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Techradar |
- Review: CyberPower Ultra Triton GT
- In Depth: The future of the hard drive revealed
- Round up: Week in camera news
- Tutorial: How to overclock the Intel Z68
- Review: Gigabyte A75-UD4H
- Buying Guide: Best USB 3.0 flash drive: 5 reviewed and rated
- Review: EVGA GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2
| Review: CyberPower Ultra Triton GT Posted: 28 Aug 2011 01:30 AM PDT  We've been waiting for the Llano machines to touch down in the office for awhile now and CyberPower has not disappointed us dropping the £499 Ultra Triton GT in our laps. With the top-end Llano Lynx A8-3850 beating away at the heart of the rig, with a hefty overclock dropped on it for good measure, it's a tantalising prospect. This A8 APU comes with the Radeon HD 6550D graphics core onboard, essentially giving the chip itself the equivalent graphical oomph of a HD 5570. That's no great shakes in the discrete GPU world, but in terms of integrated graphics you're looking at around 480 GFLOPS of GPU processing against the top Sandy Bridge HD 3000 parts pumping out just 125 GFLOPS. At best. Just add CrossFireBut if you want actual gaming potential from a Llano rig then you need to take advantage of the Hybrid CrossFire goodness on offer and pair the APU up with an AMD mid-range card. CyberPower here has opted for the HD 6570 to keep the costs down to below the £500 mark. There's a chunky amount of storage on offer too with this impressive all-rounder, offering 1TB of traditional storage, but running on the SATA 6Gbps interface to squeeze a little more speed out of them platters. The Ultra Triton GT also comes jampacked with a full 8GB of speedy Kingston HyperX RAM. So there's a lot on offer in this budget build; a full-fat quad-core CPU, some decent gaming potential in the Hybrid CrossFire setup and a whole lot of productivity possibilities with the storage and RAM capacity sitting inside that angular HAF 912 chassis. But this isn't the gaming rig the Cooler Master armour would normally denote. This is a jack-of-all- trades. The Hybrid CrossFire combo will give you playable frame rates in most games at the standard 20/22-inch resolution of 1,680 x 1,050 with fairly high settings, and the Athlon-esque quad-core CPU component will give you the power to take on most general computing tasks without breaking a sweat. But you're not going to be blazing away at 1080p with all the trimmings in Metro 2033, nor are you going to be encoding HD movies in milliseconds – in a £500 machine you're never going to. TechRadar Labs
HD video encoding performance Ultra Triton GT: 23.79 DX11 gaming performance (1,680x1,050) Ultra Triton GT: 28.7 DX11 gaming performance (1,920 x 1,080) Ultra Triton GT: 18.6 The Triton then gives you a good shot at doing both without you having to break the bank getting something that works. If you're a hardcore gamer then you'll be less interested in the Llano platform anyway, you'll want a basic dual-core CPU and spend the rest of your cash on fast graphics card. But if you want to do other things with your machine the Ultra Triton GT is a good compromise. The only real issue is upgrading it in the future. We still don't know where the FM1 socket; the base for the Llano Lynx platform, is going to go. We know there'll be no Bulldozer-powered APU running in it; Trinity is going in a different socket. So the problem is you're leading your computing down a dead-end. Right now though it's a good deal for a good all-rounder. 
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| In Depth: The future of the hard drive revealed Posted: 28 Aug 2011 12:00 AM PDT  The future of the hard drive revealedAll the recent fuss about solid state storage might make you think that the traditional hard drive is not long for this world. Capacities have increased, but the basic design is still recognisable from the very first IBM RAMAC drive, introduced in 1956, albeit in a considerably smaller form. Surely the future of storage can't be based on something so primitive? Think again, because nothing comes close to a traditional hard drive for storing the ever increasing amount of data the modern world produces. And while the physical limits of current hard drive technology are rapidly being reached in terms of the number of bits that can be stored within an inch square of platter, it won't be too long before a two terabyte drive looks like a floppy disk to us today. That's thanks to a new way of getting information on and off of a platter called, excitingly, 'heat assisted'. The basics of a traditional hard drive are quite simple. Data is stored on circular platters made from a glass and ceramic mix, sometimes aluminium, and coated in a thin layer of magnetic material made of varying mixtures of cobalt, chromium, tantalum, nickel and platinum on the top and bottom. In a desktop drive, these platters spin at 7,200rpm. That rises to 15,000rpm for a top performance server drive and drops to 5,400rpm for general laptop storage. It means the outer edge of a platter is moving at around 67mph while the drive in use. Both sides are recordable, so for high capacity drives, read/write heads are sandwiched between platter layers with one head for each surface. These heads contain three elements: two magnetic coils for reading and writing data to the platter, and one air bearing, which helps the head maintain a steady distance of just a few nanometers above the disk surface. Hard Drives just keep getting bigger. Seagate has just announced a family of drives that can fit a full 1TB of data on each platter, which is 625GB per square inch. It's reckoned that drive capacities have doubled every 24 months or so over the last 60 years. Now and then
At the moment, drives work using a technique called 'perpendicular magnetic recording' (PMR). The recording layer on a platter surface is filled with tiny molecular particles called 'grains'. A single bit of data takes around 100 grains to store securely, and the trick to increasing capacity is to cram more of these grains into a smaller space. In a PMR disk, grains are arranged at right angles to the platter surface, so they're standing up. Previously, in 'longitudinal magnetic recording' they were arranged end to end horizontally. It stands to reason that you can squeeze more in with the newer technology, which has been commonplace for the last five years. Physical limitsThe problem that has always dogged hard drive manufacturers is that there are physical limits to the number of particles you can fit into a square inch before grains begin to randomly flip their charge and destroy data. PMR is already getting close to those limits. In order to carry on increasing capacity at historical rates, something completely new is required. That something is looking increasingly likely to be 'heat assisted magnetic recording', or HAMR for short. A steering committee called the Advanced Technology Consortium was recently set up by the International Disc Drive Equipment and Materials Association, which includes representatives from all the hard drive manufacturers, to produce a common roadmap for the shift to HAMR technology. This has a strong precedent, thanks to a similar initiative to help transition hard drives from the decades-old method of laying down information on a hard drive in 512 byte logical sectors to a larger, more efficient 4kb technique. That transition was finally completed this year, so hopefully the next goal will be met just as smoothly. But what is HAMR? Basically, researchers discovered several years ago that heating up a magnetic surface prior to writing information to it can increase the accuracy and efficiency of write heads astronomically, while cooling them down improves the ability of a read head to take that data back. The future involves a small and highly focused laser, mounted on the drive head, which heats up the area of the platter about to be written to. This area then rapidly cools down as the drive spins ready for long-term storage and reading operations. There are a few details to be sorted out, such as whether a laser point is better at two or ten nanometers, that kind of thing, but ultimately it should lead to drives capable of cramming ten times as much data into the same amount of space that they use today - and at little extra cost. Tech demosWe spoke to Rich Rutledge, Vice-President of storage giant, Western Digital, about this new HAMR technology and how it's being implemented right now. "We've all [hard drive manufacturers] done demos of the technology that have demonstrated functionality, but we haven't quite crossed over in terms of technology yet," he said. So it is up and running, but at the moment it's not ready to be simply dropped into the sort of hard drives we've got backing up our media libraries at home. "We're able to use last year's technology with heat assisted. What we're not able to do yet is next year's technology with heat assisted," says Rutledge. But hopefully the technology isn't too far off. The first drives to use actual heat-assisted write heads could be here within the next two years. 
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| Posted: 27 Aug 2011 06:00 AM PDT  It's been a busy old week in the world of camera technology, with a whopping 17 cameras and 2 brand new lenses making their debut. Here's our round-up of the week's events complete with links to the full stories. Canon releases
Canon kicked off the announcement frenzy at the start of the week with the introduction of a new Powershot SX150, an IXUS 230 HS and an IXUS 1100HS. The 12x superzoom Powershot SX150 features a 14.1 million pixel sensor and new Intelligent image stabilisation technology. A bunch of creative filters and fun effects can also be found on board. The IXUS 1100HS is the world's slimmest 12x zoom compact camera, and also includes a back-illuminated 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor a touchscreen LCD. Last up from Canon is the IXUS 230 which also boasts superslim credentials, being the sleekest 8x zoom camera on the market. Sony launches
Next up, Sony finally unveiled the much anticipated a77 DSLT. Featuring the company's unique translucent mirror technology, the camera can shoot contiuously at up to 12fps at full resolution. Angela Nicholson, who was at the press launch of the camera, was particularly impressed by the new electronic viewfinder. Take a look at our hands-on review to get a better picture of what the a77 has in store. Not content with announcing just one DSLT models, the a65 also made its debut this week. An entry-level camera, it uses the same 24.3 megapixel sensor as the a77 it's capable of shooting at 10fps and also has that impressive EVF. Two new NEX models also made it out this week, with the NEX-7 leading the way with its 24.3 megapixel sensor and the world's quickest shutter release lag at just 0.02 seconds. It's also the world's first compact system camera to feature an OLED electronic viewfinder, which offers 100% frame coverage. The NEX-5N also arrived, packed with a 16.1 megapixel APS-C size CMOS sensor and the capability to shoot full HD movies at 50p or 25p. Nikon launches
Wednesday was a busy day with Nikon outing 8 new compacts into its Coolpix line-up. For the first time, Nikon now offers a rugged compact model with the AW100. Its tough credentials include 10 metre waterproofing, 1.5m drop-proofing and -10 degree freezeproofing. It also includes a GPS tracker, electronic compass and world map to make sure you don't get lost. We spoke to Nikon about the introduction of its compact camera. The company has high hopes for the AW100, with plans to make it the market leader. The other big news was the P7000 premium compact getting an upgrade in the shape of the P7100. Equipped with a new tilting screen and faster processing speeds, the camera aims to address all the problems with the previous model. Other cameras launched this week by Nikon include the S1200pj, the latest model to feature an inbuilt projector and the S100, the company's first 3D shooter. Perhaps most conspicuous in its absence however was the hugely anticipated mirrorless model from the company. But, according to Nikon's James Loader, the current range includes something for everyone. Read more in our exclusive interview about why we might not be seeing a Nikon CSC for a while. Panasonic launches
Sneaking in at the last minute with a few launches this week is Panasonic. Introducing the world's first 'Power Zoom' lenses, a new 14-42mm kit lens that automatically retracts to an incredibly compact size is the big news. A 45-175mm telezoom lens was also introduced, watch our video hands-on with the new lenses to find out more. Slotting in at the top of its bridge camera range, the Panasonic FZ150 is the company's flagship model. Stuffed with features including a 24x optical zoom, 12.1 million pixel MOS sensor and a Venus Engine, the camera is also equipped with full manual control. Panasonic also outed a new wi-fi enabled compact, the FX90 along with a firmware upgrade for its premium compact, the LX5. After all this week's excitement, we're off for a lie-down and a cup of tea – enjoy your extra long weekend – we hope you get lots of fantastic pictures. 
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| Tutorial: How to overclock the Intel Z68 Posted: 27 Aug 2011 04:00 AM PDT  How to overclock the Intel Z68There's a lot to smile about when it comes to Intel's latest chipset; Z68 puts right the silly mistakes and arbitrary differences between P67 and H67 platforms, and one of the biggest improvements is overclocking. If you've got a Z68 motherboard, you can increase your core multiplier, DDR3 memory ratios, boost your power and current limits - as you can on the P67 platform. Where the Z68 differs from the P67 chipset, though, is in the processor graphics core of the Sandy Bridge chips. You can overclock that too, at the same time as CPU core multipliers. That means you can get faster frame rates if you're playing games with on-die graphics, and reap the general benefits of a quicker CPU, all at once. So why should you overclock your system if you have a Z68 motherboard? Well, simply because you can. Because previous Sandy Bridge chipsets didn't allow this freedom, and because Sandy Bridge CPUs themselves have tons of overclocking potential. But first… A word of warning though. Tweaking your CPU and graphics at the same time is nothing new, but when a discrete card's providing the grunt, power and current are increased over separate areas of your computer, and the same goes for temperature. When the graphics are on die though, all the extra performance you dial in comes from one rather delicate two centimetre slice of silicon. As a result, it's harder to keep temperatures in the safe zone. Moreover, the benefits of tweaking the iGPU and CPU at the same time are dubious. We noticed that at times performances actually dropped when we boosted them both, likely due to all that heat and throttling. It's a balancing act boosting them to the right amount. Get it right though and you can boost the iGPU to produce frame rates that really make the difference between unplayable, playable, and infuriating. Our test rig for this project is an Intel Core i7 2600K in an Asus P8Z68 V Pro, cooled by CoolIt's ECO ALC water cooler. We've seen very impressive numbers posted by that CPU, as high as 5.2 GHz on enthusiast mobos like the MSI Big Bang Marshal. With some diligent tweaking we squeezed a very stable 5.0 GHz out of it. Bearing in mind we used a relatively cheap cooler and motherboard, that ain't half bad. Every CPU and motherboard has its own overclocking threshold though, and results can vary significantly between seemingly identical chips, particularly the amount of voltage they can hack. So this guide isn't about achieving a certain GHz, it's about getting the most from your particular system. Right, now lets get elbow-deep into all the funky BIOS options your Z68 motherboard has to offer and see what we can get out of this chip. 1. Let The BIOS do the work
The simplest overclocking method is to run an auto-overclock procedure like Asus' OC tuner. With one click you'll get a useful slice of extra performance auto adjusting CPU ratio, voltage and BCLK frequency. Your rig might restart a few times before it finds the best settings. The downside to this technique is that it doesn't absolutely push the boundaries the way you could by tweaking manually… 2. Know your settings
…and if you're going to get your hands dirty, the key settings to examine are CPU ratio and CPU Vcore. Ratio's going to ramp up your core clock frequencies and Vcore is the main source of power for your CPU. Most of your time is going to be spent tweaking these two settings. It's useful at this point to turn off SpeedStep and set Load Line Calibration to auto. This will avoid throttling at higher temps. 3. Learn your multiplication tables
CPU ratio (aka multiplier) will accept any number between 34 and 56, which would hypothetically give a stonking 5.6GHz. Tiny increments are the key: ramp up the multiplier in twos. If your system boots, load up a CPU-heavy benchmark like Cinebench 11.5 and run it a few times. If it passes the stress test, head back to the BIOS and increase the ratio by another 1 to 2. 4. Trial and error
Eventually you'll hit a wall and crash. Here's where Vcore comes in. You want to run with as little voltage as possible, so when you've maxed the ratio, increase the Vcore a little to give your CPU more juice. The sweet spot is around 1.44V to 1.55V, but again, increase slowly and stress test if it boots. Ignore CPU PLL and PCH-increasing these voltages won't give you any more overclocking room. 5. Push the limits
If you over-volt, you'll get a POST screen error message. Go back to your last good setting, then try increasing the ratio some more. When you max both ratio and Vcore, you can still squeeze a drop more from BCLK/PCI-e, so try adding 1 to the current value. Depending on your RAM speeds, you may need to actually clock it down to find an appropriate speed for your memory. 6. One-stop graphics boost
To boost processor graphics performance, iGPU max frequency is your man. As mentioned the benefits of clocking CPU and iGPU at the same time are questionable, but increasing the iGPU frequency by just 100MHz will give you higher frame rates. Stress test with a gaming benchmark then reboot and increase by another 50MHz or so. Voila. You've made full use of the overclocking features of Z68 gratis. 
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| Posted: 27 Aug 2011 02:30 AM PDT  Motherboards supporting AMD's latest Llano technology are arriving thick and fast at the moment: the latest one to pass across this test bench is Gigabyte's A75-UD4H. Although priced for the mainstream market, the GA-A75-UD4H comes with a few bits of hardware normally associated with high-end boards. For example, it uses Gigabyte's Ultra Durable design, which uses 2oz of copper in the PCB. This, together with the Japanese capacitors, makes for a more stable platform, especially when overclocking. This copper-heavy design helps to reduce both board temperatures and electrical noise. Talking of overclocking, there are also dual BIOS chips: always handy should you fry one by taking overclocking too far or if you're unfortunate enough to get hit by a particularly nasty virus. The first thing that strikes you about the A75-UD4H is the appearance of two PCIe x16 slots. This means that not only does the board support dual graphics (hybrid integrated/discrete graphics) but it supports CrossFireX as well. With all the AMD-ness floating around, though, it's not going to be supporting Nvidia's SLI. Unfortunately because of the limited number of lanes Llano supports – just 24 – the graphics have only 16 lanes to play with, so in CrossFireX mode both the PCIe slots run at x8 speed. In reality that's not really a big deal as there is still little difference in general performance terms. Bizarrely, all four of the rear USB 3.0 ports are controlled not by the A75 chipset but by a third-party controller. This means you can't plug a keyboard/mouse into the ports under the PS/2 port, like you would normally, and expect them to work if you enter the BIOS. For this you have to use the two yellow coloured USB 2.0 ports, which are placed in a stack halfway along the rear panel. On the other hand, the fact that each USB port has its own fuse is a nice touch. So if one port blows a fuse for some reason it means it doesn't take all the ports out with it, like most other motherboards with only one fuse looking after the USB stack. Testing performanceThe first A75 boards we've looked at don't really show much of a performance difference between the manufacturers. With them all sitting at the stock speeds of the Llano APU there's precious little clear air between them, but the Gigabyte A75-UD4H does sit at the top of most tests. The pure gaming CPU test of Shogun 2, though, had the UD4H noticeably behind its two competing boards, and they both come in under the £100 mark. TechRadar Labs
CPU rendering performance Gigabyte A75-UD4H: 3.46 DirectX 11 gaming performance Gigabyte A75-UD4H: 13 CPU gaming performance Gigabyte A75-UD4H: 17 The addition of the second PCIe lane does give the UD4H a bit of a unique selling point. That said, having a traditional, dual discrete card CrossFireX set-up does sort of miss the point of the whole Fusion plan. With the integrated APU graphics dormant there's just the weaker CPU component in operation. On these Llano Fusion motherboards price is a vital component, and far more important than the rich feature set on offer with this Gigabyte board. It's a good performer, but will struggle against cheaper opposition, such as the F1A75-V Pro from Asus. 
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| Buying Guide: Best USB 3.0 flash drive: 5 reviewed and rated Posted: 27 Aug 2011 02:00 AM PDT  Best USB 3.0 flash driveLooking for a USB 3.0 flash drive which is worthy of carrying all your files around? Here are five of the best to choose from. 1. Corsair Flash Voyager 32GB USB 3.0 - £59 With great disk space comes great responsibility, Uncle Ben could have said. If he had, then maybe Peter Parker wouldn't have become Spider-Man, but instead pursued a career in Currys. Due to their high capacity, USB flash drives end up holding a vast amount of data that can be incredibly important, and would prove to be irreplaceable if something were to happen to the device. Because they are easier to be carried around, they are more likely to be damaged, and Corsair has taken this threat seriously with the Flash Voyager, encasing it in a durable and largely shock-proof rubber outer casing.
The Flash Voyager has a healthy 32GB capacity; which is enough to hold a lot of files. Transferring the 700MB test file took 23 seconds, which although much faster than USB 2.0 devices, isn't the fastest. On average you're looking at 32.6MB/s average. It's not the fastest USB 3.0 flash drive then, but if you want your data protected, the Corsair Flash Voyager is still worth considering. Verdict: 84% 2. Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 16GB - £40 The DataTraveler Ultimate isn't a particularly pretty device, looking a little like an art deco carbuncle compared to its sleeker rivals. It's added bulk does mean that it is more robust than other flash drives though, which will be a major selling point to anyone who has lost a drive due to it being crushed at the bottom of a bag, or sat on when placed in a pocket. The writing speed of this disk is less solid: taking 25 seconds to transfer our 700MB test file over, with an average write speed of 31.5 MB/s.
The drive comes formatted using FAT32, so if you want to use this drive for transferring large files above 4GB then you'll need to quickly reformat it as NTFS. Given the lowly performance and relatively high cost per gigabyte, this is a drive that's hard to recommend. Verdict: 74% 3. Lacie FastKey 120GB - £359 As you can probably tell from both the capacity of this USB stick and the price, this is no ordinary USB flash drive. In fact the LaCie FastKey bridges the gap between traditional USB drives and external hard drives. This in turn come with a number of pros and cons. In the plus column it means that the flash drive has fast transfer times (taking only 16 seconds to copy our test files across, with an average of 93MB/s) and a huge storage capacity. The operating system also treats it as if it is a standard internal hard drive, making it a much more versatile device. This is especially useful for system backups due to the added protection of by its Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256 encryption.
The big downside to the Fastkey is its price (quite obviously). There are cheaper, lower capacity models, and the fact that once plugged in, you have to fiddle about in Windows to get it recognised and visible as a hard drive, has us looking elsewhere. One for speed-freaks only then. Verdict: 82% 4. Patriot Memory Supersonic 64GB - £130 There's a hell of a lot to like about the Patriot Memory Supersonic. The no nonsense design is simple but functional, making it easy to carry around while not catching the attention of magpie-like thieves. Then there's the capacity: at 64GB this is one of the largest USB drives you can get before you start shelling out mega bucks, as is the case of the LaCie FastKey. This is a huge amount of data to carry around, and for most of us this will prove to be more than enough disk space.
Finally, there's the performance. This is a fast USB 3.0 flash drive, with average write speeds of 70MB/s. It might not be supersonic, but it's pretty damn fast. Our test files flew over in 17 seconds, and overall this disk was one of the fastest on test. The price seems high, but at a shade over £2 per gigabyte, it still offers strong value for money. Quality. Verdict: 87% 5. Transcend JetFlash 700 32GB - £49 Considering the large amount of storage space the Transcend JetFlash 700 packs, it's amazing how small it is. It's easily the smallest device in this test. Looks can be deceiving though, and this little wonder can still compete with its more flashy rivals. It's a mark of Transcend's quiet confidence in this product that it hasn't felt the need to plaster USB 3.0 branding everywhere, or design the casing to scream 'THIS IS A POWERFUL AND IMPRESSIVE PRODUCT'.
Transcend has relied on the product's performance to sell it, and it's a trust that has paid off. The 700MB file transferred in a speedy 18 seconds, with an average speed of 38.9MB/s. It's not the fastest here, but in real terms its speedy enough. Of course, the small physical size of the drive could prove to be a problem, as you're entrusting a lot of files to a device that could easily be lost. On the flip side - it's certainly convenient. Verdict: 90%
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| Review: EVGA GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2 Posted: 27 Aug 2011 02:00 AM PDT  OverviewWater, water everywhere but you really don't want to drink this stuff. Because it has coolant in it, and you will die. Or at least have a nasty tummy ache for a while. The GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2 is EVGA's monstrously OTT take on the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580, a GPU that already has the honour of being the fastest single chip graphics processor around. EVGA reckons that's not good enough, though, and has kitted its flagship card with the company's FTW Hydro Copper 2 water cooler, ready to be plumbed into your liquid-chilled system for that little bit of extra performance that air cannot provide. If you've already got a water-cooled system and want a graphics card that wants to get wet with it, it's a tempting prospect. There are just two things to bear in mind: You could buy a stock GTX 580 and fit a water cooler yourself. This is, of course, slightly riskier and won't come with EVGA's lifetime guarantee, but you could do it for over £150 less than this if you shop around. Alternatively, you could go for a lot more in-game performance and pick up a dual chip GTX 590 for roughly the same price. Against those two alternatives, EVGA's GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2 had better be something special. Standard fair
The GPU itself is relatively uninteresting. Beyond being a GeForce GTX 580, there's very little in the way of modification to its set-up. EVGA's surrounding components are all top class, with 0.4ns memory soldered in. But then it's hard to find a GTX 580 that doesn't have decent transistors and memory on the PCB. It's the flagship card in most companies' stacks. It has the standard 512 CUDA cores typical of all GTX 580s, and a massive 204GB/s maximum memory bandwidth. It requires both an 8-pin and a 6-pin PCIe power connector, and EVGA recommends a power supply of at least 600W to get it going. Cool blockMuch more interesting, though, is that water-cooling block. It's very well put together and pre-fitted and covers both GPU and memory in a solid and sleek black sheath. The straight lines are broken only by the illuminated EVGA logo on the top corner. The cooling block itself is made from chrome-plated C110 copper – a measure of high purity – and the inlet and outlet pipes jut out from the side near the SLI ports. You can plumb the card in exactly as you choose. Inside the box are stoppers for whichever side of the card you don't want the pipes sticking out of, and there are both in and 3/8-inch connectors and clips for the piping, depending on what diameter tubes you have in the rest of your system. You'll need to supply the tubing separately, along with a pump and fan assembly if you don't already have one. Which brings us onto one of the problems this card faces: this kind of water-cooling is a dying art, on account of the fact that most liquid cooled CPU heatsinks now are self-contained systems, such as the CoolIT and subsequent Corsair systems we've reviewed in the past. You can't add extra components to those – so is it worth investing in all the peripheral gubbins to build a fully water cooled system yourself? PerformanceSize matters
One of the best things about the EVGA GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2 is that the water-cooler is much smaller than any suitable air cooler. It's the only way to get a GTX 580 into a single slot space, and therefore not a bad option if you're looking to build an SLI system and can afford it. Plus, it's only ever going to be as noisy as your water-cooling system (that is, not very), and reduces the amount by which the GPU heats up the components around it. It's not for the faint hearted, though. Strangely, there are no instructions included in the box explaining what all the pipe connectors do or how they fit together, so if you're not absolutely sure of what you're doing, don't expect EVGA to help. Or your PC will be taking an early bath, and we wouldn't expect the lifetime warranty of the card to cover it. We benchmarked the EVGA GeForce GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2 at the highest possible detail settings we could. You'd see more of a pronounced difference between the scores at lower resolutions, but if you're not gaming on a 30-inch screen you'll need to ask yourself whether or not you really need a card like this. On the benchThe scores were disappointing. In Just Cause 2, the GTX 580 is more than capable of reaching the CPU limit of the game at the highest resolutions, and more GPU megahertz make no difference at all. In fact, it performed better when underclocked to the speeds of its non-augmented peers. The Shogun 2 benchmark shows that the GTX 580 does scale with speed at high resolution, just not very well. Paying almost £200 for an extra frame per second would be foolish beyond belief. What's worse is that even though the cooler itself never let the core temperature rise above 46°C, the card wouldn't clock above around 950MHz, hitting a wall as soon as it was pushed close to that number. In a carefully tuned system you might be able to get a little more speed out of it, but not a great deal. Fermi is a big, complex design and there are limitations there you just can't go over. TechRadar Labs
DirectX 11 gaming performance DirectX 10 gaming performance Thermal performance Best option?Which leaves the EVGA card in a bit of a quandary. It looks lovely, and it's hard not to admire EVGA's determination to keep purist water-cooling alive, but with so many other options around multi-monitors and 3D gaming to consider at the moment, it's not the best way to blow nearly £600 on making games better. A properly water-cooled system is about more than just money and performance, it's a hand-built work of nerd-art you'll be proud of in years to come. EVGA's FTW Hydro Cooler 2 is beautifully engineered to fit into such a system, and runs silently when fully plumbed in. Unfortunately, though, there's just not always enough of a performance benefit to watercooling any more. Admittedly, keeping the GPU core temperature down to a fraction of what an air cooler can is an achievement. And it will also lengthen the life of your chip – but the actual in-game benefits are marginal. Sadly then, there are just too many other things you could do with that cash to blow it on the FTW Hydro. 
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