Random Saturday Ramblings

Yesterday I finally finished the review of the OCZ Flex XLC DDR2 memory. Normally this review should have been ready in September but I was kinda lazy and I also adjusted my “review queue” a couple of times to get reviews of newly announced products up first .

The OCZ FlexXLC memory kit I tested this week runs at 800MHz with 3-4-4-15 timings – check out the article to see how it performs and how far I could overclock it.

Next week I’m going to publish a review of the SteelSeries 4H headset and I’m also thinking about buying a couple of gadgets to improve my reviews. One of the things I’m planning to buy this month is a decibelmeter, that should come in handy to check the noise levels of fans, processor coolers and power supplies.

One of the other things I’m looking into is a way to improve my power supplies reviews. The ideal way to test PSUs is by testing the voltages, ripple, efficiency and max load but to do this I would need thousands of dollars of test equipment and that’s not really realistic considering I only do a couple of power supply reviews a year. Currently I’m only able to test the voltages with a multimeter in idle and load conditions but in the near-future I’m planning to get a digital oscilloscope to check the output quality and I’m also trying to come up with a way to test the efficiency.

Next month I’m also going to start looking for a couple of reviewers for DV Hardware. Currently I’m doing all the work by myself and I would like to get some new writers onboard so more good content can be launched every week. Unfortunately it’s not really easy to find people with enough knowledge and adequate writing skills.