Corsair blog

Quite often I am asked to tell the story of how Yellowbeard came to be. Well, as requested, here it is! The true tale of how a humble cop from Georgia became Corsair's most notorious web personality...

Two different times in my life I've thought to myself; “I have an awesome job”. The first of those times was when I was a police officer. I was in law enforcement for 16 years and I really enjoyed my work. I spent some time in the patrol division, detective division, narcotics, SWAT team, and I was even a bike cop for a while. (Please, no Pacific Blue jokes...)

If you don't have your own Graphite Series 600T mid-tower case, or if you haven't yet had the chance to see one in person, or simply if you're a fan of Jeff Checchi, you'll probably enjoy our new video. Jeff shows off the features and takes off the panels and grilles to show off the goods, and the Special Edition White model makes a guest appearance.

Please let us know what you think.

Hard OCP, Gaming Audio Series™ HS1A Gaming Headset Review — "The Corsair HS1A is the most comfortable and best performing stereo gaming headset we have ever used. We had a great sound stage in music, movies and games. The HS1A simply did a stellar job reproducing the sound signature of whichever sound card we used as well."

Legit Reviews, Gaming Audio Series SP2200 2.1 PC Speaker System Review — "Corsair's offerings being "Gaming" speakers, this is a very important part of their design and I can say with all of my pride that they did an amazing job at this. I can say that gamers are going to be happy. Even compared to a normal 5.1 system, these speakers are a better value in my mind. I could close my eyes during a nature scene in the movie Avatar and feel like I'm surrounded by the Pandora jungle. 

If I was playing a game like Counter Strike or Battlefield Bad Company 2, I could tell when those footsteps were directly behind me or when they were to my right or left."

Hot Hardware, Gaming Audio Series SP2500 Review — "If you’re in the market for a high-quality speaker system and don’t have the room or desire for a 5.1 channel surround sound setup, we highly recommend the Corsair SP2500s. The Corsair SP2500 2.1 channel speaker system is available for about $230 currently, which certainly isn't cheap for a 2.1 channel setup, but they are worth every penny. Sound quality across a wide range of sources is excellent, plain and simple."

PC Perspective, Corsair Enthusiast Series™ V2 TX850 and TX750 Review — "Corsair is well known for producing some of the best PC power supplies on the market today and their new TX750 V2 and TX850 V2 power supplies continue that trend at an affordable price. Both TX V2 power supplies delivered clean DC outputs, with good efficiency and very good voltage regulation. Both power supplies come with a good assortment of fixed cables that can support the latest CPUs and multiple, high-end video cards.  And let’s not forget active PFC, universal AC input and Corsair’s 5-year warranty."

JonnyGURU, Corsair Enthusiast Series™ V2 TX750 Review — 9.5 out of 10 — "Stop the presses - Corsair has another winning power supply on the market. The TX750 V2 is an extremely stable, well performing unit at a great price. They've done a lot right and very few things wrong. Voltage regulation was very good. Efficiency was very good. Ripple suppression was excellent. Why are you still reading this and not running out and buying one? Go... go now."

Force Series™ SSDs continue to offer blistering performance with an awesome combination of read and write speeds. We are continually working with SandForce® to support and improve our SSD line up. We noticed that even after our most recent firmware update for our SF-1200 based Force Series SSDs (released November 2010), that a small number of users are still having issues relating to startup and hibernation. In some cases these issues relate to how certain systems boot up or recover from a hibernation state. We're currently qualifying several firmware versions to evaluate their reliability and effectiveness at addressing these issues. However, they're not ready for release at this time.

We determined that some users with these startup and hibernation issues can benefit from using a work around. Many motherboard BIOS have a feature that occurs during the POST process relating to boot speed called Quick Boot, or Fast Boot, or some similar variation of this term. We've found that activating this setting may contribute to these start up and hibernation issues.

Computer enthusiasts are more demanding than your average computer user. For those users we've recently introduced Vengeance 2000MHz DDR3 memory, available in 4GB, 6GB, and 12GB kits.

According to www.dictionary.reference.com, an enthusiast is defined as:

noun

1. a person who is filled with enthusiasm for some principle, pursuit, etc.; a person of ardent zeal: a sports enthusiast.
2. a religious visionary or fanatic.

The Graphite Series 600T side panel window kit comes with both windowed and mesh inserts so you can customize it the way you want. The window insert comes pre-installed on the side panel kit, providing the ability to see all your installed components. If you choose to swap from the window to mesh insert (only requiring a philips head screwdriver), it will provide improved air flow to your system.

Since our Vengeance™ DDR3 memory kits overclocked well when I tested them originally, I decided to see how well the 16GB kit would overclock. The Vengeance 16GB CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 kit is high density and uses four 4GB modules, so I chose to pair it with the new 2nd genereation Intel® Core processor family (Sandy Bridge). This new platform allows for memory clock speeds all the way up to 2133MHz. It also has a fairly strong memory controller which is required to run 16GB at high speeds.

For the CPU I chose the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K, along with an ASUS® P8P67 PRO motherboard. To power the machine the Corsair Professional Series Gold™ AX1200 was chosen, along with the Corsair Hydro Series™ H70 for cooling the processor. At stock settings the Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 kit is rated at 1600MHz, with timings of 9-9-9-24. Just like the previous Vengeance kits I tested for overclocking, these were rated at 1.5 volts. This meant that raising the voltage should allow for even higher overclocks.

For those of you considering a new headset, keep in mind that the new Gaming Audio Series HS1A gaming headset sounds great with MP3 players and mobile phones too.

Due to a recent iPod tragedy, I am currently using my Droid X for all my mobile music. As I was loading the MP3s into my phone, I had a brief flashback to the recent PAX East gaming event. We had one of our new HS1A analog headsets set up at our booth for people to sample. We had some good lossless MP3s playing and quite a few people listened and were very impressed with them. What stuck with me was how many people said “Wow, is this a noise cancelling headset too?”

Neoseeker, Corsair Gaming Audio Series™ SP2200 2.1 PC Speaker System Review — "The speakers sound great and have a very wide range of volume output. I found that for every day use I could set the volume to around 1/4th and the audio was plenty loud.. If I set it to about half way, it was uncomfortably loud, though it still sounded very clear. These speakers should be loud enough for you to hear them anywhere in your house, or possibly even your neighbor's house; something to keep in mind."

Guru3D, Gaming Audio Series SP2500 High-power 2.1 PC Speaker System Review — "So in conclusion, the SP2500 offers a lot for your money. It is an easy to use and easy to setup kit. The control pod / DSP is the cherry on top of the cake. The speaker audio quality really is extremely good with much clarity, great mid tones and a deep, although not perfect bass provided by the subwoofer. In pale comparison to you average desktop speaker kit, this set is a mile and half away in terms of better quality and sheer capacity."

KitGuru, Gaming Audio Series SP2500 Review — 9.5 out of 10 rating —"The Corsair SP 2500 2.1 Speakers are the best ‘computer’ oriented speakers we have heard, especially in this price range. They outclass the Razer Mako THX speakers which have been a firm favourite with KitGuru staff for many years now. The bass is punchy, controlled and capable of rocking your teeth out of their sockets. This low end impact is well matched with a dynamic, refined mid range and restrained treble delivery.

While they are being marketed by Corsair as primarily focused on the gaming market, we feel the potential audience is much wider. Discerning music lovers with a demand for a clear, focused, yet powerful sound would be well advised to shortlist these in regards to a potential upgrade. "

Neoseeker, Hydro Series™ H60 Review — "During our internal testing of the Cosair H60 it was able to perform at the same efficiency level as top rated air coolers such as the Thermlaright Ultra-120 and Titan Fenrir EVO, prior to overclocking. However, once we starting increasing the processor's voltage and frequency level, the H60 proved to be more efficient than all the tested air coolers. This allowed it to perform better than the Thermalright Ultra-120 in our overclocked CPU testing. This is an impressive feat, because the 120 has been the most efficient cooler in our testbed for some time."

TweakTown, Hydro Series™ H60 Review — "Corsair delivers a winner in the all-in-one liquid cooling segment with the release of the H60. This is supposed to be the "middle child" of the trio of coolers. Both the pricing and the naming pretty much set that in our minds right out of the gate. I am really taken by surprise to see the fantastic results of what a few changes to the series can do for this cooler. The new head design with a more direct injection of coolant to the cold plate along with a superior mounting system really rear up and show what they can do in this instance."

And finally, we have Overclock3D.net who wax poetically for nearly three quarters of an an hour about our SP2500 Speakers...

Our new Vengeance™ line of DDR3 memory is extremely popular. Due to strong demand from end users, we are now offering Vengeance modules in cerulean blue in addition to the original black. These color offerings provide Vengeance users with more options to enhance the aesthetics of their system.

If you want to mix a black and blue kit of our Vengeance memory, you are in luck — the Vengeance 1600C9 kits are specifically designed to work in