Hydro Series H70 is the best-performing CPU cooler we’ve ever tested.”
How do you top being called the “best-performing CPU cooler?” By winning three awards in one review over at Hardware Heaven for the Hydro Series H70, that’s how!
“After the very successful H50 Corsair were clearly aiming to take performance to another level with the H70 and they have very much succeeded. The H70 offers great build quality, an impressive design and unmatched performance; it really is in a class of its own.”
Finally, Kit Guru got in on the act with their review of our Force Series F40 SSD drives in a RAID 0 configuration. They reduced their Windows 7 boot time from over a minute to a mere 22 seconds. They also called them delicious. Delicious? Hmmm…okay! And a Must Have award? We’re blushing!
“We love the Intel X25-V 40GB drives, but these Corsair F40′s are much faster, and our testing shows that if you want an SSD solution and have £200 in your pocket then this is the best performance configuration on the market right now, without question.”
Alright, I have a ton of work to do and time’s running out in this day. I haven’t even had lunch yet! Hmmm…methinks tacos sound good.
Have a great weekend everyone!
By Jessie Lawrence, on August 12th, 2010
Last week, PC Pro issued a challenge to their readers. They wanted to see if anyone could beat the 60-second mark in a 3D rendering benchmark. They were able to achieve a speed of 73 seconds with an Intel® Core® i7 980X CPU. They thought they had a pretty good speed. The gauntlet had been laid down.
They got quite the response from Intel’s UK office. Intel took the same Core i7 980x processor, brought its temperature down to a frigid -40° celsius, overclocked it to a blistering 5GHz and added some Dominator GT CMGTX2 DDR3 memory modules which they also overclocked to 2046MHz @ CL7. With this setup they crushed PC Pro’s speed by over 30% and completed the benchmark in 50 seconds!
Continue reading Intel Answers the Call Using Dominator GT Memory — Breaks 3D rendering Benchmark
By Mike Clements, on August 11th, 2010
We realize that users needed a bit more detail so that they could actually check and verify that TRIM is active. So, we’ve expanded a bit and brought you a few screenshots. Here is a refresher defining TRIM.
TRIM Defined
TRIM actively deletes invalid data from the SSD’s memory cells to ensure that write operations perform at full speed. Invalid data is defined as data that has been marked as not in use by the user/host OS (as a result of a delete command, for example), but which remains physically stored on the memory cell until it is overwritten. Since a memory block must be erased before it can be re-programmed, TRIM improves performance by proactively erasing pages containing invalid data, allowing the SSD to write new data without first having to perform a time-consuming block erase command.
Continue reading How to Check That TRIM is Active
By Jessie Lawrence, on August 6th, 2010
How about that Hydro Series™ H70 CPU cooler? Pretty exciting stuff, if you ask me. In case you missed it, Maximum PC had the very first review of the H70 and they gave it their iconic “Kick Ass!” award.
“As they did on the old test bed, the H50 and Hyper 212+ performed within a few degrees of each other, keeping the CPU at full burn nearly 32 degrees cooler than the stock heatsink. The H70 brought full-burn temps down to 51 C—five to six degrees cooler than either.”
Over at [H]ardOCP, Kyle was so excited about the Hydro Series™ H70 CPU Cooler they posted not only an unboxing article, but also posted their initial impressions in an installation article. Their full review should be up shortly, but until then, here’s their first impression:
“The H70 hoses are the same length as the H50 from what I can tell with one big difference. The H70 hoses swivel at the water block. This of course is going tomake a lot of installations easier without a doubt. So far the H70 is getting the thumbs up from us.”
I’ll wrap this up with another excellent review of our Professional Series™ Gold AX1200 PSU at Hardware Heaven where we received both their Performance and Gold awards.
“There was nothing of note to fault; even the selection of bundled cables is perfect. High quality components are used throughout, even down to internal wiring which is cut to exact fits and the design maximises airflow and cooling performance to the point where we can physically notice the improved airflow with cooler exhaust than other models.”
With all of these new products we’re releasing, it’s a great time to get out there and upgrade your system. What’s your next hardware upgrade? Tell us about it in the comments!
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