Very recently Benchmark Reviews published the Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade and Installation guide, which helps erase the mistakes made by Windows Vista and introduces computer enthusiasts to the newly introduced O/S. Microsoft has enjoyed a successful launch for their Windows 7 Operating System, also referred to at Win7 or W7, and PCs have been made more productive and secure as a result. But like all good things that we receive, it's in our nature to protect and keep them. The best way to accomplish this is with a solid backup, and luckily Windows 7 offers a built-in Backup and Restore tool for creating System Images. By creating a backup file users can preserve their data, but with a System Image recovering the source disk can be helpful when replacing the drive with another. In this article, Benchmark Reviews guides users on the best practices for protecting and Recovering Windows 7 with System Image Restore Disks.

All DVD-burners are the same, right? So what makes one better than the next. It's rare these days to hear about an optical drive, with all the other components that are getting faster, greener, and cheaper. Today, Benchmark Reviews is taking a look at ASUS's most recent addition to the optical drive market, the ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x DVD+/-RW. Many of us may have recently been contemplating an upgrade to our old drives. After a few years of wear and tear, optical drives can give out. Also, with recent upgrades in motherboards, you might find yourself without an IDE channel, necessitating the purchase of a newer SATA model drive. Benchmark Reviews will test the ASUS DRW-24B1ST against other optical drives with USB, IDE, and SATA connectors to find out just exactly what ASUS has in store with it's newest DVD-Burner.

Just when I thought they had finished cutting halves, ATI has taken the 40nm Cypress architecture to a new low. Low power, that is. In a brand new design, unlike anything they have released with this architecture, ATI is going after the Home Theater PC market with their heat sinks blazing. OK, I exaggerate; the Radeon HD5450 video card actually runs pretty cool, which is the point, really. It's silent, too, with a large and lovely red heatsink sitting atop the tiny GPU, sans fan. Follow along with Benchmark Reviews as we investigate an early sample of ATI's new standard bearer for low-power HTPC applications.

NVIDIA and AMD build such great products that it's not always easy for their partners to improve upon the initial design. A perfect example is the ATI Radeon HD 5850, which has earned accolades from consumers and critics alike. While the original ATI design worked well, there's always room for improvement. Offering a robust PCS+ (Professional Cooling System Plus) feature that adds better thermal management over the Cypress GPU, the PowerColor Radeon HD5850 is designed with overclocker enthusiasts in mind. Delivered with a factory overclock, Benchmark Reviews tests the HD5850 PCS+ AX5850-1GBD5-PPDHG model against the original reference ATI design, and a large collection of competing graphics cards.

ProlimaTech holds the crown for best CPU cooler here at Benchmark Reviews with the Megahalems. They have also surprised a lot of review websites with their PK1 thermal compound. All of these things are a massive feat for a company that was founded just 2 years ago. It comes as no surprise that ProlimaTech have now ventured into another field within the PC enthusiast market: VGA cooling. Introducing the MK-13 VGA cooler, ProlimaTech's first entry into what is a steadily growing market, Weighing in at 555g it's no baby, and has six heatpipes to transfer heat to the uniquely designed heatsink fins. The ProlimaTech MK-13 comes with nearly universal compatibility and future proofing for video cards. Many consider Thermalright to hold the crown here, but I get the feeling that ProlimaTech won't settle for second best. Join me as Benchmark Reviews examines and tests the ProlimaTech MK-13.

The International Consumer Electronics Show offers a vast and overwhelming panoply of products, with exhibitors ranging from tiny, two-man booths from unknown Taiwanese companies to 4+ acre spreads from Microsoft and Intel. In addition to CES exhibits in the Las Vegas Convention Center, vendors have invitation-only hospitality suites set up in various hotels around the Strip. With over 2,700 exhibitors from more than 140 countries, you're not going to see everything even if you spend every waking moment traipsing the show floor. What follows is a list of things which caught my eye, or that I thought were technically cool; it's in no way comprehensive, or even very organized, but should give you some idea of what the show was like.

With this latest release, ATI is doubling back to fill some gaps in its wildly successful Radeon HD5xxx series of video cards. The previous release, the HD5450, was the logical terminus of their GPU bisecting act. In fact, they got a little carried away, and lopped off almost all the Stream Processors, in order to reduce the power requirements down to the lowest possible level. This time, the goal was to create the best performing low-profile HTPC card they could. The HD5570 is the first in a series of HD55xx video cards, and for now, it will probably be the top card in the group. Loaded up with the Redwood GPU from the HD5670, 1 GB of GDDR3 memory, and an all copper active GPU cooler, the HD5570 looks to be the King of the low-profile world, without the attendant King's ransom. Follow along with Benchmark Reviews as we see how it stacks up against its siblings.

Solid State Drive technology is developed for two groups of users: large-scale Enterprise environments and individual end-users. Kingston Technology has been in the business of satisfying enthusiasts and gamers for many years, and their SSDNow series of NAND-flash storage products has been the affordable solution for system upgrades. In this article, Benchmark Reviews introduces the second-generation Kingston SSDNowV+ Solid State Drive series. Based on the high-performance Toshiba T6UG1XBG processor, the Kingston SSDNowV+ SNVP325-S2 delivers native TRIM support with a maximum rated read speed of 230MBps and write-to bandwidth peaking at 180MBps.