Release roundup: Platinum PSUs, Mini-ITX cases, and more

The big news this week was, of course, the release of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 680—and the myriad versions of it from various card makers. But other, less momentous launches also took place this week. We've collected such announcements from Antec, Biostar, Lian Li, and Super Talent:

• Antec announces High Current Pro Platinum 1000 watt PSU. As its name indicates, Antec's latest power supply can sustain a kilowatt of power output, and it features 80 Plus Platinum certification. That label indicates efficiency in the 89-94% range, depending on load. The High Current Pro Platinum 1000W also has a 135-mm double-ball bearing fan, fully modular cabling, and a seven-year warranty. It's not cheap, though; Antec quotes a suggested retail price of $269.95.

• Biostar introduces TA970XE motherboard. Biostar says this mobo has "capabilities are very close" to its top-of-the-line TA990FXE, but with a lower price ($99.99, to be exact). Features include an AMD 970 chipset, an SB950 south bridge, dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots with CrossFire support, five internal 6Gbps Serial ATA ports, one eSATA port, and a couple of USB 3.0 ports. The board also has UEFI firmware and support for up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM. Not too shabby, considering the price.

• Lian Li announces a compact chassis for modern mobile data storage. The PC-Q1 is Lian Li's latest entry in the world of Mini-ITX enclosures, and it comes loaded with storage bays. There's a 5.25" bay out front, a "hotswappable" 3.5" bay inside, plus another three 2.5" internal bays for mechanical or solid-state drives. Other goodies include a 300W 80-Plus-certified power supply and a pair of USB 3.0 front-panel ports. Bonus: Lian Li says the case "resembles a miniature SUV." It'll set you back $179.

• Extreme SSD solution skips SATA III in favor of PCIe. Solid-state drives with PCI Express interfaces seem to be multiplying these days, and Super Talent has just introduced another one: the RAIDDrive upStream. This model has a PCIe x8 interface, and it combines four SandForce-based SSDs in a RAID array driven by an SLI controller. Super Talent is offering 220GB, 460GB, and 960GB capacities, and it quotes peak transfer rates of 1000MB/S for reads and 900MB/s for writes.

You know, that Lian Li case does look sweet, but I'm just not crazy about the little "wheel-like stubs" on the sides. Lian Li claims they help reduce vibrations, but surely there's a more elegant way to manage that problem.

Thank you : techreport.com/news.x