This latest update brings a few new goodies including 2 ATI Sapphire Vapor-X 5770’s, a Logitech Harmony remote and Revision 2 of Artic Cooling’s ever so popular Freezer Pro.
The first thing to notice is how the revision 2 Freezer Pro has a new mounting bracket for AMD processors and the orientation of the cooler has changed as well. This slightly throws off my cooling design for the media pc case but until I get my AM3 board nothing is set in stone any way. I cant say I care much for the new mounting design, it seems more stable but is a total PITA to install. Just to tighten the screws for the front you need to wedge a screw driver behind the fan and pull the fan aware from the cooler stretching the rubber connectors that connect the fan to the cooler. I fear after a few processor swaps the rubber will eventually break and render the cooler useless.
The Logitech Harmony remote was a real let down out of the bunch. Yes it does control all of my device but at a cost. I lose some functionality which was to be expected but the real let down was the fact that I cant even set custom or even organize the order of the quick buttons at the top. Let me explain further,at the top of the remote is an LCD and 4 buttons with 2 directional arrows below the LCD to switch between pages. The problem is the order is set in stone and its not very good. For example just to turn on the TV I have to switch to TV mode and then scroll through 3 pages to get to the page with the power option. I have to do this every time I want to power cycle the TV. Logitech attempted to integrate macro like functions that will do many things with 1 button such as turn on the TV, turn on the Media PC, turn on the stereo and then go to the movies section in media center. This is also a dud, how often will all the devices be off when you want this function. I cant tell you when my media pc is sleeping or not and unfortunately you can only use Logitech predetermined functions and not create your own or even take things out of the predefined functions. I would like a function for movies that only turns on the stereo and enters the movie section of media center. I am hoping someone will crack this thing soon so we can use the remote how we want and it will be only then that it will be worth its price tag.
Last up on the list is the pair of Sapphire 5770’s. I am not going to review them here but I can tell you first impression of the cards is great. They are very quiet and currently run any game I own on the fullest of fullest settings, this includes options you don’t get on an Xbox 360 such as 8x AF and AA. If you want to see how the games were actually intended to look then do yourself a favor and grab a set of these or something from the more powerful 5800 series.
