Corsair Air 540 & 330R Cases, Vengeance Pro RAM, M30, M40, K50, K65, K70 - Computex 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
2,631 words · ~13 min read
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Linus Tech tips coverage of computex 2013 is powered by Western Digital our
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trusted gaming gear partner is Corsair Vengeance and our trusted retail partner
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is
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nc.com guys here we are the computex 2013 coverage just keeps coming this
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time we've got the carbide series air 540 from Corsair this is as you may or
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may not have figured out at this point already an air cooling optimized case
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and my joke to these guys was well well then you went and put a liquid cooler in it so just because it's optimal for air
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cooling doesn't mean that you can't also liquid cool the thing so check this out
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the main difference between the air 540 and pretty much any other case out there
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is this direct path that airflow is going to have from the front of the case
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so there's like a few inches there to the graphics cards themselves there are
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no hard drive cages there are no other random obstacles nothing like that so
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you can put up to four graphics cards in this case because it does have eight PCI
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expansion slots so that's a standard ATX chassis also they include pretty darn
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good fans so you've seen their airflow series fans they include an oem version
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of the air flow series fans much like what we see included with the h100i
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where it's sort of a no rubber grommet version so these rubber grommets here as
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well as the interchangeable color rings they're missing those but other than
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that they are very similar to af-1 140s so you get three of those with the case
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two in the front and one in the back now hard drive cages you've only got a
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couple they're down here at the bottom but it makes up for it in let's go ahead
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and switch sides here here that is not awkward at all there we go but you make
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up for it with SSD mounts so you can mount up to four ssds in this toolfree
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cage right here above the power supply you can mount two 5 and a/4 inch Bays
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over here and you see all this cable mess that's the other thing that makes
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this case very unique is that almost well really nothing other than the bare
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minimum Essentials that you have to run over to the other side is going to be
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interfering with the air flow of the case I mean at the power supply the drives is all in a completely separate
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compartment other than those hard drives which really aren't going to be a
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problem because they're down way down at the bottom now you can mount two 5 and
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1/4 inch devices right here so you can see how those come through at the front
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you've also got super speed USB 3 as well as headphone and microphone ports
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power and reset switches and I mentioned before that just because it's air
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cooling optimized doesn't mean you can't liquid cool the thing so check this out
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you pull off the top by the way that is a very very loose mesh optimal for as
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you may or may not have guessed air flow and up here on the top you can see where
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they've got an h100i mounted you could also mount an h110 so it accepts up to a
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240 mm radiator but wait there's more
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even with long graphics cards so there's GTX 670s in there now this front piece
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can be taken off as well this is a magnetic fan filter which hopefully I
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can figure out how to get off here but ah there we go okay magnetic fan filter
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so you can do either the two 140 mm fans that come with the case or three 120 mm
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fans and you can mount either of them at the same time in push pull meaning that
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this is one liquid cooling friendly case in spite of the fact that it is air
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cooling optimized now I realized I must have bumped the power cord or something
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cuz the system wasn't on showing off all of its sexy Corsair Glory before so if I
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can just find that power switch there we go so now you can see the illuminated
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h100i the color matching uh SP series
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fans as well as their uh add-on individually sleeved power Supply cables
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the illuminated Dominator Platinum RAM and of course these led strips are
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powered by Corsair link so remember guys Corsair components not only make your PC
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perform better they make it look better too and uh Corsair did not actually pay
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me to say that um dude not
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now and this case might not really look familiar to you this is the carbide
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series 330r but once we open it up inside it will will probably look
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familiar because it's based on the same design as the 300r so let's start with
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what's different from the outside it has a power switch which is a new innovation
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in Corsair cases they've never done this before they always relied on the user to
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actually have lightning strike their house and Power on their computer by
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pure chance so this is just a a huge step forward in convenience and
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Innovation I love this that's another dollar by the way guys that's $2 right
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there so on the inside you can see this is a more noise dampened silent
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optimized case so we've got a silent panel right here we've got the same dual
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fan intakes right here but check this out this little duct Corsair actually
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found by adding this little piece of plastic it helped these two front fans
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fight with each other less over the air flow allowed them to draw more fresh air
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from the outside and in their testing they found that it improved graphics
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card temperatures by 2 to 3° so it's amazing how those little tweaks can make
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all the difference in the world now up here at the top we find flexibility so
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check this out you remove this noise dampened material right there but if you
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do not necessarily want the utmost in noise dampening and you would instead
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prefer to have a little bit more performance out of your case you can remove it and you can install two 120 mm
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or two 140 mm fans including room for
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radiators so it can accept an h100i or an h110 without any difficulty
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whatsoever the side panel is your usual fair for silence optimized cases with
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noise dampening material on the inside gives it a nice heft to it as well and
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other than that the internals haven't really changed much so what's this for
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it's for someone who wants the flexibility of high air flow or silence
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and someone who doesn't necessarily want a pony up for the obsidian
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550d and as a traditionally memory company of course cor s has a memory
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product to announce this is the Vengeance Pro Series optimized for
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Intel's fourth generation core i5 and core i7 processors code named Haswell
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these memory modules are also optimized much like other Vengeance products to
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look good so they are launching in four different colors there's gold which you
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can see rotating on the little pedestal in there as well as blue red and silver
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so these are going to go with your motherboard pretty much no matter which brand you go with so this gold one was
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specifically developed for ASUS's new gold motherboards now Vengeance Pro is
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not just for looks check this out over
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here they've got the highest speed production memory kit running here right
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now this is a DDR it runs at 3.2 GHz cl1
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so check this out right there they've got it running right now so remember
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guys dram frequency is half of the actual frequency dual oh you can't see
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it oh should we try that one more time
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are you going to be able to see it or should I just they should just take my word for it just take word oh okay let's
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try one more time sure
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really yeah that's fine
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and of course there's a memory product to announce as well this
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is and of course there's a memory product to announce as well this is the
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Vengeance Pro Series which is actually one a couple of awards already including
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the best PC memory brand silver award for Corsair from VR Zone and what
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they've done here is they've updated their Vengeance line for Intel's fourth
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generation core series processors code named Haswell so these are going to
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offer perfect compatibility with Haswell not only in terms of actually
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functioning but also in terms of looks even ASUS's new Gold Series Z87
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motherboards are going to have a perfect Corsair memory module to go with them
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they come in Gold blue red and silver
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and they are not just about looks guys so we've got a demo system over here
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that has another me another memory award
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that they've won here from tweak toown and this system is running
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DDR3 3.2 GHz cl11 this is running at the
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stock speed of this module making it the fastest production memory kit out there
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so compared to something like Dominator platinums which is traditionally the the
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super high-end Corsair memory what's the point of this well it's a simpler module
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optimized for overclocking you can expect when you buy something like a
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Vengeance Pro memory kit you're not only getting exactly what you see on the box
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but probably a little performance Headroom there as well next up we've got
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the k70 so this keyboard this keyboard
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and this keyboard are all the same except very different they're very
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similar to the k60 except for a couple of changes so number one is you've got
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these individually backlit keys that you can also set up to have whichever ones
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on or off that you want much like the k95 next is these are mechanical Keys
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now so on the k60 one of the complaints was that these keys were using rubber
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Dome switches no longer last but not least these look a lot cooler than the
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Red Rubber uh contoured keys that were on the k60 so remember guys the point of
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the shaped Contour here is that it allows you to easily find your way back
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to WD and easily differentiate your keys
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numbers 1 to six but not only that corser has expanded the options not only
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in terms of color so there's silver black and gunmetal but also they have
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expanded the options in terms of color so you've got red key switches as well
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as blue key switches oh yes so Corsair
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still very firmly believes that the red switch is optimal for responsiveness in
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gaming applications but there are people out there like me who like gaming
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keyboards but also actually do a lot more typing than gaming so if you're one
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of those guys a blue switch keyboard or
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ah yes a brown switch keyboard my personal favorite might be a fantastic
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option last but not least there's the k95 which isn't a new Announcement by
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any stretch of the imagination but what we can say about it is that you should
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be able to actually buy one unlike when we covered this at CES so just as a
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reminder this is a fully mechanical keyboard that also has the individually
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back lit feature so you can decide on whatever pattern you want for the keys
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and this one is still in Cherry MX red
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we're going to wrap up the Corsair Suite here with a couple of mouse products so
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the M40 I'm already very familiar with this is very similar to the M65 except
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for a couple of changes that I really feel like
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don't make this mouse any worse than the M65 in spite of it being a lower-end
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product in the product stack so number one is now that logo at the back is
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illuminated okay score one for M40 number two is that it doesn't have a
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sniper button I've never used a sniper button in my life then again I'm not a
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sniper so if those snipers out there could tell me that I'm totally wrong
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then cool that's fine too um but we still have back and forward buttons that
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are perfectly positioned for people like me if you like a little bit of a claw
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grip the materials are still excellent so you've got that high mass scroll
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wheel as well as fully programmable buttons on the Fly DPI adjustments check
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this out so they've removed the aluminum chassis that aluminum uh bottom that
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makes up the mouse this um this really doesn't feel like a problem for me
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because it gives you the option of an even lighter weight when you remove all
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the yes they still have adjustable weights on this mouse so it's got your
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large slippy pads it's got a 4,000 DPI
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sensor now which is an optical sensor which a lot of gamers are finding they
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prefer these days compared to laser and I actually can't find something wrong
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with this such that I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend the M40 very
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impressive product next up is the m30 which borrows the same chassis as the
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lm3 so this was part of the Raptor gaming uh takeover now you can see the
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changes that they've made here are mostly in terms of improving performance
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so they've gone with from a 2400 DPI sensor to a 4,000 DPI sensor as well as
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a couple of cosmetic and ergonomic I'd say say evolutionary changes nothing
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revolutionary here so the shape is the same but they've changed this side grip
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from a ribbed texture to something that's more of a uh I don't know what
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octagon texture hexagon texture sure whatever you want to call that so one
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way or another it's functional for picking up the mouse they've also changed the finish of it I personally
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find glossy mice drive me crazy maybe it's just me who doesn't wash his hands
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but you get grease all over your mouse and then other people use it and then
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they get sick because you have all kinds of diseases it's a real problem so
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they've upgraded that to a soft touched finish they've also added an illuminated
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Corsair logo which looks way better than I mean come on is that a logo Raptor
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gaming.com it's a good thing Corsair's taking care of this now uh still got the
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illuminated scroll wheel as well as a nice accented little red finish piece
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here so guys don't miss any of our computex 2013 coverage I hope you've
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enjoyed our tour of the Corsair Suite remember our trip to the show is powered
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by Western Digital as well as Corsair Vengeance gaming peripherals and nc.com
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and as always guys don't forget to subscribe I said that right right can I
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have another dollar thank you