By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
We've created a set of short screencasts demonstrating the control panel software for the HS1 USB Gaming Headset. Jeff Checchi, the host of our videos, does narration duties. Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player. Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player. Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player. Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
For those of you considering a new headset, keep in mind that the new Gaming Audio Series HS1A gaming headset sounds great with MP3 players and mobile phones too. Due to a recent iPod tragedy, I am currently using my Droid X for all my mobile music. As I was loading the MP3s into my phone, I had a brief flashback to the recent PAX East gaming event. We had one of our new HS1A analog headsets set up at our booth for people to sample. We had some good lossless MP3s playing and quite a few people listened and were very impressed with them. What stuck with me was how many people said “Wow, is this a noise cancelling headset too?” In fact, the cans are not noise cancelling. However, we specifically designed the ear pieces for the HS1 USB and HS1A to fully enclose the entire ear. This feature, coupled with the excellent padding in the ear pads, does result in great external sound isolation. So, in fact, there is a noise cancelling effect of sorts. This led me to try the HS1As out with my Droid X. I was not overly impressed with the default music player that came with my phone. It was adequate but I wanted more bells and whistles. After a bit of reading I decided to try the PowerAMP player. I was very surprised and impressed by how clean and clear the playback was using this combination. The volume was not quite as loud as what I normally get with smaller ear bud type headphones. But, it’s plenty loud for my old ears and the noise reduction of the cans on the HS1As more than makes up for the lack of sheer volume. So, for those of you considering a new headset, keep in mind that HS1As sound great with MP3 players and mobile phones. I’m definitely going to use them with my iPod Touch when it comes back from having the screen replaced!
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
If you have ever looked at the top 3DMark® scores or know a little about extreme overclocking, you've probably seen the name Vince “K|ngP|n” Lucido. Recently Vince teamed up with fellow overclocker and mad scientist Illya “TiN” Tsemenko to break some world records. <br> Four highly modified NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580 with K|ngP|n cooling Tek 9 LN2 pots installed They started out with the EVGA® Classified SR-2 motherboard and a pair of Intel® Xeon® X5690 processors. Along with the EVGA motherboard they used Corsair Dominator® GT GTX2 memory modules and four highly modified NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580 graphics cards. Finally they mounted a total of seven, yes I said seven K|ngP|n cooling LN2 pots! <br> With everything installed and insulated they are ready to break records First up Vince and Illya took the 3DMark Vantage World Record with a score of P79364. Two of the Xeon X5690 processors were overclocked to almost 5.5GHz. After knowing Vince for a number of years and following his overclocks I am sure he is going to break 80,000 in this benchmark any day. This is yet another milestone that Vince has broken. <br> Click here for the Futuremark Orb results After taking that record Vince and Illya went after the world record for 3DMark 11. This time they raised the CPU clocks to 5.62GHz. The GPUs were also overclocked to almost 1200MHz! This combination of CPU and GPU power led to a new world record of P24347. <br> Click here for the Futuremark Orb results After several hours of benchmarking Vince and Illya had two world records to show for their efforts. They are definitely going to be a tough combination to beat out. However, I am sure they will break their own records within the next few weeks. <br> Check out the bling that Illya made for the LN2 pots
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
The Hydro Series H70 is a popular cooler for today's current CPUs. I was already using a H70 to cool my CPU, and I decided to try to mod one to cool my GPU as well. Mounting the H70 onto my GPU should make it run much cooler. In order to mount the H70 onto my GeForce GTX 480, the stock mounting bracket for the H70 needs to be modified. To make the modified mount as stock looking as possible, I decided to use 20 gauge steel to make the new piece fit on top of the modified H70 bracket. After measuring the mounting holes on the GTX 480 and the outer diameter of the H70, I created a template I could follow. After the template was transferred to the sheet of steel the center hole was drilled with a 2-7/8" hole saw. The next step was drilling out the mounting holes. After drilling all of the holes I used a dremel to roughly cut around the outside line. I made small cuts with metal shears to give it the final shape. All of the surfaces were then filed and sanded smooth. The next step was modifying the stock retention ring to allow my H70 to mount to the card. I had a spare Intel mounting bracket available to use but the AMD bracket will do the same job. All 4 of the tabs needed to be cut off, and after I filed down all of the sharp edges I sanded the entire retention ring. <br> Whenever using any sort of power tools make sure to wear proper safety equipment It was finally time to bond the modified H70 retention bracket with the 20 guage steel bracket that I fabricated. I used J-B Kwik epoxy to bond the two brackets together. To ensure good adhesion, I completely sanded both parts. I let the epoxy cure over night, and then sanded down any excess. After sanding down the excess epoxy, I gave the whole thing a quick touch-up with some spray paint to make it look similar to the stock bracket. Before mounting the H70 to my GPU, I tested the card with the stock heatsink to get a base line. To put a load on the GPU I used Furmark v1.9, I also used GPUz to make sure the temperature readings were correct. After a few minutes the card was running 85°C, and after 3 hours the card had reached a max temperature of 94°C. I removed the stock cooler that covers just the GPU after letting the card cool down. I then installed four 4-40 machine screws with nuts onto the card. I slipped the custom made bracket over the screws, and put the top nuts in place to keep it from falling off. Lastly I installed the H70 pump and cooling block combo onto the card. The process was very similar to mounting the H70 onto a CPU. I tightened the top nuts down finger tight to avoid damaging the GPU. <br>Click on the image to see a close-up of the Hydro Series H70 installed on the GPU Within the first few minutes of testing my new Hydro Series H70 cooled GPU, the card was running at 55°C. After three hours of testing, the maximum temperature recorded was still only 60°C. That is a 34°C drop versus the stock cooler on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480! Not only did it give the GPU a significant temperature drop it also substantially lowered the noise level of the entire PC. Overall I was really impressed with how well the Hydro Series H70 was able to cool the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480. The bracket took approximately 45 minutes to fabricate and modify, not including the time for the epoxy and paint to dry. The effort of creating the bracket was well worth the results! I will be able to game for hours on end without my GPU reaching 90°C and have also made my entire system quieter by getting rid of the noisiest fan in my rig. <br> The H70 was mounted in the back of the 650D with another H70 on the CPU mounted at the top of the case.
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
It's been a while since we've done a how-to video, so we've recorded Jeff Checchi installing a Hydro Series H60 liquid CPU cooler. The original Hydro Series H50 earned praise for its ease of installation. With the H60, we've made further refinements to make installation even simpler.
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
Quite often I am asked to tell the story of how Yellowbeard came to be. Well, as requested, here it is! The true tale of how a humble cop from Georgia became Corsair's most notorious web personality... Two different times in my life I've thought to myself; “I have an awesome job”. The first of those times was when I was a police officer. I was in law enforcement for 16 years and I really enjoyed my work. I spent some time in the patrol division, detective division, narcotics, SWAT team, and I was even a bike cop for a while. (Please, no Pacific Blue jokes...) The other time that I've had this thought about my job relates to my position here at Corsair. I'm extremely fortunate to have had two consecutive careers that I enjoy so much. And, quite often I'm asked how I made that transition from law enforcement to being Yellowbeard for Corsair. I have to go back to my high school days and thank my electronics instructor, Mr. Vernon Adamson. He gave me a very solid fundamental electronics education. A good bit of it has stuck with me since I graduated in 1987 and served me well at times. As a side note, I have to applaud Mr. Adamson’s patience. He could be a double for Alex Trebek of Jeopardy fame. Mr. Adamson showed no end of patience to a room full of high school students constantly addressing discussion topics in the form of a question. I’ll never forget someone saying “I’ll take Ohm’s Law for $200” or “what is hole current”. During the latter portion of my law enforcement career, beginning in about 2002 or so, I became a Corsair customer and budding computer enthusiast. I can clearly remember buying my first set of XMS memory. The process of my learning about computers paralleled my exit from law enforcement. In the summer of 2003, I suffered what turned out to be a career ending neck injury. During the 3.5 years it took to recover and rehabilitate, I spent an enormous amount of time online in a variety of computer forums learning everything I could about hardware and overclocking. I got to be known in quite a few popular forums as Specmike. Since I was a Corsair customer, I of course spent a great deal of time in the Corsair forums. By learning online and with tutelage from RAM GUY and others, I became pretty good at helping people. I even got to know RAM GUY on a first name basis. (And no, I can’t reveal his true name... it’s one of our most closely guarded corporate secrets!) I used to joke with RAM GUY, telling him that I spent so much time in their forums that Corsair should put me on their payroll. What I didn't know at that time was that my efforts were being noticed by some of the higher ups at Corsair, including co-founder John Beekley. I was very effective at helping people resolve issues, which is really what I did a lot of as a police officer. John decided that I should in fact work for Corsair so that I could go out into the forum world and assist Corsair customers in an official capacity. So, in the fall of 2006, they hired me. I was asked to take a pirate themed name and I chose Yellowbeard from the movie of the same name. These days, instead of knocking down doors, filling out endless reports, going to court, etc I now spend my time surfing really cool computer forums, looking for people who are having trouble and trying to help out. I also get to spend lots of time overclocking, building and testing systems, and attending industry events to represent Corsair. I've traveled to a lot of places and met a lot of very interesting people at overclocking and LAN events. And luckily in all my time at Corsair, I've not been shot at, subpoenaed to court, and I don't have to wear a bullet proof vest — even though that might be a good idea when pouring LN2. I have to say, other than when Elianne in Marketing recently cut off my head at the PAX East 2011 event, this job is a lot safer. Believe it not, this actually made my neck feel better too! Now, I would not suggest that anyone take the same career transition path for employment in the tech industry as I did. The two ruptured disks, and two neck surgeries were no walk in the park. But it worked for me, and that’s the short version of how I jumped ship (so to speak) and became famous as Yellowbeard.
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
Before I begin, I’ll define some terms: When a PSU is described as “single rail,” it means that all of the PSU’s power is available from a single source. Multiple-rail designs allocate the total available amperage across two or more “rails.” Single-rail PSUs can be much more convenient when setting up high-performance PCs, as they eliminate the need to balance the power load across multiple rails — all you need to worry about is whether your power supply meets the your system’s total power requirements. But more importantly, there’s no effective difference in safety between single-rail and multi-rail PSUs. It’s been claimed that the higher amperage delivered across a single rail introduces risks not found with multiple rails with lower amperage. This is simply not the case, for reasons we’ll explain below. Safety First First, let’s get one thing out of the way. Corsair, like all reputable PSU vendors, takes safety very seriously. All of our power supplies are certified by UL and other regulatory agencies. In addition to UL/CUL certification in the US, our power supplies have CE (for Europe), CB (an international standard), TÜV (for the German market), CCC (for sales in China), and C-Tick, for Australia and New Zealand. And, of course, they pass all the relevant Intel certifications, as well. In short, they meet the highest worldwide standards for power supply safety. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Here’s a brief look at the protective circuitry built in to any well-designed power supply: Short-circuit protection: all modern power supplies have mechanisms in place to make equipment damage from short circuits all but unheard-of. Corsair PSUs have multiple redundant, isolated circuits that shut down the PSU in the presence of any condition that indicates a potential short circuit. When building a power supply, you simply cannot be too careful. Over-voltage and under-voltage protection: these work in several ways. On the power input side, in the unlikely event of the electric company providing too little voltage, the power supply immediately shuts down. The PSU also protects your system in the event of a lightning power strike or other power spike. Well-designed power supplies are designed to accommodate for variations within a certain threshold to avoid unnecessary fuse replacements. The ATX design guide calls these “nuisance trips.” On the output side, there’s also over-voltage and under-voltage protection on the power rail. If there’s any variation from the ATX specifications that can’t be corrected, the power supply immediately shuts down. Over-current protection: this limits the amount of current that can be pulled from the output rail. By the way, motherboards have their own mechanisms for protecting the CPU, memory, and add-in cards from damage in the event of non-standard power delivery. Motherboards do so by monitoring the “power good” signal sent by the PSU, and shutting down the CPU. The power good signal is +5V, but it’s provided by a dedicated monitoring circuit, and not simply the PSU’s regular +5V line. Amperage: Is there such a thing as too much? Let’s use an example. The Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 provides a single +12V rail, delivering a maximum current of 62 Amps and a maximum combined wattage of 720 Watts. A PSU from another vendor might have four +12V rails, each with a total amperage of 25 Amps (the higher total amperage on the +12V line in this example is made up for by providing less power on the other lines than the Corsair PSU — 25 Amps each to the +3.3V and +5V lines, vs. 30 Amps on the TX750 V2). Is 62 Amps any less safe than 25 Amps? The answer is: of course not. Single-rail PSUs have the very same protective circuitry described above as do multi-rail CPUs. When looking at total amperage, It’s also important to remember that when a PSU is installed into a PC, the current is spread among multiple power cables — to your motherboard, to your peripherals, to your GPU, and so on. You’ll never have a situation where 62 Amps are being drawn across a single power cable. Additionally, any well-designed PSU power cable (that is, the cables provided by any reputable PSU manufacturer) just can’t supply the impedance that would be necessary to overload the cable. When choosing a power supply, there are a few things to consider: whether you want modular cables, how much power you need today, and how much power you think you’ll need for your next several upgrades. But when choosing between a single-rail or a multi-rail PSU, safety simply isn’t a differentiator.
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
If you don't have your own Graphite Series 600T mid-tower case, or if you haven't yet had the chance to see one in person, or simply if you're a fan of Jeff Checchi, you'll probably enjoy our new video. Jeff shows off the features and takes off the panels and grilles to show off the goods, and the Special Edition White model makes a guest appearance. Please let us know what you think.
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
/corsairmedia/sys_master/productcontent/blog_corsair-weekly-review-round-up-speakers-headsets-and-psus-oh-my-Content-1.gifHard OCP, Gaming Audio Series™ HS1A Gaming Headset Review — "The Corsair HS1A is the most comfortable and best performing stereo gaming headset we have ever used. We had a great sound stage in music, movies and games. The HS1A simply did a stellar job reproducing the sound signature of whichever sound card we used as well." Legit Reviews, Gaming Audio Series SP2200 2.1 PC Speaker System Review — "Corsair's offerings being "Gaming" speakers, this is a very important part of their design and I can say with all of my pride that they did an amazing job at this. I can say that gamers are going to be happy. Even compared to a normal 5.1 system, these speakers are a better value in my mind. I could close my eyes during a nature scene in the movie Avatar and feel like I'm surrounded by the Pandora jungle. <br><br> If I was playing a game like Counter Strike or Battlefield Bad Company 2, I could tell when those footsteps were directly behind me or when they were to my right or left." Hot Hardware, Gaming Audio Series SP2500 Review — "If you’re in the market for a high-quality speaker system and don’t have the room or desire for a 5.1 channel surround sound setup, we highly recommend the Corsair SP2500s. The Corsair SP2500 2.1 channel speaker system is available for about $230 currently, which certainly isn't cheap for a 2.1 channel setup, but they are worth every penny. Sound quality across a wide range of sources is excellent, plain and simple." PC Perspective, Corsair Enthusiast Series™ V2 TX850 and TX750 Review — "Corsair is well known for producing some of the best PC power supplies on the market today and their new TX750 V2 and TX850 V2 power supplies continue that trend at an affordable price. Both TX V2 power supplies delivered clean DC outputs, with good efficiency and very good voltage regulation. Both power supplies come with a good assortment of fixed cables that can support the latest CPUs and multiple, high-end video cards. And let’s not forget active PFC, universal AC input and Corsair’s 5-year warranty." JonnyGURU, Corsair Enthusiast Series™ V2 TX750 Review — 9.5 out of 10 — "Stop the presses - Corsair has another winning power supply on the market. The TX750 V2 is an extremely stable, well performing unit at a great price. They've done a lot right and very few things wrong. Voltage regulation was very good. Efficiency was very good. Ripple suppression was excellent. Why are you still reading this and not running out and buying one? Go... go now."
By CORSAIR Technical Marketing,
Computer enthusiasts are more demanding than your average computer user. For those users we've recently introduced Vengeance 2000MHz DDR3 memory, available in 4GB, 6GB, and 12GB kits. /corsairmedia/sys_master/productcontent/blog_enthusiast-computing-and-corsair-vengeance-2000mhz-memory-made-for-each-o-Content-1.png According to www.dictionary.reference.com, an enthusiast is defined as: [indent] noun a person who is filled with enthusiasm for some principle, pursuit, etc.; a person of ardent zeal: a sports enthusiast. a religious visionary or fanatic. [/indent] Enthusiasts are everywhere. You can see them climbing up Mt. Everest to the 29,029ft summit, cruising 600hp street-rods down Woodward Avenue, extreme skiing down 60° plus slopes littered with trees and boulders, launching a nitro methane burning dragster to 340mph or more in under 5 seconds, competing in marathons and triathlons, and sitting at computer desks overclocking their computer gear to extract every last single bit of performance from it. You may even see computer techs jumping trucks on BMX bikes. Yeah, I know… that guy should 'a had a helmet on. At Corsair, we're enthusiasts ourselves. As a longtime industry leader in high performance memory, we realize the demand from that discerning group of people that want to extract every last ounce of performance from their computer hardware. These people expect the absolute best and fastest memory that can be had. Some may say that you don’t actually need 2GHz memory these days. Well, that is only partly true. No one actually needs a 600hp car to go to the grocery store. It’s not a requirement to climb the tallest mountain in the world or to ski back down it. Running 26 miles or jumping 26 feet is not a necessity for most. But, there are those people in the world that demand the best equipment so that they can push the boundaries that restrict others. Our customers spoke, and we listened. The most recent offering for these customers is our new Vengeance 2000MHz DDR3 memory, available in 4GB, 6GB, and 12GB kits. These Vengeance kits fills the niche for the enthusiast audience that wants this level of performance, but who may not want or need the expandability and flexibility of our flagship Dominator® and Dominator® GT DDR3 memory. /corsairmedia/sys_master/productcontent/blog_enthusiast-computing-and-corsair-vengeance-2000mhz-memory-made-for-each-o-Content-3.png The Enthusiast segment of the memory market is certainly not about what people “need”. It’s about what people want. And when people want the fastest and best memory available, they come to Corsair.