Today sees the release of two new reservoirs for the water cooling enthusiast market. Designed around the popular Liang D5 and D5 vario these products are set to provide maximum compatibility whilst being user friendly.

The reservoirs attach directly to the Liang pumps, thus eliminating the need to install tubing from the reservoir to the pump itself. This saves the consumer money, space and time.

The products are available in two flavours, bay and tank designs.

http://www.xspc.biz/d5bayres.php

http://www.xspc.biz/d5tankres.php

This reviewer would be very interested to see what XSPC comes up with next.

Author Gilgamesh

Introduction

In the performance water cooling industry, we have seen many CPU blocks vie for our attention; with many products and a myriad of interesting ideas. A company that has hugged the limelight is with their heat killer range of blocks and indeed they have been bestowed with the performance’ crown for a log time. With baited breath water cooling enthusiasts have been expecting the new heatkiller killer for quite some time! This is where the new XSPC RASA steps in with its new mounting mechanism, which is of a similar nature to that of the Swiftech XT.

XSPC have been around for many years, offering cooling parts for the computer consumer. They made their name with their range of radiators and of their quality water cooling tubing. In recent times XSPC have purchased ‘Thermochill’ which is in joint ownership with Watercoolinguk and it has seen to have gone from strength to strength.  With the release of their new RX radiators time is indeed looking  good for XSPC! Those ‘good times’ may be set to continue with the launch of their new CPU water block entitled Rasa. The word or concept Rasa is Sanskrit for the concept of ‘essence’, it is also Latin meaning ‘Slate’ as in Tubular Rasa’ meaning blank slate’.  The reason why the block was called this as that this block is not based upon any existing XSPC  product, rather they started from ‘scratch’-hence the name Rasa!

Without further delay let us look further into the Rasa’s capabilities.

Specifications

• ¼ inch thread mounting holes for the barbs
• Chrome mounting bracket
• Weight 150 Grammes
• Compatible with Intel Sockets 775, 1156, and 1366

One must note that the block that this reviewer received was the final revision prototype, this means that the chrome is not as polished as the final sales version that the consumer would see. Additionally the screws holding the Rasa block together will be stainless instead of mild steel.

Introduction

In the computer industry, cases are a rather hit and miss affair. With some monstrosities such as the forthcoming Thermaltake Ten to the elegant Lian Li cases, we have seen computer chassis come and go.

Remember the days when computer cases were a drab off-white colour and full of razor sharp edges?  In those days building a computer was considered baptism by fire!  The nearest a consumer could get to an elegant case was from Apple and these had the resemblance of boiled sweets  In today’s  world we  see many types of computer enclosures and in many interesting shapes. To add another factor into this ‘whirlpool’ of chassis configurations; we now have the consumers themselves making their own cases!

Company Background

Fractal Design was founded in Sweden in the year 2007 by a Mr Hannes Wallin! They first entered the Scandinavian Market in 2007 and two years later they had explored additional markets in Europe; namely Germany, France, Switzerland and the UK amongst others.  They also have recently signed a contract with their new distributor in Australia.  In addition, during the second Quarter of 2010 they will enter the North American market!

Their goal is to be widely recognized for a high end level of design and products.  Fractal is putting great effort into choosing the right partners in each region, and  their strategy is to work with a good structure of selected distribution partners and retail/e-tailers!

One of the core ideas of Fractal Design is to provide products with an extraordinary design level. The principles of their products have been stylish, simplistic and clean; which they prefer to call the Scandinavian design! Their ethos is to produce products that incorporate the above, but without compromising quality, functionality and pricing.