The final days of CES were filled with lazy meetings and attempts to meet with some old friends who we have bumped into at the various events. Sadly one of those meetings didn't happen due to how strict hotels are about letting random guests wander the halls. And you know, if they don't pick up the guest phone when you call they tend to miss out.

Cooler Master
As some of you may remember the Cooler Master and Ninjalane partnership goes back almost 10 years which seems like a long time until you consider that Cooler Master as a company has been around for twice that. 2012 marks the 20 year anniversary of Cooler Master so keep watch on their website as they will be doing contests and giveaways all year long.

Stopping by the Cooler Master suite I was greeted with a couple of new products including a new HAF chassis design that shares the same outward appearance but is considerably smaller and more realistic for "average" sized computer systems.

Of course the Cosmos II was on display including a new storm case called the Striker, does it look familiar?




What would a visit to Cooler Master be without seeing some new cooler designs? The highlight of these was this CPU cooler that is one of the first I have seen that uses a vapor chamber in addition to standard heatpipes. The end result is denser thermal transfer and increased heat capacity.




The CMHD girls were on hand modeling some of the latest Cooler Master products. These coolers have been shown before and feature a unique 45 degree twist to their radiator design and now come in different capacity levels.



Choiix
Choiix is the Cooler Master consumer line and while Ninjalane doesn't feature that many Choiix products they do have some good stuff on display including this portable tablet stand.

Roccat
Americans love German engineering and there is no better example than what Roccat has been doing with their latest generation of gaming keyboards and mice.



The Kone mouse is a unique design that fits smoothly in your hand and comes with twenty two mouse functions across any of the twelve physical buttons. All of this functionally is due in part to the included software and Easy Shift button concept.



Isku is the name of the Roccat gaming keyboard that follows the standard QWERTY layout and is equally configurable as the Kone mouse. In fact if you use both of these products together you can begin to use the keyboard to control the mouse and vice versa.



What would awesome gaming accessories be without a true 5.1 surround gaming heatset? Roccat has you covered there with the Kave. Kave is a multi driver 5.1 surround sound headset that uses analog connections and USB port for power.



The headset is an over ear design and is really quite comfortable.

Silverstone
I missed stopping by the Silverstone booth during CES 2011 and missed out on some really great products.

The first product I was introduced to is a smaller version of the FT03 which was so popular during CES 2011. These case features support for the smaller SFX PSU form factor which is also something Silverstone has been working on to not only make available but also make 80 Plus compliant. The 450 watt unit here is a 80+ Bronze PSU and is quite powerful considering the overall size.




It has been awhile since Silverstone released an upgraded version to their HTPC lines and the GD08 pictured here features support for five 120mm fans and 2 80mm fans and over eight 3.5" hard drives. Cooling all of those drives is accomplished with a custom HDD rack and 120mm fan cooling solution.




One of the first Silverstone cases reviewed at Ninjalane was the TJ04, and while the case was nice to look at there were obvious cooling issues. The new TJ04-E has resolved those cooling issues and added considerably more features that not only retain the clean lines found on the TJ04 but also give it a modern cooling and storage solution.

The second day of any major tradeshow brings out the best in people, under the worse conditions. Typically this is also the busiest day of the show since most of the keynotes have concluded and the attendees get a chance to see everything on display.

CyberpowerPC
My first stop was with a well known boutique builder called CyperpowerPC. They are known for lavish computer systems that not only perform well but look great too.

The highlight of the suite was the Black Mamba which is a gross understatement in saying the system is big, in fact this system is feature packed complete with a custom case design to further reinforce the design. Black Mamba is part of the Fang series of gaming systems with the added bonus of a secondary computer system located at the top of the chassis that can be put to a variety of uses including media server and a secondary system for overclocking control using tools like ROG Connect.

Both systems are linked using a standard Ethernet cable and are accessible over any standard wireless connection.

Some of the other systems on display showed off the other custom chassis designs including this one that is configurable based on what side of the desk you like to have your system on.



The case allows you to remove the motherboard tray and position is so the opening is facing right or left allowing you the option of how you want the PC orientated. This is a great feature that isn't normally available even on DIY case designs.

Gigabyte
Gigabyte has a few new systems on display however the highlight of CES was the Z77 chipset designed for Ivy Bridge and the new G1 Sniper 3.

Both of the new board designs were pre-release models meaning that the layout and colors are likely to change. Pictured here is the Sniper 3 showing off a wrap around PWM design and new and improved sound and networking chips. Much like the Sniper 2 the board will feature Creative audio and Bigfoot Networks Killer Nic for enhanced gaming and system performance however as an additional benefit the board will come with an addition of a secondary Intel Nic for dual network access.



The Z77 product lines haven't fully matured but will be available in the standard Ultra Durable lineups and may even feature a smaller MicroATX design for smaller form factor gaming.




I did spy a new waterblock in the Gigabyte booth that is brand new from Danger Den called the M6. Look for it on Ninjalane soon.



Lian Li
One of our last appointments was with Lian Li the famed aluminum case builder from Taiwan. The chassis display was rather small from what we have seen in the past but no less interesting. Of course one of the highlights of the booth was the PC-U6 "shell" case that will fit a MicroATX motherboard and full length video cards.




To help with cable management Lian Li will begin including a plastic wire channels with their newer cases. This won't replace using zip ties to bundle your wires but should help dress up the case by keeping everything together.



This cute case is designed to be portable and quite rugged against scratches and corner dents.



Conclusion
I actually met with a few more companies on Day 2, you can see photos from those visits in the forth coming CES 2012 photo gallery.

CES has officially started and despite what you might hear the place is packed, For some reason traffic on the strip and surrounding areas is considerably less than it has been in the past but there is no shortage of warm bodies roaming the Convention Center halls.

As I may have mentioned before CES, for me, is actually two completely separate shows, the main CES and then the side show for companies that what to take advantage of the press but, for some reason or another, choose not to be part of the official show. The later of these is generally the companies that support this site and have the products we like to see.

Sapphire
Day one started off a little slow with a lazy meeting with Sapphire to check out what cool products we can expect to see this year. One of the coolest items was the VID-2X video module that allows you to expand your desktop using a display port connection and two external monitors.

VID-2X acts as an interpreter telling your computer that the two monitors are actually a single display with double the normal horizontal resolution. The end result is instant desktop expansion using pure hardware.

The Pure Black 990FX is a board I saw in Taiwan this last summer and here is what the final mockup will look like. Make note of the large PWM cooler and multitude of PCI Express expansion slots. Only two of these slots will run at full bandwidth but every one of them will support a video card.



North Hall Wanderings
The North Hall is normally reserved for car audio and electronics and is where you want to go to see some of the best looking cars around.

Here we have what might be the first S10 I have ever seen at CES. The truck is your standard extra cab with a totally custom interior and a sound system that would make any audiophile jealous.



Audi had a prototype car on display that looks to be in direct competition with the dinky small smart car.



I call this sorry excuse for a motorcycle the snowmobile with wheels. Of course this particular bike has 10 grand worth of audio gear attached and quite a few custom body panels.



No stop to the North Hall would be complete without stopping off at Directed Electronics to check out the latest Orion audio gear. Sadly the HCCA line hasn't changed much, and by the looks of it, DE might be getting out of car audio to focus on something bigger.



Much to my surprise all of the big names from my car audio days were present including Audio Control, SoundStream, Phoenix Gold Precision Power and MTX to name a few

EVGA
I always like stopping by the EVGA suite and check out the latest motherboards they have on display. Of course the major difference from last year is X79 and that the boards are shipping now.

The board pictured here I s the X79 FTW which is the 3-way compatible enthusiast motherboard and one step down from the flagship. I have been told the two boards are identical in terms of layout and features with the only exception being support for 4-way SLI and XL-ATX form factor. Other than that they are identical right down to posicap placement and EVGA Branded chokes.



What EVGA suite visit would be complete without a photo of the EVGA SR-X dual LGA2011 Xeon motherboard designed for overclocking, general mayham and general overall indulgence of exciting tech and raw power.



Ya, I want one

EVGA is also going to release their own line of power supplies and the flagship 1500w gold PSU has the unique ability to enter "dummy" mode and also overclock (or overpower) to 1650w by flipping a few switches and applying 240v power. Not too bad for a fully modular PSU.




Rosewill
My last stop for the day was with a company that hasn't shown up on the Ninjalane product radar very often, Rosewill. As you may know Rosewill is a rather large product company that deals in items such as computer cases, power supplies, notebook coolers and networking. However, what you may not realize is that Rosewill also deals with home décor and personal appliances (coffee makers, hot plates and stuff like that). It is really quite interesting to see what they sell.



Much like our Thermaltake visit there is simply too much to post but I can show you this fancy USB wireless device that comes with its own USB extension and vertical dock.

Every year CES has a zero day where the exhibits are only open to members of the press, basically to give them a chance to get in a few extra meetings and attend the keynotes. In the past I have taken this time to hit a little while ball down a long fairway into a little cup, but alas that didn't happen this time around.

Which is both good and bad.

MSI
My first stop for CES this year was to visit the MSI suite and ask the tough questions like how is your HD 7000 series going to flush out? How many different X79 boards are you going to release and what the hell is this thing in the little silver box.

First on the list was the X79 and pictured here is the business end of the flagship X79 Big Bang Xpower II. As some of you may remember this is the military themed motherboard designed to fill in the ultra high end segment looking to express their GPU dominance. The board features 20+ PWM phases and some very unique heatsinks that not only look pretty good but contain quite a bit of additional mass.

At Computex MSI showed how you could run Afterburner from your smart phone, well now they have extended that functionality to the new MSI Control Center. Basically this is software that controls the UEFI features from within windows.




Since I bought it up there will be a similar lineup with the 7900 series that we saw with the 6900 series so start looking for those to start coming out late in February.

Lastly we have this fancy silver box hooked into a Macbook, what is it? Early in 2011 Intel announced a new technology called Thunderbolt which is basically a PCI Express extension served up over displayport. When it was first released many users figured it was for super fast storage but it can also be used to expand PCI Express connectivity, and in this case means discrete external graphics for your graphics limited Apple notebooks.




There are some limits but basically it will support any video card that doesn't require external PCI Express power.

ThermalTake
The next stop was at the Thermaltake Suite and even though they didn't have much new on display they did have too much stuff to show in this blog post. Suffice to say there will be more versions of the Level 10 GT including these two beauties called the Level 10 GTS.



From what I have been told the "S" doesn't mean small but rather "system builder". Even though it is clearly a smaller and more compact version of the Level 10 GT.

Look for more images from Thermaltake in the CES 2012 image gallery

The final stop of the day was to attend the nVidia keynote speech where Jen-Hsun Huang talked about the future of Tegra 3 and how it would be applied to the next generation of tablets. The presentation was rather entertaining and consisted of a demo of Ice cream Sandwich and how you can play first person shooter games on the ASUS Transformer Prime on a LAN against gamers such as Johnathan Wendel (Fatal1ty).






During the presentation Jen-Hsun also played a game of Skyrim on his Transformer Prime by using Splashtop to connect to a Windows 7 PC.

As system builders we often are presented with the challenges of software licensing and figuring out what type of software license we need for every situation. In the case of Windows 7 the agreement states that you are required to purchase a full license if you do not own a previous copy of Windows. For systems you are selling on the open market this is the proper way to go, and frankly the only legal option available to you. The question is, how do you use an upgrade copy of Windows 7 when you are upgrading from Windows XP, and what are the limitations?

Over the holiday I was tasked with building a few systems for family members and I was presented with the problem of what edition of Windows 7 to buy, 32-bit, 64-bit, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, full or upgrade. As I mentioned, these were for family members so I took the cheap route and picked up a copy of x64 Home Premium. (I figured they can fend for themselves if they wanted more.) Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade currently sells for about a buck twenty and seems quite affordable for the average user, especially when you're buying it for someone else.

After the systems were built, tuned and buttoned up I sat down to install Windows. Normally when I do this on the test bench I opt to use the 30 day trial of Windows 7 Ultimate which allows me to use the full version of Windows 7 without assigning my product key to any particular system. My only limitation is I must conclude my system testing within the 30 day window else I need to reinstall or deal with the WGA nagware.

Pro tip: make sure you check your system clock BEFORE you install Windows 7 and ensure it is correct, the installation will use the current date as the beginning of time for when WGA will trigger.

Based on my experiences I know you are allowed to skip the product key step during the initial installation, which is how you go into 30 day trial mode. If you enter a valid product key during the 30 day trial you can enable the full product and are allowed full access. What is not always clear is that you can only do this if you own a full product key. As it would turn out when you are installing upgrades you must enter the key during the initial installation and is where I ran into some trouble.

Every time I have done a Windows install (upgrade or otherwise) I have opted for what they call a "clean install" meaning that I backup my important data, format the drive and do a fresh Windows installation. This is the only way to ensure that everything from your old system is gone and happens to be the only way to "upgrade" from Windows XP to Windows 7. Albeit on purpose or accident when installing Windows 7 with an upgrade key you are not required to submit proof of ownership making the install process a little different from before and much easier for those of you who are worried about your upgrade path.

I think you know what I mean.