Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Special > Events > CES 2010, Day 3: Thermaltake, Gigabyte, MSI, And Shuttle

CES 2010, Day 3: Thermaltake, Gigabyte, MSI, And Shuttle

06:10 - Saturday 9 January 2010 by Loyd Case

1. Thermaltake Kicks Off Friday

2. Gigabyte And IBuyPower
3. MSI And Shuttle

It’s Friday at CES in Las Vegas, and most of the day was spent at the Venetian, with a side trip to the Wynn hotel. There were motherboards galore, an attempt to create a more flexible laptop market for small builders, souped-up graphics cards, some cases, and a system that was a high performance PC and an Xbox 360 in a single chassis. So let’s cut right to the chase.

Thermaltake In The Morning

I showed up bright and early (well, if you call 9AM early) for a meeting with Thermaltake. The case and PSU manufacturer had some interesting new designs, including an upcoming 80 PLUS Gold-certified power supply.

The ToughPower Grand will offer a different skin, more matte gray than shiny metal. Two power delivery points will be offered: 650W and 750W. What’s really great about these PSUs is that they’ll be 80 PLUS Gold certified and Thermaltake will be marketing them as 90% efficient or better. The company doesn’t believe there’s a need for 90% PSUs rated for more than 750W, believing that a robust 750W unit can still drive an overclocked CPU and quad-card graphics configuration without overheating. This is a claim we'll have to put to the test, since companies like ATI and Nvidia recommend more headroom for complex graphics subsystems.

Thermaltake is also shipping two cases, the Element V and Element V Nvidia edition, both aimed squarely at the hearts and minds of high-end gamers. The Nvidia edition offers additional cooling in the form of a duct plus side-mounted fan over the expansion slots. Ramsom Koay of Thermaltake noted that the Nvidia edition is the first case certified by Nvidia to offer cooling for multi-Fermi GPU systems.

I also took a look at the new BlacX Duet dual-hard drive docking station. The unit is now updated to support USB 3.0, but will still include an eSATA interface.

Also being offered is a new CPU cooler, which Koay noted will yield high-end overclocking performance at a roughly $50 price point. Called the Frio, it’s designed to fit into environments where high chipset heat sinks surrounding the CPU socket.