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Core PC Components
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Reviews for all the core PC components- APU/CPU, Motherboards, Graphic Cards, Internal Storage Drives- SSD and HDD, PC cases, Sound Cards/DAC, PC Chassis and everything that goes inside the CPU case!
The Cooler Master NR200P is a very interesting SSF PC case. It provides for motherboards in mini-ITX/ mini DTX layout, a layout which maintains the vertical length of the mini ITX while providing a longer width. Along with the SFX/ SFX-L spec power supplies, this case is to provide some interesting configuration options. miniITX cases come with some expected compromises. But with advancements in design from processors, chips all the way to layout and form factor specs, it reduces that compromise significantly. In the end, we will see cases like these.
The Seagate Ironwolf 110 SSD is made for small to SOHO NAS arrays. While NAS bays do provide cages with both 3.5″/ 2.5″ drives, there are some really small form factor NAS specifically made for 2.5″ SATA drives for mechanical and solid-state. There are also 3.5″/2.5″ hybrid NAS that uses SSDs as additional caching for the primary storage array. Naturally, this would make a market for NAS specific SSDs. This is the Seagate Ironwolf variant. The Ironwolf 110SSD comes with a set of its marketed features- AgileArray firmware and DuraWrite are two of these firmware specific implementations. These NAS SSDs do that have a 5-year warranty with an included 2-year data recovery support. Though the provision for this data recovery support varies between countries.
This the special variant from NZXT- the H500 Vault Boy Limited Edition where they’ve made 1,000 units of these. Apart from the Fallout 4 theme, it is the H500 essentially. This is a compact mid-tower PC case. NZXT started making case for a while- and I owned one of them imported from Directron- the NZXT Nemesis Elite Edition. Fun times!
Typical of the Ironwolf NAS drive series, the SEAGATE IRONWOLF 16TB ST16000VN001 HDD carries 3 years warranty with a spindle speed of 7,200 RPM. These are marketed for Home, SOHO and small business NAS drives, typically up to 8 bays. It comes with a plethora of NAS-specific functions. Its in-house Ironwolf Health Management (IHM) is a 1up from S.M.A.R.T. functions. This emphasis on Prevention, Intervention and Recovery. To use IHM, it needs to work with IHM-enabled NAS units. At the time of writing, it listed ASUSTOR, QNAP, OSAN, Synology, Terra Master and Thecus. There is no support for desktop systems, nor FreeNAS functions- yet.
At first glance, the GALAX RTX 2080 EX is looking to be a card with a compact design because of its colour and design choice. It is not when compared with its RTX 2080 Founders Edition. The graphics card seems to be lightweight compared to other graphics card of this class. The GALAX RTX 2080 EX’s cooling system is advertised to dissipate heat up to 260watt TDP, with a larger heatsink fin surface area and higher airflow (70.1 CFM) rating. Fair enough.
This is the Seagate Ironwolf 14TB ST14000VN008 HDD drive, its highest capacity storage drive with 7,200 RPM. Apart from its elusive pricing, it would attract some type of users who will need 12.7 TB formatted mechanical drive in a single package. All of this while maintaining its MTBF lifespan.
The GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1650 OC 4GB is one of GTX 1650 variants it offers. While the base clock is the same as the reference spec, the boost clock has a minuscule 45 MHz bump. As expected, this is an entry-level graphics card, with a larger fan shroud with aluminium heatsink within the GPU.
What I am reviewing is the Seagate BarraCuda Pro ST14000DM001 HDD, a 14 TB drive which has a spindle of eight discs and 256MB buffer. This is the largest storage capacity drive you can get your hands on.